The Denver Post today printed an interesting op-ed today (“Green Homes Are Not So New”: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16036555), describing the history of sod houses on the prairie, with sunflowers growing on the roof, as well as past uses of passive solar technology in architecture, and implicitly comparing and contrasting that use of “green technologies” to today’s more sophisticated New Energy technologies.
Aside from presenting a fascinating little detail of Colorado history, the story also reminds me of the fact that much of what progress is involves rediscovering the essence of what we were and where we’re coming from, and applying it in more sophisticated ways to what we are becoming and where we’re going. Ultimately, we “emerged from” ecosystems (and remain, despite our delusions of exceptionalism, mere products of nature still ensconced within ecosystems), and are now striving to reintegrate ourselves in systemically sustainable ways back into those ecosystems, without sacrificing the prosperity that our rapacious exploitation of Nature’s bounty has enabled us to enjoy.
It is my belief that our social institutions and our technologies will increasingly come to resemble nature’s forms and functions ever more closely, eventually becoming fully reintegrated into the natural systems of which they are inevitably a part, preserving the benefits to us, while finding ways to eliminate the costs to the natural context which sustains us. In the process, we will better mimic the far-greater sophistication of natural systems, and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our own human systems by doing so.
Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards
The challenges and opportunities posed to humanity by our dependence upon, and articulation with, the natural environment are immense, urgent, and of enduring consequence. The set of interrelated issues involving energy, natural resources, environmental contamination and climate change, and their impacts on the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and even the lithosphere, as well as on human political, economic, demographic, and cultural systems, are complex, intertwined, and systemic.
I’d like to start a far-ranging and detail-laden discussion here concerning these issues and system dynamics, exploring how human actions alter the systems in which we are ensconced, and thus alter the context of our own existence. The rapid deforestation and desertification of the world not only releases carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming, which in turn increases the frequency and ferocity of forest fires, increasing the deforestation which increases global warming, in an accelerating feed-back loop; it also eliminates rich repositories of biodiversity, at enormous costs to humanity and to the natural world. Our dependence on fossil fuels, also contributing to global warming, contributes as well to volatile and dysfunctional relations among nations and cultures, forcing petroleum dependent developed and developing nations to pander to the sometimes tyrannical and violence-exporting regimes of oil-rich countries.
Considering just global climate change, both well-known aspects (e.g., rising sea levels as a result of global warming, and the threat that poses to low-lying coastal areas), and less well known aspects (e.g., feedback loops such as those involving the albedo effect through decreasing ice caps reflecting less heat into space, thus causing accelerated global warming; and potentially catastrophic chain-reaction effects, such as those involving disrupted marine food chains due to decreased protophytoplankton production), the breadth and complexity of interacting systemic dynamics demand more from us than the superficial and barely informed popular concern and denial that dominate popular discourse on the topic.
In addition to the immense body of systemic theory, empirical observation, and informed speculation concerning how our actions impact our natural context, and how the resulting changes in our natural context impact our existence in return, there is the entire subset of thought and action regarding our actual and potential responses to this reality. The New Energy Economy, focusing on more extensive use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and the technical problems of storage and transmission involved, provides a basis for discussion. Within that framework, specific policy issues, such as the efficacy of cap-and-trade carbon markets, or carbon taxes, or taxes and subsidies more generally, come into play. The history of these efforts, including the intense international negotiations culminating in the tentatively promising Kyoto Protocol and disappointing Copenhagen Accord which followed, and current possibilities, such as more decentralized interconnected carbon markets, belong in the conversation.
As always, I invite any and all to participate, hopefully bringing some combination of expertly informed knowledge and insight, on the one hand, and popular perception and curiosity on the other.
2 Comments »
Modern society requires large amounts of energy. This will be true even if we become far more conservation conscious, far more humble in our appetites, and far more efficient in the production and use of energy resources. In fact, developing nations, aspiring to the same life-style that we have attained, will multiply the global challenges manifold.
But such massive energy consumption produces enormous externalities. Global warming, environmental contamination, and destablizing geopolitical repurcussions are all by-products of our energy consumption. Our reliance on non-renewable resources, consuming them at a rate that will make further extraction astronomically expensive in a matter of decades, compels us to be proactive in our political and economic stance toward energy and the environment.
Environmental contamination, particularly in the forms of carbon (and “black soot”) emissions, and groundwater contamination, combined with rapid economic growth in some developing nations and with an increasing scarcity of water in many regions, are global problems that cannot be ignored indefinitely. In Colorado, water scarcity coupled with population growth, and groundwater contamination through processes such as “fraccing” and uranium mining, pose urgent challenges that require assertive solutions.
Robust, system-sensitive local, state, national, and global responses are called for in response to these challenges.
A state-wide program of subsidization of research and development in the New Energy Economy is one such response. It is good for Colorado, and good for the world. We are currently forerunners in this nascent industry. Few things are predictable in world history, but the near certainty of an impending and sustained rise in the importance and value of “green” energy technologies and industries points the way toward a very important long-term economic strategy for the State of Colorado. Providing increased educational opportunities for New Energy jobs, and increased investment in New Energy technologies and nascent industries, is a wise economic and ecological course for the State of Colorado
