Looking to Rachel Carson on the road to a sustainable economy
Her message lays the foundation for centering our economy around renewables in the 21st century. Read More
Editor’s note: Throughout the month of September, GreenBiz is publishing articles reflecting on the impact of Rachel Carson’s influential book Silent Spring, published 50 years ago this month. Read contributions in this series about Carson’s legacy and analysis about what’s really changed since the publication of Silent Spring. Today’s contribution comes from Patricia DeMarco, the director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Penn. The piece is an excerpt from DeMarco’s forthcoming book: A Vision Splendid: Building a Sustainable Economy for the 21st Century. All rights are reserved by the author.
Sept. 27, 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s powerful book Silent Spring. Her position on the impact of synthetic pesticides and herbicides grew from her deep understanding of the systems of the living earth, based on her 15 years of study of the oceans and estuaries for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Fifty years after her plea for caution in imposing a barrage of “biocides” upon the earth, we see the impact of massive fossil fuel combustion reversing the global atmospheric conditions. We see evidence of synthetic chemical contamination even in the bodies of newborn infants all around the world. To address these unintended consequences of our modern way of life we must adopt an approach to our economic enterprise that moves toward a dynamic equilibrium model, rather than a linear consumption model.
Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic provides guideposts for the challenges we face in the 21st century. Her message distilled from all of her writing can be summarized in four basic principles:
- First: Live in harmony with nature. We assume that nature is at our command, for our convenience. Rachel Carson’s revolutionary premise that we are part of the natural world and subject to its laws needs to become the mainstream basis of our economic pursuits. All living things require fresh air, clean water, fertile ground and biodiversity of species as our life support system. These are services of the living earth upon which our health, our economy, our very lives depend.
- Second: Preserve and learn from natural places. This is a critical need, as evident today in the changes worldwide to the fragile ecosystem of the oceans, the tropical and temperate forests, and grasslands. We can learn much from the functioning of natural ecosystems, and model human behavior from these abundant examples. The complex interconnections among parts of a food chain, a watershed, a community of animals follow natural laws for energy flow, resources and nutrients. We understand too little of the intricacies of such systems. We destroy them on a massive scale with impunity in the name of progress.
- Third: Minimize the effects of synthetic chemicals on the natural systems of the world. A recent study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found over 79 known carcinogens and mutagens in the bodies of average Americans in statistically valid samples. We all serve as living laboratories for the effluent of the chemical age. Of about 100,000 synthetic chemicals in commercial use, fewer than 200 have been tested for health effects. This problem Rachel Carson first expressed as a fear and a concern in Silent Spring has come full circle. She urged caution in producing and releasing synthetic materials into the biosphere without fully understanding the consequences to humans and other living systems. It stands as a valid position today.
- Fourth: Consider the implications of all human actions on the global web of life. We do not live in isolation from the natural world. The fresh air, clean water, fertile ground and biodiversity of species are our life support system. As human activities around the world compromise these elements, we all suffer a degraded state of being. Precaution in preventing pollution must guide our decisions on all fronts.
Photo of road to the mountains provided by byheaven via Shutterstock
The 21st century marks the transition point from a fossil-fueled economy to a renewable and sustainable economy. This is the central challenge for our time because it is the surest way to abate the effects of fossil fuel combustion on climate changing gas emissions, and it will preserve the land from increasingly invasive and destructive methods of extraction.
The fossil age is due for replacement. Our energy system wastes quantitatively more energy than we use for work. Electricity generation uses only 35% of the fuel value to create salable electricity, the rest is rejected heat. The transportation system converts 12% of the gasoline to forward motion, the rest is lost as friction and heat. These two systems use technologies invented in the Victorian Age: The Rankine cycle for electricity invented in 1855, and the internal combustion engine in 1856.
We need to make renewable and sustainable energy sources part of the mainstream solution. If we examine other transition times, such as the shift from horse and buggy to cars, we see public policies adopted to accelerate the change. We paved the roads; licensed drivers, wrote traffic laws, installed a system for fuel delivery, and replaced hostelries and blacksmiths with mechanics and garages. We taxed the railroads and subsidized the car factories.
We need to address the institutional barriers that prevent widespread application of technologies based on fuels that fall on the Earth for free every day. For example, taxpayers still provide tax incentives, legal and regulatory support for the oil, gas and coal industries to the tune of approximately four billion dollars per year!
Support for renewable systems is inconsistent, variable from state to state and uncertain over time. Advancing sustainable technologies faces massive opposition from the fossil fuel interests. Rachel Carson’s apprehension about the impact of the income tax act of 1962 allowing lobbying expenses as tax deductible business expenses has proven prophetic.
The public hears only that the renewable resources are for “the future” and “too expensive.” But technologies for zero net energy/zero net water buildings are available and useful now. The technical issues of a distributed electricity system are within the grasp of current technology, but are impeded rather than expedited by the current utility structure.
The sustainable economic future is tangible, attractive and accessible. We need to incorporate into the economy the value of our life support system services – the fresh air, clean water, fertile ground and biodiversity of species that supports all life on earth. The elements of a new economy meet the criteria of the 1985 Brundtland Commission definition of sustainability: to meet the needs of all people on Earth today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The new sustainable economy runs on four economic engines:
- Renewable energy systems that do not operate by combustion to control the carbon dioxide emissions and air and water contamination of fossil fuel use;
- Green chemistry for production of goods and products by design to avoid forming toxic properties or by-products;
- Closed loop manufacturing that conserves raw material and operates to re-purpose products at the end of their useful life; and
- Organic agriculture to restore and retain the biodiversity of crops and rebuild the fertility of the land.
We must empower people to stand for a better future. Our grandchildren and their great-grandchildren deserve a living Earth, not an Earth devastated by exploitation. A sustainable system promotes a condition of abundance within the laws of nature.
We must understand the unintended consequences of convenience, and find better ways to meet our needs, to waste less, to keep the Earth intact.
Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic provides guideposts on this quest.
