Category Archives: Economics

The Distillery: December 5, 2017

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.


Among the many, many problems of the recently passed Republican tax bill – and there are so many that it’s quite a feat to isolate just one – is that it passes the buck from those who currently pay taxes to those who will, in the near future, inherit the deficit it’s projected to generate. In fact, it already builds in increases in middle class taxes in 2027. Conveniently enough, those 2027 taxpayers were not the ones voting on this bill.

In a 2013 post, Stealing from the Future, I discussed this inequity – an abdication of responsibility – in environmental terms. The people making environmental (or unenvironmental) decisions now will not be the ones living with the results. They will neither experience it or pay for it. In the post, I borrowed a term – Intergenerational Remote Tyranny – to describe this.

That concept is now starting to be acknowledged in perhaps the only form possible given that those in power are not going to willingly cede their self-interests. Lawsuits are being brought by younger generations.

From Teen Vogue:
August 17, 2017

“Teens are Suing the U.S. Government Over Climate Change”

Image source: Our Children’s Trust/Facebook via cbcradio

EcoOptimism’s take: Note the source of this article: Teen Vogue. It’s great that, given there readership, they’ve been a significant voice in environmentalism. The suit alleges that inaction by the government is, among other legal issues, violating the next generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. It’s been wending its way through the US courts for several years, first against the Obama administration and then shifting the defendant to the Trump administration. At each step, courts have allowed it to proceed in spite of the efforts of the Department of Justice.


From EcoWatch:

November 15, 2017

“North Carolina Youth File Climate Petition to Protect Their Futures”

Image source: North Carolina National Guard

EcoOptimism’s take: This is in a state that banned using scientific predictions of rising sea levels in establishing policy.


From EcoWatch:

November 17, 2017

“Groups Sue Norway Over Failure to Protect Environment for Future Generations”

Image source: Greenpeace

EcoOptimism’s take: This suit is a bit different in that it’s not being brought by kids, but it shows that the concept is not limited to the United States and US law.

The Distillery: November 17, 2017

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.

Back in October 2014, an EcoOptimism post asked “Will the solutions come from cities?” In the context of that year’s fruitless UN Climate Summit, I wrote “[EcoOptimism lies] not with national governments at all, and that’s reason for hope…. In its stead, lower level officials, notably mayors, have been leading from the bottom up, changing mundane things like building codes and transportation programs.

“Cities are where a majority of us 7 billion humans live. [And cities] emit 75% of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. So focusing on cities makes a lot of sense.”

As a case in point, I cited NYC’s “One City Built to Last” report, which was a follow up to the previous administration’s PlaNYC.

With the current US federal administration’s move to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, the role of the federal government is even further diminished and local governments are filling the void, many under the mantle of We Are Still In.

From Business Insider:
June 5, 2017

“A group representing $6.2 trillion of the US economy says they’re ‘still in’ the Paris climate agreement”

EcoOptimism’s take: The WeAreStillIn group had a sizeable presence at last week’s COP (Conference of the Parties) that was the first one since Trump withdrew the US from the Accords. It served to show, exactly as the hashtag says, that much (or most?) of the US is still on board. And it was a stark contrast to the official US presentation which promoted coal and nuclear energy.

From CityLab:
October 23, 2017

Cities Are Thinking and Acting Globally, Says Paris Mayor

Image source: Raw Story

EcoOptimism’s take: This reaction, by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, recognized the significance of local commitments. (In an unrelated context, Hidalgo said “Mr. Trump is so stupid.)

From Grist:
August 24, 2017

“States keep cutting carbon, despite federal inaction.”

Image source: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News

EcoOptimism’s take: The local level includes states as well as cities. The northeast states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont) have jointly agreed on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This will partially replace the Clean Power Plan initiative by President Obama and that Trump has vowed to rescind.

(New Jersey outgoing Governor Christie had pulled the state out of an earlier RGGI, despite the state Senate attempting to override him as well as a court ruling against him. The incoming Democrat-led administration will probably rejoin.)

From ThinkProgress:
August 22, 2017

St. Louis adopts a 100 percent renewable energy goal”

Image source: Wikipedia

EcoOptimism’s take: This further illustrates the potential role of states, even those that you might think would be averse to clean energy. The post notes that “Missouri’s history is deeply tied to coal.”

 

From The Nation:
November 15, 2017

California Governor Jerry Brown Is Doing Far More to Combat Climate Change Than Trump’s Washington

EcoOptimism’s take: We can always count on Jerry. And this is particularly important given both the size of California’s economy – it’s the sixth largest in the world – and the fact that California often sets the precedent for other states.

Take My Computer. Please. (The Case Against Ownership)

I was looking at a photo of an old telephone the other day – one from before cellphones and even before cordless phones. It was a classic Henry Dreyfuss table top phone from the days when Ma Bell – the original AT&T – was the only game in town and, for that matter, the only game in the entire country. The phone model choices back then were only slightly better than Henry Ford’s policy of allowing customers to “have a car painted any color so long as it’s black.” Slightly better because you could, in fact, get this phone in an assortment of colors and in three styles. (Remember the “Princess Phone?”)

Henry Dreyfuss designed telephone, Model 500, 1953. source: Cooper Hewitt https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2014/11/07/model-500-telephone-henry-dreyfuss/

But that’s not my point.

Back then you didn’t buy a phone. When you got a phone number and account for your home, it came with a phone, or maybe a few. They were sturdy things, well-made and designed. They almost never broke and, when they did, all you needed to do was tell the phone company and they would come over and either repair or replace it. At no charge, if I recall correctly.

Our kitchen table phone once stopped working. The repair guy came out to the house, pulled the top off and water came pouring out. One of my little sisters, you see, had decided it was dirty and needed cleaning – by pouring water over it.

That memory may have become slightly embellished over time, but the point is that the telephone guy replaced it. No questions asked. Imagine Apple or Samsung doing that. He just unplugged it. (Actually, I don’t think they were attached by plugs back then. The wires were screwed into the wall jack.) And then just attached a new phone. More likely it was one that had been repaired, but just looked new. It didn’t matter; it worked.

Here’s the real point. Could this old-fashioned system make more sense than ownership? There’s a good case for this from both the consumer and manufacturer points of view, and environmentally as well.

I don’t really want a computer. I want what a computer can do. I don’t really want to own and be responsible for the maintenance of a washer and dryer. I want clean and dry clothes. (Yeah, I know I should use a clothesline instead of a dryer, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.)

I don’t even want a car. I want mobility. And ideally I want to be able to get around with different types of cars for different tasks. Some days a bigger car to carry a lot of stuff and maybe some friends, but on other days it’s just me going a short distance.

I realize my needs are undoubtedly different from someone not living in a city. But as a city dweller, I was overjoyed when Zipcar came to town and I could get rid of the clunker city car I kept for occasional errands and excursions, and whose insurance and maintenance were ridiculously expensive for the little bit of driving I did each month.

This is all part of the “sharing economy.” An old example of this might be a laundromat. A newer example is Zipcar. Newer still is the concept of “tool libraries.” A few years ago, a study found that a cordless drill purchased by a consumer had an average usage time of under 10 minutes. Typically, someone went to a hardware store to buy one, maybe to hang some shelves, and then the drill spent the rest of its life in a closet. Hardly a good use of either money or materials. An answer to this gross inefficiency is being able to go to a tool library and check out a drill (or a circular saw or a tall ladder) for a few days.

Berkeley Tool Lending Library. source: Berkeley Public Library https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/locations/tool-lending-library

You might complain that it’s inconvenient to have to go that library for a ladder. But it’s also inconvenient to go to Lowes or online to Amazon, select which one you want, spend a hunk of money and then store it as dead weight for most of the rest of the time.

On an entirely different level, this is beginning to happen on a commercial scale. There’s even precedent. Back when copiers were big, expensive and prone to breaking down, offices usually didn’t buy them. They rented or leased them from Xerox or a competitor, who frequently charged them by the copy. Maintaining it was Xerox’s problem, not the office’s. (Which was a good thing because they broke down a lot.)

Philips Lighting recently signed with Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to provide “lighting as a service” rather than the more typical method of selling light fixtures and bulbs. For the airport, this means that not only do they not have worry about maintenance, they also will always have state-of-the-art lighting. What’s more they won’t have to worry about how to dispose of it later on.

Therein lies one of the not-so-obvious environmental benefits. Because Philips retains ownership of the lighting, when it comes time to replace it for remodeling or demolition, they will have to deal with its end of life. That means they will need to design that in – how the lighting can be dismantled for least cost recycling or reuse. Previously, when they sold the lighting, they didn’t have to be concerned with the end-of-life. It was someone else’s problem.

Imagine now that this was true for all your electronics – that Dell or Apple or Samsung had to take it back when you were done, and then had to deal with disposal. Suddenly, they’d be concerned with how to design so that products could be easily taken apart. And, by the way, that would also pave the way for easier repairs, which the company would be interested in since repairs and maintenance would be their responsibility.

But how does such a company make money in this arrangement? Yes, they lose the sale, but they gain a stream of income as their customers effectively rent instead of buying. And that stream of income is steadier, more predictable, less susceptible to the ups and downs of the economy.

True to the ideals of EcoOptimism, it’s a win-win-win deal.

Here are some things I’d rather not own, but still want to use:
Cellphones
Computers
Anything else that quickly becomes outdated technology
Anything that requires a lot maintenance.
Cars
Home Appliances
Homes
Formal Attire (I’m lucky to have a hand-me-down tux, but if I didn’t…)

Spied at Parsons School of Design:

Flyer at Parsons School of Design. photo: David Bergman

The Distillery: October 12, 2017

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.

In our September 18th post, we “distilled” a series of articles all regarding, as we put it, “the oncoming and inevitable demise of cars powered by the internal (or, some would say, infernal) combustion engine.” Yesterday, the Washington Post, made the same observation in both an article and an opinion column.

From The Washington Post:
October 11, 2017
Why 2017 will go down as the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine

October 11, 2017
Do automakers dream of electric cars?

And from a bit earlier in the month:
October 2, 2017
Death of gas and diesel begins as GM announces plans for ‘all-electric future’Do automakers dream of electric cars?

Image via CleanTechnica

EcoOptimism’s take: While we don’t like to boast, can say here that we scooped the Washington Post?

And gotta love the title of the op-ed.

 

 

The Distillery: September 18, 2017

EcoOptimism’s current selection of favorite posts

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.

While EcoOptimism’s Distillery picks don’t intentionally have themes, this confluence of posts that began over the summer warrants a topical selection. The topic is the oncoming and inevitable demise of cars powered by the internal (or, some would say, infernal) combustion engine. Places from Paris to India to China, and manufacturers from Volvo to Jaguar – no word from American manufacturers – are phasing them out.

September 11, 2017

From ThinkProgress.org:
Electric cars are about to get their biggest boost ever: China plans to ban new fossil-fuel powered cars.

EcoOptimism’s take: The significance here can’t be understated. China manufactured and sold more than 28 million cars last year (compared to the US’s 17.55 million) and yet still only one in five owns a car. It’s the world’s largest car market — responsible for around 30 percent of global passenger vehicle sales. Given that China has almost ¼ billion people, you can begin to guess the ginormous number of future cars – especially as the affluence of Chinese consumers grows – that this will represent.

Photo source: CleanTechnica.com

July 26, 2017

From Bloomberg.com:
France Aims to End Sale of Fossil-Fuel-Powered Cars by 2040

EcoOptimism’s take: This news goes back to July but, along with the news from China, the death of fossil fuel powered cars seems ever more imminent.

Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) [CC BY-SA 3.0]


June 3, 2017

From CNN Tech:
India to sell only electric cars by 2030

EcoOptimism’s take: The air quality in India contributes to 1.2 million deaths a year, and “doctors have said breathing the air in New Delhi…is like smoking 10 cigarettes a day.” India will subsidize electric cars for a couple of years and, after that, believes electric cars – by the millions – will start paying for themselves. That’s both the ecological and economic sides of EcoOptimism.

photo: Mark Danielson – Flickr/Creative Commons

September 7, 2017

From BusinessGreen:
Jaguar Land Rover to make only electric or hybrid cars from 2020

The BusinessGreen post seems to sometimes be behind a paywall, but you can check out a related Treehugger post:
Jaguar Land Rover to phase out gas/diesel-only cars

EcoOptimism’s take: Given the low mpg of expensive SUVs and sportscars, getting rid of their gas versions is a big deal.

photo: Jaguar Land Rover

July 11, 2017

From Forbes:
Volvo’s Electric Car Announcement: Turning Point or Nonevent?

EcoOptimism’s take: There’s a note of skepticism in this post from a not-exactly-green source. They write that Volvo’s announcement doesn’t actually mean they won’t be making cars that use fossil fuels; they will still make hybrids. But still it’s a pretty big deal, especially since Volvo is Chinese-owned.

photo: Volvo

The Distillery: August 23, 2017

Triangles_Distillery_Text-smr

EcoOptimism’s current selection of favorite posts

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.

We’ve got a plethora this week.

August 22, 2017

From Grist.org:
California defies Trump claim that environmental regulation kills economic growth

EcoOptimism’s take: Just more “fake news,” right? (It doesn’t get more EcoOptimistic than this!)

source: U.S. Navy photo by Rick Naystatt

source: U.S. Navy photo by Rick Naystatt

August 22, 2017

From Grist.org:
The eclipse was a test, and the solar industry aced it

EcoOptimism’s take: Chicken Little lives another day. CNBC headline on August 18 before the eclipse: “The total solar eclipse is going to knock out a lot of solar power.”

solar panels dark

August 14, 2017

From Environmental Network News:
Ozone Treaty Taking a Bite Out of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions

EcoOptimism’s take: In my sustainable design classes, when I describe all our environmental issues and my students begin to get totally demoralized, I point out there are some bright spots. One of them is an international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, that addressed ozone depletion (aka ozone holes) by reducing the use of chemicals causing the depletion. This 1989 agreement has been an enormous success and the ozone layer is now predicted to return to normal within this century.

Those ozone depleting gases, CFCs, are also one of the greenhouse gases causing climate change and this article says “In a twist, a new study shows the 30-year old treaty has had a major side benefit of reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S.”

The ozone hole has stopped growing. Source: NASA

The ozone hole has stopped growing. Source: NASA

August 17, 2017

From Yale Environment 360:
Renewable Energy Prevented 12,700 Premature Deaths Over Nine-Year Period, Study Says

EcoOptimism’s take: It’s great when environmental actions, as illustrated by the ozone article above, have side benefits.

“The expansion of wind and solar energy, and the resulting avoided emissions from fossil fuels, helped prevent up to 12,700 premature deaths in the U.S. from 2007 to 2015, according a new study in the journal Nature Energy.”

Credit: Department of Energy via ThinkProgress.org

Credit: Department of Energy via ThinkProgress.org

A Positive – and EcoOptimistic – Outlook

I recently came across this great post citing the reasons 2015 will be the year that changes the socio/economic/political world of energy production and thereby undermines climate denial. The post is by Paul Gilding, author of The Great Disruption, and presents some convincing evidence that it isn’t the politicians (though he cites the US/China deal) or the public, but the business world that will come around.

There has been a lot of discussion about not just climate denial but science denial. We’ve tried for years, starting perhaps with Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, to convince the public by using science – and sometimes by using fear — that climate change is real. Many people have indeed been convinced, but it’s still less than a majority.

In Gilding’s post, he writes: “…science is now largely irrelevant in this process [of convincing people]. If the scientific evidence was going to shift the system, it would have done so by now….” He continues “What we have to look for instead is evidence of shifts in the human response, not the ecological one.”

The cover of the March 2015 issue of National Geographic

The cover of the March 2015 issue of National Geographic

He goes on to cite six reasons that the human – and especially the business – response is changing. I’ll list them here, but you should go to his post to read the explanations:

  1. The US China Climate deal – how change really occurs
  2. Collapse in oil prices [Which would seem counterintuitive, but many, including Gilding, have argued otherwise.]
  3. Solar price falls set to continue
  4. Market prices reflect economic disruption
  5. The political power of big business starts to shift sides
  6. Physical impacts accelerating and driving economic and security impact

While this list, without his explanations, seems a bit vague and jargon-y, it basically amounts to an EcoOptimistic outlook, that the economics of energy will cause businesses to come around to the realization that fossil fuels have no future economically as opposed to environmentally. “[W]hile many climate activists focus on the political power and influence of the fossil fuel industry, I see an industry scrambling to defend itself against overwhelming forces that will see it destroyed – not in a mighty moral crusade but something far more brutal and fast – the market turning on it.”

According to a Treehugger post, even the National Bank of Abu Dhabi — yes a Middle East bank heavily invested in fossil fuels — has concluded that “‘fossil fuels can no longer compete with solar technologies on price’, and that the majority of the $US48 trillion needed to meet global energy demand over the next 20 years will come from renewables.”

This goes to the core of EcoOptimism: that, contrary to the public perception, there is a synergy between economic and ecological goals.

There is much more in Gilding’s post. Though he doesn’t refer to it, the issue of our unfortunate inability to think in the long term lurks in the background. We humans concentrate on short term needs and issues. Long term ones are too often not considered in our decision making, especially when that long term is intangible and may not be in our lifetimes. This explains why some environmentalists now emphasize what the impacts will be on our children.

Businesses, too, driven by quarterly profits and reports, tend to think in the short term. But they’re now beginning to see the long term issues. When your primary resource appears destined to become what Wall Street calls a stranded asset, that gets the attention of board rooms.

What Gilding does discuss is another barrier: realizing the scale of an issue, but not being able to cope with it and, therefore, ignoring or even denying it. “This is not climate denial but an example of “implicatory denial”, the rather bizarre ability of humans to accept a risk but then stop processing the implications, just because those implications are so overwhelming.” That’s where the economic influences take over. If convincing the public (and Republican electeds) through either science or fear isn’t working, perhaps newly enlightened businesses – especially those that contribute to political campaigns – can.

Surprise: Environmentalism Actually Boosts the Economy

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

One of the premises of EcoOptimism is that environmental actions and solutions complement the economy. Too often, the assumption – particularly within the business world and among conservatives – is that the opposite is true. They believe, sometimes fervently, that environmental rules and regulation are a drag on the economy, causing job losses and working against the interests of capitalism and growth.

But by almost all capitalist measures, environmentalism has proved to be an aid to the economy. I was struck by this with an assortment of posts all in one day. The first was a report stating the U.S. solar industry now employs close to 174,000 jobs and grew at a rate of 28% in the past year, nearly 20 times faster than the overall economy. Few sectors, including oil, can make a claim like that. In fact, 1.3% of the jobs created in the past year were in solar industries.

Source: SustainableBusiness.com. Their caption reads: “This year, the solar industry expects to add 35,000 jobs, bringing the total to 210,060, a 20.9% increase.”

Source: SustainableBusiness.com. Their caption reads: “This year, the solar industry expects to add 35,000 jobs, bringing the total to 210,060, a 20.9% increase.”

A related post compared this to the number of jobs created in fossil fuel industries last year. The oil and gas industry, including pipeline construction, added just 19,000 jobs, compared to solar’s 31,000. And according to the US Energy Information Administration, coal mining jobs fell by 11.3% in 2012, a year in which solar jobs grew by 13%.

Bear in mind that this is looking at only solar jobs and related growth, not the entire arena of renewables. Wind is another area of rapid growth compared to the rest of the economy. A new report from the advocacy group Oceana found that “offshore wind [in the Atlantic] would produce twice the number of jobs and twice the amount of energy as offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.” As would be expected, pro-oil advocacy groups, who are promoting drilling for gas and oil off the East Coast, claim that that would create thousands of jobs and generate millions of dollars in revenue for states. Oceana says, though, those numbers are inflated because they are based on drilling in sites that are not economically viable. (Especially as the price of oil falls as it has in recent weeks.)

offshore wind stats

Furthermore, according to Oceana, drilling could put other jobs and industries, including fishing and tourism, at risk. This could have a much great economic impact: a potential loss of 1.4 million jobs and over $95 billion in gross domestic product. Wind, on the other hand, poses little risk. (Bird kills, while a concern, are smaller offshore and, in any case, are far lower than the aviary impact of air pollution and global climate disruption.)

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

All this makes renewable energy, to put it in Republican terms, a “job creator.” If only the Republican Party weren’t beholden to fossil fuel interests, perhaps they would see that and would see that this is, in EcoOptimism terms, a win-win solution.

Fracking and the Precautionary Principle at Work

Image: Inhabitat

Image: Inhabitat

I’ve written about the Precautionary Principle before (here and here), but because it’s a rare occasion when it gets applied in this country, it’s worth noting when it does find its way into policy.

The Precautionary Principle basically says that things should be proven safe before they are allowed. That’s generally the rule in Europe, but here in the U.S., chemicals and products and such are given the benefit of the doubt in an innocent-until-proven-guilty approach. Since there isn’t money to test every chemical, and there’s no incentive for companies to do so themselves, the safety of the vast majority of them is unknown.

So in the case of fracking, where there’s significant concern and doubt about its safety, the onus has been on the government to prove its dangers.

Happily, New York State has just gone the other direction and banned fracking precisely because we don’t know its impacts on air and water. Governor Cuomo’s health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, determined that fracking could pose dangers to public health. Zucker is quoted in the New York Times as saying “We cannot afford to make a mistake. The potential risks are too great. In fact, they are not even fully known.”

This bears repeating because it is a significant policy approach: The potential risks are too great. Zucker went on to say that there was insufficient scientific evidence to affirm the long-term safety of fracking.

That’s the Precautionary Principle at work; public safety first, business interests second. A war on business, I’m sure the political right will claim. Anti-jobs and all that. But what use is a job when you or your family are made sick? The New York Times article said Cuomo was apparently convinced when he asked Drucker if he would want to live in a community that allowed fracking and his answer was no.

And applications of the Precautionary Principle yesterday were not limited to Cuomo, but included President Obama, who banned future oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay (though he didn’t ban mining there). At stake was a huge salmon fishery that supplies the country with 40% of our wild-caught seafood. Obama said energy development in the region could endanger an environmentally sensitive waterway and imperil vital fisheries. [Emphasis added]

Some may say it was a financial decision to save a $2.5 billion dollar industry but, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the energy reserves there vastly outweigh the fish, totaling $7.7 billion.

For a change, the oil industry lobbying interests didn’t prevail. Let’s hope the Precautionary Principle is applied to mining there as well. And, oh yeah, let’s also apply it to the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Elusive Silver Bullet

silverbullet

I just returned from Greenbuild, the annual conference and expo for architect, engineers, planners, builders and others involved in the green construction sector. The event, which has grown hugely in size (the opening plenary and dinner were held in the New Orleans Superdome!), was simultaneously over and underwhelming.

I went in part to cover it for the magazine Traditional Home, which has covered my work before. My job was to live tweet the things I found at Greenbuild that might be of interest to Traditional Home readers.

That turned out to be a bit of a challenge as many of the booths were displaying products that, while they were part and parcel of green building, were not photogenic or attention grabbing in obvious ways. (At the best of show announcement, I sat next to an editor, who groaned about the unsexiness of most of the winners, complaining they were making his job harder because they weren’t easy to write about.)

A window, even a triple paned one, doesn’t make for a sexy photo. Photo: David Bergman

A window, even a triple paned one, doesn’t make for a sexy photo. Photo: David Bergman

I did find plenty to tweet about (like this and this), but the experience reminded me that much of sustainability is not photogenic or headline grabbing. Wind and solar farms can be eye candy, as can futuristic concept buildings and cars. We tend, therefore to glom onto these images and adopt them as the goal, as the silver bullets that will solve our environmental problems.

But they’re not. Not because they aren’t good ideas, but because they are attempts at stand-alone solutions. There are, with the possible exception of a carbon fee, no silver bullet solutions. Our environmental issues are systemic ones and therefore need to be addressed systemically. That’s why a carbon tax is high on the EcoOptimism list. It addresses the systemic conjoined problems of climate disruption and consumption, not with a single “solution” such as solar panels, but by changing the game. By levelling the playing field of energy prices so that carbon emitters no longer get a free ride, it both makes “alternative” renewable energy sources the better economic choice and impacts our consumption patterns.

For instance, travel would probably become more expensive (at least until reliance on fossil fuels diminished) so maybe we’d stick closer to home, spending our money in local economies, having business meetings by Skype and having more time for family and friends. Not a bad tradeoff.

McMansions would become more expensive to heat and cool, encouraging the nascent movement toward smaller, more efficient and more urban homes. Out with two-story foyers and vestigial grand living rooms. In with homes that are better attuned to the ways we actually live. (I can hear the Agenda 21ers screaming now.)

But a carbon tax is not really what I wanted to write about. This post is about the false hope of – the desire for – a silver bullet. Much as I dislike extending the gun metaphor, the better approach is like buckshot. It’s deploying many tactics (yikes, more military terms), including the aforementioned solar and wind farms or the boring mechanical systems that dominated Greenbuild. It’s many tactics that, when taken as a greater whole, comprise a systemic approach: a change in overall strategies and mindsets.

That’s what it will take to solve this multipronged combination of serious problems. No one technical feat or government regulation—excepting perhaps carbon fees — is going to address climate disruption, ecosystem health, human health, social equity and the economy. They’re solvable; as the EcoOptimist, I’d better believe so. But they need to be addressed as intertwined issues, attacked on multiple fronts. (I just can’t seem get away from these military metaphors.)

In that sense, Greenbuild, as visually dull as parts of it may have been, is on the right track by putting lots of mini solutions out there. On occasion they get tied together, as happened with the demonstration house built for the show. Designed and constructed for the Make it Right foundation, the house pulled together ideas ranging from solar panels and state of the art insulation to locally procured furnishings. And the finished “LivingHome” will be dismantled and then reassembled in New Orlean’s Ninth Ward before being turned over to new inhabitants. (Parsons the New School for Design, where I teach, did something similar with its “Empowerhouse” entry in the Solar Decathlon.)

The LivingHome was more photogenic. Photo: David Bergman

The LivingHome was more photogenic. Photo: David Bergman

These aren’t exactly systemic solutions. A single house can’t be. But they’re steps along the path to rethinking and reanalyzing approaches to problems. Now if we can just please have a carbon fee, the stage will be set for some truly systemic answers.