Consciousness or the Art of Foul Play

The psychological literature about consciousness has been analyzed. It is argued that: 1) Only the higher symbolic cognitive powers like the ability to keep secrets, knowledge of self or self-consciousness, a long-term view on the future, the ability to determine long-term goals, and to freely plan future behavior, add positive fitness-value to consciousness. Without these higher intellectual abilities consciousness will have only negative fitness value and no positive one. The intellectual powers mentioned may therefore be considered as prerequisites for consciousness. Consciousness may therefore only be expected in those animal species that show these capacities in their behavior. So far these capacities have only been described for the anthropoid apes and humans. For the time being, they are therefore the only species in which consciousness may be expected. 2) Consciousness is not synchronous with real time. Human consciousness is, in as well in the perception of stimuli as in the experience of free will to act, most times running after the facts. 3) Consciousness has to be viewed as an instinct that has been developed late in evolution. It is partially based upon primarily innate neural circuits, fulfilling specialized cognitive functions by which information is interpreted and inferences are made, in a more or less automatical way. 4) Most information processing concerning daily decisions,is done by parallel non-consciously functioning neural modules using ‘sloppy logic’, and only the end-product of these modules can be pushed forwards to consciousness. For this reason consciousness will, most times, lack the necessary information to come to the correct inferences about the evaluations on which the decision is based. Therefore, only rarely will people have insight into their cognitive processes or the real sources of their behavior. When asked why they behaved as they did, they will produce confabulations. However, people's erroneous reports are not capricious, but regular and systematic in such a way that they will fit the pre-existing ideas and beliefs. The contents of these reports are therefore not based upon introspection, but, most times, on (sub)culturally accepted ideas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Evaluating Uncertain CO2 Abatement over the Very Long Term

Climate change research with the economic methodology of cost–benefit analysis is challenging because of valuation and ethical issues associated with the long delays between CO₂ emissions and much of their potential damages, typically of several centuries. The large uncertainties with which climate change impacts are known today and the possibly temporary nature of some envisaged CO₂ abatement options exacerbate this challenge. For example, potential leakage of CO₂ from geological reservoirs, after this greenhouse gas has been stored artificially underground for climate control reasons, requires an analysis in which the uncertain climatic consequences of leakage are valued over many centuries. We here present a discussion of some of the relevant questions in this context and provide calculations with the top–down energy-environment-economy model DEMETER. Given the long-term features of the climate change conundrum as well as of technologies that can contribute to its solution, we considered it necessary extending DEMETER to cover a period from today until the year?3000, a time span so far hardly investigated with integrated assessment models of climate change.     

The Impact of Uncertainty in Climate Targets and CO2 Storage Availability on Long-Term Emissions Abatement

A major characteristic of our global interactive climate-energy system is the large uncertainty that exists with respect to both future environmental requirements and the means available for fulfilling these. Potentially, a key technology for leading the transition from the current fossil fuel-dominated energy system to a more sustainable one is carbon dioxide capture and storage. Uncertainties exist, however, concerning the large-scale implementability of this technology, such as related to the regional availability of storage sites for the captured CO₂. We analyze these uncertainties from an integrated assessment perspective by using the bottom-up model TIAM-ECN and by studying a set of scenarios that cover a range of different climate targets and technology futures. Our study consists of two main approaches: (1) a sensitivity analysis through the investigation of a number of scenarios under perfect foresight decision making and (2) a stochastic programming exercise that allows for simultaneously considering a set of potential future states-of-the-world. We find that, if a stringent climate (forcing) target is a possibility, it dominates the solution: if deep CO₂ emission reductions are not started as soon as possible, the target may become unreachable. Attaining a stringent climate target comes in any case at a disproportionally high price, which indicates that adaptation measures or climate damages might be preferable to the high mitigation costs such a target implies.     

Management Principles for Negotiating Waste Facility Siting Agreements

Initial failure to site a small hazardous waste transfer station focussed attention on the need for a siting approach to overcome community resistance to negotiating siting agreements. A community study program was structured utilizing key principles of community decision making to justify need, to allow for community value judgments of gains, losses and fairness, and to encourage community adaptation to change by providing community control and choice. By translating these principles into specific actions, community awareness and responsibility were fostered and resulted in a consensus to negotiate with transfer station proponents in over 70 percent of the fourteen participating communities. The successful communities represented the entire range of size, income, education levels, type and ownership of homes. Participants stated that the key factors that contributed to their success in reaching consensus were the recognition of need, choice of options and of management measures to minimize impacts, economic cost reduction, and the growth of community pride as a result of taking part in the decision process. These factors reflect the positive effect and the significance of applying the derived decision-making principles.     

Guidance for performing footprint analyses and life‐cycle assessments for the remediation industry

The US Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF) proposes a nine‐step process for conducting and documenting a footprint analysis and life‐cycle assessment (LCA) for remediation projects. This guidance is designed to assist remediation practitioners in evaluating the impacts resulting from potential remediation activities so that preventable impacts can be mitigated. Each of the nine steps is flexible and scalable to a full range of remediation projects and to the tools used by remediation practitioners for quantifying environmental metrics. Two fictional case studies are presented to demonstrate how the guidance can be implemented for a range of evaluations and tools. Case‐study findings show that greater insight into a study is achieved when the nine steps are followed and additional opportunities are provided to minimize remediation project footprints and create improved sustainable remediation solutions. This guidance promotes a consistent and repeatable process in which all pertinent information is provided in a transparent manner to allow stakeholders to comprehend the intricacies and tradeoffs inherent in a footprint analysis or LCA. For these reasons, SURF recommends that this guidance be used when a footprint analysis or LCA is completed for a remediation project. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Future risk of flooding: an analysis of changes in potential loss of life in South Holland (The Netherlands)

Potential loss of life is considered an important indicator of flood risk. We examine the future development of potential loss of life due to flooding for a major flood prone area in The Netherlands. The analysis is based on projections and spatial distribution of population under a high economic growth scenario and a loss of life model. Results show that the projected population growth in flood prone areas is higher than average in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2040. Due to this effect the potential number of fatalities is projected to increase by 68% on average for 10 different flood scenarios, not including impacts from climate change and sea level rise. Just sea level rise of 0.30 m leads to an average 20% increase in the number of fatalities. The combined impact of sea level rise and population growth leads to an estimated doubling in the potential number of fatalities. Taking into account increasing probability of flooding due to sea level rise and extreme river discharges, the expected number of fatalities could quadruple by 2040. The presented results give a conservative and upper bound estimate of the increase of the risk level when no preventive measures are undertaken. It is found that the consideration of the exact spatial distribution of population growth is essential for arriving at reliable estimates of future risk of flooding.