Business & Education News - October 20, 2004

Campaign 2004 and the national environmental debt

Both candidates for the U.S. presidency have been mute on the subject of the environment in campaign 2004. I guess they surmise it’s not an urgent matter while we are engaged in a deadly war in Iraq, more than a million people have lost their jobs at home, and another 45 million Americans cannot afford health insurance. But lack of attention doesn’t make it less of a problem. In fact, we are accumulating a national environmental debt (NED) of truly epic proportions—one that will be extremely difficult for future generations to recover. The NED should be flashing on a gigantic clock in every major city, just as the U.S. national debt clock flashes on its website (www.brillig.com/debt_clock).

Most people are aware of the U.S. national debt clock, which tracks the federal debt. This year, $420 billion was added to its ticker. As I write this piece, the clock stands at $7,382,208,630,186.25. That is $25,082.61 for each man, woman, and child in the United States—the amount that each of us owes to lenders (primarily international) who finance our overspending. It represents the amount that we have borrowed against our future and makes us vulnerable to lending markets. Each day it grows by $1.69 billion, and on election day, November 2, 2004, it will stand at about $7,456,360,000,000. Does that trouble you?

Fortunately, the national debt is largely reversible. If we continue to generate enough wealth and if markets are stable, then we should be able to pay it off, albeit with steadfast effort. Unfortunately, much of the NED cannot be paid back. It is irreversible, or only reversible over a time scale of centuries.

The NED includes the 1 million acres that are lost each year to urban sprawl in the United States. It is increased annually by the 940 million tons of oil and 620 million tons of natural gas (oil equivalents) that we burn to power our economy, while at the same time releasing 1.56 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere. The NED includes all the species of plants and animals that have been lost to habitat destruction in the United States, the annual mining of billions of tons of coal and ore that future generations will not have available, and the global loss of 9% of perennial sea ice and 15% of arctic tundra in the North Polar region due to climate warming since 1980.

Here is one example of how the NED might read in bold, flashing numbers beside the Presidential Seal:
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL DEBT = 55,000,000,000 tons carbon and growing…

That is, 55 billion metric tons of carbon, as CO₂, which is the approximate U.S. contribution to the accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere since 1750. Erasing this debt is not possible. It will result in a significantly warmer earth during this century and beyond. We only can hope to decrease our emissions (1.6 billion metric tons per year) and soften the NED’s effects, not preclude them. To reduce emissions will require a massive, global effort toward using renewable resources: solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. The United States needs to get started, either by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and working with other countries to improve it, or by responsibly advancing a plan that will mitigate our share and transform our economy as quickly and efficiently as possible.

To whom is the NED debt owed? A Native American proverb says it best: “We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have only borrowed it from our children.” It’s a pity the children can’t vote.

Jerald L. Schnoor
Editor
est@uiowa.edu