Land Trust but Verify

Congressional investigation leaves fate of land trusts uncertain A recent congressional investigation into doings at The Nature Conservancy, the country’s...

Sustainable consumption

As usual, Joel Makower has got the good stuff. The Journal of Industrial Ecology that he points to is, in a word, fascinating. It's full of great articles, all tied together with the theme of "sustainable consumption."

I haven't had time (yet) to read all of the articles, but there is one that jumps out as a real jewel, Tim Jackson's piece, "Live Better by Consuming Less? Is There a Double Dividend in Sustainable Consumption?"

When it comes to sustainability, Jackson notes that

Purely technological approaches fall short of addressing the crucial dimension of human choice in implementing sustainable technologies and changing unsustainable consumption patterns.

With that, Jackson is off and running. I think he's absolutely right. We can have all the technology in the world to make living more and more efficient and low-impact. But it won't do any good if people don't use it.

The two elements of technology and choices, production and consumption, are intertwined, and I think that improvements have been made in both respects. For example:

• I would say that people have shifted values (choices) to place a very high value on order, or organization, or lack of entropy, or whatever term you'd like. Economically speaking, it is now possible to rack up huge amounts of GDP by sitting in front of a computer punching keys if you are doing it in a highly ordered way; society places a high value on, say, a flawless computer program or a sophisticated data model.


• Society also has evolved the infrastructure (technology) necessary for these endeavors to be sustainable; someone can now write the program without commuting at all even though her colleagues are half a world away. So in terms of the impact that someone actually needs to have in order to live, we are quite rapidly minimizing this impact to such an extent that we might be able to fit all 6 billion of us on this planet sustainably.

That may be overly optimistic, and there are reasons to believe that materialistic choices are somewhat necessary and ingrained in human nature, which Jackson discusses in depth. The article is extremely well-researched and just peppered with references.  I challenge anyone to get through it without being taken off on at least one tangent (one of my own tangents resulted in an addition to my list of books to read).

Update [2005-6-11 8:7:2 by Andy Brett]:
Some excellent further reading on the subject, with some surprising answers, courtesy of Jon Christensen:
"Are We Consuming Too Much?" from the Journal of Economic Perspectives, by Paul Ehrlich and others
"Are We Consuming Too Much?" by Jon Christensen

The first paper is somewhat technical, but very worth it. Christensen's article is less technical and has some valuable points about the role and value of "natural" systems such as wetlands.

Pat Burns writes on the uncertain fate of conservation easements and the millions of acres they prot

One of the developments I've been watching out of the corner of my eye, but not following very closely (or writing about), is the current kerfuffle over land trusts. It's an important issue, though. Land trusts protect an immense amount of land in the U.S., and their very existence has recently been in question.

Luckily, there's an excellent blog -- Nature Noted -- devoted entirely to land trusts. If you want to follow the unfolding developments, that's the place to go.

I invited its proprietor, Pat Burns, to join us here with a rundown on the issue, the recent developments, and what's at stake. His essay follows. (Thanks, Pat.)

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One of the most successful environmental movements of the last fifty years is about to change the way it does business. And if it doesn't do it on its own, the government will step in and force it to change.

That's the headline on the recent investigation of the nation's land trusts by the Senate Finance Committee.

Wednesday, the Finance Committee held hearings ostensibly aimed at tightening the tax code on the use of conservation easements, which have become a prime tool in conserving land from development. It's also become a prime tool for evading taxes. The Finance Committee began its investigation three years ago after a series of embarrassing articles in the Washington Post about the practices of the country's biggest trust, The Nature Conservancy.

The staff released the results of its investigation Tuesday, outlining a series of abuses by TNC, including:

Bush dodges question about whether climate change is caused by humans

After making kissy-face in front of the press corps at the White House today, Bush and Blair took a couple of questions. One reporter asked Bush whether he believes global warming is an anthropogenic problem (without using any big words, of course):

And, Mr. President, if I may, as well, on climate change -- you didn't talk about climate change -- do you believe that climate change is manmade and that you, personally, as the leader of the richest country in the world, have a responsibility to reverse that change?

Naturally, Bush dodged the causation issue:

In terms of climate change, I've always said it's a serious long-term issue that needs to be dealt with. And my administration isn't waiting around to deal with the issue, we're acting. I don't know if you're aware of this, but we lead the world when it comes to dollars spent, millions of dollars spent on research about climate change. We want to know more about it. It's easier to solve a problem when you know a lot about it. And if you look at the statistics, you'll find the United States has taken the lead on this research.

[More blather ensued; check it out in the transcript, if you're the masochistic sort.]

As it turns out, even as Bush was bragging about the millions the feds are spending on climate-change research, The New York Times was posting an article by Andy Revkin alleging that the administration is doctoring that very same research to jive with the oil industry's preferred version of the "science":

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

Wouldn't want those millions of taxpayer dollars to result in any too firm conclusions, now would we?

Kenneth Deffeyes’ Beyond Oil forecasts a fast-approaching petroleum peak

Mark your calendar: annual world production of crude oil will reach its peak this coming Thanksgiving, Nov. 24. At least, that's the tongue-half-in-cheek prediction of Kenneth Deffeyes, who starts his latest book by suggesting that readers stop and give thanks for a century of plentiful supplies.

New diesel design inspired by tropical fish.

German carmaker DaimlerChrysler will today officially unveil a prototype of a new diesel vehicle that it says will meet more stringent pollution-control requirements and get higher mileage. The concept car uses lighter materials and an aerodynamic design that allows it to get about 70 miles to the gallon. Although the company has not yet decided whether it will mass-produce this prototype, the diesel technology will be incorporated into future models to help meet federal emissions standards that will come into force in 2007.

Interestingly, the inspiration for the design came from the boxfish, a variety of tropical fish, and the result (with its sleek lines and boxy rear) is strikingly similar. Maybe it's just me, but the boxfish doesn't look like it'd be particularly speedy. It does, however, make for a very cute car.

There’s No Place Like Foam

“Coffee-cup home” showcases wood-free construction Nancy Hall was looking for a forest-neutral way to construct a house on her 20...

Eric Britton, sustainable-development booster, answers questions

Eric Britton. What work do you do? I earn my living and pay the rent as an international adviser, consultant,...

Why can’t we change our oil-sucking land-use preferences?

The other day I expressed disappointment at Kevin Drum's fifth peak oil post -- the one where he lays out his recommendations for oil policy. In my inimitably oblique and unfocused way, I was simply trying to say that I wish he'd been more imaginative.

If nothing else, peak oil is going to be a major inflection point in our collective history. It's a sharp turn in the road, and we can't see clearly around the bend. The stakes are huge, and call for a commensurate greatness of mind and expansiveness of thought.

What Drum did is basically gather the conventional wisdom in one place, without considering at all the myriad ways that the CW might be constricted and warped by the vested interests of society's current power brokers. Nor did he deign to consider things that might seem, in the current sociopolitical scene, impossible, or at least out on the fringe.

One example: U.S. suburbia, as Kunstler never tires of telling us, is built on cheap oil. It takes lots of oil to transport goods around the world to a Wal-Mart, and lots of oil for suburbanites to drive back and forth to it bazillions of times. The dominant land-use paradigm in this country is oil-sucking. If oil's running out, it's got to change, right?

Drum doesn't bother to mention the many innovative thinkers out there pondering how we can make cities greener and more attractive (the very subject of World Environment Day). He doesn't consider how we might refashion our remaining farm land and open spaces in more ecologically friendly fashion. He doesn't consider how we might encourage people to buy locally grown food and locally made goods.

Instead, we get this extraordinarily banal post on why people don't like mixed-use developments. (See also the Atrios post that preceded it and the Jim Henley post responding to it.)

It's late, so I'll just make two brief points: