Environmentally Blind

I found the imagery of “living in a bubble” that Mary employed in her post to be very interesting and revealing. As both individuals and as members of an affluent society, it is easy for us be blinded to the realities of climate change. As individuals it is often difficult for us to think in terms of an entire climate system and connect our lifestyles and choices to broad ecological and climate issues. As members of an affluent society it is hard for us to accept that it might be the very conveniences which define our lives might be part of a systemic problem. Further it is most likely that those who are less affluent will bear the brunt of the negative effects of climate change.

            The “going green” manuals that Maniates critiques in his article play into this “blindness” by telling people what they want to hear.  The assumption that going green should be convenient and cost effective for the consumer tends to reinforce our bias toward a narrow individualist viewpoint that ignores systemic problems. For instance in recent years there has been a proliferation of “green” consumer products, such as paper towels that advertise themselves as being green because they are made with more renewable or recycled material. While these items are certainly “better” for the environment, they are still part of an unsustainable consumer culture which produces an astronomical amount of waste. If people are convinced that these products are “green” then their conception of environmentalism is necessarily narrowed. In this way the “its easy being green” books that Maniates  critiques and the green branded consumer products that share their ideology might not just be wrong-headed, but actually detrimental in that they breed complacency and make us “blind.”

            That being said systemic changes, while necessary, are hard to achieve. Our current political system in a stalemate and unlikely to produce effective climate change legislation and consumerism remains very entrenched. There is a point to be made that focusing on greening our own lives on a local or community level is useful because we have the most control over them. However, greening our own lives shouldn’t be “easy” as these books proclaim. It might involve organizing our communities, our families to collectively lower our impacts, conserves and reduce our waste through reuse or mitigation.

A Zero Sum Game

I live in a bubble. If you're reading this right now, you also live in a bubble - inside the contained habitat of our technocratic anthropocene.  In March of 2011 Elizabeth Kolbert wrote an article for the National Geographic entitled Enter the Anthropocene - Age of Man   in which she discusses the possible ways in which humanity may leave an indelible mark on the earth itself so that "to future geologists...our impact may look as sudden and profound as that of an asteroid" (Kolbert).  I mention all of this because in the context of Michael Maniates's Going Green? I believe it is relevant.

Humans are changing the earth. That is the bottom line. And inside the safe spaces of our highly connected, technologically inundated societies, we don't notice.  I grew up in an affluent Maryland suburb.  In my neighborhood, almost everyone recycled.  In my house, we always made sure the lights were turned off before we left the house.  I was encouraged to take shorter showers, (to admittedly varying success) and we often bought (and still buy) produce from a local stand a short drive from our house.  As citizen of the United States who was relatively uninformed about the environmental situation beyond Nightly News specials on the destruction of the rainforest, I felt good about our lifestyle.  I mean, we recycled! My family was helping the environment.  We were friendly to it.

This mindset - my own mindset, at times - is exactly the problem Maniates points out in his Washington Post article from 2007.  The contained habitat I mentioned earlier - the places where electricity, running water and connection to the outside world via technologies is largely taken for granted - looks pretty nice to those living inside of it.  There are still green things; trees and gardens inside cities, bits of Nationally preserved parks, patches of wilderness between suburban neighborhood, where even the occasional wild animal may appear, the sky is blue, the air seems clear, and you can see the starts in the night sky.  Never mind the exhaust from the UPS truck filling the air with black smog, never mind the coal and fossil fuels polluting the earth to keep us warm at night.  The lights turn on when we flick the switch, we can connect our 3 and 4G phones to the internet when we go on a weekend camping trip.  But we recycle papers and plastics; so the environment is going to be OK.  In this contained habitat of the technocratic anthropocene, we have been content with our "simple steps" and the "glorification of easy" as Maniates puts it.

 We shouldn't be.  The simple, easy steps blind us to the truth of the hard facts: that humans are changing the planet, and those changes are mostly likely accelerating, and most likely will not benefit future generations of humanity as we know them.  In a March 2005 Reuters report in the New York Times on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the 45-member board proclaimed a stark warning, that "human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted" (Reuters, emphasis added).

The time for easy, if it ever existed, is at an end.  As a species, we are are becoming the designers of our own demise.  If we want to ensure the future, we have to start taking actions now.  Action comes in many forms, and it does start with simple steps - simple steps, but not easy steps.  As the purveyors of affluent lifestyles, we must be the first to make the hard changes - politically, and personally.  We must inspire ourselves, our neighbors, and our governments to take action against the threat of the anthropocene.  On this issue, the international community must also come together and implement policy, with concrete measures that member states must hold themselves to adhere to.  There are solutions to this problem.  I don't have the expertise to list them; but once we realize that the starkness of our situation, and the finite resources we are exhausting, we can face this international challenge together.  It doesn't matter whose fault it is; the political blame game has to end.  There is no easy way out - but if we focus creative thought and innovation on the emergency that lays in front of us a sustainable future may be possible.  The game we are playing with our planet is a zero-sum game, one in which the human race either wins or loses. 

We need more than easy tips.

Personally I totally like the idea of we need something bigger to happen in terms of going green from Professor Maniates' perspective. It's difficult or even impossible for us to simply 'reuse scrap paper before recycling' or 'take showers' to be green or environmental friendly. These actions are environmental friendly ones but they will not bring out of the current situation of global climate change. Its time for something larger to happen: the ones will have fundamental effects globally. EPA as well as other organizations provided us different kinds of lists that can guide us to choose green actions. The best result that could happen is that we are "slowing the growth of environmental damage". If we want to avoid the worst outcomes of global climate change to happen, in next 30 years, 80% of carbon emission in the States needs to cut off completely. Keep recycling paper, installing energy efficient light bulbs and taking shorter shower will not help us cut 80% of the carbon emission. These individual and consumer-centered actions are the just a tag used by politicians to tell the public that 'we care about our environment so that you need to this, this and this'. But the fact is that what is going to work to help the society being green, is much more expensive but will have huge impacts. Politicians and government organizations barely talk about these because they know that they do not have that money and human resource to do that.

In order to achieve the goal of cutting carbon emission by 80%, far more difficult technologies are needed instead of tweaking on the margins of what we already have. We need fundamental changes of our energy use, the way of transportation and agriculture system we have now. All of these aspects requires tremendous amount of money. I like the idea that we are grown ups and we know the importance and necessity of making difficult choices and working hard to make changes. Taking the energy change fro example, all the infrastructures we have now have to switch for new ones. This will cost billions of money worldwide. How can politicians raise such huge amounts of money to make the society going green in each president’s term of service? Going green has become a tool for the candidates for advertising themselves for making more job opportunities. It’s a time consuming and costly thing to go green for politicians; they want things that will have immediate outcomes. The essence of going green has been narrow down to personal levels. Environmental elites and our leaders treated us like children. This article really wakes me up regarding of acting green and going green. While I was trying so hard to go for green, what our nation is doing?

Still consuming tons of energy to maintain an American lifestyle for the entire society. While the global north blaming the global south for deforestations, we are living in a luxury lifestyle that needs five or more earth to support all population if we live in American lifestyle. Personal actions can help us starts from grassroots to make changes and brainwashing more people of the idea “going green”, the individual actions will help the progress of going green but without bigger actions from the entire society. It’s impossible to make changes for achieving the goal.

Energy: just a drop in the bucket

As a voter who is concerned about environmental issues, I want to know how each candidate plans to address problems such as increasing drought, alternative energy sources, America's impact on global warming, etc.  I'm exploring Obama and Romney's sites and I keep asking myself, "Where are the environmental platforms?"  The tab for "Energy" under each candidate's list of issues is the closest option.  The fact that each candidate does not directly address the pressing environmental issues we currently face tells me two things: a.) to them, environmental issues fall under the same umbrella as their energy platforms, and b.) making a platform to amend/prevent further damage we have done to the planet would cost them the election.  Energy is only a piece of a larger environmental puzzle we currently face today.  The lack of a comprehensive platform on both sides is very disconcerting for America's future, especially considering that our lifestyle has the largest environmental impact on the rest of the world.  

Aside from Romney and Obama's failure to mention environmental issues not related to energy, both platforms share some similarities.  Both energy plans emphasize America's abundance in carbon-based resources and make it clear that we should be getting as much from them as we can.  The measures they want to take to use these resources will hopefully end up in what they both refer to as "energy independence".  They also claim that both plans will result in more jobs for Americans.  Job creation seems to be the bottom line of each energy platform since the economy has taken the stage as the number one issue voters are concerned about in this election.    

While both candidates discuss oil and natural gas in their platforms, they both touch on other energy sources in different ways.  For example, Obama's plan seeks to increase wind and solar production while Romney claims that these sources have, "failed to become economically viable."  Romney on the other hand seems to be pushing future investment and deregulation of nuclear energy sources, when Obama doesn't mention this type of energy at all in his platform.  I had expected both candidates to mention the coal industry, but to my surprise, Romney only pointed out how the Obama administration is anti-coal and doesn't discuss it any further.  Obama makes sure to show how he has increased investment in "clean coal" as opposed to just regular coal mining.  I'm a bit of a clean coal skeptic, so as far as I'm concerned, neither candidate shows a strong view on what direction the coal industry should take.

Environmental issues tend to be the empty promises candidates make that will occur within a certain time frame and never happen.  This is evident in the language shown in Obama's platform such as, "development of our near 100-year supply of natural gas, which could support more than 600,000 new jobs by the end of the decade" just doesn't seem firm, and I really have a hard time believing that many new positions in the natural gas industry could be created in a decade.  The same goes for Romney in his goal for "North American energy independence by 2020."  This all depends on how our relationships with the major oil producers continues to evolve as well as America's appetite for oil within the next ten years.  Oil independence in eight years seems to be a huge stretch, and is most likely not happening any time soon.

In both platforms, these grand goals need to be downsized.  I know the candidates are doing it just to win votes, but realistically, energy independence by 2020 and a surge of "green" jobs within the next few years seem to be exaggerated claims.  I would also appreciate a broader environmental platform, which can include other topics such as pollution and global warming, which are closely related to points brought up in these energy proposals.

Destructive Assumptions

            What is striking about both Romney and Obama’s energy plans is not necessary what is included in the plans but what is excluded: a thorough discussion of environmental sustainability. While both campaigns discuss the environment in their energy platforms, neither give us a clear picture of what they believe the environment is or what they relationship between the state and the environment should be.

This is most evident in Romney’s plan, which is merely titled “Energy.” The environment is mentioned several times in the platform when Romney, mostly in the context of the “environmental” laws or regulations that Romney fears tend to stifle industry. At one point Romney states that he will “make every effort to safeguard the environment” but quickly throws in the caveat that “he be mindful at every step of also protecting the jobs of American workers.” It is unclear both what he means by being “safeguarded” and how he intends to strike the balance between protecting jobs and the environment.

In general it appears that Romney conceives the environment as a function of the economy. It is a resource for the American people to use. The country was blessed enough to have a “cornucopia” of carbon-based energy reserves and Barrack Obama is being both unpatriotic and a job-destroyer by not allowing them to be fully exploited. Most importantly, he makes no reference to the degradation of the natural environment, global warming, or the finite nature of carbon-based resources. These inconveniences are entirely written out of the narrative to allow for the construction of his cornucopia of resources narrative.  

Obama’s plan includes more reference to the environment and environmental protection then Romney’s but is still dominated by an economic perspective. Obama discusses how he has increased regulation of environmental hazards such as mercury and how he expanded conservation efforts but declines to discuss any other environmental concerns such as global warming, extinction, or environmentally sustainable agriculture. Further, Obama justifies his alternative energy initiatives not by toting their environmental benefit but by arguing that they will create more jobs and free us from foreign oil. Although Obama declines to give us a clear picture of what he views the relationship between government, the economy, and government, he appears to believe that environmental problems are really regulatory problems. Our current system can be tweaked with regulations to prevent environmental destruction; no systemic changes are necessary.

Both candidates hold on dearly to the idea that in order for our country to progress, its economy must constantly expand. This idea is the focal point of both campaigns energy platforms. For Romney the goal is to do what’s best for the economy irrespective of the environment, while for Obama the goal is to what’s best for the economy while correcting for environmental damage using regulations. These two assumptions, that progress necessarily means GDP growth and that environmental problems are fundamentally economic problems, are detrimental to the extent that they exclude any robust discussion about sustainability and the  between relationship humans and the natural environment.

 If we can move beyond these assumptions we might eventually be able to hold serious political discussions about sustainability, growth, species die off, carbon emission and other important environmental issues, but at this point it seems unlikely. However, it is important to note that political discourse and assumptions are mutable; they can be challenged and altered. Perhaps this is role of environmental activism, to challenge and subvert these dominant assumptions to create a space for productive discussion.

Yeah for Renewable Energy!!!!!!

Both Obama and Romney address the importance of energy in the economy through their platforms; since the whole country’s economic activity depends on that. How the candidates proposed their policies that regarding of energy issue became the key whether they will win the presidential contention or not. There are three main points that they argue about. To sum up these differences, we can put them into three questions: what the energy economy should be; what price we want to pay for that and where can we get those energy resources.

They proposed these policies from the perspective of achieving to a better situation and trying hard to boost the economy. Policies related with energy supply and generation will have fundamental effects on the results. Because of the different political background of these two candidates, their proposal for energy policy varies a lot. I will explain what I would lobe to subtract from their platforms regarding of these three questions and trying to combine them towards a new direction.

“I want us to stop giving tax subsidies to oil companies that are already incredibly profitable. I want to double down on our investment in clean energy that’s never been more promising—in solar and wind and biodiesel—and put people back to work so that we can free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and build up America.”

Obama’s idea and Romney’s idea about what the energy market should be are totally different. Obama committed to a planned energy market by putting in place an “all of the above strategy”. This strategy will help the nation develop all kinds of energy and all available sources of energy. The purpose of doing this is to solve the problem of we have to making a choice between develop the economy or protect our environment. We can tell from Obama’s website that he put wind power and solar energy as the next electricity generation source. For fuel economy part where our automobiles heavily depend upon that, the President make agreement and also standards with manufacturers to make fuel efficiency cars as well as lighter cars to save fuels. The Obama Administration also claim that there will be 12,500 new jobs created by 16 solar energy projects with other 13 renewable projects. 1.3 million American homes can run on this renewable energy. Jobs became another big interest for the public when they are suffering from depression. He also showed his ambitions of helping America becoming less dependent on foreign oil, which it is a stumbling block that limit the growth of America as well as other political problems.

            On the contrary, Romney’s agenda seems more practical for still depending upon traditional energy resources but leave more space for the market to decide. A new regulatory frame will be applied to these industries to ensure they are not polluting the environment as what they did before. This strategy will work better regarding of the current energy situation. Renewable energy sources are definitely better for the environment comparing with the traditional way of energy generating. The problem is that it’s very costly to switch from those ones that we have used for a long time especially where most of the infrastructures are still in use of the traditional energy. It will be very costly and time intensive process to install new infrastructures. Obama’s ambition is good for the environment but not for our purses. He claim that the government will pay for whatever the price it will take to do that. Where is the money come from? Most of the funding comes from tax. In another way to say, from the money we earn.  It will work much better if we can combine these two strategies together. Giving more time for the society as well as the economy to get used to renewable energy. Saving the environment allows no time delay yet we do not have that ability to change it in one night. 

Winning Gaia's Vote

It is September of 2012, and we are less than two months from the November 6th Presidential Elections.  The battle for Captain America rages on between the Romney and Obama camps as the nation watches - but is either candidate looking out for the largest non-voting enabler and provider of their campaigns; the earth herself?

President Barack Obama

On his campaign page, one of the eight issues the Obama/Biden camp lists is titled Energy and the Environment.

The web design of this page is certainly inviting, with myriad charts, diagrams and videos all pointing to the great work President Obama has done over the past four years to make our world cleaner.  Inevitably, all of the charts for  Oil, Natural Gas, Bio-fuels, Wind Energy, and Solar energy show improvement under President Obama.

These charts, and the words that accompany them are aimed at showing how these new energies are providing jobs and bring America closer to energy independence, though, and are void of any reference to the broader environmental effects.   The tagline for Obama's "all of the above" strategy is "to develop every available source of American energy while making sure we never have to choose between protecting our environment and strengthening our economy" (Source: www.barackobama.com).

Under the Fuel Economy section of the Obama campaign's Energy and Environment, there is mention that:

"The Obama administration’s groundbreaking standards for cars and light trucks will save families roughly $8,200 at the pump per vehicle by 2025. The standards will also cut in half vehicles’ greenhouse gas pollution, reducing a major cause of climate change."

So at least our President incumbent mentions the environmental buzzwords "greenhouse gas" and "climate change".  There is also mention in investments in clean coal and "carbon capture and sequestration research", but no further data beyond initiatives implemented and long term goals set.  

In sum, the President's energy and environment platform looks pretty and is directed towards the grievances of the simple american voters: high gas prices, high energy prices, unemployment, and direct health effects (such as heart attacks and asthma) rather than global environmental dangers and proposed solutions.  This platform is not designed to educate, inform or even vaguely alert voters to the global environmental challenges we face in the future, but is instead intended to be a message of progress, pointing to the brighter, cleaner path President Obama has set the American public on for the future.  And of course this make complete sense.  Voters don't want to be told that we are approaching - or have passed - the carrying capacity of our planet.   They don't want to be told about the thousands of species that have become extinct, they don't want to see pictures of forests mowed down or rivers turned toxic by pollutants.  President Barack Obama won the 2008 election on a message of hope - he surely hopes to do the same in 2012. 


Mitt Romney


Romney's equivalent to President Obama's Environment and Energy platform is titled, simply, Energy.

The tagline for Romney's page is "Energy: Pro-Jobs, Pro-Market, Pro-American"  and his platform focuses on the economic and industrial side of the energy issue.  The headers of Romney's energy platform are simply, "Obama's Failure" and "Mitt's Plan".

According to the Romney camp, "the first three years of the Obama administration have witnessed energy and environmental policies that have stifled the domestic energy sector.  In thrall to the environmentalist lobby and its dogmas, the President and the regulatory bodies under his control have taken measures to limit energy exploration and restrict development in ways that sap economic performance  curtail growth, and kill jobs" (Source: mittromney.com).

The Romney spin on the investments made into alternative energy is that "the Obama administration wages war against oil and coal, [and] it has been spending billions of dollars on alternative energy forms and touring its creation of "green" jobs...the "green" technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace".

Once finished the obligatory bashing of the other side, "Mitt's Plan" boils down to bulleted points under bolded goals of "Significant Regulatory Reform", "Increasing Production", and "Research and Development".

After reading his plan, Romney seems to be in the Cornucopian camp of environmentalists, and seems to have no thought that our planet is a finite resource.  If Obama's platform wanted to keep voters feeling warm and fuzzy about the American environmental future, Romney would rather his voters not even consider that we might have environmental issues.  He makes no mention of greenhouse gases, or climate change - barely even uses the word environment outside of his attack on Obama and in regard to ensuring environmental laws account for cost.

The Verdict

In truth, it would be hard for environmentalists in most camps to support either energy platform.  Neither candidate puts emphasis on the environmental challenges we face as a nation or global community, and neither candidate recognizes the stark immediacy of the degradation threat.

If Obama's platform is disappointing in its references to our actual environmental state, Romney's cornucopian, market liberalist platform is terrifying.  Under his "Significant Regulatory Reform" heading, he is planning to "Amend the Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview".

 Carbon emissions are, as I am coming to understand it, one of the most significant and alarming factors contributing to climate change.  The atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in parts per million that currently sits at 387ppm is warming that planet, and it is rising (Source: A Safe Operating Space for Humanity, 2009, Johan Rockstrom).  So far it seems that the "safe" proposed boundary to draw back down to is around 350ppm, though the pre-industrial number is 280ppm; that is, before humans were around, 280ppm was the planet's natural balance.

The planet is already above the proposed "safe" boundary, and Romney's planned removal of carbon dioxide from the Clean Air Act is certainly not going to slow down carbon dioxide emissions.

On November 6th, the American public will decide who leads them for the next four years.  If the planet earth were given a vote, I don't think she would pick either candidate.