If we were serious about

Preserving the biosphere

We’d recognize that the problem is environmental degradation, and that climate change is one of the more tangible symptoms. “Climate change” has become the header of preference because it allows politicians and the energy trusts (fossil fuel, legacy energy companies, steelmaking, cement-making, and other major consumers) to ignore their responsibility for the problem and avoid seeking solutions while preserving their outmoded business plans and the substantial salaries and bonus plans of their senior managers and Directors. Regulatory capture, while certainly a problem, pales beside the 10% of gross income annually that goes to “Marketing and related expenses” including lobbying which is known as bribery outside the political arena. Correcting the situation will be challenging politically and practically and painful for the people whose careers and lifestyles will be challenged and who will have to change the way they operate. At minimum, the current system of subsidies for fossil fuel producers and processors, the rate systems of energy producers and distributors that is based on capital expense rather than overall operating effectiveness and efficiency, and the ability of industrial operations to discharge their waste without treatment into the air and water will have to be completely overhauled with a concomitant increase in operating costs and reduction of profits. That prices will increase goes almost without saying, the important requirement is that the externalities, currently disregarded, are priced into the final product.

We’ve also heard a lot about cow farts as a driver of atmospheric pollution and it’s been suggested that a wholesale change in diet is needed if we’re to avoid an unsupportable increase in the biosphere temperature. A far better solution would be encouraging farmers to change from their current practices to utilize regenerative methods that improve their land and yields while minimizing the impact on the environment of waste products and excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This can be accomplished by changing the Federal government's agricultural policy from one that subsidizes corporate agriculture to instead support sustainable production. The Rodale Institute is a leader in demonstrating the value of regenerative agriculture and increasing numbers of independent farmers are adopting those technologies to their profit and in spite of government policies that make the change more expensive than necessary. Major expenditures aren’t essential, it would be sufficient to remove the price supports that subsidize industrial agriculture, but, if time is of the essence, the money that currently results in “excess” agricultural production being regularly destroyed rather than used to feed people could be directed to the substantial investment needed to convert farms from industrial technology to sustainable methods and support those farmers during the transition period. Serendipitous benefits of cleaner water, reduced presence of allergens and inflammatory agents in our food, and the disappearance of the aromatic presence of CAFOs and poorly treated processing waste just make the effort more worthwhile and the results more pleasant.

Water is intimately tied to the delivery infrastructure and suffers from the general lack of consistent maintenance and updating that afflicts roads, railways, and, especially, the electrical transmission grid. The most readily available solution is also the one that’s most politically challenging – federalize all of the infrastructure and charge producers, processors and users the fees needed to ensure that lines, rails, roads, and pipelines will be kept up to date with improvements in materials and technology so that there is never another Flint, or wildfires resulting from downed transmission lines, or towns evacuated because a train carrying hazardous materials crashed when the equipment failed. Compensating the current owners, even at replacement cost less accumulated depreciation, would be a multi-trillion dollar investment, but, pursued properly, the end result would be well worth it in terms of improved health, environmental security, and the reversal of an entropic cycle that is widely recognized quietly and just as widely ignored as a matter of public policy.

All that is, of course, only if we’re serious about saving the earth so that our offspring will have some place

to live that doesn’t require a couple of years of interplanetary travel. Once our politicians get past their addiction to social media and the joys of arguing in the press, maybe they’ll get to work on something that will benefit all of us.