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image – Tim Cantor

MATCHING THE PROBLEM TO EACH LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT

When the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first Earth Day arrived this past spring, there was much to feel good about. Significant strides have been made in protecting the earth’s biological envelope, and environmental awareness has surely been heightened. But there was also a sense of foreboding. In news comments on the occasion, came expressions of concern that pending legislative reforms such as compensation for regulatory takings, the imposition of limited cost-benefit and risk analyses, and revisions of the Clean Water Act world roll back 25 years of progress. Some even suggested that were it not for federal laws, there would be no environmental protection at all, implying that communities nationwide would stand idly by as their home territories became open sewers.

Though unreasonably costly and at times misguided, the threatened federal regulation has nonetheless provided a massive mechanism for protecting environmental quality. Yes, the air is cleaner than it was 25 years ago, more miles of rivers are swimmable, and lots of contaminated soil has been hauled from Superfund sites. But change is in the works. Even EPA has admitted that the priorities for action forced on the agency do not match the real needs for reducing environmental risks and improving air and water quality. Meanwhile memberships in national environmental groups seem to be peaking. By contrast, grass roots activities are burgeoning.

Surely there is room for improvement. We know that no other industrialized country has a Superfund program as costly and ineffective as ours. No other advanced economy relies as heavily on centralized command and control regulation, and practically every other industrialized nation is light years ahead in organizing river basin associations and similar decentralized organizations for managing water quality.

Today, the U.S. alone seems trapped in a regulatory pit that emphasizes uniform command-and-control regulation, penalties and confrontation, while paying scant attention to outcomes. In short, we rely on an antiquated, inflexible, top-down regulatory structure that was designed for a 1970 smokestack economy. Our command-and-control system was once justified by its ability to assemble and apply costly and scarce information. Yet we live in a new global age where microchips, low-cost information transmission and decentralized decision making rule the day.

Think of the changes that have transpired worldwide in the last quarter century while the basic regulatory blueprints hardly changed at all. When our basic environmental statutes were being designed, there were no FAX machines. There were no personal computers. There was no Internet for E-mail for giving instant information on polluter behavior. There was no CNN to inform the world of environmental calamities. Indeed, there was no way to monitor stack emissions, so that one could write emission trading contracts. There was no low-cost technology for reading tailpipe emissions from automobiles or for scanning the multiple dimensions of water quality. Smog was a mystery. And the notion of continuous monitoring of environmental use by satellites was just a gleam in some scientist´ s eye. In the early 1970s there was no International Standards Organization responding to marketplace demands for a higher quality workplace and giving private sector certification of environmental control. Today, all this and more is as routine as self-rising flour in grocery stores.

Now consider some of what we have learned about environmental hazards from 25 years experience in dealing with pollution. We now know that industrial discharge is not the source of most carcinogens and other environmental hazards. Indeed, we know that industry today ranks well below government operations and nonpoint sources as the major source of pollution. We have learned that the threat of acid rain is not critically associated with sulfur dioxide emissions, that life expectancies are increasing and that forests are flourishing.

Over the course of the last two decades, we have learned that the demand for environmental quality that comes with rising incomes is a powerful force for delivering environmental improvements, one that will not be denied. Factories, farms, municipal treatment plants, and federal government facilities cannot get by with haphazard treatment of the environment. CNN, Internet, E-mail and desk-top publishers will tell. And ordinary people, the ones we see each day in the market, will bring actions to protect their environment. In other words, there is no danger of seeing an unconstrained “race to bottom.” Now is the time, I believe, to replace costly smokestack regulation with the beneficial forces of the market.

FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPALS

Just what are these beneficial market forces? And what steps can we take to build strong linkages between environmental protection and the actions of millions of uncoordinated people? Is it possible for people to do the right thing without even thinking about environmental quality.? First off, the market process reflects social norms and rules of just conduct embodied in law and custom. Market action is driven by prices that emerge when some people own things that others want. For example, when investors have to give up something they value to obtain a site for building a factory, they are suddenly struck with a conservation ethic. Because they must pay, they carefully consider just how much land they really need. They shop. They search. They become creative. Markets and prices provide incentives. And if factory builders must pay the holders of environmental rights before building or polluting, or suffer the consequences, the investors will work even harder to avoid environmental harms. When environmental rights are protected, environmental protection becomes consistent with profit maximization.

Property rights´ definition and protection form the keystone to the market process. If factories and municipal treatment plants are told that they can pollute within certain limits if they have an EPA permit, then each time we get another certified plant we will get more polluted air and rivers. And if regulators tell industry official s how to design plants and they give their stamp of approval only when the specified technology is in place, then industry has no incentive to search for lower cost technologies and less damaging sites. If owners of downstream property lose their right to sue and stop polluters who damage their property, as our statutes do in some cases, industry incentives are blunted even further.

If cities and states are able to use political powers to locate incinerators and landfills without compensating neighboring property owners for damages, then environmental justice becomes an issue. If in the pursuit of protecting endangered species or sensitive wetlands, government can take property rights without paying, then property owners will have incentives to destroy endangered species and to plow under wetlands before they are observed. On the other hand, if property owners are paid for harboring endangered species and for converting land to public use, then wetlands and endangered species will be more secure. The incentives generated by markets, prices, and property rights can replace a large number of environmental policemen.

MODIFYING THE STATUTORY FRAMEWORK

How might we apply these market principals to the existing statutory framework? First, we might attempt to modify the rules. With few exceptions, the legislative blueprints for regulating air and water pollution require command-and-control regulation that results in end-of-pipe, technology-based standards. Generally speaking, regulations focus on inputs, not outcomes. There is a fixation on point-sources — individual machines and in-plant processes. Hardly any attention is directed toward ecological systems, like river basins, complete aquifers and watersheds. The rules leave little room for innovation and can actually penalize firms that devote attention to unidentified but important sources of pollution while overlooking smaller but specified sources that are listed in the rules.

Put in the simplest terms, air and water pollution control from stationary sources is based on national or large geographic area standards that call for uniform approaches to be taken by broad categories of polluters. There are new-source/old-source standards that penalize expansion of plants and protect existing firms from competitive entry. There are stricter standards for particular regions. And there is little focus on overall outcomes. Indeed, after 25 years, we are just now becoming serious about the provision of extensive monitoring data that inform us about relative improvement.

How might we modify the existing blueprint? Allow me to offer a few suggestions.

1) Ditch command-and-control regulation in favor of performance standards. Identify specific goals to be achieved and allow managers to figure it out from there. Let flexibility and the desire to minimize cost become the guiding principals. Let the regulators focus on outcomes.

2) Eliminate new-source/old-source biases. Let competition work at all margins.

3) Establish a complete national emissions monitoring system and, by statute, provide a detailed annual report card that gives reliable data on the environment, by pollutant, river, major lake and stream.

4) Expand emissions and effluent trading to encompass all criteria pollutants. To facilitate emission trading between and among facilities with diverse ownership, provide baseline data and systems analysis so that all contracts can be written and enforced.

5) Require experiments with river and air-shed management systems where all rules for plants and other individual sources are relaxed and the river or air shed is given a measurable environmental goal to be achieved. Include point and nonpoint sources of pollution in the basinwide approach.

For hazardous waste, better known as superfund:

1) Make Superfund a public works project with, for example, a 75/25 percent local/federal sharing of cost, with the proportion based on the expected share of benefits.

2) Eliminate strict joint and several liability as basis for recovery of costs. Replace with joint and several liability only for polluters who violated laws at the time waste was created at a site.

3) Involve states and communities in establishing a triage system that based on intended use identifies sites that should be cleaned, those that should be paved or fenced and guarded, and those that should be monitored for potential cleanup.

4) Eliminate drinking water as the standard to be met from a cleaned Superfund site. Replace with ambient standards accepted by a population for their rivers and lakes.

SUGGESTIONS FOR A CLEAN START

So much for tinkering at the margins of smokestack regulation. Starting with a clean slate calls for careful examination of the fundamental role of government. We must ask 1) what is the purpose of government in the context? and 2) what level of government? Under a market approach, government has the responsibility of protecting citizens from the harm of others, protecting property rights, and reducing transaction costs among parties who seek to solve environmental problems. These duties relate to governing at all levels — the community, the state, the nation, and with regard to issues involving national boundaries. As to the level of government, we should consider the dimensions of the environmental problem being addressed, which is to say the extent of the harm that might be generated by a polluter or group of polluters.

A classification of environmental problems — activities that impose harm on other people, their property or things they prize — will surely yield a matching of some problems with each level of government. For example, a hazardous waste site that does not pose a risk to an aquifer is surely a local problem. One that contaminates a multistate aquifer will require another level of government. Air pollution that imposes costs within a state´ s boundaries is one thing; pollution that imposes costs across a region or across a national boundary is something else. Making such a list will carry us some distance in identifying the appropriate level of government for protecting property and reducing transaction costs among parties who seek to resolve pollution problems.

Decentralizing the problem breaks the national monopoly, generates a multitude of experiments, and allows citizens to vote with their feet. All evidence suggests that the costs of environmental improvements will fall, that those who have the greatest incentive to address environmental concerns will have a larger voice in determining outcomes, and that those who reap the benefits will bear the costs.

But what about the mechanisms that might be used? A review of the nation´ s history and consideration of the experience of other countries inform us of alternatives. For several hundred years, environmental rights were protected by the common law of nuisance and trespass. Cases involving water, air, odor and hazardous waste pollution were adjudicated in common law courts. Where many receivers of pollution were involved, citizens turned to public prosecutors and the public nuisance law. Where pollution crossed state lines, a state attorney general brought suit in behalf of citizens. Just prior to enactment of federal statutes, federal common law was emerging for protecting environmental rights among the states. To a large extent, that fertile field of control was snuffed out by legislation.

We cannot know how common law would have evolved in the absence of monopolized regulation. Perhaps specialized courts would have developed with special masters dealing with highly technical issues. Yet, like statute law, common law did not work perfectly, but the remedies were tough — injunction and damages. Of special importance, only those who could demonstrate harm or potential harm could bring action. A passerby had no standing to bring suit against a polluter whose activities were legitimate in the eyes of the courts and community members.

The common law process has something else to recommend it. It is impossible for a special interest to lobby all common law judges and obtain uniform rulings across the entire country. Put differently, it is very costly to seek rents through the courtroom.

But does common law really work? Today, practically all of the freshwater fish in the United Kingdom are owned by private parties, and have been for generations. The property of the angling clubs is protected by common law. If a polluter, be it a city, and industry or government enterprise, damages a fishery, the angling clubs brought suit. In the last 20 years, some 2,000 suits have been brought. Five have been lost. The result: The rivers of England are clean, in some cases cleaner than drinking water standards require. Market forces can protect water quality.

Prior to the formation of EPA, multistate compacts and commissions were at work dealing with water and air pollution. Ordinary people with good sense recognized that dimensions of environmental problems did not necessarily coincide with the dimensions of existing political bodies. The Ohio river basin commission, which included the states of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, was one of the better known operating systems. Through the joint effort of several states, the Ohio river was cleaned, continuously monitored and managed. At the time of EPA´ s founding, there were discussions underway to expand the Ohio river system to include states that bordered the Tennessee River. Quite possibly, river basin associations and multistate compacts would have eventually encompassed all major rivers. Federal legislation ended all that.

Today, in France every major river, their tributaries and coastal zones are managed as six systems with independent governing bodies that work to manage discharges to and withdrawals from all bodies of water. Major rivers in Germany, Scotland and Australia are similarly managed. Efforts are underway in Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil and Canada to develop similar approaches. There is no command-and-control. Water users are given performance standards to meet. In some cases, discharge and withdrawal fees are imposed. In Australia, pollution rights are traded to minimize the cost of controlling salt infusion.

One such experiment is now operating in the U.S., just one. It encompasses North Carolina´ s Tar River where point and nonpoint dischargers are working together in a river basin association. EPA´ s command-and-control regulations are relaxed. As a result, the Pamlico Sound, the receiver of waters from the Tar, is recovering. Costs are reduced dramatically by members of the association.

A review of history and current experience suggests the following:

1) Levels of governmental control and assistance should match the dimensions of the environmental problem being addressed. In some cases, new governing bodies will need to be developed. Regional compacts will be needed. Enabling legislation that forms river basin associations may be required. The national government should focus its attention on environmental problems that are truly national in scope. In all such cases, the national government should focus only on setting performance standards, enforcing those standards, and reporting on progress. There should be no command-and-control regulation for stationary pollution sources.

2) States should be empowered to manage environmental quality within their boundaries with the means and instruments not specified. Multistate participation and river basin associations should be assisted by the national government. States should be left free to invigorate common law remedies or any other control instrument they desire. The emphasis should be on outcomes, not inputs.

3) When the federal government regulates, as in the case of air pollution that affects several states or in the case of mobile sources, the regulatory agency should be required to justify all actions on the basis of scientifically based risk assessment and cost effectiveness. The regulatory agency should be required to report annually on the status of each action taken, its justification, and measured effects.

4) The national government should strengthen its research and development activities and make its expertise available to other governing bodies on a fee basis. The national government should strengthen its role in monitoring environmental quality and regularly provide scientific evidence on the condition of the environment.

There is a role for government in protecting environmental rights and in protecting people from environmental harm. As mentioned here, it is a role that supports property rights, markets and competition. Until now, too much attention has been focused on procedures, process, inputs and on criminalizing the innocent behavior of citizens. As a people, we have chosen a high cost, low result route, and we have learned a lot. Indeed, we should know more about environmental regulation than any other people on the face of the earth. Now is the time to rethink what we are doing. to learn from our own experience and that of others, and to make the 21st century a time when we can truly take the environment seriously.

BIG TREE DATABASE
This section is where the great trees of the world are catalogued; the canopy producing, water retaining, carbon absorbing, timber producing big trees of the world. A database is to be created allowing each tree to be recorded in fields for:

- name of tree
- lifespan
- height
- diameter
- growth rate
- climate zone
- actual range
- spacing requirements
- water requirements
- soil preferences

This body of data will be used to evaluate the reestablishment of primary canopy forest in desertified regions, deforested regions, and areas with reduced forests. Users will be able to sort this data according to their own selection criteria. The Big Tree database will be linked to the Global Timber Mass database to calculate, for example, total planetary timber mass. This database will also provide crucial inputs for the New Seringal feasibility analysis.

WORLDWIDE DEMOGRAPHIC SUMMARIES
This section is where the humans of the world are catalogued; the inventors, builders, farmers, traders. A database is to be created to allow custom web viewing of tables containing:

- nation
- capital
- state
- capital
- population
- population growth rate
- size (sq miles)
- population density
- GNP
- per capita GNP

This body of data is going to facilitate some very interesting analysis. By creating a world demographic database for each year, the projected population doubling time per nation calculated in 1970, for example, can be compared to what the doubling time actually was. The World Demographic database will be linked to the Global Timber Mass database to calculate the timber economy contribution to the total economy, allowing easy identification of prime areas for establishment of profitable new seringals.

GLOBAL TIMBER MASS
This database is where the total global timber output is measured. This allows calculation of the value each forest currently generates each year, and more importantly, will demonstrate the cost effectiveness of sustainable forestry operations over the long term. Per year data is to be acquired for the forests of the world under the following fields:

- forest types
- forest regions
- square miles of forests
- forest mass per square mile
- forest mass/sq mile at capacity
- forest mass % of capacity
- % mass increase per year
- mass increase/year @ capacity
- river systems
- climate types
- timber value by forest type

The progress of ecoworld.com´ s primary mission, doubling the timber mass of the planet in a 50 year period from May 1995 till May 2045, will be monitored carefully using this database. Much of the New Seringal production projections will use the information developed in this database.

NEW SERINGAL PLAN
Seringal is a Portuguese word that loosely translated means “extractive reserve.” It is referenced frequently in a noted book on the deforestation in Brazil entitled “The Burning Season” by Andrew Revkin. The Seringal is any stretch of intact forest that is used by the local people to selectively
harvest timber, rubber, nuts, botanicals, etc.

The New Seringal is an ecoworld.com term used to describe an extractive reserve established on desertified land. The goal is to develop a “recipe” for a polycultural mixture of compatible trees and plants that gives an optimal sustained output of forest products per acre for every forest region
in the world.

The New Seringal plans are to include a harvest/replantation schedule, and a timetable to optimum production. These new forests will exist from then on in a virtually perpetual high-mass, full canopy state, but will be yielding a tremendous output of valuable forest products, making the land as valuable in this forest state as it would be if put to other use.

image – Tim Cantor

ecoworld.com

Issue #4

Fall 1995

LETTER FROM RINGSIDE

THE ECOWORLD PHILOSOPHY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LAND RIGHTS, WHY DO THEY MATTER?

THE PROPERTY RIGHTS REBELLION

By Bruce Yandle

Reprinted from PERC Reports, October 1995

Bruce Yandle, a professor at Clemson and one of the most entertaining and astute speakers I have ever heard, also has editorial skills aplenty. One of the patriarchs of the land rights rebellion in his own right, he has collected a series of essays written by a number of free-market environmentalists. This book is a must for serious students of the environmental dialogue that is reaching new heights in the U.S. A reaction to regulations that have allowed our government to effectively destroy the value of a parcel of land without having to compensate the owner for it. The price we have paid to protect the environment has fallen on our citizens shoulders unequally, and enough of the unlucky ones have rallied together to form what is today a potent national political grassroots movement. Dr. Yandle´ essay printed here was edited from the preface to his book, “Land Rights.”

FLAGSHIPS OF THE FOREST

THE GREAT BOREAL NORTH

By Ed “Redwood” Ring

The Boreal regions cover 11% of the earth´ surface, a belt encompassing Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Northern Russia. These vast lands contain stands of Aspen, Birch, Poplar, Alder, and various cold tolerant Conifers. These trees are being logged much faster than they are currently regenerating. Even more than in the tropic and temperate forests, the effect on the soil of clear cutting is hard to reverse. Once the thin layer of topsoil erodes and exposes the permafrost underneath, the earth´ surface degrades into a sterile and virtually unredeemable muck. Moreover, Boreal timber grows at a much slower rate than in warmer parts of the world, even if the soil can be preserved. What can be done? For starters, governments can stop subsidizing this activity. In many cases, the destruction of the Boreal forests do not even make sound business sense without massive government financial assistance. Just as welfare as we know it wreaks its destructive havoc in our inner cities, corporate welfare is destroying the forests of the north.

COMPENSATION FOR “TAKINGS”

THE OMNIBUS PROPERTY RIGHTS ACT OF 1995

An Outline by Nancy Marzulla

“Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” The fifth amendment to the constitution was meant to safeguard property rights, which are perhaps the prerequisite for all other civil rights. But what happens if a landowner cannot use their land as they see fit, even though they still hold title to the land? Aren´ regulations that restrict use of land to the point where the value of the land to the owner is severely dimished considered “takings?” Senate bill 605 which will be debated early in the next session of congress attempts to provide relief to property owners affected by government regulations. Depending on their perspective, readers should find either sweet irony or stark terror in the provision that agencies attempting to enforce any environmental regulations file a “Takings Impact Statement” on a case by case basis. This bill is going to be a hot potato. Get primed on it now by reading this outline by noted property rights lawyer Nancy Marzulla.

A CONVERSATION WITH THE SUN

THE GAIA OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Gaia, the theory that the earth is a single organism with a great soul, is a prevalent belief in many strains of environmentalists. Without discussing the merits of the theory, let’s extend it to the solar system. Why should ecosystems be limited to our planet? Isn’t it the sun that keeps us alive? Aren´ environmentalists afraid of asteroids? Talk about an environmental impact! Let’s get some of those greater ecosystems out in space where they surely would belong. Let´ put some biospheres in solar orbit!

RAINFOREST UPDATE

GUYANA, SOUTH AMERICA

A Message from the World Rainforest Movement

This time we go to South America where Georgia Pacific has inked a deal to log 4.1 million acres in the tiny nation of Guyana. This equates to 6,406 square miles, which is 7.7% of Guyana´ national territory. The insatiable desire of the world for timber makes this phenomenon repeat itself over and over, from Guyana to Papua New Guinea, from the Solomon Islands to Zaire. Let´ establish some nurseries there.

Fall 1995

This issue features the Boreal Forests of the world, which currently are being converted into pulp and chopsticks as fast as money and capital can get in and get out. The ecosystems of the Boreal regions of the world at large are threatened, the whole cold but alive mass of sea and land that circles the arctic pole. They are not only threatened by rapacious and completely non-sustainable (and government subsidized!) timber cutting, but by fuel and mineral extraction as well, and even by a proposal to commericalize a shipping lane from Asia to Europe over the top of Siberia. This sounds just like another leftist environmentalist tract, doesn´ it? Is Ed “Redwood” Ring selling out?

The only thing that separates an environmentalist capitalist from a non-environmentalist capitalist is the time frame they keep. If you don´ have to deal with confiscatory taxes and regulations, you can pass your land on to your progeny. If you believe in families and tradition, then you have progeny to care about. Hardly a leftist notion. Just a narrower set of priorities. But how much narrower, ultimately? Won´ a landowner want to protect his land from despoilation? Isn´ land and it´ yield the only truly inflation hedged asset? But if you have to turn your land over to the government instead of to your heirs, why take care of it? If your profits are ground to dust by taxes, if your initiative is diminished if not squelched by regulations, why think in the long term? Why protect the living forest? Why protect anything?

If socialism destroys the spirit and the standard of living of those persons unfortunate enough to live under its iron hand, how on earth can we turn to socialist philosophy to save the earth!

Long term capitalist thinking will save the Boreal Forests, and the rest of the forests, for that matter. If Charles Hurwitz, the owner of the Headwaters Forest, were a long-term capitalist thinker, he would log one tree per year from his precious forest, perhaps after 100 have been set aside to be forever spared. This one yearly tree would be priceless. Bidding could start at $1,000,000. So the millworkers could still have jobs, Mr. Hurwitz could open a theme park in the forest, erecting non-invasive Bed & Breakfasts (and the infrastructure to support them) amongst the giant trees. Tourists would flock to the exclusive cabins, everyone would work, and the forest would be saved.

How can such a solution even be considered, in our present over-regulated, over-taxed United States of America? Erecting a Bed & Breakfast isn´ expensive, it´ the fees and taxes associated with starting up and operating the enterprise. Imagine all the permits Charles Hurwitz would need if he decided to save his forest in this way! And make no mistake about it, it is his forest. He bought it and paid for it. Now admittedly, by all appearances, Charles Hurwitz is not long-term capitalist thinker. But neither is he a criminal. And if Charles Hurwitz lived in a land of fewer taxes and regulations, perhaps he would be more inclined to think long-term.

This issue deplores the havoc wreaked on the Boreal Regions of the world. The Boreal forests (along with the forests of the Pacific; Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands), are being quickly and quietly ground to dust as we eat rainforest crunch and put “save the rainforest” bumper stickers on our cars. Deforestation is really just beginning in these unheralded, un”chic” regions. But forget about speculating as to how governments are going to increase the world´ timber mass. We´ try to figure out more creative solutions, such as game parks, adventure tourism, sustainable forestry, limited and safe mineral/fuel extraction. Perhaps not every environmental problem can be solved this way, but it is time to start trying. Environmental solutions that are being proposed need to be expressed in terms of their capitalist merit. Most if not all of them can be so expressed, and they will, right here.

send an email to ed@ecoworld.com

Issue #4, Fall 1995

Nature and Technology in Harmony…

This issue examines the grassroots property rights rebellion in the U.S. and particularly in the context of the upcoming property rights legislation in the U.S. Congress. “Land Rights, Why Do They Matter?” discusses the origins of property rights protection in the Magna Carta, the protections afforded property owners by the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the forces behind the current resurgence of interest in property rights protection. “Flagships of the Forest” this month takes a look at the Boreal Forests of the world, which deserve at least as much attention as the Tropical Forests. We try to quantify some of the forest areas in the world in this article, but are mostly thwarted by inaccuracies from surprising sources! “Compensation for Takings” is an outline of the current bill before the U.S. Senate which attempts to strengthen 5th Amendment protection of private property. “A Conversation with the Sun” features the visionary artwork of Tim Cantor, along with musings on Gaia, solar energy, and interplanetary civilization, “Rainforest Update” this month goes to Guyana, South America, where another forest is biting the dust as we speak. These things are happening now. More trees would take pressure off these ancient forests. Let’s get planting.

Reactions and rebuttals to these articles are encouraged.

ecoworld.com

Issue #4

Fall 1995

A CONVERSATION WITH THE SUN

image – Tim Cantor

THE GAIA OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

nature and technology in harmony

The deep ecologists surely believe in Gaia, the living earth, the single integrated, beautiful entity whose lungs are the living forests and whose arteries are the life-giving crystal clear rivers. What could be more logical than to extend this notion to our great sun, which provides us with the light and heat that makes all things live? Isn’t there a spirit in the sun, too?

And if we believe this notion of Earth’s Gaia spirit, and extend this notion to the sun, wouldn’t the sun’s Gaia spirit be that of a wonderful benevolent and powerful entity? Would we not wish to rise off of our loving mother earth, like children who have grown to a new chapter in their existance, and take our civilization into the warm embrace of solar orbit?

In this life zone between Earth and Mars, our ships would ply the orbital lanes like the great clippers of old, taking a year or more to voyage from far outposts back to civilization. With cargos of precious minerals, perfectly engineered gems and crystals, tourists, colonists, maybe even alien artifacts, a bustling interplanetary economy will be our next step.

But you can’t have it both ways. If humans are to create ecosystems in space they will need technology. Only through deeper scientific understanding and applied research and massive technological development can we take this next step, establishing ecosystems in space! And these ecosystems will have their unique Gaia spirit, one that is our own creation.

Of course nature and technology are one. By making life on earth possible, the sun is an essential part of our habitat. Solar orbit is but an extension of our current life zone. To live in solar orbit is a natural part of our evolution as a civilization of sentient beings. Our technology can lift us and our enterprises off of this Earth and let the great power of the sun take the burden of our consumption more directly. What better way to give the Earth a break!

ecoworld.com

Issue #4

Fall 1995

THE PROPERTY RIGHTS REBELLION

“Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation”

Fifth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Today, all across America, people are focusing on a major constitutional issue: their right to control the use of their land and property. Landowners in the East are concerned about restrictions on their land rights when their property is designated as historic. Farmers are up in arms about the Corps of Engineers wetlands program that forces them to abandon the use of farmland because it may become wet during part of the year. Ranchers and forest owners in the West are threatened by enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

In some ways, the movement is a rebellion. Yet in the strict meaning of the word, the movement is more a revolution – a complete rotation that carries us back to a first Constitutional principle, the principle of protection against excessive government.

Some of the groups that contest the state’s authority describe the problem in simple terms. The land on which they live is theirs, quite often owned by family members for three generations or more. In their view, no one has a superior right to tell them what they can do or not do on their land. (Of course, if the owners are truly harming others, then they can be sued under common law.)

Others see the problem in more complex terms. They hold contracts, deeds and easements that give them the legal right to graze cattle, cut trees, or build houses. They see a growing maze of federal, state and local regulations that interfere with the terms of the contracts and deeds they hold. These regulations are supposed to serve a public interest, but the burden falls on the shoulders of individuals who hold specified rights to land. In their view, their Fifth Amendment rights are denied. They believe what the Constitution says: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

Corporations and trade associations see yet another dimension. These groups, in some cases, are torn between raising their voices at what they view as violations of private property rights and accepting them as inevitable. They fear the public relations backlash that follows if they are tarred as being anti-environmental.

This property rights movement is sometimes depicted as a “stop the environmentalists” effort, and a number of environmentalists oppose and criticize it. But environmentalists, too, are interested in property rights. Instead of seeking to protect existing rights, however, they seek to redefine rights through government control of the land. Sometimes the issue relates to how public lands will be used – logging versus the natural sanctuary. In others, the question has to do with private land rights – whether or not an individual can build a home on private beach property. No matter how land-use controversies are depicted, property rights, the legal ability to exclude others and control use, is the fundamental issue.

The question is how rights are to be transfered. If the government decides to change the rights, will the existing private rights be purchased, as property rights advocates argue they should be, or will they simply be taken, as many environmental activists want?

My interest in the 20th century property rights movement began

with an earlier project that involved a study of how property rights for ordinary people evolved over the centuries. My reading carried me back to 10th century England and the rise of common law. I was struck by stories about common law rules of property and how they had evolved from communities of people in rural areas, not from constitutions or the seats of government. Accounts of how country people, probably kinsmen, took annual oaths to be jointly and severally liable for maintaining community peace were joined by stories of country courts and judges who rendered decisions involving trespass, theft and violent crimes.

My studies led me to the great 17th-century English jurist Sir Edward Coke. His explanation of the Magna Carta left little doubt in my mind that the Great Charter, as he termed it, was a watershed event in the struggle of ordinary people to protect their natural rights against encroachments by government. There in the Magna Carta one finds words that sound very much like the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment: “No freeman shall be deprived of his free tenement or liberties or fee custom but by lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.”

At the time of the Magna Carta, “the law of the land” referred to common law, not to laws written by a legislative body or king. Customary law, developed informally and rooted in community norms, was seen as the only logical way to protect property rights that had evolved over the centuries. Rights to land emerged from community and were transmitted to the nation/state. The lesson seems clear: People do not have rights because the state allows them. The nation/state exists because people have rights.

From the Magna Carta to today, people have struggled with an endless paradox: A government strong enough to protect property rights is also powerful enough to take property. Constitutions that evolve from free people provide the means to wall off government. This wall separates two economic domains – one public, the other private. Of course, the lines often blur, but one force dominates on each side.

One side of the wall is governed by the law of politics. There, the body politic engages in collective choice, where voting rules and special interest struggles determine outcomes. The other side is governed by a rule of law, where owners of property rights are forced to bear the cost of their actions while gaining the fruits of their labor. On one side of the wall, land use can be specified by statute. On the other side, transfer of land rights requires purchase.

Things are never perfect on either side. Through property rights, owners have the incentive to look ahead, to conserve, to avoid short term actions that foreclose better long-term outcomes, and to face the opportunity cost of their actions. On the other side of the wall, the rule of politics allows individuals to promote the public weal, but also enables the players to engage in opportunistic behavior by calling on government power to force costs on others.

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is America’s chief property rights wall. But like other walls, it must be maintained. At times cracks appear in the wall; new mortar must be applied and stones replaced. Otherwise the wall will fall.

In many ways, today’s property rights advocxates are calling for a modern Magna Carta. Once again, ordinary people are seeking to restrain and contain government. But instead of having to settle differences with picks, swords and arrows, the parties in the struggle now turn to courts and legislative bodies. Their struggles help us to see how strong is the motivation for freedom.

Copies of Land Rights: The 1990′s Property Rights Rebellion can be obtained by calling Rowman & Littlefield at 800-462-6420

ecoworld.com

Issue #4

Fall 1995

image – Tim Cantor

section 1 Short title.

“Emergency Property Owners Relief Act of 1995″

TITLE I — FINDINGS AND PURPOSES

section 101 Findings.

section 102 Purpose.

TITLE II — PROPERTY RIGHTS LITIGATION RELIEF

>section 201 Findings.

>section 202 Purposes.

>section 203 Definitions.

* “Property” and “private property” means real property; the right to use and receive water; rents, issues, and profits from land; property rights defined by contract; and any interest understood to be property under common law.

* “Taking” does not include condemnation or criminal forfeiture.

>section 204 Compensation for private property.

* A property owner shall receive compensation if: private property has been physically taken for public use; the rights of the owner are abridged in order to obtain a permit for use of the property; the owner is deprived of all or substantially all of the economic benefit of the land; the affected property is diminished in value by 33%; and any other circumstance considered a taking with the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

* The property owner has the burden of proving the diminution of value of property.

* Where required, the government has the burden of proving that:

- its action substantially advances the stated purpose.

- its conditions on granting a permit are roughly proportional to the impact of the proposed use of the property.

- the prohibited use, is a nuisance.

* The government is not required to pay compensation in cases where the property is a nuisance.

* Owners shall be compensated the difference between the fair market value of the affected property before the agency action and its value after the agency action.

* Compensation for a taking shall be paid out of the budget of the agency responsible for the taking.

>section 205 Jurisdiction and judicial review.

Affected property owners can choose to file claims against offending federal agencies in either the United States District Court or United States Court of Federal Claims.

>section 206 Statute of limitations.

A property owner has six years to make a claim against an offending agency.

>section 207 Attorney’s fees and costs.

Attorney’s fees and costs shall be awarded to prevailing plaintiffs.

>section 208 Rules of construction.

Nothing in this title shall infringe upon the authority of state governments to create new property rights.

>section 209 Effective date.

This title shall take effect the day it is signed into law and applies to any agency actions occurring after that date.

TITLE III — ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

>section 301 Alternative dispute resolution.

* Alternative dispute resolution is not mandatory and must be approved by both parties.

* Appeals of arbitration decisions may be made to the District or Claims Courts.

* Arbitration awards are made from the budget of the offending party.

TITLE IV — PRIVATE PROPERTY TAKING IMPACT ANALYSIS

>section 401 Findings and purpose.

>section 402 Definitions.

>section 403
Private property taking impact analysis (TIA).

* Prior to issuing any regulation likely to result in a taking, a federal agency must submit a report of the Office of Management and Budget stating: the specific purpose of the action, the likelihood that the action would provoke a taking of private property, alternatives to the proposed regulation that would ease the impact of the taking, an estimate of the cost of compensating affected property owners. No TIA need be prepared for actions connected with: condemnation proceedings, trust properties and treaty negotiations, criminal forfeiture, planning activity, communications regarding state or local regulation of property, military activity on federal property, immediate threat to health or safety if a TIA is later completed.

* Agencies must submit to OMB annually a list of actions requiring a TIA or resulting in a taking for publication in the Federal Register.

* The TIA is to be made public, and given to owners of affected property. * TIA estimates are presumed inaccurate if completed five years or more before the agency action,

>section 404 Decisional criteria and agency compliance.

* An agency shall not issue rules that require uncompensated takings.

* Agencies must review all existing regulations, re-issuing them if necessary, to reduce takings, and identify and prioritize statutory changes necessary to carry out the purpose of the act within 120 days.

>section 405 Rules of construction.

This bill does not limit any other available remedies, nor act as conclusive determination of property values for appraisal purposes.

>section 406 Statute of limitations.

Suit must be filed within six years after submission of the TIA.

TITLE V — PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS ADMINISTRATIVE BILL OF RIGHTS

>section 501 Findings and purpose.

>section 502 Definitions.

* “Property” means interests in land and the right to use and receive water. * “Agency action” means action taken under section 404 of the Clean Water Act or Endangered Species Act of 1973.

>section 503 Protection of private property rights.

* Agency head shall minimize impacts on private property. * Agencies shall develop rules to ensure the protection of property rights.

>section 504 Property owners consent for entry.

* Agencies may not enter private property without the consent of the owner, prior notice of a visit, and the sharing of any data collected on the property.

* An agency is not barred from entering property to obtain such permission.

>section 505 Right to review and dispute data collected from private property.

An agency may not use data it has collected unless the property owner has been given access to the data, a description of the manner in which it was collected, and the owner has been allowed to dispute the accuracy of the collected information.

>section 506 Right to an administrative appeal of wetlands decisions.

* Amends Section 404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to create an administrative appeal of regulatory jurisdiction, permit denials, terms and conditions of permits, penalties, and orders to restore wetlands.

* The appeal will be heard by an official other than the official who took the action.

>section 507 Right to administrative appeal under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

* Amends section 11 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to create an administrative appeal on designation of critical habitat, permit denial, terms and conditions of permits, finding of jeopardy, incidental take statements, penalties, and limitations a property use. * The appeal will be heard by an official other than the official who took the action.

>section 508 Compensation for taking of private property.

* A Property owners whose regulated property is devalued by 33% or who is denied the economically viable use of the regulated property are entitled to compensation.

* An owner has 90 days to file a claim after final agency action. * The agency head has 180 days to offer to compensate or purchase the property.

* The property owner has 60 days to accept or reject any offer made.

* The property owner may reject any offer made, and submit to binding arbitration the issues of amount of compensation owed and whether compensation is required.

* Payment shall come from the budget of the agency promulgating the action.

>section 509 Private property owner participation in cooperative agreement.

Amends the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to require the Secretary to inform owners or lessees if their property is subject to an ESA management agreement, and allow them to participate in the management agreement.

>section 510 Election of remedies.

Property owners retain the right to preserve all other remedies.

TITLE VI — MISCELLANEOUS

>section 601 Severability.

>section 602 Effective date.

Takes effect the day it is signed into law.

This document is informational, and is not meant to support or oppose any legislation pending before the Senate.

Nancie G. Marzulla is the president and chief legal counsel of Defenders of Property Rights. For a free copy of Defenders’ “Pocket Guide to Your Private Property Rights,” send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (52 cents, please) to: 6235 33rd Street NW, Washington, DC 20015

Aurora Borealis. The northern lights. The frosted rim of northern lands below them, the living icebox of the planet.

All of the northern land masses, North America, Europe, and Asia, have significant expanses of land in the extreme north. The arctic circle, less than 2,000 miles from the north pole, passes almost entirely through land. The boreal forests ring the regions immediately south of this high latitude in a vast expanse that easily rivals the rainforest regions of the world in terms of sheer size.

Locked up in the Boreal Forests are vast amounts of carbon, and their biomass is so huge and so vital that when they are in their maximum growth phase during the northern spring and summer, the worldwide levels of carbon dioxide fall and the worldwide levels of oxygen rise.

The Boreal World has gotten a lot of attention lately. The September 4, 1995 issue of TIME Magazine featured a cover story entitled “The Rape of Siberia” which chronicles the wanton development occurring there since the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. The May/June 1995 issue of WORLDWATCH has a feature entitled “Cutting the Great Forests of the North.” These reports agree that deforestation is happening faster in the Boreal forests than in the tropical ones, but “Save the Boreal Forests” isn’t appearing on bumper stickers yet, and “Taiga Crunch” never made it to the supermarket shelves.

In order to properly discuss the issue of Boreal deforestation, the problem must be quantified. First use worldwide timber-mass doubling as a baseline for a quantitative framework. It is impossible to double the timber mass of the planet if we don’t know what the current timber mass of the planet is. And before we can do that we need to know what the area of forest land is, compared to the area of the land masses of earth.

HOW BIG IS THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH?

Using information gleaned from the articles in 1995 issues of TIME and WORLDWATCH, plus a 1995 world almanac and book of facts, certain baselines can be established. Since we are starting from scratch, let’s start with the surface area of the earth. Taking the almanac as a reference, the diameter of the world is 7,926 miles. This, using the formula “surface area of sphere = 4 x 3.1416 x radius squared,” the earth has 197.4 million square miles of surface. Actually, because the earth is slightly ellipsoid, the surface area is more accurately estimated at approximately 196.9 square miles.

HOW BIG ARE THE OCEANS?

Now most of the earth is covered with ocean, where trees don’t grow; the oceans constitute 138.2 million square miles of earth’s surface, constituted as follows:

- Pacific, 64.2

- Atlantic, 33.4

- Indian, 28.4

- Arctic, 5.1

- Other Seas, 7.1

HOW BIG ARE THE CONTINENTS?

Land masses on earth total 57.9 million square miles, only 29.8% of the total surface area. They are:

- Eurasia, 21.2

- Africa, 11.7

- North America, 9.4

- South America, 6.9

- Antarctica, 5.4

- Australia/Oceania, 3.3

HOW BIG ARE THE FORESTS?

Let’s take some of these facts and see if we can wade through the WORLDWATCH article and get a handle on the size of the Boreal forests in the world. On page 21 of the May/June issue of WORLDWATCH the author states that the Boreal forests are “covering 11 percent of the earth´ s surface and including almost a third of the worlds forests…” The author must mean that the forests cover 11% of the land surface of the world, since if forests covered 11% of the “earth’s surface” there would be no room for the Sahara desert and deforestation would not be a problem. Making that assumption, the area in millions of square miles for the forests of the world are:

- Boreal Forests, 6.4

- Other Forests, 12.8

- Total Forests, 19.2, or 33% of the earth’s land area.

It is not a simple matter to be sure about these facts. On page 22 of the same article, it is stated “Canada has 10% of the world’s forests, and three-quarters of that – about 1 billion hectares, is Boreal…”

HOW BIG ARE THE BOREAL FORESTS IN CANADA?

…this means that 7.5% of the total forest area in the world are Boreal Forests in Canada, which comes out to 1.4 million square miles. But based on the fact that one square mile is 259.2 hectares, Canada´ s “billion” hectares of Boreal forests would equal 3.8 million square miles. That would be a neat trick, since Canada is only 3.9 million square miles in it’s entire territory (including Quebec, mind you). Will the real Canadian Boreal forest please stand up? And where is the other 25% of Canadian non-Boreal forest to go? To summarize the clues in millions of square miles…

- 7.5% of 12.8m/sq miles = 1.4

- 1 billion hectares / 259(hectares/mile) = 3.8

- size of Canada´ s whole territory = 3.9

HOW BIG ARE THE BOREAL FORESTS IN RUSSIA?

On page 25 of the WORLDWATCH article it is declared “Russia’s forests cover 770 million hectares and virtually all of this is Boreal…” This would indicate that the Russian Boreal forests cover an area of 2.9 million square miles. But on page 21 the article says that 70% of the world’s Boreal forests are Russian. So how does this all chalk up in millions of square miles?

- 70% of 6.4m (11% of earth’s land) = 4.5

- 770 million hectares = 2.9

In an attempt to summarize the area and mass of the Boreal forests what has emerged is a beautiful example of why environmentalist hysteria must be identified and countered with reason. Are the Boreal forests being savaged? Probably. But in the May/June 1995 issue of what is arguably the most reputable source of objective environmentalist data in the world, WORLDWATCH Magazine, is a feature on the Boreal forests rife with contradictory facts.

HOW GOOD ARE OUR FACTS SO FAR?

How can we believe any of the inexorable arguments of impending doom if facts presented are not even internally consistent? Am I jumping to conclusions? Let’ s take a few more examples:

Back again on page 21 WORLDWATCH says “in Canada forestland is being felled at the rate of 1 acre every 12 seconds. This is equivalent to 4,106 square miles per year. This “fact” is reasonably consistent with two other facts presented later in the article, the first of which is in the same paragraph on page 21 “About 1 million hectares of Canada´ s forests are logged annually; over the past ten years, that amounts to an area the size of the former East Germany.” This gives us the following values which should be equal but are not…

- 1 acre every 12 seconds = 4,106 sq miles per year

- 1 million hectares annually = 3,858 sq miles per year

- size of East Germany / 10 = 4,176 sq miles

So perhaps that’s not so bad. But getting one’s hopes up could be dangerous. On page 24 WORLDWATCH notes that “it is estimated that one-quarter of the area logged every year will fail to regenerate; an area equal in size to the province of Prince Edward Island.” Ok, here we go…

- 4,106 sq miles logged x 25% = 1,026 square miles

- size of Prince Edward Island = 2,185 square miles

Honey, I just shrunk Prince Edward Island. How can one rely on any of the facts presented in this article? How can one know that the warming of permafrost will release methane “with 21 times the heat trapping power of CO2″ if Canada’s Boreal forests range between 1.4m and 3.8m square miles and Russia’s Boreal forests range between 2.9m and 4.5m square miles BASED ON FACTS PRESENTED IN THE SAME REPORT BY ONE OF THE MOST REPUTABLE ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALS IN THE WORLD!!! How can one know that the Canadian government is subsidizing timber harvests with a bill to the taxpayer of “$176,500 for each Al-Pac job” when Prince Edward Island just got 53% smaller?

HOW FAST IS THE BOREAL FOREST IN CANADA DISAPPEARING?

How fast is the forest disappearing, anyway? This again is a place where getting the facts straight would help. I rather think that the situation is more dire than WORLDWATCH was saying, or at least I hope so for the sake of their credibility. After all, to use their figures for Canada, if around 4,000 square miles per year are cut in a forest of 1.4 million square miles, it would take 350 years to cut it all down. This is alarming but not cataclysmic. Proper forest management could probably handle a 350 year cycle even in the Boreal regions.

THREATS TO THE BOREAL REGIONS
Now that all of this is said, is the situation in the Boreal regions alarming? All in all there are problems, many of which could be ignored since the Boreal regions aren’t chic and popular to fret over. Remember, at these extreme polar latitudes the forests, once cut down, take much longer to regenerate than forests that are logged in tropical regions of the planet. Some of the problems besides non-sustainable forestry that the Boreal regions face:

- air pollution from smelters and power plants

- radioactivity from atomic power and weapons testing

- water pollution & disruption of habitats if commercialization of a northern shipping route from Tokyo to Rotterdam becomes a reality

- adverse impact of new mineral and oil/gas extraction

- new threats to endangered species

FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM CAN HELP THE BOREAL FORESTS

How severe and how much of a threat these problems are is difficult to assess and highly subjective, but even WORLDWATCH acknowledges that the free market can step in where governments have failed. Many of their recommendations embrace free market principals, such as the first one on their list “phase out below-cost timber subsidies that waste resources and favor special interests.” This one action would drastically reduce the rate of deforestation in Canada.

Other free market compatible ways to help the Boreal forests would be furthered significantly, if indirectly, by removing subsidies. They are to (1) increase paper recycling and (2) explore alternatives to wood fiber. If timber subsidies were removed the price of paper would increase, making recycling and alternative fibers commercially viable!

In Scandinavia most of the Boreal forest is in private hands, and forestry management there is by and large much better than it is in Canada or Russia. In Scandinavia reforestation is the norm and usually works. Of course it does, the owner of the land has the value of their own property at stake!

SO HOW MUCH BOREAL FOREST IS LEFT?

To wrap up, let´ s summarize our findings as accurately as we can (millions of square miles):

- Land Surface of Earth, 57.9

- Forests of Earth, 19.2

- Boreal Forests, 6.4

- Boreal Forests: Russia, 2.9 – 4.5

- Boreal Forests: Canada, 1.4 – 3.9

- Boreal Forests: Other, approximately .5 – 1.0

What is the moral of the story? (1) The Boreal Forests are just as integral to the global ecosystem as the Tropical Forests and they should be given equal attention by all concerned with forestry and the environment. (2) Don’t believe everything you read! We will continue to dig at the true facts, right here, and clearly more investigation is necessary. Investigation will be ongoing. That’s why we are here.

HOW IS TIMBER MASS CALCULATED?

By the way, according to the American Forestry Association, timber mass is calculated by taking the circumference in inches (measured 4.5 feet above the ground) plus the height in feet, plus one fourth the average crown spread in feet. This factor times a constant will yield mass in cubic feet or cubic meters. So the next step, establishing levels of timber mass, can be readily estimated.

METRIC MEASUREMENTS MAKE ANALYSIS & UNDERSTANDING EASIER

As we go from establishing areas of forest coverage to actual timber mass per area, it will be necessary to go metric. The relationship between area and volume is much harder to appreciate using the imperial system of weights and measures. Get ready.

CONVERSION TABLES:

Last of all, here are some interesting conversion tables that will help you when you read your next article in WORLDWATCH, TIME, ECOWORLD

or any other source of earth information:

- 1 hectare = 2.471 acres

- 1 acre = .405 hectares

- 1 square mile = 640 acres or 259 hectares

- 1 square mile = 2.59 square kilometers

- 1 square kilometer = .386 square miles

- 1 square kilometer = 247 acres or 100 hectares!

and just for fun (get ready for water…)

- 1 cubic kilometer = 811,203 acre feet!

ecoworld.com

Issue #3

Summer 1995

image – Tim Cantor

LETTER FROM RINGSIDE

THE ECOWORLD PHILOSOPHY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REINVENTING ENVIRONMENTALISM

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A NEW AGENDA

By Terry Anderson

This issue showcases PERC scholar Terry Anderson, who gives us here his manifesto for free market environmentalism; incentives matter, property rights encourage stewardship, and polluters are liable for harm they cause. Sounds good to me. Solutions like the ones here will result in fewer laws and fewer bureaucrats. This means a freer society and lower taxes. Nobody is saying we can eliminate the role of government entirely, but cost-effective solutions need to be tried. Usually that means less government, not more. If that´ s called scoring points for the libertarians, count me in.

FLAGSHIPS OF THE FOREST

PUT THEM IN A GIANT SOLAR CLIMATRON

By Ed “Redwood” Ring

A great laboratory to grow the great trees of the world, the solar powered “climatron” will use convection energy to manipulate the thermal mass of a giant greenhouse. Some would even call it a biosphere. This structure will be 500 feet high in the great hall, which will be big enough to house full grown Sequoia Sempervirons. In the ancillary halls there will be other great forests of the world, the Amazon, the Congo, the Asian, the Moonsoon, the Boreal, the Hardwood Temperate, and others. Breaking ground must happen soon, because our goal is to have Redwoods over 200 feet in height by May 2045 in the great hall of the climatron, and in the side halls the great trees must be over 100 feet in height.

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM?

POLLUTION IS AN EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY OFFENDER

By Nancie Marzulla

This article lays waste to the idea that race related legislation will mitigate environmental hazards. Creating bureaucracies to identify cases of “environmental racism” does not address the core issues of health and safety. Instead of cleanup, taxpayer money is spent on consultants and attorney´ fees, public administrators and their staffs, courtroom personnel, and public prosecutors and their staffs. The correct solution is simple. Polluters should be liable. No new legislation or regulations should be necessary. Address the real issues of health and safety, perhaps using economic criteria to identify potential problem areas. Perseverating on the issue of race is devisive and wastes resources.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SPACE

CASHING IN ON 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY

By William Turner

Last issue we looked at inter-planetary exploration and colonization, this issue we head for the stars. Dr. Turner’s visionary essay will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about inter-steller society, particularly from the perspective of a mega-corporate strategist. Fascinating, amusing, insightful, and occasionally unpredictable, you should read this.

RAINFOREST UPDATE

RORAIMA, BRAZIL

A Message from the World Rainforest Movement

We go high, high tech this time, by linking you here straight into the Rainforest Action Network’s current action alert #110. A picture is worth a thousand words, and you’ll get both in this article which chronicles the current plight of the Macuxi tribal peoples fleeing their homes before the fires of the ever encroaching ranchers. This article is testimony to the fact that we still have a long way to go. Where are the agro-forestry pioneers? There is a place for you in Brazil, and a people who could use a little help.

Summer 1995

Trying to surf the information highway today is a venture that requires great perserverance. As it is most of us don’t know how to hook up a VCR to a TV and sound system with remote controls. Computers have to make life easier. They don’t really do that yet, and least not like they soon will. Someday soon when we turn on the TV little avatars on the television will interact with us, showing us exactly how to hook it up to the whole house. Everything from climate control and security to VR outlets in every room, the computer will give us what we need effortlessly. Reality will become cyberspace, and the real trees will wither untended in the blistering sun of an irrevocably warming world. Not!

EcoWorld will be the place people can go in that cyberspace, where the facts of global ecosystem status will be presented in a clear and comprehensive manner. Neither the doomsayers nor the naysayers will hold sway in this refuge of common sense and concern. Global information reports will be presented in ecoworld.com showing the ozone hole sizes currently and historically, the sea temperatures, the rainfall, the water supplies, and of course, the global timber mass.

Information available from the United Nations, NASA, USGS, and other public and private sources will be compiled and presented in ecoworld.com. Econometric data such as GNP, population, per capita income, square miles, population density, population growth rate & doubling time, language, religion, colonial heritage if any, etc., will be presented in an interactive format allowing the user to select these global statistics nation by nation.

An equivalent database will be constructed for the major ecosystems of the world, as noted above. Water supply, water consumtion, power supply/consumption, forest mass and rate of regeneration and logging/deforestation, endangered indicator species, etc. This is our goal.

The most critical of all will be the big tree database, an encyclopedia of the big trees of the world, with information as to their size at maturity, growth rate, life expectancy, total timber mass, carbon absorption rate, and instructions as well on how to grow these trees, everything from how to propagate the seeds and nurture the seedlings to how to container grow to how to plant in both urban and forest situations, and forest management.

With these three fundamental information products, earth information, econometric information, and big tree reforestation information, ecoworld.com will be an invaluable source of content for any internet user in the world who has any interest whatsoever in these critical areas. Climb aboard.

send an email to ed@ecoworld.com

Issue #3, Summer 1995

Nature and Technology in Harmony…

We don’t deviate from this guiding principle – nature and technology in harmony – in our third issue of ecoworld.com. “Three Principles for a New Agenda” is a manifesto of free-market environmentalism and a good primer for the uninitiated. “Flagships of the Forest” describes a solar powered “climatron” that could be used to mimic the major climate zones of the world inside a single structure allowing efficient (and profitable!) propagation of the great trees of the world. “Pollution is an Equal-Opportunity Offender” debunks the popular tactic of the left which is to equate environmental problems with unrelated issues such as race and racism. “Business Opportunities in Space” is an interesting and only slightly fanciful speculative essay on what life in an inter-stellar society would be like. Finally, “Rainforest Update” this month goes to Roraima, Brazil, where the Macuxi indigeoneous peoples flee the fires of the encroaching ranchers. Could agro-forestry heal the breach? How about agro-rancho-forestry? Let’s talk.

Reactions and rebuttals to these articles are encouraged.

ecoworld.com

Issue #3

Summer 1995

It has been said that Man’s destiny lies in the stars.

This may be more prophetic and come true sooner than most of us realize. Indeed, there is almost unlimited business to be conducted and tremendous profit to be made in future opportunities for Outer Space. Yes, there will soon be increasing business possibilities in the many Outer Space activities of communication, message evaluation, exploration, travel, colonization, development, trade, and numerous ancillary areas such as systems and parts manufacture, finance, and commerce. When these projected activities do become operational, many will supersede the current magnitude of their counterparts in present industry. This projection makes it doubly important that each business assess its future position, and plan how each will fit into this Outer Space future. And, if you do decide to consider such business, then start setting something up now so that you can establish a background and an early date of when that background began.

Outer Space activities will dominate all future business as well as technology. right now, almost all Outer Space activity is confined to the research presently conducted by agencies of the various governments of major countries. Selected educational institutions also do some work in this area, but usually with government financial grants. But all this will soon change and there will be extensive expansion.

FIRST PHASE: INTER-STELLAR COMMUNICATIONS

As to the order in which the organized Outer Space activities will come about, the first phase will deal with extremely long range communications systems that can reach out well into the vastness of the Universe. It is conservatively estimated that there are at least 1 x 10^15 (1,000,000,000,000,000) such alien civilizations presently in the Universe, that are much more technically advanced than we are here on Earth. Indeed, the choosing of particular destination sites for future manned operations, will be decided by first establishing suitable Outer Space Communication Systems that can reach out to contact some of these advanced alien civilizations in approximately real time.

It is anticipated that the first technical strategies to design practical ultra-long range communication systems will employ hyper light speed technology (the exceeding of the speed of light), multi-dimensional interfacing, and a “3-Point” operational geometry. The message content of the communications will probably be sent out in “Burst” Transmissions. All these systems will have to be designed and made by using available standard and custom non-standard parts as required.

SECOND PHASE: MANNED OPERATIONS

As we look further into the future, the second phase will involve manned operations. When this occurs, then the numerous commercial possibilities for Outer Space will open up. Let us consider a comparison example of somewhat similar activities that took place in the Western United States during the 19th century.

The Western Frontier presented exciting possibilities to all those who dared to think about them, and then put such thoughts into viable actions. This resulted in an exodus of pioneers to new settlement areas, and thereby extended the frontier of United States civilization out into the beckoning West.

Similar to how it was then, today the new frontier of Outer Space beckons. The 19th Century pioneers moved out in “wagon trains” which provided for traveling to the faraway destinations, a new life totally different from the previous one, common navigation and direction through unknown areas, mutual security, sharing of supplies, communal help as needed, and new progress to advance civilization. It is anticipated that there will be a new breed of space pioneers for the 21st Century. These will move out in “space vehicle trains” for the very same reasons.

The symbol of the 19th Century western pioneer was the Conestoga Wagon. These were originally made in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. The high demand for them brought much profit to their manufacturers. In the 21st century, the symbol of the outer space pioneer will be the space vehicle, space craft, or space ship. Its manufacture should bring considerable profit. It should be noted that the horse-drawn Conestoga Wagons required only a few general items like lumber, bolts, wheels, and a top cloth as their basic parts. In contrast, the space vehicles will require very many individual parts which will have to be supplied from a variety of different sources.

There will be other significant differences between the 19th century wagon trains and the 21st century space vehicle trains. The wagon trains were able to renew certain necessary supplies along the way. For example, water could be obtained from local rivers, streams, and lakes. Hunting game animals provided meat for food, and skins for clothing. But such necessities will not be available to the space vehicle trains. It should be noted that such necessities can not be carried in sufficient quantities for extended time periods to provide for the entire trip through space to the desired destination.

Most of these extensive amounts of supplies will have to be produced during the trip, in designated individual space vehicles. And when the desired destination is reached, the space train group may still have to rely on its own capability to provide its own supplies – such as electric power, water, oxygen, and fuel – if the new environment does not prove to be hospitable. This means that special equipment, that can produce necessary specific functions, will be assigned to certain space vehicles. No longer will each unit be reasonably self sufficient. Rather, there will be a definite dependency upon other space vehicles to supply the more vital needed supplies en route.

NEW TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS ASPECTS

To illustrate, an energy generating source will be needed to supply power for running the electrical equipment for the entire space train. This electrical power will be sent to each of the other units of the space vehicle train through a wireless power distribution system. It is anticipated that such a generator will not only supply power, but water as a by-product. In addition to supplying drinking water to the rest of the unites in the train, a portion of the produced water will be separated into the basic constituents of Hydrogen for fuel, and Oxygen for breathing. All this will be doubly necessary to sustain life on future landing sites, if these locations do not prove to be immediately compatible to support human life.

The advances in such equipment will also be used to modify any similar equipment that may then be needed for similar functioning on the Earth. This new technology will be applied to the operations of the “factories of the future” that will be working here on Earth. Remember also that all this equipment will have to be made by someone, so that there will be many new businesses needed.

Of course, there will be a requirement for space craft propulsion systems. It is expected that there will be two different types of engines in each space vehicle. One will be needed to bridge the vast distances. The other will be used to provide for local navigating when the general destination astronomical body is reached.

There will be many ancillary support businesses needed. Special testing facilities will be required to certify that each piece of equipment (or portion thereof) is suitable for its intended application. Financial institutions, possibly at first backed up by government resources, will serve to provide the moneys needed for the initial trips. Insurance companies will have to look into determining what can be done to insure various aspects of the overall space trips. Once getting to suitable destination sites is realized, developers will step in and consider the on-site development.

Trade will be among the most important of all the commercial activities that develop for Outer Space. It might be asked – what would a highly advanced alien society want in a trade with the lesser developed Earth? The answer is that there are always many things to be traded. Consider the various items that come from the so-called “backward” countries of our world which find use in the relatively higher level society of the United States.

Inter-alien society trading will rank among the most lucrative of all the commercial activities. Its gross product should well exceed the overall total of everything now produced on the Earth.

As a further practical consideration, new advanced space weaponry will be required to protect from any hostile situations encountered in Outer Space, as well as from possible future threats to the Earth. Present weaponry is designed only to kill people, not to protect them. Space weaponry will be required to handle a far larger amount of tasks as compared to conventional weapons, and many of these new types will need extremely large ranges.

It is also anticipated that a completely new form of military will be needed. The U.S. Cavalry that went to the aid of attacked wagon trains of the 19th century will have to drastically change in scope and methods. It will have to become and Outer Space military, employing new operations, new strategies, and the new weaponry. Conventional military aircraft, naval ships, and tanks (just to name a few items) will become totally obsolete and financial liabilities.

In addition, the political structure and the form of governments on the Earth will have to undergo extensive change. This one factor alone will require each business to re-think its position and its future, even if it does not decide to enter an outer space activity.

But there is something else, something far more compelling and threatening, that must be mentioned. The Earth is presently undergoing increasingly serious deterioration from a myriad of subtle and not so subtle causes. All these problems actually started and only became a concern approximately within the last 100 years. Probably the most serious single problem is the accelerating increase in the World’s population, which could soon outstrip the inherent capabilities of the Earth. Although many of these individual problems have been noted and studied separately in various detail, very few people have considered the devastating consequences of their accumulating combined effects. Unless there are drastic technical changes to offset these problems, the earth could become uninhabitable in less than 80 years. Strategies and by-products of Outer Space technology could very well provide significant answers. And organized answers to serious problems also offer the possibility of new businesses.

CONCLUSIONS:

Outer Space represents an unlimited frontier with the prospects of associated important new business. Considering dealing commercially with Outer Space presents the beginning step into an exciting future. It offers unusual possibilities from almost every point of view. In it lies all of Man’s aspirations including adventure, individual challenge, startling intellectual pursuits, new opportunities, a new life, and new economic opportunities.

The financial rewards could be very great for those who enter these fields and establish themselves in active competitive positions. There is virtually unlimited potential. Imagine contacting an alien society that was approximately a thousand years more technically advanced that we on Earth. Imagine what it would mean scientifically and financially to acquire from such an advanced civilization a copy of their latest physics book, or a medical journal, or perhaps the equivalent of an entire set of their encyclopedia. This could become a distinct possibility in the very first phase, once an outer space communications link was established and the languages decoded.

Think about all this, and while you are thinking, consider how work in Outer Space industries could benefit you and your company. Consider what steps might be instituted now to prepare to acquire some of the many benefits of this potentially very lucrative future.

ecoworld.com

Issue #3

Summer 1995

Claims that the poor and minorities are exposed to higher-than-average

levels of pollution because they are more likely to live near industrial and waste disposal sites have sparked charges of “environmental racism.” These communities allegedly bear the brunt of industrial development while reaping few of its benefits. The Clinton administration has taken this misguided notion and built policy on it, but do not expect this to lead to greater environmental protection.

One of the first studies to allege a correlation among risk, race, and income was the government’s own Council of Environmental Quality’s 1971 Annual Report to the President. It stated that racial discrimination adversely affected the ability of urban poor to improve the quality of their environment. In 1979, Texas Southern University sociologist Robert Bullard described the futile attempt of a black neighborhood in Houston, Texas, to block the nearby siting of a hazardous waste landfill. He provided evidence that race, not just income status, was a probable factor in this local land-use decision.

“Environmental justice” became a nationally-recognized issue in 1982, when 500 demonstrators protested the siting of a landfill for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) in a black, low-income neighborhood in Warren County, North Carolina. In 1987, the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice released a study which looked at all Enivronmental Protection Agency regions in the country and concluded that race, not income status, was the factor most strongly correlated to residence near a hazardous waste site. In addition, two major conferences on environmental justice were held in the early 1990s.

In response to these charges, the Office of Environmental Equity was officially established in late 1992, with a specific directive to deal with environmental impacts affecting minority and low-income communities. In Congress, nine environmental justice bills were introduced in the 103rd Congress. Twenty bills were also introduced in fourteen states during the 1993-94 legislative sessions, with bills signed into law in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington.

Linking environmental and racial problems, however, turns the concept of environmental protection on its head. A recent study of the St. Louis (Missouri) area over the past twenty years conducted by Washington University researchers Thomas Lambert and Christopher Boenrner found that the location of low-cost housing, as opposed to outright racial discrimination, was the root cause of claims of environmental racism. They note that “[r]acism may have been a factor in the subsequent migration of these residents to communities hosting polluting facilities,” but judge the problem to be rooted in economics rather than racial prejudice. To resolve the problem, they suggest that the community and local industries pay reparations to residents and provide more community amenities like parks and playgrounds.

The Clinton administration, on the other hand, choses to view the problem as a one-dimensional racial issue. As it has acted on previous issues relating to race, it has embarked on an extensive program aimed at achieving only a statistical balance. Executive Order 12898, issued in February of 1994, mandates that all federal agencies “make environmental justice a part of all they do.” Agencies were required to have environmental justice strategies in place within a year to “collect, maintain, and analyze information that assesses and compares environmental and human health risks borne by populations indentified by race, national origin, or income.” Each agency was additionally ordered to determine whether its programs have a “disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority populations and low-income populations.” As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency now boasts an Office on Environmental Justice, complete with a 24-hour hotline to record any cases of environmental racism.

But neither of these proposals will lead to the environmental goals they seek. The whole premise that environmental hazards are purposely located in minority and low-income communities, through either economics or racism, is misguided at its core. And reliance on bean-couting measures — which create a quick-fix in areas like employment practices and voting-rights — will not be effective in promoting environmental protection. Environmental harm is color-blind, and pays no heed to financial status. Proposed actions to provide only this statistical balance instead of the strong, informed decisionmaking on health and safety issues that is needed just will not cut it.

“Environmental racism” can be more properly understood as a multi-dimensional problem commanding the understanding of a variety of environmental, social, and economic factors. The one unifying concern, however, is the health and safety of the residents of affected communities.
For example, problems with pollution affect groups as diverse as Hispanic farm workers handling pesticides, Asian immigrants working with toxic chemicals in Silicon Valley, Native Americans living near nuclear waste facilities, or urban Blacks who assert that their neighborhoods serve as dumps for polluting industries. No one plan can handle the needs of all of these people and still be effective.

Due to the local community nature of these issues, broad federal solutions are clearly inappropriate. Fundamentally, the decision of where best to place industrial projects should be left with the industry, and should not be turned into a federal racial or social policy issue. Private industry has itself recognized the need to address these issues recognizing that, if ignored, they can lead to increased inspections, restrictive operating conditions, and increased community pressure. The Chemical Manufacturers Association, for example, has developed specific proposals to address “environmental justice” concerns, and now advocates a program called “Responsible Care.” They and others businesses believe that open dialogue between a community and the industries located ther can better respond to concerns of safety, health, and the environment than can the federal government.

Combining “racism” and “pollution” creates a political hand grenade. Attempting to address environmental risks on racial versus environmental grounds misses the point entirely. Toxins do not discriminate, and combatting their spread cannot be equated with a racial issue. Threats to public health must be resolved by any means necessary. Policies that are driven solely by statistics are doomed to failure because they will not address the underlying concerns over health and safety.

Whenever the threat of pollution affecting public health is found, we should address that problem head on. If there is a threat to human health or safety, neither the income nor the race of the neighborhood should matter.
It should never be acceptable to suggest that environmental hazards or toxic risks be addressed on the basis of someone’s race.

Nancie G. Marzulla is the president and chief legal counsel of Defenders of Property Rights.