What does sustainable mean?

I have a column that should run in tomorrow morning's home town newspaper, the Morgan Hill Times.  In that bit of Green Talk, I take a stab at convincing my readers that nothing made of material is truly sustainable, or at least not in the way that we think about it, manufacture it, use it and dispose of it.

This Green Talk column is not yet online, is sometimes delayed for days, and most won't see it in a small home town paper.  So, if you click Read more! you have a chance to read it now.


It has almost become impossible to read a story about energy without finding the word “sustainable” used at some point. We all have some basic understanding of what is meant. The current supplies of oil and natural gas are limited and those new fields being found are increasingly expensive to maintain. Therefore, our current pace of using up the supply of fossil fuels in not sustainable, or will not be for very long. That discussion is generally focused on peak oil.

Often, this basic definition is followed by someone's favorite solution for maintaining economic growth in the face of such diminished supply of energy. Sometimes, these solutions are reasonable, like an increased use of wind and solar. Sometimes they pose a technological challenge with promise of a future energy supply, such as biofuels from algae. Others so defy rational analysis and that they could exist only in a bad sci-fi movie.

The focus on energy, as important and immediate as that is, allows us to ignore the very basic notion of what it would take to be truly sustainable. Some of have tried to explain this with the analogy of a spaceship. We all know that space ships have to carry everything needed to sustain life along with them. That includes the atmosphere people breath and the food they eat as well as the means of reacting to any problem that might arise. We see an example of this every time a shuttle visits the International Space Station with a load of supplies and returns with a load of waste.

So consider that the Earth is like a space ship. We have a fixed set of material resources. There is no way to add anything. There is no /Enterprise /that will arrive with new supplies. We have what we have and that is that. This fact should make all of the difference in how we think about the future, but sadly, it does not. Allow me to give a few examples.

There are those who see the future of energy as coming from nuclear power. Even if we assume that we could adequately protect people from the dangers of radiation along the entire production chain, from extraction of uranium to disposal or re-processing of the spent power plant fuel, we should be aware of the fact that energy planners are beginning to talk about peak uranium just as we talk about peak oil now. The economically retrievable supplies of untapped uranium are very few and many are far away in countries like Kazakhstan.


Evan as we are beginning to make major use of lithium for batteries in everything from cell phones to automobiles, there are increasing concerns over a peak in lithium and a search for other energy storage alternatives. The largest under-developed supply of lithium is in Bolivia and that development is subject to political as well as economic factors.

All of this is to say that we need to rethink that manner in which we use the limited material resources of this spaceship Earth to supply the needs of a growing population and it's desire to attain at least the same standard of living that we currently enjoy. The current UN low population forecast is for an increase of 2.4 billion people by 2050. That is more than the current populations of China and the US combined. And most of these would try to attain our lifestyle if they could.

We need to consider not just oil and natural gas or even more scarce materials like uranium or lithium. We have to begin to consider even the steel used in construction, the aluminum we use to wrap our food, the wood that frames our houses or even the number of trees it takes to make chopsticks and toilet paper.

The modern industrial practice is that of a linear irreversible throughput, where resource are moved into from the ecosphere to the humansphere where our economic engine of growth processes them producing waste along the way. But then, we discard most of it, creating more waste and our governments encourage us to do this to produce economic growth.

At some point, even the most ideological free marketer among us will be forced to admit that this pattern can not be sustained and that we need to find a new vision of what constitutes a life worth living.

Whatever that goal is, we will not get there along our current path. We need to transform our economy to one that cycles materials rather than uses them, where waste becomes the raw material for productions; that recognizes that we are all part of an ever changing ecosphere. There will be economic consequences of such a radical change. It is our choice whether we absorb those consequences now when they are manageable or later when they are not.

Sustainable Living

Periodically, I have written about food and the influence of being a locavore, both here and at the Morgan Hill Times... my local community newspaper. The May 11 Issue of High Country News carries an article by Carla A. Wise that talks of the transformation of part of Oregon's Willamette Valley into sustainably operated farming operations. It is called the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project.

Wise writes of "pioneering experiments" as part of a 9.000 acre operation that had previously been almost totally used for producing grass seed and of a 15 acre organic farm, both involved in creating change.


There are two key elements which are not often talked about. But which do show up in concluding line of this article.

MacCormack [owner of the organic farm] says the main obstacles remain mind-set and infrastructure. And, he says, those are obstacles that can be overcome.

It seems to me that Greens are in the right position to take advantage of a changing mind set. The Beans and Grain Project was fortunate to have a sponsor in Hummingbird Wholesale, an organic food distributor. Not all project can start with that in place. Still, it is one of the necessary ingredients of a decentralized, community based economy... a truly green economy.

Greens can also be a major force in changing people's mindset. Isn't that one of the reasons why we exists as a political party? I think that change is coming over rural America and Greens should be leading the way. The Beans and Grain Project is the anti-dote to CONAGRA, ADM and Cargill.

Not the change you were expecting

NY Times columnist David Brooks used his election day column to express some of what I am feeling about the status of America right now.

In the next few years, the nation’s wealth will either stagnate or shrink. The fiscal squeeze will grow severe. There will be fiercer struggles over scarce resources, starker divisions along factional lines. The challenge for the next president will be to cushion the pain of the current recession while at the same time trying to build a solid fiscal foundation so the country can thrive at some point in the future.

I wondered if there were an answer, but I read one today that tells me Greens are the only hope.


The following is excerpted from comments by Lorna Salzman. The bold emphasis is mine.

Change doesn't come straight, on the rocks. It comes indirectly, because of the interplay of societal and individual values.If this weren't true, we would never have advanced beyond slavery. Human behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum. And politics doesn't either. They reflect and enhance each other.

What the USGP, the left and the liberals still haven't grasped, aside from their almost complete ignorance of and disdain for ecology, is that a change in one thing and in one direction often brings change elsewhere. This is why environmentally based policies and laws have the potential to bring about social change. This is why stopping global warming and developing a sane energy policy that halts fossil and nuclear energy will have enormous ramifications for society: in food supply, transportation, construction, community development, industry, employment, indeed in every aspect of our lives and society.

This is a lesson that environmentalists in the 1970s, myself included, learned early on but which was studiously ignored by the marxist ideologues, and still is. I still get emails from all parts of the world thumping the desk and crying out "socialism" as the answer. These guys never ask the right question though. That's why they will never get the right answer.

The notion that elected officials lead rather than follow is one of the most naive convictions of liberals and the left. So let us remind ourselves that in the area of environment, we do not have a constituency, much less a movement, that could force Obama or congress to carry out our wishes. We collectively allowed the achievements and exultation of the 1970s to carry us on through for a few years until the flame died out, the big enviros sold out, and issues over which we have no control (war, racism, israel) took precedence over issues over which we could have exerted influence.

Nowhere is this more true than in the US Green Party and the Nader campaigns, both of which steered clear of proposing an ecologically based paradigm shift for western industrial society and global capitalism, a shift that requires ending the fixation on economic growth and substituting sufficiency and regionalization of the economy.

I could not have written it better, nor do I have Lorna's experience with ecology. But this is the only way that makes sense.

We have become a society driven by consumerism and that is the most easily controlled behavior there is. It is so easy to say buy this, buy that, you aren't cool without your I-Pod. Just watch what our government is trying to do to perk us up. They want to give us money so that we go buy more things we don't need. This can not continue. One by one, stores are closing, people are losing jobs. Even the mighty Toyota announced a 69% drop in earnings this quarter. When people lose their jobs, they stop buying.

In Andrew Revkin's DotEarth blog today, he made this point about the world that expects Obama to lead.

President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20 will become the most important leader of a species that has exploded in just six generations from a total population of 1 billion (around 1830) to a point today when teenagers alone number 1 billion, a species that is on a path toward more or less 9 billion people by mid-century. In numbers, think roughly of adding two Chinas on top of the one that exists today.

Unless we start working to make ecology, sustainability the major focus of all that we do, the future that Brooks sees will last a long, long time.

Those who say no.

When I read or listen to all of the verbiage that is floating around concerning the financial straight that the Bush Administration has put us in, I feel very much like I am still listening a broken phonograph disc, repeating the same word over and over. No matter which side of the "bailout" question I am listening to, it is almost without exception based on grabbing a single concept, extrapolating that to being the cause for everything and then suggesting that there is only one answer.

It ain't that simple, folks, as I will try to explain after the the jump.


The anti-capitalist left views the entire fiasco as a way to get the average taxpayer to pay for the mistakes of the capitalist goons who cause it and floated away on their golden parachutes.

Then, there is the argument, made by some who would say "yes" to the bailout, that some of these companies are just too big to fail. That leads to further assumptions such as enforcing a greater degree monopoly protection, or breaking up the big institutions. The results of that would probably be the same as what we got by breaking up AT&T. It will not be what the proponents claim.

Personally, this does not affect me as much as it will affect many. I don't really need to assets in my 401-K and they are in a well balanced group of stocks.

However, I grew up with parents who were forever impacted by the Great Depression. My father owned a small town grocery and lost it because he could not get the credit to buy new stock and his customers, to whom he had allowed credit, could not pay.

We see that happening already in this case, affecting mainly small businesses. NPR had a story on this AM about a small machine shop that had one of their best customer's cancel all orders. The company owner said that he even drove over to the customer's plant to count the cars in the parking lot and verify that they were still in business.

There are members of Congress who are absolutely scared of being responsible for the next Great Depression having lived through the last. I don't blame them. I am old enough to have observed the results. I don't think that most Greens are or they might be more circumspect in their rhetoric on the "no bailout" side.

There are multiple options as to what we should be doing. Maybe we need to take a bit more time than the market is comfortable with. Again, I would blame Bush and Paulsen for that. The rhetoric that they used set up expectations that could never be met.

The real issue is the fact that we have an economic expectation of perpetual growth. The facts are that, while population may continue to grow, the resources of this planet are finite. Greens should arguing for a conversion of our economy requiring growth to succeed into one based on the idea of sustainability. That is a word that seems to have been lost from our political discourse. It needs to be re-introduced to the American Public.

On Life in South Central Los Angeles

Think Green issues are for "elite" suburbanites? Think again. See below a brilliant statement about the quality of life in South Central Los Angeles by L.A. Green activist , Linda Piera-Avila. Ms. Piera testified before city planners in opposition to a proposed warehouse on the site of the South Central Urban Farm.

According to "No Place to Play," a report by The Trust for Public Land, two-thirds of children 18 and under in Los Angeles do not live within walking distance of a public park.

The study compared the number and percentage of children living within one-quarter mile of a park -- what's considered to be walking distance-in seven major metropolitan areas. With only one-third of children living near open space and 1.8 million children countywide lacking easy park access, Los Angeles fared worst among the areas evaluated.

According to Los Angeles City's website, www.lacity.org, there are 250 parks in the city of Los Angeles. Not one is sited in the 90058 zip code, the same zip code as the proposed warehouse project




A recent study by the California Air Resources Board found that in the South Coast air basin alone, particulate matter causes:

• 5400 premature deaths annually


• 2400 hospital admissions


• 980,000 Lost Work Days


• 140,000 cases of Asthma & Lower Respiratory

Symptoms

The estimated economic value of the health impacts of particulate and ozone pollution from these issues is $19 Billion annually statewide. The concentration of these health and economic impacts in certain communities versus others exacerbates the seriousness of this issue and also raises environmental justice concerns.

Clearly, approving a warehouse in an area already lacking in parks and open space exacerbates an already dire situation. Siting a token 2.5 acre soccer field immediately adjacent to a mega warehouse spewing copious amounts of diesel exhaust is counterproductive to children's health. A full environmental impact report (EIR) is warranted to assess the compounded impact of both the lack of parkland as well as the
potential for increased health, safety and economic risks that this project would pose on the neighboring residents. Additionally, environmental justice issues need to be acknowledged and evaluated in an EIR to ascertain whether or not residents of 90058 would shoulder an unfair burden of chemical, air and noise pollution, social effects of deprivation of open space, increased traffic congestion, and heightened
health and safety risks based on their economic status and ethnic background.

Thank you.

Linda Piera-Avila
Council Member Elect
Green Party of Los Angeles County

Catching up so I can be sustainable.

What a contradiction! I have to catch up so that I can be sustainable? There is just too much happening and too many issues that need to be dealt with. It makes me appreciate more when someone takes just a single GEneric issue and follows it to it's logical conclusion, as Erica Martenson has done with GE crops in California.

Many Californian's love their wine. Some drink California Wine just because it is local, even if it is Two Buck Chuck. This story in the San Diego Reader, is about Erica, and the wine business and why Erica founded Preserving the Integrity of Napa's Agriculture (PINA). , may make you change your mind unless we find out that all the hops available is also GE. So far, I hear it is only the rice used in some beers and we don't drink those, do we?

Then, I find a fairly recent column about Community Supported Agriculture by David Cobb (yes, that David Cobb) in the Eureka Standard. For those who want to help sustain local agriculture, who like to eat fresh, Cobb gives a good introduction and helps you understand that you can help sustainable agriculture without blowing your budget.

Finally, let me add two things that I have written. One, was a column for the Morgan Hill Times last January in which I talked about becoming a locavore. The other is in the most recent copy of Green Focus (p.9) and discusses both my (along with my wife) approach to sustainable eating as well as the experiences of Brian and Sanda Everette in establishing San Mateo Ecovillage.

Unfortunately, it took me so long to write this that I fell behind again.

Drowning in Water Facts

It is not generally the case that water gets in the headlines and stays there for such a long time, unless you have wonderful fluke photo opportunities of wayward whales wending their way up and down the Sacramento River.

Sometimes, you just have to start tying things together to see where the problems lie and where the liars are a problem.

Hank Chapot provided one California Green email list with a copy of a water news item from Idaho Statesman, from which I quote.

ROCKY BARKER, IDAHO STATESMAN - Idaho Water Resources Director David Tuthill said he is prepared to use sheriffs or Idaho State Police officers if necessary to shut off pumps irrigating 22,000 acres of crops in the Magic Valley this week. Food processing plants, 13 cities and dozens of dairies also would lose access to groundwater under Tuthill's order to meet the demand of two trout producers. Overall, the curtailment could directly cost Idaho's economy more than $28 million this year, based on Tuthill's estimate.

The tone of this story sounds very much like that of some of the stories that surrounded the shut down of the large pumps near Tracy in the California Delta. Take this one from CBS outlet in San Francisco, KPIX.

"This highlights the fact the system is broken," said Jeff Kightlinger, the water district's general manager.

Kightlinger said more needs to be done to cut back on other sources of stress on the species, including agricultural runoff that brings pesticide into the delta, invasive species that compete with the smelt, and predatory fish that eat them.

Water districts more heavily dependent on delta water showed more concern about the immediate impact of the pump shutdown.

Everyone looks for a reason to continue taking all the water they need, even when there is none. That is why Sonoma County announced a mandatory 15% reduction in water use beginning July 1.

To illustrate just how much the system is broken, let me quote from a job opening notification that I picked up form another email list yesterday.

Butte County is about to embark on a nationwide search for a new Director of Water and Resource Conservation. Toccoy Dudley has retired and left CalFed's Vickie Newlin in charge. The county will publish a job search in July or August (buttecounty.net). The head hunter is Avery Associates (http://www.averyassoc.net/about.htm) with Bill Avery heading the search.

The job pays over $100,000/year. We need someone heading the department that will prioritize local water management sustainability rather than State water supply.

There is that word "sustainability". It is so commonly used and it so rarely practiced. When you look behind the way some use the term, it means being able to sustain growth, no matter what the cost. Let's look at the "mission" of my local water wholesaler, the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

The mission of the District is a healthy, safe, and enhanced quality of living in Santa Clara County through watershed stewardship and comprehensive management of water resources in a practical, cost-effective, and environmentally sensitive manner.

That is a mission statement which says that they need to deliver the water no matter how unreasonable the requirements may be. Don't do anything that might affect the standard of living or those precious suburban lawns.

I added the link to the Butte County Water and Conservation Department in the notice above. Here is a place where Butte County Greens can try to exert some influence on the decision as to who will end up heading this agency and what policy direction it may follow. We need someone who can think of the needs for water sustainability ( that work again ) until the 7th Generation. Now, we don't even ask if there is enough a sustainable supply of water for the next housing development.

There are going to be many opportunities, such as this in Butte County, where Greens speaking up can make a difference, can push things in the right direction, can have a say about the relationship between the engines of growth and the limitations on our resources. I will watch out for them, but please let me know if you find them yourselves.