Time to Stop Worrying about Global Warming

The good news is we can finally stop worrying about global warming. And, you might be tempted to ask, why would that be? Well, because we humans are on a gigundus and enormously efficient global killing spree that is removing species from the Earth 1,000 times faster than historical rates of loss. It’s only the fastest rate of extinction since dinosaurs disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago. As an aside, Creationists would have us believe they were wiped out around 6,000 years before Christ. Oh my, I desperately needed that laugh.

The sobering thought is the bad news: by the time global warming cranks up to levels even the brain dead, characterized by poster child Jim Inhofe, will be unable to deny, most people will be on the road to starving to death because all the bees, birds, and insects that pollinate plants and make much of agriculture possible will have disappeared under the juggernaut of human progress. Yeah, let’s build more sprawling subdivisions, assemble and drive more SUVs, bulldoze more worthless tropical forests and wetlands, apply more herbicides and pesticides to our fields, crank up global population growth, use more non-renewable energy resources, and pollute every single environment we touch.

The die-hard tech evangelists typically counter anyone weeping and wailing about environmental destruction with a catalogue of the ways technology has lengthened the human lifespan, conquered diseases, expanded economic opportunity, and created the worldwide communication web, etc., etc. They see technology as a resource-liberating force, maintaining that an Earth bombarded with plentiful solar energy and practically covered with water can not lack the ingredients for a productive life. After all, didn’t God give dominion of the Earth to man and tell us to be fruitful and multiply?

Only problem with that scenario is humans are on track to hit the terrific mark of being the only species to have developed themselves into extinction by extirpating as much flora and fauna as we can possibly get our hands on, an achievement of which we should be proud because we have worked so hard to get to that point. Congrats all round for us being too stupid to see the finger writing on the wall: mene, tekel, peres. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Period.

Which should come as a tremendous relief for all the politicians and enviro-diplomats since they won’t have to go to those hugely depressing international conventions on bio-diversity that have never, in the history of the world, accomplished one single positive action on a global scale.

As Pogo said to Porkypine in the famous cartoon strip published on Earth Day (February 26), 1971: "We have met the enemy and he is us." A tip of the hat to Walt Kelly for his perspicacity and sardonic foresight.

In the words of the immortal (oops, poor choice of words there) gospel song, “Good news, chariot's comin.' Good news, chariot's comin.' Good news, chariot's comin' and I don't want it to leave me behind.” The bad news is that particular chariot is being driven at break-neck speed by none other than humans dressed as the Grim Reaper intent on running over every single critter around.

Why Gasoline Prices Are High

Tea Party ranting and GOP candidates’ pronouncements aside, American presidential or Congressional decisions, or the lack thereof, have not one thing to do with the price of gas now and most likely into the future, not unless the U.S. goes to war to secure petroleum reserves. The cost of petroleum is set on the global market and by conditions in oil-producing nations, not by politics here in the U.S.

So, let’s cut straight to the reality of rising gas prices. Be warned: the problem is neither simple nor straightforward.

Global production of oil from all sources was essentially flat from 2005 to 2010 (the last year for which global data are available). To be absolutely accurate, world oil production rose approximately 2.7 percent during that period, amounting to an annual growth rate of around 0.45 percent.

In the recent past, oil supplies from Iraq, Libya, and Iran have been disrupted or reduced.

Demand from Asian nations is spiking and will likely continue on a tear into the foreseeable future.

Economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. and responding threats by Iran to stop oil production and close the Straits of Hormuz have caused an increase in the futures market; although most petroleum economists believe the role speculators play overall is fairly minor, that situation may change quickly if war breaks out between Iran and Israel.

Internationally, oil is valued in U.S. dollars, thus, the 40 percent decline in the value of the dollar over the last five or six years resulted in upward movement of oil prices.

Since December 2011, the U.S. has lost about four percent of its refining capacity when two refineries in Pennsylvania and one in St. Croix closed.

Most East Coast refineries are configured to refine Brent “sweet” crude, which is a benchmark of light, low sulfur oil that comes from a blend of crudes from fields in the North Sea. As Brent prices have risen in comparison to heavier crudes from Canada and South America those refineries have been forced to produce more expensive gas than that produced in the Midwest, which can refine cheaper crudes, especially West Texas Intermediate and the heavier crudes mentioned above.

Several U.S. oil refineries temporarily shut down this winter to make refining process adjustments to be able to meet increased demand during the summer driving season; that shut-down has decreased supply and caused upward pressure on pricing.

No new American oil refineries have been built in decades and none will likely be built in the future, nor will refining capacity be increased; all of which will have the effect of further constraining domestic gasoline supply.

Annually, the U.S. consumes about 22-24 percent of the world’s petroleum. We’re energy addicts and energy hogs, no doubt. The problem is we like it that way and have no desire to change our behavior. Where energy is concerned most Americans act like spoiled, narcissistic children who have no desire to understand the complex reality. We want what we want, when we want it, and want it to be cheap. Period

What we have today in terms of gasoline prices is a perfect storm that has no easy solution. But Americans want an easy solution that won’t cost us a dime more than we are prepared to pay. Hate to burst your bubble but that ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

Let me lay it out in the simplest terms possible. World-wide production of crude oil has plateaued and will likely begin decreasing in the near future. Global demand is increasing and will continue to do so. Supply of refined oil products (gasoline) is limited by low production of crude oil and by refinery constraints (intentional and unintentional).

The conclusion: low gas prices are history. Americans should get used to it and stop their pathetic whining.

One more important point. Politicians and others who promise that they can deliver cheap gasoline and other non-renewable sources of energy by increasing American production are lying. If you do not believe that statement you desperately need to educate yourself on energy economics and stop listening to TV commercials that intentionally distort energy realities.

Afghan Rage and Burning Korans

The public rage now on full display in Afghanistan is ostensibly over what is termed by the PC police as the “inadvertent” burning of a number of Korans by several brain-dead American military personnel. But I believe it is a sign of something far more serious and fundamental that promises the future lack of any kind or amount of American presence or influence in Afghanistan. In my eyes, that rage is in general a repudiation of Western culture and values and specifically of American interference in their country that had been simmering just under the surface and has now boiled over.

Although I do not wish to offend anyone, I believe that, basically, Afghanistan consists of loosely knit tribes of individuals who for the most part are only a few steps removed from the Stone Age. Those few steps include a patina of Islam covering a core of primitivism so profound most Americans can scarcely comprehend it.

That primitive core includes deep seated suspicion of and hostility toward everyone not of their clan or tribe; a conception of honor that requires revenge attacks and killings, including the killing of women who have shamed the family; unquestioned and absolutist patriarchal rule; female subordination to men; lack of higher education for most females, except children of the elite; arranged marriages; individual social status conferred by birth, etc.

It is a culture where asking the name of a man’s wife may be considered a fairly serious insult. Many rural Pashtun men have never known the real names of their mothers, aunts, or even their younger sisters. It is a country where "liberal" judges (meaning ones that are non-fundamentalist) are killed and schools for girls blown up. We're talking about a country where if a man speaks directly to a woman in a social context, he is dishonoring her. Where women are advised to avoid looking men in the eyes and to keep their eyes lowered when they walk down the street to maintain their reputations as pure and submissive. Where, outside the home, men and women must never touch one another under any circumstances. Where women are told to always dress properly to avoid unwanted attention by wearing loose fitting pants under their skirts so their legs are indistinguishable and they do not tempt men to rape them. Seriously.

Although the Taliban practice a severe, fundamentalist form of Islam, they are native Afghanis and not godless Americans. When push comes to shove, as it has today, Afghanis would much prefer to have the Taliban in charge of their country than the Americans.

Centuries of conflict between ethnic groups, tribes, clans, and families has made competition and violence an integral part of Afghan culture, a culture now turned against Americans. It's time for us to get out. Not next year, not in six months, but get out now. They do not want us there and, since Bin Laden and most of his colleagues are dead, we have no business being there. Time to pack up and skedaddle back home.

We have no business trying to act as if we were the world's police force. It's their country. Let them run it the way they want, primitive tribalists or not.

Radium Poisoning

Natural radium is produced in the environment through the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium and is found at very low levels in bedrock, soil, plants, the atmosphere, and animals including humans. Its most common isotopes are Ra-226, Ra-224, and Ra-228. High concentrations of radium may be found in bodies of water in certain locations. As a result, radium may be concentrated in fish and other aquatic organisms and be bio-concentrated through the food web. Radium is also present in the environment as a result of human agency, specifically through mining and manufacturing processes that increase exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation.

Author’s Rant: Exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation, no matter if its source is natural or not, remains a highly controversial topic that is subject to considerable scientific discussion. That heated debate began in the 1950s and early 1960s when scientists like Alice Stewart, George W. Kneale, Ian MacKenzie, C.K. Wanebo, Ernest Sternglass, and others began questioning levels of radiation exposure certified safe by the Atomic Energy Commission. The debate took on new life when the well-known and highly respected nuclear chemist/cardiologist, John Gofman (who at the time was Associate Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and his associate Arthur Tamplin (a research biophysicist at the Lab), first published their findings that no level of ionizing radiation was safe. Not long after that the Atomic Energy Commission cut off their funding for research.

The AEC, and its successor agency, the Department of Energy, has a long and shameful history of trying to suppress research that it deemed inimical to its primary mission of supporting and growing the nuclear industry. The honor roll of prominent scientists the AEC-DOE either fired, vilified, or tried to make their professional lives miserable because their research results did not meet AEC-DOE’s agenda includes John Gofman, PhD, MD (nuclear/physical chemist and renowned cardiologist; co-discoverer of protactinium-232, uranium-232, protactinium-233, and uranium-233 and proved the slow and fast neutron fissionability of uranium-233); Arthur Tamplin, PhD (biophysicist); Alice Stewart, MD (epidemiologist); Ernest Sternglass, PhD (radiological physicist), George Kneale, PhD (bio-statistician); Karl Z. Morgan, PhD (physicist and widely regarded as the “Founder” of Health Physics who in 1972 resigned his position as Head of Health Physics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory when he was ordered by his superiors to suppress information in his possession about the toxicity of plutonium); Greg Wilkinson, MD (epidemiologist); Henry W. Kendall, PhD (physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate, and one of the founders of the Union of Concerned Scientists); and Thomas Mancuso, MD (epidemiologist), among many others. The tactic used by the AEC-DOE when controversy arose was to use researchers on its payroll, or whose professional work was dependent on agency funding, who were more sympathetic to its interests and persuade them to demonstrate its nuclear activities were not harmful rather than address objectively the issues that had been raised by more independent-minded scientists.

Historical Background: Not long after its discovery, radium was used by doctors and variously guised health practitioners in Europe and the U.S. to treat patients with dozens of diseases and complaints, including everything from acne to insanity. It was administered orally, by inhalation and injection, and even by enema and suppository. Consumer products containing radium included hair tonic, toothpaste, ointments, and a wide range of liquid-based elixirs. For example, in 1901 a French physician used radium in an effort to cure lupus and various skin lesions. Later physicians used it to treat a variety of cancers, unknowingly causing even more cancer. Without any doubt, the famous physicist Marie Curie (Polish-born Maria Sklodowska — pronounced sklaw-DAWF-skah), the scientist who first isolated radium in its pure metallic form and won her second Nobel Prize for the effort, died from leukemia as a result of radium exposure.

But the worst early cases of radium poisoning weren’t those of isolated scientists here or there but hundreds of workers at watch and watch dial factories in the U.S. It all had to do with the natural properties of the metal, which, when purified, glows in the dark. During World War I, that property was exploited in the manufacture of dials for clocks, wrist watches, aircraft gauges, and other instruments that needed to be readable in the dark before the risks of radium exposure were widely understood. Without doubt, the general public was absolutely fascinated with radium’s mysterious luminescent properties. Industries sprang up to manufacture hundreds of consumer products containing radium. It was used it on glow-in-the-dark numbers for houses, theater seats, and luminous lamp-pulls. At about the same time, the general public discovered that wristwatch dials could be seen more readily at night if the dials were painted with a luminous material that contained radium. Almost overnight luminous watch faces became the rage and the manufacture of luminous dials suddenly became an important and well-paying industry.

Radium dial painting began in 1917 and over the next decade about 2,000 young women were employed as dial-painters. That work occurred mostly in about a dozen locations but especially at larger dial and watch factories in Waterbury, Connecticut; Orange, New Jersey; and Ottawa, Illinois. Ignorant of the health hazards of their jobs, the dial-painters breathed air saturated with radium particles and touched contaminated surfaces every working day. But, much worse, the luminescent radium paint was applied to the dials by the young women with very fine brushes. To keep the brush tips pointed, the dial-painters were instructed to twirl the end of the brush between their lips and shape it with their tongues. Many young women would use the paint on the buttons of their clothing to make them glow in the dark and also applied it to their fingernails, eyelids, and assorted other body parts. As a result, the dial-painters ingested radium almost daily; hundreds contracted malignant cancers, suffered bone disfigurements, became seriously ill with other diseases, and died. Although the technique of lip-pointing the brushes was abolished throughout the industry in 1927, by that time many dozen dial-painters had died from radium exposure and many dozen others had contacted serious illnesses, including disfiguring cancers and osteomyelitis of the upper and lower jaw and buccal cavity.

Former dial and watch factory sites that were and still are contaminated with radium include the site of the former U.S. Radium Corporation factory in Orange, New Jersey, and five plants in Connecticut: the former Waterbury Clock Factory, the former Lux Clock Factory, and the former Benrus Clock Company buildings in Waterbury; the former Sessions Clock Company in Bristol; and the former Seth Thomas Clock Company in Thomaston. Many of those abandoned factories are now superfund sites. For readers with a sense of history, the U.S. Radium Corporation was responsible for the infamous Radium Girls trial in the late 1920s, which was settled out of court when the company agreed to pay the plaintiffs the paltry sum of $10,000 each and $600 a month for as long as they lived. Which, it turned out, wasn’t very long.[1]

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[1] For additional information, see: Claudia Clark Radium Girls, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997; and Ross Mullner, Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy, American Public Health Association Publications, 1999.

Radiometric Dating

Precise method of dating Earth materials by measuring the percentages of a long-life radioactive parent element with respect to its daughter products or measuring the presence a short-life radioactive element; those measurements are precise because the rates of decay of many isotopes have been extensively documented and do not vary with physical conditions found in the Earth’s outer layers. Consequently, each radioactive isotope used in the dating process has been decaying at a known rate since it was formed in the rock in which it is contained and the decay products have also been accumulating at a corresponding rate. For example, when a mineral that contains uranium crystallizes from magma, that magma contains no lead that would be the product of a previous decay process. Therefore, the radiometric clock starts ticking at that moment. As the uranium in the new mineral begins decaying, its daughter products are trapped and measurable quantities of lead will eventually accumulate.

Historical Background: In 1896 the discovery of the natural radioactive decay of uranium by the French physicist Henry Becquerel opened the door to a cornucopia of scientific discoveries. In 1902 the physicist Ernest Rutherford and chemist Frederick Soddy, working at Canada’s McGill University determined that radioactive elements, such as uranium and thorium, broke down at a fixed rate over time into other elements in a predictable sequence or series. Their discovery led to the identification of half life and led to their disintegration theory of radioactivity, which proposed that over time atomic nuclei of an unstable atom split to form other elements. Their research into radioactive decay, coupled with the work of their colleague, Kasimir Fajans, resulted in the Radioactive Displacement Law of Fajans and Soddy that described the products of alpha and beta decay.

That discovery intrigued Bertram B. Boltwood (1870-1927), a radiation chemist working at Yale University. Boltwood was spurred on when in 1905 during a lecture at Yale University Rutherford had challenged the scientific community to use radioactive decay to date rocks. Boltwood began studying the radioactive series Rutherford and Soddy had defined earlier in 1905 and found that lead was always present in uranium and thorium ores. He concluded that lead was the final product of the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium. In 1907, he reasoned that once the rate at which uranium decays is known (the half decay period or half-life), the proportion of lead in the uranium ores could be used as a kind of measuring device, or clock, since it would tell geoscientists when that ore, and therefore the Earth’s crust, formed. Boltwood’s pioneering research, although somewhat crude when measured against today’s far more sophisticated techniques (for example, the use of the mass spectrometer to identify atoms by weight), put the Earth’s age at 1.2 billion years, which, for that time, was a dramatic increase in what scientists believed was the right direction.

Shortly after Boltwood’s discovery in 1907 that uranium decayed slowly to stable lead, Arthur Holmes, an undergraduate physics student at University College of London, was so taken by the geological implications of that discovery that he switched majors to geology. By 1911, using only analytical chemistry applied to a few mineral samples, Holmes established a framework for the geologic time scale that proved to be uncannily accurate, considering the relatively primitive nature of his approach (since it predated the discovery of isotopes). Building on Boltwood’s pioneering work, Holmes performed the very first uranium-lead analysis of rock specifically determined for age-dating purposes. That research resulted in a date of 370 million years for a Devonian specimen. Although only 21 years old and still an undergraduate, Holmes had embarked on a lifetime’s quest “to graduate the geological column with an ever-increasingly accurate time scale.”

In 1913 he wrote The Age of the Earth, a book that almost immediately became justly famous. In that book Holmes estimated the Earth’s age at 1.6 billion years. It is quite extraordinary that at that time he was only 23 and had not completed his doctoral studies. After publication Holmes became recognized as the world’s authority on geochronology. But, opposition from established geologists who clung to the belief that the Earth was 100 million years old was formidable. Key advocates of the opposing position included scientists who supported ideas the famous Scottish physicist William Thompson, perhaps better known as Lord Kelvin, had advocated shortly before his death in 1907. Other well-known opponents included German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, American astronomer Simon Newcomb, and Charles Darwin’s astronomer-mathematician son, George H. Darwin.

However, by the early to mid-1920s Holmes’s work was vindicated when both the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences came down on the side of the Earth being between 1.6 and 2.0 billion years old. From the mid-1920s through the early 1940s, a group of physicists, geophysicists, and geochemists succeeded in devising techniques that continued pushing back the age of the Earth. That group included Holmes, Alfred Nier, E. K. Gerling, Friedrich Georg Houtermans, and Clair C. Patterson, who ultimately produced accurate “primeval” lead isotopic measurements from minerals collected from five meteorite fragments at Canyon Diablo, Arizona.[1] By 1956, Patterson’s research had determined the age of the Earth at almost 4.6 billion years.

Since Patterson’s and Houtermans’ pioneering research in the mid-1950s, additional data have been accumulated, instruments have become more precise, and analytical techniques have improved. Moon rocks and many more meteorites have been sampled and dated. Decay constants have been measured with ever increasing accuracy. Remarkably, certain technical adjustments to and corrections of Patterson’s 1956 computation have canceled each other out. Today’s best estimate of the age of meteorites (4.55 ± 0.02 billion years) is identical to Patterson’s except for a smaller error range. That value has been confirmed by dozens of scientists working independently.

Today it is a nearly universally accepted scientific principle that radioactive decay occurs at a constant rate that is specific to each radioactive isotope. Since the 1950s, geologists and geophysicists have used radioactive elements as natural “clocks” for determining ages of certain types of rocks. Radiometric clocks are set when each rock forms. “Forms” means the moment an igneous rock solidifies from magma, a sedimentary rock layer is deposited, or a rock heated by metamorphism cools. That setting and resetting process allows geoscientists to date rocks that formed at different times and under different circumstances. Another commonly used radiometric dating technique is based on the decay of potassium (K-40) to argon (Ar-40). In igneous rocks, the potassium-argon clock starts the moment the rock crystallized from magma. Precise measurements of the amount of the isotope K-40 relative to Ar-40 in an igneous rock determine the time that has passed since crystallization (knowing that the half-life of K-40 is about 1.3 billion years). If an igneous or other rock is metamorphosed, its radiometric clock is reset. Potassium-argon measurements are then used to determine the number of years that have passed since metamorphism. See isotopic dating.

Author’s Note: It is critical for students to realize that no scientific method is free from ambiguity. In addition, most scientific techniques in and of themselves are subject to considerable latitude in terms of the interpretation of results. Consequently, all physical-chemical methods of dating rocks have uncertainties associated with them. Several basic assumptions are made when geoscientists determine the age of rock samples. The most significant assumption is that the sample is from a closed system in which no parent or daughter isotopes were gained or lost over time. Another assumption involves the amount of daughter isotope present at the time the sample rock was formed. For rare isotopes, that amount is generally assumed to be zero. Because of those and other uncertainties, the strongest evidence for the age of a rock is obtained when two different radiochemical dating methods produce similar results.

Since we live in a real world where our convenient, highly intellectualized categories and classifications are seldom found in nature, it is likely that geoscientists unknowingly (or knowingly according to many creationist critics) put one or both of those assumptions into play when rock samples are dated by radiometric decay techniques. But, despite what Creationists like to assert, simply because a specific dating technique fails to determine a reliable or verifiable date for a rock sample is no reason to reject all radiometric dating techniques. After all, when your car fails to start one winter morning, surely you don’t automatically assume that all cars therefore are useless pieces of junk.

Interested students may wish to consult one of the standard works on the topic. I recommend highly to anyone with a high school background in science G. Brent Dalrymple’s classic, The Age of the Earth. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991. It is well-written, well-reasoned, and powerful in its explanations. Radiometric dating has been widely attacked by Christian fundamentalists, or Creationists, as unreliable, riddled with inaccuracies, and unscientific. A variety of their views may also be found on the internet under the entry, radiometric dating. Curious students owe it to their intellectual development to examine that alternate universe. However, for the point of view of a Christian geophysicist, see: Roger C. Wiens, PhD, Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective, material written in 1994 and revised in 2002: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html.

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[1] Where, quite coincidentally, my great uncle, Earl Cundiff, had been murdered in 1926.

Sustainable Development

For all too many people the terms sustainable development[1] and smart growth, a phrase that has similar but not identical meaning, are simply another set of popular buzz words that over time will run its course. But within the past fifteen years, planners representing local, state, and federal governments as well as private businesses have worked independently and sometimes jointly to anticipate and shape future development, identify existing and emerging constraints and opportunities, and create workable plans to assure that those needs will be addressed and that cities and other communities will be able to continuously reproduce and revitalize themselves in a manner that is respectful of environmental and social equity values.


The most commonly used and nearly universally accepted definition of sustainable development is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” That definition was prepared by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, and was published by Oxford University Press in 1987 and is available online at: http://www.are.admin.ch/are/en/nachhaltig/international_uno/unterseite02330/


The WCED recognized that the world is balanced on a knife edge. Continuation of the status quo of maximizing economic production and ignoring everything else would eventually lead to catastrophic environmental collapse and socioeconomic chaos. Their principal insight was that the conventional economic production imperative must be integrated into a tripartite but singular unity on equal footing with an ecological imperative to protect local, regional and global environments and a social equity imperative to minimize poverty, weaving together economy, environment, and equity to confront the challenges of reducing over-consumption and unequal distribution of goods while stabilizing and enhancing the environment on which we all depend.


At first glance, sustainable development certainly seems simple enough: present and future generations must work to achieve an equitable distribution of material goods that does not degrade natural systems. But even people who agree that sustainability is a good thing have no general agreement on how or if the concept could be transformed into real world practice, especially since neither cities nor agriculture are now or are likely to be sustainable in the future.


However, advocates of sustainability maintain that if the built environment is to become more human-scale, ecosystems healthier, economic development more responsive to the needs of place, and the benefits of improved environmental and economic conditions more equitably distributed, then sustainable development is the only answer. Philip Berke and Maria Manta conducted research in 2000 in which they analyzed the literature to determine the key characteristics of sustainable development and used those characteristics to study several dozen plans across the U.S. Their working definition is provided below.[2]

Sustainable development is a dynamic process in which communities anticipate and accommodate the needs of current and future generations in ways that reproduce and balance local social, economic, and ecological systems, and link local actions to global concerns.

That definition can be expanded logically to reflect a set of seven operational performance principles for evaluating local sustainability efforts. All of those principles retain an explicit connection to the scale, shape, location, and quality of human settlements. They also refer to clusters of qualities and avoid being too narrow or too tightly focused.

1)   Large-scale land use and development activities should support natural ecosystem cycles and life-support functions rather than modify them to fit urban needs; examples include agricultural, forestry and fisheries practices that conserve land, water, habitats, indigenous flora and fauna, as well as plant and animal genetic resources.

2)      Restoration of environments damaged by human activities should be based on natural systems rather than engineering or management convenience; for example, ersatz restoration that has been foisted on the American public by Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers and whose sole intention is to enrich powerbrokers, such as is represented by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, must be rejected outright.

3)      Create human-scale, livable communities that foster independence from individual vehicular transportation to the extent possible; adopt land use policies that prohibit zoning that isolates employment locations, shopping and services, and housing locations from each other as well as low-density growth focused on creating automobile access to increasing expanses of greenfields located further and further from activity centers; the goal is to decrease traffic congestion and commuting times, air pollution, inefficient energy consumption and greater reliance on foreign oil, inequitable distribution of economic resources, and prevent the loss of a sense of community.

4)      Create place-based local economies that operate within natural system limits; economic development strategies must recognize the natural advantages of a specific place, whether rural or urban, within its region and build upon the existing business community, local strengths, and opportunities.

5)      Create policies and implementation measures that insure the most disadvantaged people in our society are provided a full range of opportunities to improve their quality of life. Equitable access to socioeconomic resources and an equitable distribution of economic and environmental costs and benefits, critical community services (e.g., education, healthcare), and opportunities to participate in decisions that affect the community is critical. Achievement of this goal requires special attention to progress made by those who are the most disadvantaged in the community, usually women, youth, and children; indigenous people; the disabled; and racial/ethnic minorities.

6)      Polluters that generate adverse community-wide effects should be required to pay the real clean-up costs; specific policies and regulations with teeth should force firms and individuals who pollute the environment to be legally liable for the costs of the damage they have caused to the larger community. The goal must be effective restoration that will return the environment to a pre-damage condition.

7)      Communities should act responsibly with regard to other jurisdictions by respecting their needs within the wider region or even internationally in making their own communities sustainable; examples include cooperative ventures to create environmentally appropriate water and groundwater use policies and actions, minimize uncontrolled growth that stresses infrastructure and use of individual vehicles, and promote multi-jurisdictional solutions to regional issues such as transportation, low-density greenfield development (sprawl), or energy-efficient building codes.

Having provided the above information, it is time for pessimists to weigh in with their comments and criticisms. Several critics claim that the sustainable development concept violates Karl Popper’s requirement that to be verifiable propositions must be falsifiable, and what rational person would willingly choose non-sustainable development. Ironically that criticism doesn’t apply since the non-sustainable scenario is merely the extrapolation of our current way of life and many of the “haves” and powerbrokers are determined to continue on that familiar, though potentially destructive, course while turning their backs on the plight of the “have-nots.” Thus, many critics believe whatever their convenient slogans, businesses have intentionally chosen non-sustainable development and will continue on that path as long as it rewards them financially. Business and profits as usual is the mantra of the day; another way to put it is, "In Growth We Trust."


Many opponents of the idealization of sustainable development question whether the implicit heart of sustainability — inter-generational equity or fairness to coming generations — can be operationalized. After all, who knows what marvelous technological innovations lay just over the horizon that could possibly make the lives of future generations so much easier and more fulfilling than ours?[3] And many American conservatives flatly reject the social equity facet as social engineering that violates the principle of individual freedom. Others characterize the term itself as too vague, or as empty but convenient rhetoric that can be twisted and turned to meet the needs of powerful interest groups, especially corporate. Still others question inclusion of the environment as a goal of equal standing, demanding to know which environment is indicated: today’s damaged and degraded human modified/cultural landscape or some earlier, presumably more pristine example. And many activists, advocate, and environmental (and other) planners maintain that the goal of social justice will always be the weak link in that triumvirate, honored by flowery verbiage but unsupported by meaningful actions. In addition, they correctly point out that society has failed miserably in the historic and recent past to equitably distribute economic values or to protect the natural and quasi-natural environment. Therefore, they ask, what other than foolish optimism leads anyone to suppose such lofty goals can be achieved in the future? And finally, skeptics point out that most advocates for sustainability ignore the very real and very difficult to resolve conflicts between the three goals: resource conflicts between economic development and environmental protection; property conflicts between social equity and economic development; and development conflicts between environmental protection and social equity.[4] Pray tell, they ask, how will those conflicts be resolved in a world of real politics where neither trees nor poor people contribute to political campaigns or have seats at tables where critical environmental decisions are made?

Author’s Note: For a good chuckle that underlines many of the points made above, I’ve provided a humorous quote from the web site of the National Mining Association. Those who fail to see the humor have never visited an open pit mine or seen the real world consequences of mine operation or abandonment.

The members of the National Mining Association share a mutual responsibility with all Americans to ensure that our actions meet the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs. This simple statement defines the concept of sustainable development, a concept that is embraced by the American mining industry and reflected in our operations in the United States and abroad.

Source: http://www.nma.org/policy/sustainable_dev.asp

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[1] Over the past nearly 20 years, geoscientists have become increasingly involved in a variety of pursuits that can best be labeled sustainable. That number includes geologists, hydrologists, hydrogeologists, geomorphologists, geophysicists, geochemists, soil scientists, and oceanographers who have contributed to sustainability studies in natural resource production, surface and ground water quality and quantity, erosion controls, pollution controls, etc.

[2] Philip Berke and Maria Manta. (2000). Are we planning for sustainable development? An evaluation of 30 comprehensive plans. Journal of the American Planning Association, 66(1), 21-33.

[3] For a difficult but fascinating essay on ethics that deals with intergenerational equity and a variety of other topics, see: Ernest Partridge. “In Search of Sustainable Values,” paper presented at an International Conference, Reflections on Discounting, Vilm Island, University of Greifswald, Germany, May 28, 1999; originally published in The International Journal of Sustainability, vol. 6, no.1, 2003; found online at http://gadfly.igc.org/papers/sustain.htm .

[4] See Scott Campbell. (1996). “Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development,” Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 62, no. 3, 296-312.

Thorium

Slightly radioactive, stable in the atmosphere, soft, very ductile, lustrous, silvery gray-white, heavy metal in the actinide series of elements that retains its luster for several months and can be cold-rolled, swaged (process used to reduce the diameter of a metal and produce a taper), and drawn. When exposed to the atmosphere, it is important to note that thorium’s physical properties largely vary with the degree of contamination with the oxide form. Thorium is found in small amounts in most of the Earth’s rocks and soils. Of particular interest today is that it is several times more abundant than all isotopes of uranium combined. Although soil commonly contains thorium at an average of around 12 parts per million (ppm) those dilute deposits have no commercial value. Thorium occurs in several minerals including thorite (ThSiO₄), thorianite (ThO₂ + UO₂ is the most common thorium mineral), and as thorium dioxide (ThO₂) in monazite (a rare-earth and thorium phosphate mineral) that can contain up to about 12 percent thorium dioxide, which is the primary ore of thorium.

Historical Background: In 1828, Hans Morten Thrane Esmark (1801-1882), a Norwegian priest and mineralogist, found a rock he was unable to identify. That sample eventually wound up in the lab of the Swedish chemist, Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who analyzed the mineral and named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. In 1898, German chemist Gerhard Carl Schmidt and Polish-French physicist Marie Curie independently discovered thorium was radioactive. Between 1900 and 1903, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy, working at McGill University in Montreal, demonstrated how thorium decayed at a fixed rate over time into a series of other elements. Their discovery led to the identification of half life and led to their disintegration theory of radioactivity, which proposed that over time atomic nuclei of an unstable atom split to form other elements. That research into radioactive decay, coupled with the work of their colleague, Kasimir Fajans, resulted in the Radioactive Displacement Law of Fajans and Soddy that described the products of alpha and beta decay.

Author’s Note: Thorium began kicking up a lot of interest in the first decade of the 21^st Century due to its potential for use as a nuclear fuel. Several primary characteristics make thorium an excellent candidate to replace uranium as the fuel of choice in nuclear power plants: relative abundance, no costly processing requirements, better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation, and an extraordinary efficiency as a nuclear fuel that translates to much less radioactive waste to clean up when the fuel is spent.

Real World Examples: Conflicting estimates as to the abundance of thorium have been issued by the USGS and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Despite the lack of agreement as to particulars, both sources agree that the U.S, Turkey, Venezuela, and Australia possess considerable reserves but that Brazil and India most likely have the largest world’s known/estimated thorium deposits. In January 2013, Jiang Mianheng, a politically connected Chinese industrialist, was reported to be funding a $350 million project at China's National Academy of Sciences to develop thorium power that would use molten-salt reactors, as opposed to the uranium-fueled water reactors found in the U.S. That thorium fuel reactor technology, originally developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s but ultimately rejected for American applications, largely for political reasons, also used a molten-salt coolant, would be much cleaner environmentally (little dangerous waste) and meltdown-safe since the coolant material never reaches meltdown temperatures.