The Case for Conservation Podcast

Capitalism gets a lot of negative press these days, and one of the main arguments against it is the environmental degradation with which it’s associated. But how much is capitalism itself responsible, and how much are people conflating it with associated phenomena? Are the realistic alternatives any better, or should our efforts be focused on reforming this system, which has already done so much for human flourishing?

Russell Galt has many thoughts about the problems with capitalism, but he is also wary of how we go about changing the system. Russell is Head of Policy and Science at Earthwatch Europe, a Partner at the sustainability consultancy, Value-based Work, and Chief Development Officer at Urban Biodiversity Hub. He’s also a friend, upon whom I know I can rely for an honest opinion, and he recently completed an MBA to add to his environmental qualifications. This discussion attempts to touch on various aspects of the arguments for and against capitalism in the context of the environment. The main point is to illustrate the complexities of the issue, rather than to arrive at definitive answers to my questions.

Links to resources

• UK updates water company insolvency laws amid fears over sector’s finances - Financial Times article about the water company issue Russell discusses.
• Value-based Work - The sustainability consultancy at which Russell is a partner.

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Many conservation managers and scientists may not be aware that there is a single, common set of global biodiversity targets that inform national conservation strategy in almost every country in the world. These 23 targets are the main part of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, or GBF. The GBF was agreed on by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in late 2022, and the targets are meant to be achieved by 2030. This is a monumental task, considering that the multi-year strategy that preceded the GBF, which concluded in 2020, unfortunately failed to fully achieve any of its targets. The GBF is also accompanied by a monitoring framework of indictors for countries to measure their success toward achieving the GBF’s targets. That monitoring framework is still being compiled, and an “ad hoc technical expert group” has been tasked to guide its development and completion by late 2024. The GBF and its monitoring framework might seem distant and disconnected from on-the-ground conservation but they can be hugely influential on prioritization of conservation worldwide. Conservationists of any kind would probably benefit from a better understanding of what’s behind them, and what’s inside them.
Alice Hughes is a conservation scientist, prolific author of peer-reviewed articles, and Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong, who has published two recent peer-reviewed papers that analyze the GBF. She joins me to discuss the challenges behind the GBF and its monitoring framework, and she is open about her concerns over the setting and measuring of the GBF targets. We also explore how the GBF and its monitoring framework might be improved, or might have been improved.
Links to resources:

• The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: what it does and does not do, and how to improve it - A recent paper by Alice and a colleague in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
• The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework - text of the GBF including some of the terms duscussed in this episode. A link to the actual text of the GBF is at the bottom of the page ("decision 15/4").
• The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: How did we get here, and where do we go next? - Alice's earlier paper on the GBF.
• Determining the sustainability of legal wildlife trade - Recent journal article by Alice and colleagues that relates to a specific aspect of the GBF.

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There are few environmental issues more emotive than the hunting of whales. Although the focus of environmentalists has shifted to other topics in recent times, whaling remains contentious whenever it is brought up. This is understandable considering that, for the first half of the 20th century and into the 1970s, several whale species were hunted to near-extinction. But as crude oil took over from whale oil as the fuel of industry whale populations began making impressive recoveries. Nevertheless, a handful of countries and populations continue to hunt them, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. Perhaps the most high profile whaling country is Japan. To add to the saga, in 2019 Japan ended about seven decades of membership of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) - the global body responsible for the “management of whaling and conservation of whales”.

There are countless sources providing the anti-whaling point of view, to some of which I will provide links in the podcast description. But comprehensive accounts of the other side of the story are less easy to find. Joji Morishita has been, among many other things, Japan’s Commissioner to the IWC (2013 - 2018) and IWC Chair (2016 - 2018) and I doubt there is any better person in the world to tell Japan’s side of the whaling story. In this fascinating discussion he explains why Japan withdrew from the IWC, and he takes on many of the core arguments against whaling.

Links to resources

• Japan whaling: Why commercial hunts have resumed despite outcry - 2019 BBC overview of the topic
• Japan's Withdrawal from International Whaling Regulation - Book co-authored by Joji in 2023
• Commercial Whaling - International Whaling Commission statements on the whaling moratorium and commercial whaling
• History of Whaling - A chronology of whaling going back to the 9th Century, on the website of the Japan Whaling Association
• Save the Whales - GreenPeace website on whaling
• Reflections on the Future of the International Whaling Commission - The first of a four-part series of articles by Joji

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Half a century ago a group of more than 2,000 scientists signed a warning of environmental crisis and nuclear war. Named after the French town where it was compiled, the “Menton Message” turned out to be somewhat hyperbolic in its environmental predictions, and did not account for some of humankind’s remarkable developmental progress over the following decades. However, some of its concerns certainly remain prescient today. And so another, smaller, group of scientists convened, on the 50-year anniversary of the Menton Message, to revisit and modernize some of its assertions. The resulting document is “A letter to fellow citizens of Earth”, which was also summarized in an article for the journal “Nature”. It makes three key points:

• “individualistic, materialistic, exploitative short-term thinking has led us to lose sight of the public good”
• “a focus on economic growth distracts from achieving well-being and happiness... and... destroys our shared resources”
• “current economic, political and social institutions are failing us”

Although the new letter acknowledges some of the progress that we have made since the Menton Message, it emphasizes the threats and asserts the urgent need for change.

Sharachchandra Lele is one of the two main authors of the 2022 letter, and the Nature article. I pushed him on the accuracy of some of the letter’s claims and assertions. The resulting conversation interrogates different aspects of the letter, and questions the idea that we are on completely the wrong track to make things right. Our conversation jumps around a bit and does not follow the sequence of the letter. But it’s about more than the letter. It’s about the notion that we need to drastically change the way we run the planet and how to affect those changes. This episode and episode 48 with Ron Bailey function as counter-points to each other, so they can be listened to as a set.
Links to resources

• The Menton Message - The original French version of the message (the English is probably available online somewhere)
• A letter to fellow citizens of Earth - The follow-up to the Menton Message, compiled by Sharad and others
• Fifty years after UN environment summit, researchers renew call for action - 2022 correspondence in the journal, Nature, co-authored by Sharad, and summarizing "A letter to fellow citizens of Earth"

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This episode is about environmental alarmism. Alarmism means exaggerating danger and thereby causing needless worry or panic. These days the media is flooded with proclamations and predictions of ecological catastrophe. There is no doubt that our environmental challenges are many, and huge, and they certainly do present dangers. But are they being seen in the context of broader developmental challenges and associated trade-offs? Or in the context of humankind's past achievements, and our ability to adapt? And is alarmist rhetoric the best way to motivate action to deal with them? Among the people offering answers to questions like these, is this month’s guest on The Case for Conservation Podcast, Matt Ridley.

Matt was, until he retired last year, an elected member of the UK Parliament’s House of Lords. He’s been been writer and/or editor for The Economist and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications, and his non-fiction books have sold more than a million copies. They include "The Rational Optimist", "The Evolution of Everything", "How Innovation Works" and, most recently, "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19". His 2010 TED talk, "When Ideas Have Sex", has been viewed more than 2 and a half million times, and he’s spoken on various other popular forums including, quite recently, the Jordan Peterson Podcast.
Links to resources:

• Mattridley.co.uk - Matt's website, where all his other books, his blog, and other information can be found
• The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves - Perhaps the most relevant of Matt's books to our conversation - published in 2010
• How Innovation Works: Serendipity, Energy and the Saving of Time - another of Matt's books relevant to our discussion - published in 2020
• Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 - Matt's most recent book, co-authored with Alina Chan (2021)
• When ideas have sex - Matt's TED talk in 2010, which has had more than two and a half million views
• Emissions – the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading - 2020 article by Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters in the journal, "Nature", about RCP 8.5

Time stamps:
02:50: Matt's response to a Guardian article about climate change terminology
06:59: Species conservation and reports of species loss due to to climate change
13:35: A counsel of despair
15:32: The possible influence of funding in environmental rhetoric
17:40: How innovation helps conservation
24:40: How ecological footprint calculations may be misleading; finite resources
34:23: The Jevons paradox
35:42: The evolution of lightbulb technology; prehistoric technology without innovation
38:12: Which environmental issues are being neglected?
42:14: Invasive species as a driver of biodiversity loss
45:32: Is deforestation the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic?
48:27: Is there a link between environmental alarmism and theories of Covid-19 origins?

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