Putting the "eco" back into our economy!

I am 80 years old as I write these lines. I am still vigorous enough not only to resent many aspects of modern civilization but more importantly to enjoy the world and have faith in its future.

Rene Dubos

Soon I will join Jerry Mander and Helena Norberg-Hodge, two Sierra Club authors, plus Danny Moses, editor of Earth Island Magazine, at the San Francisco Book Festival. We will be on a panel entitled the "New Luddites."

The Luddites were organized bands of English workers who, from 1811 to 1816, destroyed manufacturing equipment because they believed that machines took away jobs. Fear of change is part of the human condition. In the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau preached that modern society and technology were destructive. He idealized the "noble savage," unfettered by society or technology. In the early twentieth century, many people swore that airplanes would destroy humanity. "If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings," they said. As we approach the twenty-first century, this fear continues. Millennium fever has shaken many who assert that humanity is doomed. Helen Caldicott, the famous peace activist, says we have only 10 years to save ourselves from a long list of environmental catastrophes.

Are industry and technology merely agents of environmental doom? Not necessarily. Any invention can be used positively or negatively. An airplane can airlift food to starving people, or it can drop bombs on people. It is up to each of us to ensure that technology and industry are our servants, not our masters.

I challenge the reader to become a yea,sayer, not a nay,sayer. We can preserve our natural environment and create human jobs by creating "green" industries. We can use technology to support our environment. For example, environmental publications such as Buzzworm, E Magazine, and Sierra use computer typesetting machines and high-tech photography labs to help save California redwoods. Also, we can use our consumer power to help our environment. Here are two examples. In 1989, engineer Ken E McCready became the CEO of TransAlta Utilities in Canada. McCready soon found himself involved in the global-warming issue because TransAlta burned so much coal. He asked a panel of consumers and environmentalists for ideas. In 1991, TransAlta found ways to reduce atmospheric emissions. Sana Siwolop quoted McCready in International Wildlife: "I thought that by implementing a number of environmental goals we would improve quality and productivity, while also lowering costs." Second, if we refused to buy gas-guzzling, polluting autos, General Motors and Toyota would sell electric cars immediately!

We have much more power than we realize. Let us look at a few areas where we can create a cleaner environment.

* Household Hazardous Wastes.

Sample problems: Stephen C. Evans writes in The Green Digest: "Although exact figures are impossible to come by, the state's Waste Management Board estimates that a city the size of San Jose [California] (population 700,000) discharges about 21 tons of toilet bowl cleaner, 96 tons of liquid household cleaners, and 24.5 tons of used oil into the sewage system each year. The quantities of hazardous waste being surrep, titiously or unwittingly thrown into the trash undoubtedly amount to much more. As for the amount of used motor oil that is illegally dumped, estimates vary from the equivalent of 24 to 36 Exxon Valdez's nationwide each year. In other words, the worst polluters may not be the big oil companies and manufacturing corporations after all. The worst polluters may well be the rest of us."

Sample solutions: As consumers, all of us can examine the chemicals under our kitchen sink. Quit using disinfectants (typically diethylene or methylene glycol or sodium hypochlorite) in favor of one-half cup borax in a gallon of hot water. Trade furniture polish (diethylene glycol, nitrobenzene, petroleum distillates) for a mix of two parts vegetable oil to one part lemon juice. For more ideas, go to the library and study books such as Alma Chesnut Moore's How to Clean Everything.

* Insecticides.

Sample problems: Christine McKenna reports in The Green Digest: "Less than I percent of produce consumed by Americans is tested, and even that is tested only for 50 percent of the pesticides currently on the market .... Farm, ers' reluctance to make the switch [away from pesticides] has less to do with their fondness for costly chemical inputs than with what they see as a lack of alternatives."

Sample solutions: Read William Olkowski's Common,Sense Pest Control, which explains physical barriers and biological controls. Here is one example: the ancient Chinese controlled unwanted caterpillars by gathering nests of yellow ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) and placing them on citrus trees. Rope bridges allowed the ants to commute from tree to tree. Water-filled moats were built around the tree trunks, thus forcing the predatory ants to stay in the trees and eat the caterpillars. Other examples can be found in Organic Gardening magazine and elsewhere. In addition, consumers can simply refuse to buy fruits and vegetables that are sprayed with insecticides.

* Pollution.

Sample problems: A recent European newspaper reporter in Mexico City noted that the air pollution was so bad that his contact lenses stuck to his eyeballs! Dead lakes and forests are common in Norway-far from industry. And industrial areas in the former Soviet Union are uninhabitable. Pollution plagues every land.

Sample solutions: Low-air-pollution mass-transit systems already exist in Japan, France, and elsewhere. These could easily be copied globally. On another front, consider Kalundborg, Denmark, where companies recycle each other's wastes. Asnaes power plant sends waste steam to Statoil refinery, which sends its waste gas to another company. Gas emissions have been reduced by 80 percent. Closer to home, Fisher Controls, an American equipment plant, has reduced its emissions 72 percent and nonhazardous wastes 95 percent by applying will power to technology. The bottom line is this: we should pay engineers worldwide to fight the pollution war with the same enthusiasm that we funded the Cold War.

* Garbage.

Sample problems: Garbage is America's biggest growth industry-everything from dirty diapers to plutonium pellets. We build trash mountains and frantically ship trash by truck and barge in search of "out of sight" dumping sites. I visited my local landfill. The worker told me that people toss out everything imaginable. He once watched a woman haul in a new boat and throw it into a huge hole in the ground. "Probably a divorce," he mused. In addition, businesses illegally throw vast quantities of hazardous materials wherever they can escape detection. For more details, I recommend Fred Setterberg and Lonny Shavelson's book, Toxic Nation: The Fight to Save Our Communities from Chemical Contamination.

Sample solutions: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) paid 75 cents a ton to dump garbage in landfills in 1970. Now it must pay $100 per ton. As a result, 3M has initiated more than 4,000 projects to try to reduce pollution and garbage at the source. The W. G. Krummrich Plant in Illinois produces tire-processing chemicals that make tires more durable. This helps create a problem. What to do with the mountains of used tires? Krummrich has worked with the Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources to fuel the plant's boilers with old tires-which are cleaner and cheaper than coal. A promising incinerator is being developed in Texas and elsewhere. This smokestack-free incinerator is designed to break down toxic chemicals into simple, safe elements in a completely enclosed system so that no byproducts escape into the environment.

* Overpopulation.

Sample problems: The population of the United States has increased by 108 million persons since I was born. This explosion is equal to 150 times the current population of San Francisco! There are simply too many people attacking our forests, prairies, and deserts looking for places to live. There are too many of us looking for food and water.

Sample solutions: Scientists have given us reliable birth-control methods, the tools to save us from ourselves. That was the easy part. Convince Catholics, Muslims, and other opponents of birth control to embrace medical technology and abandon their "natural way." This is proving to be the hard part.

Environmental technologists are yea-sayers. We agree with Shinji Fukukawa of Kobe Steel in Japan that "we must find ways of simultaneously achieving both economic growth and preservation of the environment." We believe that whoever puts the "eco" back into our economy will create jobs, enrich our lives, and lead the world into the twenty-first century.

This is a time for yea-sayers to step forward. Rene Dubos, the world-renowned scientist and humanist who wrote Celebrations of Life, coined a slogan that is worth repeating: "Think Globally, Act Locally!" Environmentalist Maritza Pick, author of Sierra Club Book's How to Save Your Neighborhood, City, or Town added, "Think Locally-Act Vocally!" If we take these slogans to heart, we can ensure that technology and our environment coexist peacefully.

Scientist Andre Bacard is the author of Hunger for Power: Who Rules the World and How. A guest on hundreds of radio talk shows, he can be reached at Box 3009, Stanford, CA 94309.