Right now there seems to be a parade of ugliness going on in Congress and people lobbying it about the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Newly elected Republican representatives are out in force trying to gut the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to do things it has been charged to do for 40 years and prevent it from enforcing its newest findings on limiting greenhouse gases. They want to hamstring the agency from preventing pollution, slash its funding by almost $2 billion, and gut the agency's enforcement potential.
It takes no stretch of the imagination for you to see that we at Sustainability Now think this is not only bad for people and our shared natural environment, it is also unsustainable. On several fronts, you might say it's immoral or unethical. The new push by the Tea Party candidates and the Republican faithful will unfairly burden poor people with the cost of unregulated fossil fuel extraction from coal to natural gas. It will cause health problems to people who can't afford health care. It will pollute water especially in poor places in America. It will line the pockets of people who already make well above the median income and expand income disparity. It will further pollute air, waterways, lakes, bays, and our common ocean areas. It lacks moral fiber.
And why? In the name of profit and jobs. I don't mean to suggest that jobs are somehow unimportant. We need income to survive in this country and we need fair wages to live well enough. Jobs it is.
But where are the jobs that could be supplied by the income of the CEOs of companies like BP, Chevron, Chesapeake Energy, Rex, and Massey? Why is it equitable, just, or fair? How is a corporation granted more and more powerful rights than a living person?
How can profit-maximizing and growth economics not only accept but benefit from issues like climate change?
On Friday's show, we will crack open some of these and many other issues with Don Brown. A major critic of the ethics (or perhaps lack thereof?) in economics, he will talk with us about the ethical dimensions of growth economics, of science and scientific uncertainty, and of climate change. He is a professor of Science, Technology, and Society and Law at Penn State. He has worked for the Clinton and Rendell administrations. He has been present at major international environmental negotiations including the 1992 Rio summit and the Bali (2008), Copenhagen (2009), and Cancun (2010) climate summits. He is one of the lead authors at climateethics.org, a major blog on the ethical and moral dimensions of climate change.
Listen at 4 pm on The Lion 90.7 fm from 4-5 pm on Friday February 18th. Feel free to call in: (814) 865-9577
* Peter Buckland was Don Brown's assistant when he was president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium.
16.2.11
The Ecologist's take on fracking
More things to think about with natural gas. One of its key selling points is that it is less toxic than coal and that it's CO2 emissions are lower than other fossil fuels. Watch this video from The Ecologist and you might think again.
11.2.11
Animal and Human Welfare
Gene Baur is the co-founder of Farm Sanctuary. He works for food system transparency, for animal well-being, and for healthier living through plant-based diets. In this interview, we discuss problems and solutions toward a more humane and sustainable food system.
10.2.11
An invitation to inspiration from a Penn Stater
You want to be inspired? You want to inspire?
Watch this!
Watch this!
Pilfering our "petri dish": the Earth
"There are too many people here...on this planet. Seven billion headed to nine. We have to stop population and economic growth." That's how Wes Jackson, farmer, founder of the Land Institute, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award, began his presentation to the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture Farming for the Future conference.
Jackson argues that "We" the industrial people need to take "a long view." "We" have to examine our past and realize our limits. "We" have to account for intergenerational justice and initiate a serious reduction of the afflictions that industrial humans have created and perpetuated. Overpopulation. Soil overuse and abuse. And amazingly, Jackson accused those present - farmers, sellers, buyers, eaters, and supporters - of not doing enough to stop the "terrible truths" that surround us: agriculture, massive deforestation for iron and bronze, coal, oil, natural gas, industrial expansion, and on and on.
Will we "efficiency" our way out of these problems? Not if we are tied to economic growth. This is known as Jevon's Paradox, named after W. Stanley Jevons who wrote in The Coal Question, “It is a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth." The savings used from one area will be allotted to another area where it will expand. Jackson argues that if we were serious about sustainability, then we would plug the mine and the well.
How can we end economic growth? Do we need to turn a lot of these things off? Is there a calling to what Herbert Marcuse called "The Great Refusal" and more of us refuse to participate?
Jackson says that we have to answer questions that haven't even been asked yet. Like Darwin who answered the question of how life works, we need to ask a similar questions: How do we live sustainably? What are the other questions we need to start asking?
You can listen to the whole speech here.
Jackson argues that "We" the industrial people need to take "a long view." "We" have to examine our past and realize our limits. "We" have to account for intergenerational justice and initiate a serious reduction of the afflictions that industrial humans have created and perpetuated. Overpopulation. Soil overuse and abuse. And amazingly, Jackson accused those present - farmers, sellers, buyers, eaters, and supporters - of not doing enough to stop the "terrible truths" that surround us: agriculture, massive deforestation for iron and bronze, coal, oil, natural gas, industrial expansion, and on and on.
Will we "efficiency" our way out of these problems? Not if we are tied to economic growth. This is known as Jevon's Paradox, named after W. Stanley Jevons who wrote in The Coal Question, “It is a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth." The savings used from one area will be allotted to another area where it will expand. Jackson argues that if we were serious about sustainability, then we would plug the mine and the well.
How can we end economic growth? Do we need to turn a lot of these things off? Is there a calling to what Herbert Marcuse called "The Great Refusal" and more of us refuse to participate?
Jackson says that we have to answer questions that haven't even been asked yet. Like Darwin who answered the question of how life works, we need to ask a similar questions: How do we live sustainably? What are the other questions we need to start asking?
You can listen to the whole speech here.
7.2.11
Sustainable State Video Contest Announcement
Student listeners and blog-readers. Check this out. If you want to get involved with telling a great story of a more sustainable place, then maybe you'll want to enter this video contest.
4.2.11
What is sustainability?
Today on the show, we had two of our most interesting guests on the show today. Typically, we have people who have a hopeful or optimistic view of sustainability, but today we had guests who come from energy economics. One of our guests, Dr. Andrew Kleit challenged us to think about sustainability. The term is loose. Sustaining what for what and for whom?
He said, "With technological progress, society gets richer. So given that, I'm not sure why I should be poorer today so that someone thirty years from now can be richer. It's like people saving thirty years ago so that we could be richer. I just don't think it makes a whole lot of sense." This creates a great set of questions for us. To get the whole scope of his answer, you can listen here. As you will hear, Dr. Kleit asks some pointed questions and makes some points about energy we don't typically hear on Sustainability Now.
What is being "rich"? Is richness defined by monetary accumulation and expenditure that move on rationalized markets? Is richness defined by life expectancy? Is it measured by happiness and meaning? Is richness measured in number of children you have? The amount of stuff you own?
What is "technological progress"? The Hummer is a piece of technological progress and so is the F-16 and so are hydroponics and so are greenhouses. Are all of those things equally progressive? By what measure?
What do you think about these questions? What is sustainability? What is progress? What does it mean to be rich?
He said, "With technological progress, society gets richer. So given that, I'm not sure why I should be poorer today so that someone thirty years from now can be richer. It's like people saving thirty years ago so that we could be richer. I just don't think it makes a whole lot of sense." This creates a great set of questions for us. To get the whole scope of his answer, you can listen here. As you will hear, Dr. Kleit asks some pointed questions and makes some points about energy we don't typically hear on Sustainability Now.
What is being "rich"? Is richness defined by monetary accumulation and expenditure that move on rationalized markets? Is richness defined by life expectancy? Is it measured by happiness and meaning? Is richness measured in number of children you have? The amount of stuff you own?
What is "technological progress"? The Hummer is a piece of technological progress and so is the F-16 and so are hydroponics and so are greenhouses. Are all of those things equally progressive? By what measure?
What do you think about these questions? What is sustainability? What is progress? What does it mean to be rich?
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