Week 4 – Technological Politics

Do Artifacts have Politics?

This obscure question was posed as the title of a classic article by Langdon Winner from 1980. In this evocative piece, Winner calls out the many ways in which technology shapes political arrangements. His essential thesis is that technology (defined as ‘all of modern human artifice’) has political properties in two separate ways – through deliberate social arrangement, and through inherent requirements of the technology itself. Landon uses nuclear energy as an example – a technology so powerful that it will always require political arrangements of strong central authority for safeguarding purposes.

Class discussion over this article was lively, applying it to the modern technological systems. For a reading reflection, everyone was asked to describe a case of political technology of their own choosing (“a technology that has been used to structure the arrangements of power and activities in society.”) Everyone managed to choose a unique technology, which was a fascinating result! We spent the first half of the class describing the technology we chose discussing their political ramifications. Social media, gene-editing, hydroelectric dams, autonomous vehicles, micro grids, AI, surveillance, and blockchain were all discussed. It became pretty clear – we are living in an age of rapidly expanding technology, and there is great importance in evaluating this technology in terms of its political properties. Public debate is a useful way to reframe and expand our notions of how technology can be used. The technocratic nature of the world today means engineers have a lot of sway in shaping the debate on political technologies.

The rest of class was a discussion on the democratizing power of distributed energy, and the paradigm shift between distributed and centralized electricity systems. We were in fair agreement that the future of energy systems will be a hybrid of distributed and centralized systems – a substantial engineering challenge for the 21st century!

Our second class was a mock political debate on Canada’s national response to climate change. Pre-reading was an introductory chapter from Judith Layzer’s textbook on the creation of environmental policy in the United States. The text describes environmental policymaking as an essential battle between two different world views: One of ecocentric environmentalists, and one of humanist corcucopians. Environmental policymaking also begins with a disputed problem description and proceeds through many actors (NGOs, experts, media, government) before it is placed before lawmakers.

As a class activity, we divided into two groups, one for each world view, to approach the problem of creating a national climate policy for Canada. This role-play turned out to be quite useful for understanding counterarguments to our collective environmentalist mentality, and the monumental challenge it really is to tackle the climate problem politically – especially for Canada with it’s resource heavy economy.

Cornucopians frame the climate problem as essentially solvable and not worthy of dissolving Canada’s petroleum economy. They gravitate towards neoliberal ideas like cap and trade systems, consumer responsibility, and Canada’s role as a ‘safe’ global provider to oil and gas markets. Environmentalists are frantic over the climate problem, and are quickly willing to propose rash solutions – probably with significant detriment to Canada’s economy and people’s livelihoods. Environmentalists are in favor of strong policy responses, like creating a national renewable energy and job training program, expanding public transportation systems, and scaling back Canada’s petroleum economy over time. Some places where the two sides could agree: 1) Climate change is real and there will be significant impacts across the world and in Canada. 2) Pricing carbon is a good idea. 3) Improvements to transportation infrastructure can help.

Political frameworks – check. Next week – capitalist frameworks!

 

This week’s readings:

Winner, Langdon. 1980. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”. Daedalus 109 (1): 121-136.

Judith A. Layzer. 2011. The Environmental Case: Translating Values Into Policy, 2nd Edition. Chapter 1: 1-23.

Week 3 – The Emissions Gap

Conversation on the causes and scope of climate change this week with an examination of the UN Emissions Gap Report 2017. The theme of the week: Urgency.

As described in the figure from the report below, to give the planet the best possible chance of limiting warming 2° or 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the world needs to peak and begin steadily declining greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade. This while emissions reached an all time high in 2018. Furthermore, emissions should continue a steady decline through 2050, hitting near-zero for the 1.5°C scenario. In fact, we will need to have some tricks up our sleeve, with the 2018 IPCC Report stating “All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century.” For context, the world currently emits about 37 GtCO2 per year. The bottom line is that drastic reductions are needed in global greenhouse gas emissions, and there is no longer time to waste.

From (The Emissions Gap Report 2017)

Discussions in our first class centered around the scale of this problem and the need for countries (especially economically-developed countries with more than their fair share of historical emissions) to step up their emissions budgets, known as NDCs under the Paris Agreement (Nationally Determine Contributions). We also discussed hope, or lack thereof, on the issue. Having previously developed a framework for the projected climate impacts on global populations, we agreed there is no place for hopelessness – the fight must continue and its our responsibility to contribute. A final topic of conversation was how the report was imbued with the ‘scientist’s myth’ – striving for scientific consensus on this confusing issue – when in fact it may be better to focus on practical policy measures to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions now. However, we did agree that the urgency with which science says we must now act is helpful in directing near-term policy change.

The second class was an examination of economic sectoral greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation strategies that exist within each sector. We drew on Chapter 4 of the Emissions Gap Report 2017, as well as our own diverse knowledge and experience. As a class activity, we grouped the class into pairs and had each pair address one economic sector: Energy, Industry, Agriculture, Forestry, Buildings, and Transportation. Each pair spent 30 minutes brainstorming the various activities that contribute greenhouse gas emissions in that sector, and potential mitigation technologies and policy strategies. We then came back together as a group to debrief. The intention of this class was to develop a working knowledge of where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from, and how they can be eliminated. This was also a chance to start thinking about ideas for our technology case studies in the second half of the semester. The case studies will address technologies in development or early stage deployment with transformative decarbonization potential. Hopefully this activity planted some seeds (puns) for starting to think about topics!

 

This week’s reading list:

The Emissions Gap Report 2017. 2017. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

  • Chapter 3 – The emissions gap and its implications
  • Chapter 4 – Bridging the gap – sectoral greenhouse gas reduction potentials in 2030

Class is in session! Weeks 1 and 2

And so it begins… The past two weeks were our first ever of running a course. Say hello to APSC 498T! In total we are 11 enrolled students. Given the level of engagement from our students so far, we are excited for what is to come and all that we will learn together!

In our first class we filled out a pre-assessment survey, which asked a few short questions about why climate change is a hard problem to solve, what is the role of technology in both contributing to and mitigating climate change, and how policy helps to shape technology. We will return to the survey at the end of the course to see how our views may have changed over the course of our study. We also played the icebreaker: 2 truths, 1 lie. A classic! Lastly, we discussed the worldviews of climate change outlined in Clapp and Dauvergnes’ book “Path to a Green World” by synthesizing one sentence descriptions for each worldview. There is the Market Liberal, who thinks economic growth and markets are the strongest weapon against climate change; the Institutionalist, who believes in the growth of global institutions and strong political norms to address the issue; the Bioenvironmentalist, who sees growing human society as a cancer to ecological balance; and the Social Green, who believes that inequity and social issues are so tightly intertwined with environmental injustice that one cannot be solved without addressing the other.

In our second class we took the climate change problem head on by discussing Chapter 2: Why Climate Change is Such a Hard Problem to Solve from David Victor’s book, “Global Warming Gridlock.” This chapter should be required first reading for anyone studying the climate change problem! The chapter begins by reviewing the history of climate science and efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions since the 1930s. It was interesting to consider how young climate science is, and that humans have understood this problem for less than a century. In class we talked about how climate change is a difficult problem because CO2 emissions are intrinsic to an economy powered by fossil fuels, there are long time horizons in the cost/benefit of cutting GHG emissions (called the ‘time inconsistency principle’), and climate pollutants are extremely long-lived in the atmosphere. We also discussed the policymaking myths that the author hoped to dispel in the chapter. The first myth, the Scientist’s Myth, is that climate policy will follow consensus on climate science. In actuality consensus is difficult to come by, especially in a field as complex as climate science, and this myth distracts from the fact that deep cut in emissions are needed now, by implementing practical policies, regardless of what the sciences says. The second, Environmentalist’s Myth, is that climate change is strictly an environmental problem. This myth fails to account for broad social and economic factors, which are deeply important for crafting good mitigation and adaptation policy. Lastly, the Engineer’s Myth, is that just devising the right technology is all that is needed to address the climate change problem. This myth doesn’t account for the careful crafting of markets that is required to aid the dispersion of appropriate technology, especially when new tech faces competition from established and entrenched industries like fossil energy. Moreover, there are historically long timelines (~30 years in many cases) for a technology to reach full market potential.

Climate justice was the topic of our last class this week, with a reading from the Annals of Global Health, “Climate Change, Human Rights, and Social Justice.” In class we discussed how it is an injustice that many of the poorest countries have contributed the fewest GHGs, yet are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and how marginalized populations are often at additional climate risk. For example, indigenous communities whose lives are closely tied to the land, or women that are in charge of sourcing food and water for their families. We also discussed that certain policies could be especially harmful to low-income populations, for example if they raise the price of energy significantly. As a class activity, we split into groups, and each took on the identity of a different world citizen(s): A family in Delhi, and young woman in Mexico City, a family in Alberta, and a resort owner in the Maldives. The goal of the activity was to brainstorm the various impacts and adaptation measures our citizen(s) could take on. The outcome was a better understanding of the inequitable distribution of adaptation measures, and the significant anxiety/impacts that various world populations may feel if climate change worsens. Instilling this climate justice framework was a key learning objective our course!

Next week we will continue to explore the scope of the climate change issue with readings from the 2017 UN Emissions Gap Report. Despite the tendency for doom & gloom, we will try to keep morale alive with a framework of hope.

 

This week’s reading list:

Clapp, Jennifer, and Peter Dauvergne. 2011. Paths To A Green World. Chapter 1: Peril or Prosperity? Mapping Worldviews of Climate Change. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Victor, David G. 2011. Global Warming Gridlock. Chapter 2: Why Global Warming is Such a Hard Problem to Solve. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Levy, Barry S., and Jonathan A. Patz. 2015. “Climate Change, Human Rights, And Social Justice”. Annals Of Global Health 81 (3): 310. doi:10.1016/j.aogh.2015.08.008.