EPA Shifting Its Emphasis to ‘Sustainability’

Cybercast News Service ^ | 12/2/10 | Susan Jones

[Nachum]

(CNSNews.com) - The Environmental Protection Agency, marking its 40th anniversary this week, announced that "sustainability concepts" will govern its programs from now on.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said her agency has commissioned a "groundbreaking" National Research Council study that will help the agency "incorporate sustainability into the way the agency approaches environmental protection."

The announcement signifies an important step toward building a society that can meet its needs while preserving the ability of future generations to meet their needs, the EPA said in a Nov. 30 news release.

Historically, environmental programs have focused on reducing air pollution and water pollution and identifying and monitoring chemical and environmental risks to human health and the environment. But, the EPA explained, today’s challenges involve the sustainable use of energy, water, materials and land – “and require solutions that stress the linkages between energy use, water use, environmental protection, human health, quality of life, and the global economy.”

What does that mean? The EPA gives an example of a sustainability solution – the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private international partnership that’s intended to improve the health of African women and at the same time protect the Third World environment.

In nations where women still cook over smoky fires, giving them inexpensive, clean-burning stoves will not only improve their health, the thinking goes – it also will reduce pressure on natural resources (wood for fires), protect women who will no longer have to forage for fuel, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One solution solves a variety of health and environmental problems, in other words.

In 1983, the National Research Council conducted a study that helped the EPA incorporate "risk assessment" and "risk management" in its work. Twenty-seven years later, the EPA is asking the NRC do another study, to help the EPA shift its focus to "a sustainability framework."

WaterSense

Two weeks ago – in what could be construed as a “sustainability” move ahead of the “sustainability” study – the EPA announced the nation’s first “WaterSense” homes.

WaterSense is a partnership program sponsored by EPA that seeks to protect the nation’s water supply by offering people a simple way to use less water.

The program will help homebuyers cut their water and energy use while at the same time saving money on utility bills.

The EPA said four WaterSense-labeled new homes built by KB Home in Roseville, California, will help families save an average of 10,000 gallons of water and at least $100 on utility costs each year.

“The construction of the first WaterSense labeled homes, and the plans to build more, mark the beginning of an innovative approach that gives homeowners the chance to cut their water and energy bills and protect a vital environmental resource,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

WaterSense homes use about 20 percent less water than a typical new home, the EPA says. They include efficient plumbing fixtures and hot-water delivery systems, water-efficient landscape design, and other water and energy-efficient features.

As CNSNews.com has previously reported, the EPA administrator already has made “environmental justice” a priority for her agency.

[RatRipper]

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of PHONY government research, studies and polls.

[ConjunctionJunction]

Thanks for the link!

[penelopesire]

It’s time to ban the word ‘sustainability’ and the EPA! That word has gotten on my last nerve! You hear it everywhere now...in business, in healthcare, in farming,etc.

ENOUGH!!

[Pecos]

I looked at the “Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves” web site. I could not find what they are using to replace the wood and dung used in third world kitchens. Does anyone know? My first guess would be some sort of petroleum product, but cannot tell from the continual lack of details on the Left (your point). If they actually told people what their intent was, there would be an instant response. Can’t have that, you know. Got to keep the proles in the dark.

[rogue yam]

I was perfectly serious.

[Red Boots]

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said her agency has commissioned a "groundbreaking" National Research Council study that will help the agency "incorporate sustainability into the way the agency approaches environmental protection."

Blatantly unconstitutional power grab. Agency missions are determined by Congress at their creation. They may NOT be altered by unelected administrators, or even presidents.

[Spitzensparkin1]

"Requiring a definition usually ends any discussion with a leftist, and it is the reason that they choose forums in which no questions can be asked."

I have a question for them. How do they expect people so poor that they have to cook their food on wood fires to be able to afford to buy expensive imported fuel to run their new "clean" stoves? They will use them for the photo ops. then discard them and go back to "traditional methods" when the fuel runs out.

Question really is, how much will this "green" "feel good" photo opp cost Americans???

The silence is deafening!

[Noumenon]

The now not-so-hidden goal of Agenda 21 and initiatives like it is to de-populate the rural areas and shove everyone into more 'manageable' urban areas. The 'excess' will be dealt with in the camps. Arbeit Macht Frei, nicht war?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Is the Environmental Protection Agency sustainable?

[blackdog]

They issued themselves a waiver.

[rockinqsranch]

The article starts off about EPA’s Lisa Lefty touting change to sustainability, and immediately falls off a cliff with some crap about smokey African stoves as though the EPA was a division of the UN. THAT tells me something.

[algernonpj]

What is “sustainable” anyway? I have yet to see agency or anyone actually define it.

It's a Marzist catch word from Agenda21 (total control over your life under the UN and NWO).

pdf with more info.

From the pdf:
"Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can - in a global partnership for sustainable development."

[algernonpj]

more at Henty Lamb’s Archive on wnd:

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=43&authorId=70&tId=8

[ProfoundMan]

Requiring a definition usually ends any discussion with a leftist,

Very true. I had the opportunity to attend a "sustainability" conference a couple years back and the best definition they could come up with was "making the infinite from the finite". That's right up there with skittle-defecating unicorns. I suggested some kind of thermodynamic definition to see if we really were "saving" anything and you'd have thought I had defecated sans skittles.

This has been a peeve of mine since that day and I've yet to find a decent definition from any sustainability advocate that's any more accurate than what you've just said.

[Dead Corpse]

Stuff ‘em through a hole in the ice...

[andy58-in-nh]

Sustainability is a code word for “redistribution”.

[sport]

It is also one of the main words in the U.N.’s Agenda 21.

[MrB]

Defining the terms takes away a leftist’s power to contemporaneously manipulate the meanings to fit everyone’s desire to be on the side of the angels.

[NewHampshireDuo]

On the coast of Maine we have the Gateway 1 project. Agenda 21 all the way. Basically concentrate people and businesses into the two dozen towns in the midcoast area, keep Rt 1 in between a 2-lane scenic cartpath, have people living with businesses and make it so people will be “nudged” to use rail and bicycles. Scary. Of course this is all being couched as “protecting the true Maine.”

[little jeremiah]

Placemark for reading later.