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A number of years ago, I spent some time in Africa with members of the Kenyan Wildlife Service whose mission was to protect endangered and protected wildlife from poachers. The job was hazardous; poachers were generally armed and willing to shoot. And the penalties, if the poachers were caught, were severe. But, the KWS rangers said, it wasn't a clear case of good guys versus the bad guys. Yes, the poaching was terrible. And the big money it offered didn't even go, in most cases, to the hunters themselves. They might make $200 for elephant tusks that their "employers" would turn around and sell on the global market for many, many times that amount. "But it's hard to make the case that we need to preserve the elephants," one of the rangers explained to me, "to a Masai tribesman who is so poor that $200 could make the difference between his 6-year-old son living or dying. He's not going to sacrifice his son to save some wild animal."
No, of course not. No parent would. Part of the challenge, then, was to try to convince the tribesmen that the tourism the elephants would bring to the area would provide as much or more income, at far less risk, than poaching.
It's a point that was highlighted earlier this week during Secretary of State HIllary Rodham Clinton's visit to India, when her upbeat comments about being partners with India in fighting global warming were countered, almost immediately, by Jairam Ramesh, India's environment and forests minister. The Indian minister said that India was not in a position to take on legally binding emission standards, and already had one of the lowest carbon emissions rates per capita, in the world.
Roughly translated, Ramesh was saying, pointedly, that the U.S. could well talk about reducing emissions, because it already had a developed and basically well-fed society … a position it had attained because it didn't have to worry about carbon emissions as it developed. India, with a population of over 1 billion, a poverty rate （living on less than $1.25 a day） of somewhere around 40%, doesn't have that luxury. The rich folk can worry about saving the elephants; the poor have more urgent problems at hand. When most Indians can afford clean transportation, are well fed and safely above poverty levels, come talk to them about reducing emissions.
It's a point echoed in "Mr. Gore, Your Solution to Global Warming is Wrong," a feature in the current issue of Esquire magazine. Written by Bjorn Lomborg, the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a professor at the Copenhagen Business School, the article offers an interesting perspective on the global warming debate. Or, rather, the global warming solution debate. Professor Lomborg does not believe that reducing carbon emissions will solve the problem, and argues that our focus on emission reduction is misplaced. In part because of the minor difference that approach is projected to have, over time, but also because of the punitive consequences of that approach for a large percentage of the world's population.
Global warming may harm your grandchildren's chances of survival in sub-Saharan Africa 50 years from now, but if you don't use that poorly maintained, diesel-guzzling truck you somehow got lucky enough to have access to, your children may die next week. And rather than investing billions in reducing carbon emissions, you'd much prefer the powers that be invested in mosquito nets.
When and how does that change? One way, according to Lomborg, is for the poor to become, well … less poor. "Once a country achieves a certain standard of living, with their kids healthy and educated, citizens invariably begin to shift their focus toward the environment, and pollution starts to fall," he notes -- a dynamic known as the "Kuznets curve."
Consequently, Lomborg advocates a number of nutrition and economic initiatives that may not seem directly related to global warming, but could aid the effort by increasing the number of people with enough margin, or luxury, to care. Lomborg also argues that significant change needs to come from developing alternate fuel sources and eliminating the need for fossil fuel; an approach he believes would have a greater impact over time, and would also eliminate the punitive carbon-reduction-without-other-substitutes problem for the poor, or developing countries.
While eliminating poverty in the world is a noble goal, it might rate even higher on the challenge Richter scale than stopping global warming itself. Not that we shouldn't invest in mosquito nets, micro-finance and micro-nutrient initiatives. And not that we shouldn't, as a country that has more margin to play with, do all we can to reduce our carbon emissions. Just because the rest of the world isn't perfect doesn't excuse us from our own responsibility to be responsible.
But although Lomborg didn't explicitly make this point, it occurred to me that if the key to success is, in essence, to convince the Masai that they will economically benefit more by saving the elephant than killing it, there might be another benefit in his alternative fuels and technology approach. Investing in alternative fuels, versus focusing on carbon emission reduction, might reduce the punitive pressure on developing countries. But if there were somehow money to be made by alternative technology that could be developed, built, or somehow used to the profit and benefit of those people and countries, they might be more willing to work on keeping the elephant alive.
It's a complex issue, with more problems than answers. But looking at what would make the rest of the world want to get on board is certainly an angle worth considering in the debate.
A number of years ago, I spent some time in Africa with members of the Kenyan Wildlife Service whose mission was to protect endangered and protected wildlife from poachers. The job was hazardous; poachers were generally armed and willing to shoot. And the penalties, if the poachers were caught, were severe. But, the KWS rangers said, it wasn't a clear case of good guys versus the bad guys. Yes, the poaching was terrible. And the big money it offered didn't even go, in most cases, to the hunters themselves. They might make $200 for elephant tusks that their "employers" would turn around and sell on the global market for many, many times that amount. "But it's hard to make the case that we need to preserve the elephants," one of the rangers explained to me, "to a Masai tribesman who is so poor that $200 could make the difference between his 6-year-old son living or dying. He's not going to sacrifice his son to save some wild animal."
No, of course not. No parent would. Part of the challenge, then, was to try to convince the tribesmen that the tourism the elephants would bring to the area would provide as much or more income, at far less risk, than poaching.
It's a point that was highlighted earlier this week during Secretary of State HIllary Rodham Clinton's visit to India, when her upbeat comments about being partners with India in fighting global warming were countered, almost immediately, by Jairam Ramesh, India's environment and forests minister. The Indian minister said that India was not in a position to take on legally binding emission standards, and already had one of the lowest carbon emissions rates per capita, in the world.
Roughly translated, Ramesh was saying, pointedly, that the U.S. could well talk about reducing emissions, because it already had a developed and basically well-fed society … a position it had attained because it didn't have to worry about carbon emissions as it developed. India, with a population of over 1 billion, a poverty rate （living on less than $1.25 a day） of somewhere around 40%, doesn't have that luxury. The rich folk can worry about saving the elephants; the poor have more urgent problems at hand. When most Indians can afford clean transportation, are well fed and safely above poverty levels, come talk to them about reducing emissions.
It's a point echoed in "Mr. Gore, Your Solution to Global Warming is Wrong," a feature in the current issue of Esquire magazine. Written by Bjorn Lomborg, the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a professor at the Copenhagen Business School, the article offers an interesting perspective on the global warming debate. Or, rather, the global warming solution debate. Professor Lomborg does not believe that reducing carbon emissions will solve the problem, and argues that our focus on emission reduction is misplaced. In part because of the minor difference that approach is projected to have, over time, but also because of the punitive consequences of that approach for a large percentage of the world's population.
Global warming may harm your grandchildren's chances of survival in sub-Saharan Africa 50 years from now, but if you don't use that poorly maintained, diesel-guzzling truck you somehow got lucky enough to have access to, your children may die next week. And rather than investing billions in reducing carbon emissions, you'd much prefer the powers that be invested in mosquito nets.
When and how does that change? One way, according to Lomborg, is for the poor to become, well … less poor. "Once a country achieves a certain standard of living, with their kids healthy and educated, citizens invariably begin to shift their focus toward the environment, and pollution starts to fall," he notes -- a dynamic known as the "Kuznets curve."
Consequently, Lomborg advocates a number of nutrition and economic initiatives that may not seem directly related to global warming, but could aid the effort by increasing the number of people with enough margin, or luxury, to care. Lomborg also argues that significant change needs to come from developing alternate fuel sources and eliminating the need for fossil fuel; an approach he believes would have a greater impact over time, and would also eliminate the punitive carbon-reduction-without-other-substitutes problem for the poor, or developing countries.
While eliminating poverty in the world is a noble goal, it might rate even higher on the challenge Richter scale than stopping global warming itself. Not that we shouldn't invest in mosquito nets, micro-finance and micro-nutrient initiatives. And not that we shouldn't, as a country that has more margin to play with, do all we can to reduce our carbon emissions. Just because the rest of the world isn't perfect doesn't excuse us from our own responsibility to be responsible.
But although Lomborg didn't explicitly make this point, it occurred to me that if the key to success is, in essence, to convince the Masai that they will economically benefit more by saving the elephant than killing it, there might be another benefit in his alternative fuels and technology approach. Investing in alternative fuels, versus focusing on carbon emission reduction, might reduce the punitive pressure on developing countries. But if there were somehow money to be made by alternative technology that could be developed, built, or somehow used to the profit and benefit of those people and countries, they might be more willing to work on keeping the elephant alive.
It's a complex issue, with more problems than answers. But looking at what would make the rest of the world want to get on board is certainly an angle worth considering in the debate.
许多年前，我曾在非洲与肯尼亚野生动物机构的成员们待过一段时间，他们的任务是�；け粑６�，以及保护野生动物免遭偷猎者的捕杀。这项工作十分危险，偷猎者通常都带有武器，开枪也无所顾忌，逮捕偷猎者所要付出的代价往往十分沉重。不过肯尼亚野生动物机构的护林员们表示，其实很难单纯以一种好人抓坏人的方式来看待偷猎活动。诚然，偷猎是种恶劣行径，而且在大多数偷猎活动中，偷猎者往往得不到利润的大头，他们可能会以200美元的价格把象牙卖给"下家",而"下家"在全球市场上一转手就可以卖个高出数倍的价格。一名护林员告诉我："即便如此，这也给我们保护野生大象带来很大的难度。对于一个穷到200美元就能左右他6岁儿子生死的马萨伊部落男人来说，他不会为了挽救一些野生动物而牺牲他的儿子。"
当然不会，没有父母会这么做。作为挑战的一部分，护林员们还得试着让这些部落男人们相信大象为该地区带来的旅游收入与偷猎相当或更多一些，而所冒的风险则少得多。
值得指出的是，本周国务卿希拉里·克林顿访问印度期间，当她表达了与印度就对抗全球变暖问题共同合作的乐观态度时，印度环境和林业部长贾米尔·拉梅什干脆利落地顶了回去。这名印度部长表示印度还没法达到法定的碳排放标准，而且已经是世界上人均碳排放最低的国家之一。
拉梅什的意思大概可以这样来理解，美国之所以不厌其烦地谈论减少碳排放，是因为美国有一个发展完善、家底殷实的社会基础，其所达到的位置已经使得其无需担心限制碳排放的问题。而反观我们印度，人口超过10亿，人口贫困率（每天生活费用不足1.25美元）40%左右，印度没有奢侈的本钱。有钱人可以关心大象的死活，而穷人则有更多眼前的问题亟待解决。当大部分印度人能够买得起清洁的交通工具，吃得饱喝得足，无需在贫困线上挣扎的时候，你再跟他们讨论减排的问题吧。
这跟《绅士》杂志上最近发表的一篇文章的观点遥相呼应---"戈尔先生，你解决全球变暖问题的方法是不对的".文章的作者比昂·隆伯格是哥本哈根舆论中心的主任和哥本哈根商学院教授，这篇文章为有关全球变暖---说得更明确些---有关全球变暖解决方案的讨论带来了一个有趣的观点。隆伯格教授并不认为减少碳排放能够解决问题，并质疑我们孜孜不倦的关注减排是种错误。部分因为现有的方案都大同小异，还由于那些方案给占世界大部分比例的人口带来的是惩罚性的后果。
从今天算起50年后，全球变暖可能会影响你后代子孙在非洲撒哈拉以南地区存活的几率，但如果你不用那辆空间狭小的油老虎卡车来穿过沙漠的话，你的孩子可能下周就得翘辫子。比起把几十亿美元投在减少碳排放上，你可能更愿意多买几顶蚊帐。
何时以及怎样做出改变呢？按隆伯格的话来说，一种方法是让穷人变得，呃，有钱一些。他用动态的"库兹涅茨曲线"进一步阐述观点："只要一个国家达到了一定的生活标准，孩子们身体健康，都能上得起学，那么这个国家的国民自然而然的就会把注意力转向环境，污染问题也会随之减少。"
所以隆伯格认为营养学和经济学上的众多创新与全球变暖也许并无直接联系，但对增加有足够的资本和闲心来关心环境问题的人的数量可能有所帮助。隆伯格还辩称标志性的改变应该来自处于发展阶段的用以减少化石燃料需求的替代能源中，他相信随着时间的推移这将是能产生巨大影响力的方法，并能够取消对减排后无替代物问题的贫穷的，或是正处于发展阶段国家的惩罚措施。
当在世界范围内消除贫穷是一个高尚目标的时候，比起阻止全球变暖，脱贫应该占据更重要的位置。并不是我们不应该投资在蚊帐，小企业和小型营养创新上。也并不是我们不应该在我们自己国家有实力的时候，竭尽全力降低碳排放。只是因为世界上其他地方并不完美，我们没有借口推脱应该承担的责任。
虽然隆伯格没有明确的指出这一点，但却使我觉得从本质上看，如果成功的关键在于令马萨伊人相信拯救大象比杀死它们会给他们带来更多经济利益的话，那么（也可以让他们相信）在替代能源和技术上也可能会给他们带来其他利益。与关注减少碳排放相比，投资替代能源也许能够减少发展中国家所需承受的惩罚压力。而如果用在技术升级上的钱可以进一步增值，并给那些国家和人民带来好处，那么他们会更乐意让大象活着。
这是一个复杂的议题，问题远比答案要多。在讨论中，寻找让其他国家愿意同心协力的方法无疑是非常必要的。
