RE: LACK OF MITIGATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF HUMANITY
(from a Massachusetts perspective)The suggestions presented below are but a part of a consistent program to redirect society in ways that minimize the consumption of
Ecological Capital. Green Diamond Systems commits to following the actions of all public figures, executive, legislative, judicial, business, and financial in their application of constructive thought to this end. It is obvious to any caring person that limits must be part of the human experience. These limits must be clearly defined and maintained for all people.If people in places of responsibility, especially the Committee to Study CO2 Reduction (now convened 3-98 by the MA Division of Energy and MA EOEA), disregard their duties to develop, explain, and maintain these limits, other organizations will have no other course but to work to convene a process that will ultimately hold such irresponsible individuals in contempt of natural law. (Join StepItUp-2007 - because the level of activity is sadly lacking!) It is clear that the lack of constructive acts by those in control is analogous to the complicity of many normal citizens with the NAZI program of human genocide. Unfortunately, the scale of such complicity is greater than ever. The first targets of review of performance will be those who were empowered with the ability to communicate the message of environmental limits, but who dabbled in inconsequential or diversionary acts.
It has been more than 9 (plus another 9 -1998-2007) years since Dr. James Hansen, of NASA, declared global warming a fact. For the last half of that period the MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (MA EOEA) has patronized the Global Change Task Force (GCTF) of the Massachusetts Association of Professional Foresters (MAPF) in their efforts to develop a practical means of using the forests of MA to ameliorate some of the carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution(1) that originates in this state. At times, those patronizing efforts have included provision of a graduate student to study their proposals(2). The latest occurrence of such stalling involved a six month wait for a US EPA funded study commission to further test these ideas.
During these nine years, we have seen the solidification of the global economy with the approval of NAFTA and the maturation of the World Trade Organization(3), and the acceleration of the business of creating "NEEDS"(4). During each of those nine years we have seen the addition of about 90,000,000 new people to be cared for by the ecosystem of this earth. This nine year addition of people equals 3 times the present population of this country(5). Every one of these new individuals will want to have the same kind of life support systems ("quality of life")(6) that we have in this country. Yet in MA we have witnessed growing alienation of our youth as they are trespassed from meaningful work and "abandoned" by their family as both parents have to work at jobs that take them away from home(7).
The developing "El Nino" has already brought very unusual weather to the South American coast and our western states are bracing for a very bad winter. The prediction for the NE is for a very active winter. Last winter we had two very heavy snow storms that left some areas without power for up to six days after each storm. These abnormal weather patterns are likely to be the result of global warming.
Even President Clinton has begun to try to negotiate a solution to significantly reduce the level of annual CO2 emissions from this country. His efforts have met nothing but criticism from the powerful, who profit from the use of fossil fuels(8).
Locally, power companies have been singled out by the MA regulatory community as major CO2 emitters(9) who might be made to limit their externalization of costs through emissions banking and trading. This has led to a variety of measures by these companies. One of their activities successfully contested such regulation in court. Other less aggressive actions have resulted in considerable money being spent out of state on projects that may be construed to provide a basis for later claims of conscientious "protection" of the environment. This same regulatory community has been silent about the real need for restraint in both personal consumption and business innovation involving unsustainable(10) ways of doing things. The activities of companies that expect to be targets for future regulation frequently take MA generated revenues and transfer them to foreign sites that provide cheap remediation. These efforts are difficult to document, and little value has to be given up for the impression of good stewardship(11). In the process, our citizens are encouraged to feel that they have no responsibilities for the effects of their energy choices! They are told it is okay for them to dump their garbage on someone else half a world away.
This perception must change, but it can not change unless people hired as environmental spokespersons and business and financial leaders engage in regular and effective communication about the breadth of the problem. It is true that the MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (MA EOEA) has had some impact on various sectors of the energy consuming economy. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, piecemeal approaches to this problem are not sufficient to address the persistent efforts of corporations to spread the message, that profligate consumption has no consequences, to all potential consumers.
While the above problems are certainly of a global nature, MA EOEA is responsible for articulating a consistent environmentally responsible message to the citizens of the Commonwealth. The only message that is getting through is that token efforts at change are sufficient while we enjoy the status quo. An example of MA EOEA’s misplaced attention is the recent MDC Forest Certification by Smart Wood. In the final analysis, the Quabbin forestry should not be at issue. The population density in the coastal estuaries should be the focus. The water supply for people in these areas is a facilitator of this high population. Population can not be limited if limits are continually removed by the government.
The members of
AFMO believe that there is sufficient evidence on many fronts that MA EOEA and all MA business must act in a more forthright manner to limit the consumptive choices that everyone is making. There is little question that the world can not support 8,000,000,000 people with an average annual income of the normal MA resident. We believe that our forests are correctly described in the U.S. Global Change Research Program publication Our Changing Planet(12). There it is pointed out that the current rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration increase is limited by the youthful vigor of the northeastern forest. They state that they expect that the rate of CO2 incorporation will decrease as this forest ages over the next 50 years. The effective management of this resource is important for many reasons, but this protective aspect is a significant one that is being avoided by all fossil fuel consumers with the government’s blessing. Both the lack of attention to our forests, and the runaway advocacy of consumption by business (and government) must change. The following suggestions are a few of the possibilities that could provide a positive benefit to the State while helping to curtail the impact of our current lifestyle.Deregulation of the power generation system:
In 1995 an engineer at the MA Public Utilities Commission stated to me that the average delivered efficiency of the power grid was about 15 to 20% of the energy content of the fuel consumed. The power companies have succeeded in making the process very complicated. The reasons for, and details of how to make good choices have been lost. (For an update of this observation use this link.) This is a period in which local generation and personal responsibility for energy should be highlighted. Several new technologies could do a lot to reduce the effects of humans and their energy choices. These involve the use of all wastes for the generation of power to fill local needs. It is possible to make methane with passive systems that are maintained within walking distance of a dwelling. This methane can be used in the generation of electricity, provision of heat for growing food, heating facilities, and sterilization of wastes. The off gas of such a system is rich in CO2, which could be used to grow food. The presence of the complete system in a neighborhood could eliminate the need for upgrading septic systems(13). These human wastes could provide some of the renewable substrates for methane production. The regular transfer of these wastes to such a facility would limit the loss of methane now being produced to the atmosphere. Local use of resources would increase the possibility that the nutrients would be recycled to the land. Such local use would reduce the chance that "clean human wastes" would be mixed with heavy metals from industrial processes thus becoming a hazardous waste.Problem personal junk mail
: The subsidies granted for corporate contact with potential markets as an area of public policy should be given regular environmental critique.Endorsing Sustainable systems:
The only local government commission that has a mandate to promote conservation of natural resources is the Conservation Commission within Town Government. However, the mandate of that commission has become clouded by the need to approve unsustainable projects. These projects have frequently involved ensuring that the growing town will continue to have a supply of potable water, even though its growth is patently unsustainable. Thus, the Conservation Commission has become an apologist board for this unsustainable development.It is important to restore the original function to the Conservation Commission. Namely, encouraging and maintaining as many truly sustainable activities within a town as possible. It should also be an advocate for these functions when confronted with those who would prosper through unsustainable acts. The Major functions of the current "Conservation Commissions" should be transferred to an "Unsustainable Activity Apologist Board" which would have to justify the proposed activities by ensuring that there were no externalized costs(14) that were occasioned by this proposal. The kind of housing that now provides developers with large profits, and destroys local agricultural and forest land in the process, also involves many externalized costs. Many towns, seeking revenues to cover the costs of services required by previous development, tax undeveloped land that is or could be used in sustainable activities at rates that guarantee that the land will soon be used for a stronger income producing purpose. Frequently this use is less than sustainable, and eventually cost the town more than it receives in taxes from these new occupants.
The MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has experienced significant difficulties in managing our public forests. The forests of MA are sustainable. Management of a forest may take many forms. Management that contributes to reduction of the load society is placing on local ecosystems is much more active than what is currently being done by DCR. A minimal level of management involves removal of mortality (dead trees) before it is degraded to non-utility, and ensuring that there are processing facilities for such material near to the site of production. Neither of these kinds of functions are being done by this agency. Instead, DCR has developed an initiative to patrol the actions of private foresters with a sophisticated web of regulations and oversight of most forest activity. None of this activity adds to the effectiveness of the private forester. DCR is not a model of enlightened activity(15) rather it is a stumbling block for those who would suggest that forest use is appropriate in our time.
Paper recycling and education of children in sustainable systems:
Artists prefer to use hand made paper. Schools have become child control points (minimum security detention areas) rather than practical life skill transfer points. Recent educational and psychological research has shown that children have a critical period for acquisition of skills. This period is marked by rapid neural pathway formation. Language skill acquisition is something we all are familiar with, but less obvious is the need to acquire skills that use other parts the body. Such skills in earlier time involved normal community function. Today these functions have been taken over by the use of energy, and are not available to children for a variety of reasons(16).One way to reconnect children with self-maintenance is to enable and encourage them to recycle the paper they use in their daily life. Certainly, this will be vigorously opposed by paper companies and teacher’s unions(17). However, the process is quite simple. Personal paper making could serve to provide many of the skills that were previously gained by other means. All children should be responsible for their own paper use. The older students could even be involved in the development of the machines and methods to make hand sheets(18) and in teaching younger colleagues how the process works.
Local waste recycling:
Most people do not think of their energy choices as generating wastes other than smog. Local CO2 recovery is possible within the State. CO2 recovery is feasible through increasing the rate of uptake of carbon by trees(19). No other natural terrestrial function in MA is able to sequester carbon for an appreciable period. It is appropriate to use industrial profits generated here from the use of fossil fuels to clean up the pollution thus produced, and it can serve as a reminder that there are consequences to choices made every day. There may be resistance to the use of our forested area for this purpose by people who would rather see the forest untouched(20). It is important to point out that the forest is at grave risk from the consequences of this energy use. If citizens want the forest left alone and healthy, they will have to cease their use of fossil fuels and not consume forest products either. It is not appropriate to export either waste recovery or pollution to other regions. Thus, a significant effort must accompany any forest based recovery program to educate the critics of such a program. It is not appropriate to try to dodge criticism as environmental groups have done in the past, or to make sustainable activities bear the brunt of anger of an uninformed public.Analyze the source of the unsustainable mentality:
A track that no governmental environmental organization has taken is to try and understand why we have the problems that we have, and to come up with long-term strategies to cope with the changes that must eventually take precedence over the massive population growth and out of control consumption that is the norm. There are many fronts that this analysis could involve. A suggestion for how to proceed: Where do the initial ideas for the products and motivators for all these problems arise? What are the support disciplines that are invoked by those who benefit from them? Possible places to look: Major research expenditures could be the basis of unsustainable thought. Lack of connection of the thinker and the results of that thought. Disciplines that justify incomplete models of reality provide crutches to sloppy thinking. Several that come to mind are – economics, labor and safety engineering, and educational administration to name a few.Population control:
Limits on anything are anathema to the citizen of today. There are many reasons to keep local populations in balance and to limit in migration to MA to low levels. Especially since all of MA is within 200 miles of the Atlantic coast, its population should decline rather than continue to grow.Redefine the mission of the Defense Department:
Within a climatically vulnerable State such as MA defense involves much more than protection from external attack. The storms of last winter have already been described, however, no viable defensive system is in place to protect the citizens from the chaos that can follow such a climatic disaster. Many of the problems discussed above have their origin in the unsustainable thought that has been fostered by the current DOD mission statement. If maintenance of a sustainable population base were included in such a mission statement, the research base would have to shift to include those functions needed for sustainability.NOTES:
1 MA EOEA Policy Staff identified that all pollution originates with the use of energy. CO2 emissions are the least visible sign of this pollution, but it is none the less real, and a problem that must be faced with resolve or will create unpredictable problems for us all.
2
Miss Jennifer Rooks was assigned to study the proposed MAPF GCTF CO2 Recovery Certificate Program as her Masters Thesis at Tufts Univ. 93/94. Her appraisal of the program was that it had merit and implementation hinged only on finding a way to characterize the uptake certification and the generation of the market for such certification.3
This is significant because these "governmental" organizations facilitate he corporate conversion of "wants into needs" throughout the world. This conversion is dependent on fossil fuels for its transfer of commodities, on the ability of corporations to externalize most of their costs, and on governmental acceptance of their continued abrogation of responsibility for the people, and Environmental Capital that is squandered in the process.4
Today the business of developing markets is viewed as "normal". Adam Smith, author of the Wealth of Nations, understood that business competition should be based on equality of many local suppliers to serve local needs. Normal innovation today seeks to use energy resources to develop a way out of Adam Smith’s normal competition. This use of energy is almost always unsustainable. If there are no limits on consumption the human imagination has no comparable limitation either. Unfortunately, biological systems always have limits.5
An interesting observation on the population problem is given in When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten . He proposes that as land and property of subsistence farmers is appropriated by the wealthy or corporate interests, the families turn to having more children as a means to protect them in their old age. He contends that this was unnecessary in their sustainable villages because the extended family of the village provided that function. Certainly increased female education is a positive factor, but the skills developed frequently depend more on fossil fuels and solutions leading to less than sustainable means of family support. These unsustainable solutions by definition are eventually self-defeating.6
Korten describes the process corporations have used (with the blessing of the governmental elite) to gain access to international markets and the systematic destruction of sustainable communities that resisted their intrusion. Today, children are continually brain washed to think that their dependence on fossil fuels and international products are normal. All vestiges of responsibility for choosing well are "off the table".7
The linkage of these problems and others to energy use is a fact that is purposefully obscured by those profiting from this trend. Children have recently been shown to require a stable caregiver base for full intellectual development. This time period extends well beyond the time that normal business has allowed for maternity leave. Violence has been shown to materially change the ability of a child’s brain to function normally. Yet we continue to allow and applaud the integration of technologies that have arisen from ideas designed to kill people. In deed, all the things that I am using to write this letter were initially developed from research funded by war research.8
The transnational corporation is built on the extravagant use of nonrenewable resources for profit. They have no legal imperative (due to an oversight in their charter) to care either for the people who work for them, the place their production comes from, or the effects of the consumption or their production process has on either society or the global environment. They are essentially a modern plantation owner using "energy slaves" to do the work that human slaves did in the past. Unfortunately, their acts effect not only the people they employ but all others who work in and around that culture.9
However, there are many other polluters that function in the market place daily. They are insulated from being asked to bear the costs of their choices by a strong political hierarchy that is bent on protecting them from this burden.10
Sustainability involves those acts that can be carried out forever with no inputs from outside, given that the climate is maintained at the current state. This is a very strong definition that is generally violated by most of the functions now considered normal by the general public. Unsustainable acts are those that deviate from this definition. One locality should not be able to impose effects of its consumption on another without its specific and continuing consent.11
This kind of activity is characteristic of the current corporate violation of Adam Smith and J. M. Keynes’ rule that capital remain in the region where it was developed. The violation of this rule allows the predatory collection of ecological capital in the transnational entities now dominating the global business world.12
This publication is available at http://www.usgcrp.gov/.13
Frequent collection of human wastes and their transference to the methane generator would greatly reduce the nutrient pollution from ground based disposal systems. Such collection could be done with minimal redesign of current systems.14
"Externalized costs" are those costs that are not borne by those who use the function. Typically, when a new industry seeks to locate somewhere it tries to get the locality to pickup the bulk of the costs of its presence. This thinking is suicide for the locality. There must be very good reasons for such a position to be accepted by a town. The study of the beef packing industry done by Roy Beck in his Case Against Immigration is most enlightening when this externalization of costs is carried to its logical end.15
Lester Brown of World Watch Institute says that at a time of crisis innovations that might help must be fully formed and operational in the region of need or it will be too late to develop them. Forest use is one form of potentially sustainable activity that is being forced into unsustainability by regulations, public desire for pristine conditions, and marketed solutions that depend on oil. The only way to counter this trend is to have a group that actively supports local sustainable solutions.16
Protection of children has become a fine art today. Child labor laws, insurance, and OSHA have built a web of protections from "life" that deny normal work experiences to children while putting no sustainable alternative in place to duplicate the past function of work within the family and community.17
Teacher’s unions and the education hierarchy may do more to impede the transfer of sustainable thought than any other group outside of industry that directly profits from energy dependence.18
The Crane Paper museum in Dalton, MA documents the process of making hand sheets. It requires little more than a means to break the old paper down into fibers, a washing facility, and a set of screens to collect the wet fibers on for forming paper and drying. The hand made paper would become darker over time if the fibers were not bleached. This should not be a problem for much of the internal school communication. It would also break the cycle of commercialization of the lives of children.19
This procedure has been discussed in detail in internal MAPF – GCTF memos. These are available from this address upon request. The key to keeping carbon uptake at a high level is to maintain the forest in a vigorous state. This is done by limiting the level of competition between trees, and making sure that any area that is opened by cutting is quickly revegetated. Additionally, carbon stored in long term structures is safe from release until the wood of that structure is converted back to CO2. So efforts should be directed toward growing trees that will be made into permanent products. Wood used for energy accomplishes desirable results as well. Wood that would normally rot or burn in the forest releases the carbon stored within it. If that wood is used to replace a fossil fuel, the replaced fuel can be stored without loss in the ground where it is now. The emitted CO2 is contained within the normal biological carbon cycle.20
The environmental community has a convenient "blind spot" when it comes to energy use. Many enviro organizations are funded by contributions from corporate donors. The advocacy of reform of corporate charters would be impossible with such a conflict of interest.Last updated: March 24, 2007