Using Thermodynamics to (Re)Examine Environmental Kuznets Curves

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (henceforth EKC) was developed from a paper written by Simon Kuznets in 1955 titled Economic Growth and Income Inequality. His theory explained that the relationship between economic growth and income inequality forms an inverted U-shape graph with income inequality on the y-axis and economic growth (e.g. GDP/capita) on the x-axis. EKCs extend Kuznets’ original theory by stating that pollution increases as economies grow from agrarian to industrial, but as the population becomes wealthier a turning point is passed after which the amount of pollution decreases as income grows, forming an inverted U-shape (Figure 1). As such, EKC theory has been cited as a justification to prioritize economic development over environmental stewardship (Beckerman, 1992), and just last week the science reporter for the New York Times, John Tierney, wrote an article claiming exactly the same thing: “The richer everyone gets, the greener the planet will be in the long run.”

However, after 20 years of research and over 100 peer-reviewed papers, academia has yet to come to a consensus over the exact mechanism driving EKCs. Much of the disagreement over EKCs stem from shaky empirical support. To be sure, numerous studies used empirical tests and found the existence of EKCs, but many of these same studies disagree in two important ways: 1) estimates of the turning point of the inverted U-shape for pollutants vary widely and 2) the EKC relationship describes the trends for some pollutants only, not all. I propose that the lack of consensus surrounding EKCs stem from the fact that EKC theory, as it has been studied, ignores the laws of thermodynamics.


Review of the First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. When coal is burned, for example, all of its energy is transformed to some other form, such as electricity, sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide to name just three. There are a myriad of other examples. The important point is that energy is conserved in every transformation. A basic understanding of the first law is important because it means that transforming pollution from one form to another is not the same as eliminating pollution. That is, extracting pollutants from flue gases transforms the pollutant, but does not eliminate it. To illustrate this point empirically, I have reexamined two of the most commonly cited examples supporting EKCs: deforestation and sulfur dioxide.


Deforestation

Cropper and Griffiths (1994) tested for an EKC relationship between income and deforestation in 64 developing countries around the globe and found that the incomes of many of the African and Latin American countries were still below the turning point; meaning that those countries were not yet rich enough to stop deforestation. However, in a similar study Panayotou (1995) analyzed deforestation in 41 tropical nations and found that the turning point for deforestation was around $1,300 per capita (2003 dollars), which is much lower than the turning point estimates for many air pollutants. Panayotou explains that deforestation should have a lower turning point than most industrial air pollutants as most tropical deforestation occurs to clear land for farming, which occurs before industrialization in the “normal” evolution of an economy. The list of papers examining EKC and deforestation seems ever expanding, and for a detailed discussion see Yandle et al., (2004).

Global per capita GDP, however, is roughly 4 times the turning point level cited by Panayotou (1995), and has been since 1990, yet the forest area around the globe has declined over that entire time period (Figure 2). According to the findings of Panayotou (1995), forest area around the globe should be increasing, as the global income is greater than the turning point in the EKC. Thus simple attempts to validate the findings of Panayotou fail, moreover, they are contradictory.





Sulfur-Dioxide

Burning coal releases the embodied chemical energy within the coal and in doing so creates electricity and numerous pollutants. After the Clean Air Act was enacted, coal burning power plants (among others) installed scrubbers so that these pollutants could be removed from the flue gases, and hence decrease air pollution. As a result, many EKC studies found strong correlations between high income and low sulfur dioxide emissions (Grossman and Kruegar, 1991; Selden and Song, 1994; Cole et al., 2001).

Each of these studies excluded, however, the fact that these high-income areas had decreased sulfur emissions at the expense of increased ground pollutants in the form of Coal Combustion Waste (CCW). CCW is the amalgamated end product of many flue gas pollutants, including sulfur dioxide. In this example, the CCWs are shipped back to the coalmine or stacked outside the coal power plant. Data on CCW is hard to find, but the little that I could find indicates that more landfills and surface impoundments, i.e. the facilities that store CCW, are coming on-line as U.S. income grows (Figures 3). In other words, increasing income is correlated negatively with sulfur dioxide emissions, but correlated positively with the production of CCW. So in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics, scrubbing sulfur pollutants out of a flue gas doesn’t eliminate the pollutant, rather it simply transforms the pollutant.





Conclusion

Yandle et al. (2004) state “By the mid-1990’s, investigations of the EKC relationships had generated enough consistent findings to give assurance for many pollutants, richer is definitely cleaner.” Yet EKCs do not have wide empirical support, and since simple attempts to validate the empirical support for EKCs fail, I question the utility of EKCs as a unifying paradigm for environmental and economic policy. As I have shown in the examples of deforestation and sulfur dioxide, simply changing or extrapolating the system boundaries to incorporate thermodynamics calls into question the EKC relationship. To be sure, it is true that sulfur dioxide emissions have decreased within the U.S. as income has increased, which seems to support the EKC theory, but is it then justified to say, in light of figure 3 and the First Law, that we don’t have a sulfur pollution problem? Wealth may allow societies to deal with pollution in a more efficient manner or transform pollution into a less harmful form, but the idea that all nations can become wealthy by consuming the world's resources yet be pollution-free is antithetical to the laws of thermodynamics.

The quote by Yandle et al. (2004) is deeply troubling on a conceptual level also. It not only encourages policy makers to place priority on economic development over environmental stewardship, it implies that a growing economy by default will resolve environmental issues and hence direct environmental action is unnecessary. This idea may be supported by faithful EKC believers, but as York, Clark and Foster have eloquently and thoroughly discussed, it is farcical to most natural scientists. To ensure that economic and environmental policies work together to promote a healthy economy and planet, policy makers should use scientific concepts that enjoy wide empirical support, such as the Laws of Thermodynamics, as a unifying theme governing pollution patterns and draft policies based on these laws, rather than EKCs.

Beckerman, W. 1992. Economic Growth and the Environment: Whose Growth? Whose Environment? World Development 20: 481 – 496.

Cole, M.A., Rayner, A.J., and J.M. Bates. 2001. The Environmental Kuznets Curve: An empirical Analysis. Environment and Development Economics 2(4): 401 – 416.

Cropper, Maureen, and Charles Griffiths. 1994. The Interaction of Population Growth and Environmental Quality. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 84(2): 250-254.

Grossman, Gene M., and Alan B. Krueger. 1991. Environmental Impact of a North American Free Trade Agreement. NBER Working paper 3914.

Kuznets, Simon. 1955. Economic Growth and Income Inequality. American Economic Review 45(1): 1 – 28.

Panayotou, Theodore. 1995. Environmental Degratdation at Different Stages of Economic Development. In Beyond Rio: The Environmental Crisis of Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World, ed. I. Ahmed and J. A Doeleman. London: Macmillan, 13 – 36.

Seldon, Thomas M., and Daqing Song. 1994. Environmental Quality and Development: Is there a Kuznets Curve for Air Pollution Emissions? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 27: 147 – 162.

Yandle, B., Bhattarai, M., and Maya Vijayaraghavan. 2004. Environmental Kuznets Curves: A Review of Findings, Methods, and Policy Implications. PERC 2(1).

One of the ways that wealthy countries deal with pollution is to export it (along with manufacturing) to developing countries. The former then congratulates itself for the win-win of growing affluence and declining pollution while chastising the latter for fouling the environment.

I've heard other variants of the EKC idea from market enthusiasts. Some of them may now be wondering why they don't have a well paid job any more. An analogy I would make is comparing the economy to a stationary engine. The engine creates the goods but it also needs a cooling system to repair the bads. However the radiator, fan and water pump make the engine work harder. If we want a bigger engine of the same design it will simply burn more fuel since the cooling system is bigger as well. We need to make it more more fuel efficient so it needs less cooling. In other words do less environmental harm yet still able to deliver enough goods.

I'm hoping the question of forest destruction is at a tipping point. In my area protests against old growth logging just today have seen mild mannered grandmothers arrested and put on restraining orders. Surely we can protect 400 year old trees from being turned into low priced woodchips, especially as climate change will now impede the growth of wet temperate forests. Failing to protect our natural heritage is a sign of desperation. I think many people are asking if we can't save our wilderness can we save ourselves?

Edit: virtual Gitmo for forest protestors.

Although your heart may be in the right place, there is no thermodynamic first law of pollutants. Yes, matter/mass is conserved (except for nuclear processes), but chemical forms do matter. Sulfur dioxide wasn't present in the coal, but is rather formed in the burning thereof. Likewise, it isn't extracted and dumped on the ground as SO2 either, because that is a gas. Moreover, "pollutant" is a nebulous term, sort of like "weed". Recovered sulfur is actually useful; it is the trace metals in coal flyash that are the biggest problems (as well as emitted mercury).

With EKCs, there is also the regurgitated idea that, left on its own, a prosperous market economy will spontaneously produce a clean and livable planet. In fact, political decisions (such as mandating scrubbers for coal plants) are usually required for environmental improvement.

I think a bigger problem with EKCs is that high GNP countries tend to export their dirty industry to low GNP ones. Someone else deals with the mess. Similarly, Agricultural waste from the US heartland is exported to the GOM, and everybody's CO2 goes into our collective atmosphere while we kid ourselves that it doesn't matter because the earth is so large.

As for deforestation, if fossil fuel supplies become constrained, we will burn everything including the furniture. Of course, the GNP will nosedive as well, sliding us back down the curve.

I never claim that there is a thermodynamic first law of pollutants. Chemical forms do matter, and as I say in the post, wealthy countries can afford to alter the form of a harmful pollutant to a less-harmful form. I agree also that there are other pollutants in coal that are of bigger concern than sulfur. I am trying simply to provide an alternative view of pollution as EKC theory tends to give people the idea that pollution disappears when countries are wealthy, and as we know, that is simply not the case.

Your point about wealthy countries exporting polluting industries to less developed countries is important, although I did not focus on that in the post.

OK, but you said this:

A basic understanding of the first law is important because it means that transforming pollution from one form to another is not the same as eliminating pollution.

You are using energy as an analogy for pollution, but this is not valid because pollution is not a precise term. What are the units of pollution?

It's good to be critical of the greenwashing of environmental degradation in the name of progress which will eventually clean it back up, but starting with thermodynamics to do it leaves a lot of missing steps and a results in a lot of handwaving.

Ok, I agree that it is not the most precise language, but the basic message is there. The units of pollution, as you are implying (I think), will change as substances are transformed. For example, sulfur dioxide is formed during combustion and then transformed during scrubbing, so the pollutant has changed, yet there is still a pollutant, of some form, to be dealt with...

I don't see how starting with thermodynamics as a theoretical foundation instead of EKCs leads to "handwaving".

You get a byproduct. It may or may not constitute a form of pollution.

Maybe a better way of saying:

Thermodynamics is an analogy. It's not a law of physics which applies here.

But is the analogy a useful one? Mass may be conserved, but form matters. With you rather have a pound of plutonium or a pound of soot scattered in your backyard? Location and other issues also come into play. If various technologies and policies actually do manage to mitigate the harm from industrial byproducts, what are the added insights from an analogy with thermodynamics? I agree with JoulesBurn's earlier point...there is no scalar measure of pollution that is conserved. The fact that sulfur is scrubbed from emissions does not automatically imply an equally harmful form of pollution somewhere else.

The fact that sulfur is scrubbed from emissions does not automatically imply an equally harmful form of pollution somewhere else.

I acknowledge that very point in the post,

Wealth may allow societies to deal with pollution in a more efficient manner or transform pollution into a less harmful form, but the idea that all nations can become wealthy by consuming the world's resources yet be pollution-free is antithetical to the laws of thermodynamics.

The EKC doesn't imply that society will eventually be pollution free. It only implies that pollution levels will eventually decline. The usual argument is based on environmental quality as a normal good, so as incomes rise people want more of. Brian Copeland and Scott Taylor use production functions that imply an upper bound to pollution abatement in their models.

Edit In economic models, the EKC results from policy intervention (typically a pollution tax). Since full abatement is ruled out, there is always some level of pollution in these models. There is no law of human behaviour that I'm aware of that dictates the response will actually happen.

Copeland, Brian R. and M. Scott Taylor (2003). Trade and the Environment: Theory and Evidence Princeton University Press.

"For example, sulfur dioxide is formed during combustion and then transformed during scrubbing, so the pollutant has changed, yet there is still a pollutant, of some form, to be dealt with..."

You can sell your pollution(gypsum) to ofset some the cost of the FGD system.

I wish we could see a Kuznet curve for CO2 :).

There are many out there in Google land, here's one that may or may not be representative.

An Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis of
U.S. State-Level Carbon Dioxide Emissions1
Joseph E. Aldy
Department of Economics
Harvard University
August 9, 2004

PDF Link

Kuznet CO2

Thanks for the link.

The author brings a very good point which is that modern economies have shipped their dirty manufacturing jobs overseas and that Kuznets curves need to be corrected for trade (the consumption-CO2 curve above is taking into account CO2 related to imports in goods and the other one is not). What I suspect, is that most of the published Kuznet curves are biased production-Kuznet curves which are not trade corrected.

FMagyar,

Thanks for the link. I read through some of the paper (rather quickly) and found a few concerns with his regression technique, but nothing major.

FMagyar and Sam,

The paper takes into account inter-state commerce, but what about international commerce? It was my understanding that the U.S. showed EKCs for some air pollutants because the industrial processes associated with those pollutants moved to other countries, not states, e.g. to Mexico.

David, Sam,

First a disclaimer, I claim no expertise in any of this and though I did read the paper, I'm only an interested layman. However this comment by the author did catch my attention.

By characterizing the income-CO2 relationship for the U.S. states, this analysis can also help inform our understanding of greenhouse gas emissions in an international context. First, illustrating the economic dynamics of per capita CO2 for high-income states provide evidence of what may occur for countries as they achieve advanced stages of development. Second, the potential role of trade in emissions-intensive goods (e.g., electricity) in the income-CO2 relationship may be valuable for other regions of the world that may share similar characteristics to the U.S. states. For example, the European Union, with converging incomes, policies, and institutions and substantial cross-border trade in emissions-intensive goods and energy may follow similar production- and consumption-based CO2 trends as the U.S. states. Third, if trade in emissions-intensive goods is as important in the international context as for the U.S. states, then this work suggests that studies that attempt to forecast carbon dioxide emissions may produce biased results without attempts to correct for trade.The next section briefly reviews several key hypotheses of the environmental Kuznets curve literature as it relates to greenhouse gas emissions. The third section provides an overview of the data used in this paper, including the novel state-level carbon dioxide emissions dataset constructed by the author.

Check the work of Taylor on Green Solw-Model. Very nice piece of work for most polluant. Unfortunately, his model lack of memory therefore it is useless for CO2. I personnaly ask him about this in a public conference. I am still waiting for his answer.

When you say lack of memory, I assume you're referring to the lack of a stock variable? Or are you referring to path dependence?

Green Solow model works only for short lived polluant. Long lived polluant like CO2 are radiactive waste accumulate in the system. Therefore, economically you may indeed reduce your annual production of garbage overtime due to technological improvement. However, since CO2 is long lived, you may have pass anyway the tipping point.

By the way, at that time Taylor was not sure than climate change was real. I came to speak to me latter validate this was a real phenomenon.

Thanks for the clarification. My inclination would be to think of radioactive waste as a stock variable with a low rate of depreciation. I'll have to track down Taylor's work on that model.

Interesting point you make. Here is a good IPCC reference for the long range impact of CO2 at 20, 100 and 500 years. Scary stuff compared to other pollutants out there.

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/w...

Re deforestation - Jared Diamond gives a full account(Collapse, Chapter 9) of how Japan saved itself from complete deforestation by timely and enlightened regulation, so that today Japan is one of the most heavily forested countries in the world. The consequence of this since the 1950's has been the deforestation of the Phillipines, then Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to supply Japan with its timber requirements. These pretty Kuznets curves may well apply in an 'empty' world, but break down in a 'full' world. There is no 'elsewhere' left for developing countries to export their exploitation/pollution so as to achieve their own Kuznets curves.

Nick,you could have also mentioned the US along with the Phillipines, Malaysia....

Many good points in the article and the responses so far. May I just point out that the NYT writer John Tierney is a tool. His pieces are always in favor of whatever maximizes corporate profit, his science is nearly always dubious, and he seems to always state or imply that legitimate environmental concerns are a joke. If anyone wanted proof of right wing bias in the media, they would need look no further than John Tierney.

No great surprise that he was promoting this little bit of self-serving, corporatist propaganda.

Yes indeed. A quick search will show that Tierney has no educational background in any Science.

The most important point discussed above, covering both the article and comments, is that of "exporting pollution by exporting dirty industrial production processes". It is a problem with no present solution. Anticipated, apparently, by TPTB in implementing a world trade management system, the WTO etc, which explicitly ignores the issue and will now be very difficult to modify for correction. It would seem that one solution would be an involuntary worldwide organization which could mandate corrective penalties on such trade, forcing prospective exporters to operate industrial sites to a common standard worldwide, subject to trade embargoes and/or punitive tarrifs. Very difficult to implement without discussion of some form of "world government", which will immediately be strongly opposed by those who most benefit from the present system (95% of US citizens).

As an aside, I note that a world trade management system as proposed above would make a huge contribution to re-localizing by removing one of the greatest incentives to import from a distance. Now, if worker wages could then be standardized, the problems would be solved (both localization and third world poverty). I know, far more complex.

It would seem that one solution would be an involuntary worldwide organization which could mandate corrective penalties on such trade, forcing prospective exporters to operate industrial sites to a common standard worldwide, subject to trade embargoes and/or punitive tarrifs. Very difficult to implement without discussion of some form of "world government", which will immediately be strongly opposed by those who most benefit from the present system (95% of US citizens).

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/NOBORDERS/noborders.html

Borders between nations, and nations as such, are ideological constructions that exclude other persons socially and prevent them from sharing land, water, food and other resources. To exclude other persons in this way is not in compliance with the fact that persons should be treated as persons and therefore as having rights. It makes no sense to talk about persons and persons' rights if persons are not allowed to participate in society, stay on the surface of the earth, drink the water etc. If we want to respect persons and persons rights' we must try to share the land and resources of the world.

It is not possible to accept borders between nations or nations themselves and at the same time respect persons and persons' rights.

The environmental corollary to: “The richer everyone gets, the greener the planet will be in the long run.”

is:

"The higher atmospheric CO2 is elevated, in the presence of sun-driven warming, the greener the planet wll be in the long run." as evidenced by Prof. Mann's bristle cone proxy data.

See http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/ for corroborating evidence. Quote,"What this study does tell is that, so far, climate change is making the Earth’s vegetation more productive..."

"What this study does tell is that, so far, climate change is making the Earth’s vegetation more productive..."

The fact that vegatation is creeping towards the poles and making larger areas green doesn't automatically mean that plants are becoming more productive. As a matter of fact the overwhelming evidence seems to contradict this and as temperatures increase it tends to neutralize the positive effects of increases in CO2.

Link

Another of our interests in rubisco is its potential for taking advantage of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The higher CO2 levels go, the greater the probability that rubisco fixes CO2 instead of O2. However, although photosynthetic efficiency does go up at elevated CO2 levels, in a matter of days, weeks, or months, the plant no longer "takes advantage" of the elevated CO2. It's one of the issues that pervades research at the PRU. First we'd like to understand this acclimation to increased CO2 concentrations and then do something about it. The potential of plants to accomplish more photosynthesis at higher CO2 concentrations is one of the few bright spots associated with what humans are doing to the atmosphere, but it looks like very few plants can truly take advantage of it.

"The fact that vegatation is creeping towards the poles and making larger areas green doesn't automatically mean that plants are becoming more productive.", but " photosynthetic efficiency does go up at elevated CO2 levels". Which is it? On average, are plants more productive in an atmosphere of enriched CO2, or not? The bottom line is elevated levels of CO2 are, in fact, GREENING the planet at an accelerating rate because of the compounding effect of CO2 enrichment. You just said so in so many words. Please tell, how do you define more productive plants? And are commercial greenhouse operators wasting money on CO2 generators to elevate the greenhouse CO2 concentrations to (gulp) increase the productivity of their fixed investment in growing space? Have you talked with any commercial greehouse operators to embrace the reality of photosynthesis at CO2 concentration levels up to 1000 PPM? Don't you feel an obligation to explain to them that they are living a lie. Clearly they are not aware of your references and the undeniable truth that warming is bad, it is caused by CO2 and we the people are wholly and completely responsible, especially commercial greenhouse operators who haven't got a clue and are just dumping tons of CO2 into our delicate biosphere for no good reason. Clearly we need laws and regulations to stop this unenlightened activity. Here are some good places to start on this great and noble quest:

http://www.homeharvest.com/carbondioxideenrichmentgenerator.htm

http://www.hydrofarm.com/articles/co2_enrichment.php

http://www.4hydroponics.com/grow_room/co2.asp

http://www.actahort.org/books/268/268_11.htm

http://www.springerlink.com/content/np26105888r8m5p7/

http://www.power-technology.com/contractors/cogeneration/jenbacher/press...

Have you talked with any commercial greehouse operators to embrace the reality of photosynthesis at CO2 concentration levels up to 1000 PPM? Don't you feel an obligation to explain to them that they are living a lie.

Deep sigh! No, not really! Greenhouses are a very poor choice of an example, they are controlled closed systems where all pertinent parameters necessary for plant growth such as water, temperature, and nutrients are manipulated.

I'm well aware of the fact that greenhouses use CO2 fertilization. I haven't had the time to launch it yet but I actually own the domain www.hydroponicecosytems.com It will be up shortly, I've been busy with other projects, but I digress.

Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production

Link

It gets worse because it seems that often the plants that do get a boost are not necessarily the ones we want to be proliferating.

Link

Since elevated CO2 often stimulates plant growth, we propose to study CO2 effects on invasive weeds detrimental to the Southeast economy. This work will look at how several different invasive plants respond to high CO2, how herbicide use is affected by high CO2, and how economically important plants compete with invasive plants under high CO2. Invasive plant pests can disrupt terrestrial ecosystems and this threat is great for the southeastern U.S., with its numerous ports of entry and mild climate.

So at the very least increased CO2 with regards plant productivity is a very mixed bag.

As far as hoping that "Northward movement of climate zones with global warming" go, forget it. I grew up in northern Canada, and the main thing N. America is going to gain is a lot of warmer climate over rock and swamp. Soils in presently hostile climate areas are next to non-existent, for obvious reasons. In exchange, you're likely to loose large parts of presently arable land in Africa and perhaps southern Europe as the arid zones expand.

Looks to me like a probable loose / loose situation.

Just look at all the added protein the longer mosquito seasons will give us over the great wet north, but ohh...if the permafrost melts the lakes on it drain out the bottom, happening already, obvious to any flying low over central and northern Alaska when the snow is gone.

I doubt any of the models can be relied upon for a very precise timetable of the changes coming, but their general trends don't look to leave us in as hospitable place as we now reside.

If I live long enough I personally might move from a subarctic to a temperate region without leaving my porch. Wonder what the rainfall would be? If it remains the under 11 inches of yearly precip we get now, this will be a much drier place as the moisture we get will no longer be locked in as ice seven months + a year...but the new big open water up north could radically increase cloud cover and bring us long cool rainy seasons...unless the mountains block it all and we get parched--tricky interdependent stuff.

I am with you on not cheering the great oncoming CO2 'greening.'

Mosquito burgers! Yum! :-)

With forests I suspect that warming, rainfall change and fragmentation are currently more relevant than CO2 levels. Even people in their 20s have noted that dense rainforest is giving way to open woodland. Dense understorey with ferns, epiphytes and deep leaf litter is drying out. The lack of shade and transpiration then reduces local rainfall in a feedback loop. The trouble is at latitude 45 degrees South there is no more landmass for these forests to migrate to. Unless they can hop the ocean to an ice free Antarctica one day.

In terms of the first graph notice that the right of the maximum point must feel the same as a point to the left of it. Thus we overshoot the optimum without realising it.

Astounding, "even people in their 20s have noted that dense rainforest is giving way to open woodland." I will certainly talk to more of these young experts in the field of photosynthsis and the impact of CO2 on the GREENING of the planet over the last several decades. I have largely overlooked these experts to date. I'm guessing older folks just wouldn't notice that sort of thing. I wonder if there are any photo journals that might have captured these subtle changes. I am pretty sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes". Do you suppose we can find and burn those journals before someone bothers to find them and then make a big noise about the story they tell?

Coral reefs are getting covered in algae. I guess that's greening as well.

Settle down, please; if you want to write sarcasm instead of reasoned debate, go to 4chan. This is a place where we are seeking after truth.

I grew up in Brazil and spent quite a bit of time in the rain forest and also diving many of the coral reefs along the coast. I was in my twenties at the time and it was very easy to observe what was going on. By coincidence my extended family is disproportionately engaged in the bio sciences and many of my nephews and nieces are following in their parents footsteps and well on their way to advanced degrees in areas such as agronomy, plant physiology and molecular genetics despite only being in their 20's.

While ad hominem comments are not acceptable, it is perfectly valid to ridicule ideas, especially those that are held in lieu of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php

Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one's viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.

When I read this kind of comment my AGW denialism meter starts to red line:

And are commercial greenhouse operators wasting money on CO2 generators to elevate the greenhouse CO2 concentrations to (gulp) increase the productivity of their fixed investment in growing space? Have you talked with any commercial greehouse operators to embrace the reality of photosynthesis at CO2 concentration levels up to 1000 PPM? Don't you feel an obligation to explain to them that they are living a lie. Clearly they are not aware of your references and the undeniable truth that warming is bad, it is caused by CO2 and we the people are wholly and completely responsible, especially commercial greenhouse operators who haven't got a clue and are just dumping tons of CO2 into our delicate biosphere for no good reason. Clearly we need laws and regulations to stop this unenlightened activity. Here are some good places to start on this great and noble quest:

It happens to be dripping in sarcasm, and that is not, in my opinion, the problem.
/sarcasm.

David,

I'm not sure what to make of figure 3. The label suggests that you are comparing a flow variable (emissions) with a quasi-stock variable (# of landfills and impoundments). I say "quasi-stock" because the total number of existing disposal sites is presumably a result of both past and current CCWs, but provides no information on either. Or am I misinterpreting the label? If you are going to make reference to the EKC, you need some way of comparing flows from the two forms of pollutants to see how aggregate annual emissions are changing. This comes back to JoulesBurn's point about units. The criticism I have of the EKC is that it doesn't account for pollutants that accumulate. Even if there was a EKC for CO2, emissions in any given year are only part of the equation. Similarly, with the CCWs, there is a limit to available storage space.

James

David,

One more question about Figure 3. I presume that CCWs are generated even without scrubbing. Even if you had figures on the volume of CCWs, how would you be able to to determine what percentage of CCWs represented scrubbed sulfur? Using the terminology of Copeland and Taylor, to what extent do changing volumes of CCW represent a scale effect (more coal is being burned as incomes rises) and to what extent do they represent a technique effect (sulfur captured in the flue is adding to CCWs)?

David,

Why can't you use the data on CCP at the following site?

http://www.acaa-usa.org/

I doubt you can accomplish what you want with the data...I don't see how you'll be able to isolate the effect of scrubbing when other combustion products are included in CCW. On the bright side, the percentage of CPPs that are used "beneficially" has apparently risen.

I'm sure there is some merit to the idea that thermodynamics matters. However, I think the two points of contention that you mention can be otherwise resolved. On the first, there is no reason that there should be a well-defined turning around point. Thinking there should be is equivalent to arguing that all countries have the same technology and automatically implement the same policy when they reach a given income level. One the second, there is no requirement that the technology needed to reduce any given pollutant need exist. I'm skeptical of carbon sequestration, but I don't have the expertise to rule out that if it became feasible, any undesirable secondary pollution may still be perferrable to AGW.

Link edited at 8:52

Here's a good IPCC reference on "undesirable secondary pollution" and its impact on global warming relative to CO2. For some reason they left out water vapor. Probably because it's not undesirable, unless you're trying to dry clothes outside or prevent rust on your Bentley.

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/w...

Jolly,

Good questions. I am comparing a flow with a "quasi-stock" variable in figure 3. As I said in the post, I had a difficult time locating data on CCWs, so it was the best I could do at the time. Thank you for suggesting a new data set - I had not seen it. Your comments about scale vs. technique are important as well, and I really don't have an answer for that.

On the first, there is no reason that there should be a well-defined turning around point. Thinking there should be is equivalent to arguing that all countries have the same technology and automatically implement the same policy when they reach a given income level. One the second, there is no requirement that the technology needed to reduce any given pollutant need exist.

I agree! The point of the post was to apply thermodynamics as a mechanism to explain why there should NOT be an a priori reason for a turning point in the relationship between pollution and income.

Ah, Kuznets curves; as far as I know the most egregious example of Cargo Cult Science after the Phillips curve.

Does anyone know of a Kuznets curve study which explains the mechanisms (in terms of behavioural processes), derives the quantitative relationships from theory, and then back-checks the coefficients and constants against data? (serious question; I'd love to see one.)

As I said a few days ago, observing a correlation is where science starts. Economists seem to think that's where it stops.

That's more or less the exercise in the Copeland and Taylor book I referenced, though the empirical work is "reduced form," in that the parameters of the model are not estimated directly. Instead, the authors examine whether certain correlations that their model predicts are actually observed in the data (which includes variables other than just income and "pollution"). It's not clear that their results actually support the existence of an EKC for SO2.

The tendency in economics is to establish a "stylzed fact" and then explain it ex post. Many of the stylized "facts" (e.g. the Phillips curve) have proven to be transitory.

One way to test Kuznets Curve is to look at societies on the left side of the curve such as Haiti, Africa, former Soviet-stans, etc. These destitute societies have high levels of environmental degradation even as per capita income has decreased.