Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green
May 20, 06:09 PM by Eric Allen
Wired Magazine just published an awesome article echoing some of what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, but mostly just does a great job of revealing how California’s current path to Whole Foods and Priuses isn’t going to solve the problem of climate change. It’s time to get practical and seek solutions with a clear mind and solid analysis!
The polar bears are done for
May 7, 06:52 AM by Eric Allen
Two weeks ago the Student Sustainability Task Force here at RPI ran an exhibit around campus called Face the Waste. They set up six large plastic containers with various amounts of food waste, trash, aluminum cans, etc. and asked students to guess how long it took to build that much up. Okay, cool, they’re trying to raise awareness about how much we waste. All they ended up doing was pissing off a bunch of students who didn’t enjoy passing the large pile of food waste rotting in the sun on their way to class. At least they tried, right?
Wrong. This kind of environmentalism, the awareness-raising righteous environmentalism of the twentieth century, has no place in the terrifying reality of 2008. People are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and every time we come up with some new technology to reduce environmental cost, Americans simply use it to increase their luxury consumption. Telling consumers to consume less cannot solve the problems of the scope we suffer today. Peak oil, peak food, peak phosphorous, what next? The hippies and treehuggers have lost, and we are probably beyond the tipping point for a great deal of environmental issues. It’s not about the polar bears anymore; it’s about sustainability. How many people can this planet support? At what standard of living? Hurricane Katrina could have been a wake-up call. Heck, the Larsen-B ice shelf could have been one. Maybe food riots in Haiti? I doubt it.
I believe we must face the greatest question of our time: how does a global society based on an assumption of virtually unlimited natural resources cope with finite limits? As we were talking about this last semester in my Environment & Politics class, a lot of the students had faith that technology would save us. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not seeing the kind of changes we desperately need. Looking at the Chinese government’s purchases in Australia, there are clearly some world leaders who fear what is to come, and are making non-technical preparations. I sure hope the people in charge have a plan for this. Sadly we’re seeing either pitiful or no discussion of such critical issues on the campaign trail. It may not get bad over the next eight years, but my life sure won’t be boring!
Further reading
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
The Optimistic Thought Experiment
An Open Challenge to Silicon Valley
Spurred by Rising Seas, Dubai’s Floating Ambition
