April
2007
A Sustainable Response to Global Warming
A reflection from John Cobb, PCU co-founder and theologian
We owe to Al Gore, along with some authoritative scientific reports, a new burst of energy to save the planet. We must hope that this energy can be channeled in genuinely fruitful directions. At present it is directed toward band aids to stem the external bleeding of a world that is suffering from profound internal injuries.
The band aids are proposals for ways to create the energy needed to keep the global economy growing that are not directly contributory to global warming. These are, fortunately, accompanied by discussions of using energy more efficiently. Band aids have their uses. I am not opposing them.
Most of the proposals for replacement of oil are egregiously damaging. Nuclear energy and crops are two glaring examples. No solution has been found for the safe disposal of nuclear waste, to mention only one problem with the former. With the current system of growing corn, more energy goes into its production than is produced for running cars. Further, diversion of agricultural lands from food to fuels raises the prices of food beyond the ability of the poor to pay, and it insures that major food shortages will occur sooner rather than later. Not all of the proposals are as bad as these, but there is no magic bullet.
Our focus should be on using less energy – much less. This includes reducing our uses of water and electricity and driving less. It includes living in smaller houses or apartments. It includes buying fewer clothes and appliances and unwanted Christmas gifts. All this is important, but it is not my main point.
More important is to envision and work for a world far less dependent on the movement of goods and persons. That requires that instead of economic globalization to which we are now committed, we encourage economic localization. Goods should be produced as near as possible to where they are consumed.
This is especially important with respect to food. But there is much more to be said about food production. Agricultural research should be directed to the most efficient ways to produce food, when efficiency is measured in terms of the amount of energy input and the amount of soil loss rather than by the amount of production per hour of human labor. We already know a great deal about sustainable agriculture. We need to learn a great deal more. But what we already know suffices to show that a basic solution to the global warming crisis can also be a basic solution to the problem of food security. The need is not to produce new forms of energy to run mechanized farms. It is to produce food in ways that are sustainable and begin the process of renewing the soil.
Similarly, we can build human habitat that requires far less energy. Of course, the building itself will always require energy. But what is built can be heated and cooled and lighted with passive solar energy alone. This has been demonstrated again and again, but most construction still ignores these lessons.
Furthermore, Paolo Soleri has shown that beautiful and comfortable cities can be built much more compactly, eliminating motor transportation within them. For urban dwellers cars can be limited to the sorts of roles now played by horses, playthings for those who fancy them, but kept out of the city itself.
Of course, there is much more to be thought of. But a world in which neither agriculture nor cities required energy other than that produced passively by sunlight would require drastically less of scarce and harmful forms of energy than the one we are continuing to create. This different world would also require far less energy for transportation. Perhaps in the context of concern about how we are changing the weather, we can interest people in moving in truly sustainable directions instead of those that lead to other dead ends. Perhaps we can work for the healing of the Earth.