PART III

 

                                                SECURING USE RIGHTS

 

                        "What is right has always been called radical by those with a

                        stake in things that are wrong."

                                                                        George McGovern

 

 

PHYSICAL RESOURCES

 

            I would like to offer some thoughts on how use rights might be secured and to give some examples of problem "use" situations which have recently surfaced and plead for resolution.

            How are men and women to secure their "equal use" rights? As yet air to breathe is still free, but it is not always free of dangerous chemicals or obnoxious odors! Society must restrict and prohibit those particular industries or individuals who are responsible for thus infringing on everyone's right to fresh air whether they are car owners or giant corporations. Unlike air, however, much of the earth's resources are scarce enough to warrant competition for their use: good farm land, mineral and fossil fuel resources, recyclable machines, good grazing land, urban building sites, fishing grounds, broadcast channels, forests, air transport lanes, etc.

            Here is one possible scenario: the competitive value of time lease use rights to certain of these resources, regulated by society to insure conservation and to provide for restoration, to eliminate monopoly and to protect the general public from toxic products and byproducts, would establish current value which could be determined locally, regionally, nationally or internationally (depending on the nature of the resource and the use) and charged to a user. This would not be a single tax on land, but a variety of competitively arrived at usehold fees for the use of various resources. These "usehold fees," what Henry George would have referred to as "unearned increment" would be the ongoing value society places on these resources, their protection and their preservation for the living and those still to come. Present title to lands, to riparian rights, to water rights, fishing rights, air space rights, etc., would not, as Henry George outlined in his proposal for a single tax on land, be confiscated but only the social value of the resource in question would be returned to society via a competitive usehold fee.

            What constitutes this social value of Henry George’s ‘unearned increment’ or my term ‘competitive use hold fees’? First, it is in part the difference between resource availability and the number of people competing for it, scarcity or abundance of either, supply and demand. Secondly, it is in part the work of both the bio and geo-sphere which creates those resources humans need or desire and for which humans can make no claim. (See Odum’s comments on page 19). This factor, as Odum points out, is too often not credited. Those who sell old growth timber discount the major work input by nature; likewise with wild fish or farm produce. Countries which export these products, lose more than they gain unless they add to each sale the cost of maintaining nature’s resources, i.e., by providing sustainable stewardship. Countries exporting non-renewable resources would be wise to slow production for higher prices and the long term benefits. This, in turn, would encourage importing countries to conserve use of these same resources. Finally, it is our own diverse, inherited cultures, their arts, sciences, governments and more that we inherit and modify for better or worse. These three factors constitute a commons. They belong to a community, and they clarify the community’s responsibilities as stewards.

            What then is due the service providers? It is clearly their labor, tools and inventiveness, and it is capital only as capital represents stored, earned monies from the performance of other services. And what should be required of them? They must protect those renewable resources they use and conserve the non-renewable ones, i.e., they must provide complete services.

Writing specifically about a land tax, Steven B. Cord, author of Henry George: Dreamer or Realist, comments as follows:

 

"In discussing the issue of confiscation, one must know precisely what the term includes. The landowner is not being denied title to his land. His land value tax will go up but his other taxes, particularly on his improvements, will go down. He will lose the selling price of his land, but if he sells and buys elsewhere he will pay nothing for the land he buys and thus will not be a loser. If he rents, his rent will be lower than it is now because it will not include a building tax. Landowners who make efficient use of their land will benefit by the tax change, while only those who do not will suffer. They can avoid this by improving their land properly."

 

While Cord prefers to retain the term landowner his described process subverts its historic meaning. What we are honestly talking about is a person's right to use specific resources for some agreed upon purpose as long as he or she is willing to pay a fair competitive fee for said use and as long as she or he will be fairly compensated for all improvements (ownership) if and when he or she leaves.

            In a predominantly agrarian society the majority of people are generalists. They perform many services for themselves, the major one being subsistence farming. To exclude them from direct access to farmland, or to make day laborers or share croppers of them, is to preclude their equitable participation in the society, and thus abort their rights. As specialization progresses, however, more citizens work away from the land providing new services with no direct connection to basic resources - manufacturing, shipping, building, sales, teaching, etc. Great cities arise stimulated by inter-related needs of specialization. Commerce and communication with other cities and nations further stimulates specialization. Technology booms. The percent of those farming and others who work directly with resources continues to shrink relative to those who provide other services. At this point, to assure equal access to resources, other than information, monetary compensation becomes an equitable solution. Thus while agrarian reform may satisfy use rights in an underdeveloped country more complex and sophisticated reforms are required in developed countries. Today, however, even the most underdeveloped countries are moving inexorably towards diversification and industrialization and therefore the majority of people are increasingly employed in secondary services. Under these circumstances substituting monetary remuneration in lieu of direct resource access seems an obvious and equitable solution. I will discuss this concept in more detail shortly.

            There is no question here that land reform in underdeveloped countries is needed. The landless masses in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been shorn of all use rights by their own elites. Roy Prosterman, founder of the Rural Development Institute and a nominee for the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, estimates that these landless peoples alone represent 50 percent of the world's landless. He goes on to say that China, between 1980 and 1983, broke up a majority of their collective farms creating 150 million independent farms and by so doing, have increased food production by 70 percent.[1] But these small scale farms are still government owned and Prosterman is trying to convince Chinese authorities to allow the farmers to own their land. He is sure if this is done, food production will increase by another 50 percent. This will happen, he says, because farmers will then have the assets and incentive to embark on long term improvement projects.

            There is also no reason the same incentives could not be established under use rights laws. Long term renewable use rights would be an appropriate vehicle for farming. Nor would present users be evicted or taxed for improvements. They would only be required to pay a fee on the land as farmland, and should they retire or move they could sell all improvements on the open market. Nor would they lose their land rights in case of natural disasters. There would be no reason for foreclosure.

            A question arises when growing cities annex farmland for housing and other urban uses. How shall the farmer or farmland speculator be compensated? In real estate terms both are due their "development rights." This pseudo right allows the farmer or speculator to profit from urban economic and population expansion. Competition for land for more intense use has increased its value. If the larger community mandates such a change via rezoning it must compensate the farmer for his improvements via due process but it owes the speculator nothing. The claim of development rights is nothing more than a claim to profit from society's insatiable appetite for growth. The speculator has done nothing to warrant a profit. Nor is the farmer being required to buy the land. Rather than sprawling outward, the community might choose to retain its boundaries but increase urban density. This would increase city land values and again the demand for development rights for the attendant increase in allowable usage. But, here again, only the present user need be compensated for his improvements.

            Towns, cities and countries provide infrastructure for the use of their citizens. These facilitate all services and are the result of democratically approved taxation. They should not be a part of any use hold fees which should only reflect varying supply/demand for community resources, both physical and informational. In great urban areas over-priced housing does not represent true housing values but a complex of factors. Among these are city services, mortgage interest rates, state of the economy and supply and demand for housing. It is only this last factor, the one which is speculative with no basis as a service, that is due the community, thus a competitive use fee.

            The nature of different resources varies and thus the nature of the usehold. We require space and time for the building and ongoing use of our homes, offices and highways. The same is true for broadcasting, for air travel and sea travel. In each of these cases time-lease competitive usehold fees would represent society's true use rights.

            Unlike the use of land for buildings or highways, whose function is one of providing space/time for a service, the use of fossil fuels, minerals, soils, plants and animals consists of conversions for specific services in the process of which the original resource may be refined, alloyed, restored, degraded and or recycled; or with living things, grown, harvested, butchered, eaten and defecated. Fossil fuels, by the nature of their use, will be degraded. They should be charged relative to the competitive value of the resource sans exploration, extraction or refining costs i.e., by the barrel, by the ton, by the cubic foot. Likewise minerals which are refined from ore and alloyed with others should be competitively charged by their refined weight sans the costs of finding, mining and processing. Through this mechanism society lays claim to its use rights and targets the specific users.

            Wild or domesticated fauna and flora, including life-supporting soils, are potentially renewable or non-renewable depending on how they are cared for. Here, while the competitive value of good farmland is obvious, society's main object as stewards is to both preserve and restore these productive soils. The same holds true for the ongoing stock of domesticated plants and animals which one generation inherits from another. Here society's resources consist of a nexus of living organisms on which it is currently dependent and subsequently responsible for passing along. So interwoven is this family of living things that man does not yet understand all the relationships. He must proceed cautiously to avoid contamination or extinction of any of the parts, himself included. Thus while competition for use is, in some cases, workable, society may wisely choose to dampen or eliminate all use in other cases. Most important for this category of use rights is to provide adequate and informed regulations for their protection. Society's claim to resources and its responsibilities for living things must here include healthy topsoil and grazing land, forests, seeds, eggs and embryos; the basics on which farmer, forester, or rancher can build. Exclusive rights to genetically engineered genes or seeds sets a dangerous precedent and crossbreeding between wild and engineered species may prove a serious problem.

            In the U.S. at the time we began colonizing lands west of the Mississippi River the Federal Government granted large tracks of mostly wilderness to newly constituted states to dispose of as each state saw fit. While many states privatized much of their grants for ready cash, some wisely hung onto theirs, and still do, e.g., Washington State, where they lease rights to foresters, farmers and miners so long as the latter are performing sustainable services, and where lease income provides many government services. Is this not the same basic concept we are discussing?

            Henry George proposed a single tax on land, anticipating such a tax would be sufficient to cover all the costs of running the U.S. government. That was in 1879. A few wars later and a much expanded format of government activities leads me to doubt that possibility. Some will also wonder if depending on Congress to wisely administer such an income would itself be wise. If our goal is justice with equal access to resources for all citizens, then leaving decisions to political expedience and opportunism could well abort the goal. First and foremost we should consider the health of our habitat: the protection, restoration and enhancement of our mutual resources and not just for the short term. Secondly, we should bypass government and go directly to all citizens as caretakers, as responsible parties whose rights and whose progeny are at stake.

Next, like the state grants discussed above, we should leave each state, or perhaps larger regions, manage their own resources in co-operation with pertinent federal agencies—EPA, FDA, USDA—and return excess income over expenses to each citizen by way of reduced taxes, refunds, or if required by increased taxes.

All this might sound utopian unless we look back at the major happenings of the last decade: the vast changes in Russia and Eastern Europe, the opening of China and the democratizing of many Asian and African countries.

            This vehicle, fashioned to secure resource use rights with its useholds, the income or loss derived there from and the administration of same, could constitute a cooperative enterprise or multiple enterprises in which all citizens would be equal partners. The primary function of this state or regional enterprise would be conservation and restoration and its secondary function would be to utilize surplus income equitably for the benefit of all citizens. Like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) the administration of this cooperative should be so structured as to remain free of political manipulation or control yet not preclude it from working in consort with existing regulatory agencies. Just as the resources being addressed exist in various and diverse geographical areas, administration should be both decentralized and centralized to service different resources - metropolitan, county, state, regional, or national.

            This is not an attempt to provide a minimum income nor is it one to solve other social inequities. It is an attempt to answer Henry George's cry for justice, for remuneration for services rendered but not for unearned rent on scarce resources. It is also an attempt to respond to Odum's observation to whit: this biosphere in which we live is a dynamic entity whose health is our business and not something outside of us to be owned and exploited as we wish.

            Exactly how this co-operative(s) should be structured is beyond the scope of this essay, but the spirit of these enterprises is to put the responsibility for restoration and maintenance of everyone's biosphere into everyone's hands and to reward their stewardship accordingly. Conversely, this shift would remove that prerogative from the few, from those who currently own and or control resources and whose actions are driven by economic ideology whose foundation rests on false accounting. Shifting this income or loss to every citizen demands from each responsibility and cooperation while providing to each the greatest possible incentive. It is fair and it is just. Whether or not it succeeds will depend on both the collective wisdom of all citizens and the magnitude of the biological stress which current ownership, population pressure and government laxity have brought about. It will also depend on the expertise of scientists and upon equal access to the media.

            Converting to this concept of ownership will require a period of gradual phasing from one to the other. No one suspects it will be easy. I do not, however, anticipate an “un-civil war” but, only grudgingly, acceptiveness by all that the change is just and necessary.

            To compliment this usehold scenario and to assure conservation every complex of services with their attendant technologies could be subjected to regulations, zoning, specifications and time frames to insure the public against misuse or abuse of specific resources, of the environment, and of the public's health in their gathering, making, storing, selling, using, degrading or recycling. Furthermore, as per E. F. Schumacher's thoughts on "intermediate technology," services would be judged on how they impacted on a given social structure, i.e., on jobs and cultural patterns. New technologies which created unemployment sans retraining or which, by their nature, were physically or psychologically debilitating to those engaged therein would be judged disservices and an economic drain on the general public no less so than a polluting industry. Complete services, therefore, would need to take into account and resolve all harmful side effects, both physical and social, emerging from their application as well as their production.

 

SERVICES & DISSERVICES - BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT

 

            Allow me to digress briefly. While we already have many good regulations on the books and government is pursuing industries which cheat, pollute or stall, their regulatory agencies are handicapped by tight budgets, Congressional waffling, and corporate lawyers whose given mission is to obstruct and delay compliance as long as possible. Other factors forestall serious regulatory action; pollution credits for good behavior can be sold to those who choose not to comply, tax breaks are given to those who improve their operations and still others are granted years to reach compliance. Thus while government agencies attempt to punish offenders their hands are too often tied. Congressional ambivalence is not just because business is financing their campaigns, many truly are against serious regulatory controls. To those my demands for strict controls must seem like an environmentalist plot. I would argue it is rapidly becoming apparent that service controls are needed now more than ever to protect ourselves against increasing abuse.

            A definition of such a service, or complex of services might read like this: a complete service is one which enhances or, minimally, does not upset the basic ecosystems which support all life including the family of man: ergo, those activities of man which by their nature are compatible with the continued existence of himself and his fellow passengers aboard this evolving planet. Or, a complete service is one which takes into account and positively resolves all the known side effects of its various conversions (production, consumption, destruction and waste) which may critically infringe upon the individual rights, mutual rights and equal use rights of others.

            While services utilizing renewable resources should be able to eliminate all ill side effects there remains two, extinction and depletion, which may not. The first may occur for lack of understanding or through past abuse. Once a species becomes extinct there is little evolutionary chance for re-creation. The second, services using non-renewables, those birthed in our collective geosphere through eons of geologic change, must find substitutes when those currently in use are depleted. There is a long wait for second comings. Depletion, however, may be slowed with more efficient technologies, with recycling, or with restriction on non-essential uses. In some cases, such as fossil fuels and radioactive fuels, it appears economically impossible to eliminate damaging side effects, hence an urgent need to seek alternatives.

            These services which we are discussing may relate to any service or part of a service, e.g., mining, smelting, shaping, milling, fabricating, using a finished product, scrapping, or recycling; and in each conversion auxiliary technologies which may also be utilized. Whatever, in every case individuals are responsible for their particular part of a process, whether they perform or have others perform the necessary work.

In each phase in the life of a given service, the people involved are dealing with extensions of their own bodies and minds. The saw extends the potential of the arm, field glasses the eye, a loud speaker the voice, and television the whole bodily complex. Each augments the capability of an individual to act beyond what he or she could ever accomplish without these tools. These accomplishments are thus more than just freedom of speech or movement as we defined them under individual rights. They clearly fall under use rights. The potential for misuse or abuse here is much greater than under individual rights - the smallest gun in the wrong hands is LETHAL. Toxic waste dumped onto the ground or into a river, likewise. An unfair monetary system will sooner or later produce "haves" and "have-nots." A monopoly of radio bands is an infringement of everyone's equal use rights to resources and information. These issues then clearly distinguish the difference between individual rights as I have used them and use rights, which we are discussing. Services are owned and with ownership come other rights and responsibilities.

            The side effects of both production and consumption cannot be studied individually, i.e. by each production/consumption unit but must be analyzed with all other similar conversion units to determine their cumulative effects. The Greenhouse Effect results from cumulative conversion of fossil fuels to carbon dioxide worldwide. Further, as the cost of obtaining and processing certain fuels increases and as their finite quantity shrinks, production will also shrink unless alternatives are found. Nuclear energy replaced, in some cases, diminished coal, oil and gas supplies. Thus the determination of a complete service must look at all conversions which may infringe on one's fellow citizens either through contamination of the environment or by diminishing future conversion possibilities, ergo, strict conservation should be practiced as non-renewable sources wane and until new resources with their attendant technologies are in place. Finally, because we have defined service as comprising both production and consumption, the number of consumers and the rate of consumption become a part of the whole equation. Perhaps by defining the parameters of complete services, thus determining the amount of sustainable ongoing conversions possible, we can arrive at a reasonable global carrying capacity for the human race.

            Onto this somewhat simplistic analysis of the problem, i.e., my attempt to define a complete service, let me introduce Odum's discussion in Environment, Power & Society concerning the management of our fuel-injected ecosystems through a comprehensive study of their various energetic cycles and trade-offs:

 

"The principles of an energy network may provide large teams of scientists with an organizational basis for studying the great, complex ecosystems and regions of man and nature. Although much of scientific study is individual and is generated from the particular abilities of scientists, a general recognition of the network concept of synthesis allows strong personalities with hard-driving initiatives working separately to combine data about the function of whole systems. By developing a summary network diagram and quantitative data for the flows, it becomes possible to predict responses of the whole network to impending changes such as pollution, new inputs, addition of parts, fire, introduction of isotopes, fertilization, harvests, radiation destruction, and shifts in energy availabilities.

 

Once we understand the purposeful mechanisms built by natural selection into the program’s control within the ecosystem, we can recognize the splendid miniaturization and complexity, which many misinterpreted earlier as a symptom of accident, disorder, and randomness. Guiding the self-managing systems of nature now seems far more sensible than the destruction of our life-support bases on dangerous, clumsy attempts to substitute our untried and expensive human anthropomechanic devices."

 

            Such an undertaking, like NASA's space program or the proposed one to unravel the genetic code may be necessary if we are to truly understand what we are doing to ourselves and to our life support systems. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

            Since Odum suggested a concentrated effort to understand our ecosystems, the reasons to do so have become ever more urgent and the complexity of the mission has increased. Global warming offers a good example of both: the quantity of carbon dioxide and nitrogen emissions into the atmosphere has accelerated. Global deforestation is rapidly accelerating through clear cutting and slash and burn farming practices. The amount of nitrates used in agriculture is at unprecedented levels, and increasing world industrialization utilizing fossil fuels is expanding, particularly in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. Molly O'Meara, writing in World Watch magazine quotes from various scientists regarding their concerns. Here is one good example from her article "The Risks of Disrupting Climate," Nov/Dec., 1997:

 

"Ultimately the most serious results of climate change may be the hardest to predict. As ecologist Norman Myers explains, when climate change combines with pollution or another environmental problem, 'the problem may be not a double problem, but a super-problem. The climate system itself is full of such 'non-linear' possibilities because it is so complex.' Paleoclimatologist Jonathan Overspeck of the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center recently summed this up in the journal Science, 'If a climate system turns out to be highly sensitive to elevated atmospheric trace gas concentrations, then we may be confronted with modes of climate variability without precedent.' "

 

Thus redefined in relationship to use rights, complete services take on a much broader meaning than here-to-for. It is no longer just the current consensus of a consuming public or the persuasive hype of modern advertising. It is an ongoing attempt at a comprehensive, scientific definition which places the stability of biosphere first.

            Given these service definitions and an enforceable demand that they be adhered to, we would be encouraging free enterprise's most valuable asset, its inventiveness; an asset which too often is perverted into ways and means of avoiding the public good. It is naive to believe that businesses (sans parameters) will act in the best interests of society. They have their particular agendas, as do political parties, which may or may not always correspond with the public good. Unlike amateur sporting events where the game is played by fixed rules with impartial umpires and by fairly matched opposing teams, real life economic competition is different. The players constantly attempt and often succeed in changing the rules to their advantage. This is done through the support of political parties and their representatives, i.e., by buying influence. Referees, the judges and regulators, can be controlled or made ineffective through political manipulation and through lack of funding. And finally, every effort is made to make the teams unequal - through monopoly, through government partnerships, through tariffs, through unfair labor practices, through allowing unrestricted pollution, etc. The goal is survival and, while providing a superior service is important, other techniques are not ruled out. Thus independent, knowledgeable and forceful administration of use rights is imperative.

            The very nature of a corporation, which is a kind of limited liability, imaginary person put together by lawyers, gives it an unfair advantage in competition with other businesses and has allowed it to grow out of hand. This growth has also allowed it to gain ever more political influence and thus favorable subsidies, tariffs, and relaxed regulations. Ultimately some corporations have become de facto monopolies in league with others who together control both resources and markets. The idea of a competitive use value can thus become distorted or even nullified unless the corporations can be brought under control. The inclusion in my statement on use rights of the phrase "utilizing a limited share of certain resources" is a simplified attempt to qualify the extent to which resources can be controlled by any one group of service providers or receivers, and thus requires the break-up of monopolies. Beyond this, government must attempt to undo the arcane, legal superstructures which corporate lawyers have built into veritable fortresses to protect their masters from outside attack. This job of corporation downsizing and redefining has also increased many fold since corporations spread beyond their national boundaries.

            The use of mechanization has replaced much human labor while concurrently producing more goods. The superficial cost of substituting fossil fuel and high tech machines was weighted against the on-going social costs of human labor-wages, health, training and security. Other costs which were not considered, some of which are just now becoming apparent, include the rapid depletion of resources, environmental pollution and the retraining and deployment of displaced workers. It is likewise clear that `externalizing' these costs shifted the burden on to the public's back. With new heavy equipment lumber companies, for example, could vastly increase production. They also had need to do so to pay for their new tools. But the ravages of clear cutting and the plight of an unemployed workforce were left to the public. The full cost of this pillage may never be known. In much the same manner factory fishing fleets with their huge drift nets have hastened the demise of fish populations and put many small fishermen out of work. The idea of sustainability has not yet surfaced. Like many a poor porpoise it may have caught in a drift net and drowned.

            Here is another and perhaps most critical externalization of costs. Western technologists, under the control of corporate giants, have been practicing "reductionist" technology as opposed to "systemic" science. They have been simplifying problems by narrowing their focus in order to gain solutions more rapidly which, in turn, will lead to new commodities for their employers. They do not covertly seek to externalize costs but by avoiding the more complex systemic analysis, they do. These fixes, as with pesticides, lead to ever more toxic ones. The chemicals then get passed along via air and water to humans and other life forms. With still other technologies, problems may not surface for years but when they do, as for example with certain birth control devices, the results are often tragic. The feedback from reductionist solutions is often totally unsuspected, but when the volume of by-product becomes substantial, as with cloriflora-carbons in the atmosphere, we discover an already established calamity, in this case an ozone hole.

            Here is a small example of reductionist technology and its unintended results. Bees pollinate flowers and trees for free. But times are changing. With chemical pest controls and other agricultural chemicals there are fewer and fewer pollinators. Now beekeepers are called upon to help pollinate commercial fruit and nut trees. American farmers now spend close to $100 million a year on pollination according to Newsweek, May, 1997.

            Here is another example of unintended side effects. As world trade has escalated so have the number of stowaway, or hitchhikers, who come along for the ride, outside or inside cargo ships – and even airplanes. These range from viruses to snakes, birds, and plants. Those who survive the trip may find their new homes friendly. These exotics imports, for lack natural controls, then attack native species often overwhelming them. Eradication can be very expensive, some times impossible.

            Yes, business is driven to get results, to beat competitors, to get more market share for its services. It is driven by its stockholders who will vanish if its profits shrink. It is driven by debt which is always accumulating. It is driven by foreign competition which it claims is being subsidized by government and by lax regulations. Yes, it is not going to be easy because business seems to be always fighting against controls rather than demanding universal compliance. This is misdirected self-interest.

            Nor is government free of blame. In the process of developing chemical weapons, the U.S. has sometimes inadvertently done more harm to its own troops as with Agent Orange. Here the externalized suffering and medical costs are born by our own soldiers unless or until government admits to its culpability. Sometimes the externalization is strictly political as when Congress passed a law exempting federal agencies from complying with their own Clean Water Act, thus passing the probable health and clean-up costs along to constituents.

            Strict "use" criteria would eliminate many of today's most polluting, most humanly destructive, and most energy-consuming technologies, and send their advocates back to the laboratory and the boardroom. Agri-business, for example, dependent on heavy mechanization and energy intensive chemicals, and wedded to mono- culture farming, would probably find it difficult to compete with the multi-crop small farmer practicing crop rotation and utilizing animal fertilizers and biologic pest controls. The costs of maintaining or improving soil fertility, of paying to cleanup off site chemical run- offs and escalating purchase costs for manufactured chemicals from fossil fuels (when these too are forced to become complete technologies), would probably all favor the diversified small farmer. Our belated beginnings in the late 60's, along this path, such as forcing coal strip mining companies to restore the land after their operations, have already been expanded many fold to minimize the damaging effects of our acts. This public cry for restrictions and the response, particularly from U.S. States, has more recently (1980's) begun to have a greater impact on environmental abuse. (See Newsweek November 13, 1989). Likewise, the growing protests over where to dispose of our garbage will only be mitigated when its' bulk has been appreciably reduced by eliminating much packaging, when toxicity has been limited through controls and when degrade-ability has been made mandatory. Government designated "safe limits" for human tolerance to toxic by-products should, of course, give way to a "no limits" policy as Barry Commoner suggests in Making Peace with the Planet.

            Such an approach would impact several ways on present day resource regulation. Our E.P.A.'s, F.C.C.'s, F.D.A.'s, O.S.H.A.'s and Interior Departments would become major players in the game, not understaffed toothless watchdogs compromised by special interest lobbies, political pressures and private industry. Agency prognosticating and adjudicating capabilities would need to be strengthened and their grasp of technical matters broadened by the inclusion of top-flight environmental scientists and additional scientifically trained legal and para-legal personnel. Discussing the staggering clean-up problems facing the U.S. Energy Department relative to its nuclear weapon research and production facilities, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (O.T.A.) and the Energy Department concluded that nuclear waste management be taken out of the Energy Department and instead be taken over by an independent regulatory authority because, they concluded: "The energy department lacks the necessary expertise and organization to deal with the problems." Along with the benefits and problems of advanced technologies comes the additional necessary cost of regulation lest problems outweigh benefits.

            Looked at from the point of view of comprehensive rights, business and government are not the polar opposites they are reported to be. The function of each private enterprise, stayed from monopoly, is to perform better services for the public at a better cost than its competitors. Its focus is to get the job done and to make a profit. Concerns over the side effects of these driving forces are all secondary, e.g. low wages, long hours, poor working conditions, health hazards to employees and the general public, resource depletion, environmental pollution, miscellaneous social benefits and insurances demanded from it. Nor is the transnational corporation beholden to any one nation. This is not to say that business has no social conscience. It does, but this conscience is more often a product of the public's awareness and pressure, not corporate altruism. The role of government, as it relates to rights, is to assure competition sans monopoly and to protect the public from infringements against person, family and resources. This does not speak to regulation via tariffs, subsidies, price controls, or other interference with the workings of supply and demand. Nor do these services of government conflict with its other roles, namely the enhancement of health, education, and welfare for all citizens. These roles of government, for example, entail planning; planning cities with their bio-regions so that each is compatible with the other and with the functioning of their mutual ecosystems. This is obviously a very complex service and a critical one comprising numerous technologies, all of which need to become complete.

            A clear analysis of the relationship between technologies and social justice is spelled out in a booklet published by Professor Jack Kloppenburg for the Edmonds Institute titled Does Science Know Where It's Going?. Here is an excerpt:

 

"Knowledge is a social creation. Technologies are social creations. Of course, neither scientists nor engineers make technology any way they like (just as people make history, but not any way they please). Nature presents certain constraints, but which elements of nature are explored and how nature is interpreted, are determined by those who have the power to fund research. The results of research can be unexpected; new knowledge can open up multiple possibilities for application. But again, how new knowledge or technologies are deployed depends in large measure on social rather than purely technical parameters. If we have not learned to use existing agricultural technologies in a manner that is environmentally responsible and socially just, there is no reason to think new technologies will produce that result independently of changes in the social institutions that manage the creation and use of knowledge. Sustainability and social justice will follow from the social arrangements we construct, not from the technologies we develop. A focus on technologies as causal agents merely deflects us from the hard but necessary task of social transformation."

 

Or this comment from False Dawn by John Gray, the English economist and author:

“The spread of new technologies throughout the world is not working to advance human freedom. Instead it has resulted in the emancipation of market forces from social and political control. By allowing that freedom to world markets we ensure that the age of globalization will be remembered as another turn in the history of servitude.”

 

            This regulatory role, like the resource co-operative discussed earlier, should be both decentralized and centralized depending on the nature of the specific service being addressed. As noted under the definition of a complete service, because the cumulative effects of many conversions, controls (in some instances) must be international. Acid rain is a good example: Canada and Europe are both affected by U.S. industrial air borne pollution. If river basin pollution is in question likely the controls needed will be regional. Urban smog should be controllable on a metropolitan level.

            It is possible today to predict the public's growing insistence on stricter controls and punishment for oil spills, chemical leaks and mismanagement at nuclear power plants. Jefferson insisted on restricting public debt to the generation incurring it. In a masterful letter to James Madison of September 6, 1789, Jefferson declares, "The earth belongs to the living in usufruct," and argues that one generation has no right to obligate the next either in terms of special privilege or monetary debt, nor should government indebt those yet to come in anyway. Jefferson was right. Today we must opt for equal access to resources and for eliminating their misuse and abuse by any one generation, not only because it is just but also for fear there may be no way for the following generation to repay this debt.

            Application of these two conditions for use would also help determine an efficient scale for various types of services. As fuel for energy grows dear and more expensive to obtain and as its use becomes circumscribed out of fear for environmental degradation the net energy available for productive work will shrink and its use will likely be restricted to those services which are most fuel conservative. Scale then might logically be affected by bulk and weight; the energy cost of transporting being in direct proportion to weight and bulk carried and the distance hauled. Thus weightless[2] communications might continue to circle the globe while bulk materials would, where feasible, be used regionally or converted there into more ethereal form for shipment elsewhere. Fuller's dream of a world circling electric grid bridging night and day, winter and summer, fueled by regional wind, tide and solar energy technology and distributed with the aid of super-conductors, might become a feasible and efficient reality. Both bio-regional economies and global power and communication networks could compatibly coexist.

 

A RESTORATION SCENARIO: A PARTNERSHIP WITH NATURE

            There is currently a protest by labor that with stricter environmental controls jobs are being lost. In the short run this may be true but in the long run many new ones will be created. Contemporary businesses and corporations will be restructuring their operations to comply with new requirements and to clean up their past mistakes. These activities will require new expertise and probably expanded manpower: reforestation is a good example. But government in consort with a citizen's usehold cooperative will be saddled with an even larger work load - cleaning up and restoring deteriorated or polluted resources and aging public works infrastructures (some dating back a century or more) with no way to transfer responsibility for their condition. Added to this will be the new and on-going work of assuring complete technologies. These tasks and that of retraining a work force for the effort will have to be shouldered by government, by business and by the collective citizenry resource shareholders. It will be a monumental task and an imperative one which will take center stage for several generations to come. Hopefully it will become a kind of constructive reincarnation of yesterday's Marshal Plan. These acts will constitute the creation or restoration of real wealth. In one sense they will be inflationary, but in a real sense they reflect the current loss of productive natural resources and life sustaining habitats.

            This restoration of depleted soil, denuded and dying forests, polluted lakes, streams, rivers and aquifers, near extinct wild life, and finally the restored health of man himself, will perhaps provide us with the greatest untapped source of alternative energies and human resources while providing ample jobs in the process. All of this is, of course, already underway to some extent but it is not yet sufficiently evident to those who stand to lose their present jobs or to those who should be formulating new policies to cope with the situation.

            Odum called this new focus ‘a partnership with nature’ or ‘ecological engineering’, a technology which would mimic nature’s eco-processes. To address the unbalanced nature of our fossil fuel consuming society with its toxic outputs and destructive inputs, he proposed a technology whose inputs and outputs would be free of contaminants and whose byproducts could be recycled, or looped back, to perform productive work elsewhere in their ecosystems. To correct man’s destructive inputs—mineral extractions, interference in water cycles, the ongoing elimination of forests, wetlands, et al.—he proposed the same medicine.

            On a lesser scale, change had already begun in farming. Organic farming advocates were rejecting chemical fertilizers, pesticides and plowing. They were also reverting to the ancient practice of recycling animal wastes on their croplands, and some were introducing natural predators to get rid of plant pests.

            At another level, some of the more adventurous scientists were tackling waste water purification, studying experimental small scale ecosystems, and attempting restoration of various damaged parts of local ecosystems. John Todd, professor of ecology design at the University of Vermont and founder of Ocean Arks Foundation, was demonstrating the feasibility of ecologically purifying urban waste water at large scale and restoring polluted small lakes, among other advanced ecological design projects.

            Still others, more recently, are focused on the restoration of endangered species. Here in the U.S. Northwest, the focus is on salmon. This endeavor has caused researchers to study migration and spawning habits which range from regional rivers and creeks to vast oceanic travel patterns. This study is made infinitely more complex because of major conflicts with existing human cultural patterns: Farmland irrigation with river water, urban modification of spawning creeks, hydropower generating dams, silting of spawning beds by lumbering, pollution of rivers by industry and farming, and of course, over fishing by all parties.

            In every case, the more comprehensive the information, the more complete the resultant eco-engineering solutions. There are no quick fixes nor will cost/benefit economics suffice. These efforts will require a major shift from our present priorities. Instead of a focus on consumer goods and economic growth its focus will be on the restraint of production, consumption, procreation and destruction. It will also be a major shift from commercial sector dominance to public sector dominance, i.e. in terms of both ideology and capital investment. The present growth ideology can not be sustained without degrading our collective habitat and thus ourselves. It would be foolhardy to abet this catastrophe which, if it happens, will not be just another Depression.

 

THE DOWN SIDE

 

            Aside from those industrialized countries in which private property is the norm there are many more wherein the state is controlled by an elite oligarchy or an outright dictatorship backed by military force. Here property ownership is at the prerogative of those few in power. There is a third group of nations who are on the threshold of joining the industrialized nations where private property exists but where real power resides within the confines of a small clique of government and business interests.

            It is difficult to see those in industrialized countries who are at the forefront of commercial globalization agreeing to surrender any of their privileges. It must likewise seem utterly incomprehensible that those in power in less developed nations would willingly do so. In fact the reverse may be true. As these latter nations default on both public and private loans and their currencies collapse, their own citizens will (and have already in some cases) become painfully aware that they have become both the local and international primary victims of a no win situation. Their nations will, or have been, finessed into IMF and World Bank loans while specific creditors and nation creditors line up to collect their due. The resulting demanded austerity programs and paybacks in real resources will further reduce the already meager incomes of ordinary citizens. It will also reduce the capacity of these unfortunate countries to recover (refer to the U.N.'s analysis on page 91). All of this will happen in spite of the capitulation of their petty dictators and ruling classes. Under these circumstances the local citizenry will certainly protest, either non-violently or violently.[3] In the process they will attempt to seek out new solutions perhaps even equitable, universal human rights which address and hopefully could redress their predicament.

            It will be more difficult to change the minds of those who currently run the show, convinced as they are of their own exclusive rights and backed by G.A.A.T., their world bankers and their own powerful governments. But the threat of violence and the potential for mass out-migration from these economic colonies may force them to consider new alternatives. The ultimate convincing may result from a belated realization by even the most resolute bankers and CEOs that the ultimate flaws in their economic paradigm, a belief in the unlimited supply of natural resources and of nature's ability to absorb infinite abuse without serious damage, will have become too blatantly obvious to ignore. They might also begin to realize that their operating world trade agreements are impacting not on those responsible for default but on an already helpless citizenry. This growing disparity of income and powerlessness could be another wake-up call. Thus running out of time, they too may surrender bowing to a more equitable rule of law and a more user-friendly economic system.

            It was certainly not clear that communist Russia was on the verge of collapse in 1980. Today it may seem equally unlikely that capitalism must radically reform soon or perish itself.

 

FOSSIL FUELS

 

            Since the inception of the Industrial Revolution, we in the industrialized world have been living the fable of The Sorcerer's Apprentice wherein the sorcerer has been "science," his apprentice "technology," the magic words "fossil fuel," and the caldron filling with soup has been the bountiful production of goods and services. And, like the apprentice's soup, which overflows its caldron and threatens to engulf him, the side effects of our bountiful production are threatening to render our growth ideology obsolete and destroy the rest of us. This engulfing includes an exploding population, a degrading biosphere and an ongoing rush to exploit resources, and nobody seems to know the magic words to control this process.

            So critical to our present industrial society are non-renewable fossil fuels that it may be impossible to arrive at a competitive usehold value sufficient to protect future generations without also providing subsidies to encourage finding alternatives. This was done to some extent during Carter's administration then terminated under the Reagan administration, but could be reinstituted and funded through the use of competitive usehold charges levied against mining and drilling operations. But this is a world problem and needs to be approached as such.

            An article by David Gordon Wilson in the Washington Post ('93) suggests a tax-plus-rebate (TPR) proposal for equitable redistribution of wealth through an energy tax which would concurrently reduce pressure on the environment and conserve fossil fuel. While this proposal does not raise the question of rights, it goes a long way towards securing similar results. Here is the heart of Wilson's article:

 

"Transportation subsidies are merely one category among many. For instance, we provide huge quantities of precious water to farmers at a small fraction of its cost, and because petroleum is subsidized in the ways just mentioned, so are agricultural fuel and fertilizer and everything else that comes from oil. An economic principle states that we should internalize external cost - the polluter must pay principle. However, doing so would lead to increases in the costs of many goods and services (including such basics as energy and water). It would be regressive, hurting poor people more than rich. It would also trigger an apparent inflationary step. A long-advocated solution is TPR, or 'tax-plus-rebate.' Energy, for instance, should be taxed on a gradually increasing scale until politicians feel that the level is socially appropriate. The proceeds of the taxes, which could eventually be quite large if the desired effects are to be reached, must be deposited into an impregnable trust fund. From this an equal per-adult rebate would be given each month to all citizens. Because the citizen of average income would see no change in his or her standard of living, while those poorer would become richer and those richer would become poorer (if all maintained their same consumption patterns), TPR is progressive rather than regressive. Everyone would, however, have strong incentives to reduce consumption of anything that incurs external costs."

 

            Professor Gordon's tax plus rebate proposal is, as he suggests, a progressive tax when the rebate is attached. It would also, as he points out, raise the cost of oil products. If his proposal were enlarged to include all resources and if it were based on the competitive value of these resources and not on political expediency, and if the resource users were required to take into account and pay for all the adverse side effects of their conversions, then costs would escalate. These true costs would, in one sense, be inflationary. Things would cost more. But it would also protect people and their environment, and it would act as a incentive to discover better answers.

            Use and abuse of these non-renewable fossil fuels has become a worldwide dilemma. We are faced with both the prospect of coming shortages and a growing ecological threat, the greenhouse effect, brought on through the ever-expanding emissions of carbon dioxide into the air as a result of burning fossil fuels. There is also an ongoing degradation of oceanic habitat caused by oil spills and the salinization of farmland resulting from obsolete unplugged oil wells.       Substituting nuclear energy only creates other yet unsolved issues such as what to do with the toxic waste thus generated, and what to do with obsolete reactors which will remain lethal long after their useful lives. It is not even clear at this stage whether the nuclear energy industry will be a net energy producer. Until subsidies are accounted for, public liability insurances included, waste disposal costs determined and mothballing is complete there can be no final answer. One suspects that the Russians probably already know and that their answer is a clear "nyet." Note: the U.S. Department of Energy is, and has been, studying a site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada Desert to bury nuclear waste. These deadly waste products, stored in special canisters, must be buried without disturbance for 10,000 years. Proving the viability of any site for that period is pushing science beyond realistic limits. D.O.E. says it is prepared to spend up to 4 billion to satisfy everyone's safety concerns.

            One obvious future solution, as Amory Lovins keeps pointing out, is to shift to renewable and non-polluting energy sources e.g. solar energy, wind power, high efficiency equipment and buildings, and thereby conserve non-renewable energy and energy intensive services; ergo, where feasible favor the bicycle over the automobile. It should also be pointed out that by insisting on complete services, by having to pay a competitive charge for non-renewable resources and by requiring the restoration of regenerative resources (those degraded through past abuse and those currently accumulating as waste) we may find that alternative sources of energy are competitive.

            We may be living in the twilight hour of our fossil fuel era. We should buy ourselves as much time as possible to develop known alternatives and to discover new ones. Philip Abelson, a deputy editor with Science Magazine, summarized the outlook in an editorial titled "Increased Use of Renewable Energy" in the September 6, 1991 issue, as follows:

 

"The climate for sustained growth of renewable energy seems excellent. World-wide interest and activity are increasing. In the United States rapid improvements in cost-cutting technologies are being made. Funding for R & D is improving. Federal appropriations for renewable energy that hit a low in fiscal 1990 are now increasing. The Electric Power Research Institute is fostering renewable energy. Some companies active in renewables are showing a profit."

 

            We will also rediscover that manpower is an alternative source of energy. Currently the high cost of idled manpower has become a social liability. However, when the true costs of fossil fuel technologies become manifest this situation will surely change. In spite of the social costs, including education, attendant with human labor (which costs industry has attempted to avoid by shifting to energy intensive production) it will again become viable. (See WTO Party)

 

* * * * * *

 

            Now, disregard my optimism. Here is an alternate scenario. "Desert Storm" may have been but a prelude to a coming hurricane whose eye will be fossil fuel. The worldwide scramble underway by both developed and developing countries for a share of, or a source for, this 20th century gold may, in the not too distant future, produce violent conflicts the likes of which we can hardly imagine. Like addicts scrambling for a fix, unable to give up their habit and without regard for one another, the major powers may be unable to avoid war. Even today it is possible to hear the distant rumblings of this approaching storm. In the South China Sea lies a small group of atolls named the Spratly Islands. Geologists have estimated large quantities of crude oil lie below these tiny uninhabited atolls. Enter the players. Vietnam has claimed the islets and teamed up with Norway to exploit their riches. China has also claimed the islets and teamed up with the United States to exploit them. Sailors from both sides scramble across coral reefs to implant their flags and erect shanties. Who's next? And what about Greenland, Antarctica, Siberia, Baku, Nigeria, and Sudan, etc.?

            It gets worse. The effects of global warming are manifesting themselves as El Nino and El Nina become regular phenomena. Pacific Ocean warming patterns with their attendant storms, floods and droughts are adversely impacting countries along the Pacific Rim. Scientists predict this same phenomena will soon visit the Atlantic warming its waters and subsequently modify weather patterns along the Atlantic Seaboard from the Mexican Gulf to Norway. These newly emerging patterns will continue to grow as an ever-increasing volume of carbon oxides envelope the earth.[4] Also see epilogue discussion, pages 124-126.

            While the battle of titans goes on to secure ample supplies of fossil fuels for the new millennium, the results of their application now make it clear that we must urgently attempt to find viable substitutes. Is there time? What are the magic words?

            Beyond this is the hope of yet another technological fix: a holy grail of limitless, non-polluting energy. Fusion is viewed by some as this ultimate solution and the end to our current polluting oil, gas and coal technologies. Others, like Lovelock, shudder at this prospect, envisioning an ever-expanding growth-driven economy consuming everything it its path. If the new fix should actually materialize we had better have substantive "use right" controls and an ecologically friendly economy in place.

            Perhaps we have been living with a Faustian bargain. We have been given the fuels and tools to conquer nature—now it is payback time.

 

FRESH WATER

 

            Unlike fossil fuels which conceivably can be replaced with more benign resources there is no replacement for fresh water. True, desalinization plants powered with renewable energy might, under certain limited conditions, alleviate shortages. But the prospect of utilizing this approach as a general solution is poor. It is also true that approximately 72 percent of all global untapped fresh water supplies are underground, however most are too far below ground to be economically recovered. For the most part we will have to cope with the rainfall and snowfall which nature provides and which she distributes via streams, rivers, lakes and reachable subterranean aquifers.

            We humans have not been wholly satisfied with nature's works. We have modified her patterns with our own additions: with canals, with dams and reservoirs, with irrigation channels and with aqueducts. First it was done modestly by the Chinese and Indo-Chinese with irrigation channels, crop terracing and navigational canals, and later by the Romans with aqueducts. Then more recently it has been done with giant dams and reservoirs. We have also straightened rivers and deep dredged them to accommodate heavy cargos, and we have learned to pipe and pump large volumes of water great distances from their mountain sources to our expanding metropolises. In the process of making these changes we have modified the landscape and affected the lives of thousands, including those of the plants, animals, birds and fish whose habitats we have either destroyed or severely modified. No matter, we were preventing floods, providing water for irrigation and producing hydroelectric power.

            By the mid-twentieth century the developed countries were in love with the technology of big dams, but by the 70's doubts were being raised. Gilbert White, speaking before the National Geographic’s Centennial Symposium in 1988 had this to say about our changing perspective:

 

"During the century, four concepts of how water might and should be managed gained wide-spread but not uniform allegiance among engineers, farmers, water supply folk, and others engaged in using or controlling water. Those approaches reflect a shift to multi-objective design and operation within drainage basins as units, a move from primary reliance on structural measures toward nonstructural devices, an increasing emphasis on the quality of water and related ecosystems, and a rising concern for equity among those who rely on or are affected by water development."

 

            We have also used these natural resources and our man-made conversions thereof as sewers. We have used our rivers and lakes as depositories for urban garbage and for industrial and agricultural chemical wastes. Our ships and barges have used them for refuse dumps. And inadvertently, the airborne wastes from our smoke stacks have settled on their surfaces. We are despoiling the very life's blood of our own support system. The water we drink must be purified and chemically fortified to protect us from our own contaminating. The fish and fowl from our lakes and rivers are dying off or, if surviving, are too poisonous to eat. At rivers' mouths the accumulated wastes from upstream fan out onto continental shelves bringing destruction to aquatic habitats; breeding and feeding grounds for all manner of marine life.

            While it is true that some of what we have already done cannot soon be undone, it is also true that much can and is being done to rectify our past and on going infringements. More stringent requirements on waste disposal have already helped revive dying lakes and streams and smokestack controls are reducing acid rain. Instituting complete technologies, or eliminating those which cannot comply, will result in the termination of further environmental deterioration. Improved farming practices and controlled timber cutting will help control topsoil losses, contamination of streams and lakes by pesticides and herbicides, and reduce silting behind existing dams. There remains, beyond these measures, the task of cleaning up our waterways; a major ecological and economic undertaking which we are morally obligated to undertake.

            Beyond the questions of cleansing our fresh water sources there are those of abundance or scarcity. As human population and industrial development increases so does water consumption, putting more pressure on available supplies. Prolonged drough