The final document up for discussion is the Pentagon’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) . This is one of their most important strategic documents which can set not only basic doctrine but also force structure, threat identification and procurement for years to come. It has, for the first time, identified climate change as a major concern. It states:

Climate change and energy will play significant roles in the future security environment. The Department is developing policies and plans to manage the effects of climate change on its operating environment, missions, and facilities. The Department already performs environmental stewardship at hundreds of DoD installations throughout the United States, working to meet resource efficiency and sustainability goals. We must continue incorporating geostrategic and operational energy considerations into force planning, requirements development, and acquisition processes. [1]

While steeped in military jargon, the actual meaning of the QDR is still plain enough for the average person to comprehend and that climate change is beginning to take on a new importance as a strategic driver of events and not “merely” as an environmental issue, which it has been marginalized as in the past. This document puts it is well beyond that when characterized as a potential trigger point for international instability. Climate change’s  inclusion in this particular document raises not only its visibility but its importance to the one area that has consistently rated high in every public opinion poll taken, namely national security. While in the past climate change as a reason for war might have been ignored, the language in the report provides enough clarity to possibly convince some who have been skeptics that this is a potential threat which must be further investigated and addressed if action is warranted.  A sample of some language from the QDR states:

Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment.

Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked.

The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, composed of 13 federal agencies, reported in 2009 that climate-related changes are already being observed in every region of the world, including the United States and its coastal waters.

Among these physical changes are increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the oceans and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments.

Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.

While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.

Abroad, the Department will increase its investment in the Defense Environmental International Cooperation Program… and will also speed innovative energy and conservation technologies from laboratories to military end users.

Finally, the Department is improving small-scale energy efficiency and renewable energy projects at military installations through our Energy Conservation Investment Program.[2]

Yes, this is our Pentagon speaking and while it may appear to be a bastion of what passes for conservatism, it is in a business that cannot afford to miss seeing what may conceivably could be one of the more dangerous emerging threats.  To ignore it and then have the nation suffer due to negligence is a gamble they cannot afford.  It is all about credibility and the caution of some inside the establishment that still remind each other that they always prepare for the last war. A truism that has in the past cost both blood and treasure.

In our next exciting episode (and I do sort of mean that) we will explore in more detail how climate change can contribute to causing instability within or between nations at the least and how, combined with other factors may result in outright conflict.  In some cases it may even play not just a pivotal role but become a primary driver. The ways in which it achieves this are widely varied but may work alone or in combination to spark or perpetuate conflicts.

[1] Quadrennial Defense Review 2010. p.xv

[2] Op. Cit.  pp. 84-87

The first, completed in 2007, is titled National Security and the Threat of Climate Change and was done  under the auspices of the Center for Naval Analysis Corporation.  It brought together 11 retired admirals and generals with scientists comprised of both advocates and skeptics of anthropological  climate change to develop recommendations related to security implications. The overall consensus positions were:

Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States. Accordingly, it is appropriate to start now to help mitigate the severity of some of these emergent challenges. The decision to act should be made soon in order to plan prudently for the nation’s security. The increasing risk from climate change should be addressed now because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay.

The following recommendations were made: [1]

1. The national security consequences of climate change should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies.

2. The US should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption the global security and stability.

3. The US should commit to global partnerships that helped less developed nations build the capacity and resiliency to better manage climate impacts.

4. The department of defense should enhance its operational capability by accelerating the adoption of improved business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved US combat power through energy efficiency.

5. DOD should conduct an assessment of the impact on US military installations worldwide of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other possible climate change impacts over the next 30 to 40 years.

(Since that time, the group has reconvened on an issue in a separate document, Powering America’s Defense, relating to many aspects of energy security, which while closely allied to climate change, is a separate document and will not be detailed herein.)

In mid-July of 2009 former Sen. John Warner (R-VA) joined with the Pew Environment Group that the launched a project to inform the public and of critical links between national security, energy and global warming. [2] Reports from the press release notes that the mission will be “dedicated to advancing solutions to combat the threat of global warming, protect our national security, increase our energy independence, and preserve our natural resources.” one interesting note is that Sen. Warner, who spent 30 years in the U.S. Senate as a Republican, has a reputation as being conservative issues pertaining to national security. This may have been an excellent selection as a front person for not only the organization but for the greater realization of the close ties between climate change and energy security. With over 30 years in the U.S. Senate as a member of the GOP, Warner may be able to play an important bridging role to reconcile what has formally been an almost irreconcilable issue for many conservative Republicans.

A more recent document to make an appearance is the Climate Security Index compiled by the Climate Security Initiative of the American Security Project  In this document under the auspices of a politically diverse group, the organization states “the consequences of changes in the Earth’s climate is not simply about saving Polar Bears or preserving the beauty of mountain glaciers, as important as those are. Climate change is a threat to our national security.” They go on to say: [3]

There is no doubt that this increased level of carbon dioxide emissions is responsible for the dramatic increase in atmospheric carbon above levels recorded over the past million years.

Noting that the climate has changed in the past is not a source of comfort, but rather a warning about the fragility of our reliance on the inter-connected web climate constrained habitats.

The document then goes on to provide a number of nicely illustrated indices including greenhouse gas emissions, indicators of climate change, security impacts of climate change, energy security, geographic choke points and policy considerations including alternative energy sources and government capability and responses. The directors of this truly appear to be highly diverse in both political disposition and experience and include such well-known people as former Sen. Gary Hart, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Chuck Hagel, national security expert Richard Armitage and several retired generals.

Next time we’ll have a look at the Pentagon’s new (about one  month old) Quadrennial Defense Review that has some rather amazing statements  considering the source.  While many skeptics disavow many of the climate scientists, it will be interesting to see their reactions to this document–almost as interesting to see how environmentalists may or may not accept help from this most seemingly unconventional partner.
[1] National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. The CNA Corporation. 2007.

[2] News release, the Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate. July 14, 2009.

[3] Finel, Bernard I and Bartolf, Christine. Climate Security Index. Climate Security Initiative of the American Security Project. January 2010.

Oddly enough, in that era, it was some who we would  label as conservatives who were among the first to realize and appreciate the relationship. Notable among them was the previously-mentioned Sir Crispin Tickell who was Science Adviser to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major and who, unlike their conservative counterparts in the United States,  saw the need to address climate change as a serious issue. It would likely be appropriate to credit Sir Crispin with being largely responsible for their take on the topic.

One particular area which he brought  to attention in his book was the stress on societies that could be attributed to mass migrations of those who might become environmental refugees due to changing climate. This has since been revisited numerous times in a variety of studies.

One such study was written for the Pentagon and later released to appear in Fortune magazine. [2] The project was undertaken at the direction of Andrew Marshall,  long known for thinking outside the box,  so this topic was not an outlier from that perspective.  Its concentration on abrupt climate change, however, provided what might be considered an extreme view or worst case scenario that included the potential to disrupt the North Atlantic thermohaline  circulation of currents that keep much of Europe more temperate than locations at that same latitude. In other words, any interruption of that circulation might carry the effect of literally freezing out our allies. One discussion of that paper said:

“… widespread accelerations of the catastrophic effects already associated with”‘ normal’ climate change… could lead to military confrontations between states over access to scarce food, water and energy supplies, or what the authors describe as a ‘world of warring states period’” [2]

The authors specifically made this suggestion that “because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change, although uncertain and quite possibly small,  should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern.” After laying out scientific evidence and providing potential regional implications they further detailed what they saw as security implications  and made recommendations that included:

1) Improve predictive climate models

2) Assemble predictive models of climate change impacts

3) Create vulnerability metric for vulnerable nations

4) Identify no-regrets strategies

5) Rehearse adaptive responses to massive migration, diseases/epidemics, food/water shortages

6) Explore local implications of agriculturally-related problems.

7) Explore more radical geo-engineering options to mitigate climate change.

Author and National Defense University Professor Gregory  Foster,  a West Point graduate,  said

“The importance of this episode, as well its is relevance for the future, lies in both the message and the method of the Schwartz-Randall report itself. The implicit message is that even worse than climate change is the not unrealistic possibility of abrupt climate change. For those who had not heard of it, the article made clear that abrupt climate change is not just global warming speeded up, but a wholly different kind of event triggered by the baseline climate change we already know.” [3]

In the next installment we will look at additional,  more recent documents directly related to climate change and national security with input from both retired and active duty high-ranking members of the armed forces.

[1] Schwartz, Peter and Randall, Doug. An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security. October 2003.

[2] Foster, Gregory. National Defense University. A New Security Paradigm. Worldwatch. January/February 2005.

[3] Op cit Foster.

• Climate change is the preeminent environmental challenge

• For that reason it is largely the environmental community that is concerned

• To reach an agreement and take action on stabilization/decreases of climate change emissions, it will take more than just the environmental community

• Climate change presents certain potential dangers to national and global security

• More people are concerned about national security than climate change which is presented almost purely in environmental terms

• Thus far there has been limited progress in setting and meeting carbon reduction goals and this will not happen without enlisting others who may not share those environmental goals but who  may accept certain arguments based upon security concerns.

• Both energy efficiency and renewable energy are common solutions to both climate change and many security issues.

In some ways it is safe to say that climate change suffers from what might be called the “Adlai Stevenson” syndrome. In 1952 when Stevenson was a presidential candidate, he was on the campaign trail when a woman approached him and said “Mr. Stevenson, every intelligent American will vote for you.” He is purported to have replied “we’ll need a lot more than that to win.” Likewise with climate change,  we will need a lot more than the existing “true believers” to convince our elected officials to set targets and timetables to meet the long-term goals. Indeed, in just about every survey and poll that is conducted by professionals in an unbiased manner, the climate change/global warming issue has not ranked particularly highly in importance compared to issues such as the economy and the many forms of security (national, employment, economic… See the recent Pew Research Center for People and the Press). In many ways anything attached to environmental issues is looked upon as being mostly discretionary and something that we can only afford to do when we have a strong economy. Missing is the concept that to truly have a strong economy and, hence, a strong defense, you must have a strong environment as a cornerstone. The environmental security connection was particularly well-expressed even before it had a name by Dr. Albert E. Burke, former Director of Graduate Studies in Conservation at Yale in the 1950s:

“It is a problem of education, education to inform Americans about the close tie that exists between a wide margin of resources and freedom. Reduce the margin of resources, reduce the quality of resources, and you reduce what Americans have always meant by the word ‘freedom’.” [1]

There is also the formidable problem of how to maintain societal attention on the climate change issue which requires a tight focus over at least the 50 years needed to merely stabilize greenhouse gas reductions in some plans. Some have said that even that is a modest goal and we will need to go well beyond.

In most cases, we are still moving backwards and producing more greenhouse gases, not less. Lofty marketing-oriented sound-bite goals of “20% by 2020″ mean less than something like “1 lousy percent by 2012″ that at least go in the right direction in the terms of office of currently sitting public officials. The inability of getting any real traction is particularly true in the transportation sector but also in electricity production and in buildings as well when the economy is “normal.” The only “progress” has been in the last two years where there has been some reductions but mostly attributed to reduced economic output due to the recession.

In this approach that relates climate change to national and global security we need to begin by setting a basic definition. One such definition states: “… the intellectual, operational, and policy space where environmental considerations and security concerns converge.” [2]

More definitively it might be said it possesses the following attributes:

• It is the relationship of environmental factors to national security.

• It recognizes the degradation of ecosystems, stress human health, culture and resource requirements.

• That these additional stresses can result in competition for food, energy, water and other resources (some of which will be examined in Case Study #2 to come in a separate post.)

• It can lead to conflicts that might not have otherwise arisen and could be seen as a threat multiplier.

One interesting case study from antiquity revolves around the mystery of Easter Island and what may have happened there to its early inhabitants. When early explorers arrived, they found giant stone monuments but none of what must have once been a flourishing civilization. After much research and discussion it has been assumed that they had degraded their environmental assets to the point of making themselves largely unsustainable. One summary notes:

“…without trees, and so without canoes, the Islanders were trapped in their remote home, unable to escape the consequences of their self inflicted, environmental collapse… there were increasing conflicts over diminishing resources resulting in a state of almost permanent warfare.” [3]

Another early practitioner of environmental security going back as far back as the mid-1970s is Dr. Norman Myers, who had reported on a war between Ethiopia and Somalia that had been caused to a large extent by a combination of deforestation, soil erosion, population growth and poverty. This led to famine and mass migration which Somalia viewed as a “prelude to an invasion.” [4]

It was also recognized by Sir Crispin Tickell in his 1977 book Climate Change in World Affairs where he stated “there is an increasing risk of social disruption within regions, countries and communities over such age-old issues as fertile land and water supplies,… and, perhaps worse for our species… fouling the future for the sake of the present.”

Some years later Paul Nitze, former nuclear and arms negotiator who had taken a hard line with the Soviets throughout his career, wrote that climate change:

“..requires changes… are of  such scope and magnitude that courageous multilateral steps, beyond what has been accomplished even in our landmark arms control agreements, are necessary. Such bold steps also are essential if we are to address the looming threat to geopolitical stability posed by climate change.” [5]

In closing Part I of this series it may be important to heed the words of James Hansen, the well-known scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies of NASA who in July of 2006 warned of the time limitations we have to undertake action:

“… we have at most 10 years — – not 10 years to decide upon action, but 10 years to alter fundamentally trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.” [6]

In the next part we will examine some emerging trends from, among other places, the Pentagon that is responsible for our defense policy policy, planning and implementation. We  will also investigate certain “fingerprints” indicating that climate change may have already been at work as a contributing factor in conflicts around the globe and if not adequately addressed may have even more serious repercussions for our security in its many forms.

[1] Burke, Albert E. Enough Good Men. 1962. p. 202.

[2] Foster, Gregory. National Defense University. A New Security Paradigm. Worldwatch. January/February 2005 p. 40)

[3] Ponting, Clive. The Lessons of Easter Island Also see: Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

[4]Myers, Norman Dr. Environmental Security: What’s New and Different. 2004.

[5] Nitze, Paul. Editorial in Washington Post. July 2, 1997.

[6] Dr. James Hansen quoted in The New York Review of Books Volume 53, Number 12, July 13, 2006,

Best,

Joel Gordes

A new security paradigm is needed to protect critical US energy infrastructure from cyberwarfare

By  Joel N. Gordes and Michael Mylrea

With the 8th anniversary week of 9/11 behind us, the US remains vulnerable to a devastating cyber attack directed at its critical infrastructure.  Despite warning signs of this threat, policy makers continue to prepare for the last war, ignoring the major lesson of both 9/11 and Pearl Harbor–not to “be prepared,” but to understand the changing nature of warfare.  US policy makers need to adopt a new security paradigm to defend critical asset, especially energy infrastructure, from a devastating cyber strike.

Several years ago the California Independent System Operator reported: “For at least 17 days at the height of the energy crisis, hackers mounted an attack on a computer system that is integral to the movement of electricity throughout California.” A more recent public report by a CIA analyst says this is a global problem and criminals have launched cyberattacks against foreign power utilities with the goal of extorting money.

One call to action came with the release of a CNN video showing how a software attack quickly destroyed a generator. A similar attack on key electric facilities could take out power to major geographic areas and if incapacitated for three months, the economic price tag would be about $700 billion, according to Scott Borg, Chief Economist at US Cyber Consequences Unit, a private non-profit think tank. That is “equivalent to 40 to 50 large hurricanes striking all at once,” Borg told CNN. “It’s greater economic damage than any modern economy ever suffered.” While the the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) approved new standards to improve cyber security the grid remains vulnerable as regulations require further refinement, focus and effective enforcement.

In preparing for the future, it might be useful to look back at other grim prophecies that, had they been heeded could have prevented catastrophes. One example was Brigadier General Billy Mitchell who warned in April 1926 that there would be “a surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbor;” or just as Richard Clarke, former top US counterterrorism official and “Cyber Czar” warned White House officials of the threat of al Qaeda prior to 9-11.

The Obama administration’s prioritization of energy security is a start as energy and telecom are the two primary critical infrastructures upon which all others are dependent. All modern infrastructures including banking, hospitals, water,  and defense depend on these interrelated infrastructures for their operation and “the power grid is the foundation of it all,” noted cyberwar expert Winn Schwartau.

Enter the “Smart Grid.”

One bright spot is the government’s allocation $4.1 billion of stimulus funds to invest in the new “Smart Grid.” “Smart” implies a move away from totally centralized generation and control to two-way communications between the utility and end users. It also enhances use of  energy efficiency and decentralized renewable energy such as wind and photovoltaics along with other distributed generation sources. This will help realize Obama’s goals of diversifying fuel supplies and curbing carbon emissions. However, unless security is part of the design criteria, the smart grid will not live up to its name; done poorly increased communications will be accompanied by increase cyber vulnerabilities. First and foremost, a new paradigm must include security into the design and operational criteria as something more than merely an afterthought.

More specifically, adaptive islanding or physically dispersing small, modular generators allows for some continued operation if the overall transmission system has been disrupted either physically or by cyberattack. Locating the distributed sources closer to the place of use minimize the vulnerability of transmission lines. By diversifying the mix of fuels and technologies used by the distributed units there is safety from disruption of any one fuel source. Due to the increasing reliance on gas, incapacitating a pipeline compressor at a critical location could disrupt the flow of gas to large areas.

Another one of the challenges is the private sector owns and operates the majority of the country’s critical energy infrastructure.  A leading advocate of building a private-public-partnership, Richard Clarke, commented: “The owners and operators of electric power grids, banks and railroads; they’re the ones who have to defend our infrastructure. The government doesn’t own it, the government doesn’t operate it, [and] the government can’t defend it. …..the military can’t save us.”

Too Little to Late

Until these improvements are made the current electrical grid will continue to operate  with inefficiencies; physical and cyber vulnerabilities that could potentially cripple our economy. Current economic inefficiencies cost billions of dollars in losses each year and present a major challenge as increases in the world’s energy demand will require supply to triple by 2050. Combined with the new cyber threats we must quickly employ public-private partnerships that engage entrepreneurs to incorporate comprehensive security into any future “smart grid” design in a ways that also minimize loses in operational efficiency. Moreover, building a stronger and smarter electrical energy infrastructure will transform the country, mitigate risk, create jobs, and slow destruction of the environment. Indeed, a challenge worth undertaking, allowing us to look forward to future opportunities, instead of catastrophes of the past.

Joel Gordes is President of Environmental Energy Solutions and is involved in energy security matters. Michael Mylrea is a Security Consultant that has worked on energy and cyber security issues for private sector and government.

There appears to be an almost universal wish to make your childrens’ world and condition just a little bit better than your own and while I myself am not a parent, I do feel a profound responsibility to do that in some small part on a global basis.

So how do we implement something like intergenerational equity? Maybe one starting point goes back to the Native Americans of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy who believed that in decision-making we had the responsibility to look at the effects unto the seventh generation going forward. This early and wise warning recognized that the smallest as well as the largest of our acts may have unintended but profound consequences that go beyond the present day. How many times have we seen the results of decisions that were not so carefully considered? On everything from opening up the prairies of Oklahoma for farming to the dust bowl it initiated several decades later to our current use and abuse of resources, we have left ensuing generations with far less than what we have had. This is particularly true of fossil fuel resources as well as water both of which will become increasingly of lower quality and quantity in the years ahead. But it is also true of soil quality, fish stocks and innumerable other natural resources which we too often take for granted. It also includes certain social trends that impact the quality of life of future generations like warfare, vehicle use and population. One of the best places to look at these trends is the yearly compilation of indicators in the “Vital Signs” report put out each year by the World Watch Institute (see http://www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/39 or for a more detailed look). Looking at a number of the individual indicators as well as the entire picture they paint when taken in toto should be enough to make us take pause if you feel any responsibility at all for coming generations.

This, then, brings us back to one of the root causes that may make intergenerational equity more difficult to obtain in the future and one that is conveniently swept under the rug in most polite conversation. That is overpopulation and maybe the best gift we can give our children is to have less of them. The Brundtland Commission report speaks directly to this and it says, “In many parts of the world, the population is growing at rates that cannot be sustained by available environmental resources, at rates that are outstripping any reasonable expectations of improvements in housing, healthcare, food security, or energy supplies. The issue is not just numbers of people but how those numbers relate to available resources.” They go on to say, “But this is not just a demographic issue; providing people with facilities in education that allow them to choose the size of their families is a way of assuring — especially for women — the basic human right of self-determination.”

All this has some pretty deep implications for those of us who are not in a developing country where we see that it may be customary for them to have a large number of children and to understand some of the reasons why. In some instances having large families takes the place of Social Security that we have in our country and in their case the children are there to see after the welfare of their parents later in their life. The other aspect is that it helps to provide the family a source of labor for vital needs such as to sometimes carry water or firewood from extremely long distances.

So we need to ask ourselves here in this country some pretty hard questions if we’re really interested in global sustainability. Is it better for us to make an investment to buy solar panels for ourselves or maybe buy a system half that size and donate the rest of the money for solar ovens, solar water purification devices (see http://www.box.net/shared/4fc3de3piv or the more detailed http://www.box.net/shared/ytcd6gp84h ) and solar lighting in developing countries?  Each of those might in some way help reduce their need to maybe have families that large. The lighting would also provide an opportunity for some women to educate themselves which, as noted by the Brundtland Commission, has been tied statistically to lowering the birth rate.

But then the responsibility goes a lot further than placing any onus on developing nations for population growth as our own society, on a per capita basis, uses many, MANY times their resources. While countries like China and India have growing rates of resource use, we have had over a 200 year jumpstart on them in everything from food production to climate change gasses and they cannot be blamed for wanting to attain a higher standard of living for their children as well.  More on this next time.

It’s the Oil, Stupid !

It’s a sign that ought to hang over the desk of every politician, general and journalist—and architect.

OIL has literally made us what we are today.

Without it, we would not have had the mechanization of agriculture. Before that a farmer could only support the food needs of about 5 others and most of those were his family. Most of us would have been farmers without oil.

Beginning just after WW I it allowed many to leave the farm to become doctors, lawyers, artists, factory workers and so many other professions. OK, so more lawyers may not have been one of the better benefits of oil.

It also meant the beginning of our consumerist society and a value system which often focuses on what we have rather than who we are. It took us from being inner-directed to other-directed

HISTORICALLY, let me give you a litany of events:

Oil. It has been a cause of conflict for decades.

In 1933 Smedley Butler said:

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. .. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I helped make Mexico, .. safe for American oil interests in 1914…. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you,  Smedley was a Marine Corp Major General and the recipient of two Congressional medals of honor. He would have had a third but the rules at that time prevented it.

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. A source close to the emperor noted they took this action largely because the US imposed a de facto petroleum embargo on them.

During WW II President Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud and basically laid a policy that we would protect the Saudi Kingdom in return for access to oil. Every US president has renewed that pledge to a nation so abusive of human rights it makes the #1 or #2 spot in that category every year from Amnesty International.

In 1952 the President’s Materials Policy Commission (the Paley Commission) warned that the nation’s oil supply would begin to dwindle by the 1970’s.

In 1953 the US CIA engineered the overthrow of Mohammed Mosidique and put the Shah of Iran in power to protect our access to oil

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist, determined the US would peak in oil production between 1966 and 1970 by three impeccable proofs. It peaked in 1970.

In 1971 the first wave of US military flew arms to Iran. It was later to lead to the revolution. I delivered a jet to them and trained them.

In 1973 we had the Arab oil embargo and developed plans to invade if need be.

In the 1979 Iranian Mullahs together with the middle class, angry about arms spending, overthrew the Shah.

In 1991 we intervened in Iraq to maintain access to Kuwaiti oil

In 2001 the US was attacked by Jihhadist terorists. 15 of 19 were Saudi who saw us as “foreign guards” defiling the land of Mecca and Medina.

In 2003 we invaded Iraq. It’s not because they had rutabagas there–OR weapons of Mass Destruction but they had the second largest oil reserves at the time.

In 2006 George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address “America is addicted to oil”

SO, WHERE ARE WE TODAY?

4% of global population using 25% of oil use

We use 20.5 million barrels per day OR ~7.5 billion barrels a year. China uses about 1/3 as much.

We import roughly 55-60% of it

Surprisingly most does not currently come from the Middle East –maybe 20% of totals

BUT, neither can we drill ourselves to oil independence. You don’t end an addiction by continuing the drug. Let me try to explain:

The mean availability for both ANWR and Outer Continental Shelf combined is ~96 billion barrels, a mean figure

We use 7.5 billion barrels per year

That’s about 12.8 years if we could get it all out at once–and we can’t

It’s a global market and we do not set the price so drilling will not significantly lower its cost either.

When all is said, the Middle East will still have the easy, cheap oil after we exhaust domestic sources.

We will be back to them but even more dependent

Getting off oil is the only real solution and the transition must begin now.

Sad to say oil and the environmental issues will only be taken seriously when linked to national security–and both of them are. In his 1962 book Enough Good Men Dr. Albert E. Burke warned us:

The problem is not money. It is a problem of education to inform Americans about the close tie which has always existed between a wide margin of resources and freedom. Reduce that margin of resources, reduce the quality of those resources and you reduce what Americans have always meant by the word “freedom.”

As I noted last time it was the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, that provided the classic definition for “sustainability”. Elegant in its simplicity, it states, “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Contrary to my own belief, the book well-articulated that the word “sustainability” is not quite as soft or “fuzzy” as many of us would-be practitioners might have thought. Let’s say it does not carry with it the same uncertainty associated with terms such as “hard-core pornography”. (Got your attention, huh?)  Some may recall Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 noted about that term, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced …  but I know it when I see it.” Well, we have to do a lot better than that for sustainability.

Surprisingly, the first tenet of sustainability according to Brundtland appears to require “a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision making.”  While not to overly dwell on this point, this can have a number of meanings.  Too often the participation is limited to groups who are often referred to as “stakeholders” and many times individuals who do not represent groups are conveniently excluded. When it comes to “sustainability,” we are all stakeholders whether we represent a group or not. Maybe some of you have felt excluded or that your input was not fairly considered. We need to become better listeners in a world where the distractions are immense and where individuals and their sometimes different ideas seem to count for less.  I mean when you consider that there has only one statue I can recall commemorating a committee, (The Burghers of Calais by Rodin) maybe it is time to consider that “groupthink” that may exclude outliers may not always offer the best solutions.  Consider too, that in general, a great many of NESEA core ideas have been the outliers until relatively recent times.
The Brundtland Commission continues to detail in numerous places not merely the “narrow notion of physical sustainability” personified by green buildings and installing solar panels but also, more importantly, what other changes must take place in society including changes in the legal field to make us “sustainable”. At one point it says:
“National and international law has traditionally lagged behind events…; and “there is an urgent need:… to establish and apply new norms for state and interstate behavior to achieve sustainable development…”
It more than implies that changes in principles and values are required not only in government but in governance issues at all levels, in all forms of organizations within our culture including civil society which includes groups like Lion’s Clubs, Kiwanis and even professional organizations — like NESEA.  Oddly enough, one think tank that has very well articulated some of the other principles is not a renewable energy organization but the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, CO. Aside from the participatory process discussed above, which they saw as central hub of a wheel to all the other principles, they likened the spokes of the wheel in their diagram to include:

• Social & Intergenerational Equity

• Environmental Quality

• Quality of Life

• Economic Vitality

Brundtland goes into these as well as a number of other areas to provide a more complete tapestry of understanding. In future blogs we will examine some of these before we get into the other  areas of sustainability including some  more closely associated with what NESEA members try their best to accomplish on a day to day basis.

On the surface for those of us who have toiled in the organic fields, this is an absolutely great time; what we’ve waited for so long to see, but deeper inspection of how these terms are used and overused, sort of makes me cringe.  Even among our kindred professionals I often see the terms used in a very limited sense, usually tied in with the word “development” but not recognizing the multifaceted nature of what it means in-depth for other changes we must build into our own institutions and society as a whole.

For a number of years we subtitled our Building Energy conferences “The Practice of Sustainability” which I actually like very much but this was mostly attuned to the physical, built environment as our architectural/builder colleagues like to call it. Largely missing have been some of the main attributes of what we call sustainability but envisioned by those who came before us or the use of the actual word itself.  In my own mind I see them as people who were not as distracted by things like CSI Miami, Ghost Whisperer, Dancing with the NFL or other unnamed forms of entertainment that are deemed “must-see”. With deep apologies to Marty Bauman and Stef Komorowski, our own white hat NESEA marketing team, the marketing profession has gotten hold of these words and made them into the most often used adjectives in marketing history. Yes, we ought to be happy about this but when these noble, well-meaning words are not well-understood or their use is bastardized they carry the risk of our believing that we are accomplishing more than we really are. Then, we are actually foisting off onto future generations the hard lifting that is yet to come because there is little more than an inch deep and  mile wide understanding of the totality of what “sustainability” means–and requires. In effect that “foisting” is the very antithesis of what sustainability strives to correct. More on that later.

I don’t mean to sound like I am the godfather of sustainability; I certainly am not but I was fortunate enough to listen weekly to a Yale Professor named Dr. Albert E. Burke who was the Director of the Graduate Studies in Conservation and Resource Use. I was six or seven years old and he had a local television show that was what I can only call enrapturing. He was one of those rare people who even back in the mid-50s was able to connect the dots between our resources and how well we use or abuse them and our freedoms. It is my opinion that the current environmental movement has not yet seen the equal of Dr. Burke. He gave many specific examples of these connections, some of which I will go into in later blogs. Suffice to say for now, in 1962 he warned about growing oil dependence for this nation before nearly anyone else had a clue on this even as our own domestic sources had just begun to dwindle. Then there were the Choctaw..
.
Another formative experience came from an old friend in the renewable energy advocacy community who nagged me incessantly to read a book she referred to as the Brundtland Commission Report of 1987. Virginia (Ginny) Judson is one of these incessant, nagging, graying but never old, little ladies whose five feet in height belies her power and persistence that somehow when she corners you, you can no longer refuse to face the music. So after four years of nagging, in 1991 I read the book version titled Our Common Future better known in some circles as the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. I am still waiting for the movie.

It was in reading it that I came across what most people now consider to be the classic and, in my opinion still the best, definition of “sustainability” or “sustainable development”. It reads “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Reread that and maybe now you can connect with my dismay on how we foist off on future generations the heavy lifting we refuse to do today that I mentioned just three paragraphs above. Good grief, environmental groups get foundation funding for passing a state law that mandates 80% reductions of CO2 by 2050 but sets few if any intermediate, more granular goals.  How about something like “one lousy percent by two years from now”? Actually, recession might do that.

In some ways, though, the word is still enigmatic and a lot of people think they can improve upon it but often get so lost in specifics, they lose site of it overarching wisdom. They add to it, and embellish it which sometimes does aid in upstanding but more often than not is to the concept’s detriment. When you deeply think about that definition it sort of covers the gamut of how we should be investing our efforts. And yet, many of our “sustainability practitioners” do not integrate that simplicity of meaning into either the built environment or the laws and regulations proposed or passed seeking to make us a more “sustainable” society.

So that is an introduction to this blog where I want to try to convey a deeper meaning to the word sustainability and maybe, just maybe, totally replace the word green with something that has not only a deeper meaning but also some standards to go with it. I am sure I’m going to rankle a lot of good people who will disagree with me, and that is fine too. In the next blog I will try to explore Brundtland more for those very few who may be interested.

Yours in Sustainability [whatever it means]
Joel N. Gordes