I've been procrastinating about writing a blog post for a while. I think some of the wind was knocked out of my eco-sails at the end of summer. With President Obama rejecting the new EPA ozone standards and the news about the bankruptcy of the solar company Solyndra, I got depressed. Could it be the "green" movement is over?
According to Gernot Wagner's op-ed in the New York Times, you can reduce, reuse and recycle all you want, but it really isn't going to make a difference. His view is that unless "a regulatory system compels us to pay our fair share to limit pollution," nothing is going to happen:
"Limit, of course, is code for 'cap and trade,' the system that helped phase out lead in gasoline in the 1980s, slashed acid rain pollution in the 1990s and is now bringing entire fisheries back from the brink. 'Cap and trade' for carbon is beginning to decrease carbon pollution in Europe, and similar models are slated to do the same from California to China."
Given the current mood in Washington, however, I am not feeling too confident that we will be seeing a federal cap and trade bill in the U.S. anytime soon. So what is the average eco-minded person to do? I have written numerous blogs on ways to go green, to save energy or to recycle in your home. But even I cringe a bit at these types of posts. We know the drill. We know we need to turn off the water, stop buying plastic bottles and unplug the toaster. Do these small actions really make a difference?
Giving up can't be an option. There is too much at stake. It's good to remember the little things, but let's not forget the bigger picture, too. Unplug your toaster, but also lobby your workplace or your kids' schools to reduce energy and bring fresh local food to the lunchroom. Support your local farmers' markets and call your politicians to stop fracking. And a big thank you to the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Appalachian Mountain Club for bringing a lawsuit again the EPA over its rejection of stricter standards for ozone pollution.
The fight goes on...
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The benefits flowing downwards would of course be factually correct in a closed system(Which did largely but decreasingly exist (1970-1993) just as a capital gains tax cut in a closed system would spur domestic reinvestment, idle money makes no profit. However, while environmentalists were busy implementing command and control top down environmental structures, their democratic allies were just as busy implementing free trade policy as global social and national security policy with the support of republicans who loved the global profit potential.
A top down supply side regulatory structure can only work if the entire top(which is now the entire globe practically) faces the same standards. However as the worlds largest consumers America retains massive potential to improve the environment by switching to a pass the cost of pollution through to the consumer approach. A bottoms up and highly unpopular regulatory strategy.
Cap and trade just adds a middle mans speculative cost to such a structure and we're better off with a carbon tax system than letting the koch's manipulate the price of carbon. The carbon market will be nearly twice the volume of the oil market in a international cap and trade system. Speculators will fleece the planet if it's allowed.
Therein is the problem. Today's green is about green carpet shampoos and green buildings. Ironically, the major and most dangerous browning of the Earth was the actual construction of the building that killed the ecosystem and their biological diversity. So, how can a building be green?
The new green should be an education in the ecology of the Earth and the salvation and protection of Earth's natural, living and life giving physical body, ecosystems. Killing ecosystems kills that much of the Earth, whether it is buildings, cities, oil rigs or constructing over for dead solar panel fields or windmill factories. We must educate with the science of ecology. In wildness is the life of the Earth.
I hear you loud and clear. Over population is a travesty to the entire earth and its inhabitants. Just almost everyone admits that something needs to be done about it, but, they admit it quietly. It's such an explosive issue that The Powers That Be tend to ignore it.
This WILL be to the detriment of the earth and its people. It is not sustainable at this population rate and nor is ever ending growth sustainable. People know this, and they pretend it isn't happening.
Messed up, huh!
However, people believe they have all these rights and freedoms, and this issue flies inverse to democracies and freedoms. So man keeps on devouring his only home. Tragically, even the most stupid of birds does not devour his only nest. I suspect, the more the individual is literate in the ecology of the Earth, the more they can see how man is killing Mother Earth.
We must begin...