He's finally done it. Barack Obama has taken the tantalizing trail to a notoriously slippery slope. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal recently, the President promised, "federal agencies [will] ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth." In other words, we will have our cake [the environment] and eat it too [for economic growth], and federal agencies will be there to dish it all up.
Obama was explaining the executive order he issued that day (January 18) and touted in the State of the Union address. The order was clearly designed with political convenience in mind, and who could begrudge him a bit of that? He is, after all, a politician. However, the order -- and the rhetoric used to describe it -- could tarnish his legacy as a true defender of the environment and the economy.
For much of his first year in the White House, the President steered clear of fallacious win-win rhetoric. His economic and environmental agendas had clear and separate goals. His economic focus was on rescuing the financial system and creating jobs. He seldom used the phrase "economic growth," and there was even some evidence that he supported a "paradigm shift" away from unsustainable growth toward a truly sustainable steady state economy. Meanwhile, he promised to protect the environment, period, and the BP oil spill gave him a platform (pardon the pun) to put the environment first.
Some would argue that Obama was necessarily promoting economic growth when he bailed out the banks and called for job creation. But they wouldn't necessarily be right. Bailing out banks and saving the insurance industry was necessary for stabilizing the financial system, which needed to happen with or without economic growth. It was needed especially to protect the modest lives of relatively innocent borrowers and customers (even though wealthier swindlers benefited too).
As for jobs, it is true that GDP growth is seen as a job creator through the lens of conventional economics. Technically, though, more jobs can be created while capital expenditures decline. In other words, employment can increase without growing GDP, and a president can call for more jobs without promoting economic growth. Such "labor intensification" has its limits, naturally enough, but it can solve short-term unemployment problems while more important issues are dealt with.
And what issues are more important than full employment? For starters, how about full employment for your kids, say five years from now, or for your grandkids in a couple of decades? How about the environment -- air, water, soil, minerals, timber, fisheries, etc. -- the foundation and building blocks of the economy? How about the other species on the planet?
Unfortunately, it's too easy for critics to hone straight in on "other species" and rant, "Who cares about other species -- we're talking about the economy!" But we better care, because these other species are like canaries in the coalmine of the grandkids' economy, and we've been shooting them down like targets at a county fair. Splat goes the spotted owl, poof goes the polar bear; 1,372 federally listed species on the ropes and, with very rare exceptions, down for the count. And what took the environmental building blocks from these unfortunate flora and fauna?
It's not a mystery. The causes of endangerment in the U.S. are well-documented. They're a veritable Who's Who of the American economy. They reflect a human economy out of control, sweeping across the countryside, wiping out the economy of nature and using up the building blocks faster than new ones can be crafted by Mother Nature or imitated by Monsanto.
Yet for decades we've been subjected to the rhetoric that "there is no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment." Though developed by environmentalists hoping to counter opposition to environmental protection, such rhetoric backfires incessantly. It results in policies (such as regulation-loosening executive orders) that allow us to pluck the grandkids' goose while presuming to protect it.
Fortunately, the days of this rhetoric are numbered. Recent research has demonstrated conclusively the fundamental trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection, as so many prominent scientists have agreed. The trade-off is fundamental because it is based on physics and ecology.
What we need now is a president who will parlay this knowledge into public support for policy reform. The President can clarify once and for all that we can't have our cake and eat it to. Can you almost hear him? "We need to balance our concerns about environmental protection with our concerns about full employment, and that doesn't square with growth everlasting. What we need is a healthy, steady state economy balanced with a healthy environment, not an overgrown economy and a shrunken environment."
How would a president and other policy makers help concoct a steady state economy, even if it was publicly supported? First, policies designed to "grow the economy" would be discontinued. Next, steady state policy tools (such as resource capping) would be employed. There is no shortage of policy options. But the horse must come before the cart. The steady state economy has to be a goal with widespread public support before a suitable policy framework can be constructed. Presidential leadership is needed to generate such support. Then, with widespread public support, a steady state economy would be engendered from the "demand side," too, with temperance trumping conspicuous consumption. In other words, with widespread public support, less policy reform would be required for establishing a sustainable steady state.
It's not too late for Obama to be the Truth Teller in Chief. He's tested the slippery slope of win-win rhetoric -- gotten his foot muddied a bit -- but he hasn't committed himself to a mudslide yet. The trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection is perhaps the most inconvenient of all truths to acknowledge, but it's better than a full slide down the slippery slope of green growth rhetoric. That could be a legacy breaker.
But the earth has a way of ridding herself of organisms that consume more than they should, and we are no exception. The scale of time involved might be beyond human comprehension, but it's impossible to outwit nature.
Person (weight 200 lb) mostly alone is driving in car (4000lb) with efficiency of engine - 30%, efficiency of gasoline production less than 45%.
We must change our electricity production-in power plant we losing 80% of fuel energyheat energy in vain.
We must grow forests for wood energy in new power plants, where we could use as heat, as electricity.
It will help economy and environment, make North America energy independent, and create 100% jobs, for engineers, scientists, workers and farmers.
Vegsister's comments below about stabilizing population growth is also extremely important, since each person born carries energy and resouce needs that will need to be met. A reduction in our population size will lead to a better quality of life for all people and all species because the finite planetary resources will not be stretched so thin.
"It takes two units of wood energy to produce one unit of coal energy."
“Energy content of wood fuel (HHV, bone dry) = 18-22 GJ/t (7,600-9,600 Btu/lb)
Metric tonne coal = 27-30 GJ (bituminous/anthracite); 15-19 GJ (lignite/sub-bituminous) (the above ranges are equivalent to 11,500-13,000 Btu/lb and 6,500-8,200 Btu/lb).”
Wood - (7,600-9,600 Btu/lb)
Coal (bituminous/anthracite) - 11,500-13,000 Btu/lb
Coal (lignite/sub-bituminous) -6,500-8,200 Btu/lb).
The best coal/wood = 13,000/9,600=1.35; 1.35 ton of wood by energy equal 1 ton of coal.
My average suggestion 1.6 ton of wood by energy equal 1 ton of coal.
"superefficient (~85%!) woodburning stoves" are really good, but they emit carbon dioxide.
It is difficult economically from every home take this carbon dioxide.
For power plants it is possible. Together with ash it will be the best nutrition to grow forest.
Efficiency of most appliance right now around 25%. If we improve efficiency to impossible 100%, it will mean, that 4 times more people will live on level of middle class in USA.
For the world population it is not enough.
Solar cells, windmills to provide electricity 24 hours during 365 days, needs batteries and usual grid, what makes them twice as expensive.
Production of their construction, batteries emitt additional carbon dioxide.
Population in developed countries are most growing in the world, and we can't influent there, at least in near future.
Of course the real power for change--or its obstruction--rests in the hands of corporations, with their massive political war chests. Those of us with stock porfolios AND an environmental conscience had better look hard in the mirror. We are the ones we seek.
Let us remember that while Western-style consumption is responsible for its share of species endangerment, climate destabilization, pollution, and overexploitation of resources, population growth adds its own kerosene to these growing infernos. And if we are successful in halting, eventually reversing, human population growth, we may ensure that moderate economic growth is an ecological possibility in those parts of the world where it is necessary to allow for a reasonable standard of living. A key aspect of looking out for the grandkids is ensuring that every grandkid is wanted, and that those who do not wish to have grandkids (or kids) have access to the education and family planning resources that afford options in this critical area of human well-being.
With free Trade your concept is a step back to feudal times. In my Grandfathers time it was called Share Cropping, one or two hundred years before that it was slaves or indentured servants, before that serfs. I assume you already have a new name to call us already picked out with your economic plan.
My 10th grade world history teacher taught me there has always been cheap labor on the planet but the Industrial Revolution had to wait for the steam engine and cheap reliable energy!
Coal usage in North America and Europe has been basically flat between 2000-2007 however coal usage world wide has grown over 50% in the same period with most of that growth in Asia!
A Steady State Economy sounds good particularly to NIMBY (not in my back yard) environmentalist. However for things like mercury in our fish and concepts like man-made global warming it does very little.
A better system is a tax or tariff based on the manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability of products sold here.
Much better for the planet! It discourages fossil fuel usage.
Much better for workers because it encourages local production.
All winning results!
I think unrestricted free trade is the opposite of what you desire. I believe Worldwide Free Trade brings out the worse in nations because the winners are those nations that will treat their environment and citizens the worse! I don't think the U.S. can go down this path alone without reverting back to a static agricultural society.
I believe we have learned that one of the most effective ways to alter peoples behavior is the tax code! People will go to extraordinarily lengths to avoid paying extra taxes.
That's why I believe we have a small window as the worlds largest customer to alter the behavior of everyone on the planet. By imposing a tax or tariff based on the manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability of products sold here we can not only transform our thinking but everyone's thinking about sustainability.
I think we both agree Sustainability should be the keystone to your steady state economy.
With free Trade your concept is a step back to feudal times. In my Grandfathers time it was called Share Cropping, one or two hundred years before that it was slaves or indentured servants, before that serfs. I assume you already have a new name to call us already picked out with your economic plan.
My 10th grade world history teacher taught me there has always been cheap labor on the planet but the Industrial Revolution had to wait for the steam engine and cheap reliable energy!
Coal usage in North America and Europe has been basically flat between 2000-2007 however coal usage world wide has grown over 50% in the same period with most of that growth in Asia!
A Steady State Economy sounds good particularly to NIMBY (not in my back yard) environmentalist. However for things like mercury in our fish and concepts like man-made global warming it does very little.
A better system is a tax or tariff based on the manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability of products sold here. Much better for the planet! Much better for workers because it encourages local production. It discourages fossil fuel usage. All winning results!
See Green Light at www.aesopinstitute.org to learn how and why.
Cost-competitive renewable technologies will produce millions of jobs
And we can accelerate their development and production.
those in the petrochemical sector are the buggy whip makers of today. they will fight and have the money to fight, but if we choose not to fight them then they will drag all of us down with them and this country will fall into economic oblivion and leave it to other countries to be the leaders, movers and shakers in this new realm. do you really want that?
There are environmental trade-offs to be made. But for stuff that doesn't directly harm our national parks or make the air we breathe unclean or water we drink unsafe, I think the answer for most Americans is pretty obvious- People, not owls.
If we were to hit the PPC horizon, we'd have -0- paperwork and businesses would know they couldn't build stuff on swamps. However, we have myriad permits and paperwork to fill out, some of which duplicates other stuff. If we at least eliminate the duplication and redundancy of the protection, we can move closer to the PPC threshhold.
Not everything is a zero-sum game. If we have focus on a more efficient economy, we can have better lives with a smaller impact on the environment.
We owe it to our children to not be intellectually lazy. We owe it to our children to have a more efficient economy, more personal savings, and a less expensive government with less debt to hand off to them. Reducing government inefficiency- while maintaining environmental protection- is one way of doing this.