Introduction to a book about the assessment of carbon footprints

Paragraph A

As this book is about ways of measuring the carbon footprint of particular things, I should start by making it clear what I mean. I am using the word ‘carbon’ as shorthand for all the different global-warming greenhouse gases, and I am using the word ‘footprint’ as a metaphor for the total impact that something has. So I am using the phrase ‘carbon footprint’ as shorthand to mean the full climate-change impact of something. That something could be anything – an activity, an item, a lifestyle, a company, a country, or even the whole world.

Paragraph B

Measuring carbon footprints is a long way from being an exact process, whatever anyone claims, or whatever numbers you might see written on the side of products as some do. All my numbers are best estimates and nothing more, even though I know I’ve reached them as carefully as I can.

Paragraph C

I have used a variety of different methods and sources. I have drawn on a range of data sets and models taken from publicly available reports of life-cycle studies. I have also used studies carried out for businesses across different industries by my own company, Small World Consulting, using models that we are developing all the time. Often I have arrived at numbers by a couple of different routes, to check that the results agree with each other. Occasionally, it has been more a case of putting my finger in the air and guessing, but where that has been the case I have tried to make it clear.

Paragraph D

The publicly available data sets I have used were arrived at by two main methods. The first of these, process-based life-cycle analysis, is the most common approach to carbon footprint calculations. It is often referred to as ‘bottom-up’ because you start off identifying, one by one, all the processes that have had to happen in order for, say, a product to be created. Then you add up the emissions from each process, and that is the footprint of the product. It may sound simple, but it is not at all. If it is backcasting work, and since the number of processes you normally need to include is almost infinite, the job is never quite complete, so you end up with an underestimate. In fact, the conclusions from the calculation are often checking; they can be fifty per cent out or more. To make matters worse, these problems are consistently overlooked, even in the development of government-backed and government funded guidelines, such as the UK’s PAS 2050 standard. But for all the problems, process-based life-cycle analysis is still an essential source of detailed information that can’t be gathered any other way.

Paragraph E

The other method is environmental input-output analysis. That is a neat alternative to process-based life-cycle analysis. It is not as popular, perhaps because it is a bit less easy to understand, but it is at least as robust as anything else in this dim world of measuring carbon footprints. It is sometimes called a ‘top-down’ approach because it begins by looking at the whole economy. It uses macroeconomic modelling to understand the way in which the activities of one industry trigger activities and emissions in every other industry. Input-output analysis’ big trick is a piece of mathematics (for which a man called Wassily Leontief got a Nobel Prize) that succeeds in capturing the endless ripple effects in a way that is one hundred per cent complete. It has the further advantage that if you know how much something costs, you can get an instant crude estimate of its carbon footprint. It is like a magic trick. And just like all the best magic it is also a bit too good to be true – in many cases the results can be ridiculously general and of little value.

Paragraph F

Input-output analysis is nevertheless a powerful tool, both because it does not miss things, and because once a specific model has been built it is often easy to use, the basic techniques well established. The specific model I have used is one that was developed at Small World Consulting in collaboration with Lancaster University in the UK, and draws mainly on data obtained from government sources. It was based on a 2007 picture of the UK economy. It deals with all the greenhouse gases, and employs a weighting factor for gases emitted at a high altitude, which have a greater impact than ground-level emissions. A key weakness, which I demonstrate and adjust for, is that it treats imported products as though they had the same carbon intensity as products from within the UK, when in reality they are usually more carbon-intensive.

Paragraph G

Most of the time I have used a combination of life-cycle analysis and input-output analysis to get my numbers. At its best, life-cycle analysis can be more precise, but input-output analysis is often able to get at information that life-cycle analysis is unable to reach. Putting the two methods together is sometimes called a hybrid approach, and the result is a bit like looking through both a microscope and a telescope at the same time. Each shows you different things, and between them, if the lenses are clean, you end up with a picture and a fuller understanding of whatever it is you are looking at. Life-cycle: the stages of a product’s life from beginning to end (e.g. from raw material extraction through material processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling)

Questions 14–19

The text has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? NB You may choose any paragraph more than once. 14 reference to an award-winning formula 15 an acknowledgement of the general shortcoming of carbon footprint calculations 16 mention of a working partnership 17 reference to the demanding nature of one way of calculating carbon footprints 18 the advantages of combining two different methods 19 a comparison between goods from home and abroad

Questions 20–21

Choose TWO correct answers. The list below describes some of the possible features of process-based life-cycle analysis. Which TWO of these features are mentioned by the writer of the passage?

It is more complicated than it sounds.
It usually produces exaggerated results.
It is a frequently used procedure.
Its faults are widely recognised.
It was first developed in the UK.

Questions 22–23

The list below describes some of the possible features of environmental input-output analysis. Which TWO of these features are mentioned by the writer of the passage?

It is often the basis of national guidelines.
Its starting point is the manufacturing process.
It is comprehensive in scope.
It is a relatively new method of calculation.
It can use prices to get an approximate carbon footprint.

Questions 24–26

Complete the summary. Write ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.

Small World Consulting Small World Consulting has collaborated with a UK university to develop a version of the environmental input-output model of analysis, using data provided by the 24 ________ about the UK economy in 2007.

This model is able to take into account the altitude at which greenhouse gases are produced. A significant 25 ________ is that it does not distinguish between 26 ________ of different origins, but the writer occasionally makes adjustments for this.

Rights for apes

Part3

Read the text and answer the questions below.

A

A growing number of people across the world are attempting to persuade governments to grant great apes rudimentary “human rights”. They argue that great apes are enough like us to deserve special treatment over other animals. The campaign has gathered momentum over the past few years and is stirring up a good deal of controversy. Various religious groups and the human rights charity, Amnesty International, point out that we have a long way to go to secure rights for humans before we start thinking about apes. Other critics argue that the proposal is not radical enough and should be extended to other intelligent social animals such as elephants and dolphins, and potentially to all animals.

B

The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an international organisation that has been lobbying for legal rights for apes since 1992. The project has had some degree of success. New Zealand considered the possibility of extending human rights to great apes in 1999 as part of its new animal welfare bill. In the end, the bill did not go as far as granting apes individual legal rights, but did give them special status. Testing or teaching involving apes now requires government approval and must demonstrate that any likely benefits are not outweighed by harm to the individual animal. In effect that means no biomedical testing only studies that increase our understanding of these species. The practice of using apes in biomedical research has also effectively ended in Europe. So with all these legal protections in place, what’s the big deal about individual rights? GAP campaigners say that these regulations don’t go far enough and they still allow people who own great apes to wilfully neglect their needs. Michele Stamps, a lawyer based in the US, points out that without rights animals are mere property and their owners have no obligation to consider their best interests. Legally, however, only ‘persons’ can have ‘rights’, which is why the law needs to be changed to recognise the ‘personhood’ of apes.

C

Stamps says that one reason for the resistance is the use of terms like ‘legal personhood’. It sounds like a radical idea and that scares people, but when we talk about rights, it really just means protection in ‘human’s terms’, she says. For the philosopher Peter Singer (Princeton University), the argument runs deeper than just semantics. He says the great apes have “the virtues of sentient consciousness, or what he calls ‘personhood’”. He makes an argument on moral grounds for extending human rights to all beings that show intelligence and self-awareness – including some level of self-consciousness – as have emotional and social needs. That means going beyond the boundaries of our own species – and therein lies the problem. It’s that gap between humans and animals that we want to maintain, he says. Others take a similar view. It requires a radical shift in people’s ideas about themselves, according to Ian Redmond, chief consultant for the UN Great Ape Survival Project. Gary Francione, a leading animal rights lawyer from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and a member of the animal GAP group, calls it ‘spiritual capacity’. “We just think we’re special because we’re human.”

D

Those less sympathetic to the animal rights agenda see things rather differently. Some argue that beyond the species barrier lies a slippery slope. “Mice share around 90 per cent of human DNA, should they get 90 per cent of human rights?” asks geneticist Steve Jones from University College, London. He is concerned that giving rights to great apes would be the beginning of the research with animals. Singer accepts that there is a question about where you draw the line, but sees no reason for that to stop society from going the first step. “The strongest and clearest case is with great apes, but open to arguments that it could be extended to other mammals,” he says.

E

Some take it even further. Francione no longer supports the idea of extending rights to great apes on the basis that their minds are like ours. Instead, he argues that all sentient beings should have just one right: the right not to be treated as the property of humans. He believes that this approach has the advantage of simplicity, because sentience – the ability to feel pain or distress – is an objective quality and because it would bring an end to captive animal agriculture. It would make it illegal to keep any animals, including agricultural animals and even pets, but also highlights a logical inconsistency at the heart of the GAP agenda: it seeks to give legal rights to animals but not give them the right to be free. Francione’s approach is certainly several steps too far for many people.

F

It is not clear what GAP’s proposals mean for wild apes, and even some of the animal rights’ most outspoken defenders are not convinced that giving them human rights is the best way to protect them. Primatologist Frans de Waal, from the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, US, says “the concept of rights applies only to those capable of carrying responsibilities within our society”. He believes the emphasis should be on the obligations humans have towards other animals, both for their care and for their conservation.

G

Redmond, on the other hand, suggests that applying GAP principles to wild populations might lead to increased penalties for killing apes, or even give them land rights, though he admits the latter is unlikely. At the very least, an increased regard for the well-being of apes among people in western countries would lead to a decreased demand for animals being kidnapped from the wild and then exported to zoos, wildlife parks or private collectors.

Questions 27-31

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below. Some people believe that the campaign to grant human rights to the great apes does not go far enough. They want it to include other 27 ________ that are judged to have self-awareness and understanding. One country introduced 28 ________ which went some way to protecting the apes first obtain the apes. As a result, anyone who is interested in using apes for 29 ________ official go-ahead from the state. They will have to prove that any advances gained do not come at 30 ________. So researchers can now only work on projects that the experience of the animal’s may lead to the acquisition of further 31 ________ about the way apes function and interact. A. experience B. well-being C. knowledge D. regulations E. chattels F. research G. dolphins H. needs I. species

Questions 32-36

Choose the correct answer. 32 Why does Stamps refer to “human’s terms”? to show that many people hold extreme views about animals. to suggest that campaigners are reluctant to criticise the law. to suggest that such restricted terminology is unnecessary. to argue that most people are not interested in protecting animals.

33 According to Singer, what is the root of the problem? Levels of intelligence and awareness differ between species. People disagree on how intelligent animals like apes are. Moral principles are not easy for everyone to understand. Human beings want to see themselves as separate from animals.

34 If Francione’s current idea was implemented sentient animals could not be kept in cages. some forms of large-scale agriculture would cease to exist. great apes would be granted all the same rights as humans. people could no longer offer shelter to an animal.

35 What is the writer’s attitude to Francione’s theory? She is suspicious of the reasoning behind it. She is doubtful of its chances of being generally accepted. She is encouraged by the impersonal way it is expressed. She is pleased by its logical development.

36 How does de Waal change the perspective of the animal rights discussion? He recommends focusing on the way people look after animals. He would give rights only to those animals with a moral sense. He says that society should learn to be responsible for all of humanity. He thinks that conservation of endangered species should come first.

Questions 37-40

Choose YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer, choose NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer, or NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this. 37 Particularly valuable animals in captivity are more likely to be protected by law. YES NO NOT GIVEN 38 de Waal highlights the need to give human rights to higher order animals. YES NO NOT GIVEN 39 If GAP beliefs were implemented in the wild, the survival rate of the larger apes would increase. YES NO NOT GIVEN 40 If people in Western countries, for example, learned to consider apes’ needs, fewer apes would be captured for sale. YES NO NOT GIVEN