Triangle Sustainability Blog

Sustainability is comprehensive. It has to be. You can’t develop a sustainable system and forget to address major components of that system because, well, it won’t be sustainable.

One of the newer facets of the environmental movement is called geoengineering. In short, geoengineers believe that since humans are doing such a good job messing up the planet, surely they can also find ways to fix it on the massive scale required to reverse the damage.

Geoengineers focus mostly on global warming. They have ideas about shooting particles into space and dumping tons of iron into the Antarctic Ocean to create huge algal blooms that will suck up CO₂.

These ideas sound interesting, but they’re dangerous. They are not sustainable, because geoengineers have little idea what the net result of implementing their ideas would actually be.

Another environmental fallacy that’s similar to geoengineering in the limited view of its scope is the “grand plan”. A “grand plan” is an environmental program or scheme cooked up by politicians and subsidized by the taxpayers.

The recent boom and bust of the biofuels movement – in particular ethanol – is an example of a “grand plan” gone awry. Most ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn. By heavily subsidizing corn-based ethanol, a tremendous debate of food versus fuel was unleashed.

That debate didn’t look quite so pernicious when gas prices sat at more than $4 per gallon. But gas prices have dropped – as have ethanol prices – and the food versus fuel debate continues, although in more muted tones.

The problem isn’t that biofuels are bad. One day we might get biofuels in significant quantities from more renewable and efficient feedstocks, such as waste biomass or algae. But in the meantime, why is the U.S. still keeping out more efficient forms of ethanol, such as from Brazilian sugarcane?

As opposed to geoengineering and the “grand plan”, the reason other people babble on about market-based solutions to environmental problems or using a triple-bottom-line approach isn’t just to sound smart. It’s because these methods allow ideas and systems to develop organically and holistically.

Geoengineering and the “grand plan” sound cutting edge. They sound cool. But for all the bells and whistles, those ideas aren’t comprehensive. And in the end, they probably won’t prove to be very sustainable either.

China is changing everything. In the U.S., we witness China’s effects all the time: many of the goods we buy are from China; we hear about how the Chinese manipulate their currency to keep the prices of their exports low; newspapers carry stories on their massive infrastructure expansions and political suppression. Without a doubt, China is what the technology world might call “disruptive”.

From an environmental perspective, China has major problems. According to a World Bank Survey, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. The Chinese government – notorious for padding the numbers – admits that at least 400,000 Chinese people die prematurely from respiratory illnesses annually. Half the population drinks water polluted with human and animal waste. Those numbers could be far higher, and the list of environmental offenses goes on and on.

Americans should be careful to point the finger. We are the most wasteful nation in the world in terms of energy and raw materials, and China isn’t likely to take that crown from us anytime soon.

But the reason China makes for such a fascinating case is because it’s just such a big country: four times the size of the U.S. in terms of population. With so many people and with such rapid economic growth, China’s potential to pollute the global environment is huge.

Some signs, however, are pointing to China’s problems with its abuse of the environment. Besides the millions who die from exposure to pollution, environmental problems are starting to hit China in a particularly sore spot – its economy.

In the last few years, Chinese products have come under international scrutiny for a multitude of quality and safety concerns – items directly related to the triple-bottom-line concept of sustainability. In one of the most recent episodes, Chinese drywall installed all over Florida was purported to have high levels of sulfur, causing corrosion to piping and electronics and, to add insult to injury, producing a really bad smell. Other product scares and recalls have involved children’s toys, high pesticide levels on vegetables and melamine-tainted infant formula.

While the bad press might be easy to hush up within China, in the rest of the world Chinese products are losing any brand value they might have had. At the moment, attempting to avoid the “made in China” label is pretty tough. But this should get a bit easier thanks to country-of-origin legislation, like the 2002 Farm Bill requiring labeling on seafood, meats fruits and veggies.

So what will the long-term ramifications of China’s unsustainability be? It’s hard to say for sure now, but the Chinese hunger for short-term growth is almost certainly going to result major, possibly insurmountable, economic hurdles in years to come. Just how far can China push its environment before its environment starts pushing back even harder? They seem determined to find out.