Yearly Archives: 2008
Terry Tamminen: How Would You Spend It?
Congress passed the bailout plan with a price tag of nearly a trillion dollars, but the ink was hardly dry on this new Monopoly money when quite a few experts began to predict it wouldn’t be enough. Some estimates hope the “investments” that taxpayers will make in bad debts could ultimately turn a profit, but how likely is that?
Government has tried its hand at business management before with very mixed results. A few years back, I recall, the feds confiscated a brothel in Nevada as part of a law enforcement action. It soon went broke. It’s hard to imagine how our government will do better with complicated financial instruments than it did with the oldest, most reliable money-making business that ever existed!
So what might the feds buy instead (or at least in addition, given how much money we suddenly seem to have at our disposal) if ROI (return on investment) is the real metric? How about 600 wind farms or 400 solar power plants (at 500 megawatts each) — about ten times the capacity of nuclear plants that Senator McCain has suggested we build (although no one knows how to handle the waste, security concerns, or global warming impacts that would be associated).
Everyone needs power, so we know how much we money we could make on this investment, but better still, the construction projects would employ thousands of Americans and generate business taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, and other revenues for local, state, and federal treasuries, returning even more on the original investment. The added benefit of dramatic reductions of greenhouse gases would be an ROI beyond estimation.
Business groups also tell me frequently that what they most want is certainty. The fuel cost for the solar and wind generators is far more predictable than the cost of coal, oil, uranium, or natural gas. Oh yes, one more thing. Given that these powerplants will last fifty years, we can also predict they will not run out of fuel — something those incumbents can’t say.
Not a bad investment. Got a better one?
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Terry Tamminen is author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. You can visit him at www.terrytamminen.com.
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About Terry Tamminen
From his youth in Australia to career experiences in Europe, Africa and the United States, Terry Tamminen has expertise in business, farming, education, non-profit, the environment, the arts, and government. Tamminen is a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed ship captain, has run a real estate company, a recreational services business, a tropical fish breeding business, a sheep ranch, and assisted Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program. An accomplished author, Tamminen’s latest book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, is a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources. Tamminen helped to found and lead the Santa Monica Baykeeper, the Environment Now Foundation, and the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at the University of California Los Angeles. In 2007, he was named the Cullman Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate Policy Program of the New America Foundation, and an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors. Tamminen was appointed as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. He continues to advise the Governor on energy and environmental policy. He currently travels throughout the world, lecturing and providing private consulting services to clients, including several Governors and Canadian Premiers on climate and energy policy.
Walker Wells: Green Products and ROI
Financing isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you here the term green building. Instead it’s usually solar panels, bamboo flooring, or a piece of plumbing equipment you’re not sure you really want to understand. But just like other building materials, green products cost money. What makes them different is that green products typically provide a greater return on investment than conventional products.
One example is – yes you guessed it – a plumbing product; the dual-flush toilet. This fairly straightforward innovation recognizes that you need less water to move liquid waste than solid waste, and thus dispenses water allocation accordingly. Less water means a lower water bill so that, over time, the approximate $150 increased investment in the toilet gets returned threefold, with net savings over the 15-year lifespan of $300 and an annual return on investment of about 13%. This makes the dual-flush toilet an excellent long-term, low-risk, high-return investment.
Green buildings exhibit these same characteristics. The initial upfront investment of about 3% delivers predictable energy and water savings and reduced maintenance costs year after year. The challenge lies in figuring out how to fold this added value into the project’s financing structure. Most of the time there is a chasm between construction and operation budgets. Funds saved through integrated design can’t be stored away to pay future bills. While property managers certainly appreciate lower operating costs, providing construction funding that will be paid by the difference between the hypothetical bills and the lower actual bills is often seen as an esoteric, and impractical, accounting exercise.
The aversion to using creative accounting to bridge the gap between construction and operation budgets is only growing stronger with the current fluctuations in the market. Increased scrutiny is already being applied to the underwriting process for many deals. This reaction may be good at the level of individual project, but will be severely counterproductive if applied to the affordable housing industry at large.
To date, the path to crediting borrowers with the benefits of green building has been rocky and not well followed. Much effort was put into establishing the energy-efficient mortgage and later, a location-efficient mortgage. Both products credited single-family purchasers with additional income, based on assumptions regarding lower utilities in Energy Star homes or lower transportation costs when homes are close to transit. With more income the borrower could afford a slightly more expensive home, which was one way to cover the increased costs associated with the green features. These are good ideas, but by focusing on the income side of the equation in a period when mortgage lenders were rolling out much more aggressive income-enhancing products, both the EEM and LEM were largely unused by mortgage underwriters.
To be truly attractive, the green loans needed to address the loan-cost side of the equation, or the interest rate. This is how people shop for loans and is the context in which interest in the green-based products would be attractive. It also makes sense because if green buildings are more stable in terms of utilities and maintenance there should a reduction in risk and in turn an ability calculate a more accurate risk-adjusted return (or lower interest rate) While no major commercial mortgage lender had put a reduced-rate green product on the market before the housing lending market started to unravel, some interesting ideas were being put forward.
Perhaps the best developed proposal to date came from the State of New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority. Their proposal was to offer a home loan at 50 basis points below current interest rate to buyers of certified green homes. They’re reasoning behind the reduction was this “In recent year, the affordable housing community has come to recognize that energy-efficient environmentally-friendly design and building methodologies can make significant contributions to both environmental protection and community sustainability and can create housing that is both healthy and less costly for residents to own and operate. ” Unfortunately the program was launched just months before “creative” mortgage lending ceased to be seen as a good thing. At this point the program still exists on paper but it is unclear if the product will weather the current financial lending storm.
The lending world would do well to take this market turmoil as an opportunity to reexamine underwriting criteria to determine if the information requested is actually productive at reducing risk, or if other information would be more useful. And if important data is being overlooked or ignored, now is the chance to introduce it into the process. The design and construction of green buildings has seen incredible growth and sustained innovation over the past decade. It is time for the financial community to catch up. Instead of focusing on how to leverage short-term profits, efforts should be redirected to determine how to best value the long-term benefits of going green.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Walker Wells, AICP LEED AP, is Director of the Green Urbanism Program at Global Green USA and the editor and co-author of Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing.
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About Walker Wells
Walker Wells, AICP LEED AP, is Director of the Green Urbanism Program at Global Green USA and the editor and co-author of Blueprint for Green Affordable Housing. He is a member of the American Institute of City Planners and is a LEED Accredited Professional.
David Wilcove: New Lessons from Old Europe
Scientists tend to distrust conclusions that are not based on empirical data and adequate sample sizes. So take what I’m about to say with a large grain of salt, since it is neither empirical nor based on sufficient data.
The issue of sustainability is arguably the greatest challenge of our time. How do we provide for 6.7 billion people (rising to over 9 billion by mid-century) without inflicting irreparable harm to our environment? Having recently returned from a trip to Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden, I was struck by the fact that Europe–or at least the small part of it that I saw–seems much closer to addressing this issue than the United States. For example, there was a noticeable absence of sprawl in all three countries. Cites and towns were tightly clustered and surrounded by a larger landscape of farms and forests. Strip malls, shopping centers, and classic suburban housing developments were few and far between; “McMansions” were virtually non-existent. The towns were linked together by reliable, clean trains, while the cities featured safe, efficient, public transportation systems of buses and trolleys. (Indeed, the contrast with Amtrak or New Jersey Transit’s overpriced and unreliable trains was glaring). I did not spend much time on the farms, but I was struck by their smaller size and greater diversity of crops compared to their American counterparts. (Of course, one would need to know a lot more about comparative subsidies, market prices, pesticide and fertilizer usage, and other factors before reaching any firm conclusions).
No one would argue that Western Europe has actually achieved the elusive goal of sustainability. I doubt, for example, that any of the countries I visited could maintain its current standard of living indefinitely if forced to rely on the natural resources (including farmland) within its borders. And all of these nations are net emitters of greenhouse gases, thereby contributing to global warming. But I do think we in the United States could learn a lot from our European colleagues. They seem to have figured out how to have a high standard of living at significantly less cost to the earth.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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David Wilcove is professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton University and one of the world’s leading experts on endangered species. He is the author of No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations.
About David Wilcove
David Wilcove’s research focuses on the conservation of biodiversity and in particular the development of innovative approaches to protect endangered species, migratory species, and wilderness. Over the past decade, Wilcove has undertaken a number of studies pertaining to imperiled wildlife and the US Endangered Species Act, examining such factors as the causes of species endangerment, the geographical distribution of imperiled species, and the costs of habitat restoration and conservation. More recent projects include an assessment of ongoing efforts to preserve the endemic plants and animals of the Florida scrub ecosystem, with the goal of developing better tools for identifying key areas and species to protect (in collaboration with Conservation International and the Archbold Biological Station) and studies of insect migration in collaboration with colleagues at Princeton University. He has undertaken various research and policy projects related to the conservation of freshwater biodiversity in the United States, the protection of the northern spotted owl and its old-growth forest habitat in the Pacific Northwest, and the management of the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty in 2001, Wilcove served as senior ecologist with Environmental Defense (1991–2001) and The Wilderness Society (1986–1991). In addition to No Way Home, David S. Wilcove is the author of The Condor’s Shadow: The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America (Freeman, 1999). He is the author of over 90 scientific publications, book chapters, and popular articles dealing with the conservation of biological diversity, endangered species, ornithology, island biogeography, and conservation policy. He holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. and M.A. in biology from Princeton University, where he is currently Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Public Affairs.
Paul Ehrlich: 7 Steps Toward a Sustainable Society – #3
Here is the third step we should take to reach a sustainable society (click here for step one and step two).
Three: Transform the consumption of education.
Education is what economists call a “non-rival good” – something that can be consumed without reducing the amount available to others-and as such it is an ideal consumption good for a sustainable society. More quality education could help us solve the human predicament – the combined crises of overpopulation, wasteful consumption, deteriorating life-support systems, declining resources, multiplying weapons of mass destruction, and widening inequity within and between nations. Education reform is also crucial. In the future, both the need for sustainability and the multi-dimensional environmental, social, political, and economic requirements to achieve it must be central elements of education around the world. Unless a much larger fraction of the human population becomes aware of the predicament we all face and its possible solutions, sustainability is unlikely to be reached.
There exists today what I like to call a “culture gap.” When I lived with the Inuit (Eskimos) more than a half century ago every Inuit individual possessed the vast majority of the non-genetic information (culture) available to the Inuit community. Women knew how seal hunting was done; men knew the use of a woman’s knife. Perhaps a shaman had a few secret chants, but in general everyone was “fully educated.” In our global society that has changed completely. Even the most educated people do not possess even one millionth of the non-genetic information housed in human brains, libraries, computer disks, arts, and artifacts. Given the parts, I could not begin to assemble the computer on which I am writing this. How many readers of this blog could explain quantum physics or ecosystem science, or recite the poems of Shakespeare? There is a huge gap between what society knows collectively, and what people know individually. We obviously cannot close the culture gap across the board, but we could narrow it selectively. In short, we must strive to narrow the culture gap in the most crucial areas related to reaching sustainability..
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
Check back next week for the fourth step we should take toward a sustainable society.
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Paul R. Ehrlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He is the author of hundreds of scientific papers, and numerous books including The Population Bomb and Betrayal of Science and Reason (Island Press, 1997). His latest book is The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, which he co-authored with his wife Anne.
About Paul Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich is a co-founder with Peter H. Raven of the field of co-evolution, and has pursued long-term studies of the structure, dynamics, and genetics of natural butterfly populations. He has also been a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation, and in raising issues of population, resources, and the environment as matters of public policy. Ehrlich is the author of The Population Bomb, and many other books, as well as hundreds of papers. Ehrlich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Ehrlich has received several honorary degrees, the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize in areas where the Nobel is not given), in 1993 the Volvo Environmental Prize, in 1994 the United Nations' Sasakawa Environment Prize, in 1995 the Heinz Award for the Environment, in 1998 the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, in 1999 the Blue Planet Prize, in 2001 the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. In addition to The Population Bomb, Ehrlich is the author of Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect (Island Press, 2000) and co-author of The Work of Nature: How The Diversity Of Life Sustains Us (Island Press, 1998). With his wife Anne, he is the author of Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future (Island Press, 1996) and One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future (Island Press, 2004). His latest book with Anne is The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (Island Press, 2008). Paul R. Ehrlich received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
Terry Tamminen: Bail-out or Build-out?
As Washington and Wall Street dicker over a financial rescue plan, everyone is missing the real opportunity to fix the problem. Some see the variously proposed plans as bailouts of dumb borrowers and dumber lenders, while others view it as a chance to restore liquidity to the marketplace so we can all have access to credit again, whether it’s for student loans or to finance the acquisition of industrial machinery.
But when the “Great Depression” struck America more than 70 years ago, we didn’t just make more money available and hope people would borrow it to jump start the economy. President Roosevelt put us back to work, building bridges, highways, schools, and water projects. All of that infrastructure has served us well over the years, although at the time it must have looked like a lot of pork barrel spending designed to keep workers off of street corners and out of soup kitchens. What if we could do something like that again, but this time, make it a build-out that had fantastic economic, environmental, and social return on the invested capital?
In 2003, President Bush spoke about hydrogen cars in his State of the Union address. Shortly thereafter, the American Petroleum Institute (API) warned that building a hydrogen fueling infrastructure that could reach all Americans would cost $140 billion. Although I’m sure the API had no reason to use scare tactics and biased estimates (well, OK, maybe I’m not THAT sure), let’s assume that’s an accurate figure.
If we built those fueling stations, we would also need vehicles that run on hydrogen. It takes about $5,000 to retrofit a car or truck to run on hydrogen. Yup, almost any car or truck (or bus or train for that matter) that currently runs on gasoline or diesel fuel will also run on hydrogen gas. It’s not the most efficient use of hydrogen (a fuel cell, which converts hydrogen to electricity and thereby powers an electric motor in an all-electric car is far more efficient), but anything is more efficient than digging oil out of the ground and making it into transportation fuel. Let’s say we convert 50 million cars and trucks nationwide to run on hydrogen — that’s $250 billion more.
So for just under $400 billion, we could eliminate the need for all of the oil we now import (and a lot of the domestic supply for that matter). We would have given tens of thousands of Americans jobs in the design, building, and servicing of hydrogen fueling stations; and tens of thousands more would be working in the new retrofit business. Detroit could now start making new hydrogen powered cars, knowing that the marketplace accepts these products, so we would simultaneously revitalize our domestic auto industry.
We could recoup 100% of this investment when retailers sell hydrogen fuel with a few cents per unit sales tax, just like the gasoline tax. But we would recoup it even faster with the payroll and business taxes generated from all of the new employment and businesses created with this program.
So there you have it — a domestic jobs program that will kick the oil addiction, solve global warming, create new industries and jobs that can’t be outsourced to India or China, eliminate billions in annual subsidies to oil companies and billions more that we now spend on defense costs to protect our oil supply. For half what we will spend on Wall Street and 20% of what we have spent securing oil in Iraq so far, we will have social, economic and environmental prosperity for as far as the eye can see.
This build-out sounds crazy at first blush until you realize that we already produce 3 trillion cubic feet of hydrogen in America every year, but use the majority of that to strip sulfur from petroleum to make gasoline instead of just putting the hydrogen right into our cars. How crazy is that?! No, make no mistake, we can do this and reap all of the benefits.
Now if we just had another Roosevelt around to get us started…
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Terry Tamminen is author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. You can visit him at www.terrytamminen.com.
About Terry Tamminen
From his youth in Australia to career experiences in Europe, Africa and the United States, Terry Tamminen has expertise in business, farming, education, non-profit, the environment, the arts, and government. Tamminen is a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed ship captain, has run a real estate company, a recreational services business, a tropical fish breeding business, a sheep ranch, and assisted Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program. An accomplished author, Tamminen’s latest book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, is a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources. Tamminen helped to found and lead the Santa Monica Baykeeper, the Environment Now Foundation, and the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at the University of California Los Angeles. In 2007, he was named the Cullman Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate Policy Program of the New America Foundation, and an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors. Tamminen was appointed as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. He continues to advise the Governor on energy and environmental policy. He currently travels throughout the world, lecturing and providing private consulting services to clients, including several Governors and Canadian Premiers on climate and energy policy.
Walker Wells: Building the Green Community Around the Green Building
So, you’re approaching green as part of your mission, you’re using the integrated design process, and you’ve tweaked the financing structure to cover the added costs. Voila! A solid green project, right? No quite. There’s one more, often ignored, element needed to guarantee the long-term success of a green affordable housing project.
Resident and operator behavior has great influence on the ultimate environmental performance of a project. Ignoring or working against the green features knowingly or inadvertently, can quickly erode the green value brought in through good design and construction. Let’s look for example, at a project I know well through Global Green’s involvement over the past three years. The SOLARA apartments in Poway (north San Diego County), is an award-winning development of Community Housing Works. Often described as a milestone in green affordable housing, this 56 unit affordable housing development was designed to be completely powered by the sun!
SOLARA illustrates how the topics we’ve covered in the last few weeks can take a project from innovative concept to inspirational reality. Specifically:
• The design process was highly integrated. Starting with the green building charrette in early schematic design, Community Housing Works required all team members on board to “go green” from the beginning and work closely with one another throughout the process.
• There are a variety of green elements of varying scales. Though solar is the biggest green feature, the design team didn’t start or stop there. The initial approach to sustainable development focused on large-scale issues like community access, walkability, and proper building orientation. Energy efficiency was another core value, with the photovoltaic system (PV) taking the energy strategy to the next level. Looking beyond the energy systems the project incorporated simple, cost-effective approaches to improve indoor environmental quality, water efficiency and conserve resources.
• On the financial side, the developers worked closely with the tax credit investors and the permanent lenders to demonstrate that the extra cost of green could be largely offset if not eliminated. Specifically the additional cost of the PV system ($1.1 million) was almost entirely covered (92%) by tax credit and rebate funding sources that are available to most new affordable projects in California.
While this is impressive, perhaps what SOLARA truly does best is highlight the importance of occupant behavioral in meeting or missing sustainability targets. Returning to the first paragraph, notice the “designed to be” language in the last sentence. It seems that design and reality remain somewhat out of sync. Though the PV system has the capacity to generate all of the energy the property needs on an annual basis, 11 months later, technically it doesn’t. This is not caused by design error, malfunction of the panels, or even to an unknowledgeable maintenance staff (staff was trained on upkeep and to date have done an excellent job — describing the process as an “easy additional task”). Rather it is the behavior patterns of the residents that is throwing things out of whack. Most tenants are using energy within the parameters used in the design. But a few are grossly over-consuming. Data from June of this year for two identical units shows them producing roughly same amount of energy from the PV panels. After deducting the electricity pulled from the grid, Unit A not only met all of its energy needs but generated a 30% surplus. Unit B on the other hand, had to pull an additional 48% from the utility grid. The reason for this simple, the tenants aren’t on the hook for their electricity bill so there is no financial penalty for wasting energy. But to be fair the entire blame can’t be put on them.
In an attempt to promote energy efficient practices, California energy code requires that each apartment unit be individually metered for electricity – central or master metering is not permitted. For SOLARA this meant that each unit then needed its own solar PV panels and inverter, this added cost and precluded the aggregation of energy use and generation among the various units. Furthermore, utility allowance regulations in place at the time project was designed, required the developer – if they wanted to recoup their investment in the PV system – to agree to pay the electricity bills for all of the units, even thought the individual meters were required. The result is counterproductive all around. There is no incentive for the over-consuming family to change their behavior as they never see the costs, but there is also no incentive for the other tenants to consider conserving either, because they never see the savings.
Fortunately, the energy abusers at SOLARA are few. For the most part, the residents show a deep pride of ‘ownership’ in their new green homes. Such ownership is often hard to foster in a rental situation but thanks to an extensive green curriculum for the residents and property staff, there is an understanding that they are living and working somewhere “special” and thus treat it that way. Creating this spirit and sense of community through education about the unique aspects of the project is a critical first step. But it must be combined with frequent information so the tenants can understand how they use energy and what they can do to conserve. Still, without the financial incentive, the ability to maintain the anticipated levels of energy use over the long-term remains an elusive challenge.
The good news is that the SOLARA’s struggle with the intricacies of metering regulations and utility allowances has not been in vain. Prompted by the experiences in Poway, regulatory changes are in the works to provide more flexibility on metering and a more rational approach to utility allowances for projects. With these changes in place it will not just be easier to build leading edge developments but also much easier for the tenants to be part of the green equation.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Walker Wells, AICP LEED AP, is Director of the Green Urbanism Program at Global Green USA and the editor and co-author of Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing.
About Walker Wells
Walker Wells, AICP LEED AP, is Director of the Green Urbanism Program at Global Green USA and the editor and co-author of Blueprint for Green Affordable Housing. He is a member of the American Institute of City Planners and is a LEED Accredited Professional.
Gary Nabhan: Potato Diversity and Traditional Knowledge
As mentioned in last week’s blog post, in Peru’s Parque de la Papa-the Potato Park-, the Quechuan farmers maintain some 1200 varieties of potatoes named in their own language. Farmers are particularly attentive to the effects of climate change on the micro-habitats where each potato variety can be planted. Quechuan Ricardo Paco Chipa says his father constantly reminds him that the elevation distributions of potatoes today are far different than those that were common when he first farmed a half century ago. Certain varieties cannot grow as low as they once did, because of the heat they would suffer in those places today. At least four cold-tolerant varieties once planted at the highest levels have recently become rare, for lack of any habitats today that are free from the heat during their six month-long growing season. One black and white variety which Ricardo called luqui was once commonly used for making chuno, the freeze-dried potatoes that can be rehydrated for soups and purees:
“There is less snow each year, less water, and hotter seasons. Now we must plant each variety higher and higher from year to year. The varieties adapted to the very coldest country below the peaks now have hardly any place to grow.”
And yet, these Quechuan farmers are not passive victims of climate change; they are dynamically responding to such changes by employing their crop diversity and their traditional knowledge to meet such challenges. Ricardo was clear that this was among their primary motivations for engaging in the collective mission of the Potato Park:
“We are not only bringing back a diversity of potato varieties to our fields, but the traditional knowledge about how and where to grow them-and prepare them-as well.”
This was not always the case. In the 1960s, the Peruvian government and international agricultural agencies lured Ricardo’s forefathers into adopting new agricultural practices and concentrating on a few “improved” potato varieties. But these imported techniques, technologies and hybrids did not necessarily suit the conditions found in highlands surrounding Cusco. One Quechuan farmer-Justicio Ucra-smirked as he explained what happened:
“We found that the improved varieties not only did poorly in the marketplace, but they were bad for the soil and bad for your health.”
Gradually, the farmers returned to the time-tried varieties that they had not already abandoned; with the repatriation of other varieties collected by CIP’s plant explorers in the 1970s, and others gifted to them by farmers in other parts of Peru, they now collectively cultivate over a thousand varieties each year. This not only offers them a modicum of food security from year to year; it is also allowing the farmers to move toward the goal of true food sovereignty:
“We have to go beyond mere food security to food sovereignty and sustainability because that is the only way we can have a good relationship with Pachamama, a good relationship with the land…”
In the meantime, the farmers wives—who also sow, harvest and ceremonially bless the potatoes—are busy experimenting with how to better use their great diversity of potatoes. They’ve formed “the Gastronomic Work Group” (Maruja) with other women from the six communities to document traditional recipes and innovate around them:
“What we do is not unlike the kind of innovation with food that our grandmothers did. We combine particular potato varieties with various medicinal plants and other herbs from the wild used in making sauces. We evaluate them on whether they are both tasty and healthy.”
In the park’s co-op restaurant called Papamanka, the food they offered us met both of those criteria. It also had a rich sense of cultural heritage to it that may still not be apparent in many Novo-Andino restaurants in the city. Alejandro Argumedo explained just why that might be:
“Our intent has been to integrate all aspects of managing or sustaining a landscape and its food diversity through cultural means. This has been our basis not only for conserving potato diversity, but also for sustaining traditional livelihoods…We had the faith that if we stayed true to the notion of cultural integrity—with the symbol of the potato to unite us under one sombrero—we would achieve not just one objective, but many at the same time.”
The people of the Potato Park—including the potatoes themselves—have done just that. This success would have intrigued and delighted Nikolay Vavilov, his colleague Sergey Bukasov, and many of the other crop historians who visited Peru over the last century.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Gary Paul Nabhan is a world-renowned ethnobiologist, conservationist, and essayist. He is the author of the new book, Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s Quest to End Famine.
About Gary Paul Nabhan
Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, seed saver, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called “the father of the local food movement” by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, Carleton College and Unity College. Gary is also an orchard-keeper, wild forager and Ecumenical Franciscan brother in his hometown of Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. He is author or editor of twenty-four books, some of which have been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Croation, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. For his writing and collaborative conservation work, he has been honored with a MacArthur “genius” award, a Southwest Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, the Vavilov Medal, and lifetime achievement awards from the Quivira Coalition and Society for Ethnobiology. He works as most of the year as a research scientist at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona, and the rest as co-founder-facilitator of several food and farming alliances, including Renewing America’s Food Traditions and Flavors Without Borders.
David Wilcove: Migrating Birds of Falsterbo
In late September, there are few places in North America where I would rather be than Cape May, New Jersey, arguably the best place on the continent to watch migrating birds in the autumn. But I’m in Europe now, not North America, and this past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Cape May of Scandinavia, a place called Falsterbo. Located in southwestern Sweden, Falsterbo is a thin peninsula that juts into the ocean. In the fall, vast numbers of birds migrating south from northern Sweden, Finland, and even Russia funnel into the peninsula and pile up before crossing the small stretch of ocean separating Falsterbo from nearby Denmark. My host was Professor Thomas Alerstam, a professor at Lund University and one of the world’s foremost authorities on avian migration.
Standing at the tip of the peninsula, I was astonished at the number and diversity of migrating birds. Thousands of chaffinches and bramblings passed overhead, along with flocks of wood pigeons, blue tits (a type of chickadee), and jackdaws. They were joined by a steady stream of meadow pipits, siskins, barn swallows, and other species. As the sun warmed the land, creating invisible thermals, the raptors began to move, too: sparrow hawks, common buzzards, Eurasian kestrels, and red kites, along with the occasional hobby or merlin (two species of falcon).
Not having much field experience with European birds, I found myself struggling to identify the fast-moving birds; Thomas and his students, on the other hand, called out the names of the various species based on their call notes and silhouettes-cues that I, as a novice, did not know.
As I watched the spectacle, I was struck by the fact that throughout the northern hemisphere, from Siberia to Sweden to the United States, birds were on the move-billions and billions of birds engaged in a timeless ritual.
By the afternoon, I was tired and thrilled. I asked several of my Swedish colleagues how the day’s migration ranked relative to their other visits to Falsterbo. “Poor.” “Mediocre.” “I wish you could have seen this place on a good day,” they replied. I guess it all depends on your perspective. What a “good” day at Falsterbo must be like is beyond my imagination.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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David Wilcove is professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton University and one of the world’s leading experts on endangered species. He is the author of No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations.
About David Wilcove
David Wilcove’s research focuses on the conservation of biodiversity and in particular the development of innovative approaches to protect endangered species, migratory species, and wilderness. Over the past decade, Wilcove has undertaken a number of studies pertaining to imperiled wildlife and the US Endangered Species Act, examining such factors as the causes of species endangerment, the geographical distribution of imperiled species, and the costs of habitat restoration and conservation. More recent projects include an assessment of ongoing efforts to preserve the endemic plants and animals of the Florida scrub ecosystem, with the goal of developing better tools for identifying key areas and species to protect (in collaboration with Conservation International and the Archbold Biological Station) and studies of insect migration in collaboration with colleagues at Princeton University. He has undertaken various research and policy projects related to the conservation of freshwater biodiversity in the United States, the protection of the northern spotted owl and its old-growth forest habitat in the Pacific Northwest, and the management of the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty in 2001, Wilcove served as senior ecologist with Environmental Defense (1991–2001) and The Wilderness Society (1986–1991). In addition to No Way Home, David S. Wilcove is the author of The Condor’s Shadow: The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America (Freeman, 1999). He is the author of over 90 scientific publications, book chapters, and popular articles dealing with the conservation of biological diversity, endangered species, ornithology, island biogeography, and conservation policy. He holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. and M.A. in biology from Princeton University, where he is currently Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Public Affairs.
Paul Ehrlich: 7 Steps Toward a Sustainable Society – #2
Here is the second step we should take toward a sustainable society (Click here for step one).
Two: Put conserving on a par with consuming.
At any given level of technology, there is a trade-off between how many people can be born into a society and the level of per capita physical affluence that can be sustainably supported. The more people there are, the smaller each one’s share of the pie.
One way of dealing with this trade-off would be a cultural shift away from creating ever more gadgets to creating more appreciation and better stewardship for Earth’s aesthetic assets. A high priority should be rethinking how we use the resources available to us – as individuals and societies – manage manufactured and natural capital (our ecological assets) carefully, and distribute their benefits more equitably. Success there, if it were combined with a decline in numbers, should eventually permit most people to live satisfactory lives. Of course, success would require abandoning the insane idea that growth in consumption is automatically good and can continue forever, No physical quantity can do that, including the total bulk of the human population (which at recent exponential growth rates would equal the total mass of the universe in less than 10,000 years).
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
Check back next week for the third step we should take toward a sustainable society.
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Paul R. Ehrlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He is the author of hundreds of scientific papers, and numerous books including The Population Bomb and Betrayal of Science and Reason (Island Press, 1997). His latest book is The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, which he co-authored with his wife Anne.
About Paul Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich is a co-founder with Peter H. Raven of the field of co-evolution, and has pursued long-term studies of the structure, dynamics, and genetics of natural butterfly populations. He has also been a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation, and in raising issues of population, resources, and the environment as matters of public policy. Ehrlich is the author of The Population Bomb, and many other books, as well as hundreds of papers. Ehrlich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Ehrlich has received several honorary degrees, the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize in areas where the Nobel is not given), in 1993 the Volvo Environmental Prize, in 1994 the United Nations' Sasakawa Environment Prize, in 1995 the Heinz Award for the Environment, in 1998 the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, in 1999 the Blue Planet Prize, in 2001 the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. In addition to The Population Bomb, Ehrlich is the author of Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect (Island Press, 2000) and co-author of The Work of Nature: How The Diversity Of Life Sustains Us (Island Press, 1998). With his wife Anne, he is the author of Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future (Island Press, 1996) and One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future (Island Press, 2004). His latest book with Anne is The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (Island Press, 2008). Paul R. Ehrlich received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
Terry Tamminen: When Coal Makes You Thirsty
Much is written about our oil addiction, but we are addicted to another fossil-drug — coal. And while oil steals the breath from our kids and incentivizes our bad behavior around the world, coal is the major contributor to global warming and one other surprising side-effect — thirst.
The Hopi Indian tribe in Arizona has long relied on Peabody Coal for a large part of their income. Several decades ago they were tricked by their own lawyer (as described in the great Island Press book “Fire on the Plateau” by Charles Wilkinson) into selling water from their underground aquifers. As you can imagine, water in the Arizona desert is a precious commodity, especially when it is tens of thousands of years old and pristine, derived from ancient glaciers. Moreover, the Hopi were paid around $3 million a year for the water. Based on what we pay for natural spring water sold in bottles, that water was actually worth over $1 billion a year.
The water, which Peabody assured everyone was a relatively small amount and would never harm the sustainability of the aquifer, was used to slurry coal (a process of dumping coal into a pipe full of water to flush it from one place to another) from a mine to a power plant, across 250 miles of desert. In fact, Peabody was draining the precious resource right out from under the Hopi people. Springs were running dry and experts estimated that the water would be gone in 30 years.
Vernon Masayesva, a tribal elder, figured this out and started a battle to save the water and, in doing so, the life of his tribe. Peabody fought back, but ultimately this fossil-fueled “Goliath” lost to the persuasive wisdom of the community’s “David”. Vernon won temporary reprieves. But now the Bush Administration’s Office of Surface Mining is trying again to help Peabody to steal water from the Hopi and move coal by manipulating the science around environmental reviews and permits.
Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders and the concept of making a profit. Those that convert natural resources to cash have a right to do that and, let’s be honest, we all benefit from having wood to build homes or fuel to power our lives. But corporations don’t have the right to use those resources in a way that diminishes their value to others — it’s called the Public Trust Doctrine and is the bedrock of our environmental laws. Corporations also don’t have the right to destroy a civilization that has lived in the same place, peacefully and sustainably, for tens of thousands of years.
When this kind of outrage occurs, we have an obligation to speak up, especially because the Peabodys of the world claim they’re doing these things for us — the consumer. They say consumers want cheap power, but never tell us the true price of switching on the lights. If you want to learn more, go to www.blackmesatrust.org and get the details. Make a contribution. If enough of us do so, we can move to more sustainable sources of energy and make sure that we’re not the next ones to go thirsty.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Terry Tamminen is author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. You can visit him at www.terrytamminen.com.
About Terry Tamminen
From his youth in Australia to career experiences in Europe, Africa and the United States, Terry Tamminen has expertise in business, farming, education, non-profit, the environment, the arts, and government. Tamminen is a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed ship captain, has run a real estate company, a recreational services business, a tropical fish breeding business, a sheep ranch, and assisted Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program. An accomplished author, Tamminen’s latest book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, is a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources. Tamminen helped to found and lead the Santa Monica Baykeeper, the Environment Now Foundation, and the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at the University of California Los Angeles. In 2007, he was named the Cullman Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate Policy Program of the New America Foundation, and an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors. Tamminen was appointed as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. He continues to advise the Governor on energy and environmental policy. He currently travels throughout the world, lecturing and providing private consulting services to clients, including several Governors and Canadian Premiers on climate and energy policy.
