For Better Or Worse
Several weeks ago my old friend Marc Rosenbaum 
arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. He often arrives on Martha’s Vineyard. For 20 years this distinguished, nationally recognized building performance engineer has been arriving here to consult with us – to help us make better buildings. For 30 years he has been responsible for some of the most advanced buildings in New England.
When he arrived here last Tuesday, it was different than most times. First of all, his partner Jill DeLaHunt was with him. Second, her dog Leela was with him. Third – they had a big U-Haul truck with them, and inside were most of their belongings (including their nine bicycles, 
but not including the bicycle he built in 1974 as his senior thesis in engineering at MIT. At the time, it was the world’s lightest bicycle, at 12 pounds – today, it hangs in the MIT museum).
Finally, it was different because it has now been more than three weeks and he hasn’t left yet! That’s because, for better or worse, Marc and Jill have moved here, and Marc is joining forces with SMC, and will be running our Energy Services department (as well as continuing, part-time, through South Mountain to satisfy the needs of his clients throughout New England). We are thrilled to be able to add his expertise and wealth of experience to our own, and to offer his services to island (and off-island) residents, businesses, and towns. He and Jill are also neighbors; they live four houses down from us here at Island Cohousing.
This is an important development for our company. It expands what we able to do in the realm of energy and building performance and it sharpens and refines our abilities. Not only does Marc bring an incisive mind and a tremendous range of knowledge and experience, but he also brings a fierce sense of purpose, an intensely focused moral compass, a profound dedication to professionalism, and a remarkable spirit of deep inquiry.
Marc enhances our connections to the world of building science, which is changing at breakneck speed. We are rapidly learning much that we never knew before. Recently Alex Wilson of Environmental Building News (quite simply THE most thorough and impeccable source of information for the green building industry) reported that a Canadian researcher discovered that the blowing agents used to make a familiar insulation product (extruded polystyrene [XPS], which people in the building industry know as the blue rigid board Styrofoam, made by Dow Chemical, and the pink rigid board Foamular, made by Owens Corning) gradually seeps from the board over its lifetime and is a powerful contributor to global warming. Depending on thickness used and climate zone, insulating with these materials might take 40+ years of energy savings to “payback” the global warming potential. Our zero energy homes, therefore (if they use these common materials) may, in fact, use no energy, but they may at the same time have a large carbon footprint!
That’s big news; it’s hardly what we’re after.
New information like this is coming all the time. But there is also a ton of green building mis-information floating around out there. Often, the nuances and subtleties and variables make it impossible to know what’s right and what’s not, what will work long term and what won’t, what makes the most sense, what might cause problems, what needs monitoring over time, what requires experimentation.
When we get reliable new information we must change our practices. Marc helps us figure out what’s what because he keeps up with new developments, because he understands the engineering and the science, because he knows who and what are reliable sources of information, and because he knows who to talk to when he doesn’t know (and, just as important, he KNOWS when he doesn’t know – - and, of course, sometimes NOBODY knows).
Marc is constantly examining our practices. He’s an insurance policy against big mistakes. He’s a creative force in pursuit of better buildings. He’s also a superb educator, and has been responsible for explaining complex building performance information (and making it understandable without dumbing it down) to thousands of New England building professionals, helping them to improve their practices.
But he’s a stickler, too. He’s fussy. He doesn’t let anything go and he makes damn sure we get away with nothing. That’s good for us, good for our clients, good for our community.
But it’s not easy.
He’s not easy.
His arrival is the culmination of a year of planning. It’s very exciting. But it’s one of those things – sometimes you get what you wish for.
For better or worse.
MORE THAN A GASH IN THE KNEE
As the Gulf well spews daily destruction and BP scratches it’s head, it’s a time to think about technology and its uses (well. . . it’s been time, for a long time, but now it’s time again). Ever since the the first stone axe glanced off its target and gashed the user’s knee, 
or even before that, we have been inventing technologies that we don’t fully know how to control. But now the things we make have the potential to wreak havoc on a tragic scale.
Nature has always had that potential, but nature also has the ability to repair itself; we humans apparently do not. Bill McKibben, in his new book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, says that “For almost all of human history, our society was small and nature was large; in a few brief decades that key ratio has reversed.”
I’m reminded of discussions – 35 years ago – about “appropriate technology.” These were inspired by British economist E.F. Schumacher, whose 1973 book, Small is Beautiful, 
was the catalyst for an unprecedented period of small-scale renewable energy innovation that was brought to a screeching halt – in this country – by the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981.
The rest of the developed world continued to build on the early successes of solar and wind technologies which mostly originated in the U.S. Tremendous progress has been made since, but far less here than in Japan, Western Europe, and now China. As recently as 13 years ago, the U.S. made 40% of the world’s photovoltaic cells to generate electricity; now, it’s less than 5%.
Perhaps this new spill, as it continues to drift ashore, will point us in a new (old) direction. We’ve been here before, but we lost our will. Even now, as a country, we remain unable to stop the destruction caused by oil and coal and move swiftly and surely to benign energy sources. Last year China spent twice what the U.S. did on renewables. As McKibben says, we have already done the damage – we have already changed the planet irrevocably (that’s why he calls it “Eaarth”) and now we must minimize the damage.
Part of that is using technology to develop ever-more effective and scalable solar and wind technologies. But just as big a part is using less – transforming ourselves into a low-carbon society.
Buildings play a big role in that. They use 40% of our total energy, and 70% of our electricity, but they don’t need to.
A focus of South Mountain’s work these days is learning to master the art and science of the Deep Energy Retrofit – the practice of building renovations that result in profound energy use reduction, increased health and comfort, and greater durability.
We don’t pretend to know what we need to know about this practice, but we know enough to do a credible job and we continue to learn. We are just completing – over the next several months - two fundamentally different deep energy retrofits – the Lake/Hodgson house in Aquinnah and the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth (click on the attached article to read more about it). 
One is a patched together summer house from the 50’s; the other is a sturdy masonry building from 1910. They share the following characteristic: both were buildings that nobody wanted and both, therefore, suffered years of neglect.
Now they are restored, and they share other things too. They are energy efficient, they are beautiful, and they will each provide many decades of joy and sensible – appropriate – service to their occupants.
The practice is spreading. The other day I received an e-mail from Ian Bowles, the Secretary of Energy and the Environment for the state of Massachusetts. The heading was “deep energy retrofit in Boston” and the message said, “john — i hope you are well. looking for advice on any local experts in the boston area on energy efficiency measures for an old (1878) victorian we are about to buy. any ideas/leads welcome. thx. ian”.
Massachusetts is making a commitment to clean energy that goes beyond that of most states and far beyond the federal government’s. But the e-mail above means more than all the programs – it means the person in charge has taken this all to heart.
He means it. That’s good. We all need to mean it. Because what we’re doing to ourselves and our planet is far more than a gash in the knee.
FINAL DECISION
I had to take a break from writing, and haven’t said a word since March 18th – too much on my plate. Business is challenging at SMC right now, but all is well, projects are good, everyone’s busy, and we’re all in it together, working hard to keep working.
But the Cape Wind announcement in Boston last Wednesday took my mind off that and inspired me to get back to this.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said a lot about Cape Wind. But the best thing he said was, quite simply, “This is the final decision of the United States of America.” Final Decision. Good decision, great decision, unequivocal decision – by the United States of America! How rare is that?
During the past nine years Jim Gordon and his colleagues at Cape Wind 
have re-defined the words “stamina” and “perseverance.” And I hope – for their sake and ours – that Wednesday’s confirmation gave them a stiff and steady tailwind to propel them to their ultimate destination – the commissioning of the first offshore wind farm in the U.S.
None too soon. The collected intelligence tells us, as Alex Steffen of Worldchanging says, “We have five years to start making big changes, twenty years to finish making them here, and at most forty years to spread those changes to every corner of the world.” Bill McKibben, the longest-running, most articulate chronicler of Climate Change, looks at it differently his new book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet . 
He says we have already changed the planet irrevocably, and while we try to minimize the damage our new challenge is to learn to live in this unfamiliar place.
In the U.S. we remain stuck. Still no comprehensive energy bill, still no carbon tax, still no feed-in tariffs. We have plenty of catching up to do, and the Cape Wind decision is a good start.
It’s like we’ve been holding our breath, waiting anxiously for this logjam to come loose. Up and down the east coast developers, communities, and government entities have been waiting for Cape Wind. The state of Massachusetts and the federal government have both identified hundreds of wind “plots” off the coast. They’re ready to award them, and there are many takers waiting anxiously. Cape Wind will be the first of many.
I doubt it will be trouble-free; I’m certain there are mistakes to make and learning to do. I remember nine years ago when Cape Wind first started; they hadn’t a clue what they were getting into and they were surprised by the firestorm of resistance that met their plans. There are many things they could have done better, had they only known. There could have been a stronger package of local community benefits. But who knew? And what is ever perfect?
On Martha’s Vineyard, I’m thrilled to see Vineyard Power our very own community-owned cooperative offshore-windfarm-to-be, taking shape and making big progress. As the membership creeps toward 1000, I’m beginning to think this bold effort to create (and manage) a membership of thousands and pull off the biggest development project in the history of the Vineyard truly has a chance.
Meanwhile, we’ll be pulling hard for Cape Wind to leap over each hurdle and for many others to follow suit. Onward we go!!
MAKING THE LEAP
I was meeting with some clients with whom we’ve had a long, ongoing relationship (designed and built their house, then an addition and a barn/garage, maintained both through the years) to review a just-completed inspection report. The house is 20 years old so we had produced a document outlining the major maintenance to come and predicting when various measures might make sense to do.
The house needs a new boiler, so it’s a good time to think hard about the best approach to heating and cooling for the next 20. It needs a new roof so it’s the one chance they’ll get (for decades) to add insulation under the roofing. Is it worth it? 
Is now the time to add a solar electric system to stabilize long-term energy costs? A detailed energy evaluation will determine the answers to these and other questions.
When we discussed solar electric I was struck by a comment they made (I’m paraphrasing but I think this is close): “We do not want to look at that option as ‘making a statement’. Until our country makes a serious commitment to doing what we must, and we’re all in it together, we’ll base this decision on economics.”
I thought that was particularly well put – clear and simple. The implication: the massive political failure that has led to our current predicament is holding people back.
My friend Matthew Kiefer recently wrote an essay in the University of Colorado Law Review called “Toward a Net-Zero Carbon Planet: A Policy Proposal“ in which he says that “the global economic adjustment now underway was in part caused by a prolonged period of living on excessive credit – of borrowing from the future. In a similar fashion, we have borrowed the planet’s carbon absorption capacity to finance our economic growth, and after more than a century, the debt is coming due.”
He calls for a scientifically derived balanced carbon budget to replace the current arbitrary greenhouse gas reduction targets. 
Carbon sub-budgets could then be allocated to each nation, each region, each state, each city, each town, even each neighborhood. Those affected would have choices about how to implement.
My client would be part of something instead of feeling like a lone wanderer spitting into the wind if he puts some solar panels on his roof.
I should add that here in Massachusetts the Department of Energy Resources is about to announce a very strong solar electric incentive program that is likely to make many people install solar who previously might not have – like my clients. The economics will look better than ever. I don’t know the final details yet – more about this later – but the intention of the program is to encourage the installation of 400 megawatts of solar electric in the coming years. The current installed PV capacity in the state, after years of attractive incentive programs, is right around 20 megawatts. The 400 megawatt goal amounts to 20 times more in the years to come – quite a commitment, and a giant leap forward.
Unlike yesterday’s Massachusetts senate election, which was a backward stumble. Ted Kennedy’s none-too-happy about this one. Hopefully it will serve as one big wake-up call.
WINDTRIGUE ON THE VINEYARD
While the eyes of the world focus on Copenhagen, here at home on Martha’s Vineyard wind energy has been receiving a mighty dose of attention – more than ever before. Are we making progress? Maybe some. You be the judge.
Wind has been in the local news in four distinctly different regards at once: the release and reaction to the draft Massachusetts Oceans Management Plan, the public coming-out of a new organization called Vineyard Power, the continuing saga of Cape Wind, and the adoption of a new wind by-law in Aquinnah.
Before diving in, some context might be useful.
According to Lester Brown, the president of Earth Policy Institute and the author of Plan B 4.0, 
the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has identified 1000 gigawatts of potential offshore wind energy on the U.S. East Coast. That’s an extraordinary number. A gigawatt is 1000 megawatts. The size of the proposed Cape Wind project is 420 Megawatts. That means NREL has identified the potential for 2500 Cape Winds on the East Coast. That’s right – two thousand five hundred. Coupled with similar West Coast potential, there is offshore capacity sufficient to power the entire U.S. economy.
How much offshore capacity does the U.S have at present?
None.
Not so in Europe and Asia. Wind energy is growing, worldwide, at a furious rate. Last month, according to “Progressive Investor” , “Spain supplied 53% of its electricity from wind” with more than 10 GW (24 Cape Winds) installed. They are expecting another 5.3 GW (12 more Cape Winds) online by 2012. That’s just Spain, with a coastline roughly one quarter of the length of the U.S. coastline. Will we even have our modest first effort – Cape Wind – installed by 2012??
The U.S. is now a full decade behind the rest of the developed world in the transition to renewable energy and the battle to tame climate change. We’re discovering the shame of following for the first time ever. As David Orr says in his new book Down to the Wire “The global crisis ahead is a direct result of the largest political failure in history.” We have been at the forefront of that failure.
Here in Massachusetts, however, the political commitment to change is strong. The Deval Patrick administration has been stellar, demonstrating serious leadership and investing heavily in diverse renewable energy initiatives.
Several months ago the Patrick administration released their draft Oceans Management Plan for Massachusetts waters. Although pleased by this pro-active planning, I was disappointed to see that the competing matrix of uses left very little area available for offshore wind development. The only areas identified as suitable are near the Vineyard and the adjacent island of Cuttyhunk. I assume there must be others.
But that was not the primary concern for most Vineyarders. The designation of our waters drew a swift and negative reaction from local community and political leaders, and a demand for local control. Some accommodation has been reached, but at this point, it seems that the state government’s resolve remains firm. They may add to the area (that’s good!) and they may award a stronger voice and greater community benefits to the Vineyard (that’s good!) but they will not let NIMBYism rule the day (that’s good too!).
A group called Let Vineyarders Decide formed to demand alterations to the state plan. Meanwhile, the real good news is that during the last two years a new organization called Vineyard Power 
has been in the design and formative stages and has now completed a business plan and formal incorporation. This is a citizen-owned cooperative that will “secure our energy future and keep control in our community.” Electricity will be generated from offshore wind turbines and distributed to co-op members through the existing grid. Go here to join now.
This exciting development is the perfect Let Vineyarders Decide vehicle. We’ll own it and we will make the decisions. Where will the turbines be? We will decide. Fortunately, one of the Let Vineyarders Decide organizers also serves on the Vineyard Power advisory board. This promotes important dialogue.
When it comes to wind turbines, location always seems to be the rub. The current debate, it seems to me, is missing the point. Sometimes, when we’re busy formulating an answer, we fail to identify the right question. For years people have been debating the location of Cape Wind – is this the right place for it or should it be at Otis Air Force base, or someplace else? Now we’ve got the same thing going on with the Oceans’ Management Plan. Right place or wrong place?
Wrong question, it seems to me. We need as many locations as possible, as much investment as possible, as much political support as possible, as much local support as possible, and as many local community benefits as possible. We need, finally, to end spurious arguments about birds and fish and instead do the best possible job of mitigating environmental harm that we can. We need to learn from the rest of the world, which has addressed the issues thoroughly; we are not the first people ever to contend with this. The town of Aquinnah missed that boat; they created an impossibly long, confusing, obstacle-filled wind by-law, which may effectively outlaw wind energy in that town. I hope not. Read it here, if you can.
We need to stop running around in circles, get off the dime, and move forward.I think we will. Initial perceptions can change dramatically, as they have in so many places.
Years ago, after the first large wind turbine in Massachusetts was installed in the town of Hull, 
I drove along Nantasket Beach and through town with my daughter and a friend. Suddenly the immense wind machine, owned by the local municipal utility, came into view. My daughter Sophie gasped: “It’s huge. Scary.” We parked in the parking lot just steps from the machine and walked to it. The tower is 165’ high and the blades extend 75’ above that. It is almost noiseless – it makes a gentle whooshing sound. As we walked away we turned and stared back at it. Sophie said, “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? Especially because of what it does.”
That’s my girl. Perceptions can change in a heartbeat.
The Hull machine, right on the beach, adjacent to the high school and a residential neighborhood, and in plain view of downtown Boston, was so successful that the town wanted to do another – three times the size. They polled the residents who live in the shadow of the beast. Of the five hundred respondents, 480 supported more turbines. That’s 96 percent. You tell me: when are 96% of people positive about anything?
This degree of support is a common reaction, world wide, in areas that are making the commitment to large-scale wind energy. Not before development, when many are scared, but after development, when consciousness seems to shift.
Remarkably, the citizens of our small sister island Cuttyhunk, whose waters the draft Oceans Management Plan also designated for wind development, are pre-development supporters. Yes, in my backyard, the citizens say! 
They are attracted to the economic benefits, but they also say that they would favor wind development even if there were no potential financial benefits, because “we all have to do our part”. Because if they’re not in our backyard they’re in someone else’s. I expect this attitude to become pervasive in the years to come – a collective un-tethering from the urge to reactively say no to change.
Because as some do battle with large-scale turbine development, many others are battling, as author Bill McKibben says, “to see them not as industrial eyesores, but as part of a new aesthetic. The wind made visible. The slow, steady turning that blows us into a future less hopeless than the future we’re steaming toward now.”
I’m glad for all the discussion, for the intensity of feeling, and for the widespread community involvement. While I may not agree with all that’s being said, it’s essential that everyone is heard. I hope that ultimately we’ll realize that we, as stewards of an area with an inexhaustible resource, have an obligation to find comfort with its use.
CO-OPS ON THE RISE
I’m still excited about the budding alliance between the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Mondragon Cooperatives – and the general awakening consciousness about worker co-operatives and co-operative business in general that I wrote about last month.
And there’s more.
Rodney North of Equal Exchange (the Massachusetts-based worker owned co op fair trade coffee company) 
made me aware of an article on the New York Times Economix blog by Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at University of Massachusetts. In “The Case for Worker Co-ops” she says, “Since many of our most prestigious economic institutions have embarrassed themselves at our expense over the last year, maybe it’s time to look around. Worker-owned and -managed businesses combine the romance of entrepreneurship with solid family values and commitment to community. What’s not to like?”
In addition to the Mondragon/US Steelworkers agreement and the worker co-ops featured in Michael Moore’s new movie, she says, “Rousing examples abound. CNN Money recently profiled six worker-run businesses including Pelham Auto, whose mechanics have cheerfully fixed every car I’ve owned for the past 20 years.” One of the companies CNN profiled, by the way, is South Mountain.
But all this attention being paid to worker co-ops makes Folbre, the economist, wonder what the economic research says. Not much, according to her. Worker owned and managed companies are “largely ignored in economics textbooks.”
I have found that even the socially responsible business movement, to my ongoing surprise, pays little attention to true workplace democracy.
But she does, at least, find a little research – or maybe it’s just opinion. Mostly it’s about the troubles – or potential troubles – with employee ownership. One of these is that worker-owned and managed companies, with more complex goals than maximizing profit, tend to be less growth-oriented than other companies.
“Don’t tell Wall Street,” says Folbre, “but that could be a good thing.”
I want to say more about the USW/ Mondragon agreement.
The Mondragon initiative is not the first innovative Steelworkers alliance. In the 1990s, the USW helped found the Blue-Green Alliance together with the Sierra Club and other environmentalists and they have been involved with Van Jones’ Green For All.
And now, if this new alliance works, it might make a system of worker-owned enterprises assembled with the purpose of a green restructuring of the U.S. economy. That could be a powerful force.
The USW-Mondragon collaboration grew out of a ‘green industrial revolution’ project that created a partnership with Gamesa, 
a Spanish wind turbine firm, to retrofit abandoned steel plants in the U.S. (40,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities have closed since the beginning of the current economic crisis) and produce wind turbines (there are 200 tons of steel and 8000 moving parts in every large wind turbine). Gamesa’s connection to nearby Mondragon brought the USW and the co-operative giant together.
While this historic business alliance gives hope to the possibility of reviving manufacturing (and the communities that have been devastated by the losses), there is also congressional activity coming along to support employee ownership. According to the Vermont Employee Ownership Center, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
will introduce two new bills that would seek to expand employee ownership in the United States.
The first, the Worker Ownership, Readiness and Knowledge (WORK) Act would create an Office of Employee Ownership and Participation within the Department of Labor to promote employee ownership and employee participation in company decision making. The second bill, the U.S. Employee Ownership Bank Act, would provide loans and loan guarantees to employees to purchase a business through an ESOP or a worker-owned cooperative.
On the eve of the Copenhagen meetings, this collection of related activity is heartening. Perhaps the most important thing about the expanding co-operative business movement, in the long run, may be as an avenue to the large-scale collaborative alterations to the architecture of the economy that will be necessary if we are to successfully tackle the challenges of climate change and the post peak oil transition to come.
Orr & Brand: To Save Our Civilization
Awhile ago I gave up on doom and gloom. I’ve learned enough to know the problems, and I tired of reading 250 pages of meticulously researched how-bad-it-is-and-how-bad-it’s-gonna-get followed by 25 pages of generalities about the solutions. But I broke my rule when I saw David Orr’s new book, Down to the Wire. The subtitle is Confronting Climate Collapse. He does just that.
He says that “The global crisis ahead is a direct result of the largest political failure in history.”
Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin, goes on to say that “No national leader has yet done what Lincoln did for slavery and placed the issue of sustainability in its larger moral context, . . . and cast it as the linchpin that connects all other issues. Adoption of a robust energy policy is the fastest and cheapest way to improve the economy, environment, health, and equity, and increase security. It is the keystone issue, not just another stone in the arch.”
The book is stark, blunt, and powerful.
“None of us,” says Orr, “asked for these challenges. But it has been given to us to lay the foundation for a durable and just global civilization, to secure the gift of life and pass it on undiminished to unnumbered generations, No previous generation could have said that, and none had greater work to do.”
In his view, it’s all about politics.
And he’s hard on pathological optimists like me. When I was done I needed a lift.
I thought maybe I would find it in Stewart Brand’s new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
In 1969 Stewart Brand released The Whole Earth Catalog, a “book” that probably had as much influence on my life as any other. On the frontispiece of the original classic there is a statement of purpose that begins with the now-famous sentence, “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” Whole Earth Discipline begins with this, “We are as gods and HAVE to get good at it.” That sums up what’s happened during the 40 year interval.
In this book Stewart closes the loop. In his inimitable way (expository writing doesn’t really get any better than his, in my view) and with the same deeply thoughtful, fearless, always-wry, story-filled and at-the-same-time analytically and argumentatively complex way that he has for four decades, Stewart shakes it up again.
He comes at the issue very differently from Orr. In Brand’s view it’s all about science and technology. But the two books share a fundamental underlying principle: There’s no time to lose and the work ahead is daunting.
But this all goes back a long way, too. In his classic 1973 economics text, Small is Beautiful, Britain’s EF Schumacher’s argued that a linked system of small-scale local economies would be more effective, resilient, and people-centered than a large multi-national economy.
In the Next Whole Earth Catalog, published in 1980, Stewart Brand said about Schumacher’s book, “Few books have exerted such leverage on an Age as this one . . The wonder of Schumacher’s work is his eminent practicality. . . with good sense and a mature spirituality [he] comes on like John Henry against the mega-machine, sure that he will win. . .”
Now Brand is promoting the mega-machine. But Schumacher himself, according to Susan Witt of the Schumacher Institute, said that if everyone were for small, he’d be for big, and it wasn’t just being contrarian. “It was a question of balance,” she says. “Even in the 1960’s and 70’s when he was writing and speaking, he understood that the balance was tipping too much toward large scale economic institutions and there needed to be a correction towards the local and regional.”
Orr argues for the same, but also for massive international political change. Brand does too, but he believes that “at this whiplash moment” we need more than political change and re-localization. “If the transition to a less livable Earth is already under way, we’re ants on a burning log. We can rush around all we want; there’s nothing in our ant repertoire that can fix the problem.”
Brand adds four elements to the usual environmental repertoire: embracing urbanization and greening the cities (where, he says, 80% of the world’s population will live by mid-century), stepping up the use of next-generation nuclear power, bio-engineering to feed a changing world, and geoengineering, if necessary, to “change the climate back.” It’s bold, it’s futuristic, it’s risky, the last three are anathema to many environmentalists, and it’s Brand, through and through.
Underpinning both books is the understanding that the key to our future is the rapid phase-out of coal. Even environmental activist Bill McKibben makes the point, in Stewart’s book, that “Nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if something goes wrong. Coal-fired power is guaranteed destruction, filling the atmosphere with planet-heating carbon when it operates the way it’s supposed to” [my underlining].
One thing Brand is not concerned about is over-population – he demonstrates clearly that we are headed toward planetary population stabilization (and probably reduction). It’s those of us already here that he worries about. “Five out of six people live in the developing world – about 5.7 billion in 2010. One way or another, the world’s poor will get grid electricity. Where that electricity comes from will determine what happens with the climate.”
Throughout his career, Brand has been a prognosticator – his predictions are legendary. Some of them, as he is quick to relate, have been way off the mark. Some, however, have not. He says now that “The shift from dread to action is under way. The outcome is wholly uncertain.”
At the end, he summarizes the book with a few pithy sentences: “Ecological balance is too important for sentiment. It requires science.”
“The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity. It requires engineering.”
“What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable. We live one life.”
And it’s one world. Tomorrow is the big day of the worldwide demonstration to cut global carbon dioxide levels to 350 parts per million, the upper limit of safety.
McKibben, the chief organizer, says that the 4000 demonstrations and gatherings that take place in 170 countries will be the most widespread day of political action the world has ever seen. I’m sure Orr will be there, in his town, and Brand in his.
I’ll be over at the East Chop Light in Oak Bluffs. See you there.
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JOHN ABRAMS is co-founder and CEO
of South Mountain Company and the author
of COMPANIES WE KEEP read more
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COMPANIES WE KEEP is published by Chelsea Green Publishing
read more -
