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 Articles, Speeches & Reports
By Dennis Church
Home | Writing Projects | Video Productions & Services © Copyright 1997-2024 EcoIQ |
| |
Articles, Speeches & Reports
By Dennis Church
Home | Writing Projects | Video Productions & Services © Copyright 1997-2024 EcoIQ |
1980 Report for the City of San Jose
"If we are to consciously shape our future, we must learn to manage our total environment - to reconcile the conflicts and contradictions between man-made and natural systems. It is a false and tragic dichotomy to pit economic prosperity against environmental resource conservation.” This conclusion, and the report it summarized, was unanimously adopted by the San Jose City Council in 1980. It established San Jose as a pioneer in sustainability, and it became, according to a U.S. Department of Energy study, “a cornerstone of San Jose's sustainability efforts." 
Published as the cover lead and center spread in the flagship weekly of the National League of Cities, this article was distributed to nearly every local official in America. It introduced The Global Cities Project, founded by Church as a program of Earth Day 1990, to the nation's cities. For many, this was their first positive and in-depth exposure to the concept of sustainability. The Global Cities Project, endorsed officially by both the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, made the embrace of sustainability as an aspiration safe for cautious local officials. More than 100 cities officially joined, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 
Many resource economists and scientists fear that mankind may be consuming and destroying the living and non-living natural foundation upon which our lives depend. While I firmly believe that apocalyptic predictions are inappropriate and unfounded, any rational person must acknowledge the tremendous risks involved in what we are doing... If we continue on our current path, a catastrophe of fearful dimensions may befall the human family. After all, natural history is filled with species that defeated their natural enemies, surged in population, and then, having exhausted the resources upon which they depended, underwent a paroxysm of death. 
Most of us care more about our own welfare than we do about that of persons living three or four or five generations hence. If protecting the planet for future generations depended on changing these values, then we would be in deep trouble. And perhaps we are in deep trouble, but if we are, it is not because protecting the planet requires neglecting our own interests. It is a deeply held view that protecting the environment constitutes a net expense to our economy... Most of the public and most of the leadership still believes that protecting the environment represents spending money rather than saving it, represents consumption rather than investment. 
Albuquerque's potential for development of wind, geothermal and solar resources is nothing less than fantastic... You have first-rate wind resources within a stone's throw of Albuquerque, state-of-the-art wind farms today are producing electricity at seven cents per kilowatt hour, and your geothermal resources are mind boggling - estimated at the thermal energy equivalent of more than 100 billion - that's billion - barrels of oil. And geothermal energy, in direct-use applications, can be produced at a cost five times less than natural gas. For solar, New Mexico experiences substantially more hours of sunshine per year than most other states in the Southwest. 
The pressure on governments at all levels to change they way they do business is growing steadily. Public confidence in governmental institutions is low. Polls show many people feel a deep anxiety about the future… Citizens expect and are demanding more and better facilities and services and at the same time want relief from taxes. These pressures are forcing many to rethink their assumptions about how local government should be managed… There is much talk of “reinventing government,” and the political climate is creating an opportunity to make basic structural reforms to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public management. 
The idea that we humans may be growing beyond - or overshooting - the capacity of the natural resources we depend upon to sustain us has a long history. It has proven premature when previously asserted, but now appears increasingly realistic... Just as with democracy, we're likely to get the future that we deserve. Nobody else will save us. We must save ourselves. This follows directly from the near total dysfunctionality of our institutions and the failure of our elites to take responsibility for the general welfare of society. Perhaps, more carefully stated, the only way to return our institutions to the functionality we need is to fix them ourselves. 
