Inertia or Change (Is There Hope?) A Treatise on the State of the World From 1998 to 2008

Jim Swann practiced architecture in Chicago at Swann and Weiskopf for 30 years before moving to Bellingham in 1992. His book on human rights and the environment, “Human Rights and the Ecological Imperative” is available. Please contact Jerry Swann at jerrywann@hotmail.com for a copy.

Editor’s Note: Whatcom Watch published early chapters of Mr. Swann’s book “Human Rights and the Ecological Imperative” as a series in July, August and September 2004. The next few months, we’ll publish chapters VIII and IX as a series. The chapters deal with the ecological imperative.

Part 4
[Part 4 has been edited for length.]

To be or not to be, that is the question …
— William Shakespeare

It has taken the Catholic Church 1,500 years to exonerate the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. It has taken Islam more years to forgive the Christians for the Crusades — and they may never forget. It has taken women in the great United States 130 years to secure voting rights, and they are still struggling for equal pay at work.

Our four overviews of the world’s present situation leave us with a lot of problems but with hope for the future. The Meadows Group tends to put most of the blame on the financial sector of the U.S. economy perhaps due to the belief that we must always have growth and, thus, we are rapidly destroying our collective environment.

National Geographic scientists point to no one culprit. They seem to imply that no one is in charge, that no one is listening attentively or that we are confused as to how to act. Jared Diamond, author of “Collapse,” implies that like the Dutch we must realize we are all in a serious situation together and that we must work together to solve our problems.

These three see the problem as multiplicity of factors caused by our misuse and abuse of natural resources.

The Odums view, by contrast, what in the past was our natural ecological reaction to our discovery and harvesting of fossil fuel energy. Now that we have reached the possible peak of available fossil fuel supplies (their assumption), we must recede to a society with much less energy, i.e., there may not be any comparable source of power to fuel our present society.

The Odums believe this to be true based on known alternate possibilities. They also are counting on remaining fossil fuels to allow us a slow descent. This also is dubious considering global temperature predictions and rapid climate change.

The latest reports are not reassuring. Scientists suggest that we do not have too much time to act, that global temperature is climbing steadily with our use of fossil fuels. If it increases by three degrees Celsius or higher they think we will be unable to retrace our way back to a stable world environment. When this will occur is unsure; if we do nothing it is sure to happen soon.

This answers one quandary. We need to stop using fossil fuels or find a way to sequester CO2. It also suggests that the Odums’ plan for a comfortable way down using our remaining supplies of fossil fuels is not wise, in particular with the use of coal.

Let’s look at the up-to-date figures as scientists have recorded them. The earth has warmed eight degrees Celsius in the last century, with the most occurring since 1970, and if it continues to do so in the near future, in 10 years it will increase by 1.19 degrees Celsius. This of course will vary with the use of fossil fuels, and the mix of same. With more countries using fossil fuels than ever before it will be difficult to assess.

What the scientists do know from observation of the current temperatures is disturbing — some would add catastrophic. They feel a three-degree Celsius increase might be a point of no return. Some estimate we could reach that point in a decade, others maybe in 30 years. James Hansen with NASA is adamant; he gives us 10 years from 2006.

There is a feeding frenzy in the oil market. When the price of oil topped $60 a barrel investors woke up, and so did the oil industry. Suddenly they discovered there was plenty of oil to be had at $30, and at $60 they could also harvest the more expensive types and process them, i.e., sand oil, ethanol, liquid natural gas.

Here is an example of inertia at work because it is the easiest path –— because the dollars are there — because the demand is obvious, and because that is what oil and gas corporations do best. One further observation: as world competition for oil/gas increases, the limited supply will shrink and prices will escalate. At this stage private investors will be ecstatic but automobile users and producers may be out of business.

However, resource-supplying countries in Latin America and elsewhere are waking up to the fact that they are not getting a fair share for their nonrenewable resources. Profits for corporations and investors may shrink some but, on the good side, poor countries may get some needed relief.

We have embraced corporate-sponsored technology instead of science. We have embraced greed instead of justice. We have embraced the status quo instead of change, and it is all beginning to haunt us. Our government is busy privatizing everything in sight and some out of sight, dreaming manifest destiny and building the greatest war machine in the world to accomplish it.

Meanwhile we are driven by a corporate mantra of growth: we must consume more and more to feed the beast. Never mind that we are going into debt doing it, and it is not just we citizens. The government is in big debt. In many parts of the world people are starving. Many governments have lost control, unable to serve their own citizens.

Is all this inevitable? Haven’t we faced other situations which forced us to make hard decisions, even fight wars — for justice, independence, human rights and against fascism? At times we have had to deal with our own failed constructs: stock market crashes, dust bowls, depleted fish stocks and pandemics. We mustered our scientists to focus on beating the Russians to the moon, and later collaborated with them and others to build an international space station.

Yes, I think it is possible — we can face up to the present crisis — but it is not necessarily probable. This time we must cooperate with every nation because we all inhabit the same planet and it is the whole planet that’s in trouble, and it is ourselves who are by far the worst environmental offenders.

In 1982 Jonathan Schell wrote “Fate of the Earth” in which he basically concluded that preparing for nuclear war was M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction, pg. 22), and that was only when the U.S. and Russia were in the race. Since then China, France, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan and Israel have joined the club and Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Serbia and Monte Negro want to be next.

Tamim Ansary, who writes about culture and society for Microsoft’s learning site, Encarta.com, collected the following data about nuclear weapons for Encarta.com in 2004. His estimate of tactical and strategic nuclear and thermonuclear weapons came to 20,168 bombs, and 10,455 belong to us (the U.S.) and the stockpile is growing! Perhaps we need not be too concerned about the population problem?

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol commits the 163 countries who have signed and will be bound by its commitments. All 163 countries have ratified the protocol to date. Of these, 35 countries and the European Economic Community (now part of the European Union) are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below levels specified for each of them by the treaty. The individual targets for the parties are listed in the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex B. These add up to a total cut in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by the commitment period 2008 through 2012.

The European Union nations are active in bloc’s emissions trading scheme, which puts limits on the amount of CO2 industries emit but allows them to buy or sell pollution permits if they are over or under their quotas.

Developing countries are included in the treaty but excluded from emission quotas on economic grounds. An inaugural meeting of 34 environment ministers of the Americas ended in Montreal on Friday, March 2001, with U.S., Canada and Australia alone refusing to sign the document saying that advancing the Kyoto Accord was in their priority for action — but they chose not to be bound by any rules.

All of which leaves one wondering whether this is a serious attempt to deal with the problem. Five percent below 1990 levels is hardly a substantial amount, and leaving developing countries like China and India out of required emission quotas likewise.

The Bush administration, with a war in progress, its growth mantra and its thirst for oil not satiated, said meeting the commitments of Kyoto Protocol were impossible. President Bush said, “Signing the accord would hurt our economy.” Canada and Australia agreed with the U. S. Thus crippled, the Kyoto Accord is far from a serious solution to a real problem, but is a start.

The protocol has focused on a technological solution — how to reduce emissions — but does not discuss population or consumption and omits probably the two biggest polluters of this century, China and India.

More serious is the question of population and its impact on energy needs. And what of the underdeveloped nations?

The Kyoto Protocol has focused on a narrow aspect of our collective dilemma, i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions via government mandates. Instead, let us try to include all of the contributing factors. Let us also acknowledge that we have been operating with an incomplete understanding of earth’s ecology and man’s place within it. Technology with fossil fuels has outpaced pure science. Belatedly, scientists are catching up, and none too soon.

Let me attempt a brief list of the major factors which are seriously endangering humans and other living things:

• Systemic pollution, which among other things includes global warming, ozone depletion, dimming of the sun, El Niño, oceanic hot spots and more extreme weather patterns, all resulting from human activity, plus pollution of oceans, seas, harbors, rivers, lakes, aquifers, forests, and soils, caused mainly by man’s industrial activities.

These began with a mechanical revolution and proceed to a chemical, electrical, electronic, nuclear and finally to a genetic one. All brought positive advances; however, the unintended side effects are currently adversely harming us and also the biosphere.

• Exponential population growth accompanied by increased consumption, by the poor through overuse of resources out of necessity and by the rich through conspicuous consumption with the help of fossil fuels and technology. None will survive an anticipated 8 to 12 billion population projected by year 3000.

• Biodiversity is shrinking due to the issues just mentioned. We are losing parts of our ecological heritage, which may be critical to our survival (as with fish, when part of the food chain is missing the next in line may also be endangered or, when forests are stripped, the habitats of several species may become threatened).

• Competition and conflict between tribes, racial and ethnic groups, theocracies, kingdoms, dictators, communists, democracies et al. These conflicts often lead to wars, migrations, genocide and the collapse of order. Stability and cooperation are seldom the norm.

• Inertia, the tendency to go on doing whatever one has been doing in spite of a new reality, i.e., climate change. §