The age of Green dilemmas
Saleem H Ali
Environmental politics has come a long way forward in the last
century but we are entering an age where the issue might not be whether
or not be ‘green’ but how best to prioritise competing environmental
concerns.
Environmental issues appear to be resonating globally at an
unprecedented level. Amazingly enough, both Republicans and Democrats in
the United States are registering some level of consensus that climate
change is a real global concern.
The classic ‘jobs versus the environment’ slogan may well be
considered passe, as environmental technology industries are gaining
traction.
You are now more likely to get a job as an environmental engineer
than as a computer scientist. Even the thorny issue of endangered
species seems to have garnered acceptance on both sides of the political
spectrum with the recent declaration of polar bears as ‘threatened’
fauna.
Hope
Green awareness through environmental education |
In Pakistan, there are also some glimmers of hope that the
environment will no longer be dismissed as a soft issue. In a recent
interview for the Voice of America Urdu Service, I discussed the
prospect of environmental education with other Pakistani expatriates and
there was general consensus that we are now reaching a turning point in
our political culture with regard to ‘green awareness’.
Despite these positive signs of ecological confluence, let us not be
too sanguine about environmental policy as many tough decisions await
the next president and his administration.
Unlike the monochromatic choices of the past where you were either
‘green’ or ‘brown’, the most difficult ecological decisions of the
future will involve conflicting priorities within the environmental
movement. No longer will either side be able to paint the other as a
lunatic fringe or ‘sell-outs’ to corporate power.
Consider, for example, the decision made by the US Federal Government
on June 27 to halt new applications for solar power developments on
public land in six western states. At first glance this may seem like a
crass decision by an administration, known for its cynicism about
renewable energy.
However, the reason for the moratorium on new projects is also
environmentally motivated over concerns raised by conservation
biologists about the impact of large-scale solar farms on ecosystems.
While renewable energy activists are critical of this decision, others
within the environmental movement such as the Wilderness Society have
applauded the moratorium.
Radical action
The environmental movement always had shades of green from radical
direct action activists such as the Earth Liberation Front (considered
the largest domestic terrorist organisation by the US Department of
Homeland Security for their rampant vandalism of fuel-guzzling trucks
and logging establishments) to very conciliatory voluntary partnerships
between businesses and conservationists.
However, what has changed in recent years is the range of plausible
choices within specific policy arenas such as energy and climate change.
Perhaps the most acute example of this challenge is the renewed
debate over nuclear power as a result of concerns about climate change.
Anti-nuclear activism had once united environmentalists as a clear
issue that was a non-negotiable protest platform.
However, now there is vigorous debate within environmental circles
about favouring nuclear energy over fossil fuels and even large-scale
hydroelectric development. Scientists have once again been made to
consider comparative metrics of impacts from uranium mining and the full
nuclear cycle’s carbon footprint versus coal, oil and gas.
How might the next President consider these more nuanced
environmental dilemmas? First, there are still numerous areas of
environmental policy which are potential ‘win-win’ propositions but have
received scant attention because of a fundamental lack of political
awareness or leadership.
Policy endeavours
Energy conservation programmes must top the list of such policy
endeavours.
Despite considerable improvements in technology, the levels of
inefficiency in our energy system and water delivery system are so huge
that we could delay many other policy trade-offs such as considering new
nuclear power plants for several decades if we only conserved more
energy.
Many of these inefficiencies are behavioural (such as switching off
lighting) but others are related to aging infrastructure for power
delivery.
Vermont showed leadership in this domain by launching the nation’s
first state-run provider of energy conservation services to all
residents which is saving precious electricity but also saving money.
Since 2000, when Efficiency Vermont was established, the cumulative
lifetime economic value of efficiency investments in Vermont totals more
than $313 million. If so much can be achieved with a small state of only
700,000 inhabitants, consider the impact of similar efforts at the
national scale in the US and indeed in Pakistan as well.
Regulations
We have all kinds of regulations related to building safety and
occupational health and yet a code on green building design is still a
boutique pursuit.
Common-sense regulations such as required energy and water efficiency
for new buildings are likely to benefit all in the long-run and should
be a vital priority for the new government.
Once the low-hanging fruits of ecological policy have been plucked, a
deliberative process on how to consider more challenging choices can be
pushed forward.
Environmental politics has come a long way forward in the last
century but we are entering an age where the issue might not be whether
or not to be “green” but how best to prioritise competing environmental
concerns.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the
University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the
adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International
Studies.
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