December 03, 2006
Nuclear power
As global consensus regarding the threats of climate change gathers, nuclear power seems to be moving toward a come back. The industry is claiming that reactors will be much safer this time. Really.
Let's just imagine that reactors really are safer, even fail-safe. We still have the little matter of waste disposal. If we insist on setting a cost for everything to facilitate our decisions, how do we set a cost for waste disposal? Perhaps the cost should be the present worth of infinity? Half of infinity?
William McDonough http://www.mcdonough.com/ had a great rejoinder for people who confront him with the false choice of global climate change or embracing nuclear power. He says that he does indeed support nuclear power. He believes that existing fusion technology is just perfect for us, and the reactor is at just the right distance: 93 million miles.
Posted by aquacura.com at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2006
Greenbuild closing plenary address
The closing address was made by Jeffrey Sachs, the director of Columbia University's Earth Institute http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/. He was a principal author of the UN's Millenium Project.
Sachs drew the Greenbuild attendees into the mission of eradicating extreme poverty, pointing out the relative simplicity of this mission (given some fairly modest investment by the rich world) and the importance of sustainable development to solidify the poverty program.
One of the most obvious contribution of sustainable development in the rich and developing world is that it will go a long way toward slowing - and eventually stopping - climate change. Climate change threatens the rich world, as well as the developing world. Coastal cities will be threatened by rising sea level, agriculture will be upset, etc. But Sachs feels that, as usual, the heaviest burden will fall on those living in extreme poverty.
Failure of meager crops and desertification are forces that will force those barely hanging on over the edge into starvation.
I have only one quibble with an excellent and inspiring speech. I believe Sachs offered too much hope for technology to get us out of the mess we're in. Of course, technological solutions - solar power, etc - will be of paramount importance to living more sustainably. But he missed an opportunity to drive home the message that most everyone in the world, and particularly in the rich world, and particularly in the US must change life choices to reduce resource consumption. Maybe I missed it, or maybe he considered it to be implicit, but it needs to be said, repeatedly.
We are not going to slow, and eventually arrest, climate change unless we consume less.
Posted by aquacura.com at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
2006 Greenbuild conference
I spent last week in Denver, attending the Greenbuild conference. The opening plenary address was delivered by Bill McDonough http://www.mcdonough.com/full.htm. It set the tone for the conference.
McDonough offered a rejoinder to the question we hear often: "So if you don't want to burn fossil fuel, how do you feel about nuclear power?" His response: he is all for nuclear power, produced by fusion. The reactor is at a good distance from where we live. 93 million miles distant.
McDonough wants us to resist the concept of waste; to use all waste products as food for another process. Or change the process to avoid creating the waste.
This is where we need to go if we are to avoid exhausting the earth's resources. McDonough tells us that we are not going to succeed simply by finding energy to replace the fossil-derived energy we use today. We must decrease our energy use, and our resource use in general.
One of the session speakers used globes to define the world's and the US's consumption. He suggested that the world has an ecofootprint of about 3 globes (the world's population consumes resources at about 3x the sustainable rate). A pretty daunting picture. But he suggests the US consumes at a 5-globe rate.
That fits my general impression: we Americans have to reduce our consumption by something like 5 or 10-fold.
Posted by aquacura.com at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2006
Local or organic
This question has been getting a lot of attention in the green media lately, particularly as large agricultural interests (and large retailing interests) have entered the organic food market. I find myself more inclined toward local, if I have to make a choice.
Here's an article from the Green Guide on the topic (I hope the link works; Green Guide is a subscription service)http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc.mhtml?i=116&s=local
My reasoning is that 'local' is probably 'small' and that small is less likely to be highly dependent on petrochemicals. I think this point of view is tending to be how many people who think about the subject feel.
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July 14, 2006
Global report on happiness
Have a look at this link:http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1173235.ece
The premise that an economy (or a business within that economy) has to grow constantly to 'be successful' has seemed odd to me for a long time. Why do we measure success of a nation by the growth in GDP it generates?
I'll have to check in my copy of Jared Diamond's book, Collapse to see if Vanuatu is one of the sustainable Pacific Island societies that he cites (in contrast to the self-inflicted disasters on Easter Island, Pitcairn Island and others.)
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:46 AM | Comments (1)
May 19, 2006
Buy local or buy organic?
I have read a number of articles lately about the food consumer's dilemma - do I buy local, or do I buy organic that comes from a distance. My blog-followers will guess that I will leap for the local, but we all know things are not that simple. I feel it is important to help local farmers to stay in the farming business, but we all have to live with the current, petroleum-fueled economy.
That economy insists on moving food long distances. A couple of days ago, Grist magazine http://www.grist.org/ (you should bookmark Grist and read it regularly) ran an article http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2006/05/18/fromartz/index.html about the personal conflicts involved in grocery shopping. I like the message at the end of the article: take it easy; shop as sustainbly as you can, but don't go crazy.
One of the precepts of Building for the End of Oil is that we have to live in the current economy, while we prepare to transition as smoothly as possible into the post-petroleum economy. Farmers have to do the same. If keeping the local farm going requires a farmer to work with Whole Foods in a petroleum-fueled supply chain, what's the problem? The goal is to keep the local farm going, so that it is there to provide local food when the supply chains fall apart.
There's a related issue -- biofuel feedstock production -- that I will address in the next entry.
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February 24, 2006
Local agriculture reduces your ecofootprint
After a human-induced technology failure, the blog is back in service. This link: http://organicconsumers.org/chat/viewtopic.php?t=498&sid=664f750d642e449572d278a7a2bb3878 should put you into the blog run by Organic Consumers Association. The blog entry speaks to the positive global impacts that support of local agriculture can bring about.
Posted by aquacura.com at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)