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 5

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

I was 10 years old when I first learned about pollution. I was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, where Cuyahoga River ran through industrial flatlands on its way to Lake Erie. The river caught on fire! Thus ensued much finger pointing and finally action. Dumping of all toxic wastes was forbidden. The lake and river were quarantined for all swimming and fishing as the great cleanup began.

Twenty years later the lake and river were declared safe for swimming and fish. This process continues elsewhere wherever the commons is available to industry for disposal of their unwanted side affects, and governments wink while people get sick and die.

Finally, it is time to clean up our act. It’s similar to the 1930s, which dealt with a stock market crash and the dust bowl calamity. This time the situation is even more serious because it is worldwide in scale, and global warming is only one part of the problem.

The second serious problem that we collectively face is population explosion and consumption. It is complicated by the disparity of incomes both within countries and between countries, by the exploiters and the exploited, and by the technologically advanced and others. Finally it is complicated by those who have fossil fuels and need to sell them and those who want to use them.

The United Nations has clearly delineated those disparities but not the answers, i.e., how to stop population growth and rectify the great disparities in consumption. What they do know is that we humans have gone beyond a stable eco-footprint. This translates to we must stop growing or suffer both reduced consumption and habitat for other species. Fuel resource experts suggest that we will need to reduce many present population numbers radically based on anticipated fossil fuel depletion.

However, this may not be the case. There is plenty of coal available for at least this century. Also, from a recent survey, there is ample oil, although some is second grade, i.e. more expensive to process. This path leads to continuing atmospheric pollution or we can opt to rely on nuclear power, hydroelectric, renewable sources and some gas. We can also adopt an austerity program with tight controls on both procreation and consumption: a government mandate for one child per family.

The third issue is that of shrinking biodiversity. It is a question of extinction; what other species can we get along without. We already know that some have disappeared and others are seriously endangered, still others are all but gone. We may miss the polar bears or the great apes; however, we may be seriously handicapped at the loss of our pollinators — the bees. Can we save those we need or only miss them when they’ve gone? Will we realize they are gone when we have consumed their habitat or polluted it?

All three of the issues discussed are closely interrelated. However, the major fault must fall to those advanced technologically both for pollution and procreation. They have used and abused the commons consistently — land, forests, lakes, rivers, seas and the atmosphere, i.e., the whole biosphere and parts of the geosphere.

The fourth, and probably the most difficult to analyze is that of countries and their unique circumstances. Instead of exploitation by the developed nations or Islamic genocide (Darfur), poor countries need help and protection. They need a degree of technology, which will supply them with water, food, health, education and birth control. Those basic needs are necessary to stabilize African nations and most poor nations to stop genocide, pandemics and population growth.

The U.N., with the support of all the developed nations, could succeed at this task but first they must realize that their present path is doomed to failure. Succeeding, they might be able to save Africa and others from breakdown and chaos, reduce population and stop the destruction of the environment.

The developing countries including Venezuela, Bolivia, Turkey, India, China, Mexico and Indonesia are attempting to join the developed nations. Some currently have three to 3.9 children average per family. They have been targeted by the World Trade Organization for economic exploitation, i.e., for oil, minerals, timber and cheap labor. However, some of these developing countries are nationalizing their resources for a bigger share of the gross (similar to O.P.E.C.).

The U.N. world map of present world population noting family size, has clearly shown two quite different patterns. In the temperate zones families have 1.9 children per family average while those in the tropical zones range from three to five per family.

Those families living in developed countries have realized that large families hinder their economic goals and their children’s. Those in underdeveloped countries need many children to support a family. To accomplish this they hire their children out as farm and factory laborers.

Those living with advanced technologies have been able to exploit their poor neighbor’s natural resources and even their people — slavery still exists in some parts of Africa. Between WWI and WWII the Europeans did the exploiting and after WWII the Americans and the Russians joined the others. These exploiters were recently joined by the oil-rich Islamic countries with much violence in Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Ethiopia with even more disastrous results.

All five of the central problems will require cooperation of both sectors — private and public; not competition! First, we in the developed countries must have a comprehensive discussion in the media by knowledgeable experts, not “talking heads” or public relations people. We will need to preempt primetime media to provide public awareness and feedback.

Our main thrust will be the why and how we must act to save our environment and ourselves. Yes, it will be a major struggle but we will be fighting it, hopefully, before the full impact of a global tragedy is upon us. Can we count on other countries to join us?

Those who are aware of the problems and the urgency will hopefully find a way to participate in various ways, if not the same as ours. Again, we must have dialogue, an international one, bypassing political and economic ideologies for urgent realities.

We will need to shrink greenhouse gas emissions by a substantial amount as designated by the atmospheric scientists; if this proves unrealistic by any firm date we will need to sharply reduce consumption in order to compensate. Reducing population will prove much slower; however, we need to seriously try using both carrot and stick techniques.

To reduce other pollution we will need to act aggressively against corporate violators and government procrastinators. Both legally defunct corporations and others whose legal staffs have stalled cleanups for years need be brought to justice, government procrastinators likewise.

Wartime nuclear site cleanups are still a hazard in 2007. Many of these restoration projects will need to be done through government. Pollution and depletion of major resources will require experts in various fields — forests, soils, lakes, rivers, mountains, harbors, etc. — wherever industry or government has been responsible. The same holds true where other species are endangered.

We will be entering a period of conservation. Everyone must become a steward of the earth. Cooperation will replace competition. Natural gas will replace coal and oil. The use of electricity will shrink; nuclear, wind and hydroelectric will be of some help. Many experts also suspect that we will be running out of fossil fuels soon which, as noted, does not seem to be the case.

Corporations will shrink to regional size. Urban infrastructure will shrink along with transportation. The private car will become obsolete, replaced by foot, bike, bus, train and airplane: foot, bike and hybrid bus for urban and interurban, the train for interregional and the plane for intercontinental travel. Factory jobs will return home from overseas, the horse and cow to their small farm. Grocery stores will return to the neighborhood.

Communication will replace much of world trade saving much energy and pollution via shipping by air and sea! Finally, government will redefine its mission to stay within the bounds of the ecological imperative, treating the bio- and geo-spheres as commons and providing equal rights and responsibilities to all citizens alike.

The U. S. Supreme Court will be augmented by EPA, FDA and other specialized agencies whose focus will be to look ahead instead of back. Unlike today’s courts they will all be free of political control, appointed by their fellow experts. It will be a future with less anthropomorphic mechanic technology but more efficiency, and perhaps with Schumacher’s Buddhist Economics.

Arms industries and relief intervention will be controlled by the U.N. (joined by the developed countries to forestall conflicts and aid for those in distress). This assumes these countries can restrain their ideological preferences to respond to this urgent environmental reality. It also assumes they will act rationally faced with substantial scientific evidence.

The U.N. will become a truly global organization to protect us from ourselves, and the rest of life also from us. It will also stop an arms race, which could end with an equally disastrous conclusion as the current environmental one we already are facing. It will also reduce that part of national consumption which supports war and the preparations for same.

I am not sure whether this outlined scenario is possible or even probable, can be accomplished in the time allotted and will resonate with enough humans to produce action.

The Odums, who were optimistic about the future, painted a “comfortable way down: but they assumed there was time to adjust with remaining fossil fuels. They did not foresee an imminent atmospheric breakdown caused by greenhouse gases. They did nevertheless give us a view of the future in some detail, a civilization without fossil fuels and much reduced population yet one with hope awaiting another period of renewal.

All of the forgoing analysis brings us again to each government with its various opinions, outlooks, ideologies, religions and ethnic, racial and tribal groups, which make up its population and leaders. We would be surprised to find any universal agreement among some of them let alone all of them, save one issue: they would all like to go on living and dying peacefully.

This is the most difficult problem, given the existing mix of outlooks and because those outlooks are not benign, often leading to violence. The concept of there being one overriding reality does not occur to those who are desperately pursuing their own specific goals: some with worldly goals like securing oil, some with religious ones such as eliminating those who disagree. Others simply want to gain power or share power by various means. Lastly, there are those who, through necessity, are only focused only on survival.

Global Warming with its greenhouse effect was first discovered by two oceanographers in 1957. Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, co-authored the first paper on climate change. It was not until 1997 that the first step was taken to address any of the causes.

The Kyoto Protocol was signed by 163 nations. Atmospheric temperatures continue to rise. Population growth continues beyond a stable eco-footprint and as noted before, is expected to reach eight or 10 billion by the century’s end. The political will to act is seemingly thwarted by other urgent needs like securing energy, the economy, terrorism, etc.

Today’s glaciers are shrinking faster than our collective ability to act in the face of a reality, which is more than conjecture. A United Nations was and is a utopian dream. The prospect of the United Nations leading an un-united group of nations seems even more unreal. Most likely it will be overwhelmed by an even greater task; trying to help refugees of failed states, the sick, the lost and the hungry.

Ideology will have prevailed over science. Stockpiles of lethal weapons will increase. The search for energy will continue to escalate. Both buyers and sellers will fight and die for a share of whatever and wherever they find it. Walls and fences will not keep refugees out and seas will not deter them where there seems to be hope elsewhere. And the earth will get warmer — and we will be praying that 1,000 scientists are dead wrong.

It is now June 2007; President Bush has just announced that he is ready to lead the war against global warming. Is there hope?

An update on December 14, 2007: an international conference on global warming took place in Bali, Indonesia. The European nations threatened to boycott U.S.-sponsored climate change talks unless the U.S. agreed to a “Roadmap” for reducing greenhouse gasses. Al Gore said that the U.S. was principally responsible for blocking progress here toward an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. §