[Reader-list] The shotgun and the sniper

[Vishal Rawlley]

Dear Aman,

You forgot to report on 'Divorce and Global Warming' so I thought that I
shall fill in the lacuna.

However, "Climate Change and HIV/AIDS", as you nominated, still retains the
top spot as the most grave topic in this genre - never have two most serious
issues been so carefully combined.

See links for full report.

Most Warmly,
Vishal



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2983879.ece

 From The Sunday Times
December 2, 2007

 Planet feels heat of divorce  Roger Waite

UNHAPPY couples used to stick together for the sake of the kids. Now they
can make the best of a bad marriage in the name of being environmentally
friendly.

Scientists have quantified for the first time the extent to which divorce
damages the environment. The researchers found that the combined use of
electricity across the two new households created rose 53% while water use
was up by 42%





http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22860297-31037,00.html
 Save your marriage, and the environment

>From correspondents in Washington

December 03, 2007 11:46am
Article from: Reuters

*INCREASING incidences of divorce around the world have a negative impact on
the environment, leading to a less efficient use of energy and resources and
bigger expenditures on utilities, a new study says.*



http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59121


*Divorce* causes global warming?
------------------------------
Posted: December 10, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

  As the thousands of attendees at the global warming conference in Bali did
their part to create a self-fulfilling prophesy type situation by
pumping almost
50,000 tons of carbon
dioxide<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/342281_bali05.html>into
the atmosphere to get to and from the meeting, we found out that there
is yet another item to add to the "things that cause global warming" laundry
list (a list that includes "doing your laundry"): Divorce.

Below are a few details from ABC
News<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3954641>about a
Michigan State University study on how divorce contributes to global
warming:

Per person, divorced households spent more per month for electricity
compared with a married household, as multiple people can be watching the
same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and
eating under the same lights.

That means some $6.9 billion in extra utility costs per year, Liu
calculated, plus an added $3.6 billion for water, in addition to other costs
such as land use.

You and I have been being beaten over the head for destroying the
ozone<http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59121#>with
our gas-powered leaf blowers, SUVs and aerosol hairspray when the
whole
time it has been equally the fault of Liz Taylor and Larry King.



On 12/9/07, Ravi Agarwal <ravig64 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Aman,
>
> Very interesting categorisation and imagary! Do let us know what you
> thought of the climate conference at bali, since you are obviously
> there. Especially how India continues to harp the 'poor' line
> internationally while following a 'poor be damned for now' policy at
> home. Also good to see a writing on environmental politics on the list!
>
> best
> ravi
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2007, at 8:40 PM, Aman Sethi wrote:
>
> "The time for silver bullets has passed," proclaimed Marc Stewart,
> "What we need is a Shotgun!" In his bright Bali shirt, Nike sneakers
> and Investment Banker haircut, Mr Stewart is the firm-handshaking,
> fist pumping, ever effusive all-American co-founder of Ecosecurities,
> a firm that specialises in developing and marketing carbon trading
> projects under the Clean Development Mechanism - CDM - of the Kyoto
> Protocol. With emission reductions under Kyoto less than a month away,
> Mr Stewart's firm is looking to extend its market capitalisation to
> far beyond its existing 40 million USD. The Ecosecurity model
> functions in the following way - they find and help develop projects
> in the developing world that is eligible for credit credits under the
> CDM, and then sell the credits in to firms in EU and across the orld
> that are looking to meet their Kyoto targets by offsetting excess
> emissions against carbon credits. Firms like Ecosecurities pushed the
> carbon market to 30 billion dollars in 2006; and if Annex 1 agrees to
> further emission cuts (25-40 per cent below 1992 by 2020) the
> potential size of the market is open to the most optimistic hyperbole.
>
> The "Shotgun Approach" suggested by Stewart was his response to the
> fact the Climate Change is a "reality that needs to be addressed NOW"
> - and that governments, international bodies and business would have
> to proceed on a rampage on all possible fronts simultaneously - sort
> of like the blunt double-barrelled, pump action shotguns freely
> available back home in America. The Shotgun approach was Mr Stewart's
> reason for opening up and extending carbon markets to as many sectors
> as possible - particularly Forestry.
>
> If we were to examine the shotgun metaphor in some detail, we find the
> shotgun is best known for its tremendous stopping power at
> short-ranges (say 40 per cent reduction in 10 years?), and the fact
> that on firing, the shot divides up into pellets, making it easy to
> hit small targets at some distance, allowing even inexperienced
> marksmen to use it with a fair degree of competency. And Mr Stewart is
> not the only one holding the shotgun. A week into the climate change
> conference, there seems to be a very interesting development paradigm
> emerging that is vaguely reminiscent of the AIDS approach to
> development. Under the adaptation and mitigation arms of Climate
> change - it is possible to embark on any number of projects in the
> guise of saving the planet. While "Saving the Poor" has clearly lost
> some of lustre on the funding markets, "Saving the Planet" seems to be
> bringing in some serious money from governments, donor bodies and
> private enterprise. The fact that climate shall hit everyone in end,
> and not just the "poor and vulnerable" (though it is routinely
> stressed that they shall be the worst hit) seems to have motivated
> some serious thinking. The first week at Bali has largely centred
> around the "tremendous opportunites presented by Climate Change." Thus
> you have sessions on "Climate Change and Gender", "Climate Change and
> Health", "Climate Change and the Millenium Development Goals",
> "Leadership and Climate Change", and my personal favourite "Climate
> Change and HIV/AIDS." Fire the Climate Change Shotgun and hit a whole
> collection of development indices - big ones at short ranges, small
> ones at longer ranges. The approach might just have some benefits -
> given the urgency of the problem (and yes, Climate Change is a real,
> serious, significant problem that has to be dealt with); groups
> working on thankless, under-funded projects like Malaria, disaster
> management, and drought relief might finally get the money they
> require - and all projects need to be "sexed up" to fit into donor
> spending agenda.
>
> What is interesting is the shift one sees from an earlier approach to
> development - which could be termed the "Sniper Approach" (My
> metaphor, not Mr Stewart's). The Sniper rifle, is a specialised rifle
> designed to maximise accuracy over long distances to hit precise
> targets. Thus, the Sniper Approach could be understood as a metaphor
> for highly decentralised specific schemes that target specific
> projects. These were much in vogue in the late nineties and continue
> to be applied in community level projects - where the approach is
> custom designed for the community in question and takes on board their
> specific needs. The Sniper approach was supposed to reduce system
> leakages, often using information technology and verification
> apparatus and was favoured by organisations like the World Bank to
> ensure that benefits of specific schemes were "targeted"
> (coincidentally a word that development agencies use a lot) at those
> that needed them the most. The idea was to introduce fiscal discipline
> in developing economies and ensure that the limited subsidies that
> were handed out went to the intended recipients. India's TPDS - or
> Targeted Public Distribution System - could be a useful example of
> such a scheme. Another one could be the Micro-credit intiatives and
> SHGs (Self Help Groups), so loved by one and all; but i suppose the
> fact that SHG's operate on small scales and ranges could call for
> Pistol/ Handgun Initiatives.
>
> One week into the conference, it is hard to tell what approach to take
> - perhaps one could take all three on board and step out
> battle-hardened and armed to the teeth. Personally, I find myself
> sympathetic to cause of the solar powered tazer : renewable,
> zero-emissions and allegedly non-lethal; always a good approach to
> saving the world.
>
> best
> a.
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