Meltdown Strategies: Financial Disaster and Climate Change

October 13, 2008 By Starhawk
Source: www.starhawk.org

While the financial markets have been melting down around us, another
sort of meltdown has been occurring, one even more frightening and
dangerous. Climate change has been progressing, more quickly than
anticipated, fueled even more rapidly by methane bubbles released from
a warming Arctic sea, in just one of the self-reinforcing cycles that
will trigger unstoppable cascades of devastation unless we act now.

None of the presidential debates have addressed the central question of
our time: can we transform our energy, our economy, our food systems
and our culture rapidly enough to forestall complete global meltdown?

The present economic woes are frightening, but the environmental crisis
is truly terrifying. With all the furor about falling markets and
frozen credit, nothing real has changed in the economy. Granted, the
repercussions will be that many of us have less money in our pockets
and fewer opportunities. But we still have the natural resources we had
a month ago. We still have our skills, our knowledge, and our
productive capacity. What we've lost is a towering edifice of icing
with no cake underneath.

But environmental meltdown means we lose the real basis of economy and
survival. We will see more and more devastation like we've seen in the
Gulf Coast. We'll see droughts, floods, lowered food supplies, huge
losses in biodiversity and ecological resilience, rising seas that will
take out major cities around the world, and all the associated problems
of poverty, starvation, refugees and resource wars. Time is not running
out-it's out! What we do now and in the next ten years is absolutely
crucial.

The good news is, we don't have to take the path to disaster. We have
the knowledge and technology we need to make the change. But our
politicians, even the best of them, won't do it unless we make it a top
priority.

To do that, it helps to know what the solutions are. In November, I'll
be presenting at an interfaith conference on climate change called by
the archbishop of Sweden. In preparation, I started writing a Climate
Change Primer, trying to briefly list the most important technologies
and approaches. It kept growing, and eventually became too big to send
out as an email. But go to the link below and you can read it or
download it as a PDF. If you want to better understand the issue and
the spectrum of solutions we need to put into place, it's a good
introduction. If you are a policy maker or an activist who likes to
hound and harass policy makers to do the right thing, it's a good
guide. And if you're thinking about how to invest your own time and
energy and/or such dwindling funds as you might have, it will suggest
fruitful avenues and new approaches. And here's the link:

http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/climate_resources.html

And below are a few short, short, short lists to help get us thinking
about what priorities we should push for:

Things we can do right away in a lousy economy:

--Conserve. Obama almost said the 'C' word in the debate-and you would
think this is something radicals, liberals and conservatives would all
agree on, as it requires no funding or investment and can produce huge
rewards. If we had continued to conserve energy at the rate we did in
the 1970s, we would be energy independent today!

--Pass tax credits for renewables.

--Enact fuel efficiency standards for new cars, trucks, etc. and for
all big users of fossil fuels.

--Require energy efficiency in new construction, and white or
reflective roofs, porous paving, etc.

--Put caps on carbon emissions for big users that will decline over
time to zero by 2050 or sooner. (There's a longer discussion of this in
the Primer.)

--Take up Al Gore's challenge to generate 100 per cent of our energy
from renewables within ten years.

--Sequester carbon by building healthy soil through organic farming,
no-till techniques, and planned rotational grazing. (More on this on
the website.)

--Localize economies and food systems-farmers' markets, CSAs, city
farms and community gardens. Support barter systems and local
currencies.

--End subsidies for nuclear energy, coal and oil.

--Bring the troops home-war has a carbon cost as well as a human cost
and a financial cost. Employ diplomacy, not troops.

--Ratify Kyoto-no, it's not nearly enough but gosh, if we can't even do
that, how are we going to have any global credibility on this issue?

Low Hanging Fruit: (Technologies and solutions that are already up and
running, or nearly so, that have the best Energy Return on Energy
Investment, will meet the least resistance and will give the biggest
bang for the buck in the short run.)

--Onshore and offshore wind-already up and running.

--Photovoltaics-larger scale production to bring down costs, tax
credits, rebates and cost-share programs for new construction and
retrofitting.

--Concentrated Solar Power and solar thermal on both large scale and
home scale.

--Electric cars and plug-in hybrids-in production or on the verge.
Economies of scale-government purchasing agreements, tax credits,
rebates or cost-shares or loan guarantees for purchasers can help
replace our current transport fleet. Mandates for energy efficiency and
requirements for zero-carbon vehicles, as were once in place in
California, can support their production and adoption.

--Biofuels from waste and recycled materials and algae.

--White roofs. (A study from the Lawrence Berkeley labs suggest that
white roofs not only save cooling costs but radiate heat outward and on
a large scale, could have a major impact.)

--Regenerative farming and grazing that build soil organic carbon.

--Forest protection-a moratorium on the logging of old growth. Tree
planting and restoration.

--Localization-building local food economies, sense of place,
encouraging famers' markets, urban agriculture, local small businesses,
walkable neighborhoods,

--Pedestrian zones, bike paths, good interface with bikes and public
transport-safe parking areas, allowing bikes on subways and busses.

Vital Investments: Even in a lousy economy, we absolutely need to do
these things, and they will provide jobs and a vital economic stimulus:

--The national grid needs to be upgraded to be able to handle
distributed sources of energy and Vehicle to Grid technology.

--Infrastructure for renewables needs to be built on the large scale.

--Technical help to developing countries: It's only fair, equitable and
good long-term security to help developing countries skip the 19th and
20th centuries and leap into the 21st with renewable energy sources.
Offer to replace Iran's nuclear plants with solar infrastructure,
China's coal plants with wind.

--Cost share programs and rebates for retrofitting existing homes for
energy efficiency.

--Training programs and green jobs in the inner city.

--Job training for the unemployed in green industries and regenerative
agriculture.

Long term investments: (Things we need to invest in now for the long
term future. If we're going to borrow billions, let's spend them on:)

--Public transportation in and around cities. Making it efficient,
cheap, easy and fun.

--Trains, busses, and other forms of transport to get people out of
their cars.

--Research on all the promising technologies: new batteries and forms
of energy storage, wave and tidal power, hydrogen from renewables-as a
store for energy and as a replacement fuel for air travel. Aquaculture
to produce biofuels. And so many more.(see that website for the full
list!)

--Public infrastructure.

--Retrofitting of existing buildings for energy efficiency.

--Forest and wildland protection in large blocks to allow plants and
animals room to migrate in response to climate change. Habitat
protection and restoration.

--Quality education at every level on the environment.

Really Stupid Ideas We Should Oppose:

-Nuclear Power: It's not quick to build or license safely, it's not
safe-low level radiation is proven to cause cancer and other diseases.
We still don't know how to safely store the wastes. To build a plant we
actually produce huge amounts of carbon emissions as cement is one of
the big carbon hogs. ------Nuclear power plants provide new targets for
terrorists and makes it difficult to prevent proliferation of nuclear
weapons. And-we don't need it!

--Offshore drilling and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge-The U.S. has 3% of the world's oil reserves and uses 25% of the
energy. We can't drill our way into energy independence, and drilling
that compromises the safety of fragile ecosystems can cause irreparable
damage for small, short-term gains. We need to wean ourselves off
fossil fuels, not drill for more. And new oil fields won't come on line
for over a decade and require huge energy investments to develop.

--"Clean" coal: There is no such thing.

--Cutting down rainforests to produce corn or palm oil for biofuels

--Replacing food crops with fuel crops.

--Solving problems with guns and weapons.

Okay, this short list has already gotten long. Again, that link is:

http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/climate_resources.html

And if there's one important message we send, make it this:

The environment is not an afterthought: it's the ground of economy,
security and survival. Environmental protection, environmental justice
and regeneration must be our top priorities, because they are the only
sound foundation for every other endeavor.

Go if you must, stay if you will, hail & farewell.