Who is the leader of the pack... or should be?

In the realm of ideas and politics, there are many ideas and much politics
bandied about on all sides in every subject imaginable. One of the most
significant and controversial areas is the realm of environmental awareness and
clean-up. One man stands head and shoulders above all others in this field,
having tirelessly campaigned – literally – for the health and safety of people
everywhere.

Ralph Nader is that man. For over 40 years, he has publically spoken and written
against big business' practice of environmental pollution and on behalf of the
public good. In fact, one reason that cars are safer, with such innovative ideas
as anti-lock brakes and airbags stem directly from Nader's efforts to make cars,
the ultimate ubiquitous tool, as safe as possible, given that manufacturers just
want to give people a moving vehicle as cheaply as possible (Langer, 1966).
Nader's efforts and his lobbying of Washington bureaucrats helped to pass the
1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act.
As one may notice from news reports, Nader has done more.

He pushed for the passage of the 1967 Wholesome Meat Act, which improved the
criteria for inspecting cleanliness at slaughterhouses. He has also founded
several nation-wide organizations that fight for the public's best interest,
such as the Public Interest Research Group (CalPirg is the California Branch),
the Center for Justice and Democracy and the Resource Consumption Alliance
(preserving trees is their mission). Additionally, the Center for Study of
Responsive Law (CSRL), a non-profit organization run university and law
students. known as "Nader's Raiders", study problems and publish reports on many
consumer issues.

So passionate is Nader about helping others, he has never married. Instead, he
has thrown his efforts into a career to benefit mankind. To this end, he has run
for president as the Green Party candidate several times, including 1996, 2000
and 2008. Almost 76, Nader looks little different from when he was 40, both in
appearance and zeal. One can hope that Nader's labors continue to improve
ordinary life for all Americans for years to come. Perhaps, someday, there will
be little need for such ardent finger-pointing, but for now, I am grateful that
Ralph Nader has tried so hard, for so many, for so long.


Langer, E. Auto Safety: Nader vs. General Motors. Science 152(3718), 47-50.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1718765.

Mashawt, J. L. & Harfst, D. L. (1990) The struggle for auto safety. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/18223/Ralph-Nader.html

All aboard! (?)

Last November, California voters passed a measure that would pour billions of dollars into a bond to fund a high-speed rail system connecting northern and southern California. This high-speed train will whisk people away to their destination at speeds of over 200 mph (imagine traveling to San Francisco to San Diego in about three hours), create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and stimulate the state economy (and Nevada’s too if a future leg to Las Vegas is created). This new train will also be environmentally friendly by reducing C02 emissions reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

The new high-speed rail system can be called a technological innovation for Californians. Friedman (2008) shares two ways to stimulate innovation: 1) advancing technology already available to us over time, or 2), a ‘Eureka!’ moment, a moment where a discovery is made through experimentation (p 187). McNeill (2000) states, “big ideas are the ones that somehow succeed in molding the behavior of millions” (p 326). Essentially, McNeill is talking about a paradigm shift. Over the past couple decades citizens from many countries have finally realized that humans are contributing to global climate change. Some could care less, others will do what it takes for change to occur.

For the most part, Friedman is correct on ways to stimulate innovation, but he could have added more to his first suggestion. Advancing technology is a driving force behind our economy. We’re always striving to make things sleeker, faster, smarter, smaller, more efficient, more reliable, sexier…the list goes on and on. What he doesn’t say about innovation is being backed into it. Let’s face it, as a country we really don’t have any choice but to come up with a new system of transportation. Oil is cheap now, but there will be a day when a gallon of gas goes past the 4- or 5-dollar gallon that we saw a few summers ago.

If the high-speed rail system is our response global warming, then we are way too late. For the most part, it is an environmentally friendly system (the building process might be a different story) but it will not be enough to slow down the global warming process, not by a long shot. Other countries will have to stimulate innovation to tackle the growing global warming problem. Some countries already have; Japan’s bullet train was introduced in the 80’s. This technology was available years ago. Who knows if this train will even be worth the money; will we even use the thing? We should have been on board with this idea when France and Japan were constructing theirs. Not the train, but their ideas. Oh well, better late than never.

McNeil, J.R., Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2000.

Friedman, T. L., Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution--And How It Can Renew America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York, 2008.

California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The Largest Act of Environmental Terrorism You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

The Mesopotamian marshlands were once one of the world’s largest wetlands, covering more than 20,000 km². Mesopotamia literally translates to “between rivers.” The Mesopotamian marshlands are fed by both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and were home to approximately 100,000 Marshland Arabs. Many biblical scholar place the Garden of Eden within these marshlands. Once known for its unique biodiversity of macro-invertebrates and birds, Saddam Hussein, in what is considered an engineering feat of the latter 20^th-century, used the restriction of water to reduce the marshlands into a vast area of hardpan.

During the first Gulf War in 1990, the Marshland Arabs of southern Iraq sided themselves with the Coalition forces. When the Coalition forces withdrew from Iraq, the Shia Marshland Arabs were left unprotected against the Saddam’s Sunni regime. Saddam appropriated every single piece of construction machinery to create irrigations systems and dikes to divert the waters from the Tigris and the Euphrates from reaching the southern wetlands. Saddam then ordered his military troops to set fire to the reeds, finalizing the destruction of the once massive wetlands.

With the two main rivers no longer feeding the marshes, the wetlands literally dried up. Consequently, the loss of biodiversity in the region was severe and catastrophic. In the 1980s, the Mesopatamia marshes were home to more than 80 species of birds. Additionally, at its peak the marshes served as flyaway for migrating birds between Siberia and Africa. However, shortly after the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003 restoration on the marshes commenced. Primarily funded by USAID and the United Nations Environment Programme, restoration works are responsible for 40% of the destroyed lands now having standing water—due to re-flooding.

The methodic and systematic destruction of the Mesopotamian marshlands was undoubtedly an act of terror. 100,000 Marshland Arabs became refugees within their own country within days of Saddam setting fire to their reeds. Today, USAID estimates that as of August 2009 only 10,000 Marshland Arabs have returned to the marshes. The Marshland Arabs represented—and still represent—the periphery of Iraqi society. The plight of the Marshland Arabs—and the wetlands themselves—is put on the backburner to make room for other reconstruction within Iraq. The Marshland Arabs represent a tiny demographic within Iraq. It is unlikely the wetlands will ever fully recover, nor will the majority of the Marshland Arabs move back to the wetlands. Several botanists have state that it is unlikely all the original vegetation will return with the reflooding. This example highlights that those on the periphery are often at the political mercy of those at the core.

Bonn, Dorothy. “Iraq Marshland Restoration Begins.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Vol. 2, No. 7 (Sep. 2004) p.343. Available from:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3868351

Richardson, Curtis J. and Hussain, Najah A. “Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq.” Journal of BioScience. Vol. 56, No. 6 (June 2006) pp.477-489. Available from:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/38768403

Gatesism

In McNeil’s chapter “Fuels, Tools, and Economics”, he discusses the specific eras of time that revolutionized our society and the environment (umbworld). These two categories or what he calls clusters, created the technological and fossil fuel oriented society that led us to our foundation today. The first cluster is consisted of heavy engineering, powered textile mills, steam engines, and railroads that he categorized as the Coketown cluster while the Motown cluster consisted of the assembly line, oil, electricity, plastics, and chemicals (McNeil 2009). What McNeil failed to mention was the most important and fundamental category that reorganized our socio patterns toward a whole new direction; the information technology era. The new category, in addition to the two, would hypothetically be named Techtown.

McNeil discusses the assembly line created by Henry Ford in the Motown cluster as being the most influential piece of design that effected both the physical environment and the economic status of that era. As “Fordism” was its economic term, the hypothetical Techtown would have a label too. Bill Gates revolutionized the tech industry with his innovative software programs that allowed consumers to surf the internet and use the computer in an organized and efficient manner. By creating an assembly line-like process, he was able to create millions of duplicates from one model. Gates evolutionary process would create the economic impact known as “Gatesism”. According to Richard J. Gilbert and Michael L. Katz, Microsoft used exclusionary behavior to gain a competitive advantage, but in the end hurt their own consumers due to price increases (AEA 2001). By being a monopoly and having a huge market share like Henry Ford did in the Motown cluster, Gates increased the amount of consumption by becoming the only one to provide an operating system for a PC and therefore affected the environment in an indirect way. Although Gates affected the environment indirectly, there are other parts of Techtown that directly impacted the environment.

Semiconductors are fundamentally the backbone products of the Silicon Valley and are highly demanded in the market due to high consumption rates. These products are dangerous to the workers and most importantly to the environment. “More than 220 billion chips are manufactured annually, requiring up to 1, 000 separate chemicals and metals. Many of these materials are known or suspected carcinogens. Jim Harris, 59, worked as a technician at Santa Clara's National Semiconductor Corp. in the mid-1970s. He now has leukemia, something no one else in his family has ever contracted” (SF Chronicle 2005). It’s evident that these chemicals are extremely harmful to the umbworld and has the power to destroy any type of living life.

Techtown has dramatically changed our society from industrialized to social computerization within a significantly small amount of time. The influence of “Gatesism” was the inevitable catalyst for this change, and only time will tell which direction it takes us.





Richard J. Gilbert and Michael L. Katz, An Economist’s Guide to U.S v. Microsoft. The
American Economic Association. Accessed: 12/2/2009
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2696590

David Lazarus, Toxic Technology. The San Francisco Chronicle. Accessed: 12/2/2009
http://www.sfchronicle.com/

McNeil, J.R., Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the 20th Century World. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2000

Plastic or Canvas?

The debate over whether to use paper, plastic, or more recently canvas bags when out shopping has become a heated debate. Some say that eliminating plastic bags will just make people use paper which is just as detrimental to the environment, while others feel that people will slowly get used to bringing their own reusable bags, therefore, eliminating the problem all together. People are divided on this issue and both sides have convincing arguments.

Ever since the production of plastic surpassed the production of any other material, there have been concerns about its effect on the environment. Plastic does not degrade for a very long time, plastic bags particularly have been said to, "...linger in the environment for more than 1,000 years and are the major debris found on the seabed" (weeklyreader). They are spotted everywhere, flying across the freeway, hanging in trees, blowing along the beach, and, piling up in dumps everywhere. Almost every store hands out disposable plastic bags, so if one travels to multiple stores in one day, they are racking up their supply of plastic bags. Some people reuse them for garbage can liners around the house or for picking up their pets messes, but ultimately, they still end up in the garbage. Proponents of the reusable bag movement hope to put a stop to the overflow of plastic bags in dumps across America and the world.

Using a reusable bag is easy. They are stronger than plastic, they can become a fashion statement, and some stores even offer incentives for using them. Grocery stores across the U.S. have been taking $.05 off a customer's total for every reusable bag that they use, and CVS/Pharmacy offers $1.00 back every four times a customer uses a reusable bag. With offers like this, and the fact that it helps the environment, it is almost impossible to find a negative with using a reusable bag.

The production of plastics was one of the worst things for the environment to come out of the discovery of petroleum. Although plastics do some good, like the fact that many technologies would not be possible without them, they wreak havoc as well. The fact that they take so long to decompose is horrible for the Earth. Obviously, we cannot stop using plastic all together, but if there are small changes here and there, it would make a difference. Remembering to take a reusable bag everytime you go to the store could be that small change that helps out in the long run.

McNeill, J. R. 2000. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. W. W. Norton & Company Inc.

Mastiny, Lisa, and Jason Perillo. "Paper or Plastic?" Current Events 107.21 (2008): 1.Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.

The True Costs of Oil

America has relied on cheap fossil fuels and lots of government funding. Many of the negative externalities associated with fossil fuel burning are not included in the pump price consumers pay. An article written by Chris Nelder explains estimated costs of all the processes involved with oil. “According to a 2000 study for the Department of Energy, there is a significant cost attached to the mere fact of our dependence. Supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth suffered through the oil market upheavals have cost the U.S. economy around $7 trillion (1998 dollars) over the 30 years from 1970 to 2000” (Nelder 2007). Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon without accounting for government subsidies and environmental degradation. “Government subsidizes the oil industry anywhere between $38 billion and $114.6 billion per year” (Nelder). Environmental costs of oil are devastating to water supplies, soils, air quality, and biodiversity. The Union of Concerned Scientists published an article estimating the total cost in 1991 of environmental externalities to be $54 billion to $232 billion. “Human mortality and morbidity due to air pollution accounts for over three quarters of the total environmental cost and could be as high as $182 billion annually. For the Los Angeles area, one estimates the annual health-based cost from ozone and particulate exposure alone to be almost $10 billion” (Nelder). If carbon costs are accounted for as in a carbon tax of some form, around 30-35 dollars per ton of CO2, then companies would not profit, but loose money. The true cost of oil annually is less than 70 trillion a year.
If Americans consumers were to see pay for the true costs of oil, you could bet that we would transition to creating cleaner energy systems with high efficiencies that would benefit local and global societies. The true costs of oil would cause innovation in new technologies. Some European countries where gas and oil are heavily taxed have already created free markets supportive of new energy technology. America needs to do the same to become energy independent, create new industry, generate revenues, improve the health of the environment, and insure stability and sustainability for future generations.

Nelder, Chris. The True Cost of Oil: $65 Trillion a Year? 2007. Accessed on-line at http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461.

OPEC. Cartel or not?

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed in 1960 by the countries of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela. Additional countries have joined OPEC since and currently total 12 members. OPEC members coordinate policies on oil prices and production. These countries produce two-fifths of the world’s oil production and own two-thirds of proven petroleum reserves. There have been debates regarding whether or not OPEC is a cartel. McNeill stated, “...the oil producers’ cartel (OPEC) brought them vast windfall profits” (McNeill 2000, 322). McNeill referred to OPEC as a cartel, however some experts do not agree due to the fact that OPEC does not have specific cartel characteristics. OPEC is not a cartel because non-OPEC countries produce a majority of current world oil production, OPEC members have never agreed on a set price, and OPEC does not have a way of punishing members that break member agreements.

Cartel characteristics include dominance in the market, an agreement among members and also some type of punishment mechanism. OPEC produces 40% of the world’s oil, which is not a dominant portion of the market. OPEC set production quotas for each member depending on reserve amounts, but an agreement on a set price has not been reached. Conflicts between member countries have also affected supply. Alhajji and Huettner stated “the world crude oil market is competitive and that oil price increases can be explained by factors other than cartelization” (2000, 31). Other factors include market conditions, wars, and political factors.


• McNeill, J. R. 2000. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
• Alhajji, A.F. and David Huettner.2000. OPEC and World Crude Oil Markets from 1973 to 1994:Cartel, Oligopoly, or Competitive? The Energy Journal, Vol. 21, No 3.

Population and Pollution

Cities across Africa have been expanding at a rapid pace. Over the past two to three decades, fertility rates of African women have remained at "about 6.3 to 6.6 children per woman," which is noticeably higher than most other geographical regions worldwide (Arku 256). High birth rates within the population remained in check with high death rates, but due to modern medicine, nutrition, and hygiene practices, mortality rates among their people have been reduced. Yes, this rapid population growth may be seen as progressive, but only if the larger population can be safely maintained.

Growth has been so rapid in African cities that their government has not been able to fully regulate and manage the urban environment. There are many problems raised by this uncontrolled urban population growth such as "traffic congestion, atmospheric pollution, depletion of natural resources, increase of natural and man made risks, urban sprawl, and other negative environmental and social effects" (Arku 263). The relationship between population growth and environmental pollution is inevitable. The more people that live in a given area the more water, resources, and energy they need and the more "pollutants, garbage, and solid wastes" they pump out (McNeil 287).

African cities are now attempting to solve problems caused by their rapid population boom and adopting ideas to better manage their environment. If the population cannot be controlled then at least there are steps being taken to better manage it. Extensive public transportation systems, water treatment plants, and sewage systems are all crucial in maintaining large populations. Regardless of all policies and plans, however, rapid population growth has far-reaching detrimental effects on the environment in Africa and across the world.


Arku, Godwin. "Rapidly Growing African Cities Need to Adopt Smart Growth Policies to Solve Urban Development Concerns." Urban Forum 20.3 (2009): 253-270. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 23 Nov 2009.

McNeil, J.R. "Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World." W.W. Norton: New York, 2001. Print.

Another Look at Sustainability

As human society seeks to clean its urban centers and adopt more sustainable technology, it fails at addressing the problem of pollution entirely. It is often the assumption that dense urban areas are the source of pollution worldwide. Instead of being measured by the amount of pollution generated within it, a city should be measured by the amount of pollution generated for it.

J.R. McNeill asserts that rapid urbanization is the source of human stress on the environment. Yet, to many city dwellers in the rich nations of Western Europe and North America, cities have dramatically reduced their environmental impact on the local community. McNeill explains that “urban impacts [extend] beyond city limits to hinterlands, to downwind and downstream communities, and in some respects, the whole globe” (McNeill, p 287). Waste disposal and power generation have been relocated far away from their users. The materials used to build and manage cities are also being created elsewhere in cities with less strict regulations. Externalization of pollution allows city dwellers to experience the benefits of pollution caps, but only sweeps the problem under the carpet.

David Satterthwaite writes about the correlation between pollution management and urbanization. The most polluted cities, “are the smaller and less-prosperous cities in lower-income countries or in the lower-income regions of middle-income countries” (Satterthwaite, p 217). He questions the assumption that growth means more pollution and reveals that current pollution regulations lead to “transferring costs to other people or ecosystems” (Satterthwaite, p 216). These lower income cities lack political will to regulate polluters due to a focus on rapid industrialization or capital (Satterthwaite, p 222). Wealthier cities develop more strict regulations than lower income cities in developing countries. The latter manage and create the pollution for the former.

Wealthy cities, such as San Jose, need to stop externalizing pollution. Cities need to bring back their industries—not so that they have to deal with air and water pollution again, but that their pollution is regulated to their own standard and the lower income cities will not bear these burdens for them.

Sources

• McNeill, J. R. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. W. W. Norton & Company Inc. 2000
  
• Satterthwaite, David. "Environmental Transformations in Cities as They Get Larger, Wealthier and Better Managed". The Geographical Journal, Vol. 163, No. 2, Environmental Transformations in Developing Countries (Jul., 1997), pp.216-224