Sustainable Development Called Security Imperative (Powell)

Environmental News Service ^ | 08/06/2002

[cogitator]

The socialist centrally-planned economies of the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union, China, et al. are plagued with pollution, shortages, and crop failures.

Yes, and as you point out subsequently, laws regulate what can and can't be done with land and resources. The problem with the socialist economies above was that they were entirely focused on growing the economy with little thought for efficient use of resources or for environmental degradation. And that's exactly how the free-market U.S. grew its economy so rapidly in the 1850-1950 century, though the growth of the U.S. economy wasn't controlled by a central authority. It took events like the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire to raise consciousness in the U.S. that economic growth without concern for the environment leads to environmental damage.

One of the major differences now is that efficiency = greater profit. If individuals do not garner greater profit and then improved standard-of-living by practicing efficient production methods, then they have no incentive to practice them.

[hedgetrimmer]

Do you believe you have the right to control everyone, no matter what country they live in or who owns the land?

[Commie Basher]

What's wrong with those slash & burn photos? Ever fly over the American heartland? That's what agriculture looks like. Why is that bad?

[cogitator]

What's wrong with those slash & burn photos? Ever fly over the American heartland? That's what agriculture looks like. Why is that bad?

Because tropical (lateritic) soils are not "reusable" in the same way as good thick American topsoil (even though that's a resource that is slowly being depleted). So the slash-and-burn pattern of use continues to eat into the rain forest, because once a plot has been used for a crop or two, the soil nutrients are exhausted, and more forest needs to be cleared. The rain forest itself can be utilized for marketable and profitable products, so that would be a sustainable form of agriculture rather than slash-and-burn, which isn't.

lateritic soils: Soils of humid tropical or equatorial zones characterized by a deep weathered layer from which silica has been leached, a lack of humus, and an accumulation or layer of aluminium and iron sesquioxides. The reddish colour of these soils is imparted by the iron compounds.

[cogitator]

Do you believe you have the right to control everyone, no matter what country they live in or who owns the land?

No. I believe people should be given every opportunity to improve their standards of living in as independent a manner as possible.

[hedgetrimmer]

"No. I believe people should be given every opportunity to improve their standards of living in as independent a manner as possible."

But the nanny government will always be there to make sure people don't do the wrong thing?

[cogitator]

But the nanny government will always be there to make sure people don't do the wrong thing?

If you shared an aquifer with a neighbor, wouldn't you want a law that your neighbor couldn't pee in his well? Personal liberties only go so far with shared vital resources.

Let's take a more relevant example. Excess fertilizer use in agriculture can lead to nutrient runoff, causing eutrophication in downstream reservoirs and estuaries. This could impact a large number of people. If the government provides incentives for agriculture to reduce its fertilizer use (by training in proper fertilzer application, alternatives to synthetic fertilizer, crop subsidies for nitrogen-fixers like soybeans), and this benefits the nutrient flux at the downstream sites, then was this an example of "nanny government", or a good plan?

[hedgetrimmer]

"If you shared an aquifer with a neighbor, wouldn't you want a law that your neighbor couldn't pee in his well? "

A law doesn't stop anybody from doing wrong. It only gives a means of punishment if they're caught.

You seem not to understand the basic premis underwhich our republic was meant to operate. You have to trust that people are basically good, and will do the right and moral thing if given the opportunity, the knowledge and the right to decide on their own. Plenty of water systems evolved in this counrty with shared aquifers that have been successful and friendly between neighbors.

You appear to have a bias against agriculture and farmers. Remember our government was NEVER chartered to give tax incentives to people whose behaviour they'd like to change. That is the WORST form of social engineering on the planet. Also, when the government tries to tell people how to farm, don't use those 'synthetic fertilizers', it is verging on Lysenkoism



Under Lysenko's guidance, science was guided not by the most likely theories, backed by appropriately controlled experiments, but by the desired ideology. Science was practiced in the service of the State, or more precisely, in the service of ideology. The results were predictable: the steady deterioration of Soviet biology. Lysenko's methods were not condemned by the Soviet scientific community until 1965, more than a decade after Stalin's death.

[cogitator]

You seem not to understand the basic premis underwhich our republic was meant to operate. You have to trust that people are basically good, and will do the right and moral thing if given the opportunity, the knowledge and the right to decide on their own. Plenty of water systems evolved in this counrty with shared aquifers that have been successful and friendly between neighbors.

Sure I understand that. I also understand that pollution was so bad in the 1960s that Congress passed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Not everybody cooperated or did what was right. Though we wish that everyone would be right and moral in their dealings, not everybody is.

You appear to have a bias against agriculture and farmers. Remember our government was NEVER chartered to give tax incentives to people whose behaviour they'd like to change. That is the WORST form of social engineering on the planet. Also, when the government tries to tell people how to farm, don't use those 'synthetic fertilizers', it is verging on Lysenkoism

Government has been making recommendations to farmers on how to farm since the Dust Bowl days, if not before. They started to teach farmers how to practice better soil conservation when a large portion of Midwestern topsoil started blowing eastward. Currently, overuse of fertilizer contributes a heavy nutrient load to the Mississippi River, leading to eutrophication and sea floor anoxia in the Gulf of Mexico around the Mississippi River delta. Multiple states have agreed to work on modifying agricultural practices in the Mississippi watershed to reduce the nutrient load in the river.

More of that needs to happen. No "service to ideology": more efficient, less polluting, and less wasteful practices.

[lavaroise]

Sustainable development means killing people for sake of development.

The U. S. Department of Energy has joined in promoting the concept of "sustainable development", as revealed by their website.  One of the "solutions" offered is "relocation" of property owners.  This is something we are seeing on a local level here in Clallam County, Washington.[1]

“Sustainable Development” was first introduced by Maurice Strong, socialist, senior adviser to the Commission on Global Governance and driving force behind the concept of “sustainability”. When introducing the term at the 1992 Rio Conference (Earth Summit II), he stated:  Industrialized countries [Americans] have “developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma.  It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption pattern of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning and suburban housing – are not sustainable.  A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.”[2]  Strong also explains in an essay that the concept of sovereignty has to yield in favor of the “new imperatives of global environmental cooperative.”

Following are some alarming excerpts from the U.S. Department of Energy's website:

http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/disaster/disintro.shtml ...Development continues unabated in the riskiest of areas, along the coasts and floodplains in the U.S. Communities in these high-risk regions, by definition, are not sustainable. Residents cannot count on the communities' survival for generations to come. Some live in fear that the next rain or wind storm could mean the end of normal life. These are people and communities at risk, locked in a costly, life-threatening gamble with the environment.... ...Sustainable development offers a way out. For some communities, the only solution is relocation, moving entirely off the floodplain, out of harm's way. For others, sustainable development means restricting new construction in particularly vulnerable areas, elevating structures to remove the threat of flooding, or building smarter, stronger buildings that are more hazard-resistant... ...While at first glance this facet of sustainable development may seem unrelated to disaster prevention, in truth they're intricately tied. An increasing body of evidence points to human energy use - specifically the burning of fossil fuels - as a factor in global climate change. Global climate change, in turn, may be at least partially responsible for the increased number and severity of storms. By making efficient use of energy resources, disaster-prone communities that employ sustainable development are also doing their part to slow global warming and temper the very storms that threaten them.... ...Striving for sustainability is a daunting task, even for those communities that aren't disaster-prone. Changing the way we use resources and approach development is slow-going and often frustrating...

The Dept. of Energy bases much of its rhetoric on the false premise that humans are the cause of "global warming" - when in fact, global warming is a theory, not scientifically proven. See Global Warming Models Labeled 'Fairy Tale' By Team of Scientists.[3]

The insurance industry has been pulled into the game of “Sustainable Development”, too. The website states: “Increasingly, the insurance industry is taking an interest in global climate change as a possible contributor to the dramatic rise in costly natural disasters. Industry leaders share with advocates of sustainable development a desire to mitigate weather-related damages and make communities stronger. Insurance and The Natural Sciences: Partners in the Public Interest, a speech presented in September 1996 by Franklin W. Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, further explains this ‘insurance connection.’”

As a “public/private” partnership, the move toward fascism continues.[4]

The Dept. of Energy website refers the reader to the United Nations for more information. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, through Global Change, a magazine about climate change and ozone depletion published by the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security.

Action you can take:  

Write to President Bush and request that he reverse the "Sustainable Development" trend in the agencies he controls.  Find contact information here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

 

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[1] See ‘Contentious’ river property owners unwilling to sell,  but some feel they have no choice and Citizens speak out against river buyout; county to proceed with grant application anyway

[2] Agenda 21 stresses “ Improving human settlement management; Promoting sustainable land-use planning and management; Promoting sustainable energy and transport systems in human settlements, to name a few – in other words, “managing humans” is the goal at a global level.

[3] See also Another Study Debunks Global Warming.  Two new studies of temperatures and ice cap movement in that same area indicate that is not the case.  In fact, Antarctica is becoming colder.  Dr. Peter Dorman and his team of scientists have determined that since 1986, temperatures have been dropping an average of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade and similar downturns have occurred since 1978 in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica.  When the scientists noticed that “glacial ice wasn’t melting, streams weren’t flowing, lakes were shrinking and microorganisms were disappearing, they decided to expand their data collection and discovered that “Antarctica as a whole had gotten considerably colder."  The study seems to confirm what 17,000 scientists have previously determined; there is no “global warming.”