Can Copenhagen Deliver on its Promises?

We are already witnessing the beginnings of a barrage of saturated media coverage about climate change and the upcoming Copenhagen conference. By the time the COP15 Conference at Copenhagen arrives it might be the only item in the news all over the world and that is good. We need to take some meaningful measures that could get us to move in the right direction. Who knows, we might even avoid the apocalypse.
The failure to reach an agreement to adopt an effective and clear plan of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be a major setback to the environmental efforts to avert a catastrophic climate change, an increase in temperature greater than 2 degrees Celsius. Sea level will rise, major ocean currents would be disrupted, monsoons and hurricanes will increase both in their frequency and intensity, crop failures will become more common, desertification will increase; life as we know it will become disrupted. What is at stake is surely the greatest challenge that civilization has ever faced and a successful Copenhagen meeting is a must.
Yet if we are to act as dispassionate observers of this process we will have no choice but to note the major logical fallacy upon which Copenhagen is built. The issue is not whether the world can afford not to decrease its GHG emissions; it can not. The real issue though is whether Copenhagen can deliver us out of this self inflicted quagmire? How can it possibly do that when we even refuse to look into the root cause of this problem? Anthropogenic emissions are simply the product of human economic activity and no one is proposing that we limit economic growth. The position at Copenhagen is nothing else but an exercise in a combination of major logical fallacies such as “argumentum ad populum” combined with “argumentum ad baculum”; a false argument based on the appeal to the majority and to fear.
Let me explain. One of the major efforts that the nations, represented at Copenhagen, will confront is that of reducing car emissions. It is widely believed that the move to hybrid engines and electric plug-in vehicles, in addition to more efficient engines, will turn out to be a major contribution in achieving the sought reduction in carbon emissions. But would it? The world produced over 70 million new vehicles during 2007 but under the best estimates all the hybrids and electric plug-in will not amount to more than 2 million units a year by 2015. If these numbers hold then that is a miserly 2% of the new cars, not to mention that China and India alone are slated to replace the United States as the number one producers of vehicles in the world. Emissions from China and India, both of whom are neighbours of Bangladesh, will not be regulated. Climate change is the largest infringement on the sovereignty of Bangladesh and yet it goes on each day of the year without firing a bullet or creating a political standoff. Even if we are to assume, as unlikely as it might be, that by 2020 one fifth of the newly manufactured in the world each year would be powered by either a hybrid or an electric engine, what about all the raw materials that has to be mined and processed in order to build all of these cars not to mention all the tires, spare parts, accidents and highways that they will generate and require? Would supplying all of these resources by “developing” countries be without a carbon footprint?
A more efficient car is a welcome development but a more efficient car will be useless in reducing the human impact on the ecosystem unless we are to simultaneously build fewer cars and consequently fewer garages, less highways, less spare parts use less resources and conserve our natural capital.
It is not sufficient to set up a goal. We must set up a goal accompanied by a workable plan otherwise the goal would best be classified as a wish. Imagine ,if you will, that all the water bottling facilities in Fiji ; whose products are shipped to North America and the rest of the world; are to become totally powered by energy acquired through either thermal solar , photovoltaic or wind turbines, would that then make the consumption of such water environmentally friendly? You decide.
As you can see from the above the need to cut down on GHG’s and carbon emissions is not questioned. What is at stake is our ability, or rather inability, to accept that climate change is nothing more than a manifestation of a systemic failure and such failures demand a total redesign of the system. If we cannot understand this most basic of all facts then all our efforts, as well intentioned as they might be will be for naught.

A podcast of the above can be heard at: ramblings11.mypodcast.com

Clean Water Act: Is It Time For A New One?

The following post is copied (with permission) from johncronin.net. Although ENV111 does not emphasize specific environmental problems, I urge you to read the attached especially if you plan to attend the panel discussion on September 22nd at 6:00pm. Please visit the Johncronin.net blog for many other interesting and informative articles.

WWW.JohnCronin.net

Friday, September 18, 2009
Imagine No Pollution

The Future & the Failed Clean Water Act

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

The Clean Water Act has failed. It is time for a new law.


There is a mistaken, popular belief that the central purpose of the 1972 Clean Water Act is to bring to justice the bad guys who are polluting the nation’s waters.


The Clean Water Act was written to create a global market place based on American innovation that would end pollution in our lifetime, and “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.”


But a list of the law's failed policies reads like an indictment of the law itself.

The first policy goal on the first page of the Clean Water Act is the elimination of the discharge of pollutants by 1985.

The law also sets a goal of making the nation’s waters fit for sports and recreation, and for fish and wildlife by July 1983.

It calls for management plans to end pollution from runoff, protect watersheds, and enhance water resources, in keeping with the 1983 and 1985 goals.

It requires the cessation of toxic discharges in toxic amounts.

It establishes a sweeping domestic and foreign policy on water designed to protect life and health here and abroad.

Indeed, the enormity of the Clean Water Act’s failure can be measured in lives. The law directs the Secretary of State to assist other nations in eradicating their water problems to “at least the same extent as the United States does under its laws.” But since the Clean Water Act was enacted, as many as 100 million people, mostly children in the developing world, have died from diseases related to water pollution. The Pacific Institute estimates that between 36 million and 70 million will die by 2020.
On the Hudson River, where I live, thousands of tons of municipal and industrial wastes are dumped annually. Sewage overflows are commonplace and people routinely swim near industrial and municipal outfalls. At least 7 major fish species are in decline and health advisories about toxins in fish have been in place for 34 years. At least one city has a drinking water intake within two miles of its sewage plant discharge, and another has an intake 35 miles downriver of a PCB Superfund site. As with most places in the nation, there is no regular monitoring or investigation of illnesses likely to have been induced by water contamination.

How was the Clean Water Act supposed to prevent such things?

It promised massive, continuing funding of research and development to transform the science and technology of pollution abatement and treatment worldwide.

It promised permanent capital funding of publicly owned municipal treatment facilities.

And it created a permit system to halt pollution. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System was supposed to accomplish precisely what its name says: systematically eliminate the discharge of pollutants.

It would be an exaggeration to say that these programs, and others in the law, have come to naught. But it is accurate to say that there is no date by which their goals can be accomplished -- and, obviously, no longer a date by which those goals must be reached.

We are left with this absurdity: the priority objective of the Clean Water Act today is to eliminate pollution 24 years ago.

It is not possible for EPA or the states to create a sense of purpose about clean water when the milestones of the Clean Water Act, the nation's most ambitious environmental law, came and went two and a half decades ago. A law that has been substantially unchanged for more than a generation cannot intelligently address “best available technology.” The EPA cannot even design new clean water programs and initiatives that are meaningful, since the very time line on which they would be founded is impossible, unless you own a time machine.

The United States needs a new Clean Water Act with new goals and milestones to take the place of the old, failed ones. The law must embrace, encourage and reward 21st century innovation. There should be generous incentives to exceed the requirements of law. It should create a brain trust of the most innovative minds, from research universities and private corporations in particular, charged with creating a pollution elimination marketplace that will equitably serve the entire planet. It should foster methods and technologies that are more effective, more robust, and cheaper to operate and maintain; expensive, antiquated technologies are enticements to violate the law. Unlike its predecessor, a new Act should make a priority of ecological and human health.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not need a new law to take substantive action on international water crises, and fulfill her obligation under the current law. More than 1.2 billion people live without potable water -- a statistic that should be unthinkable in 2009. Secretary Clinton can and should make global water assistance a priority of her portfolio. (See my posts on Iraq and Kenya.)

We need a vibrant, 21st century Clean Water Act that that will create a new sense of national and global purpose about water. Water is fast eclipsing climate change as a universal, environmental priority. Had the United States the political will to carry out the purposes of the original Clean Water Act it would today be a global leader on water issues, just when the world most needs it.

Can we imagine no pollution, as the courageous drafters of the 1972 Clean Water Act did? First we must swallow hard and admit that their original effort failed. Only then will the Congress and the president muster the courage to imagine that mission once again with a new, and better, Clean Water Act.

It Is Time To End GDP Fetishism

Most common discussions, by all kinds of media outlets all over the world, of the concept of social welfare of a particular society never fail to mention the state of the Gross Domestic Product, the GDP. This all popular macroeconomic variable has grown, despite its enormous shortcomings, to become a metric of what it was not designed to be in the first place. Very simply stated, the GDP is a money measure of the value of final goods and services that are produced by a particular society. Note that the concept does not pretend to say anything about the level of welfare but is only the summation of all what is produced without even deducting the damage that ensue from such levels of production and consumption . A simple common example might help illustrate this absurdity. If during a particular year, the number of expensive medical procedures undertaken in a state increases then the overall size of its GDP increases also. So if the GDP is such a good indicator of the social level of welfare then why not promote cigarette smoking in order to increase the incidence of lung cancer which will keep the surgeons busy and lead to a large rate of growth in the GDP? Of course such a policy would be rejected by all. But isn’t this exactly what we do when we allow firms to dump their toxic wastes into rivers and when we encourage workers to commute long distances from where they reside to their place of work. The concept is rife with problems that are too many to list and that economists and environmentalists have been pointing out for decades chief among them is the inability of GDP per capita to say anything about the all important income distribution. Wouldn’t it be more important to learn who had access to the increased output rather than to just say that output went up? It has often been the case that the all the growth in the GDP accrues to a small group of privileged economic class when ¾ of the population has in reality lost ground.
Environmentalists in general and environmental economists in particular have been in the forefront of an unremitting attack on the method of assembling national income statistics and in particular the GDP. These efforts have been helped over two decades ago by the work of Amartya Sen, the Noble laureate in Economics, through his pioneering work on how to measure poverty and social well being. His work has led, among other things, to the increasingly popular Human Development Index by the United Nations. The HDI ranks countries by creating an index that takes into consideration the level of GDP per capita but combines that with measures of literacy and life expectancy. As a result it becomes possible to rank a country with high literacy rate and a high life expectancy above one that enjoys a higher GDP per capita but lags in the other two indicators.
Two days ago Joseph Stiglitz, another Noble laureate in Economics, a Professor of Economics at Columbia University and an ex Chief Economist of the world Bank has joined ranks with the above group of advocates for a change in National Income Accounting. He called, in his capacity as a member of a group advising president Sarkozy of France, upon world economic leaders to “avoid GDP fetishism and… to stay away from that.” What a welcome message during these perilous economic times in a world that is clearly not sustainable. Bravo Dr. Stiglitz.
So what are the implications of such a change? You tell me. Is a growing GDP, accompanied by a growing poverty rate, inequitable distribution of income , larger public debt, higher unemployment, less electric power, a construction boom for the super wealthy, privatized public beaches, low minimum wage, environmental degradation in all fields and rampant corruption a sign of social justice and better social welfare?

No Real Global Commitment To Slow Down Climate Change

There is unanimity that climate change poses an enormous challenge to our specie. That is no longer debatable. But assessing the enormity of the problem is one thing and doing something meaningful about it is another. History is replete with examples of catastrophes that were hastened because of our inability or unwillingness to act. Every aspect of environmental degradation from climate change to desertification, from overfishing to deforestation, from population growth rates to malnutrition , from overproduction to overconsumption, from diminishing biodiversity to the unabiding trust in economic growth, from unjust distribution of income to neo imperialism, from unsustainable practices to the rejection of intrinsic value and from the conviction that the whole of creation was meant for our own whimsical use to the strong belief that humans are hard wired to be selfish is a vivid demonstration that “Homo Sapiens” ( wise humans) we are not. Yet we pretend that we are and furthermore we make believe that we are earnestly looking for a solution.
The upcoming COP 15 at Copenhagen scheduled for December 2009 was supposed to demonstrate our earnest desire in finally seeking a solution that is commensurate to the existential challenge of keeping climate change within an increase of 2 degrees centigrade. Well don’t hold your breath. The UN Development Chief Helen Clark has just issued a statement preparing us for the upcoming disappointment. She declares: “"If there's no deal as such, it won't be a failure. I think the conference will be positive but it won't dot every 'i' and cross every 't'." That does not make you very confident in the quality and commitment of international governance does it?
Kyoto and Copenhagen are about one issue only. If we believe, truly believe that climate change must be stopped and that it is essentially the result of human activity then we need to act and act promptly. Global calamity is about to strike and we have no one to blame but us. The Pogo Cartoon said it best over forty years ago” We have met the enemy and he is us”.
So what is the US, the worlds largest economy, doing about this problem? The US seems to have finally accepted the idea that it is its duty, nay its obligation, to reduce its carbon footprint since it is the greatest contributor to the anthropogenically produced carbon since the onset of the industrial revolution. Give the Obama administration its due credit. It plans to submit a plan to reduce the US contribution to the worldwide carbon emission through a cap and trade program. The proposed reductions are no where close to what they should be but they are greater reductions than what the previous administration has been willing to commit to. Under the proposed system of Cap and Trade the government will set a total level of emissions and issue against that standard permits. The emitters cannot collectively exceed the level mandated by the government but they are free to trade these permits among each other as they see fit. That does not sound so bad except the reduction in overall emissions is no where as major as the challenge dictates that it should be. The other problem, and may I suggest that this is just as major if not even more so, the government plans to give away gratis, for free, these permits to the corporations that pollute instead of auctioning these permits and raising the 100’s of billions of dollars that they are worth. Think about it, instead of asking the polluter to pay we are asking the already burdened tax payer to subsidize pollution. That is madness. But why would anyone give away for free that which is worth billions? Well we have already answered that question. Homo Sapiens we ain’t neither are we rational or even committed to the idea of biodiversity and sustainability.
And finally Iet me say that the US is not the only obstacle to finding a solution to climate change. China, India ,Brazil and Saudi Arabia are even more adamant that they do not have to apply any restraint to their level of economic activity, let the health of the global ecosystem be damned. One can easily add Russia and Indonesia to the group of countries that have to be dragged to adopt proforma carbon emission reduction targets. (The combined emissions of the above seven countries is over 56% of global carbon emissions). Enough said about our real concern for sustainability and biodiversity.

Human-Animal Bonds

Any way you look at it, E O Wilson is one of the greatest thinkers and most creative minds in the world. Besides being a professor at Harvard, having won two Pulitzer Prizes, is considered to be the world most renown authority on Ants, has established the controversial field of sociobiology,is given credit for popularizing the term Epic of Evolution has also coined the two words Consilience and Biophilia to describe a theory of knowledge and the innate tendency that bonds humans to other living things.

A new book by Meg Olmert , in the relatively young field of anthrozoology presents a strong argument about the strength of the attachment between humans and living things especially pets. As it is to be expected, this new book is in essence a total endorsement of the idea of Biophilia as originally explained by Wilson and also as might be expected he has offered his strong endorsement to the book.

Ms. Olmert shows rather convincingly that the strength of this relationship is totally biological. It is explained by the presence of the chemical Oxytocin which has been used to explain the bonding relationship between mothers and their children.

I have no doubt that Oxytocin is powerful and that it plays a major role in explaining our love for pets. But what I find difficult to accept is that Oxytocin is the only explanation for that special relationship between us and animals. If it were so simple then does that mean that Oxytocin injections will stop the mistreatment of animals and that we can all become Vegans?:-)

Monkeysphere / World Population/ Carbon emmissions

(1)The following URL should take you to an article suggested by Aaron Fetto from the NYC campus. It is a rather lengthy post but a very interesting read. Hat tip to Aaron.


http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

(Just copy and paste into your browser)

(2)A world population calculator in addition to CO2 emissions by country are nicely displayed on the following web site suggested by Fred Wolf. Tnx Fred.

breathingearth.net

(Copy the above into your browser)

Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink

The old rhyme of "The Old Mariner" has become an excellent description of the state of fresh water scarcity in the world. The UN and other international organizations have predicted that water will become one of the most sought after assets during the twenty first century. Actually geopolitical conflicts about water are not uncommon and with the approaching climate change and increased demand for water the conditions can only intensify.

Calculating carbon and ecological footprints has been common , at least in some circles, for a while. But now an organization has been attempting to highlight what it calls the water footprint per capita per year. As you look at the figures in the accompanying table you must resist the temptation of treating water as a non renewable resource. Water is not oil although the increase in demand makes it more scare.

A selective list of cubic meters of water used annually per capita:

Nation.................Cu. Meters/cap/annum

USA...........................2500

Italy.........................2300

France........................1900

Australia.....................1400

China..........................700

Furthermore it has been estimated that to produce a liter of milk requires 1000 liters of water , a kilogram of wheat 1350 liters of water and for each cup of coffee 1120 liters of water!!!!

Note: Does this mean that the Prius drivers should not stop at Starbucks any longer? :-)

Urban Sprawl

A major criticism of conventional, mainstream thinking is its inability to distinguish the forests from the trees, so to speak. There seems to be an overwhelming urge to be satisfied with describing symptoms when the urgent need is for an understanding of the root cause for the phenomenon in question.

"Descrirtive" analysis might not be totally useless but it fails to advance , meaningfully, our understanding of the dynamics behind the issue of concern.To suggest that environmental degradation is caused by excessive pollution is a "no brainer" when in fact what is instrumental is an understanding of the reason why we pollute.

This line of "shallow environmentalism" has become so widely spread that it is not an exaggeration to suggest that it might have become the norm. And that is tragic. One current example where this "shallow" analysis has become often applied is that of Urban Sprawl. There is no doubt that urban sprawl is one of the most destructive developments that we are confronting but to suggest that urban sprawl is related to numbers of inhabitants goes a long way in mismanaging the problem. No doubt that numbers can and often do play a role but may I suggest that the single most important issue in urban sprawl is NOT connected to numbers. Urban sprawl is very much the result of a life style, a habit of consumption and an accepted standard of living. Urban sprawl is very much a product of a feeling of entitlement that every family is to live in a ranch home spread over an acre of land with a swimming pool in the backyard and a three car garage in front. A recent study by the EU concluded that 65% of material use and 70% of global warming potential is related to urban areas. And yet uncontrolled, rampant urbanization is not only accepted but is even encouraged the world over.
Yet, is there a justification for the following:

Unintended Consequences

It has been well known for years that Global Warming cannot be reversed. The best that we can hope for is to adopt policies and enact measures that are commensurate to the challenge i.e. reduce the level of emissions to such an extent as to avoid what scientists consider to be a catastrophic outcome.
Unfortunately the latest comprehensive studies and the latest sophisticated computer models done by the EU show that if the growth in carbon emissions is to be maintained at the current global rate of 1.9% annual growth then the catastrophic increase of 2 degrees Centigrade would be assured. That will cause the Greenland Icesheet to disappear, floods to become more frequent and more severe, oceans level to increase, crops to fail, rate of extinction to gain and disease to spread.
As bad as the above scenarios might be, at least they do not threaten to change the globe into a wasteland and to visit upon all species the dangers of strange mutations and nuclear winter. So why would we want to fight global warming by encouraging the wider adoption of nuclear energy? Could it be because Homo Sapiens (wise humans)we are not?

Is This For Real?

We have all heard the term shallow environmentalism but I never thought that shallowness could become sooooo thin.
The upcoming Grammy Awards is planning on promoting the annual music bash as a Green event. Only in la la land would a person have the temerity to speak about becoming green by advocating high fashion , stylish items , extravagant consumption, a 4 hour gala with all sorts of sumptous food and a bag of totally unnecessary but expensive freebies.
This years Grammys is being congratulated for its environmental commitment and its devotion to mother nature. After all,each of the lucky participants will be given a free Infinity Sun treatment in addition to traditional "bag of swag" and the "green with Music" celebration. All environmentalists should take note that a sunless anti aging tan is such a major step in fostering environmental awareness and spreading the belief in simple life styles, no growth and sustainability that we should all rejoice at this development. Please tell me that all of this is a dream or more aptly a nightmare.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

It is always most gratifying when positive developments occur at a place where they were least expected to happen. Environmental awareness is an idea that is not expected to be compatible with the operating philosophy of the largest retail establishment in the world; WAL MART. The company had become a symbol for profligate consumption, wrong labour practices, stingy health care, irresponsible corporate behaviour and a monopolistic price fixer. To be candid with you, the above is an adequate description of my views regarding this firm. But then I learned about the relative success that they have had with their sustainability initiatives over the past 2-3 years.

Wal Mart is so big and so powerful that no one, and I mean no one, can afford not to play by its rules, not even General Electric or Proctor and Gamble. When the retail behemoth adopted its sustainability initiatives it forced GE to supply it with 100's of millions of CFL (light bulbs that save 75% on electric use and last for 8-10 years). Thanks to Wal Mart's new policies P&G has was encouraged to reinvent the way laundry detergents are produced. As a result the consumers have saved millions of gallons of water,millions of pounds of plastic, millions of pounds of cardboard in addition to the millions of gallons of diesel fuel.

Am I seriously suggesting that these few developments are enough to lift Wal Mart into the pantheon of environmentally friendly companies? Of course not but I am suggesting that we need to commend Wal Mart for what it has done and we need to make sure that management understands that they have an obligation to continue to implement "sustainability initiatives" all across the company and all across its departments. To pick up the low fruits is not enough.

Arguably the most eloquent case for biodiversity , sustainability and environmental justice has never been made clearer than in the words of Aldo Leopold when he wrote:

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

But is it possible to liberate nature and preserve its integrity without first liberating ourselves from discrimination and injustice? Of course not. But this time around there is more optimism in the air than at any other time. I know that the honeymoon would not last for long but maybe, just maybe this time will be different and this land will be really and truly made for you and me. Pete Seeger has managed to restore to the glorious Woody Guthrie song the two stanzas that have been excised for decades:

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!


In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.


We are all in your debt Pete Seeger for having the courage to use the above words as you lead thousands of US citizens in a sing along during the pre Obama inauguration festivities.

Frivolty is in the eye of the Beholder

Only the Necessities of Life

I have always found it sad and amusing at the same time that very few, if any, practice praxis. It seems that individual humans are endowed with an uncanny ability to ask others to abide by certain principles that they hold themselves to be exempt from. The sad thing about the above is that, more often than not, they do not realize the logical absurdity of their position.

These seminal contradictions are found across all fields and they span all regions. One of the most absurd positions is to be found among the practitioners of the new religion of environmentalism. Often the strongest advocates of the need to act in an ecofriendly way are the rich and the wealthy. They campaign for alternative clean energy, take a strong stand against industrial farming and demonstrate to prevent deforestation.

Each of the above is a noble goal in itself but the irony is that those who are the most vocal in their demands are often the largest abusers of what they want us to protect. Many of these advocates who favour a smaller footprint are the most extravagant consumers. They are more often than not the ones who take the ski trips to far away places, live in homes of over 5000 Sf, but with an expensive PV system on the roof, subscribe to every imaginable magazine and do their food shopping at WholeFoods.

The same phenomenon is to be observed among those who advocate high tariffs against imported goods. They are the jet set that drives the Benzes, Beemers in addition to the Lexuses and Infinitis. This is often the same crowd who is worried about the trade deficit and wants measures that would reduce the availability of Chinese made goods at Wal Mart as long as the availability of the $50,000.00 Patek Phillip watches , the $2,000.00 Gucci hand bags and the $500.00 Italian shoes is not reduced.

This disconnect between what we say that we want and what we do has become so widely spread as to not spare anyone. Infamous Judge Robert Bork [linked story] whose failed nomination to the Supreme Court preoccupied the nation for months has written, lectured and campaigned vigorously against frivolous suits brought up by individuals against corporations and other large institutions. What is unbelievable is that the same judge, Bork, slipped as he was leaving the dais at Yale University during one of his appearances and he promptly sued the University for negligence and for physical pain and psychological traumas. The same person who has campaigned tirelessly against frivolous law suits brought one himself asking for a million dollars in compensation. Ironically he denied, with a straight face, the contradiction when he was confronted with it.

I guess that frivolity is in the eye of the beholder.

Earth Day 2008

Our scientific, technological and modern world is built on a strong belief in the autonomy of the natural system and the unbounded resourcefulness of science and technology as tools to understand the universe. This belief has brought us the nuclear threat, pollution, defoliation and a ravaged wilderness, all symptoms of an environmental crisis that puts the very existence of the human race and life on earth in jeopardy. It is time for a new relationship with nature, one motivated by equity, liberation and harmony.

The golden age of science that ushered in the industrial revolution began with Copernicus who set in motion a series of inquiries that culminated over 300 years ago with the publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Methods of scientific explanation spread widely, permeating the social fabric of Western Society and the globe. Science would free us from the burdens of scarcity and help us conquer nature. Our productivity and consumption would increase. It certainly did, and we are now in an age of bondage to materialism and estrangement from each other, where middle class sensibilities motivated by self interest have brought us to the environmental precipice.

We are working harder and craving more in an effort to fulfill an internal emptiness which no level of material consumption can satisfy. The priority assigned to production must be de emphasized if we are to deal successfully with the ruin that our technical society has bestowed on us.

Our technology, dominated as it is by a Newtonian mechanistic paradigm that emphasizes quantity over quality, fails to recognize the elementary law of matter based on the second law of thermodynamics which says that any productive process is simply an irrevocable and irreversible transformation of low entropy into high entropy: in other words, the greater the level of activity, the less the availability of resources for the future.

It is regrettable that the field of Economics has not fully realized its entropic nature and underpinnings. It might have warned that bigger is not always better. The world, intoxicated with the idea of consumption, measures progress in quantifiable terms. A larger gross domestic product must go hand in hand with a “better” standard of living. Our strong identification with material consumption has led to misguided, false and even sacrilegious principles for economic development that are based on the central role that capital is expected to play in the transformation of a traditional society to an industrial one. The phrase “Economic Development” is itself culturally imperialistic because it denotes a specific pattern of consumption, production and behavior that is to be aspired to by all regardless of whether qualitatively the new level of aspiration is desirable. Growth-mania is a concept that is predicated on an anthropocentric view where everything is sacrificed for the attainment of growth even though the process may be built on greed and hedonistic acquisitiveness, a lack of meaning and purpose and with no distinction made between good and bad. This spirit of greed was best captured by J.S. Mill when he said: “Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men”. Neither the welfare of generations to come nor the irreparable deterioration of our delicate ecosystem are issues in our economic growth models. That threatens us all with a horrific future.

Nonetheless, an economic system is shaped by the mores and values of society, and there lies our hope for the future. We must change our values and adopt a new paradigm that respects Earth, looks to the future and concerns itself with equity and sharing. We must go outside the realm of science and examine what kind of economic and political order should prevail.

A society cognizant of the law of entropy would reallocate finite resources towards socially and environmentally responsible uses. The more we use our resources the less we will have for the future. Anthropocentric visions need to be modified and developed to teach an eschatology that liberates and makes progress meaningful. No level of activity, economic or otherwise, is justifiable unless it is simultaneously sustainable. We must learn to respect and protect nature since we are part of it and not apart from it. It is only then that we will be imbued with the high sense of ethics that is a prerequisite for correcting our environmental transgressions.

The environmental crisis has given us a future of uncertainty. Let that challenge us to introduce hope into our models by adopting:

(1) Consumption habits that can promote sustainability by putting to rest the infatuation with economic growth.

(2) Eliminate dependence on fossil fuels in an effort to contain the damage done through global warming.

(3) Preserve ecological diversity by protecting the intrinsic rights of all specie.

(4) Adopt measures that will prevent the human population from any further growth.

Unless the above are to be incorporated into our global policies and models then humanity will be looking towards a future with no hope. And that will be tragic.

And finally, dear reader, ask yourself the question whether the current political, social economic , demographic and environmental policies of any country in the world are sustainable?

Your Opinion Matters

I would like to invite each of you to post your opinion on whether you regard population as an environmental problem and if so what would be your policy of choice to confront that challenge. (There will be mana from heaven for those that respond :-))

Is you is or is you ain't?

Oh how I wish that I can report on an event that is both ecologically friendly and yet meaningful at the same time. Unfortunately these events are so rare that I have no recollection of when the last such event took place.

We are all aware of how the whole world pretends to be concerned about climate change. It is accepted by everyone that global warming, leads to climate change and potentially catastrophic consequences for all of us all over the globe and it is equally accepted that the major cause for global warming is the increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. One would naturally expect that once the potential negative result of an event is clear to all and once practically everyone is in agreement about the major cause for that potential calamity then we would take meaningful action to stop the acts that lead to the inevitable catastrophe. Well let us review the record: The global Meteorological association has just released ( on Friday Nov 23, 2007) its most recent findings regarding carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen again during 2006 to the historical high of over 386 ppm which is over 36 % above what the concentration used to be at the beginning of the industrial revolution. My only question ; with apologies to King Cole; Is you is or is you ain't (CO2 that is) the cause of climate change? If CO2 concentration is the cause then why , in the name of whatever you hold dear, aren't we doing anything about it? Could it be because we are not serious about climate change? You bet.

Our $ Share

"Nations that have grown rich in part by polluting without facing the costs of doing so must now repay their carbon debt to the developing world," said Andrew Pendleton, author of "Truly Inconvenient - tackling poverty and climate change at once."

According to an estimate done by a British economist developed countries need to spend about 1% of their current GDP on efforts to help contain Global warming. Given that the US GDP is estimated to be at over $14 Trillion then our fair annual share would be around $140 billion. Would we ever pay even a tenth of that some? Do pigs fly?

Another Gloomy Environmental Assessment

You are encouraged to take a look at a relatively exaustive analysis of the Global Environmental Outlook by visiting the site of UNEP and then clicking on GEO 4.

Sink, What Sink?

The original estimates about the expected level of Carbon dioxide concentration have been too high. Upon further investigations the anomaly was resolved. It turns out that the oceans and the forests do sequester about 50% of all the carbon dioxide that is emitted by human activity. That was the good news otherwise the anticipated rise in temperature would have been far greater that what it has been.
Now for the not so good news. Scientists at the University of Anglia have outfitted some ships with instruments that can measure the level of carbon dioxide that has been absorbed by the waters that they ply. The data supplied by these ships that have traveled the North Atlantic is totally unexpected. Actually if this preliminary finding proves to be accurate then it does not bode well for climate change.
The newly collected observations show that the North Atlantic is absorbing only half of the carbon dioxide that it used to absorb.That is a huge drop by any measure. If this proves to be accurate and if it turns out to be true for the other oceans then we have to revisit most of the projections that had assummed a carbon sink that is much larger than what the current data suggest that it is.

Nobel Peace Prize ups pressure for climate action

It is not clear whether Al Gore would have been as influential in spreading the case for the need to take action to control Global Warming had he been elected as a President of the United States. Actually, it would be safe to assume that he would not have had the time to work on "Inconvenient Truth" neither would his message been regarded as an objective assessment . In an ironic twist, it sure was good for Environmentalism and for humanity that the Supreme Court stopped the recounting of votes in Florida. The wonderful unforseen consequence of that act by the supremes is the awawarding of the Nobel peace prize to Mr. Gore and the IPCC .

This award has in effect broadened the definition of peacekeeping operations and it is hoped that the resulting awarness that it brings to the effort to contain Global Warming will play a major role in shaping an effective global policy in a few months from now in Bali.

Not everyone is rejoicing though. As it is to be expected the dissenters, such as Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, were skeptical of the relationship between global warming and world peace. Obviously the Nobel Committee does not agree with the skeptics . They emphasized that rising sea levels, more floods, droughts and desertification will only lead to " increased danger of violent conflicts and wars".