Case Study

 

In the photo above, W.G. Nye and Loy E. Moore, owners of the Peerless Incinerator Company, display their inventory of backyard incinerators as they hear reports of banning all incinerators. "We're convinced we're being made the goats for some other industry," said Moore, Oct. 20, 1954. Incinerators were finally banned in So Cal on Oct. 1, 1957, and people had to tear them out. Then the trash collection industry went into business, bigtime. Previously only food garbage was picked up. This was before electric garbage disposals were installed in kitchen sinks and changed the habits around food waste, as well.

A very complete article is here, and you'll find the history of trash, going forward, here.

By 1956, Los Angeles County had started to phase in trash collection in areas where incinerator use was being phased out. A total ban on incinerators was in place by October 1, 1957. Thus the death of one industry, backyard trash incineration, gave birth to a massive new one. The public safety issue of pollution in the Los Angeles basin had trumped the "politics as usual" around the smokestack industries because of the obvious pollution impacts on human health and the environment. This legislative route to zero is a good precedent for the methodology that will be needed to phase out fossil fuels in order to get to zero by 2050.

The practical impact of going to zero on fossil fuels will require a layered system of "zero points" on carbon emissions for various fuels. Based upon the weight of carbon emissions, it's necessary to phase out the heaviest fuels first as the transition is made to renewable and zero-carbon fuels. The carbon limits on fuels can be layered so that the most rapid cutbacks are mandated by zero emissions per fuel type by weight of carbon. This can be a VERY effective system in the management of the convergence of emissions if they're adopted globally, based upon a system such as Contraction & Convergence, with the contraction year set at 2020.

For example, in the scenario where the global budget is equitably distributed at RCP 2.6, the "zero year" for these fuels are established as 2020 for coal, 2025 for fracked gas, 2030 for oil, and 2050 for natural gas. The other fuels, wind/wave/solar/geothermal/hydroelectric/algae/ethanol, have no zero date, and thus are the targets for long-term investment strategies.

Setting up a rough chart for this, the height of the carbon emission bar chart of carbon per unit of energy is taken from the EIA page.

 

What this does is tell the global industries and investors the timeline allowed to taper to zero for each fuel under RCP 2.6 so that we don't exceed 2C in our ecosphere; this is the stability needed to get off of carbon sources and move to clean energy with exceedingly rapid investment and development. So the chart for the convergence sequence implementation starts to look like this. The rapidity with which the carbon is reduced is quite revealing, and using sequential zero years shows that this can be very effective, just as it was in Los Angeles in the 1960's and '70's and the air began to clear significantly.

Urban Black Holes

 A black hole is an area of spacetime where an immense mass generating extreme gravitational forces prevents anything, including light, from escaping. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return for anything that crosses this horizon. This kind of structure is a good analogy for what I've defined as black holes in the ecological system of our planet.

A comparison of the properties of the natural environment versus the built environment is simple. For example, a tree requires only the natural energy of its immediate environment versus the immense embodied energy required for a house. Not only that, the tree provides oxygen, creates its own micro ecology and cools its immediate vicinity with shade and the absorption of energy in the infrared wavelength. Sort of a natural solar collector and carbon sink. In this way, life has created its own method of sustaining itself using sunlight and water. Then you look at what human civilization has produced, which are structures which reverse the natural processes and use tremendous amounts of energy during their lifetime plus the embodied energies of its structure and the oil, gas and water used to make and transport its parts, as well as the energy to build it and snuff out the functioning ecosystem that used to be in its place. So these are little hotspots where the energy transfer works in reverse to the natural flow. When one aggregates many of these hotspots over an area, it creates a very destructive black hole. These black holes can be mapped.

So clearly if these black holes are not significantly balanced out with a healthy biosphere, the entire system collapses. This is in addition to the heat of carbon that's emitted by their existence as well as the transportation and shipping networks that support human habitation systems. Climate change is but one facet of the black hole problem. So there is a limit to the built environment that the planet can handle without the destruction of the ecological systems that support life on the planet.

Urban expansion - the black holes - will threaten biodiversity and impact the ability of the natural environment to function. There is a limit to the amount of human habitation that the planet can support, and we've passed that limit. We're now encroaching on the last remnants of the natural environment that provides what little balance is left in the ecosystem.

An explanation of the fiscal drivers that create these massive urban developments is described in an article that outlines how cities grow, particularly in California, but also across the globe. In effect, the financial models force more and more building for the cities to survive on the revenue this produces. This fiscal model is what drives the black holes that are shredding the ecosphere. The model is shifting to the premise that the form of cities must change because sprawl is too expensive, a retreat from the event horizon. Unfortunately for the fiscal model, the proposed solution of creating more dense development feeds right into the expansion of these black holes; it becomes a self-perpetuating cancer. This is not a solution for the long term. And these dense centers are poised to explode even further.

Unless human civilization comes to grips with its destructive proclivities, and reduces its footprint on the planet, there's not much hope for continued sustainable life on the planet. The ecological footprint must be reduced very rapidly by all the countries on the globe, and readjust our priorities as a civilization that allows us to adapt to the limitations of planetary resources and ecology. Therefore, the adoption of a new fiscal measure of productivity is imperative in our global systems.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Today President Obama rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, amidst growing public outcry and civil disobedience in Washington, D.C. against this project. The extraction process from the tar sands, the piping of crude oil through a major aquifer, the impact of pricing increases in the USA because it's being produced for export, ad infinitum, have given him enough reason to go up against Hillary Clinton's State Department position on this issue.

But that's not really the crux of the issue for the serious environmental protest, primarily that led by Bill McKibben, who takes the stand against the carbon impact of this project and all extractive resources (oil, coal and gas). Reduced to its fundamentals, climate change is being fueled by carbon emissions that continue to increase year over year, even as the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates climate change and volatility leading to draught, food instability and increasingly violent and extreme weather that's responsible for tremendous damage globally. The only answer is to stop the use of these fuels before runaway climate change takes place, it's not something that can be "mitigated". The science behind this is now definitive. The time is short.

Orion Magazine has showcased some articles about the ongoing fight by those committed to taking action in the face of a global emergency. Bill McKibben writes about Tim DeChristopher's lone paddle in the oil auction that has landed him in federal prison. McKibben sees this as a beginning of a movement that began coalescing on the first Earth Day in 1970 and that must now move into a more intensive phase.

The Orion interview of Tim DeChristopher is here, a story about "This is What Love Looks Like". It's a beautiful piece about a powerful action that's reverberating through more and more people.

Final 60-day deadline (imposed by a Republican Congress) is 21 February 2012 for Obama to deny the Keystone XL permit. Public actions to support denial are being taken as follows:

TAR SANDS ACTION in SoCal
Petition and demonstration at the Culver City office of Obama for America, Saturday Feb. 4, 2012, 12 pm
*NOTE* this event has been postponed in favor of a much larger event, keep this OFA page bookmarked for future planning.

Tar Sands Action planning on Facebook

Sierra Club - Beyond Coal

Greenhouse Data Tool - search emission sources in your area

Built on Sand

An angry public distrust of both government and the financial sector has resulted from this deep, seemingly unending recession. A completely self-inflicted growth bubble based upon financial weapons of self destruction, to quote Warren Buffet, has been based upon inflating property values to the point that landscapes are littered with unneeded and abandoned "projects" that enriched only banks and developers, leaving taxpayers with the tab. Ireland is a devastating case in point.

Building and development became the sole support structure for revenue and taxes, and ballooned into the stratosphere due to lack of fiscal oversight formerly provided by the Glass-Steagall Act passed in 1933 that established the FDIC. This was overturned by the Republican-sponsored Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 on behalf of the banking industry, and signed into law by President Clinton. While this was going on, the housing industry pushed the State legislature into forcing more development through massive housing requirements (RHNA allocations via SCAG) in order to keep the bubble ballooning. SB 375 is a legislative device designed to bust CEQA and force more development into communities, rather effectively disguised as a regulation designed to reduce traffic while forcing massive additions of square footage.

Today in Los Angeles, Development Overlay Zones are being created that void the need for public review and, again, bust CEQA guidelines and public oversight, promised to the Neighborhood Councils. Los Angeles, like Sacramento,appears to be still hooked on the same deadly development drug. It finally fell to Orange County cities to quit the League of California Cities over SB 375 housing allocations and threats of developer litigation. A deeper issue underlies the financing that was supposed to carry all this development; in the ensuing collapse of the CDO market, the banks are no longer lending. The supposed underlying mortgages do not in fact exist, so there's no product upon which to leverage sales of these tranches. The evaporation of assets has hit the public in their pockets in the form of public ownership of big banks (Freddie and Fannie) as well as millions of home foreclosures and the disappearance of jobs.

This has led to an early signal on State policy change with respect to population increase. There is a dawning understanding that profits come more effectively from streamlining instead of physical construction and development. If the artificially instigated pressure comes off of Sacramento for growth, then the overdevelopment simply goes away.The Jerry Brown grab for CRA money is the front edge of a major policy change that will shift investment towards many industries as well as the streamlining of infrastructure and business. If money must now be used wisely in productive strategies, the old brute-force buildout has seen its final days.

Sim Van der Ryn is back!

Climate Storytellers

Our government and scientists all over the world have been gathering data and information about the changes that our planet is going through. The format is satellite photos, digital surface scans, site testing and earth bores, and field surveys. Science is the tool by which we can measure what's happening and quantify the changes that are taking place. At some point, this information has the potential to change our behavior, as social media and broadcast/internet media have done.

But this has not always been effective in dialogue about important global public policy. When there's too many megaphones and not enough real content, the dialogue gets lost in the information haze. Debate degenerates into political babble, and the information is not clear or viable any more.

Then what happens when an international photographer and activist becomes alarmed with the destructiveness of climate change that he sees for himself? Subhankar Banerjee has been giving voice to the dying forests and diminishing oceans he sees; he acts as witness to this as the world governments fail to curb the destructive acts of carbon generating energy acquisition. His leadership is emerging in a powerful new climate movement that will no longer allow businesses and corporations to ignore the environmental consequences of their actions. He is calling for a new, engaged climate movement that will act in time to save what remains of the living ecosystems on this planet. He is driving it by sharing his photodocumentation of changes that he is seeing over the decade, and using it as a personal call to action.

He is collecting stories to tell, and this is one of the first to be told.

The urgency increases as the ecological situation deteriorates. An alarm raised by Jim Garrison tells us to prepare for frequent climate catastrophes now that the tipping point has passed.

An Energy-Independent Future

An Energy-Independent Future

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Jon Stewart nails it. Enjoy!

Rite of Spring

The Faust theme, that of risking eternal damnation by selling one’s soul to the devil in exchange for magical powers, can be found in nearly every genre of music as well as in the arts and literature. This is a biblical theme examining humanity’s place in the universe and the struggle between good and evil. It plays out in technology as well, in the energy that enables us to generate heat and light, to fly and race over the globe, and use powerful machines to move the earth, as well as broadcast the beams of information, music, images and ideas across the globe. This magic is powered by that black energy from deep in the earth, coal and oil. Burn that, and you've got the Faustian bargain of carbon loading in the biosphere and the horrific toll that pollution and climate change is taking on planetary systems.

Looking at this issue mythically may help us create a vision of redemption that can be used to trick the devil in the final stretch. Listening to the notorious music by Stravinsky in the ballet by Diaghilev, which created an uproar over its expression of primitive power and seductive entrapment, we can see that there's a way out of the trap. This theme has been re-imagined over and over, the music emerging more recently again in Bob Fosse's choreography in that 1955 play about the Yankees losing the pennant: Damn Yankees. Gwen Verdon does it all justice in "Whatever Lola Wants", the great seduction number.

Myth, metaphor, philosophy and wisdom can go beyond the bounds of everyday vision and inspire a collaborative, focused goal of reintegrating with the natural processes and leaving the dark fuels behind. It relies on making the social connections and valuing the smaller, more intimate and ultimately most effective systems and lifestyles. Out of that vision emerges the strategies and solutions that return life to the earth in the manner in which we found it. It's a choice we can make as the inhabitants of this planet - the devil's bargain can be broken. Joe did slam that ball out of the park and with Lola's help, he made it back home to Meg.

By the Numbers

Once again Western policies in third world countries backfire, resulting in deforestation in Africa rather than the preservation of ecologies that balance our planet's ecosystem. Like the World Bank funding of large, destructive dams, the policies foster ecological destruction in the name of finance and "progress".

The problem is, deforestation is one of the major, if hidden, causes of global warming. It goes beyond the destruction of plant absorption, soil and nutrients that creates flooding in deforested areas when the rains hit. Forests are the lungs of the planet. But our Western fiscal structures for integrating better living conditions in these areas are actually contributing to their demise.

Truthdig's article on the deforestation of Africa points out that the financial structure of supposedly using forests to offset carbon credits actually results in their destruction. It has taken local, rural people stepping up to object to these practices to stop the destruction of their resources, an issue raised at the Copenhagen summit only to be rebuffed. As the article goes on to state:

Yet that is the deal that must be done someday soon to avoid climate disaster. For a fraction of the world’s military spending, it could be a Green New Deal that creates new industries, advances new technologies and revives our economy—much like the spending on World War II boosted America into prosperity. It is a proposition that we can no longer afford to refuse.

It's increasingly apparent that the integration of Natural Capital into the balance sheets is necessary to preserve global ecology; the old policies were based upon destructive practices and industries that can no longer be used, as well as failing to account for fully half of the resource consumption cycle. As Thomas Friedman has pointed out numerous times, the financial profits have to be created out of new kinds of practices that are not destructive of the very resources that give them value.

Unprecedented

Video here: Democracy Now hosts a discussion on how the Obama administration has handled this catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and explore concrete ways that this country might finally move away from a fossil-fuel economy with three guests: New Orleans attorney Monique Harden of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights; Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune; and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, widely recognized as one of the world’s most influential energy thinkers.

The Movement Grows

Our leadership has not yet stepped up to the plate with respect to the changing climate and the necessary broad actions that have to take place quickly in order to drastically cut carbon output and reverse the effects of pollution and energy consumption. Our global carbon benchmark is 350 ppm, and we're at 392. This is based upon extensive research and observation, and has become the critical issue for our time. Oil and coal have proven to be disastrous, poisonous energy sources, and the change needs to be swift. Instead, industries in California have come up with so-called "green" regulations like SB 375 that create immense new loads of carbon by requiring unprecedented growth in housing and new buildings. The very things that created this horrific climate situation to begin with.

A policy report issued by the Lincoln Institute outlines the need for an immediate, large-scale movement to change the use of fossil fuels for clean technologies and low-impact lifestyles. Climate change in the West, especially, is anticipated to be severe, to the point where it threatens livability, water availability and will result in major habitat destruction.

The report asks planners and public policy bodies to change rapidly:

* Mobilize the political will.
* Recognize local action and citizen participation.
* Identify resources and a variety of options.
* Adapt climate science to local planning needs.

The more radical and viral parts of the environmental reform movement have been vociferous for a decade now, leading up to a viral campaign last September that recalls the start of other historic movements. The activism and public outcry right now over the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is clearly creating an urgency that fuels this reaction and calls for rapid public implementation of carbon-mitigation measures.

This will affect our economic, social and global resource systems in a drastic way. But that's far better than leaving a smoldering ruin for the next generation by hanging on to old destructive industries.

Afoul of Natural Capital

It's the twenty-eighth day after the fiery rupture of BP's oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, and only now the massive oil leak seems to be slowing to a close. It has been called a "transforming event" (good diagrams here) for the way that this rupture has been handled, both environmentally and in terms of risk to the industry. In observing the ongoing efforts to cap this leak, as well as the expanding impact of the oil on the surface and in the newly tracked underwater plumes, the magnitude of this accident becomes almost overwhelming. Yet this kind of activity in environmentally sensitive areas - as in this case our seafood supply - carries risks that have, at least until now, seemed manageable in the traditional costs and balances of business risk and accounting.

There is a systemic way of looking at this called Public Choice theory, which relates to the economics of government in that there is a lack of information feedback, as well as limited capacity to respond to major events like Hurricane Katrina. It's endemic to government processes and the slow filtering of information to the decision-makers who are not experts in the situation. When regulations and legal structures allow a cap on the costs of risks, such as BP has, then the operation will tend to take the risks that would produce far greater damage than if the company were to be held completely liable. Hence the position of the Obama administration that BP take full responsibility for the effects of this rupture, not just that which has been previously bounded by contracts and regulations.

One way to understand this is to briefly read this fascinating "Oil Electric" blog, which explains in some detail what exactly is on the floor of the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. It's not a natural environment any more, there's an entire network of pipes and rigs throughout this shallower part of the ocean. It is an entire underwater industrial system that is interconnected and runs miles of pipe on and under the sea floor. Actually it's the impact crater from the asteroid that impacted the earth 65 million years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Has something to do with all the oil there, I suppose.

So the natural environment, or what's left of it, has co-existed with this industrial system for over a century. These rigs have evolved into platforms that are self-sufficient small cities; some are movable, others are permanent platforms. These permanent structures ultimately become a haven for sea life after the oil platform is no longer in use. But what kinds of risks are acceptable, particularly now that we've seen the "worst case" that has decimated sea life and the ecology of the entire southern coast?

A new kind of balance sheet, that gives weight to the true value of natural systems and the life support that they provide, has been evolving globally to benchmark the true risks to all life and their systems from the human activities that impact them. This is Natural Capital, and it takes into account the extended costs of human impact on natural systems - our planetary resources. Key to these measurements is the value of biodiversity in ecological systems. This event will no doubt move the discussion forward very rapidly now.

We Immolate Ourselves Again

The tragedy of the BP platform blowup in the Gulf of Mexico gives lie to the assertions that oil drilling is an acceptable risk in offshore waters. A very comprehensive action is being taken by the Nature Conservancy in response to the blowup and oil spill in the protected marine areas. Their complete first-hand response and report is here. More complete local coverage is at nola.com, a New Orleans publication.

There's no way to really make amends to natural systems when this inevitably happens, in particular the Exxon-Valdez destruction which is ongoing in Prince William Sound decades after the incident. Some information about oil spills, their frequency and amounts, are here.

Our economy is simply going to have to shift very quickly to disconnect from these poisonous energy sources before the destruction wipes out ecosystems that provide us with life, food and our deep connection to natural processes at the shorelines. Millions of years ago these interstices and tidepools saw the emergence of life from the sea onto the land, a crucible driven by the tides created in the dance between the earth and the moon.

Climate Change Officially Sanctioned

The US Government has finally taken a public stand on the issue of how human activities impact climate change. It has issued a report that interprets climate change data that emphasizes the impact that greenhouse gasses (GHG's) make on the environment. Considering that 70 percent of the average city’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, this would necessarily be the first thing to tackle, and the easiest in terms of not only preventing more emissions by not building enormous amounts of square footage, but reducing existing levels by retrofitting existing structures and facilities as well as replacing old and inefficient sprawl with clean and effective industries.

EPA has proposed far tougher standards for ozone limits, for example, in January. This applies to the entire spectrum of pollution sources including power plants, factories and landfills, putting much of the US. in violation of Federal law. So, of course the industry pushes back through the Chamber of Commerce to kill this effort. Since the US has among the highest emissions on the globe, the concerted effort by industry (with China's help) to shut down global emissions policies by our Federal Government amounts to a violation of global accord that has been evident since the Bush administration boycotted Kyoto in 2005.

I've talked about the Chamber's short-term profits-first efforts at slowing progress in the name of outmoded production models before. It keeps us embedded in an increasing carbon cycle that will ultimately trap industry in a backwater of uncompetitive practices as well as an inescapable shutdown as emissions continue to increase in the oil and coal based industries without a means to produce energy or power industry with other sources.

It's time to take this policy seriously, and respond in every community in the state by reviewing and improving these facilities. They've already been mapped and it's interactive on line.

California's Greenhouse Gasses

The top 100 carbon dioxide-producing facilities in our state as of 2007 are posted here on an interactive map with the listings, provided by California Watch. These are the kinds of sources for which the State is accountable with the CO2 measurements and subsequent reduction requirements, which far outstrip traffic emissions. Add to that the emissions for housing and development, which also subtract from the earth's ability to absorb carbon, and you have an equation for a system far out of balance.

The Twelfth Night

Again, it's Twelfth Night - the night of epiphany, of recognition and awakening. From the darkest days of the year we need to look towards the light, celebrated around the globe, regardless of creed, in different cultures down through the eons with fire, candles, light and music. In western Christianity, it means celebrating the visit of the three kings or wise men to the Christ Child, signifying the extension of salvation to the Gentiles.

I asked the question earlier, now shall we extend this salvation to all people, the creatures and life that inhabit our home, the planet?

Salvation isn't earned, it's a gift, a grace, a blessing. Like the blessings and abundance of nature that we've taken as our due as the human family expanded across the globe. It's time to reflect on our continual consumption of earth's resources and the impact that this is having on the natural processes and their ability to support life in all its diversity and complexity.

It's now time to make other decisions, to work within the parameters of nature, and integrate human process within rational bounds. It's a scale issue, as has been debated in the Copenhagen climate summit, as well as a supremely immediate and necessary cumulative action to restore what was once abundantly provided by an unburdened earth. From its highest point to the lowest depths of the biosphere, we're reaching a crucial moment in our history as well as the limits of the ability of our planet to nurture human habitation. We must act, in grace, to turn around our destructive habits and embrace a constructive path.

What other blessing can humanity give?

Earth, Life, Structure, Communicating

For me, an early fascination with built form and the reasons for its shape and patterns has led to some "global galloping" in exploration of indigenous architecture and how living creatures change their environment as they interact with each other in the web of life. All the way from the inhabitants of Galapagos and the African savannah to the early indigenous forms of civilization in Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, China, the American Southwest, Alaska, Hawaii and Indonesia, to the old ruins of Stonehenge and built remnants in France, Spain and Italy, I've found coherence in form response to climate and habitation patterns, human and animal.

Architecture is an earth science and a formgiver of purpose and vision in human cultures, evolving into ever more complex patterns. The beginnings of built form, starting with animal adaptations (the Darwinian approach) through to the human modification of the earth that emerged in different cultures and climates are at the roots of this practice. Animal-created architecture presents a valuable window on organizing natural systems, outlined in Animal Architecture: "As ecosystem engineers, the influence of builders is extensive and their effect is generally to enhance biodiversity through niche construction. Animal builders can therefore represent model species for the study of the emerging subject of environmental inheritance." A more general book by the Goulds is Animal Architects. An interesting blog also delves into what its author calls "Cospecies Coshaping"

This is what life does. It organizes patterns to higher levels of effectiveness and dynamic interaction, using available resources. Systems theory (Check out Robert Pirsig's "Lila"). In this sense life is anti-entropic, and the built environment as we create it today is destructive to life, the arrow of entropy moving from vital systems to entombed molecular structure.

As our human ancestors began their large monumental earth-shaping structures based upon their cultural and belief patterns, the first emergent structures were tombs and religious pyramidal structures that oriented to and interacted with sun, moon and stars. The smaller structures that housed shops and living quarters, such as those found in Pompeii, were small, repetitious structures that flexibly accommodated living patterns and chains of commerce and gradually built up into temple structures and civic plazas.

The cultures of Indonesia and Asia produced indigenous structures unique to their climates, local materials and living patterns. Early human settlements represent a very dynamic interaction between the agricultural societies and the resources of the region. These ancient constructions, embedded in human history, emerged with an immense variety and diversity of form strategy and mastered the ability to passively modify climate to the advantage of humans for food and shelter. Prodigious numbers of these ethnoarchitectural structures emerged over thousands of years of history. They have lessons for modern humans in their richness of form and simplicity and durability of structure. Biomimicry Guild is a leading proponent of incorporating these lessons.

These kinds of constructs, from the animal kingdom to the human world, are purpose-driven and integrate valuable systems of behavior to the benefit of natural systems and living societies of all kinds. I think our self-directed evolution has gotten far off track, relying on brute-force-engineering and must now move to a greater wisdom in a post-industrial form of habitation - that is constructive of rather than destructive to - living systems. Civilizations must live within their means to survive and prosper.

The overgrown Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Chill out the Planet

Wait a minute. Or a day, or a year, or a millennium. What are we doing here? Nature has worked for free for millions of years until the Industrial Revolution began to carbonize the environment, and the beginning of the century in 1900 ushered in the chemical pollution and waste that became pervasive in the subsequent World Wars and the conflicts after that. What drives all this destruction? Growth for profit.

Growth of civilization is not a force of nature, it's a characteristic of unrestrained population expansion due to the human intervention in natural cycles. Not to say that's completely out of line, but we've overrun the ecosystem with our lack of comprehension on how we should "fit" into our niche. Basically it violates the UN-adopted concept of sustainability.

This runaway growth of one species has mushroomed into a massive impact that must pull back significantly, with a restoration of natural processes in an intelligent fashion. Yet we now have a form of denial in the concept of re-engineering the earth, when we can't even keep our own systems going without massive costs or energy transfers. These untested and massive-scaled interventions address only one dimension of any given problem, when we really need to understand that we've unbalanced the system, which has to return to its "resting" state. These interventions are like any other "bubble" that we've produced financially, for example - they collapse. Some ways of returning to the balance are better than others, but they've all got to start with scaling back our use of the planet for single-purpose efforts. The BBC article on the feasibility of geoengineering the earth states this in its preface.

Sustainable development has possibilities, but hacking the earth is pure dystopian panic, and as Prison Planet points out, the US Government is already doing this on a dangerous and untested scale.

So chill out, everybody. A steady, focused multi-systems reversal of ecological damage is key to this problem that has been over 300 years in the making by human civilization. A forward push in new technologies in Net Zero design of reconstructed cities is another viable strategy, as is urban reforestation and ecological repair. All of which we would not be paying for now if we had forestalled the growth of human populations and its consumption much earlier. So we need to figure out how to get commerce and the corporations to pay back for all this. The clawback, as it were...

Shrinking Bigfoot

The building and development sector is undergoing a major learning curve as the impacts of carbon on climate change become apparent, and the linkages to carbon production are more and more centrally linked to development. More development and construction not only consumes resources, but creates the single biggest impact on the planet by the production of materials, consumption of all resources during construction, the shipping, trucking and transport of materials from all over the globe, in order to produce a result: a black hole.

The black hole, as I've talked about before, is the replacement of existing natural processes, using millions of btu's worth of energy, to create huge blocks of structure that consume even more btu's, water and resources over its lifetime (unlike nature, which returns water and oxygen to the area it covers) and produces waste that is environmentally destructive over a much bigger area than the structure itself. It now creates greater traffic demand, which is part of the entire destruction cycle, and the whole thing spirals downward.

This black hole is driven by expansionist and capitalistic development pressures, in our artificial system of monetary profit that does not recognize the value of the environment or even acknowledge that it's fundamental to our existence. Pressures such as legislation requiring more development, as SB 375 does in California, is a result of wholesale profiteering by an industry that is not only attacking the environment, but the residents who are trying to protect what remains. The truly ugly part of this setup is that public dollars are used to push this development into communities that are already at the limits of their resources, in direct opposition to resident concerns about existing overwhelming development and its impact on the local environment, such as the "heat island effect" created by urban development and the degradation of local terrain.
New systems of funding major "public private partnerships", or P3, have come into play to combat the cost spiral that has historically doubled or quadrupled original cost estimates at the beginning of these large projects. These systems of partnering combine financial, legal, and government process into a system that streamlines the project but eliminates the "firewall" of checks and balances that create public accountability for projects of this magnitude. Frequently these projects require projections of use to justify their existence and revenue, but have historically fallen far short of these projections leaving the public holding the bag for these projects as well as the destructive impacts. Understand that the monies are going into private pockets at public expense. Like the black hole of Iraq.

The scale of development, its funding and character, must change. Massive projects and overdevelopment have created damage that will take centuries to balance out, if ever. For example, the big dams have destroyed rivers and silted them over, creating far more problems than they attempted to solve, as well as failing to produce the energy to society over time that they remove from the rivers. A principle well known in the financial arena is "reversion to the mean". In the sciences, this is called entropy, and it means that a system cannot exceed the energy that exists within it, but can only move it around - and in so doing, convert energy to matter (heat to carbon).

A regenerative approach, which operates in a systems fashion and is flexible in scale and internal feedback, is the direction that natural systems have evolved on our planet, and it's critical that human society learns quickly to adapt this model. It'll be necessary to construct a financial system that follows this model instead of the destructive mechanisms we have now that devour resources to benefit the few. The scale of human habitation now dictates that we can no longer try to operate outside the laws of nature, but within its systemic capacity. In doing this, the existence and structure of human social capital and natural capital will finally be recognized and incorporated.

Ways to do this are outlined in books such as "Getting a Grip", by Frances Moore Lappe and "The Real Wealth of Nations" by Riane Eisler. I find this fascinating, because Nature is a woman, too.

Manifest Destruction

Florida, Georgia, Alabama in water wars, Texas is in a water shortage, now California is dry and burning up. The climate-change driven droughts are settling in hard in the coastal states of the US, and the "water police" are turning in citizens who dare use a hose on the wrong day. It has come to this. The massive denial at the National level of clear climate trends in order to foster more and more "growth" for private profit is finally paying off - in the destruction of the environment and the increasing tension and chaos in society over these issues. We have the big industries and corporations that bought our government to thank for this, and to this day there is legislation being sponsored to spur more consumption and growth, particularly construction projects. We have no more resources to rely on, yet this demand for more growth goes on and on.

The rationale for growth and expansion as a means of profit has been embedded in US policy and economic development since the inception of this country, in "Manifest Destiny": westward expansion, the Louisiana Purchase, the acquisition of Texas, California and and Alaska . These territories were then opened for settlement with land given out to those who were willing to migrate and colonize areas by setting up farming. This embedded the practice implemented by the US government of taking over resources for profit which is a method as old as humanity.

To make a long story really short, the entire economy of the US has been structured in this model of consuming resources, with embedded legislation and financial structures which ensure that the consumption of resources through land development, purchase of goods and the implementation of global resource wars remains the driving engine of this country's life style. The phase we're in now, with financial collapse and ecological collapse, is the logical consequence of unfettered capitalism. The Malthusian scenario has now come in to play, and technology can no longer be used to "combat" the properties of a system, the earth's ecology, which provides the basis of life support for all of us.

Our current generation of politicians at the national, state and local levels now have the unenviable job of turning around a mindset that built this country. Many business, political and government groups are still demanding and legislating this growth and development as a solution, much of it in green clothing, in spite of the clear danger that this world view now represents to society. In California, many cities are trying to deal with the local resource issues, such as water and energy, while the State mandates the growth increase embedded in SB 375, for example, which is touted as an anti-sprawl measure because it focuses increased construction around transit centers whether the cities can deal with it or not. Considering that development and construction creates far more pollution, resource depletion and water consumption than any savings obtained by ostensibly driving less, it is actually a destructive measure. There will need to be a reconstruction of State and National policies and governance in order to resolve the formidable issues of human over-demand on the existing resources of this planet. That, or let nature do it the really hard way.

There's a way to avoid ecocide (checklist here) and ending up like Easter Island, if we have the will to do it.

Grow, Grow, Grow with

Langendorf Bread? "Extra energy for you too". Back then the bleached flour was the thing to do before steroids became popular. Flavor was not an issue. I fondly remember that marketing jingle, it was a bakery that supplied bread all up and down the west coast in the postwar go-go decades.

Speaking of growth, California has grown to the world's eighth largest economy by expansionist policies built into its very economic and political fiber, which translates into a powerhouse punch in Washington (our pumped-up Governator - Langendorf, right? - being the latest to ride this beast). Every policy was predicated on population growth to feed profits across entire industries, particularly development and consumer products. There was no end in sight to the polices that encouraged the boom. Except the end has been here for over four years now, while housing and development policies continue to push product, and port development expands to feed the consumer supply chain.

The Los Angeles Times has documented the probable political impact of the outmigration from California in the last four years, a House seat. In order for California to influence public policy and obtain Federal dollars, it has consistently grown its business and development base, which brings in the bodies to justify the policies. The article refers to PPIC, a research institute that provides information and recommendations to governments and regional bodies throughout California.

The Public Policy Institute of California provides research, position papers and surveys in order to substantiate public policy positions in California. Its sponsors are a mix of developers, builders, land use orgs, the MTA, private foundations, universities and utility companies.It's a technically nonpartisan group, but the research is always pointed towards substantiating policies that push development.

It's sort of a chicken-and-egg problem, since forcing growth through development (jobs and housing) attracts population, which feeds the whole cycle no matter where you start. This leads to the inevitable exhaustion of resources and space, which then finally triggers a collapse, as we've seen, in housing and soon to be in commercial development because of the "bubbles" this process creates due to the profits it generates for the developers and industry. This kind of explosive growth now has a serious downside for the entire global economy, since bubbles destabilize what should be an orderly process of development with its checks and balances, producing horrific negative impacts in the near future through a global banking system that leveraged hot air (ground zero of overvaluation is California) for profit.

The Federal bailouts (whoops, did WE do THAT?) resulting from these bubbles have hit historic proportions, per the RGE Monitor, and will leave a legacy of debt for generations that will come due at the same time that the environmental collapse hits. The serious consequences of leaving out human capital and environmental capital in narrow analytics and short-sighted policies are now quite evident, and so our models will now necessarily shift to Natural Capital models that the rest of the world is fighting to establish (see sidebar: Web of Green).

Thomas Friedman points out that those who bear these bailout costs are the public, while a few individuals are enriched. Guilded Age at its finest, human nature at its worst. Connect the dots: Goldman Sachs made $3.44 billion in profit this past quarter, while the U.S deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time in the nation's history and appeared to be headed toward doubling that figure before the budget year is out. Since most of the increase in the federal deficit is due to bailing out the banks and salvaging the greater economy they helped destroy, why is the top investment bank doing so well? Paul Krugman also points out the consequences of propping up entities like Goldman Sachs.