From the Moon to Sustainability

President Kennedy set the ball rolling toward our landing on the moon through inspired leadership and political pressure. As a kid growing up, his speeches made little sense to me in detail, except for the inspiration of our reaching for the stars and attaining that goal. The echo still rings with me, and has shaped many aspects of my personal approach.

We need a new, very hard fight to fight, that is not about killing people with technology. Moving humanity from its path of destructive exploitation to one of immortal sustainability would be a phenomenal accomplishment. Further, should the United States take this on, and focus on it, we could re-establish our global leadership position, and recast ourselves as leaders of humanity into the next millennium, and flush our reputation as global militaristic bullies.

We should be setting goals that seem unreachable, that are founded on what it will take to forecast our energy use, waste production/handling, and resource use to have a net zero impact within the next 25 years. The goals should be far reaching and so immense, that we have to divert a large portion of military spending and research to reach them, and so novel as to establish momentum that carries us beyond them for another 40 years – just as the space program did for science and technology.

We should look back at our accomplishments and wonder how we did it, while looking forward with wonder in how we could have been so insightful.

If we don’t do this, there will be others who will, eventually, likely using our failure to embrace reality and the failure it will cause us, as an example of a country that had it all, and blew it out of short sightedness.

CO2/Global Warming is Not the Core Issue – Conservation IS

The idea that we need to change behavior based on the theory that CO2 is the single largest factor in global climate change is a dangerous distraction. For argument sake, let’s say that tomorrow they announce that there is no connection between CO2 and global climate change a all. Would that mean that our need to conserve use of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources disappears as well? Hardly.

Gore and his campaign against CO2 emissions enforces a Red Herring fallacy that draws attention from the underlying issues of using any combustion of matter or gas to generate energy on a global scale. CO2 is but one byproduct of combustion. Mercury vapor from coal, solid particulates from solids, water vapor (which makes up 97% of the volume of greenhouse gas), acids, NO2, methane, and a long list of other harmful gases and particulates cannot be avoided. Further, and most importantly: Tapping reserves and burning them up is not sustainable. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, just because we can find the stuff now, does not mean it is ours to burn at will.

Had our ancestors discovered and used fuels on the same per-capita basis as we do in the US today, and tapped the reserves we now believe are ours to consume at-will, this entire issue would be moot today, as their would be no fuel remaining for us to own. Humanity has inhabited the face of this globe, in various levels of organization, for over 5,000 years. We have only been consuming coal and oil for the last 400 of that. Over the next 100, we have already predicted that reserves of fossil fuel sources will be near exhaustion. So, exactly what happens then? We do know that our irresponsibility and short sightedness nearly wiped the whale populations out in the pursuit of cheap fuel. The current destruction of fossil fuel reserves are simply more of the same, and of no greater enlightenment.

We should evolve our global awareness that all fuel sources are the property of humanity as a whole, reaching well beyond our short lives. We should treat all resources necessary to human existence and well being as precious, leave behind little waste, consume as little as possible, and engage in active protection of our habitat as a whole – for generations after us. We need to redress our short sighted selfish behavior, and realize that we are tenants on this planet, with a responsibility as stewards of all we have at our disposal. Our legacy should be that of enlightenment, not irresponsible destruction.

CO2 emissions are one byproduct of our wasteful behavior. The gas, along with others, is generated by our use of combustion for energy, emitted from the piles of trash we leave in our wake, a byproduct of our production of junk we do not need, and products we buy for no other reason but marketing pressure and advancement of wealth building. CO2 is an indicator gas, and its exponential rise indicates we are acting very irresponsibly as a civilization. If we adopt global level conservation as a priority, create a combination of solar, wind, ocean tide, geo-thermal, and limited use of renewable bio-fuels, to move toward rebuilding our infrastructure to reduce dependence on energy; we will not only realize an improved environment, we will be leaving behind a legacy for future humanity to build upon, and prosper. We should wean ourselves from the fossil fuel teat, turn our back on nuclear until we find a way to produce energy without leaving behind a radioactive legacy, and redress cultures that show too little respect for the environment in which they live and prosper.

The conservative approach is sensible, and far more robust than focusing on a risky theory that all of our environmental ills can be put on a single gas emission, which may or may not stand the test of time. There is no single gas or issue facing humanity. We face a wider range of issues that can be encapsulated under the premise of conservation. Embracing this, and serious efforts to improve our behavior on every level, is the only sustainable solution.