Salt flats
Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Pier, early evening
Semi-arid badlands
Salt Flats, with Cordillera Bermeja in the distance
Another piece of paradise
Fallen tree trunk
Lone hunter
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Comparative Ethics
Comparative Ethics
Ozymandias Revisited
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
It seems to me that big business, the military-industrial complex, multinational corporations, and all other multi-billion dollar enterprises (Fossil Fuel companies, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Banks, Big Finance, Silicon Valley, Big Media, law firms, lobbyists, politicians, etc.) have already amassed (or control) much of the wealth and the resources that exist. They are using those resources to further their near-sighted goals, which were mostly created in ignorance or avoidance of the science of ecology or of social justice.
At this point, acting in a truly environmentally ethical way threatens their economic survival, and accepting this responsibility threatens their personal sense of self-worth (who wants to think of himself as an ecocidal global murderer?).
Paraphrasing a few quotes making the rounds on social media, 'don’t expect the rich to let you vote away their money or their power; the rich will not give up their riches without a fight.' Arguing ethics with them is not going to right the world; it will only get us self-serving half measures (CSR, food-as-fuel, GMO’s, carbon taxes, CO2 sequestration, cost-benefit analysis, etc. - things they say will technologically solve our problems - when our problems are not technological - and technological solutions only concentrate more wealth, enslave more people and kill more trees).
Was there ever a time when all people understood ethics and lived ethics? I know that as far back as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, and Aristotle there have been ethicists and philosophers that have taught ethics. But did that stop Shogun Tokugawa, Alexander the Great, or Julius Cesar from conquering (enslaving) half the known world of their time? Did it stop John D. Rockefeller from brutally consolidating the petroleum business? Did it stop Kenneth Lay from riding Enron to the ground or Goldman Sachs from selling derivatives they knew to be worthless to an unsuspecting world market that then caused the global economy to crash? Do Exxon, BP, or Chevron employees lose any sleep whatsoever knowing the death and destruction they have caused the environment (and continue to evade accountability for)? No, knowing did not stop them.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Upton Sinclair
Maybe I have been unduly influenced by Derrick Jensen, who believes we are running out of time, and we must make a revolution that tears down corporatist America. My stance has softened during my two years at Columbia, and I do not see the people behind huge corporations as “evil”. They are people doing the only thing they know how to do, the best way they know how to do it, and avoiding ethical discussions beyond their sphere of influence. We do not live in a communal society where individuals can rely on each other for food, shelter, and community. Industrialization and overpopulation did away with interdependence. And our society does not give ethics the importance it should have in order to avoid the many pitfalls we live with today.
I’ve also come to know that just explaining the science of ecology will not save us, just as only speaking of environmental ethics will not save us. It is not enough to condemn a lifestyle, we must share a vision of a new, more conscious, more ethical, more equitable, more educated, and more empathetic way of life that does away with the cults of concentrated wealth, rugged individualism, and over-consumption. That is not something that can be done from inside this system; the pull of Madison Avenue is too strong, its inertia too entrenched. That is not something that will be embraced by the moneyed Old Guard; it must be crafted by the next generation and we must accept that only a few billion people will survive the worst consequences of climate change, and we must help the surviving young to build a future that avoids the mistakes we have made so far.
So, the alternative seems to be to create new communities now, where people live more simply, using local alternative energy, growing and eating their own food organically, living by and for each other, using a new system of trade (Barter? Energy chits? Sharing?), that focuses on everyone’s health and education, that stewards the Commons responsibly, that does not have so many children, that lives the Precautionary Principle, and is much closer to the land and its bounty, like British ‘Transition Towns’ do, or ecovillages do.
We will have to re-learn how to do things like grow food without toxic inputs, animal husbandry, linen making, weaving, crafts such as weaving, pottery and woodworking. We will have to know more about more subjects than we know today (everyone is so specialized), be more inter-dependent, less industrial (cookie-cutter) desk jockeys, and much more responsible, selfless, and empathetic. Let’s hope a few of these villages survive the floods, the storms, the droughts and the heat, the mass migrations to come, and that species homo sapiens gets a second chance to exist.
Since I alone cannot change the system, and changing the system would entail violence that I am not willing to expend, my answer is to create a reservoir of knowledge in a safe community so future generations, if humanity survives this challenge, will find, like in the caves of Altamira or Lascaux, a treasure trove of information from our generation, that tells a story of what happened: that within the haystack of apathetic humanity there were a few needles that saved humanity’s highest insights for them, the children of the future, as a cautionary tale.
And the lessons were these: we come into this world alone, and we die alone, but every other second of our existence is traveled on a path from dependence, to independence, to interdependence; without community, man is only an island for a minute; life is all about continuity and building on what you already have, and abhors the greedy vacuum of individuality. We are but a gossamer thread in a vast web of life in a fragile, unique yet resilient planet, and we must respect it and not overstep the bounds of its web. Because we ignored the needs and the rules of the environment we live in, we have caused massive pain and millions of unnecessary deaths, and our inability to communicate with each other caused an ecocidal outcome. We have lost touch with the Earth and our intimate ancient knowledge of it, and we mistreated and marginalized the few remaining natives and aboriginals that still guarded that knowledge. We did not learn from our past, and we were corrupted by our hubris and tried to avoid life’s tougher lessons by insulating our lives with money.
So to future generations, I say this: learn ecology, learn permaculture, learn home-building, learn ethics, learn math and science, learn sociology, psychology, and anthropology, learn history and development, learn to communicate and share, learn the cycles of the planet and the cycles of life, learn community; be self-reliant and inter-dependent; and above all, act ethically in the broadest sense of the word. Learn as much as you can about as many subjects as you can. Never stop learning. Do no harm. Allow space for nature to breathe and live, to thrive, actually - she feeds us and must stay healthy. Learn to talk to each other, help each other. Work hard, be responsible for your actions, and do your part for your community; teach others what you have learned and leave a fruitful legacy for future generations. Respect nature; respect yourself; respect all others, and earn their respect.
For hundreds of years, we have had men of a certain vision that used the urgency of their mortality as an excuse to conquer or enslave others. It is time we began to think of ourselves as roots of a common Aspen grove (we are all one), and think in geologic time (how will my actions affect the ten-thousandths generation?); and act as if we accept responsibility for trying to live on Earth forever, instead of trying to deny biological and ecological imperatives. We must all stop acting as if we were King Ozymandias.
Reading:
Lemos, Maria
Carmen. 2008. Whose Water Is It Anyway? Water Management,
Knowledge, and Equity in Northeast Brazil.
Holt-Gimenez,
Eric. 2011. Food Security, Food Justice or Food Sovereignty? Crises,
Food Movements, and Regime Change.
Byrne, John,
and Noah Toly. 2006. Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a
Discourse.
This
week’s three readings give a clear picture, in each of their respective areas
(water, food and energy) of the problems these sectors are having, not just in
physical terms (abundance or scarcity of the resource, climate change, pollution
and overuse); but how society thinks about (or ignores) using them and
overcoming their environmental and social consequences (through economic and
political considerations). But more importantly, they write about the ethical
and social justice concerns that an equitable use of finite resources raises,
how they are being addressed today, why they are being addressed that way.
There
are certain things that humans need in order to survive, and certain things
that we need to live above a hand-to-mouth existence. For survival, we need
food and water, shelter and clothing. For a more comfortable way of life, at
home and at work, we also need energy. The authors give us a primer on the
history of human development, and how the inclusion of all stakeholders, accessibility to information and
transparency in governance has made the situation better, but has not been able
to solve the problems caused by systemic regulatory and economic inequalities
caused by the vast privileges that multinationals have over markets.
Holt-Gimenez
uses a stark comparison of the subtleties that separate food production in the
US today: an industrial agriculture perspective (neoliberal, food enterprise, toxic),
a slightly more progressive industrial agriculture perspective (reformist, food
security, less toxic), a progressive perspective (food justice, saving seeds, organic farming), and a radical perspective
(food sovereignty), and explains each of their beginnings and ethical
arguments. The agro-industrial (so-called “green”) revolution stemmed from a
need to fight world hunger which created a thinly veiled opportunity for large
corporations to invest in and overtake a global market (food) that is
inexhaustible, which led to land grabs, consolidation, and monopoly conditions.
Within
that corporatist cadre, there are Reformists, which believe that people should
have food security, and therefore espouse corporate buying of organic farms,
maintaining subsidies, market-led reforms, and “sustainable” roundtable
discussions that give the impression of moving away from industrial
agriculture, but in truth keep concentrating the sector into fewer and fewer
hands.
Progressive
food movements like Food Justice espouse Fair Trade and Slow Food, but shy away
from actually fighting the systemic underpinnings of the corporate system. The
most radical food movements, like Via Campesina, have sprung from a deep sense
of inequality that third world peasants feel when the Goliaths of industrial
agriculture force them off their lands, and therefore broaden their attacks to
include social justice and rights-based ethics in their vision and mission
statements.
This
comparison points to several conclusions: humanity is managing after the fact, learning to properly regulate after corporations have begun to make a profit and capture market share: it is not proactively avoiding damages or being precautionary;
successful businesses tend to become systems that have their own growth
imperatives, and are very hard to change or stop; those with the most money
have the most political influence, and they influence the lay of the business playing
field in their favor; multinational corporations are like a climate system that
has hit numerous feedback loops that make their rapacious trajectories unstoppable.
Byrne
and Toly focus on the energy sector, and its similar history and possible
solutions, with the important difference that in the energy field there are
very few voices concerned with the ethical or social justice part of what they
do, and they are much more interested in scaling businesses (whether they are
conventional or alternative energies) that have proven to be income producers
and have some prospect of lowering
GHG emissions or other environmental problems, without addressing any other ethical concerns. To fossil fuel energy producers, it is more important to
make use of economic opportunities and society's dependence on comfort than it is to solve intractable problems
like climate change and social justice.
Bill McKibben of 350.org recently published an article that made this clear: there are $27 Trillion dollars in proven reserves of fossil fuels that companies have already monetized on their books (so they will not leave them in the ground unless paid for them). That amount translates to five times the amount of CO2 that avoids the greater dangers of climate change, and there is almost no chance of leaving them in the ground.
Bill McKibben of 350.org recently published an article that made this clear: there are $27 Trillion dollars in proven reserves of fossil fuels that companies have already monetized on their books (so they will not leave them in the ground unless paid for them). That amount translates to five times the amount of CO2 that avoids the greater dangers of climate change, and there is almost no chance of leaving them in the ground.
Conclusions
Beyond pragmatic (if disheartening) realities, there is an ethical imperative to share life-giving resources equitably. But from reading these papers, it is clear that society gives much more importance to economic considerations when we are deciding on regulations and incentives to business, and governments are exceedingly influenced by the businesses they are trying to regulate. In the natural world, this would be a species that cannot stop itself from growing too large, and is rapidly approaching a cliff from whence it may not survive.
Beyond pragmatic (if disheartening) realities, there is an ethical imperative to share life-giving resources equitably. But from reading these papers, it is clear that society gives much more importance to economic considerations when we are deciding on regulations and incentives to business, and governments are exceedingly influenced by the businesses they are trying to regulate. In the natural world, this would be a species that cannot stop itself from growing too large, and is rapidly approaching a cliff from whence it may not survive.
Prof.
Gondek’s comments:
Explain whether we are learning fast enough about ethics etc.
(para. 6) to turn around our approach to the cliff (para. 9). Is there a
remedy?
My
response:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
It seems to me that big business, the military-industrial complex, multinational corporations, and all other multi-billion dollar enterprises (Fossil Fuel companies, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Banks, Big Finance, Silicon Valley, Big Media, law firms, lobbyists, politicians, etc.) have already amassed (or control) much of the wealth and the resources that exist. They are using those resources to further their near-sighted goals, which were mostly created in ignorance or avoidance of the science of ecology or of social justice.
At this point, acting in a truly environmentally ethical way threatens their economic survival, and accepting this responsibility threatens their personal sense of self-worth (who wants to think of himself as an ecocidal global murderer?).
Paraphrasing a few quotes making the rounds on social media, 'don’t expect the rich to let you vote away their money or their power; the rich will not give up their riches without a fight.' Arguing ethics with them is not going to right the world; it will only get us self-serving half measures (CSR, food-as-fuel, GMO’s, carbon taxes, CO2 sequestration, cost-benefit analysis, etc. - things they say will technologically solve our problems - when our problems are not technological - and technological solutions only concentrate more wealth, enslave more people and kill more trees).
Was there ever a time when all people understood ethics and lived ethics? I know that as far back as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, and Aristotle there have been ethicists and philosophers that have taught ethics. But did that stop Shogun Tokugawa, Alexander the Great, or Julius Cesar from conquering (enslaving) half the known world of their time? Did it stop John D. Rockefeller from brutally consolidating the petroleum business? Did it stop Kenneth Lay from riding Enron to the ground or Goldman Sachs from selling derivatives they knew to be worthless to an unsuspecting world market that then caused the global economy to crash? Do Exxon, BP, or Chevron employees lose any sleep whatsoever knowing the death and destruction they have caused the environment (and continue to evade accountability for)? No, knowing did not stop them.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Upton Sinclair
Maybe I have been unduly influenced by Derrick Jensen, who believes we are running out of time, and we must make a revolution that tears down corporatist America. My stance has softened during my two years at Columbia, and I do not see the people behind huge corporations as “evil”. They are people doing the only thing they know how to do, the best way they know how to do it, and avoiding ethical discussions beyond their sphere of influence. We do not live in a communal society where individuals can rely on each other for food, shelter, and community. Industrialization and overpopulation did away with interdependence. And our society does not give ethics the importance it should have in order to avoid the many pitfalls we live with today.
I’ve also come to know that just explaining the science of ecology will not save us, just as only speaking of environmental ethics will not save us. It is not enough to condemn a lifestyle, we must share a vision of a new, more conscious, more ethical, more equitable, more educated, and more empathetic way of life that does away with the cults of concentrated wealth, rugged individualism, and over-consumption. That is not something that can be done from inside this system; the pull of Madison Avenue is too strong, its inertia too entrenched. That is not something that will be embraced by the moneyed Old Guard; it must be crafted by the next generation and we must accept that only a few billion people will survive the worst consequences of climate change, and we must help the surviving young to build a future that avoids the mistakes we have made so far.
So, the alternative seems to be to create new communities now, where people live more simply, using local alternative energy, growing and eating their own food organically, living by and for each other, using a new system of trade (Barter? Energy chits? Sharing?), that focuses on everyone’s health and education, that stewards the Commons responsibly, that does not have so many children, that lives the Precautionary Principle, and is much closer to the land and its bounty, like British ‘Transition Towns’ do, or ecovillages do.
We will have to re-learn how to do things like grow food without toxic inputs, animal husbandry, linen making, weaving, crafts such as weaving, pottery and woodworking. We will have to know more about more subjects than we know today (everyone is so specialized), be more inter-dependent, less industrial (cookie-cutter) desk jockeys, and much more responsible, selfless, and empathetic. Let’s hope a few of these villages survive the floods, the storms, the droughts and the heat, the mass migrations to come, and that species homo sapiens gets a second chance to exist.
Since I alone cannot change the system, and changing the system would entail violence that I am not willing to expend, my answer is to create a reservoir of knowledge in a safe community so future generations, if humanity survives this challenge, will find, like in the caves of Altamira or Lascaux, a treasure trove of information from our generation, that tells a story of what happened: that within the haystack of apathetic humanity there were a few needles that saved humanity’s highest insights for them, the children of the future, as a cautionary tale.
And the lessons were these: we come into this world alone, and we die alone, but every other second of our existence is traveled on a path from dependence, to independence, to interdependence; without community, man is only an island for a minute; life is all about continuity and building on what you already have, and abhors the greedy vacuum of individuality. We are but a gossamer thread in a vast web of life in a fragile, unique yet resilient planet, and we must respect it and not overstep the bounds of its web. Because we ignored the needs and the rules of the environment we live in, we have caused massive pain and millions of unnecessary deaths, and our inability to communicate with each other caused an ecocidal outcome. We have lost touch with the Earth and our intimate ancient knowledge of it, and we mistreated and marginalized the few remaining natives and aboriginals that still guarded that knowledge. We did not learn from our past, and we were corrupted by our hubris and tried to avoid life’s tougher lessons by insulating our lives with money.
So to future generations, I say this: learn ecology, learn permaculture, learn home-building, learn ethics, learn math and science, learn sociology, psychology, and anthropology, learn history and development, learn to communicate and share, learn the cycles of the planet and the cycles of life, learn community; be self-reliant and inter-dependent; and above all, act ethically in the broadest sense of the word. Learn as much as you can about as many subjects as you can. Never stop learning. Do no harm. Allow space for nature to breathe and live, to thrive, actually - she feeds us and must stay healthy. Learn to talk to each other, help each other. Work hard, be responsible for your actions, and do your part for your community; teach others what you have learned and leave a fruitful legacy for future generations. Respect nature; respect yourself; respect all others, and earn their respect.
For hundreds of years, we have had men of a certain vision that used the urgency of their mortality as an excuse to conquer or enslave others. It is time we began to think of ourselves as roots of a common Aspen grove (we are all one), and think in geologic time (how will my actions affect the ten-thousandths generation?); and act as if we accept responsibility for trying to live on Earth forever, instead of trying to deny biological and ecological imperatives. We must all stop acting as if we were King Ozymandias.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
My State of the Planet
State of the Planet 2012
On Oct. 11, 2012, Columbia University and the Earth
Institute hosted the State of the Planet Conference. They asked the students
and professors to answer some questions that were going to be discussed. Here
are the questions and my answers:
- What can we do to make the planet habitable for future generations?
First, realize that working within the economic
system we have now will not solve the multiple problems we face (environmental,
economic, social justice). So the following suggestions only work if the
economic system in which we live is reworked (torn down?) and a new one put in
its place. The fastest way to resolve a Gordian knot is by severing it.
The other thing we need is a new, Earth-based
baseline. We have been using economic baselines and human baselines, now we
need to see what an ecological baseline looks like, so that we can put the
other two in context. So I thought of an experiment.
Publish and disseminate widely the results of the following Reality Check Exercise as soon as possible (most of the data has probably been collected by universities already; all this exercise needs is global compilation, an agreed-upon framework, analysis and recommendations):
Publish and disseminate widely the results of the following Reality Check Exercise as soon as possible (most of the data has probably been collected by universities already; all this exercise needs is global compilation, an agreed-upon framework, analysis and recommendations):
Take a global (GIS-based) inventory of a) built
areas (cities/roads/commerce/industry), b) wild and almost-wild areas
(wilderness/parks/recreation areas), and c) ‘in-between’ areas (agricultural/logging/mining
areas). Define the areas according to biodiversity health. This will give us a
global inventory by region, state and nation that tells us which regions have
how much of what and in what percentages and absolute numbers. Each county,
state, and nation will know the amounts of their built areas, wilderness areas,
and 'in-between’ areas in relation to their micro-ecosystem, the larger
ecosystem/watershed, and the global ecosystem. Transpose this to Google Earth (or
similar software) so that layers can be manipulated easily by all viewers
without changing the underlying data.
[For the ‘in-between’ areas, separate denominations
should be made for earth-friendly or commercial/industrial uses: industrial
agriculture versus organic agriculture, managed forests versus clear-cutting,
etc. Beginning with a micro- (as in microclimate) ecosystems, then meso-
(regional) ecosystems and ending with a macro- (global) ecosystem, tally the
biodiversity, ecological services, hydrological services, and state of health
of the various ecosystems on Earth. Also add a layer of what impact 'cradle to
cradle' commerce would have, as opposed to the 'cradle to grave' commerce we
now have.]
Treat the oceans as an international commons and do the same for them (divide into percentages of ‘clean’ oceans, ‘dirty’ oceans (garbage patches, oil spills etc.), commercialized-areas oceans (oil rigs, shipping lanes, trawling areas, etc.), and add a health component (of coral reefs, of fish stocks, of ocean acidification, of dead zones). Add a layer for sea level rise, ocean currents and the thermohalene current.
Since we have an ethical debt to future generations to consider (given how our cumulative actions in the past 200 years will impact them so dramatically and so long into the future), add an intra-generational aspect by adding length of time for ecosystems to recover to a ‘livable’ stage from our current polluted state (back to a baseline of environmental health of, say, 1800? That baseline is not a ‘pristine environment’ but it is before population growth’s ‘hockey stick’ went vertical, and before modern wars and the rise of the 'military-industrial complex').
By deciding to have nuclear energy (and its concomitant nuclear waste), we have already decided to impinge on the lives of everything on this planet for the next 100,000+ years and 5000+ generations. This is a responsibility we must honor and take into account in every decision we make in current Climate Change policy, not just in deciding where to site the nuclear storage depots. We have a responsibility of being here to take care of the nuclear waste we have produced.
Add all (global) nuclear waste sites and nuclear reactors to the map, and draw a circle with a 50 mile radius around them. Also add superfund sites, health hazards, and all other variables included in the Measure of America map (http://www.measureofamerica.org/maps/ ), for every nation. For nuclear accidents in particular, wind patterns are important so overlay a wind map over the information map.
We also have an ethical responsibility towards all other living things on this planet, and their right to exist and have their own habitat. Therefore we must deal with the amounts of toxins we use. The annual and accumulated use of toxic chemicals should be inventoried, and expressed numerically [given a rating of which ones are cumulatively toxic to the environment (too much fertilizers degrade the soil and create ocean dead zones, etc.), and which are toxic in even minute concentrations (pesticides)?].
Map where the toxic chemicals are currently found, how they travel and where they are concentrated. Outright toxic chemicals should be banned and phased out of all production and use within 3 years. Toxic chemicals that become toxic in high quantities should be used in non-toxic quantities or be phased out within 5 years. All data should be counted cumulatively, adding current uses to the amounts already in the environment, so everyone can have a clearer picture of what we are all doing.
Industrial agriculture should adopt organic and permaculture processes in order to heal the soil, the rivers, the oceans, and all living things. Government should stop subsidies to agribusiness and fund incentives for relocalizing small farmers. GMO seeds should be banned for environmental and social justice reasons (food cannot be the sole province of corporations). Regulation should be put in place that does not allow multinational corporations to cause small farmers to go into bankruptcy through patent infringement or through loss of their organic certification.
All policy going forward should reflect this and support/enhance this in a positive feedback loop. It is incomprehensible that our civilization is killing itself because it does not know how to transition to using safe, non-toxic chemicals, or thinks it cannot be happy living self-sufficiently and communally (instead of inside an unsustainable, rigged and unjust economic system intent on poisoning and destroying our only habitat). Or that our society thinks that it must monetize toxic substances (originally used in biological warfare) into barely disguised ‘necessary tools’ for growing food crops (pesticides) especially when there are viable alternatives (permaculture) that are not wealth-concentrators, simply because they have already patented the chemicals (Agent Orange, napalm).
Just because we have discovered something does not mean we have to develop it, or develop it in the old (wealth-concentration-economy) way. Web 2.0 and new sharing businesses (zipcar) point to a growing trend for an interest in a sharing economy. Let's grow along those lines.
As part of the experiment, recommend policies solely for the health of Earth, its systems and biodiversity (no political, social or economic concerns at this point – just the health of the planet and its biodiversity in a model that includes adequate space for humans, their shelter, workspace and infrastructure, and sustainable organic food production only).
Create a table with a) absolute size in acres and b) a percentage of each nation's land mass in each of the following areas: 1) Built environment (urban/suburban areas), 2) Agriculture/logging/mining (rural areas), and 3) Wilderness/parks/recreation areas.
Once you have the Actual Land Uses mapped (an educated guess of 20% built, 30% wilderness (including deserts and frozen places) and 50% 'in-between'), create a second map that would delineate zones for each of the three areas (built environment, wild environment and in-between environment) as equitably as possible (say 30% built environment (for future population growth), 30% wild environments and 40% ‘in-between’ environments set aside for agriculture only), so that local, state and national governments can use those two parameters as guidelines for future policy decisions (what it is now and what it should be in order to have a healthy biosphere and stop runaway extinction rates and biodiversity loss).
The idea is to have a reference point so we can act ethically for ALL (human and non-human) stakeholders, including environmental health, for plants and animals, future generations and the resilience of the web of life (which will include 10 billion people by the end of the century). This is also designed to make humanity come face to face with our overpopulation problem as well.
Ranchers that pasture their cattle on public lands would be permitted to use public parklands (but only allowed the minimum of damage to the place, with only one set of guidelines in play), and they cannot decry the loss of some of their cattle to predators, nor can they lobby any government at any level to have any of predators removed, nor pay third parties to do so. If they want none of their cattle to be killed by predators, keep them off public lands where the predators live.
Conclusions
These maps would give the governments and the people of the world a glimpse of the forces involved in their decision-making; the maps are a stark reminder that decisions made on one side of the planet can kill people on the other side of the planet; that geography trumps economy (for example, pristine forests in the Amazon, the Congo and Papua New Guinea should be saved as the lungs of the planet, and their worth remunerated to those countries in exchange for their leaving them intact). The maps, together, will give us more information on when we are crossing irreversible ethical and ecological thresholds, and when larger bodies (national, international) have to step in to safeguard the ecosystem for the benefit of the whole. Nations, regions, states and municipalities must work out a similar percentage for their areas independently, and then weave them together, giving equal weight to human needs and non-human needs.
Those areas that have overstepped the recommended percentages will know they should reverse course as quickly as possible so they can reach greater equity between priorities, or face sanctions and fines from the nation or global community. There are economic benefits and costs to both types of paths, but the paths being taken now only look better because we are not accounting for externalities correctly. So accounting for externalities is important and must be included.
These new policies and new parameters will also impinge on an individual's ‘freedom’ to decide what to do with their property, as they would have to take into consideration county, national and global environmental needs. Think of it as a new zoning layer.
Lastly, build a marketing program, an educational program and a social media program to go with the launch of these information maps so that in every Town Hall meeting, in every university, and in every political aggregation, people can discuss a) the needs and limits to the local ecosystem in the context of the global system and its needs, and b) all the things that can be done to create a localized, non-toxic, self-sufficient and resilient economy that does no harm to the environment or its inhabitants. We already have climate change reality. We must sell the dream of living self-sufficiently, communally, sustainably and joyfully. Focus on how much better we will be living as conscious, ethical beings.
• What’s your plan for reducing the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable segments of our planet?
Stop all wars, and use part of that money for: 1. buying all remaining tropical rainforests and primary forests (Amazon, Congo, PNG, etc. ) and protect them from any ecologically harmful changes to their ecosystems (including building huge hydro-electric generating dams), using active and well-paid locally sourced policing and conservation employees in the areas; and begin a massive study on how best to preserve and enhance the forests and biodiversity and bioculture (and the indigenous peoples living there*) and potential biomimicry adaptations we can glean from the forests. At the same time, launch a global re-forestation project and an archive of indigenous knowledge of local environments.
(*strict regulations as to how much interchange between ‘civilization’ and indigenous cultures must be set up so that indigenous groups can live fully in the jungle, but their members who now live in the city would be given a choice (live in the city or the forest, but you can’t go back and forth) to avoid bringing with them noxious ideas, viruses and behaviors. Also, allow as little outside influence or intervention as possible from ‘civilized’ people. Like the Amish, who allow their children to visit the outside world once they reach maturity and let them decide whether they want to stay or come back - only stricter.)
2. Launch a global hydrology cycle study, inventory global freshwater. Eliminate environmentally unnecessary virtual water transfers (transfers created solely for economic reasons), and model for the most efficient use of water in each hydrological region. Create a global body of hydrologists that monitor and manage the Earth’s hydrological systems at every level (local, national, international).
3. Halt all Arctic oil exploration, all deep water exploration, all oil drilling in vulnerable areas, all tar sands excavation, and all coal and natural gas (hydraulic fracturing) extractions. Change the laws so that the companies have the burden of proof in court. Immediately change the fossil fuel industry’s focus to solar and wind energy (just as we did in WWII from building cars to building trucks, planes and weaponry! Only in reverse!).
Get alternative energy to as many households as possible as cheaply and rapidly as possible. Solve how to transition away from centralized energy grids to communal or regional grids according to regional advantage (some have more sun, some more wind, some have hydro etc.). Include building codes that allow for 'Passiv Haus' parameters and local building materials (cob, strawbale, bamboo, wood, plaster, adobe and any future ways in which we might be able to build our homes ourselves out of natural local materials).
Change perceptions among humans that everything has to be ‘on’ all the time. Nurture the idea of ‘down time’ in electricity use and in work lives. Imbue corporations with a ‘use forever’ product mantra instead of a ‘throw-away-and-buy-again’ mantra. Explain to corporations and their employees that what they are doing is bringing an old way of life to an end, and creating a healthy new one in its stead. Explain that helping households within an energy self-sufficient and food secure community become self-reliant and resilient is the ultimate goal, not monetizing new ways of concentrating wealth. Helping soon-to-be-downsized workers transition to becoming entrepreneurs and consultants must also be implemented rapidly.
4. Anything that has to be mined out of the earth is to be left in the ground during an indefinite moratorium on extractive practices.
5. We must give our research universities and national laboratories an ‘Environmental Manhattan Project’ mandate, a chance to come up with other, multidisciplinary, viable mining/energy alternatives that do not include harming the earth, the air or the water, and that allows the economy to transition from a wealth-concentrating model to an equitable wealth model that includes sharing of large, newly denominated Common Lands (all previously designated wildernesses/parks/recreation and agricultural/logging/mining lands would come into a local, national and global ‘land escrow account’ where locals would have a say in the use of the lands, but national and global members would also have a say, and veto power, with regards to its noxious use within the larger framework of the Earth Ecosystem.
6. In conjunction with the ‘Environmental Manhattan Project’, we need a Global Marshall Plan for each nation to transition to the new conditions of climate change, social justice and economic egalitarianism.
7. Have all universities dedicate some significant portion of their research in every department on how each discipline can help humanity transition from the current economic, environmental, and social crises by focusing on creating local-scale communities as healthy, self-sufficient, food-secure and energy-independent as possible. This is meant to gear academic resources towards making humanity part of the ecosystem again (communal economy), so we can continue to be here for thousands of years, living within Earth’s means. This should influence all other courses, programs and teachings in the university to have a basis of ecologic sustainability first, then sustainability in everything else. It may also break the stranglehold corporations have on funding research and development programs for private benefit.
Artisans and craft workers must have a chance at becoming entrepreneurs with viable local businesses. We would need to grow materials for making clothes (flax, linen, silk, wool, leather), for making household utensils and tools, for building, for growing food, and for generating energy and for transportation, and they all have to be non-toxic, reusable or recyclable. This could form the basis of an additional, less academic curriculum.
8. Begin a worldwide patent search on 19th century mechanical products to see which ones can be best adapted to today’s problems, and focus our technology transfer mechanisms into delivering those that can most easily, affordably and cleanly be adapted, and built from local natural resources (e.g. a bicycle frame made from bamboo, or wood, or extruded recycled plastic, depending on where you live).
9. Decree an immediate 80% reduction goal of all CO2 emissions from any source within 5 years. Decree that only mass transportation and home heating emissions are to be allowed less significant emissions reductions, but that all emission sources will be audited and reduced to the barest bones in the developed world (enough energy to power per household: one refrigerator, one stove, one house-wide temperature control {A/C and heater}, one television, two lights per room; and per person: one cel phone, one computer, one digital reader, one digital camera, one radio. Period. Anything extra pays double for it.)
10. Repurpose old waste dumps: start a plastic extraction drive, pay indigents that already scavenge dumps to get metals, glass and plastics out. Research ways in which dumps can be transformed, not into sterile mounds, or waste-to-energy centers, or cleaned up urban parks: but be actually cleaned. Institute high recycling regulations, from packaging to lifecycle, to materials used, and make everyone accountable for their wastes.
11. Stop ALL commercial fishing in all the oceans immediately. Allow some small coastal fishing to go forward (in boats less than 40’ with no ‘Mother Vessels’ to take their catch in the high seas, and never near the coast or on coral reef areas), and establish marine reserves every 50 nautical miles with no-fishing zones, and pay locals to protect the area and guide the tourists to it. Repurpose the commercial fleets for cleaning the various garbage patches of the oceans. Begin serious research on how to mitigate ocean acidification (ways to de-acidify the ocean, not just less CO2 in the atmosphere).
12. Put considerable resources towards helping India/Pakistan/Afghanistan create sustainable water use programs. Work towards resolving the nuclear threat there, and help the Afghans rebuild Afghanistan in a way that they keep their money and their resources. Keep working to decommission all nuclear armaments around the world. Help Israel and Palestine resolve their differences, help the Palestinians build their state and Israel feel more secure.
13. Put considerable resources towards researching and helping China stay away from producing and consuming so much fossil fuel, especially coal.
14. Add Environmental Anthropology (how past peoples lived within the environment) and Sociological Environmentalism (how we can best, as a society, transition from a consumerist society to a ‘Do only Good’ society - also bringing added meaning to economic ‘how we are doing’ indexes – like the Happiness Index is trying to do) to mainstream discourse. Most importantly, add Herman Daly's Ecological Economics as a core requirement for graduating from university.
15. Form a partnership between the insurance industry and government disaster relief and disaster preparedness agencies, whereby each helps the other in symbiotic ways, and each watches the other work solely for the benefit of the victims of climate change. The insurance industry can make good money, but not obscene money off of disaster victims, and homeland security cannot funnel funds to the military surreptitiously. They need to be transparent, and the insurance agencies need to give people coverage that they can use (e.g. “I can only afford to pay for 50% of the value of my paid-up house if it floods out. What good is that? I need affordable replacement value!”)
16. Tax the Derivatives markets 90% and make them transparent (the market is at $1.2 Quadrillion dollars as of May 2012 – 20 times world GDP – and they are where all the profits in the world are going, and not allowing us to spend money where it is truly needed). By taxing them, there would not be a ‘casino’ mentality where hedge fund managers could make billions of dollars on one bet, and it would eliminate the biggest development stopgap and economic wealth-concentrator we have. Use the profits for education, infrastructure repair, transitioning to a new economy, all of the above projects, and communicating the importance and benefits of the ‘New Economy’.
We have to remove all the monetary incentives that make us believe we can grow indefinitely. Poverty is eradicated through education (for all), which must be made available and affordable. And not just elementary education, but the opportunity for high level education (Masters’, PhD’s) for all. We should all be in school until we are 30 years old if we want to, and education should be heavily subsidized by the state.
In Conclusion: Think of the mobilization we had in WWII, and the way we felt we were doing the right thing and that we would do anything to save each other. How good it must have felt to act morally and ethically on such a grand scale! Well, that is what we need again! The problem is that a majority of people with good paying jobs will lose them, and will have to train for or learn new ones, which none of them will want to do unless forced to do so.
[What we have now – ecocide on a global scale – or genocide cubed (humans, other life forms, and the environment)– affects everything. We have found the enemy and the enemy is us. We are killing ourselves, and taking baby steps to save ourselves will not save us.]
We in the developed world have to change ourselves first, radically and immediately. We cannot continue our denying, delaying, whining, trying to ‘game’ the outcome. Those that are denying are just trying to have enough time to have one last 'play' where they can amass more wealth before everything crashes. If you don’t have wealth now, it's too late. We have to stop this endless overconsumption. We have to begin to live as thriving, sharing communities and not continue as greedy, short-sighted individuals.
• How can developing countries eliminate extreme poverty without turning to economic practices that further harm the environment?
First, by seeing us, the developed world, transition to a more conscious way of living, to see our real desire to share and integrate developing countries into a global whole, by seeing us cut back our waste and over-consumption, and live more simply and equitably, by seeing us help them help themselves, without ulterior motives (like the nefarious colonial self-interested help in exchange for ownership of natural resources).
By seeing us regulate the national and global banking system, tax the financial risk markets and use that money for education, and take back the power of all that money being held back in private accounts (offshore accounts) and regulating it so as to diminish wealth concentration through time instead of helping individuals amass it.
By seeing, once and for all, that we, the developed world, have realized that there are, in fact, limits to our growth, and that we cannot – physically, economically or ethically - sidestep the reality that we have accumulated more than is justly ours, and must now give some of that back (redistribute the wealth) and help other nations to rise up from poverty into self-reliant, economically stable, food-secure countries.
By seeing that we understand that we have to solve all our problems at once: save our habitat, change our economy, our way of life, our culture and our way of doing business. 9 billion people will need a better managed everything.
Second, we must help developing countries attain self-reliance, and do away with the current model of conspicuous consumption of foreign-made goods and the dream of amassing untold personal riches. We have tried concentrated wealth and that experiment did not work. Now we have to change that narrative and begin thinking of ourselves as part of a community and part of the web of life on Earth, and living well by using only what we need, and sharing everything.
• Will developed countries take more responsibility in their overuse of the planets’ resources and demonstrate a more sustainable example?
That will only happen if an impressive majority of We, the People, tell the political leaders that is what we want. The politicians depend on the money special interests give them to keep their jobs. So politicians have to go back to only using government funds for their campaigns; and the people of the world have to be educated as to that it means to live consciously and have a clear picture of what their vote means for the environment.
And by educated I don’t just mean university degrees. I mean concerted efforts to use the vast potential we have in our media outlets to inform people of facts, (instead of only watching shows of has-been celebrities dancing, tacky women dressing up 24/7, or political blowhards).
Use these powerful media tools to educate those that cannot or will not go to school, and use it to keep alive the conversation and the interest in the topics. This means redesigning the purpose of TV, radio, and all marketing and public relations functions, by making them pay for equal time of instructive, entertaining television as they pay for ‘airhead’ television. The current situation where any radio announcer has an opinion and it is weighted equally with more educated and nuanced thinkers is untenable. I mean using media to speak the truth, not spew political propaganda.
Oh! And corporate personhood has to be abolished. It is just another way to concentrate money. Corporations are a tool for business, not a shield from responsibility.
Change these things, and we might see the dawning of the next millenium.
Monica Perez Nevarez
Columbia University
Master of Science in Sustainability Management '12
Treat the oceans as an international commons and do the same for them (divide into percentages of ‘clean’ oceans, ‘dirty’ oceans (garbage patches, oil spills etc.), commercialized-areas oceans (oil rigs, shipping lanes, trawling areas, etc.), and add a health component (of coral reefs, of fish stocks, of ocean acidification, of dead zones). Add a layer for sea level rise, ocean currents and the thermohalene current.
Since we have an ethical debt to future generations to consider (given how our cumulative actions in the past 200 years will impact them so dramatically and so long into the future), add an intra-generational aspect by adding length of time for ecosystems to recover to a ‘livable’ stage from our current polluted state (back to a baseline of environmental health of, say, 1800? That baseline is not a ‘pristine environment’ but it is before population growth’s ‘hockey stick’ went vertical, and before modern wars and the rise of the 'military-industrial complex').
By deciding to have nuclear energy (and its concomitant nuclear waste), we have already decided to impinge on the lives of everything on this planet for the next 100,000+ years and 5000+ generations. This is a responsibility we must honor and take into account in every decision we make in current Climate Change policy, not just in deciding where to site the nuclear storage depots. We have a responsibility of being here to take care of the nuclear waste we have produced.
Add all (global) nuclear waste sites and nuclear reactors to the map, and draw a circle with a 50 mile radius around them. Also add superfund sites, health hazards, and all other variables included in the Measure of America map (http://www.measureofamerica.org/maps/ ), for every nation. For nuclear accidents in particular, wind patterns are important so overlay a wind map over the information map.
We also have an ethical responsibility towards all other living things on this planet, and their right to exist and have their own habitat. Therefore we must deal with the amounts of toxins we use. The annual and accumulated use of toxic chemicals should be inventoried, and expressed numerically [given a rating of which ones are cumulatively toxic to the environment (too much fertilizers degrade the soil and create ocean dead zones, etc.), and which are toxic in even minute concentrations (pesticides)?].
Map where the toxic chemicals are currently found, how they travel and where they are concentrated. Outright toxic chemicals should be banned and phased out of all production and use within 3 years. Toxic chemicals that become toxic in high quantities should be used in non-toxic quantities or be phased out within 5 years. All data should be counted cumulatively, adding current uses to the amounts already in the environment, so everyone can have a clearer picture of what we are all doing.
Industrial agriculture should adopt organic and permaculture processes in order to heal the soil, the rivers, the oceans, and all living things. Government should stop subsidies to agribusiness and fund incentives for relocalizing small farmers. GMO seeds should be banned for environmental and social justice reasons (food cannot be the sole province of corporations). Regulation should be put in place that does not allow multinational corporations to cause small farmers to go into bankruptcy through patent infringement or through loss of their organic certification.
All policy going forward should reflect this and support/enhance this in a positive feedback loop. It is incomprehensible that our civilization is killing itself because it does not know how to transition to using safe, non-toxic chemicals, or thinks it cannot be happy living self-sufficiently and communally (instead of inside an unsustainable, rigged and unjust economic system intent on poisoning and destroying our only habitat). Or that our society thinks that it must monetize toxic substances (originally used in biological warfare) into barely disguised ‘necessary tools’ for growing food crops (pesticides) especially when there are viable alternatives (permaculture) that are not wealth-concentrators, simply because they have already patented the chemicals (Agent Orange, napalm).
Just because we have discovered something does not mean we have to develop it, or develop it in the old (wealth-concentration-economy) way. Web 2.0 and new sharing businesses (zipcar) point to a growing trend for an interest in a sharing economy. Let's grow along those lines.
As part of the experiment, recommend policies solely for the health of Earth, its systems and biodiversity (no political, social or economic concerns at this point – just the health of the planet and its biodiversity in a model that includes adequate space for humans, their shelter, workspace and infrastructure, and sustainable organic food production only).
Create a table with a) absolute size in acres and b) a percentage of each nation's land mass in each of the following areas: 1) Built environment (urban/suburban areas), 2) Agriculture/logging/mining (rural areas), and 3) Wilderness/parks/recreation areas.
Once you have the Actual Land Uses mapped (an educated guess of 20% built, 30% wilderness (including deserts and frozen places) and 50% 'in-between'), create a second map that would delineate zones for each of the three areas (built environment, wild environment and in-between environment) as equitably as possible (say 30% built environment (for future population growth), 30% wild environments and 40% ‘in-between’ environments set aside for agriculture only), so that local, state and national governments can use those two parameters as guidelines for future policy decisions (what it is now and what it should be in order to have a healthy biosphere and stop runaway extinction rates and biodiversity loss).
The idea is to have a reference point so we can act ethically for ALL (human and non-human) stakeholders, including environmental health, for plants and animals, future generations and the resilience of the web of life (which will include 10 billion people by the end of the century). This is also designed to make humanity come face to face with our overpopulation problem as well.
Ranchers that pasture their cattle on public lands would be permitted to use public parklands (but only allowed the minimum of damage to the place, with only one set of guidelines in play), and they cannot decry the loss of some of their cattle to predators, nor can they lobby any government at any level to have any of predators removed, nor pay third parties to do so. If they want none of their cattle to be killed by predators, keep them off public lands where the predators live.
Conclusions
These maps would give the governments and the people of the world a glimpse of the forces involved in their decision-making; the maps are a stark reminder that decisions made on one side of the planet can kill people on the other side of the planet; that geography trumps economy (for example, pristine forests in the Amazon, the Congo and Papua New Guinea should be saved as the lungs of the planet, and their worth remunerated to those countries in exchange for their leaving them intact). The maps, together, will give us more information on when we are crossing irreversible ethical and ecological thresholds, and when larger bodies (national, international) have to step in to safeguard the ecosystem for the benefit of the whole. Nations, regions, states and municipalities must work out a similar percentage for their areas independently, and then weave them together, giving equal weight to human needs and non-human needs.
Those areas that have overstepped the recommended percentages will know they should reverse course as quickly as possible so they can reach greater equity between priorities, or face sanctions and fines from the nation or global community. There are economic benefits and costs to both types of paths, but the paths being taken now only look better because we are not accounting for externalities correctly. So accounting for externalities is important and must be included.
These new policies and new parameters will also impinge on an individual's ‘freedom’ to decide what to do with their property, as they would have to take into consideration county, national and global environmental needs. Think of it as a new zoning layer.
Lastly, build a marketing program, an educational program and a social media program to go with the launch of these information maps so that in every Town Hall meeting, in every university, and in every political aggregation, people can discuss a) the needs and limits to the local ecosystem in the context of the global system and its needs, and b) all the things that can be done to create a localized, non-toxic, self-sufficient and resilient economy that does no harm to the environment or its inhabitants. We already have climate change reality. We must sell the dream of living self-sufficiently, communally, sustainably and joyfully. Focus on how much better we will be living as conscious, ethical beings.
• What’s your plan for reducing the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable segments of our planet?
Stop all wars, and use part of that money for: 1. buying all remaining tropical rainforests and primary forests (Amazon, Congo, PNG, etc. ) and protect them from any ecologically harmful changes to their ecosystems (including building huge hydro-electric generating dams), using active and well-paid locally sourced policing and conservation employees in the areas; and begin a massive study on how best to preserve and enhance the forests and biodiversity and bioculture (and the indigenous peoples living there*) and potential biomimicry adaptations we can glean from the forests. At the same time, launch a global re-forestation project and an archive of indigenous knowledge of local environments.
(*strict regulations as to how much interchange between ‘civilization’ and indigenous cultures must be set up so that indigenous groups can live fully in the jungle, but their members who now live in the city would be given a choice (live in the city or the forest, but you can’t go back and forth) to avoid bringing with them noxious ideas, viruses and behaviors. Also, allow as little outside influence or intervention as possible from ‘civilized’ people. Like the Amish, who allow their children to visit the outside world once they reach maturity and let them decide whether they want to stay or come back - only stricter.)
2. Launch a global hydrology cycle study, inventory global freshwater. Eliminate environmentally unnecessary virtual water transfers (transfers created solely for economic reasons), and model for the most efficient use of water in each hydrological region. Create a global body of hydrologists that monitor and manage the Earth’s hydrological systems at every level (local, national, international).
3. Halt all Arctic oil exploration, all deep water exploration, all oil drilling in vulnerable areas, all tar sands excavation, and all coal and natural gas (hydraulic fracturing) extractions. Change the laws so that the companies have the burden of proof in court. Immediately change the fossil fuel industry’s focus to solar and wind energy (just as we did in WWII from building cars to building trucks, planes and weaponry! Only in reverse!).
Get alternative energy to as many households as possible as cheaply and rapidly as possible. Solve how to transition away from centralized energy grids to communal or regional grids according to regional advantage (some have more sun, some more wind, some have hydro etc.). Include building codes that allow for 'Passiv Haus' parameters and local building materials (cob, strawbale, bamboo, wood, plaster, adobe and any future ways in which we might be able to build our homes ourselves out of natural local materials).
Change perceptions among humans that everything has to be ‘on’ all the time. Nurture the idea of ‘down time’ in electricity use and in work lives. Imbue corporations with a ‘use forever’ product mantra instead of a ‘throw-away-and-buy-again’ mantra. Explain to corporations and their employees that what they are doing is bringing an old way of life to an end, and creating a healthy new one in its stead. Explain that helping households within an energy self-sufficient and food secure community become self-reliant and resilient is the ultimate goal, not monetizing new ways of concentrating wealth. Helping soon-to-be-downsized workers transition to becoming entrepreneurs and consultants must also be implemented rapidly.
4. Anything that has to be mined out of the earth is to be left in the ground during an indefinite moratorium on extractive practices.
5. We must give our research universities and national laboratories an ‘Environmental Manhattan Project’ mandate, a chance to come up with other, multidisciplinary, viable mining/energy alternatives that do not include harming the earth, the air or the water, and that allows the economy to transition from a wealth-concentrating model to an equitable wealth model that includes sharing of large, newly denominated Common Lands (all previously designated wildernesses/parks/recreation and agricultural/logging/mining lands would come into a local, national and global ‘land escrow account’ where locals would have a say in the use of the lands, but national and global members would also have a say, and veto power, with regards to its noxious use within the larger framework of the Earth Ecosystem.
6. In conjunction with the ‘Environmental Manhattan Project’, we need a Global Marshall Plan for each nation to transition to the new conditions of climate change, social justice and economic egalitarianism.
7. Have all universities dedicate some significant portion of their research in every department on how each discipline can help humanity transition from the current economic, environmental, and social crises by focusing on creating local-scale communities as healthy, self-sufficient, food-secure and energy-independent as possible. This is meant to gear academic resources towards making humanity part of the ecosystem again (communal economy), so we can continue to be here for thousands of years, living within Earth’s means. This should influence all other courses, programs and teachings in the university to have a basis of ecologic sustainability first, then sustainability in everything else. It may also break the stranglehold corporations have on funding research and development programs for private benefit.
Artisans and craft workers must have a chance at becoming entrepreneurs with viable local businesses. We would need to grow materials for making clothes (flax, linen, silk, wool, leather), for making household utensils and tools, for building, for growing food, and for generating energy and for transportation, and they all have to be non-toxic, reusable or recyclable. This could form the basis of an additional, less academic curriculum.
8. Begin a worldwide patent search on 19th century mechanical products to see which ones can be best adapted to today’s problems, and focus our technology transfer mechanisms into delivering those that can most easily, affordably and cleanly be adapted, and built from local natural resources (e.g. a bicycle frame made from bamboo, or wood, or extruded recycled plastic, depending on where you live).
9. Decree an immediate 80% reduction goal of all CO2 emissions from any source within 5 years. Decree that only mass transportation and home heating emissions are to be allowed less significant emissions reductions, but that all emission sources will be audited and reduced to the barest bones in the developed world (enough energy to power per household: one refrigerator, one stove, one house-wide temperature control {A/C and heater}, one television, two lights per room; and per person: one cel phone, one computer, one digital reader, one digital camera, one radio. Period. Anything extra pays double for it.)
10. Repurpose old waste dumps: start a plastic extraction drive, pay indigents that already scavenge dumps to get metals, glass and plastics out. Research ways in which dumps can be transformed, not into sterile mounds, or waste-to-energy centers, or cleaned up urban parks: but be actually cleaned. Institute high recycling regulations, from packaging to lifecycle, to materials used, and make everyone accountable for their wastes.
11. Stop ALL commercial fishing in all the oceans immediately. Allow some small coastal fishing to go forward (in boats less than 40’ with no ‘Mother Vessels’ to take their catch in the high seas, and never near the coast or on coral reef areas), and establish marine reserves every 50 nautical miles with no-fishing zones, and pay locals to protect the area and guide the tourists to it. Repurpose the commercial fleets for cleaning the various garbage patches of the oceans. Begin serious research on how to mitigate ocean acidification (ways to de-acidify the ocean, not just less CO2 in the atmosphere).
12. Put considerable resources towards helping India/Pakistan/Afghanistan create sustainable water use programs. Work towards resolving the nuclear threat there, and help the Afghans rebuild Afghanistan in a way that they keep their money and their resources. Keep working to decommission all nuclear armaments around the world. Help Israel and Palestine resolve their differences, help the Palestinians build their state and Israel feel more secure.
13. Put considerable resources towards researching and helping China stay away from producing and consuming so much fossil fuel, especially coal.
14. Add Environmental Anthropology (how past peoples lived within the environment) and Sociological Environmentalism (how we can best, as a society, transition from a consumerist society to a ‘Do only Good’ society - also bringing added meaning to economic ‘how we are doing’ indexes – like the Happiness Index is trying to do) to mainstream discourse. Most importantly, add Herman Daly's Ecological Economics as a core requirement for graduating from university.
15. Form a partnership between the insurance industry and government disaster relief and disaster preparedness agencies, whereby each helps the other in symbiotic ways, and each watches the other work solely for the benefit of the victims of climate change. The insurance industry can make good money, but not obscene money off of disaster victims, and homeland security cannot funnel funds to the military surreptitiously. They need to be transparent, and the insurance agencies need to give people coverage that they can use (e.g. “I can only afford to pay for 50% of the value of my paid-up house if it floods out. What good is that? I need affordable replacement value!”)
16. Tax the Derivatives markets 90% and make them transparent (the market is at $1.2 Quadrillion dollars as of May 2012 – 20 times world GDP – and they are where all the profits in the world are going, and not allowing us to spend money where it is truly needed). By taxing them, there would not be a ‘casino’ mentality where hedge fund managers could make billions of dollars on one bet, and it would eliminate the biggest development stopgap and economic wealth-concentrator we have. Use the profits for education, infrastructure repair, transitioning to a new economy, all of the above projects, and communicating the importance and benefits of the ‘New Economy’.
We have to remove all the monetary incentives that make us believe we can grow indefinitely. Poverty is eradicated through education (for all), which must be made available and affordable. And not just elementary education, but the opportunity for high level education (Masters’, PhD’s) for all. We should all be in school until we are 30 years old if we want to, and education should be heavily subsidized by the state.
In Conclusion: Think of the mobilization we had in WWII, and the way we felt we were doing the right thing and that we would do anything to save each other. How good it must have felt to act morally and ethically on such a grand scale! Well, that is what we need again! The problem is that a majority of people with good paying jobs will lose them, and will have to train for or learn new ones, which none of them will want to do unless forced to do so.
[What we have now – ecocide on a global scale – or genocide cubed (humans, other life forms, and the environment)– affects everything. We have found the enemy and the enemy is us. We are killing ourselves, and taking baby steps to save ourselves will not save us.]
We in the developed world have to change ourselves first, radically and immediately. We cannot continue our denying, delaying, whining, trying to ‘game’ the outcome. Those that are denying are just trying to have enough time to have one last 'play' where they can amass more wealth before everything crashes. If you don’t have wealth now, it's too late. We have to stop this endless overconsumption. We have to begin to live as thriving, sharing communities and not continue as greedy, short-sighted individuals.
• How can developing countries eliminate extreme poverty without turning to economic practices that further harm the environment?
First, by seeing us, the developed world, transition to a more conscious way of living, to see our real desire to share and integrate developing countries into a global whole, by seeing us cut back our waste and over-consumption, and live more simply and equitably, by seeing us help them help themselves, without ulterior motives (like the nefarious colonial self-interested help in exchange for ownership of natural resources).
By seeing us regulate the national and global banking system, tax the financial risk markets and use that money for education, and take back the power of all that money being held back in private accounts (offshore accounts) and regulating it so as to diminish wealth concentration through time instead of helping individuals amass it.
By seeing, once and for all, that we, the developed world, have realized that there are, in fact, limits to our growth, and that we cannot – physically, economically or ethically - sidestep the reality that we have accumulated more than is justly ours, and must now give some of that back (redistribute the wealth) and help other nations to rise up from poverty into self-reliant, economically stable, food-secure countries.
By seeing that we understand that we have to solve all our problems at once: save our habitat, change our economy, our way of life, our culture and our way of doing business. 9 billion people will need a better managed everything.
Second, we must help developing countries attain self-reliance, and do away with the current model of conspicuous consumption of foreign-made goods and the dream of amassing untold personal riches. We have tried concentrated wealth and that experiment did not work. Now we have to change that narrative and begin thinking of ourselves as part of a community and part of the web of life on Earth, and living well by using only what we need, and sharing everything.
• Will developed countries take more responsibility in their overuse of the planets’ resources and demonstrate a more sustainable example?
That will only happen if an impressive majority of We, the People, tell the political leaders that is what we want. The politicians depend on the money special interests give them to keep their jobs. So politicians have to go back to only using government funds for their campaigns; and the people of the world have to be educated as to that it means to live consciously and have a clear picture of what their vote means for the environment.
And by educated I don’t just mean university degrees. I mean concerted efforts to use the vast potential we have in our media outlets to inform people of facts, (instead of only watching shows of has-been celebrities dancing, tacky women dressing up 24/7, or political blowhards).
Use these powerful media tools to educate those that cannot or will not go to school, and use it to keep alive the conversation and the interest in the topics. This means redesigning the purpose of TV, radio, and all marketing and public relations functions, by making them pay for equal time of instructive, entertaining television as they pay for ‘airhead’ television. The current situation where any radio announcer has an opinion and it is weighted equally with more educated and nuanced thinkers is untenable. I mean using media to speak the truth, not spew political propaganda.
Oh! And corporate personhood has to be abolished. It is just another way to concentrate money. Corporations are a tool for business, not a shield from responsibility.
Change these things, and we might see the dawning of the next millenium.
Monica Perez Nevarez
Columbia University
Master of Science in Sustainability Management '12
Monday, November 28, 2011
Theil vs Khosla: Apples and Oranges
Last September, during TechCrunch Disrupt 2011, Peter Thiel, 39 year old internet whiz and outspoken venture capitalist, made a statement that made renowned Cleantech VC star Vinod Khosla, 56, rise to defend what he considers to be the best investment strategy that could “change the world”.
Theil’s statement
“Cleantech is an increasingly large disaster that people in Silicon Valley aren’t even talking about any more. The failure in energy and transportation points to a larger failure in clean energy — we aren’t moving any faster, literally, than we were when modern airplanes first came out. […] Cleantech investing has scattered Silicon Valley investors and left the U.S. behind in terms of innovation.”
Khosla’s defense
“Cleantech is not a disaster. During 2010, Khosla generated more than $1 billion in profits from three IPOs and will ‘probably’ see six more IPOs over the next 12 to 18 months, if the markets hold up. That $1 billion in profits over the last year is way more than most venture funds have done in IT in the last ten years cumulatively.”
Background
Theil may have been reacting to recent cleantech bankruptcies (Solyndra’s Sept. 2011 bankruptcy, for $535 million and Khosla’s own Range Fuels Jan. 2011 bankruptcy, for $162 million) that lost millions of taxpayer and investor monies before closing their doors.
Aside from his Libertarian convictions, Theil based his comment specifically on the lack of progress that cleantech has shown so far. Markets for cleantech really have not moved any faster than when modern airplanes first came out in the 1960’s, and alternative energy is still a very small percentage of the US energy mix. But that may have to do more with lack of financing and political and business apathy towards (and ignorance of) needed climate change adaptation and mitigation measures than with the correctness of VC investing in cleantech. It may also have something to do with how the VC industry coped with fast-changing economic forces during the last decade.
Slight Political Support
President Reagan infamously took down President Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof; ‘Political Will’ towards climate change solutions became only slightly less lethargic through the first Bush presidency and the Clinton years, and then nosedived during the two-term Bush Jr. presidency. There has been scant support for cleantech at the federal level (compared to European and Asian government investment) for the last three decades, and it is only recently that politicians have begun to backpedal as they see many other nations embrace and prosper with cleantech.
Theil fails to mention the challenges faced by cleantech: only 10% of the population sees climate change as the biggest challenge our generation faces; the window of opportunity for climate change mitigation does not allow a cleantech sector to do necessary R&D without subsidies and incentives; a nascent industry needs government financial support in order to scale; there are too many pressing crises and fast-approaching closures of “climate windows of opportunity” to avert the worst climate catastrophes; cleantech firms are fighting against a rich and well established fossil fuel industry that collectively spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to deny or delay any acceptance of climate change and therefore of cleantech solutions; cleantech is fighting an industry that has all its needed infrastructure and has already done much of its R&D, which cleantech has not; so far, economic accomplishment in cleantech has been spotty, there are no breakthrough companies; no one single alternative energy solution can replace petroleum and none has been a breakout success (price too costly, energy too inefficient or too intermittent); and finally, cleantech is by force local and limited by geographical constraints.
A Short History of Venture Capital
A short recapitulation of how venture capital came into existence is needed. VC has existed in America since the transcontinental railway. The industry sprang from a social need for overland and mass transportation, a political need to expand national borders, and the economic need of a small cadre of millionaires (Robber Barons) that needed to place some disposable income in high-return investments under the rubric of presaging a bright future for America.
In the ‘60s, venture capital moved into the emerging semiconductor industry. In the ‘70s, computer hardware and software companies were in vogue; in the ‘80s it was biotech, mobility, and networking companies; in the ‘90s investment in the Internet exploded.
But by the late 1990s, “venture portfolios began to reflect a different sort of future. Venture investing shifted away from funding transformational companies and toward companies that solved incremental problems. VC is [no longer] the funder of the future, and instead has become a funder of features, widgets, irrelevances. In large part, it also ceased making money, as the bottom half of venture produced flat to negative returns for the past decade. Long-standing investors are now getting squeezed by private equity firms on the high end, and wealthy angel investors on the low end of the investing scale. A bleak market for venture-backed initial public offerings has only increased the pressure.”
So Theil’s last sentence quoted above may also give a clue as to his motivations: investment in cleantech has “scattered Silicon Valley investors,” who are already under stress from various quarters within the industry and a volatile economy. In Theil’s mind, Khosla is squandering his “money pool” on cleantech.
From all that is published about Theil, one can surmise that he believes strongly in his own strategy for investment at the exclusion of all others: helping entrepreneurs and investors create “game-changing” tech businesses and a win-win situation for all involved. To him, investing in cleantech is a waste of money, and diverts possible investors from real investments.
The Differences between them
Although both investors have cited the challenges of climate change and peak oil as a driver of their investment decisions, their chosen investment paths are widely divergent. Libertarian Theil invests solely in internet tech stocks and hedges his climate change bets by funding the Seasteading Institute to create sovereign nations in international waters, free from the laws of any country (hardly a sustainable strategy for everybody).
Khosla, on the other hand, believes that “in order to achieve 80 percent less emissions from 2005 levels, with ten times the number of people living energy rich lifestyles, we would need 10 times energy productivity, and then 5 times energy carbon efficiency on top of that. Not accounting for methane and other greenhouse gases, we need roughly a 50 times ‘carbon productivity’ improvement. Provided we deal with the non-CO2 greenhouse gases separately, our only hope of reaching this goal is with a combination of energy productivity (how efficiently we use the energy we can make/extract/collect) and carbon energy efficiency (how little carbon we emit to make the energy we use) using substantially superior - cleaner, yet economic - technologies.”
Analysis
Theil is straightforward and does not include climate change in his investment decision-making. He believes that since no single clean energy option can solve the world’s energy problems, cleantech VC is a failure, and he has a point: just because you can raise money for a business or a cleantech fund does not mean that the companies you invest in are going to solve the problem or be profitable.
Khosla’s response does not address the broader implications of Theil’s assertions (where are the scaled up, profitable solutions?), and instead, he hides behind his accomplishments as a fundraiser. But that is not the only reason Khosla’s defense sounds a bit hollow. Khosla has embraced risk-based analysis and cost-benefit analysis to bolster his undeniable belief in the urgency and necessity of finding alternative sources of energy and fighting climate change.
Unfortunately, he ignores the broader concepts of Ecological Economics (espoused by Herman Daly, David Pimentel, Donella Meadows, and Robert Constanza), which allow him to make the following statements (all taken from his 2011 Green Investing Strategies by Vinod Khosla ) without a hint of irony:
“[T]he logic of business is to externalize as many costs (like using public roads or not reducing emissions) and maximize profits, as it should be."
" 'Green' should be a feature that follows – rather than defies – the ‘laws of economic gravity,’ which in essence declares that economics trumps everything when it comes to mass adoption of a technology."
"My basic thesis is that investment in true innovation is the key to reinventing the infrastructure of society and enabling 5+ billion people to sustainably live the energy affluent lifestyle that 500 million enjoy today.”
“The environmentalist solution is often one of “deploy the technologies we have as quickly as possible” combined with idealized hopes that the business community will start to value un-priced environmental and health externalities. These thoughts are noble, and occasionally work, but distract from our best “broad” hope: robust unsubsidized market competitiveness of “green” technologies against their fossil competitors that are affordable to ‘Chindia’ consumers.” [emphasis mine]
Both are missing the point
Global warming is caused by carbon emissions and can only be contained by reducing them, which means a sharp reduction in consumption in developed countries (‘impossible’ according to Columbia Sustainability Management professor Steven Cohen) and a slow increase to relatively low levels in developing countries (improbable, given China’s and India’s growth).
‘No growth’ threatens our capitalist economy because, under current business models, very few businesses can survive lower consumption and a steady-state economy. In order to solve the ecological problem (climate change), we must also address the economic problem (a move to a socially just, self-sustaining, ecologically sound, steady-state economy).
Alternative energy sources are all in their development stage, and all must be helped along to see which is best for each geographical region through government and private investments. But technology will not solve the problem of finite resources on this planet; first, we have to learn how to live sustainably.
Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (1912-1990), former Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai once said: "My grandfather rode on a camel, my father rode in a car, I ride in a jet, my children will ride in cars, my grandchildren will ride on camels." He knew once the fuel was gone, there would be nothing as cheap or energy-dense to replace it. What does this mean for us? Our grandparents knew how to live with less, and that is what we and our children must re-learn to do.
Lastly, one cannot compare investing in the internet versus localized cleantech investments; the comparison is apples to oranges. Setting hi-tech VC cleantech parameters in a comparison between the two excludes possible low-tech solutions that would help local communities survive, but do not fulfill anticipated returns set by VCs that are used to billion dollar IPO’s and high ROI’s.
Comparing Theil and Khosla is heartbreaking in that they both manage billions of dollars, and they truly could be game-changers; while one is cynically blind and the other is only marginally concerned with ecological reality, they are firmly ensconced in their belief that economy trumps ecology, and neither one is willing to embrace ecological limits and truly change the world for the better.
Khosla is by far the more environmentally savvy of the two, but his belief that technology will allow the human race to keep growing and consuming is nihilistic.
Reading about these two titans of finance I feel like I am standing on Easter Island, watching the last standing tree being felled, while the King and the Prince fight over where to best place the Moai statue that the last log will help transport, all in hopes the gods will be appeased with this sacrifice and their people's suffering will be alleviated. Little did the King or Prince know that by felling their trees, Easter Island would never again regenerate the forest they lost to their ignorance and religious hubris and that they had just condemned every living soul on the island to a long, slow decline from which they would never recover.
Bibliography
Peter Thiel: Clean technology is a “disaster” September 12, 2011 | Matthew Lynley http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/12/thiel-cleantech-disaster-disrupt/ as of 11/6/2011
Thiel vs Khosla on Cleantech: Who is Right? Posted by Robert Rapier on Thursday, September 15, 2011 http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/09/15/thiel-vs-khosla-on-clean-tech-who-is-right/ as of 11/5/2011
History of Private Equity and Venture Capital http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_private_equity_and_venture_capital as of 11/8/2011
Founder’s Fund: What Happened to the Future? http://www.foundersfund.com/the-future as of 11/5/2011
http://www.wri.org/chart/world--‐greenhouse--‐gas--‐emissions--‐2005 , http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains2--‐1.html , as of 11/6/2011; Utility (e.g., GDP, lumens, miles driven) per unit carbon emissions
Toward a Steady-State Economy (editor, 1973), Steady-State Economics (1977), For the Common Good, (1989, with John B. Cobb Jr.), Valuing the Earth (1993, with Kenneth Townsend), Beyond Growth (1996), Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics (1999), The Local Politics of Global Sustainability (2000, with Thomas Prugh and Robert Constanza), Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (2003, with Joshua Farley).
Co written with T. Patzek, "Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood: Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower," Natural Resources Research, Mar. 2005, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy, Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts are Negative," Natural Resources Research, June 2003, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy, Economics and Environmental Impact," International Sugar Journal, 2001, "Biomass Utilization, Limits of," Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology, Oct. 2001, Co written with D.R. Harman, M. Pacenza, and J. Pecarsky, "Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population," Population and Environment, May 1994, Co written with Mario Giampietro, "The Tightening Conflict: Population, Energy Use, and the Ecology of Agriculture," www.npg.org, Oct. 1993
D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W.W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, 1972, D.L. Meadows and D.H. Meadows, Toward Global Equilibrium, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1973, D.L. Meadows, D.H. Meadows et al., The Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1974, D.H. Meadows, J. Richardson, and G. Bruckmann, Groping in the Dark: The First Decade of Global Modeling, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1982, D.H. Meadows and J. Robinson, The Electronic Oracle: Computer Models and Social Decisions, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1985, D.H. Meadows, Harvesting One Hundredfold: Key Concepts and Case Studies in Environmental Education, UNEP, Nairobi, 1989, D.H. Meadows, The Global Citizen, Island Press, 1991, D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, and J. Randers, Beyond the Limits, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction VT, 1992, D.H. Meadows, Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development, Sustainability Institute, Hartland Four Corners VT, 1998.
1991, Ecological economics: The science and management of sustainability, 1992, with Bryan Norton and Ben Haskell, Ecosystem health: new goals for environmental management, 1996, with Olman Segura and Juan Martinez-Alier, Getting down to earth: practical applications of ecological economics 1997, with John Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland and Richard Norgaard, An Introduction to Ecological Economics 2000, with Tom Prugh and Herman Daly, The local politics of global sustainability, 2007, with Lisa Graumlich and Will Steffen, Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth.
http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/GreenStrategy.pdf as of 11/5/2011
What Happened on Easter Island http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/12/09/249728994/what-happened-on-easter-island-a-new-even-scarier-scenario
Theil’s statement
“Cleantech is an increasingly large disaster that people in Silicon Valley aren’t even talking about any more. The failure in energy and transportation points to a larger failure in clean energy — we aren’t moving any faster, literally, than we were when modern airplanes first came out. […] Cleantech investing has scattered Silicon Valley investors and left the U.S. behind in terms of innovation.”
Khosla’s defense
“Cleantech is not a disaster. During 2010, Khosla generated more than $1 billion in profits from three IPOs and will ‘probably’ see six more IPOs over the next 12 to 18 months, if the markets hold up. That $1 billion in profits over the last year is way more than most venture funds have done in IT in the last ten years cumulatively.”
Background
Theil may have been reacting to recent cleantech bankruptcies (Solyndra’s Sept. 2011 bankruptcy, for $535 million and Khosla’s own Range Fuels Jan. 2011 bankruptcy, for $162 million) that lost millions of taxpayer and investor monies before closing their doors.
Aside from his Libertarian convictions, Theil based his comment specifically on the lack of progress that cleantech has shown so far. Markets for cleantech really have not moved any faster than when modern airplanes first came out in the 1960’s, and alternative energy is still a very small percentage of the US energy mix. But that may have to do more with lack of financing and political and business apathy towards (and ignorance of) needed climate change adaptation and mitigation measures than with the correctness of VC investing in cleantech. It may also have something to do with how the VC industry coped with fast-changing economic forces during the last decade.
Slight Political Support
President Reagan infamously took down President Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof; ‘Political Will’ towards climate change solutions became only slightly less lethargic through the first Bush presidency and the Clinton years, and then nosedived during the two-term Bush Jr. presidency. There has been scant support for cleantech at the federal level (compared to European and Asian government investment) for the last three decades, and it is only recently that politicians have begun to backpedal as they see many other nations embrace and prosper with cleantech.
Theil fails to mention the challenges faced by cleantech: only 10% of the population sees climate change as the biggest challenge our generation faces; the window of opportunity for climate change mitigation does not allow a cleantech sector to do necessary R&D without subsidies and incentives; a nascent industry needs government financial support in order to scale; there are too many pressing crises and fast-approaching closures of “climate windows of opportunity” to avert the worst climate catastrophes; cleantech firms are fighting against a rich and well established fossil fuel industry that collectively spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to deny or delay any acceptance of climate change and therefore of cleantech solutions; cleantech is fighting an industry that has all its needed infrastructure and has already done much of its R&D, which cleantech has not; so far, economic accomplishment in cleantech has been spotty, there are no breakthrough companies; no one single alternative energy solution can replace petroleum and none has been a breakout success (price too costly, energy too inefficient or too intermittent); and finally, cleantech is by force local and limited by geographical constraints.
A Short History of Venture Capital
A short recapitulation of how venture capital came into existence is needed. VC has existed in America since the transcontinental railway. The industry sprang from a social need for overland and mass transportation, a political need to expand national borders, and the economic need of a small cadre of millionaires (Robber Barons) that needed to place some disposable income in high-return investments under the rubric of presaging a bright future for America.
In the ‘60s, venture capital moved into the emerging semiconductor industry. In the ‘70s, computer hardware and software companies were in vogue; in the ‘80s it was biotech, mobility, and networking companies; in the ‘90s investment in the Internet exploded.
But by the late 1990s, “venture portfolios began to reflect a different sort of future. Venture investing shifted away from funding transformational companies and toward companies that solved incremental problems. VC is [no longer] the funder of the future, and instead has become a funder of features, widgets, irrelevances. In large part, it also ceased making money, as the bottom half of venture produced flat to negative returns for the past decade. Long-standing investors are now getting squeezed by private equity firms on the high end, and wealthy angel investors on the low end of the investing scale. A bleak market for venture-backed initial public offerings has only increased the pressure.”
So Theil’s last sentence quoted above may also give a clue as to his motivations: investment in cleantech has “scattered Silicon Valley investors,” who are already under stress from various quarters within the industry and a volatile economy. In Theil’s mind, Khosla is squandering his “money pool” on cleantech.
From all that is published about Theil, one can surmise that he believes strongly in his own strategy for investment at the exclusion of all others: helping entrepreneurs and investors create “game-changing” tech businesses and a win-win situation for all involved. To him, investing in cleantech is a waste of money, and diverts possible investors from real investments.
The Differences between them
Although both investors have cited the challenges of climate change and peak oil as a driver of their investment decisions, their chosen investment paths are widely divergent. Libertarian Theil invests solely in internet tech stocks and hedges his climate change bets by funding the Seasteading Institute to create sovereign nations in international waters, free from the laws of any country (hardly a sustainable strategy for everybody).
Khosla, on the other hand, believes that “in order to achieve 80 percent less emissions from 2005 levels, with ten times the number of people living energy rich lifestyles, we would need 10 times energy productivity, and then 5 times energy carbon efficiency on top of that. Not accounting for methane and other greenhouse gases, we need roughly a 50 times ‘carbon productivity’ improvement. Provided we deal with the non-CO2 greenhouse gases separately, our only hope of reaching this goal is with a combination of energy productivity (how efficiently we use the energy we can make/extract/collect) and carbon energy efficiency (how little carbon we emit to make the energy we use) using substantially superior - cleaner, yet economic - technologies.”
Analysis
Theil is straightforward and does not include climate change in his investment decision-making. He believes that since no single clean energy option can solve the world’s energy problems, cleantech VC is a failure, and he has a point: just because you can raise money for a business or a cleantech fund does not mean that the companies you invest in are going to solve the problem or be profitable.
Khosla’s response does not address the broader implications of Theil’s assertions (where are the scaled up, profitable solutions?), and instead, he hides behind his accomplishments as a fundraiser. But that is not the only reason Khosla’s defense sounds a bit hollow. Khosla has embraced risk-based analysis and cost-benefit analysis to bolster his undeniable belief in the urgency and necessity of finding alternative sources of energy and fighting climate change.
Unfortunately, he ignores the broader concepts of Ecological Economics (espoused by Herman Daly, David Pimentel, Donella Meadows, and Robert Constanza), which allow him to make the following statements (all taken from his 2011 Green Investing Strategies by Vinod Khosla ) without a hint of irony:
“[T]he logic of business is to externalize as many costs (like using public roads or not reducing emissions) and maximize profits, as it should be."
" 'Green' should be a feature that follows – rather than defies – the ‘laws of economic gravity,’ which in essence declares that economics trumps everything when it comes to mass adoption of a technology."
"My basic thesis is that investment in true innovation is the key to reinventing the infrastructure of society and enabling 5+ billion people to sustainably live the energy affluent lifestyle that 500 million enjoy today.”
“The environmentalist solution is often one of “deploy the technologies we have as quickly as possible” combined with idealized hopes that the business community will start to value un-priced environmental and health externalities. These thoughts are noble, and occasionally work, but distract from our best “broad” hope: robust unsubsidized market competitiveness of “green” technologies against their fossil competitors that are affordable to ‘Chindia’ consumers.” [emphasis mine]
Both are missing the point
Global warming is caused by carbon emissions and can only be contained by reducing them, which means a sharp reduction in consumption in developed countries (‘impossible’ according to Columbia Sustainability Management professor Steven Cohen) and a slow increase to relatively low levels in developing countries (improbable, given China’s and India’s growth).
‘No growth’ threatens our capitalist economy because, under current business models, very few businesses can survive lower consumption and a steady-state economy. In order to solve the ecological problem (climate change), we must also address the economic problem (a move to a socially just, self-sustaining, ecologically sound, steady-state economy).
Alternative energy sources are all in their development stage, and all must be helped along to see which is best for each geographical region through government and private investments. But technology will not solve the problem of finite resources on this planet; first, we have to learn how to live sustainably.
Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (1912-1990), former Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai once said: "My grandfather rode on a camel, my father rode in a car, I ride in a jet, my children will ride in cars, my grandchildren will ride on camels." He knew once the fuel was gone, there would be nothing as cheap or energy-dense to replace it. What does this mean for us? Our grandparents knew how to live with less, and that is what we and our children must re-learn to do.
Lastly, one cannot compare investing in the internet versus localized cleantech investments; the comparison is apples to oranges. Setting hi-tech VC cleantech parameters in a comparison between the two excludes possible low-tech solutions that would help local communities survive, but do not fulfill anticipated returns set by VCs that are used to billion dollar IPO’s and high ROI’s.
Comparing Theil and Khosla is heartbreaking in that they both manage billions of dollars, and they truly could be game-changers; while one is cynically blind and the other is only marginally concerned with ecological reality, they are firmly ensconced in their belief that economy trumps ecology, and neither one is willing to embrace ecological limits and truly change the world for the better.
Khosla is by far the more environmentally savvy of the two, but his belief that technology will allow the human race to keep growing and consuming is nihilistic.
Reading about these two titans of finance I feel like I am standing on Easter Island, watching the last standing tree being felled, while the King and the Prince fight over where to best place the Moai statue that the last log will help transport, all in hopes the gods will be appeased with this sacrifice and their people's suffering will be alleviated. Little did the King or Prince know that by felling their trees, Easter Island would never again regenerate the forest they lost to their ignorance and religious hubris and that they had just condemned every living soul on the island to a long, slow decline from which they would never recover.
Bibliography
Peter Thiel: Clean technology is a “disaster” September 12, 2011 | Matthew Lynley http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/12/thiel-cleantech-disaster-disrupt/ as of 11/6/2011
Thiel vs Khosla on Cleantech: Who is Right? Posted by Robert Rapier on Thursday, September 15, 2011 http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/09/15/thiel-vs-khosla-on-clean-tech-who-is-right/ as of 11/5/2011
History of Private Equity and Venture Capital http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_private_equity_and_venture_capital as of 11/8/2011
Founder’s Fund: What Happened to the Future? http://www.foundersfund.com/the-future as of 11/5/2011
http://www.wri.org/chart/world--‐greenhouse--‐gas--‐emissions--‐2005 , http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains2--‐1.html , as of 11/6/2011; Utility (e.g., GDP, lumens, miles driven) per unit carbon emissions
Toward a Steady-State Economy (editor, 1973), Steady-State Economics (1977), For the Common Good, (1989, with John B. Cobb Jr.), Valuing the Earth (1993, with Kenneth Townsend), Beyond Growth (1996), Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics (1999), The Local Politics of Global Sustainability (2000, with Thomas Prugh and Robert Constanza), Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (2003, with Joshua Farley).
Co written with T. Patzek, "Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood: Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower," Natural Resources Research, Mar. 2005, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy, Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts are Negative," Natural Resources Research, June 2003, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy, Economics and Environmental Impact," International Sugar Journal, 2001, "Biomass Utilization, Limits of," Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology, Oct. 2001, Co written with D.R. Harman, M. Pacenza, and J. Pecarsky, "Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population," Population and Environment, May 1994, Co written with Mario Giampietro, "The Tightening Conflict: Population, Energy Use, and the Ecology of Agriculture," www.npg.org, Oct. 1993
D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W.W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, 1972, D.L. Meadows and D.H. Meadows, Toward Global Equilibrium, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1973, D.L. Meadows, D.H. Meadows et al., The Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1974, D.H. Meadows, J. Richardson, and G. Bruckmann, Groping in the Dark: The First Decade of Global Modeling, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1982, D.H. Meadows and J. Robinson, The Electronic Oracle: Computer Models and Social Decisions, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1985, D.H. Meadows, Harvesting One Hundredfold: Key Concepts and Case Studies in Environmental Education, UNEP, Nairobi, 1989, D.H. Meadows, The Global Citizen, Island Press, 1991, D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, and J. Randers, Beyond the Limits, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction VT, 1992, D.H. Meadows, Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development, Sustainability Institute, Hartland Four Corners VT, 1998.
1991, Ecological economics: The science and management of sustainability, 1992, with Bryan Norton and Ben Haskell, Ecosystem health: new goals for environmental management, 1996, with Olman Segura and Juan Martinez-Alier, Getting down to earth: practical applications of ecological economics 1997, with John Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland and Richard Norgaard, An Introduction to Ecological Economics 2000, with Tom Prugh and Herman Daly, The local politics of global sustainability, 2007, with Lisa Graumlich and Will Steffen, Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth.
http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/GreenStrategy.pdf as of 11/5/2011
What Happened on Easter Island http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/12/09/249728994/what-happened-on-easter-island-a-new-even-scarier-scenario
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Close Encounters of the Avian Kind
Photo: Monica Perez Nevarez
By Monica Perez Nevarez
Parrot – Human Relations in Brooklyn
Midwood is a traditional neighborhood of
cookie-cutter Arts and Crafts Bungalows from the 1920s that lays just north of
Brooklyn College. The streets are clean, but the sidewalks are buckled here and
there. The single-family houses are well cared for, but they have not been
renovated. Wooden picket fences have given way to low chain-link fences.
Sporadic car traffic is mostly vintage Japanese imports. It’s a mixed
neighborhood made up of White, African American, and Latino families with humble
lawns and generous porches.
The area’s one crowning glory is its abundance of mature trees.
The area’s one crowning glory is its abundance of mature trees.
This combination of sturdy trees,
grassy lawns, and tolerant humans makes Midwood a perfect habitat for a bird
species locally known as the ‘Brooklyn Parrots’, which are a singular example
of the complexities of human-animal relations.
Monk Parakeets, also known as Quaker
Parrots and Grey-headed parakeets, or by their scientific name Myiopsitta Monachus, have lived and thrived in the 'wilds' of Brooklyn for over forty
years. Yet, the more you read about them, the more they become an enigma.
Pieces of the Parrot Puzzle
How did they get here? How do South
American parrots survive northern winters? Why does the government classify
them in such a way that leaves them unprotected, and what does that mean for
their ongoing survival? Who is fighting for them, and why do they need
defending? What do they show us about the relationship humans have with birds
in particular and wildlife in general?
To start, their names are a constant
source of confusion. Monk parakeet, Quaker parrot, Quaker parakeet, and Monk
parrot are used interchangeably by different parties. Parakeets are defined as
small parrots by the Encarta Dictionary, so in the Monks’ case, both names
apply. The usage difference might stem from savvy retailers who know that
parrots are more expensive than parakeets.
Their provenance has been shrouded in
mystery. None of the multiple academic studies done on Monks pinpoints a
singular cause that leads to their introduction into the United States, and
many of the stories told in other capital cities where the birds have formed
colonies sound eerily similar to one another. Urban legend has now mixed with
the very few strands of truth that were left behind 43 years ago in a JFK
airport cargo bay, confusing things further. But more on that later.
A smallish, bright green parrot, the
Monk Parakeet is smaller than a pigeon and larger than a sparrow; it’s about 11
to 12 inches long. The forehead and breast are a pale grey and the stomach and
underparts are light green to yellow. They have blue flight feathers just
visible on the underside of their wings, a long tail, and a yellowish-orange
beak. They are monogamous and they build implausible-looking high-rise nests.
Their native range is southern Brazil,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and north-central Argentina. In the United States,
they have established New York colonies in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island,
and can be found in 17 states across the U.S. Globally, they have colonies in
cities in Puerto Rico, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Morroco, Israel,
Greece, and Japan; and there are youtube videos of them in the Middle East and
Thailand.
Back to Brooklyn
In Midwood, there is an imposing Locust
tree that is known to birding aficionados as the ‘Tree of Life.’ Not because of
its rarity or age, but rather for what it holds up: a six-foot-tall twig nest
that hangs off the eastern side of its sturdy trunk, about 20 feet off the
ground, and houses about 16 chattering Monk parakeets.
Inside the massive twig high-rise are
eight individual nests, stacked asymmetrically like a double helix. Peeking
from two openings, on a crisp spring morning, are two pairs of Monks,
chattering away in their respective homes, repositioning twigs, preparing their
nest for their first clutch of eggs. Below them, a group of ‘Parrot
Safari’-goers click away with their cameras.
A Parrot Safari came to Brooklyn
The Parrot Safari is
the brainchild of Steve Baldwin, a man of many passions and abilities. A
writer, multimedia producer, and musician, he’s a Project Manager for the
online business directory powerprofile.com. He excels at organizing his life so
he has enough time for all his varied interests. On this day, as he has for the
previous six years, the tall and lanky 51-year-old is the Parrot Safari
producer and tour guide.
"Frankly, I
think these birds deserve to be proclaimed the National Parrot of the
USA", Baldwin gushes on his webpage (www.brooklynparrots.com). "They have all of the
great qualities we associate with the American character: they're industrious,
loyal to each other, they're amazing little engineers, they coexist well with
other native birds, and they just won't give up, even when the deck is stacked
against them."
He has put Brooklyn’s
Monk Parakeets on the Social Media map with a Facebook page (Brooklyn Parrots)
and a Twitter feed (@brooklynparrots), which keep his avid followers updated on
everything Monk. In fact, every member of today’s safari came from an internet
source, because Baldwin does not advertise his free tours (the first Saturday
of every month, spring through fall) anywhere else.
A graduate of Fordham
University, Baldwin is a member of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and since
2005 has been photographing and videotaping the wild parrots of Brooklyn and
New Jersey. He has written two books: in 1999 he wrote Netslaves and in 2003 he followed up with Netslaves II. His 2005 book, Tango
in America, co-authored with Monk activist Alison Evans-Fragale, features a
Monk Parakeet as its heroine.
In the book’s
Amazon.com reviewer’s page, Baldwin writes that “after I discovered that there
were wild parrots flying free in many urban areas of the United States and [I had]
spent time studying their habits in the wild, my imagination was engaged by
their story. Derided as ‘illegal avian invaders,’ hounded by utility companies
and Fish and Wildlife Services, and referred to in ornithological literature as
‘the world's most persecuted parrot,’ these charming, social birds captured my
heart, and I wanted to share some of the joy I felt with [others].”
From Argentina to New York
There are a lot of
theories about how Monk Parakeets came to colonize the US, ranging from daring
escapes from sinking ships or overturned trucks to accidents in the cargo
section of airports. But according to Baldwin, “the theory that has the
greatest credence among ornithologists is that a shipment of parrots destined
for sale at New York area pet shops was accidentally released at Kennedy
Airport in the late 1960s.” On this particular day, a woman participating in
the safari would prove the rule of six degrees of separation - only better.
Janet Height, an energetic ash blond, offered
a personal account of what happened to a particular shipment of parrots as the
group walked through Midwood. “I live in Manhattan now but I grew up in
Brooklyn. I’m a bird person, so I’ve always wanted to come out here. I have
parakeets and I have a Mexican Yellowhead, whom I adopted 25 years ago. She’s
43. Her name is Allie.”
“Allie is one of the original parrots
that escaped from JFK airport [in 1968]. My grandfather worked in the Pan Am
cargo building in the late sixties as a guard. One night, a bunch of parrots
chewed their way out of their wooden crates, and Allie was a baby, and she had
broken her wing, so she couldn’t escape. My grandfather found her and took her
and gave her to our neighbors. Eighteen years later, when they could not take care
of her anymore, I adopted her. She’s been my baby ever since.”
After weeks of trying to find some
tangible evidence as to how Monk Parakeets were introduced to the United States decades ago, I was actually
speaking to a woman that had a bird from an original flock of escapees, which was
nothing short of miraculous.
Janet went on with her story. “I can’t
believe the exporters put wood-chewers into wooden crates,” she said, “so I am
sure these escapes happened often, more often than anybody let on. You know,
they’d just crowd birds into these boxes and ship them. There’s just no end to
how cruel people can be to animals.” The surprised group of safari-goers nodded
in agreement as they walked alongside. She seemed to think it was possible that
birds kept escaping for as long as they were being imported.
Baldwin added that “more than 60,000
wild Monk Parakeets were shipped to the US from South America during the 1960s and early
1970s. The Argentinean government spent 10 years trying to wipe out what they
considered to be a pest species in their country. Over 400,000 of them were
killed in a government-sponsored extermination program there.” Then someone
apparently decided exporting them was a more lucrative way of getting rid of
them.
Back in the late 1960s, there was very
little mention of habitat loss in the Amazon Forest and its consequences
for wild parrots. The Monk Parakeet’s natural habitat is lowland
mountain forests and their encircling grassland savannahs. Clear-cutting for the
now-famous Argentinean beef industry stripped the ecosystem in which Monk
parakeets lived of all their normal sources of food. But because they are
territorial (once they colonize a place, they usually keep close to that
geographical area), they become very adept at eating whatever replaces their
food source, much to the chagrin of South American farmers and ranchers.
Planting a field (with grass seeds!) thus became
a battleground between hungry birds and business-minded farmers. This is how
many wild parrots have become 'pest' species in South America, through loss of habitat.
What Baldwin did not tell the group was
that the Monk Parakeets had been subjected to a similar extermination program
in the early ’70s across the U.S., when there were only several hundred escaped
parrots in the country. All the Monk Parakeets in California were killed, and
50% of the population in the rest of the country was wiped out by concerted
government efforts fighting fears that the parrots would become a pest here
too.
But in a surprising twist of fate, the Monks never did become a generalized pest species, they never destroyed wild habitat, and never competed with endemic species. Instead, they became celebrities.
But in a surprising twist of fate, the Monks never did become a generalized pest species, they never destroyed wild habitat, and never competed with endemic species. Instead, they became celebrities.
The Famous Brooklyn Parrots
In the four decades since the
extermination attempt, the Monk survivors have thrived; it is estimated there
are 3,000 to 5,000 Monk Parakeets throughout the U.S. today, with several hundred
living in Brooklyn. They have become local superstars, as I learned on the
subway one morning.
Sitting in the number 2 train, on the
first warm Saturday in spring after a brutal New York winter, I saw the car
become emptier with every stop on its way to Flatbush. Subway station
names flashed by the rectangular windows, bracketed by sooty darkness and shrieking
gears; Church Avenue, Beverly Road, Newkirk Avenue.
The words “Are you going to see the
parrots?” were barely audible as Mayra Mejia, 22, with a big smile and long
black hair almost touching her designer jeans, sat across the aisle from me in
the otherwise vacant car.
“Yes, I am,” I said, “how’d you know?”
“The binoculars,” she answered,
pointing to the protruding gear in my open backpack. “I’ve lived in Flatbush
all of my life,” Mejia said, “and they have been here ever since I can
remember. Pretty wild to see parrots in the city, right?” I was about to
respond when the train screeched to a halt in Flatbush station.
As we walked out, I asked her how she
felt about the parrots. “I like them,” she said, “but I don’t know if everyone loves them; no one ever hurts
them, because they’re a big attraction. People come to see them from all over
the place. But,” she grinned, “they squawk a lot. You hear them before you see
them. Otherwise, they’re beautiful.”
And with that, Ms. Mejia managed to sum
up the fragile détente that exists between the Monk Parakeets and Brooklynites,
which, writ large, echoes the nicer permutations of relationships these birds
have with humans.
The Parrot Safari Experience
At the start of the tour, Steve Baldwin
walked the group around the periphery of Brooklyn College along Campus Road
hoping to find Monks in several places he knew there were nests and feeding
areas.
Before long, Baldwin stopped short and
asked the group to listen. Sure enough, there was squawking coming from the
college’s outdoor track area, where half a dozen parakeets were noisily sunning
themselves on a chain-link fence. As if on cue, they flew down to the grass to
feed just as the group arrived.
Baldwin smiled and said, “Look, they are
posing as if for paparazzi!” and laughed. “Seriously, they are flying down to get their
favorite food, grass, and grass seeds. They have a diverse diet, which is what has helped them
survive up in these latitudes. They also like dandelion buds, leaf buds,
mulberries, and holly berries. They are known to send out scouting parties to find
human-provided bird feeders and hit those hard during winter months. They also
eat fruit, horse chestnuts, and acorns. I’ve even seen one eating a small piece
of pizza! The fact that their diet is so broad is one of the secrets of their
success.”
Sandra Bigelow, a native of Flatbush,
asks if the parakeets are in direct competition for food with any other
animals. “I suppose you could say that they compete for food against the other
introduced birds we find in urban areas, like sparrows, starlings, and
pigeons,” Baldwin responded, “but that’s it.” Just as he said that a pigeon
flew down to some newly scattered birdseed which safari-goers had brought for
the Monks, which they had promptly ignored. The pigeon ate to its heart’s
content, unmolested by man or beast.
Their diet is a deceptively important
piece of the Monk Parakeet puzzle. They have colonized only urban areas because
they depend on humans for food. They are not destroying any natural
habitats nor competing with any native birds in the city, where man has already
changed the landscape. One academic study from 1974 cites competition with
Robins or Bluejays, but no other study since then has witnessed this behavior.
In fact, several mention how well they get along with other species of birds,
to the point of sharing their nests with some species of owls.
Monks are Urban, not Wildlife
The Brooklyn Parrots could have chosen
to live in secluded wilderness areas. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the
Gateway National Recreation Area, is a migratory bird haven just south of JFK
international airport. It would seem to be a perfect place for wild parrots to
live, being protected and wild. And yet they have never built nests there.
Thirty-year veteran Park Ranger Edgardo
Castillo confirmed this via telephone. “We don’t have them here. Never have.
You might see one or two flying around, but this is not an area where they
nest. They are urban birds. There is no food for them here in winter.”
So Monks live in the city, they do not
compete with native birds, and in fact, they get along with them as well as with
other introduced species in the city. So how come they are still persecuted,
and by whom?
The Opposition
Continuing down Campus Road, Baldwin
told the story of how Con Edison treated Monk Parakeets before there was a
group of people defending them. “We haven’t had any problems [in Brooklyn], but
there were nests in Queens that were a problem for Con Edison. Monk Parakeets
had built a nest on an electrical transformer. Those transformers cost $25,000
each, not counting the labor to fix or replace them, in addition to any
blackout costs. So Con Edison had to get [the nests] out of there.”
Baldwin continued: “what happened the
first time [Con Ed destroyed their nests] was the birds just waited for them to
leave, and started rebuilding their nest almost immediately after they left. So
the next time, Con Ed took down the nests in January. That’s a particularly
cruel and inhumane way to kill the birds, leaving them without shelter in the
middle of winter.”
While Baldwin and animal rights
advocates realize that Con Edison must safeguard its property, several groups
(like Feathered Friends Parrot Adoption Services, Inc. and Edgewater Parrots)
are working to change state law so that Monk Parakeets are afforded some
measure of protection from indiscriminate harassment. In the meantime, Baldwin
and others have worked closely with New Jersey utility company PSE&G in
later actions to mitigate damages to the Monk Parakeets and save many birds.
Some municipal organizations have learned to work with bird activists. One particular action Baldwin describes on his webpage (Photo-Essay: A Bronx Tale: The Great Baby Quaker Parrot Rescue), tells of cooperation between New York City's Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and a group of activists (including Baldwin) that saved 43 baby parrots when several large nests had to be taken down one summer in a lightbulb-replacement project. The babies were taken to an animal sanctuary, DDC replaced the lights, and the parent Monk parakeets set about rebuilding their nests after everyone left.
Some municipal organizations have learned to work with bird activists. One particular action Baldwin describes on his webpage (Photo-Essay: A Bronx Tale: The Great Baby Quaker Parrot Rescue), tells of cooperation between New York City's Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and a group of activists (including Baldwin) that saved 43 baby parrots when several large nests had to be taken down one summer in a lightbulb-replacement project. The babies were taken to an animal sanctuary, DDC replaced the lights, and the parent Monk parakeets set about rebuilding their nests after everyone left.
Con Edison did not return any calls or
emails for comment.
Monks have not had much of an impact on
Con Edison infrastructure in New York City because most electrical
infrastructure is underground. But Monk parakeets have been known to wreak
havoc in other places where the infrastructure is above ground, like
Connecticut and Florida, where the utility companies have to constantly wage a
war of attrition against the species.
Snapshots of Safari Participants
Ann McDermott lives in Manhattan, but
was born and raised in Brooklyn, and came on safari because of Baldwin. “I know
Steve through his Beatles music, he has a tribute band, called “Elementary
Penguins”, from the song “I am the Walrus”, and he plays every Saturday night
in Times Square, in the Subway, or if the weather permits, in Central Park,
near Strawberry Fields. I read his page on Facebook, and he posted about this
safari, and I thought, well, that sounds like a good way to spend a Saturday
morning. So here I am. This is the cool thing about New York – nature really
does exist among the concrete and the steel.”
Kyle Mac Donnell, a Graphic Designer
and Production Designer who lives in Greenpoint, is “into taking photographs of
birds. I just found out about the parrots from a friend who is house-sitting. I
started looking things up on the internet and I found the Brooklyn Parrot
website, and I also went to Sunset Park [where there is another Monk colony]
and took a lot of good pictures which I have posted on my Flickr account if
anyone wants to see them.”
Two girlfriends out for a walk before
lunch: “I’m Michelle, I found out about this on the internet, and I just like
birds, so here I am! I live near here, the next town over. I can’t say anything
about how these people feel about [the parrots], but if they were in my
backyard I’d embrace them;” Andrea, from Flatbush, said “Icame here
because I like birds and I was interested in parrots. I’ve been in Brooklyn
nine years, so it was time to come see them.”
A couple from Manhattan Beach were
curious: Anya Bransama said “we’ve been watching the parrots for a couple of
years, so we just wanted to know more about them,” and Steve Coiner added, “We
see them all the way up and down Manhattan Beach. We live sort of in the
middle. They’re all around us. I remember when I was a kid, we were coming in
on the expressway one day and we saw one racing with the traffic. This was in
the seventies. It’s amazing they’re still here.”
Community Building
Baldwin stopped the group across the
street from a small children’s playground at the end of Brooklyn College’s
track and field area whose fence had been decorated with metal cutouts of Monk
Parakeets. He explained that the community had gotten together to petition for
that particular decoration when the park was being refurbished. It’s obvious
that Steve relishes even the smallest victories for the Monks.
“‘Hot Spot Lot’ Park, as it is lovingly
called by the locals, is an emblem,” Baldwin recounted, “because the Parks
Department decided that the Monk Parakeets were significant enough to actually
memorialize them, and hired an artist to do these very nice cutouts of them.
That shows that even though the parrots have no official status in New York
State, they are sort of officially recognized as being members of this
neighborhood, and as a part of Brooklyn.”
“No official Status?” someone asked
from the back of the pack.
Baldwin explained that Monk Parakeets
can be legally owned and bred and sold in New York as long as they are ‘banded’
(they have a metal band on their leg), but ‘wild’ colonies are offered no
protection under state law. Therefore, it is legal to trap them or kill them
without a permit or a limit, like Raccoons or Coyotes. Although there have been
several attempts to pass legislation to protect them, all local congressional
efforts have so far ended up ‘in committee’, which is another way of saying in
limbo.
New York is one of seven states where
Monk Parakeets are legal with restrictions (in NY they have to be banded, other
states have other restrictions). There are 11 states where they are illegal
(they cannot be held as pets, sold, be brought into the state, transported
across state lines, or bred in CA, CO, CT, HI, GA, KS, KY, NH, PA, RI, TN, WY),
and 32 states where they are legal without any restrictions. Unfortunately,
just because they are legal does not mean that Monks are accorded any
protection under the law. And without any corroborating evidence, some people
say Con Edison likes it that way just fine.
The Conundrum
One overriding reason there is a
regulatory bias against Monk Parakeets in New York is that they were expected to become as damaging and
widespread a pest as they had been in South America. But in the 50 years since
they were introduced here, that threat never materialized.
Prof. Stephen Pruett-Jones, a renowned
ornithologist, Monk Parakeet specialist, and professor at the University of
Chicago, explained in a telephone conversation that they have not become the
damaging invasive species that they were expected to become. "They are a
pest in a small section of Florida and a nuisance in some parts of Illinois,
but otherwise they have not become the menace we thought they might become."
Pruett-Jones also clarified the Monk
Parakeet’s ‘classification.’
“You must understand the terminology.
An ‘introduced species’ is one that did not occur naturally here, it
came from somewhere else. But Monk Parakeets have become a ‘naturalized’
species because they are breeding here.”
Pruett-Jones went on to explain that an
‘invasive’ species describes a species that causes damage to native
ecosystems or to native species. That “is actually the category that is the
least accurate in describing the Monk Parakeet,” he said. “The general public
uses that term incorrectly to refer to any introduced species as invasive and
that is problematical.”
The Monk expert went on to summarize
their development. A single colony grows until it literally is too large for
the space they occupy, and then within a week, half the population leaves the
original nest and smaller nests are built in the surrounding area.
What has saved the Monk Parakeets up to
now is that they are usually rooted in urban places. They like to live in tall
trees or poles next to grassy areas in close proximity to homes with back yards
and bird feeders.
Closing Thoughts
The Avian Welfare
Resource Center agrees with Dr. Pruett-Jones. “Though Monk Parakeets sustain
populations in at least 17 states, there is no documented evidence that these
colonies have caused any widespread damage to agriculture, nor have they been
proven to pose a threat to native bird species. Monk Parakeets have simply
dared to interfere with commercial activity, and that alone has garnered them a
greater share of national media attention than any other of the 25 naturalized
parrots in the US. Regardless of their non-native status, we need to ensure the
humane treatment of all naturalized birds by granting them legal protection.”
For advocates like Steve Baldwin, the
Monk Parakeets have already suffered enough persecution. He directed me to a
quote from Avianwelfare.org which sums up the parrot’s dilemma: “Parrots live
in two opposing worlds — and they are threatened in both. In the wild, habitat
destruction, poaching, and the cruelties of the legal and illegal trade in
exotic animals menace them. Some species face extinction. Here in the United
States, ironically, there’s a crisis of a different sort. The fight on behalf
of exotic birds — for their welfare and very survival — must be waged on many
fronts: in rain forests, grasslands, cliffs, and brush regions, as well as [in state legislatures,] breeding facilities, pet stores,
zoos, and our nation’s living rooms.”
The Big Picture
Monk Parakeets are a story about how
man relates to other animals on the planet. It’s a story about nonexistent
animal rights and human unconsciousness to the web of life. It is a story about
fickleness in our legal designations and our regulations regarding animals, and
how the animals end up bearing the brunt of human hypocrisy. It is a story about
aspiring to treat all species humanely.
As Steve Baldwin said as we parted
company. “I am intrigued by Monk Parakeets because their story resonates from a
number of different angles. They are ‘strangers in a strange land’ in the way
that many human immigrants to Brooklyn are. They were deported from their
native lands after suffering extermination pogroms. Through sheer chance, they
survived and were allowed a rare chance at freedom. Their existence is perilous
and they have many enemies, human, non-human, governmental, and corporate. And
yet they persist. There are many obvious parallels to the struggles of the
human spirit here.”
Dr. Stephen Pruett-Jones summed it up
from his academic perspective: “The Monk parakeet will continue to be both an
interesting and controversial species and one that highlights the complex
interaction between public sentiment, public policy, and biology.”
But Jonathan Franzen, a famous author and
avid birdwatcher, may have the wisest perspective of all. In the Commencement
speech he gave this past month at Kenyon College, he explained how having
fallen in love with birds has helped him deal with the world.
“My anger and pain and despair about
the planet were only increased by my concern for birds, and yet, as I began to
get involved in bird conservation and learned more about the many threats that
birds face, it became easier, not harder, to live with my anger and despair and
pain.”
“How does this happen? I think, for one
thing, that my love of birds became a portal to an important, less
self-centered part of myself that I’d never even known existed.”
“I used to have a really angry,
despairing sense that the world is screwed, that people have screwed the world,
and so we should just let it all end. Let's have the great plague that will
reduce the population by 90 percent, and let the land regenerate and nature
catch its breath. I've moved away from that sort of deep-ecological extremism,
which I found to be not personally tenable. It was time for me to stop thinking
about the apocalypse, time to move to New York City, time to start enjoying life.
And from there I moved on to loving birds, which was a much more positive mode
of engagement. If you're trying to save your child's life, you might make
certain compromises that you would have found morally insupportable at a
younger age. Love leads to pragmatism in a way that anger doesn't.”
And that is the 'takeaway' from any contact with Monk parakeets. You fall under their spell, and
anyone that spends just a little bit of time with them comes away feeling much
more than respect for them, and inevitably rethinking their relationship with
birds and wildlife in general.
Monks may, one urban follower at a time, be the species that make better humans of us all.
Monks may, one urban follower at a time, be the species that make better humans of us all.
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