Photo by Melissa Lewis

Conserve to perserve

Solid evidence that we have entered an era of human-induced climate warming has convinced all reasonable persons to acknowledge as much. Only the Pollyannas remain in denial. Even without the science-based confirmations, an educated person with “plain horse sense” can observe that our world is changing, and deduce that the Industrial Age is the likely cause.

We know that carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas. We know that over the last two centuries (to this ancient planet, a mere blink of the eye) human numbers have ballooned from about one billion to six billion. (One billion. That’s 999 million, plus another.) And we know that in the course of our “Industrial Revolution” and its unfolding aftermath – two centuries running – we have burned billions of tons of coal, oil products, natural gas, etc., injecting billions of tons of CO2 into our thin, life-supporting biosphere along the way.

Putting together these basic facts, it’s apparent that around 1800 our species began a worldwide, climatological chemistry experiment. The results are now in.

Ice core analyses say that for millennia preceding industrialization, our atmosphere held about 280 parts per million as carbon dioxide. Ongoing measurement began in the 1950s, reading at 315 PPM. Today it’s at 380 PPM and rising yearly by about two. Climate models point to a level of 450 PPM as the threshold of catastrophe –- just 30 years out, if we fail to act. And the action has to start now.

From this day forward, by the personal and business decisions we make and the societal decisions we demand of our leaders, we will either turn away from catastrophe’s threshold or foolishly stumble right through and beyond it. We will decide the quality of our descendants’ lives.

Only if we resolve to “green up” our lives, businesses, and institutions can we overcome the challenge confronting us. With American determination, we can do it – one day at a time, one decision at a time, one purchase at a time. We will need every tool in the box, and some that are just leaving or still on the drawing board. For the kids’ sake, and their planet’s, we must learn the ways to help and apply what we learn. If you’d like some guidance, just go to the bookstore or the Internet for one of the many books on “green living” to be found there. No, you won’t adopt every idea from A to Z, but you will find suggestions you like that will really help (and likely save you money, too).

We must set “sustainable living” as our ultimate goal. Simply put, that means steadily winding down and finally ending those personal habits and business practices whose repetition degrades the Earth and diminishes our children’s future.

Getting wiser about energy has become a high priority, and there are two basic ways we can help matters. The easy first step is to invoke the disdain our ancestors had for foolish waste and excess. It was part of their conservative creed, a creed that inherently promotes conservation. To adapt a line from Shakespeare: “First, let’s kill all the waste.”

In our homes, workplaces, public buildings, and cars, we must pursue an end to the squandering of energy that has made our nation –- just five percent of world population -– the gluttonous consumer of 25 percent of world energy output. Adopting common-sense habits and practices in energy use –- “conservative conservation” –- saves energy, reduces pollution, and costs nothing. It actually creates money by reducing household and business expenses, with no outlay required.

With energy waste eradicated, we then focus on advancing toward sustainability by investing in products and processes that are energy-efficient, displacing the wasteful ones. The more savvy and competitive people in business and industry are seeking and implementing ways to wring out the waste of energy, materials, and byproducts from their operations. Why? Because doing it reduces costs and raises profits. These innovators see that doing good for their planet does well for their financial results. The laggards, on the other hand, can expect to be paying inevitable “carbon taxes” in coming years, taxes that will discourage waste and pollution and be invested in efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure.

Applying the same attitude to your home will produce similar results. If you build, insist on designed-in efficiencies, plus materials that are “green” in their origin. Will you be newly furnishing a home or investing more in your present one? Insist on energy efficiency that pays you back, and green manufacture that protects your planet. And whether building or upgrading, investigate carbon-free energy sources like solar systems. Remember that energy cost-per-unit figures quoted for greenhouse-gassing coal (electricity), natural gas, propane, etc., are false and understated (as are the ultimate costs of nuclear-generated power). They fail to state the taxpayer subsidies they enjoy, and they ignore the costs they burden us with in both human and planetary health degradation.

So let’s banish the waste, invest in green efficiency, and reap the rewards. The benefits will begin immediately and last indefinitely. But the very best “return on investment,” the greatest reward, will be the confirmation that we steered our civilization away from catastrophe and gave the generations following us a stable, healthy, and vibrant planet Earth.

Let’s get moving!

Tom Manning is a Certified Public Accountant and serves as the current chairman of the Foothills Group of the Sierra Club, South Carolina chapter. He and his wife, Rae Ann, are Pendleton residents.