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ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.

Make the quality of life, rather than open-ended economic growth, the focus of future thinking.

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The biggest risk of all, as I see it, is that the industrial economy will blunder on for a few more years, perhaps even a decade or more, leaving environmental and social devastation in its wake. Once it finally gives up the ghost, hardly anything will be left with which to start over. To mitigate against this risk, we have to create alternatives, on a small scale, that do not perpetuate this system and that can function without it.       Dmitry Orlov, Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation, talk presented at The New Emergency Conference in Dublin, on June 11, 2009.
Largest Environmental Lawsuit in History---Silence    The 60 Minutes report
Efficiency tweaks won't save us. Reduce the industrialized world's carbon footprint 80 percent by 2050. Prevent the projected 3 billion increase in human population over the next 30 years and actually reduce population by 2110 without famine, disease or war while preserving human dignity. Revise the scientific method so that it better balances the goal of discovery with moral considerations and precaution. Switch our economy to sustainable energy: solar, wind, hydro. Make that economy one in which happiness and success do not require increased consumption. It's time to accept the creative limits and boundaries that gave us sun-powered Earth in the first place. It's time to change our minds and our lives. by Bill Vitek | August 20, 2008
Instead of proliferating technology, we ought to confine its use for the sole purpose of erasing the recent past mistakes and not as a means to satisfy future greed. by S. Ismat Shah | June 7, 2008
The renewable and efficiency sectors may account for as many as 1 in 4 jobs by 2030. A large part this promise is based on the reality that green-collar jobs are community-based: because they focus on transforming the immediate natural and built environment, they are harder, in some cases impossible, to offshore. by Jason Walsh and Sarah White | May 16, 2008
Carbon productivity must increase from approximately $740 GDP per ton of CO2e today to $7,300 GDP per ton of CO2e by 2050—a tenfold increase. This is comparable in magnitude to the labor productivity increases of the Industrial Revolution. However, the carbon revolution must be achieved in one-third of the time. The macroeconomic costs of this carbon revolution are likely to be manageable, being on the order of 0.6–1.4 percent of global GDP by 2030: capturing available opportunities to increase energy efficiency in a cost-effective way decarbonizing energy sources accelerating the development and deployment of new low-carbon technologies changing the behaviors of businesses and consumers and preserving and expanding the world's carbon sinks, most notably its forests. A wide range of energy-market failures currently discourage consumers and businesses from embracing higher energy productivity, and they deter investors from making the capital outlays that would help end users to overcome initial financing barriers. These market failures include fuel subsidies that directly discourage productive energy use, a lack of information available to consumers about the kinds of energy productivity choices that are available to them, and agency issues in high-turnover commercial businesses. McKinsey, 2008
The time for easy is over. We're grown-ups who understand the necessity of hard work and difficult choices. We're ready for frank talk about how we best confront -- in ways rewarding, confusing, creative and hard -- the planetary emergency before us. by Michael Maniates
This is perhaps the most historic regulation of any in our careers. Of all the issues now before us, few have the potential to make Delaware healthier. And few are more powerfully opposed by special interersts.
What the American Revolution, the Great Depression, and World War II were to their generations, Global Warming is to this and the next- except that we will determine if the world as we know it will continue to exist.
If we want to meet all the goals for development of human society, nine billion people are too many for that to happen. The ecological limits of the planet say that, and there's really nothing we can do about it.
Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic Humanity is no longer living off nature's interest, but drawing down its capital. This growing pressure on ecosystems is causing habitat destruction or degradation and permanent loss of productivity, threatening both biodiversity and human well-being.
For 7 Years We've Wanted to Sign Kyoto Treaty, Not Do Nothing (pollingreport.com) ABC News.com Poll. April 11-15, 2001. N=1,022 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Field work by TNS Intersearch. . "An international treaty calls on the U.S. and other industrialized nations to cut back on their emissions from power plants and cars in order to reduce global warming, also known as the greenhouse effect. Some people say this would hurt the U.S. economy, and is based on uncertain science. Others say this is needed to protect the environment, and could create new business opportunities. What’s your view? Do you think the United States should or should not join this treaty requiring less emissions from U.S. power plants and cars?" ALL Demo- crats Indepen- dents Repub- licans % % % % Should 61 68 66 52 Should not 26 19 25 37 No opinion 13 13 9 11 "From what you know about global climate change or global warming, which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion? Global climate change has been established as a serious problem, and immediate action is necessary. There is enough evidence that climate change is taking place and some action should be taken. We don't know enough about global climate change, and more research is necessary before we take any actions. Concern about global climate change is unwarranted." . Immediate Action Some Action More Research Concern Unwarranted Unsure % % % % % 6/9-12/06 29 30 28 9 4 7/24-26/99 23 28 32 11 6
The Queen of England is afraid. International C.E.O.'s are nervous. And the scientific establishment is loud and clear. Global Warming Tuvalu Successive elected governments in Tuvalu have adopted the concept of sustainable development, and we confront its issues almost daily. But however much we try to put this concept into action locally, we also know it will not solve the problem of rising sea levels, if in fact the sea is rising. What can we do?	Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly WaPo, 2006-03-03 Death of the World's Rivers The Independent, 12 March 2006 The world has, on average, built two giant dams a day, every day, for the past 50 years. The source of the Yellow River is drying out as glaciers retreat.
We Are Past the Point of No Return	Issues, issues

It's Getting Hot In Here

Scientists still gagged by Bush, April 19

We have become the victims of a phenomenon we did not provoke. What is happening is not our fault. We didn't heat up the atmosphere or chop down our trees. But we are paying the price with the suffering of our people.

Only a large-scale coastal restoration can guarantee the survival of New Orleans...the levees of the Mississippi must be periodically opened at particular points. If the marshes were flooded naturally, the input of sediment would prevent...further sinking. But regional distinctions have to be made...We can't avoid the fact that residents of the wetlands will have to be relocated and factories displaced.

Mr Tony Blair's hopes of a breakthrough to tackle climate change were dealt a blow tonight when Mr George W Bush made it clear that he would not help the British Prime Minister strike a deal on global warming at the G-8 summit in return for his support on Iraq.
(Marie Woolf, The Statesman, London, July 3)

Earlier this month, Mr Blair said "the blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge".

But Lord May, president of the Royal Society, warned last week: "The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that countries are not doing enough to adapt their economies so that they reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

Kuwaiti oil production from the world's second-largest field is "exhausted" and falling...

The oil is going, the oil is going!

Today's Paul Reveres of "peak oil" aren't waiting for Washington to save us from apocalypse. They're already planting gardens and drafting city plans for the days when oil is gone.

Charles L. Gray, Jr., Director of the U.S. EPA's Clean Automotive Technology program:
We doubled today's proven reserves (the green curve) - assuming we could somehow find twice as much oil world wide than we know exists today - to see how much more time we would have available for, if you will, a transition period. It is quite sobering to realize that

This does not move the peak much further away.

Peak Oil and the Need for a Global Oil Depletion Protocol

Price signals will arrive at least ten years too late to enable a gentle, market-led transition away from oil to other energy sources...the costs of preparing too late for global oil peak would far outweigh those of preparing too early...our effort must focus primarily on reducing demand, and only secondarily on producing large quantities of alternative transportation fuels.

The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be temporary, and past "energy crisis" experience will provide relatively little guidance. The challenge of oil peaking deserves immediate, serious attention, if risks are to be fully understood and mitigation begun on a timely basis. Mitigation will require a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort, because the scale of liquid fuels mitigation is inherently extremely large. Intervention by governments will be required, because the economic and social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic.

Government will have to lead the way through a sustained commitment of effort on a wartime scale. The estimated one to three trillion dollars consumed so far in the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, had they been spent instead on domestic energy security, would probably have represented an appropriate level and rate of funds allocation.

...impeachment will not materially assist the nation to deal with Peak Oil unless current officials are replaced with ones who understand the problem and who are prepared to implement policies that radically shift America's priorities in terms of energy, transportation, urban infrastructure, and agriculture. Looking out over the current political landscape in Washington, it is difficult to identify who those new officials might be.

Instead the bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil, gas and coal companies to expand their drilling, mining and polluting.

It's time we fight back against the oil companies by not supporting the worst offender of the environment; ExxonMobil. Other companies have acknowledged the dangers of global climate change and recognized that burning fossil fuels is a contributor. Some companies have invested substantially to develop clean, renewable sources of energy. However, ExxonMobil has worked to discredit the science of global warming and confuse us about climate change by funding junk science and biased policy institutes.

While gas prices have been skyrocketing, ExxonMobil reported record earnings in 2004. They were surpassed in the first two quarters of this year. Instead of investing these profits in clean energy technologies, ExxonMobil has spent millions on lobbyists in Washington.

Because of ExxonMobil's environmental policies, I've pledged not to buy the company's gas or invest in it. I urge other consumers to do the same.

William Shafarman, Wilmington

ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond lied to Congress and the American public. When asked at last week's Senate hearing if company executives met with Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, Raymond responded with an emphatic "no." But White House records clearly show that they and executives from other oil companies did meet with Cheney's task force in early 2001.

When Congress requested those records, the administration even went to court rather than turn them over to try to hide this fact.

ExxonMobil helped craft the administration's energy policy that has given billions of dollars to the oil industry, does nothing to curb global warming, does not reduce the price of gas at the pump or decrease our dependence on oil, and calls for oil and gas drilling in the pristine and wild Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

ExxonMobil made almost 10 billion dollars profit in just the last quarter -- August, September and October. Will the company use these profits to help develop alternative energy sources? No, the company's president says this is "uneconomic" and that we "need to accept the reality" of America's dependence on oil instead of taking "expensive" steps to avoid it. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil spends millions on lobbying and advertisements to block those "expensive" steps and any action on global warming.

We need to send a message now that Americans will no longer stand for this corporate greed that, solely for profit, knowingly and willingly harms the environment that our children and grandchildren will have to live in. Join me in pledging not to buy from ExxonMobil or to invest in the company.

Kathleen Eaton, Middletown

Pacific Gas & Electric today will announce a deal to buy as much as 900 megawatts of electricity. It will be enough to power 540,000 California homes each year, and involve the construction of five solar power plants during the next decade. The company to build the solar-thermal power plants in the Mojave Desert is BrightSource Energy.

Building all five plants in the Mojave will cost $2 billion to $3 billion. The project, which faces regulatory and financing hurdles, could mean 2,000 construction jobs, and employ about 1,000 workers to operate the plants.

Dependence on oil by the U.S. and other industrialized nations is destroying the Earth as we know it. Maybe "technology" will keep up with the changes, but I'm not willing to take the risk. Why are we putting it off?

PLEASE consider alternative fuels.

Karen Igou, Wilmington