Dear Watchers

All or Nothing Approach by Those Opposing Growth Is Ill-Advised

Dear Watchers:

The June 2004 issue of the Whatcom Watch contains an article titled, “Deadly Fallacies of Growth Management - Part One” by Dave Paulsen. Paulsen makes a number of undemonstrated assertions in his article. He claims, among other things that:

•We’ve surpassed the organic carrying capacity of our region, “...that the quality of life in this beautiful area we all love so much is steadily decreasing.”

•”The average national cost to communities for farmland and open space is $.53 in public services for every tax dollar contributed, while developed urban land requires $1.14 in public services for every tax dollar it generates.”

•”...20-year growth projections completely ignore what is going to happen to the economy and people’s mobility ... when the petroleum economy starts its race toward the bottom in the next five to 10 years.”

Let’s look at a couple of those claims, to see what they might amount to in today’s world.

Paulsen doesn’t cite his sources regarding the ‘deadly’ cost of development but the figures he uses are almost identical to those reported by the American Farmlands Trust, the most widely used source for these kinds of calculations.

So, consider:

•Mr. Paulsen appears to be confused in his claims about average national cost to communities for farmland and open space vs. developed land. Assuming his source is, in fact, the Farmland Trust studies, he should know the Farmland Trust studies do not calculate the cost of services in cities where higher density development is common. They address only development outside the cities, development that is most often sprawling and at low density. For this reason he should have stated that developed rural land requires more in public services than it generates and made more clear the fact he is not discussing developed urban land like that inside the state’s Urban Growth Areas.

•Furthermore, Farmland Trust studies count single farmhouses and a small acreage around them as being residential developments, so, much of the cost of the roads and other services needed to service a farm is charged as a cost of “residential” development rather than as a cost attributed to the farmland and open space they serve (See Cost of Community Services: Skagit County Washington - American Farmlands Trust, 1999 to check both of the comments above). This artificially increases the supposed cost of developed rural land and reduces the costs charged against farmlands and open spaces.

•Demonstrating all of this, a major Farmland Trust study in California’s Central Valley revealed that housing developed at higher densities (six units to the acre rather than three) residential development, even in rural areas, returns a profit to the taxpayers of a region.

•If Paulsen used Farmland Trust-based statistics in his approach he is misleading the reader in that the trust’s studies do not address urban growth in the cities. If he is not using those studies, it would be interesting to know where his information comes from.

•Dave Paulsen also seems to have ignored both history and current trends for world energy production when he states “... 20-year growth projections completely ignore what is going to happen to the economy and people’s mobility ... when the petroleum economy starts it’s race toward the bottom in the next five to ten years.”

•Mr. Paulsen’s chart asserts that by 2030 energy production per capita will return to those of the depression era 1930s. I believe Mr. Paulsen has confused energy production represented in barrels of oil with availability of oil. The world, as a whole, has been changing its fuel sources since at least the 1800s. We have moved from a wood based society to coal, to coal and oil, then to coal, oil and natural gas.

Currently, world energy production is divided on an approximately equal basis between oil, coal and natural gas, with a significant amount of energy production also coming from hydro and nuclear sources. Just as oil, coal and natural gas were minor energy sources when introduced, biomass, geothermal and solar energy are beginning to take hold and like oil, coal and natural gas will eventually become common sources of energy. (Source: Simon et al. 1994, as cited by Bjorn Lomborg, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” pg. 122.)

If Paulsen is addressing oil, it’s possible most of the petroleum based oil in the world could disappear tomorrow and we’d still only be inconvenienced for the year or so needed to increase production of the many oil replacements we already know about (plant based oils, solar, hydro resources, wind, tide, nuclear, and on, and on, and...).

The point of all this is not to deride Paulsen’s position. It is to demonstrate that the all-or-nothing approach too often taken by those opposing growth is often ill-advised and poorly thought out. Equally, the positions are often based on “factual” information that is not factual at all. When the rest of us accept, uncritically, positions like those taken by Paulsen and then do decision-making based on them, we can cause immeasurable harm to the environment, economy and the quality of life growth management is supposed to preserve.

In reality, “the public good” is probably found somewhere between the alarmist positions put forward in an article like that written by Mr. Paulsen and the “everything’s cool, man” positions some growth advocates might take. Everything is not cool but everything’s not going to hell in a handbasket either. Unfortunately, absent participation in the discussion by ordinary men and women, rationality takes a back seat and the extremes rule. Then everyone pays.

The lesson for Whatcom Watch readers? Stay involved, but learn all you can about both sides of the issues before you leap to unwarranted conclusions. As can be seen in the nation’s forested lands, misguided environmentalism can be as devastating to the environment as “through the rose-colored glasses” environmental ignorance is.

Jack Petree is a public policy analyst and freelance writer. He’s published more than 1,500 articles about common sense environmentalism, Growth Management, and other issues in major planning, environmental, business and trade publications.

Paulsen Defends Article and Gives Sources

Dear Watchers:

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to respond to Mr. Petree’s concerns about my article in the June and July issues entitled, “The Deadly Fallacies of Growth Management.”

My “undemonstrated assertion” of the fact that we’ve exceeded our local carrying capacity is easily calculated either from the figures I gave in the article, or from the resources listed at the end of the article in the July issue. The Web site http://www.dieoff.com is an easily accessible resource for anyone wanting to delve more deeply into any of the issues I raised in my article.

In regard to the cost of growth and how sprawl ends up robbing taxpayers, besides the American Farmlands Trust studies (the 1986, 1995 and 1997 studies), see Phillip A. Auger’s “Does Open Space Pay,” Thomas Black and Rita Curtis “The Local Fiscal Effects of Growth and Commercial Development Over Time,” the DuPage County Development Department “Impacts of Development on DuPage County Property Taxes,” and the Real Estate Research Corporation “The Cost of Sprawl” (considered the classic study, from 1974, on this issue.) I will gladly supply another dozen references for anyone who is interested.

One of the points I made in the article concerned sprawl and its social and environmental costs. If we keep developing in the urban growth areas, we are outside of the urban density area where the cost savings in infrastructure can be realized. Urban growth areas, by definition, are a form of sprawl that just creeps a little slower. The American Farmlands Trust studies appear to me to be quite clear on this. The other references I provided above help to clarify this point. As Mr. Petree correctly points out, developing on rural land is even worse.

The included chart was added by Whatcom Watch, and wasn’t one that I included with my original article. Thus I can’t speak to the research and analysis from which it was derived. However, looking at world energy trends is exactly what causes me so much concern. The chart itself seems pretty straight-forward. Simply put, our current world economy is dependent on cheap oil. Barrels of oil equivalent is exactly what it’s all about. Supplies will drop to those levels, and without equivalent replacements, which today exist only in theory and a few rudimentary prototypes, that is indeed what our per capita output will be.

There are a number of converging factors here that can’t be evaluated in isolation if we wish to keep from being blind-sided. Global warming has a high probability of decreasing the world’s ability to generate hydro-electric power due to depletion of water supplies. Hydro also has high environmental costs, such as to fisheries and biodiversity, that often do not get calculated into the price of energy produced. Taking these factors into account, depending on hydro, even at today’s levels, would also assume an ability to relocate massive population segments on a global scale.

As a non-conserving, energy consuming nation addicted to fossil fuels, we need to remain aware that not only are these supplies quickly diminishing, but of the deleterious effects to environmental health (which includes our own) that burning these fuels causes. And finding replacements for fossil fuel as an energy source is not the only issue. As I pointed out in my article, another factor is the current heavy reliance of the agriculture industry on cheap oil and natural gas—for fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and transportation—to keep production levels up for food which actually delivers lower nutritional value than locally grown, organic foods. Alternative energy sources will do nothing to alleviate the global need for nutritious foods on an overpopulated planet.

In regard to nuclear energy, I’d like to ask Mr. Petree if he’d like to live next to a nuclear power plant, and/or have the toxic and radioactive wastes buried in his back yard? When we talk about ‘waste’ of any kind—especially of the nuclear variety—it is time we wake up to the fact that there is no ‘away’ when we throw things away. With the knowledge we posses as a species today, nuclear energy is simply not an option if we are going to get serious about sustainability—which means the ability to sustain life as we know it—or even quality of life.

For the best refutation on the paucity of research and the intellectual dishonesty of Bjorn Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” please see http://www.gristmagazine.com/books/lomborg121201.asp and http://www.tompaine.com/scontent/7089.html. Suffice it to say that Lomborg’s own official Danish scientific agencies rebuked him for his “scientific dishonesty” and endorsed a detailed report from some of the world’s leading scientists published in Scientific American in 2002 which was highly critical of Lomborg’s book.

To think that wind and solar could replace oil and gas within a year or two shows that Mr. Petree hasn’t done the math. In regard to plant-based oils, which produce less energy per unit than fossil fuel, this would partially assume we would be willing to give up farmland necessary to grow the food we eat. So, let’s see... dinner tonight for the family, or a couple of hours water skiing on our drinking water reservoir? After the recent County Council vote on not protecting our drinking water supply, I have a sinking feeling I know how too many would choose to answer that question—until too late, when they personally experience the reality of hunger.

I don’t see my position as being alarmist. I’m simply pointing out the facts as they exist today. And yes, the facts are alarming. Ignoring these facts for the sake of those whose income depends on ignoring them isn’t doing the rest of us—including the planet itself—any good.

Not sure who to believe? In examining the sides taken by Mr. Petree and myself, one suggestion is to follow the money trail. Who stands to personally benefit from financial gain from adhering to one side or the other? Is the Emperor wearing any clothes?

I really don’t expect anyone to uncritically accept anything I’ve said or written. That’s the main reason I included the resources. But I have yet to see a good refutation of the following sound bite: the two major problems facing the world today are overpopulation and overconsumption. As I stated in the article (a fact that not even Mr. Petree has challenged), species expand to fill a niche. Planning for and continuing development, as we are currently doing, expands the niche and inexorably leads us into urban sprawl and a deteriorating quality of life.

Opposing growth is neither ill-advised nor poorly thought out. Indeed, this is a classic case of the psychological concept of projection on the part of growth proponents. The public good is served by that which preserves quality of life and contributes to the global life community.

Is Mr. Petree, or any other growth proponent, willing to honestly answer the two questions I posed at the end of my article? Can we reverse our course when we’ve discovered we’ve taken the wrong path? Or, will we continue on the path of fanaticism by doubling our speed when we discover we’re going the wrong way?

As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Iraq Nam: Reasons for War Were Bogus

Dear Watchers:

There is an old adage saying that you will never get to your destination if the first step is in the wrong direction. It is clear that our reasons for the Iraq War were bogus.

The press is strangely silent to this distortion of fact. The rest of the world sees the brutal images from this war. Over 800 Americans and 10,000 Iraqis have died and many more physically and emotionally injured. We get the sanitized version that can’t even include American coffins returning home.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” Albert Einstein said, “If everyone practiced an eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind.” We might eventually spread our heritage of freedom and democracy if we lead by example. If we had used the $119 billion cost of the first two years in Iraq to help provide needed services to struggling countries, we would be admired. Instead there is growing hatred towards us and there is also an increased risk to our civilians and soldiers.

I suggest that we keep our flags at half-mast. However, let’s keep them there for the victims of this war.

Big Words and Numbers Don’t Intimidate the “Foothills Folk”

Dear Watchers:

When I first heard about the proposed “Commerce Corridor” my initial response was to dismiss it as someone’s pipe(line) dream, one of those crazy trial balloons that big business boosters float now and then, only to have them shot down amid a chorus of laughter and incredulous guffaws.

I’ve read the project management plan by Wilbur Smith Associates, and I’m not laughing anymore. These bastards are serious. Perhaps bastards is too strong a word, but this evil scheme has put me in touch with my inner Basil Fawlty (of Fawlty Towers fame), veins in my temples throbbing, fists balled up in rage. It is only with great effort that I remain civil while, as H.G.Wells put it in “War Of The Worlds,” “Intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic regarded our earth with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against us.”

And a war of the worlds it is, or rather of worldviews, between a vision of a sustainable future and the encroachment of the insatiable industrial mega machine, between sustaining life and consuming it.

Of course this is just a study, a sort of half-million dollar “what if,” and community and environmental concerns will receive a full airing in front of a neutral and objective panel of experts, right?

Well, maybe not. Wilbur Smith Associates has farmed out two of their eight tasks to the firm of Huckell Weinman Associates (HWA); Task Five “Identify potential environmental issues” and Task Six “Identification of the potential community issues that might arise and strategies for addressing them.” Which sounds an awful lot like a screening tactic, running flak for the main effort while industry goes about dividing the pie without those pesky citizens getting in the way. Why am I so pessimistic? Their methods and motives worry me.

They start by spelling public with a very small “p.” “It is understood that this initial study will not need an extensive public involvement process,” we are told. However, to try to preempt “community impact sensitivities” they want the advisory board to “educate selected interests about the economics of the commerce corridor.” In other words, the good ole’ boys of commerce and politics will huddle together to hammer out the details and make sure everyone’s on the same sheet of music. No need for the citizenry to worry their fuzzy little heads. All the big words and numbers would only confuse the “foothills folk.”

Having followed environmental and growth issues in Washington for the last four decades, I have seen that the mistake planners most consistently make is to not involve the public up front, to try to craft an answer and then bend all questions to fit it. Like Jeff Goldblum said in “Jurassic Park,” “We spent so much time thinking about what we could do that no one ever bothered to stop and ask what we should do.”

I can’t help but wonder about possible ulterior motives of these firms, since the public who pays the bills for this study is being so marginalized. On Huckell/Weinman’s Web site they proudly state that they are “dedicated to getting results for our clients,” but in this case just who is the client? The legislature? The WSDOT? The trucking and utilities industries?

Do they perhaps smell the scent on the winds the prospect of future and bigger contracts if this project is approved? Would such a potential windfall influence their decisions?

I would be less skeptical if I had not read “Assessing Strategic Freight Corridors In Washington State” co-authored in May 2002 by HWA senior principal Bob Chase, who seems to have been very much on board with the whole freight corridor concept for a while now. I’m a bit suspicious when I see that a firm, which may already have an agenda, is appointed to listen to and synopsize our “potential concerns.”

I would be less skeptical if public involvement in the process was described in any but the most condescending and dismissive of terms, with their talk of “selective interests” and “potential concerns.”

Perhaps the six hour ear-bending WSA’s Arno Hart and Rep. Doug Ericksen got at the Van Zandt Community Center will be their first clue that our concerns are real and justified, not “potential concerns” to be swept away by finding the right “strategies for addressing them.” The proponents of this billion dollar boondoggle have sorely underestimated the breadth and depth of opposition to their “Highway (9) To Hell Corridor,” not just in Whatcom County or along the foothills, but throughout the state. However, that doesn’t mean we can afford complacency. We need to raise a ruckus and insure this beast is stillborn.