If Not You, Who?

Punahou Bulletin > Winter 2006   filed May 22, 2012

If Not You, Who?

By Paul "Doc" Berry

What makes Hawai‘i paradise? Perhaps it’s time to answer that question, to examine where we are, and where we appear to be headed. Then add more questions: What will it take to move you toward sustainable living? $7 per gallon gasoline? No gasoline at all? Beaches closed or simply gone? Not enough food? How much of paradise can we lose before it no longer feels like Hawai‘i?

Somewhere along the way, we crossed the line from a largely self-sufficient society on islands far at sea to a high-end consumer society heavily reliant on distant resources. Most of the goods we rely on – food, energy, medicines – all come from overseas. And so do our visitors, the core of our economy. 

In some ways, Hawaii’s residents are like the cargo cult natives in Papua, New Guinea. When U.S. military began bringing consumer goods into the New Guinea jungle during WWII, people assumed that if they just imitated the soldiers, the same cargo god would bring them the same goods. They still believe, and they’re still waiting. 

In our case, we assume that enough visitors will continue to come to Hawai‘i, and more, that they will leave us enough dollars and yen to lure Matson steamers around Diamond Head with our groceries and goods – our “cargo.” That we don’t have enough food or energy or other goods to sustain ourselves without deliveries from overseas rarely crosses our minds. We feel entitled to what the cargo god provides, and that makes sustainability difficult to grasp. 

Despite our cargo-cult beliefs, however, we remain vulnerable to global changes that we cannot control: a shipping strike, a global recession, an epidemic shutting down visitor traffic, and on another scale, changes brought by global warming and climate change. Climate scientists have determined that a one-meter rise in sea level equates with the sea moving inland 1,550 yards. Notably, they say this rise is doubling in speed. 

Imagine Hawaii’s major airports and docks awash, think of Waikiki and downtown Honolulu flooded, then wonder why we denied the possibility. How could we ignore the early signs and fail to cut local greenhouse gas emissions drastically, or fail to begin moving now toward sustainability? 

A new State Task Force on Sustainability (www.hawaii2050.org) is developing a state plan with the hope of moving us in the right direction, but they must work with the community to make the picture of sustainability possible. Hawai‘i State Legislators Russell Kokubun ’66, Lyla Berg ’69, Laura Thielen ’79, Fred Hemmings ’65, and Bill Kaneko ’78, President and CEO of Hawai‘i Institute for Public Affairs, among others, are leading the way.

Plan as we may, however, unexpected consequences always outnumber the expected ones. Sustainability will require creative thinking and a willingness to adapt to surprises. 

After all, I believe the alternative to sustainability is a Hawai‘i in denial, one stumbling through painful losses of what makes this place paradise. Denial or delay won’t change our present course. 

So if not you, if not me, then who will make Hawai‘i sustainable?

Where As-Is Growth Leads

Population Density
We have 79.6 people per square mile (psm) nationally, 188.6 psm in Hawai‘i, and 1,460 psm on O‘ahu, creating a population density more than 18 times that of the continental U.S. 

Population Growth
Population of Hawai‘i in 2005:  1,275.194. Projecting growth at roughly one percent per year means that the population will double in 72 years to 2,550,000 residents or 1.8 million residents on O‘ahu alone. 

Doubling the population means: doubling the sewer capacity, sewage, and trash; doubling the traffic and energy demand; doubling the number of residences and land area covered by housing. Doubling would mean 2,920 people per square mile. We already anticipate reaching maximum daily water yield on O‘ahu between 2018 and 2022.

Growth in Tourism
Tourism in 2005 grew 6.8 percent to 7.49 million visitors. At this growth rate, tourism numbers would double in 11 years to 15 million by 2017, requiring doubling the hotel room capacity, rental cars, etc.

Human Consumption
Humans presently consume at a rate requiring 5.6 acres of natural resources per person. Americans, however, consume natural resources at 23.7 acres per person. That's you and me. With 6.5 billion people, the world population is presently consuming the natural resources of 1.2 worlds.

In 2030, when this year's high school graduates turn 40, will tourists still visit O‘ahu? Will you still want to live here? 

To participate in the Hawai‘i State Task Force on Sustainability planning process, go to www.hawaii2050.org.

Resources and Reading for Sustainability

BOOKS

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
A revolutionary blueprint for a new sustainable economy. A companion video of the same title. Authoritative and practical.

Plan B 4.0:
By Lester R. Brown
A superb, extraordinarily readable book looking at our basic sustainability problems and practical changes we can make to deal with them. Must reading. Chapters of this book are available in PDF at earth-policy.org.

Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
By Lester R. Brown
Books and updated  chapters available at www.earth-policy.org

WEB SITES

For those interested in joining local efforts on sustainability, check out Sustain Hawaii at www.sustainhawaii.org

Earth Policy Institute at www.earth-policy.org
You'll find up-to-date, authoritative, readable articles on a wide range of global sustainability issues, from population and water scarcity to global warming and other issues and data.

Rocky Mountain Institute at www.rmi.org
A think tank/consulting business focused on sustainability and ingenious conservation approaches. You'll also find books on energy-efficient green buildings, distributed alternative energy sources, sustainable building, reducing business and community energy uses, and lowering carbon emissions for profit.

Worldwatch at www.worldwatch.org
Lots of up-to-date, valuable information on sustainability issues such as energy, economics, food security, fisheries, transportation, and health.

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Paul “Doc” Berry writes books and documentary films. Chapters from his 1993 book, In The Wake of Dreams: Reflections of Hawai‘i, became editorial pieces in the Sunday Honolulu Advertiser, initiating a community discussion on sustainability issues. Berry is a former Punahou teacher and is presently working on sustainability education and collaborating on a book exploring the consequences of globalization.

Population:Think About It

Population,  Thinking About It.   May, 2012

Global population reaching 7 Billion . . .

Hawaii Hawaii visitor officials talking about adding 5 million Chinese visitors atop our present 7.2 million annual visitors . . .

The 2010 latest census telling us we’re growing 12.3% per decade, that is from 632,772 in 1960(statehood) and 240,000 visitors  to 1.32 million of us ni 2010, and over 7 million visitors, i.e., a visitor population of 150,000 any given day).

Are we headed toward doubling to 2.64 million of us in less than 60 years……….and 14  million visitors?

Oahu’s 2010  population at 953,207 up 8.8% since 2,000—

population density at 1468 people per square mile on Oahu

U.S, population density 88 per square mile: Oahu 16 times more densely populated

Consumer Price Index in Hawaii 166.4  versus 100 nationally

Hawaii electricity costs 35+ cents kwh versus nationally 9.8 cents.

Higher food, housing, and gasoline  food prices.

Oahu residents consume about 150 gallons of water per day.

We add roughly 20,000 cars a year statewide, roughly 75% of those on Oahu, i.e., 15,000/year, or 150,000 more cars every ten years

to the same constant miles of road.

We have over a million cars on Hawaii’s 1,102 lane-miles of roads, the fewest miles of road per car in the U.S. Oahu has 761 vehicles per 1,000 population.  1.5 miles of  roadway per person.

Honolulu Bus ridership has declined from 180,000 in 1980 to 130,000 in 2009.

6,000 homeless in Hawaii, and 10% of us, or 135,000,  receive food assistance. Homelessness has increased 61% since 2000.

Drug convictions are 51.4% of all criminal convictions.

Oahu infrastructure, 350 water line breaks in 2011 mean $2.5 billion in repairs, plus $4.7 billion for sewers and sewage treatment facilities, plus road repairs NOT TO MENTION RAIL @ $7+ BILLION

Honolulu Debt appears to be far outgrowing the population that can pay for it.

Pearl Harbor aquifer, source of 60% of Honolulu’s drinking water, measures at half the volume it had a century ago. We consume 150 gals of water apiece per day and rely heavily on water overseas to produce our imported food. Meteorologists tell us that Hawaii is in a long term drought.

92% of our food is imported. About 92% of energy  is imported.

Beaches in Hawaii now erode at 6 inches per year, and erosion is speeding up. Sea level rise is at this point predicted conservatively to raise seas by 3 feet by 2100, invading the fresh water lens under the island and inundating low lying areas as much as half a mile inland -- including Honolulu airport, the Sand Island Sewage treatment plant, parts of downtown, Iwilei, and all coastal roads, plus most of Kailua and Waikiki.

GLOBAL FIGURES

1500:  earth's population is estimated at 500 million

 2011: 7,000,000,000

In my lifetime I’ve seen the world population roughly triple, add roughly 4.8 billion people

Births minus deaths.

Roughly 250 births a minute worldwide, and about 105 people dying each minute.  You and I are part of huge species-wide ebb and flow.

With 50% more people than the U.,S. has (EU 457,000,000  vs. US. 309,0000,000 )   the EU’s birth rate is 8.69 per minute, versus the U.S. at 8.07 births per minute, i.e.,U.S. HAS A  40% higher birth rate

In the EU the death rate exceeds the birth rate. Hence Western Europe is at Zero Population Growth.

UN Dept of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division

Source    http://esa.un.org/wpp/Sorting-Tables/tab-sorting_population.htm

U.S. average age 36.9 versus globally 28

Population Change  Source U.S.A Population Clock

       World           United States      European Union

Births/year 129,886,900.00  4,242,000.00        4,570,000.00

Per Minute      252                        8.07                   8.69

                        World           United States    European Union

Deaths/year 56,595,880.00  2,475,000.00    4,615,700.00

Per Minute        107                  4.71                     8.78

Annual Increase 73,291,000    1,767,000           -45,700  

Per minute   “           145                3.36               -0.09

Population in 2006 6,446,000,000 300,000,000 457,000,000

Global population hit 7 billion at 11:27PM Sunday Oct.30, 2011, Halloween Eve.

And Hawaii ?                         Hawaii                                      US

2010 Census  population 1,360,301                                 308,745,538

Hawaii 

Population, 1960     1970      1980        1990         2000             2010

      Total 632,772  7 69,913  964,691 1,108,229 1,211,537    1,360,301

Change                 137,141    194,778  143,538    103,308        148,764

 Percent Change  21.67%      25.30%  14.88%       9.32%             12.3%


So where do you think this pattern leads for Hawaii?
impact of global warming and sea level rise
land use
water availability & use, including global droughts
waste disposal and sewer requirements
energy demands and costs
roads and traffic
farm production and 8%  food self-sufficiency 
health  care availability
businesses, the visitor industry in particular   
statewide security and way of life in a shipping strike or natural disaster

Water For Thought

http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2012/03/water-for-thought/

Water for Thought

by Paul “Doc” Berry | Mar 28, 2012

Supplies of drinking water are dwindling worldwide, but in our remote island state, water security is particularly crucial. The Legislature is being asked to fund the governor’s new plan to protect watersheds--the sources of our drinking water. If our reps turn him down, we face a thirsty future.

Hawaii’s waters of life, ka wai ola, are the very essence of life and culture in Hawaii, what we survive on and must pass along as a sustainable legacy. In the lyrics to “Aloha Oe,” Queen Liliuokalani tells of the rain falling onto the blossoms of native ohia trees in Hawaii’s mountain forests. Wai– fresh water– has always been sacred to the Hawaiians, as it was to the Greeks, another island people who worshipped springs. In our rush to development, we’ve imperiled this resource that’s essential to all species’ survival, from our own to the ‘iiwi bird that feeds on the nectar of ‘ohia. We’ve done so by failing to adequately conserve our natural watersheds, the mountain forests that collect and filter the water we drink.

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In tight budget times for Hawaii, some might challenge the timing of a watershed initiative that will run millions of dollars a year. The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) counters that our future is at stake. “We need to be incorporating into our thinking Hawaii’s water needs 50 years from now,” says William Tam, deputy director of the Commission on Water Resource Management. Besides, some key funding for the watershed protection plan may come from a 10-cent surcharge on single-use bags at retail stores. This new revenue source is provided for in SB2511, which, along with SB2782 (authorizing funding for DLNR’s watershed programs), has passed the Senate and is now pending in the House. Right now is the crucial time “to let our legislators know that we support watershed protection and these bills, because each bill only has one more public hearing to go–before the House Finance Committee,” says Mark Fox, director of external affairs for the Hawaii chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

Why the urgency? Our fresh water supply is declining, according to the DLNR’s The Rain Follows the Forest plan, which adds: “If this trend continues, future generations will not have access to water at reasonable rates, and may face tight restrictions.”

Retired state forester Mike Buck puts it bluntly: “Our watersheds are arriving at a tipping point with water the source on which our lives depend.”

Here are some of the supporting facts:

In December 2011, the US Geological Survey (USGS) announced that Hawaii is in a long-term drought, “severe” and even “extreme” in some parts of the state.

Half of Hawaii’s prime watershed forests are gone, and of the 840,000 acres remaining, only 10 percent are now well-protected from serious assaults by invasive species, DLNR’s plan reports.

Hawaii’s thirsty population is now more than double that at statehood, and set to double again in another 60 or so years.

Climate change and sea level rise threaten our aquifers with saltwater encroachment, and there are questions about the sustainable yield in some aquifers.

Our heavy reliance on global food sources puts us at serious risk.

Interconnectedness

You and I are roughly 60 percent water, by both volume and weight. The human brain is 70 percent water, so here is some water for thought.

As Gov. Neil Abercrombie put it in announcing the plan, “The best time to start protecting our mauka watersheds was decades ago. The second best time is now.” The governor added, “Investing in the protection of fresh water sources must be the highest priority for Hawaii’s public leaders.” Emphasis: “highest priority.”

Growing our own

^“We need a comprehensive planning system that incorporates protecting watersheds and water sources, stimulating far more local farming, smart growth linked to transportation and more clean energy. Water links all of these,” says Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz.

According to a new Ulupono Initiative survey on local food production, more than 90 percent of Hawaii residents see growing far more of our own food as either “Extremely Important” or “Important.” Similar surveys show voters supporting more watershed protection just as heavily. Without secure water sources, local diversified agriculture can’t expand to provide better food security. With a bill on food self-sufficiency currently making its way through the House, the legislature has yet another opportunity to contribute to food security–by funding water security through SBs 2511 and 2782.

For 1.36 million Hawaii residents plus 150,000 daily tourists, 92 percent of everything we eat is imported. Aside from macadamia nuts, according to farmer Charles Reppun, we plant only 5,000 acres of diversified agriculture to produce food for local consumption. But Hawaii grows some 15,000 acres of genetically engineered seed corn, all for export. Other sources say we have at most seven days of food available should a disastrous earthquake, a tsunami or a shipping strike stop our regular food imports.

Our 92 percent imported food (plus nearly 100 percent imported energy) represents a disaster waiting to happen. Heavy reliance on imported food means that, in effect, we also import the water it takes to grow that food, water from national and world sources now undergoing dramatic changes via global warming.

Do we have the water needed to grow most of our food? Only Maui and Oahu presently face questions of water scarcity. Islanders use somewhere between 100 and 200 gallons of water apiece daily, with our recent per-capita water consumption declining slightly. On the other hand, rising population, increases in visitors, climate change and sea level rise, a long-term serious drought, and a siege of invasive species threatening our watersheds create a kind of perfect storm of risks.

Bread and water

About half the calories humans consume globally come directly from grain, with grain-fed meat and egg products a significant part of remaining calories. The world adds 76 million more people a year, the equivalent of Hawaii’s population every 6.5 days. With seven billion of us now scrambling after the same water and food resources, scientists tell us we already consume as if we had 1.5 worlds to draw on. Some 3.5 billion people live in 18 countries that are seriously overdrawing their aquifers, countries that include the US, Mexico, China and India. Huge new deserts are forming in Northern China and Africa. The race between available global water and food versus global population has long since set off alarms Hawaii needs to heed.

Alexander Mueller, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) director general of natural resources, projects that by 2050 food demand and water use will both soar by 70 percent. Mueller is signaling us that the era of cheap food is ending, and that without what he calls “more crop per drop,” serious water scarcity will likely become the norm. Seventy percent of freshwater allocations globally already go to farmland irrigation, and swelling megacities compete for that water.

According to water analyst Peter Gleick, testifying before Congress, “Climate changes are increasingly threatening water systems and water resources everywhere,” an opinion supported by more than 60 top international scientific organizations. Gleick goes on to cite a critical challenge in “inadequate investment in critical water infrastructure,” i.e., watershed protection.

Amid this challenging, waterlogged scenario, Gleick reminds us that it takes 1,000 tons of water to grow one ton of wheat, a gallon of water to grow the wheat for a slice of bread, 150 gallons to produce a 1/3-pound hamburger and about 70 gallons to produce a glass of beer.

Lester Brown in World on the Edge puts it succinctly, “We are one bad harvest away from chaos in world food markets,” those same markets which you and I expect to feed us.

Hawaii rainforests need more protection

All this global gloom obviously argues for a comprehensive effort to grow far more food here for local consumption, something ancient Hawaiians mastered with their ahupuaa system and comprehensive approach to protecting water resources.

Gov. Abercrombie, DLNR water officials, plus 11 existing watershed partnerships and important contributors, such as TNC and Coordinating Group for Alien Pest Species (CGAPS), all advocate doubling our rainforest watershed protection.

As US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently reminded us, on a national scale, one out of 12 jobs relates to farming. Hawaii, however, has a meager 7,500 people employed in farming. Hawaii needs these jobs as much as we need locally grown food and farm income circulating in the islands.

On the water delivery side, Honolulu’s Board of Water supply just announced a major initiative to repair and replace aged water pipes. Honolulu water prices will rise 70 percent in the next five years.

The silent invasion

Currently, 11 watershed partnerships effectively protect only 10 percent of the priority watershed areas, about 90,000 out of 840,000 mauka acres. This level of partnership management has taken 40 years to develop. In The Rain Follows plan, DLNR has set a goal of doubling the area of protected watershed areas in just 10 years. Invasive feral pigs and goats, plus deer, feral cattle, and a few feral sheep ravage our watersheds. Feral pigs reproduce as early as age 6 months; one pig can multiply to as many as 500 in four years. These ungulates devastate indigenous plant species, creating puddles that harbor avian mosquitoes and spreading non-native strawberry guavas. A feral pig can devastate a forest area the size of a football field in a week.

According to Christy Martin of CGAPS, 200 invasive plants pose serious threats to the balance of watershed forests. “In the long run, how effectively we deal with these invasive species holds a key to our future,” Martin says. Invaders include:

Salvinia molesta, a South American water fern which can double its mat in 7 to 10 days. Control and eradication costs, $1 million a year.

Miconia calvescens, a 30-50 foot tree producing millions of sand-grain-sized seeds per year, eliminating other plants and keeping the water from reaching the rain forest floor to recharge the watershed. Cost, $3 million a year and growing.

Coqui frogs, whose sound can reach 90 decibels, and concentration can reach up to 10,000 per acre. Moreover, they don’t eat mosquitoes.

Strawberry Guavas, which grow to 15 feet and now engulf 495,000 acres, causing serious losses of rare endemic flora and fauna, as well as consuming water that never reaches the rest of the ecosystem. Feral pigs spread the guavas.

Total annual Hawaii losses to invasive species are estimated at $300 million, not counting the loss of water in island aquifers.

Inspecting cargo flights to Maui, Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture found an average of one new insect species arriving per day. Grossly underfunded inspection and prevention measures mean higher watershed protection costs.

Hawaiian watershed wisdom

Sam ‘Ohu Gon III, senior rainforest scientist and cultural advisor for TNC Hawaii, says, “Our forests are in danger of losing the natural balance that supplies us our water.” In The Rain Follows plan, he adds, “Hawaiian traditions regard these mauka forests as sacred, and the plants and the animals within them as our ‘aumakua–our elders and ancestors. Damage and loss of these forests chips away at the foundation of our cultural identity.”

Hawaiian cultural analyst and practitioner Ramsay Taum adds an important perspective, “wai, fresh water, carries within it the word for food, ‘ai. All living things, mankind, plants, animals, are connected by the waters of life. Waiwai refers to wealth of any kind, to high value, and kanawai means the law, rules requiring respect.”

Today, some 71 county, state, federal, private and non-profit entities such as Kamehameha Schools and TNC collaborate in partnerships to manage jointly owned island watersheds. Historically, a single konohiki managed land and resource use in each ahupua’a, a watershed management area defined by geographic features from mountain tops to the sea.

In the Hawaii Watershed Guidance Final, the Hawaii Office of Planning Coastal Zone Management adds: “Traditional Hawaiian management adopted a holistic approach that recognized the interconnectedness of land and sea, the interactions among species, the rhythms of the seasons, and the impacts of overuse on resources.”

It is these traditionally sustained interconnections, from the clouds to the mountaintops, through the aquifers and down the streams through our buildings and farms to the sea that we need to retrace and fortify along with our ties as neighbors sharing wai.

Watershed Management Tactics

The loss of interdependent native rainforest plants can put an entire area ecosystem’s survival at risk. Beyond fencing out feral animals and hunters, and reducing pigs and other feral ungulates, watershed management experts have gone high-tech, employing helicopters with aerial paintball guns that can deliver herbicide to a specific plant. Moreover, as tested by TNC Kauai Director Trae Menard, new high-resolution cameras can provide aerial maps with details specifying exactly which plants require removal.

As The Nature Conservancy’s Mark Fox recounts, priorities dictate first steps:

1. Add fencing to keep feral animals out, and reduce feral animal numbers significantly;

2. Remove invasive weeds–miconia, strawberry guavas, etc.–and prevent new invasives;

3. Monitor/control other threats–diseases, predators, fire;

4. Restore and plant native species in priority areas;

5. Establish benchmarks and monitor success;

6. Educate Hawaii residents

7. Promote land-use decision-making protecting watersheds

8. Allocate priorities to native wet and semi-wet forest moisture zones according to land cover type.

What can you do to foster DLNR’s watershed protection plan?

1. Download and read The Rain Follows the Forest plan. [hawaii.gov]

2. Contact your state representative and senator to advocate funding Rain Follows. To track watershed funding bills and committee hearings, go to [capitol.hawaii.gov] and under Bill Status, type in SB2511, SB 2782, or HB2703 (the food self-sufficiency bill). Read the bill, then submit your testimony, live or by email. “Write, email or telephone members of the Finance Committee telling them you support these watershed protection bills and encourage them to hear them,” says TNC’s Mark Fox. [Capitol.hawaii.gov]; chair, Rep. Marcus R. Oshiro, [email: repmoshiro]

3. Support local farmers by buying local and urging the state’s Agriculture Development Corp. to increase incentives for more local farming. Support HB9 advocating more funding for food security and HB156 preserving agricultural lands.

Watershed saving partnerships

These private/public, non-profit watershed partnership collaborations allow those who know the land best to develop the most effective remedies for the unique problems each watershed faces. As such, the 11 partnerships offer a unique model of tactical, localized land and water governance.

For example, the East Molokai Watershed Partnership includes 15 different state, county, federal, private and non-profit partners including Kalaupapa Historical National Park, Kamehameha Schools, and TNC. On Oahu, the Koolau Mountains Watershed Partnership has 15 partners ranging from the Oahu Country Club and Bishop Museum to the U.S. Army, TNC and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Benefits of these partnerships include economies of scale in planning, fence building, feral animal and invasive plant removal, and efficient uses of resources and staff–results dedicated funding can generate. Hawaii’s watershed partnerships include:

1. Kauai Watershed Alliance–25,000 acres

2. Waianae Mountains Watershed Partnership–undetermined

3. Koolau Mountains Watershed Partnership–9,000 acres

4. East Molokai Watershed Partnership–25,000 acres

5. Lanai Forest and Watershed Partnership–3,100 acres, 17.5 miles of fence

6. West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership–21,000 acres plus new 10,100 acres

7. Leeward Haleakala Watershed Restoration Partnership–11,000 acres

8. East Maui Watershed Partnership–3,500 acres

9. Kohala Watershed Partnership–6,600 acres

10. Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance–512 acres

11. Three Mountain Alliance Kau/South Point–12,000 acres

Present funding for Hawaii’s 11 partnerships is an inadequate $1.25 million.

Absence makes the mind wander

This blog has sat dormant for three years, with no readers. How fortunate no one wasted time reading what I'd written.

Doc Berry

Learning from the Collapse of Chesapeake Bay

The news in late 2008 cites the impending collapse of Chesapeake Bay after a generation of unworkable, non-binding agreements.
After 25 years Bay authorities now call for:
* Changing development patterns to reduce sprawl.
* Reducing agricultural pollutants.
* Improving fishery management to improve bay health.
* Requiring pollution reduction on a river-by-river basis.
* Reducing individual pollution loads.
But they wonder where they will find the funds.

Just when the environment reaches the tipping point, we wonder if we can afford to help it survive. Ironically, as Jared diamond points out repeatedly in Collapse, without a healthy, functioning environment, no economy survives.
The D.C/Baltimore/Virginia watershed has over 5 million inhabitants, plus the effluent from industrial sized pig farms (an apt metaphor for some of the behaviors in D.C.) .

Western industrial society is self-destructive in ways Marx failed to observe, but ways fortunately that Paul Ehrlich has identified for us, and Jared Diamond has adroitly chronicled. The total weight and diverse forms of toxic pollution from that disperse from that large and technologically reliant a population reshape everything in the environment. How far they reshape nature we continue to discover.
The consequences of 5 million people polluting a watershed have been predictable from Rachel Carson onward. Actually predictable from Semmelweis onward, as Semmelweis may be the original observer of how toxic pollution disseminates and what must be done to limit it.

In a political analogue, consider the rule of law as the environment that makes possible the function of a democratic government, the underlying necessity on which government relies. .
Then consider how blind we will be (how blind in fact Nancy Pelosi has been) to ignore the need to prosecute the breaches of the law and the constitution by Republican public officials sworn to uphold the laws and the constitution. Congressional Democrats have argued the pragmatism of passing needed legislation instead of dealing with the collapse of the rule of law under W. Two years after recapturing their Congressional power, Democrats have little to show for having been in power. They fail to observe that like Chesapeake Bay, what is necessary for survival, the rule of law, has eroded and risks collapse, perhaps passing a critical tipping point.

The precautionary principle has to operate in democratic politics the way it is supposed to operate in science. Otherwise we should not expect a functioning democracy to survive. The history of democracy shows it always in danger of collapsing into autocracy combined with chaos. So we are rowing against the current, but row we must. Like the environment, democracy has tipping points that must be observed.

And in passing, it appears that a non-binding agreement turns out to be an oxymoron, a euphemism for no agreement at all.

Should We Bail Out the Big Three Autos?

The auto bailout probably should include public hangings of the CEO's and board chairs of all the Big Three.
Imagine the TV viewing and ad revenues; part of the latter could be used to bail out the firms.

No one is discussing that:
A. a Big Three bailout won't get buyers to buy cars in a depression with no loans available;U.S. sales will drop to 10+ million cars or fewer from 17 million. Why assume that we need 17 million new cars a year? What does that mean for global warming?
B. It takes three years for the Big Three firms to produce model changes, better mileage, electric cars running on solar energy, etc. Ironically Ford has a 40 mpg car in the Fiesta due out in 2010, but they are still headed for bankruptcy.
C. the Big Three are transnational corporations owned around the world, with stock selling and held around the world. Buicks are made in China. Must we bail out a Chinese-based luxury auto manufacturer? Why do U.S. taxpayers still consider these as American car companies? Ford owns part of Mazda. Do we bail out Mazda workers in Canada and Mexico?
D. in a global economy, the bail out of foreign GM/Ford/Daimler workers in Germany, etc., creates a whole new model for a U.S. global socialism -- government funds borrowed from China, invested partly in domestic jobs, partly in overseas jobs. Clearly the Chinese sovereign wealth fund is not investing in GM, but we would with Chinese money on bonds we would issue.
E. the business models of these auto companies are manifest failures and not amenable to "restructuring".
F. we ought instead to invest in auto companies that are not asking for bailouts --Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, all with factories and some suppliers in this country. Increase their sales and jobs.
H. government has no idea how to run or regulate auto firms, much less to determine what equity at what risk taxpayers will receive for their investment.
I. No one is talking about the huge federal debt service an auto bailout will require, and how much more in bailout funds will be sought as the firms inevitably go bankrupt and the first $25 billion vanishes into the auto sinkhole.
J. Bankruptcy allows companies to deal with their creditors under court conditions transparent to all.
K. Will the Big Three Autos continue to spend money on professional car racing, i.e., put taxpayers in the role of subsidizing a gigantic waste of gasoline, pit crews, and multiple car crashes described as a sport?
L. Car companies have gone out business since cars began selling. Where are Studebaker, Packard? As car companies move further into oligopoly, quailty descends, prices rise, competitive advantage ebbs, and taxpayers become at risk for a too-big-to-fail bailout socializing the costs of private enterprise mistakes. Why not have the FTC stop oligopolies long before we reach that stage?
M. Re: private investments, the U.S. government needs to look for the best long term return financially and socially. Allowing bankruptcy in the Big Three would free workers to produce something else better designed and more useful -- windmills, solar panels, bicycles, buses running on hydrogen, an improved national electrical grid -- with a few remaining at work on the GM Volt , which promises 100 mpg in two years.

What is your solution to the great American auto crisis?

The Basketball of Politics

Wa have a new president who plays pickup basketball games, the first in history to bring what players call round ball to the White House. His partner Biden confines his sport to riding the train and trying to rid pro sports of anabolic steroids. The just exiting occupants are a runner and an old man who goes fishing, and shoot birds and an occasional friend .

Threw him a curveball, slam dunk, third and long -- sports metaphors have a major place in the American lexicon, but we need to delve into the argot and practices of pickup basketball if we want to understand the man who becomes president January 20, 2009.

In a pickup b-ball game, players have no referees, so everyone is expected to call his own fouls, i.e., if you foul someone, you have to call it on yourself. Now try to imagine an American politics where players call fouls on themselves, where John McCain says, "Wait, Barrack, my foul when I said you were a Marxist who hung around with terrorists. Stop, I admit I screwed up, rewind, take the ball out of bounds, and lets get the game going again."

Try to imagine a game where everyone understands the limits of bad behavior, and everyone abides by an unspoken gentleman's agreement to knock it off. Pickup basketball is a collaboration, and we should expect our roundball playing president to understand the value of playing with the best guys he can find on his side, to respect the talents of his opposition, and even when it costs him an advantage, to call his own fouls. Imagine that. Nov. 10, 2008