Candidate platforms and lost sustainable economic development

The Greenwash Brigade

Like Janne said, cellulosic ethanol is on the lips of every candidate, particularly after we collectively wiped the corn smudge off our faces when we realized corn-based ethanol provides a mere 18-29% reduction in greenhouse gases compared to cellulosic ethanol's 85%. Let's also not forget the food for people vs. food for your SUV quandary implicit in corn-based ethanol.

I also enjoyed Janne's observation about the absence of real greenwash in any of the Republican's environmental platforms. I took a closer look at the platforms of Huckabee and McCain. Huckabee's platform is folksy -- well meaning but vague in its particulars on a comprehensive energy plan and McCain, a long time supporter of action on climate change, was vocal in his criticism of the Bush Administration's stumble and wait approach to the issue. Of note, he did oppose the 2001 Roadless Rule which has implications for the ability to retain forests to sequester climate change gases.

Take a glimpse behind official platforms. What happens when powerful economic interests are poised against community interests and the commons that belong to all of us? We can't have effective environmental policies if we can't see the water through the chicken crap. Huckabee's unseemly, although understandable support of Arkansas's chronically misbehaving poultry industry led him to oppose Oklahoma's attempts to protect local water quality in 2005 litigation against 14 Arkansas poultry companies. Arkansas' one billion chickens deploy you-know-what each year and although good for shareholders, is acutely problematic for worker and water health in the region (Soerens, Fite and Hipp, "Water Quality in the Illinois River- Conflict and Cooperation between Oklahoma and Arkansas." Diffuse Pollution Conference Paper. 2003).

Clinton and Obama's platforms are like falling pleasantly into Oz in comparison to the Republican platforms but they too raise a few concerns. Obama is seriously invested in nuclear energy -- living in the state with the most polluted nuclear site in the country, I'm not convinced we have the capability to store nuclear waste safely. Sorry Obama and sorry France.

These candidates have very detailed long-term energy policies and I was particularly tickled by programs designed to train and support the next generation of green collar jobs, driven by renewable technology smarts. I like Clinton's ideas on SEC disclosure regarding climate change impacts and Obama's emphasis on clean food supplies by incentivizing organic farming and pushing for country of origin and genetically engineered food labeling.

Looking back at the Arkansas poultry issue, it's emblematic of what's oddly absent from all the candidate platforms: a plan for sustainable economic development, a restructuring of the values implicit in business decision making, and how to pay for ecosystem services to preserve forests, farmland, wetlands and other valuable forms of landscape.

Driven by the inarticulate push for "growth," we are paving over America and with that, losing valuable carbon sinks, forcefully contributing to flooding, reducing clean drinking water supply and oh, local food supplies. National security anyone? It's political suicide of sorts, but I'd like to see more of the same zesty green job thinking applied to Smart Growth and - - - forbid, a commitment to both carbon and impervious surface taxes in addition to cap and trade systems. If the candidates can't sow that row, then perhaps we can have a note about how we will balance explosive population growth and sprawl with a healthy economy, remembering that people and communities are part of that system.

January 1, 2008 by Heidi Siegelbaum
1 comments

tags: Election 2008 ethanol growth

Comments (1)

Allen | Respond
January 14, 2008 9:30 PM PT

I'm skeptical of any CO2 savings that corn-based ethanol supporters claim. Especially considering it wasn't that long ago groups opposed it saying that any CO2 savings were replaced by increases in NO2 pollution. NO2 may go away more quickly but that doesn't help it's emissions are increasing. And it's a worse greenhouse gas than C02.

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Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

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