*Note that author affiliations are from 2022
Ethical Analysis of the 2019-21 Locust Epidemic – PDF VERSION
Anirudh Bharadwaj1, Justin Shnayder2, Jansen Wong3, Alan Zhu4, Miriam Rafailovich5, Brooke Ellison5
1Lynbrook High School, San Jose, CA 95129, 2Staten Island Technical High School, Staten Island, NY 10306, 3Great Neck South High School, Great Neck, NY 11020, 4Livingston High School, Livingston, NJ 07039, 5Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794
A recent locust epidemic has swept across Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and is continuing toward Southern Asia. It seems almost unbelievable that in today’s day and age, locusts, a major problem thousands of years ago, are still causing significant damage. Unfortunately, it is because of a recent development that these locusts are able to come back en masse: global warming. Under the normal, dry, and arid condition found in Eastern Africa and the Middle East, locusts behave like normal grasshoppers. However, when certain environmental conditions are met, usually from a lot of rainfall and humidity, the locusts transform into a ravenous swarm1. This specific infestation was caused by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD). The parity of the Indian Ocean Dipole dictates the direction the precipitation formed over the Indian Ocean will move. A positive dipole means that westerly winds are weak and precipitation will head towards eastern Africa. Usually, pIODs happen once every 17.3 years. However, due to climate change, this number is expected to drop to 6.3 years, almost a third of the previously observed time2. Additionally, global warming is also affecting the severity of cyclones over the Arabian Sea. These cyclones could reach an 11% increase in intensity by 21003, 4. With more frequent pIODs leading to more severe cyclones, the frequency of locust infestations will continue to rise and harm life in its surrounding area.
Already, locusts have caused a severe disruption to the food supply chain in East Africa, the epicenter of the locust crisis. East Africa consists primarily of developing nations, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, among others, which already have an unstable food supply. The scale of the disruption caused by the epidemic is such that at least 20 million people in these developing nations are at risk of losing food supplies and their economic livelihood. These results of the plague primarily affect agricultural sectors which developing economies largely depend on5. Exacerbating the issue, techniques to control the outbreak are also segregated by affluence. Recently developed biopesticides are still a relative rarity, and are only commonly available in developed nations such as the US and Western Europe. The areas hit hardest by the epidemic, East Africa and the Indian subcontinent, are forced to settle for chemical pesticides that severely pollute the surrounding environment.
While the horn of Africa bore the brunt of the desert locust outbreak, the nations responsible for driving pIODs (and the associated rainfall) are located in different parts of the world. The underlying culprit behind this phenomenon are carbon emissions. As carbon is released, it functions as a reservoir of heat, trapping it within the Earth and resulting in more frequent pIODs.7 Interestingly, an analysis of countries by CO2 emissions per capita revealed that all of the countries that were affected by the locust outbreak (with the exception of Seychelles) fell in the bottom quintile of the ranking.8 However, comparatively more industrialized nations such as Qatar, Kuwait, Canada, and Montenegro reported the highest CO2 emissions per capita.8 Not only does this pose an ethical dilemma, in which industrialized nations continue to exploit natural resources at the expense of their agrarian counterparts, it also poses an incentive: East Africa is one of the world’s largest exporters of agriculture, and taking measures to prevent locust outbreaks can help ensure its ecological stability. Thus, as CO2 emissions rise in tandem with the average temperature of Earth’s waters, the frequency of pIODs (and in turn locust outbreaks) is poised to dramatically increase unless measures are taken to mitigate said emissions.
Although it may be difficult for many countries to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions, more developed countries and regions can try to offset the effects of their greenhouse gas emissions by compensating the affected nations through projects, services, and monetary methods. In terms of CO2 emissions, it doesn’t matter if the greenhouse gases are offset elsewhere from where they are produced—in this case, effector countries can invest in carbon dioxide reduction projects in affected countries to reduce the overall global impacts of their emissions9. However, this is only possible if the countries generating the bulk of CO2 emissions recognize that their actions are dangerous to the future of mankind. These ideas form the basis of carbon dioxide compensation.
The exact amount of compensation is determined by several established standards, including the Gold Standard, which includes emissions, job creation, and health aspects in its consideration of compensation projects10. Another, the Clean Development Mechanism, requires that projects be certified by the UN Climate Secretariat11. A third, the Verified Carbon Standard, is the most widely used voluntary standard for offsetting, and relies on the issue of certificates to sustainability project developers, which can then be sold to others who wish to offset their emissions12. While more certification programs certainly do exist, they all aim to use resources paid by polluters to fund projects such as those that increase energy efficiency, reduce or integrate carbon dioxide, decrease the effects of deforestation, and improve emissions in waste and transport. The proceeds of these programs can be used to fund more efficient energy generation and improve the quality of life for those living in the affected Arab countries through sustainability projects. Although climate compensation through projects that offset the impact of carbon dioxide emissions may be effective, avoiding and reducing the amount of CO2 produced should still be prioritized especially in the countries with the highest CO2 emissions per capita.
1 Baskar, Pranav. “Locusts Are a Plague of Biblical Scope in 2020. Why? And … What Are They Exactly?” NPR, NPR, 14 June 2020. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/14/876002404/locusts-are-a-plague-of-biblical-scope-in-2020-why-and-what-are-they-exactly
2 Cai, W., Wang, G., Weller, E., Santoso, A. (2014). Increased frequency of extreme Indian Ocean Dipole events due to greenhouse warming. Nature, 510(7504):254-8.
3 Knutson, T., McBride, J., Chan, J. et al. Tropical cyclones and climate change. Nature Geosci 3, 157–163 (2010).
4 Stone, Madeleine. “East Africa’s Plague of Locusts and the Bizarre Climate Science behind It.” Science, National Geographic, 3 May 2021. Retrieved from www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/locust-plague-climate-science-east-africa.
5 Salih, Abubakr A., et al. “Climate Change and Locust Outbreak in East Africa.” Nature Climate Change, vol. 10, no. 7, 2020, pp. 584–585., doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0835-8.
6 Mishra J, Dutta V, Arora NK. “Biopesticides in India: technology and sustainability linkages.” 3 Biotech. 2020 May, vol 10m no. 5, pp, 210,. doi:10.1007/s13205-020-02192-7.
7 Cai, W., Wang, G., Gan, B. et al. Stabilised frequency of extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole under 1.5 °C warming. Nat Commun 9, 1419 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03789-6
8 “Unstats | Millennium Indicators.” United Nations. United Nations. Web. 12 Aug. 2021.
9 Irfan, Umair. “Can You Really Negate Your Carbon Emissions? Carbon Offsets, Explained.” Vox. Vox, 27 Feb. 2020. Web. 12 Aug. 2021.
10 “A Higher Standard.” The Gold Standard. Web. 12 Aug. 2021.
11 “The Clean Development Mechanism.” Unfccc.int. United Nations Climate Change. Web. 12 Aug. 2021.
12 “Verified Carbon Standard.” Verra. 23 Apr. 2021. Web. 12 Aug. 2021.