By now you all know that our former Vice President, Al Gore, has received the Nobel Peace Prize for raising public awareness of the dangers posed by increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming. Private citizen Gore is best known for his illustrated lecture, turned into a movie, called “An Inconvenient Truth” --- although an earlier book called: “A World in Balance” has also received popular attention.
Friday, February 29, 2008
A more convenient turth
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Touching the 3rd rail of American environmentalism
Many schemes and schemers purport to help solve our growing concerns about climate change and, particularly, global warming. The major, although not exclusive, culprit of projected rising global temperatures and, therefore, perturbations to the geophysical and geochemical systems of the planet, is CO2 – a major byproduct of our carbon fueled economy. Clearly, any plan to lower carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, and our concomitant dependence on foreign oil, should be of interest – and many new, untried technologies are lining up for attention and public funding.
However, one proven approach not being vetted by even the most daring environmentalist is that of the Europeans. According to The Economist’s 2008 “Pocket World in Figures”, the average American emits 19.9 tons of carbon per year, in contrast to 10.3 for each Russian, 9.8 for each German, and 6.2 for each Frenchman. If you’re a Swede, Swiss, or eastern European, your carbon footprint is even less. How is it that Europeans, some with qualities of life that rival our own, have per capita carbon emissions half to a third of ours?
The European approach is the “third rail” – one so threatening to our cherished American values that no one here would propose it: conservation and compact, energy-efficient urban systems.
We love our sprawl, our rambling suburban houses, our SUVs, our shopping malls. Woe to he who might suggest that this energy luxuriant lifestyle should be amended to reduce its CO2 emissions. Indeed, we’re heavily invested in vast, low-density metropolitan areas with expansive green spaces, low-rise buildings, and high-speed highways. This publicly-subsidized outward thrust of
While Americans recoil at the idea of adopting heavy handed, European-style, land use controls that invest city centers with good government, efficient public transit, strict building codes, cultural amenities and policing, much of the energy inefficient patterns of American urbanization would changed if we simply phased out those public policies that privilege urban sprawl.
What are those policies? There are many: tax right offs for new building construction and debt (residential and commercial), under-funding of actual highway and road costs, unsustainable municipal subsidies to attract new businesses, and public services that subsidize big energy and inequitably allocated resources.
Without adopting stringent, top-down European land use controls,
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Tell me a story
Gloom we have from the environmentalists: our unrelenting assault on nature by an over-populated earth; drought, disease, floods, rising sea levels, hurricanes and torrential storms; disappearing forests and species, blistering hot cities and unsustainable energy supplies; melting icecaps and nature in full retreat... all inevitable. Who wants to hear this stuff? No wonder the public tunes these people out!
Well, let's talk about the good stuff. Good stuff; what good stuff? As long as environmentalist define "good" as a story of returning to a mythical past, say 1990, there can be no "good stuff". Time is the one linear thing that moves forward; we can selectively remember, but we can't go back.
Unlike environmentalists, economists know all change brings winners and losers. A "just society" seeks to compensate the losers with some of the winnings of the winners. Who and where are the winners in climate change -- an inconceivable question to environmentalists?
The reality is there may be many winners... those living in northern climes long limited by long, cold winters and short summers (Canada, Russia, the Nordic countries); those with access to dependable supplies of freshwater (Great Lakes); those that will control the new coastlines and build new cities. Perhaps warmer climates will result in new waves of natural productivity and speciation as flora and fauna come together in new ways.
Even in the depths of the Great Depression, stories of hope and communal self-reliance resonated with the population, e.g. "It's a wonderful Life". Where are our stories of hope and positive objectives amid the gloom of the environmentalists message -- the messages that not only offer hope, but propel people forward in creating a different, more just society and world where evolving Man and Nature are seen as one.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Give me your elderly, your retired, your senior citizens
It’s well known that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy a nice place to live – which is a step in the right direction. It’s also well known that the elderly, with mobile pensions, tend to seek out places that offer the best senior living arrangements for their buck. This means having a comfortable, maintenance-free living space in an attractive and safe environment with some interesting things to do and locally accessible health services to address the inevitable wearing-out of the human body.
Geographically, this has usually meant a move to the east or west coast of
For that reason and because American’s population is aging at a rapid rate, communities should take seriously the needs of their elderly and do all they can to get them to stay. Likewise, any new retirees to a community represents a significant gain that allows for the growth of social and economic capital. Elderly people not only bring a lifetime of accumulated financial wealth (some more than others) but a significant bank of experience and talent. Contrary to the popular notion, older people within communities are not burdens to be endured, but are important engines for community sustainability and growth.
Today,
Many elderly enjoy living is coastal areas and, indeed the
All this is to say,
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Sssh... Michigan has a gold coast!
Why is it a secret? Many of the good folks who already live along the eastern shores of
What would happen if the prosperous but overcrowded peoples of
Who are the people who would bring all this gold and prosperity to western
The main limitations at the moment to the growth of
Regarding transportation, effective growth is retarded by the lack of a passenger rail line, safe airports, and a scenic coastal highway. Indeed, one of the best investments the State could make would be in a high-speed rail linked to
Friday, June 1, 2007
Victory Lap
The climate change war is over. Global warming won! Those that fought tooth and nail against the reality of mankind's adverse impact our environment have either conceded defeat or are hiding in advanced states of denial.
How do I know? The old Al Gore gang staged a victory lap at the
These people were prepared to acknowledge what had been denied for years – that climate changes will happen regardless of what Americans or anybody else does in the near future. They were ready to state publicly what Europeans and others already accept: “the globe is warming and we don’t know what to do about it”.
For some 18 years, the US Climate Change Program has poured billions into studying the physics and chemistry of the dynamic atmosphere -- awkwardly ignoring the real problem of why modern society emits more and more greenhouse gasses. To placate happy-talk politicians of both the Clinton and Bush administrations, they argued that climate change could be arrested if we just reduced our consumption of fossil fuels – which everyone knew wouldn’t happen. Reducing emissions was a non-starter because (a) the politically-connected the captains of American industry were not about to cut their windfall profits from mining and distributing fossil fuels, and (b) the physical scientists, who controlled the agenda, relished a reliable river of research funds. The rocket engineers and climatologists were not about to give up their research largess to social scientists who might actually have something useful to say about how society should or should not confront climate change.
All of this is to say, today we’re a day late and a dollar short. The National Summit should have come 10 years ago – as was acknowledged by one of it principal speakers.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
What the experts don't know
Recently I attended the “Michigan Economic Forum” -- organized, to their credit, by
True, the popular “more high-tech” and “more college graduates” mantras were trotted out, but no vision accompanied these tropes. This advice did nothing to address
Recent experience with Pfizer and other hi-tech companies fleeing the state suggests that “more hi-tech” is not the solution. For a hundred years or more,
Yes,