The theme of the Index this year is how tough it’s getting to put together an index. This is because - and I’m injecting my take on their report here - the thick cloud of opinion on the environment (climate change mostly) is fogging over our ability to actually measure what’s going on. [For a similar point on this, see #1 here.]

Author Steven Hayward, co-author with Amy Kaleita, introduces the report this way [emphasis added]:

   Can it be that there is a simultaneous proliferation of environmental indicators and data along with a regression in our ability to track and assess environmental trends? The surprising—and troubling—answer is Yes.

   As this Index has reported for more than a decade, there is a veritable explosion in public- and private-sector efforts to develop environmental indicators on the macro and micro scale, such that it has become impossible to keep up. Indeed, it is tempting to change the name of this annual report to the Survey of Leading Environmental Indicators (in keeping with our goal of preventing the Index from becoming a phone book–sized data dump).

   James Boyd of Resources for the Future convened a workshop on environmental indicators in November of last year, at which he presented a number of challenging questions about the status and utility of our present indicator systems.[2]

   Are we able to answer the famous question from another context: Environmentally, are you better off than you were four years ago? Can we assess environmental performance—both institutional and in terms of the investments we are making in environmental protection? The answers are not encouraging. As Boyd and others have observed, despite our increasing technical sophistication and measurement tools, we still have not created, in the public sector, a coherent institutional structure for environmental indicators, analogous to the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Bureau of Education Statistics.

   With a few notable exceptions such as air quality, scientists and policy makers are still unable to draw on consistent data over time in many areas of environmental concern. We lack standardized measurements; we even lack a common environmental language. Many of the popular concepts, such as “sustainability” and “ecosystem services,” have not been developed beyond a level of vague generality.

   Above all, we still have substantial data gaps in important areas, and the gaps may be growing larger, as bureaucracies, facing fiscal constraints, cut back on monitoring in order to trim their budgets. The H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment details the problems in its Filling the Gaps[3] report, the most recent update to its important State of the Nation’s Ecosystems project. The Heinz Center estimates that the 10 most important gaps in our data about U.S. ecosystems could be filled for about $75 million a year—a rounding error for most federal agencies.

   Meanwhile, the United States is spending multiple billions a year on climate-change research, which is not surprising since climate change has become the environmental issue that dwarfs all others. Attempts to address the issue of climate change are beset by two general problems. First, since much of the research requires predicting conditions decades into the future, constructing objective indicators of climate change in the present has become a contentious pursuit. How much is statistical “noise” or natural variability, and how much is intrinsic to the phenomenon of rising levels of greenhouse gases?

   Though we will not attempt to wade into this controversy in the short compass of this report, we have expanded the climate-change section in this edition. We attempt to develop a set of policy-relevant indicators (i.e., data that do not depend on a particular climate model or theory to be correct) and a set of secondary indicators of variables that are of increasing public concern, such as storm intensity and sea-level rise.

   Second, the problem with discussions of climate change from a policy perspective is that the language of “skeptics versus alarmists” has put the issue into a straitjacket, leaving little room for a reasonable middle ground, or for people who believe our reach exceeds our grasp, in science and especially in policy.

   So for the first time the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators comes equipped with a DVD movie—“An Inconvenient Truth—or Convenient Fiction?”—that presents an alternative to the climate extremism that is popular with Hollywood and other pessimistic enclaves. Look for updates on this and other issues on the Web.

   Above all, this Index is designed to shine a spotlight on, and deepen our understanding of, environmental progress—the side of the environmental story that is seldom told. It does not shy away from the bad news or tell only the good news; however, the media and activist obsession with bad news skews our priorities and blinds us to ways of transferring our successes to areas where there has been less progress.

Like the previous editions, the info presented in this version is refreshingly accessible. Most folks won’t have any trouble understanding the air, water, hazardous chemical and climate data, and natural/cultural resources measurements contained in about 80 pages. 

Aside from that, this caught my eye (page 13):

Perhaps the most notable new development was the launching of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, in which conservative evangelical Christians embraced the issue and called for urgent political action.

Talking about the growth in interest in climate change since 2003, the authors point to an world-wide public relations effort rather than response to changing weather as the culprit. Christians shouldn’t be surprised that that PR effort has been going on in churches too.

This had a bigger impact on public opinion the writers give it credit for. Most folks in the US consider themselves Christians. Once they had the green light to wade into discussions on climate change, and once many Christian leaders (both Catholic and Protestant) started promoting action against it, a big national swing was pretty predictable.

I’m printing out a copy for my kids (recycled paper, of course), since it’s a good primer on environmental issues. If you’re a parent or teacher or just enjoy chewing on environmental issues by the water cooler, you’ll find it useful too.