[Sosfbay-discuss] Green Talk Column in MH Times

[Wes Rolley]

The following will (tentatively) become the Green Talk Column for 
Tuesday, Feb. 23.  I may change it a bit between now and tomorrow 9:00 
AM.  If you have any feedback, suggestions for clarity, please reply.
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t 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 at what is meant. The current supplies of oil and 
natural gas are limited and those new fields being found are 
increasingly expensive to 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 supplied 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.


-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better
 and you don't,
 then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024