I agree that it sounds nice, but there is very little evidence of it. I
doubt that many of the provisions of the major accords and declarations
(Montreal, Rio, Kyoto) either have, or are going, to be met. There is a lot
of lip service, a lot of speech making, but when it comes to the crunch a
lot of backing-off.
Ed Weick
>This sound nice, but no mention is made of the NET ADDITION of over 7
>million humans per MONTH to earth's population. Attitides and awareness
>must include the responsibilities and effects of procreation if the below
>perceptions are to become meaningfully realized.
>
>Steve Kurtz
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>February 25, 1999
>
>
>WORLD MAY BE ON EDGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REVOLUTION
>
>
>As we approach the new millennium, there are growing signs that the world
>may be
>on the edge of an environmental revolution comparable to the political
>revolution that swept Eastern Europe, reports Lester Brown, president of
>the
>Worldwatch Institute, in an article in the March/April issue of World
>Watch. The
>social revolution in Eastern Europe led to a restructuring of the region's
>political systems. This global revolution could lead to an environmentally
>driven restructuring of the global economy.
>
>"Not all environmentalists will agree with me," said author Lester Brown,
>"but I
>believe that there are now some clear signs that the world is in the early
>stages of a major shift in environmental consciousness. What is not clear
>to me
>is whether we will cross this threshold in time to avoid the disruption of
>global economic progress."
>
>Across a spectrum of activities, places, and institutions, the atmosphere
>has
>changed markedly in just the last two years. The CEOs of some prominent
>corporations are now beginning to sound like spokespeople for Greenpeace.
>Some
>political leaders are adopting policies long championed by ecologists. And
>literally thousands of environmental NGOs have sprung up around the world,
>mobilizing millions of people for change.
>
>For many who track environmental trends, such as collapsing fisheries,
>shrinking
>forests, rising temperatures, and the wholesale loss of plant and animal
>species, it has been clear for some time that economic progress can be
>sustained
>only if the economy is restructured so that its natural support systems can
>be
>protected.
>
>For those not already convinced of the need to replace the Western,
>fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with an economy
>that
>would be environmentally sustainable, what is happening as China modernizes
>offers compelling new evidence. For example, a car in every garage in
>China,
>American style, would not only deprive China of scarce cropland, but would
>also
>drive China's oil consumption to some 80 million barrels a day, well above
>the
>current world production of 67 million barrels per day.
>
>"If the western industrial development model will not work for China, it
>will
>not work for India, whose population will reach 1 billion later this year,
>or
>for the other 2 billion people in the developing world," said Brown. "And
>in an
>integrated global economy, it will not work over the long term for the
>industrial countries either."
>
>Brown argues that there is an exciting alternative economic model that
>promises
>a better life everywhere without destroying the earth's natural support
>systems.
>The new economy will be powered not by fossil fuels, but by various sources
>of
>solar energy and hydrogen. Urban transportation systems will be centered
>not
>around the car, but around high-tech light rail systems augmented by
>bicycles
>and walking. Instead of a throwaway economy, we will have a reuse/recycle
>economy.
>
>"Twenty years ago when we first outlined this new model at the Institute,
>it was
>seen as pie-in-the-sky," said Brown. "Now that view is changing both
>because it
>is becoming clear that the old model won't work and also because we can see
>the
>broad outline of the environmentally sustainable economic model emerging."
>
>Nowhere is the new model more visible than in the energy sector. While oil
>and
>coal use have expanded by just over 1 percent a year since 1990, the use of
>solar cells has expanded by 16 percent per year and wind power by a
>prodigious
>annual rate of 26 percent. Wind power already supplies 8 percent of
>Denmark's
>electricity and 15 percent of the electricity for Schleswig-Holstein, the
>northernmost state of Germany. In Spain's northern state of Navarra, it
>has
>gone from 0 to 23 percent in just three years. Worldwide, the wind power
>potential is several times that of hydropower, which now supplies just over
>one
>fifth of the world's electricity.
>
>A new Japanese solar roofing material promises to revolutionize the
>electrical
>generating industry. In Germany, the 100,000 roofs program launched in
>December
>of 1998 by the new coalition government is leading to a joint investment by
>Shell Oil/Pilkington in a solar cell manufacturing facility that will be
>the
>world's largest.
>
>The more enterprising corporate CEOs are beginning to see this economic
>restructuring as the greatest investment opportunity in history. In a
>speech on
>February 9, Mike R. Bowlin, Chairman and CEO of ARCO, a major oil company,
>described the beginning of "the last days of the age of oil" and the
>emergence
>of the new hydrogen-based energy economy. He sees ARCO's large holdings of
>natural gas playing a key role in the transition from a carbon-based energy
>economy to one based on hydrogen. Within the last two years, British
>Petroleum
>has committed $1 billion to the development of wind and solar energy and
>Royal
>Dutch Shell has announced a $500 million investment in renewable energy
>sources.
>
>Governments, too, are changing. Denmark has banned the construction of
>coal-fired power plants. Costa Rica plans to get all its electricity from
>renewable sources by 2010. In mid-August 1998, after several weeks of
>near-record flooding in the Yangtze River basin, Premier Zhu Rongji ordered
>a
>halt to tree cutting in the upper basin, arguing that trees standing are
>worth
>three times as much as those cut.
>
>If we are indeed approaching a social threshold on the environment that
>could
>lead to a rapid restructuring of the economy, will it come soon enough? Is
>it
>too late to save the Aral Sea? Yes, its fish are gone. Is it too late to
>save
>Indonesia's rain forests? Probably. Is it too late to avoid global
>warming?
>Apparently. The Earth's average temperature now appears to be rising. Can
>we
>ameliorate future temperature rises? Yes. Can we move fast enough to
>prevent
>environmental deterioration from disrupting the global economy? Probably.
>But
>only if we cross the threshold soon.
>
>"No challenge in the new century looms greater than that of transforming
>the
>economy into one that is environmentally sustainable," said Brown. "This
>Environmental Revolution is comparable in scale to the Agricultural
>Revolution
>and the Industrial Revolution. The big difference is in the time
>available. The
>Agricultural Revolution was spread over thousands of years. The Industrial
>Revolution has been underway for two centuries. The Environmental
>Revolution,
>if it succeeds, will be compressed into a few decades."
>
>Brown writes that archeologists have uncovered the sites of earlier
>civilizations that moved onto economic paths that were environmentally
>destructive and could not make the needed course corrections either because
>they
>did not understand what was happening or could not summon the needed
>political
>will.
>
>"We do know what is happening," said Brown. "The question for us is
>whether our
>global society can cross the social threshold that will enable us to
>restructure
>the global economy before environmental deterioration leads to economic
>decline."
>
>-END-
>--
>
>"To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being
>paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy,
>in our age, can still do for those who study it."
>Bertrand Russell, "A History of Western Philosophy"
>
