Sustainability: Can It Truly Be Measured?

Many times over the course of my career as a waste recycling professional I've been asked, "How can we (our organization) become more Green?" My answer is always the same: "Do whatever keeps the most green in your pocket."

As you might expect, I have received looks from incredulous surprise to complete revulsion. Most of the people asking me this question come from a divergent point of view regarding man's impact on the environment and how this relationship is being addressed, or at least think this divergent viewpoint displays some degree of credibility.

People holding a similar viewpoint to mine would never ask the question in the first place.

My explanation boils down to this: The most cost effective way to handle any waste or recycling issue inherently embodies the most efficient and effective method at that time. Circumstances will change as the future unfolds, but if you honestly consider the entirety of the equation governing any waste or recycling issue, you inevitably arrive at this conclusion.

For example, some "environmentally conscious" companies want "everything" recycled. There are two ways of looking at this riddle. No matter what handling method is utilized, from landfilling to waste-to-energy incineration to fuels blending and solvent distillation, everything ultimately gets recycled. The time frame which accomplishes the recycling remains the only difference.

Companies really mean we want everything recycled right now. While this goal is truly impossible to completely attain at this juncture in human history, companies can get very close to it. And in trying to attain this goal many more resources will be consumed than otherwise would be.

An inert non-hazardous high volume waste that could be locally landfilled for a quarter of the per-ton price of waste-toenergy incineration instead gets shipped by truck to Niagara Falls, N.Y., for waste-toenergy recycling. Even if the nonhazardous wastestream has a high extractable heat content, one can clearly see that more energy and resources are consumed in trying to recover the energy of this waste than what can be extracted for useable grid electricity. The handling cost reflects this intrinsic truth for recycling this waste in this manner.

My job as an environmental contractor is not to make these decisions for these companies, but to articulate all options available today and execute whatever strategy they wish to pursue in the most effective way possible. The free market works continually not only economically but ideologically.

Inevitably, whenever I can truly engage an individual in an environmental, energyrelated or economic debate, and after I have displayed the fallacy of the logic of their argument, we get to "But that's not sustainable!" Sustainability, one of the key buzzwords of the Progressive movement, they use as the unarguable catch-all to winning any debate. And in a perverse way they are correct.

Nothing on this Earth or under the sky lasts forever we are told. Empires come and go, civilizations rise to great power then are lost with only the remaining ruins left to articulate their former glory. Egypt, Greece, Rome, all had their day and all succumbed to the yoke of time. And like any other subject we contemplate, the only question that gets to the very heart of the matter is: why?

Sustainability by definition implies a measurement of how something compares to the infinity of time. Can something last forever? I think it's pretty safe to say no one can cite a true example, at least not in the physical universe. But we certainly should be able to find a useable method to make comparisons between competing ideas and systems.

We get told over and over that the use of "fossil fuels" must end, that it is not "sustainable." Being people seeking real truth we ask the only relevant question: why? The usual answer goes something like this: "Greenhouse gases from burning "fossil fuels" are destroying the planet. Besides, we will run out of oil soon anyway." Really?

Any reader of Reality News knows the fallacy of the first part of the progressive argument embodies a complete misstatement of fact. Greenhouse gases are not destroying the planet and never will. Carbon dioxide enhances plant life and the biosphere in a great way.

The second part, commonly known as the "peak oil" theory, comes from the idea that petroleum resources are of an essentially fixed amount due to their biogenic origin. The Biogenic Theory of petroleum formation postulates that petroleum forms over millions of years from trapped plant and animal matter. Today, as you may have read right here in Reality News, many scientists including yours truly believe that petroleum is continually formed in the Earth's crust and mantle from methane (natural gas). This idea is known as the Abiogenic Theory.

Much of the methane has been present since the Earth's formation. Methane manufacture also occurs continually within the Earth from carbonate rocks like limestone and dolomite in conjunction with water under high pressure conditions. Under subterranean conditions, the chemistry of methane allows a pathway to the formation of any hydrocarbon compound.

So is "fossil fuel" use sustainable? If Abiogenic Theory is correct, I believe petroleum can truly qualify as a "renewable" resource. Even if the Biogenic Theory is correct, there appears to be such an enormous supply of available petroleum with more discovered each day that will last for a very long time. For the reasons I have stated here, petroleum appears to be a very sustainable resource.

What qualifies as "renewable energy" by Progressives today, namely wind and solar power, have always required enormous subsidies to create infrastructure and demand. As has been shown in California, Europe and other places, when the subsidies end so does the "renewable energy."

Besides the inherent technical deficiencies of both technologies, the resource requirements (land requirements, environmental concerns) in relation to the return has never been positive. The energy density of these sources just does not exist for large-scale applications.

These technologies truly embody the concept of an unsustainable system as reflected in the financial realities of their usage. In my ultimate vision for wind turbines you see me cutting them down like the giant trees of old and hauling them to the scrap yard for recycling.

So how can we measure the sustainability of a system? We see from the two previous examples that financial viability has a lot to do with it. But how? Cost measures availability of a product or service in relation to demand. But high cost items may still be used in a sustainable fashion if the value produced from these items exceeds the input costs.

One can even make the claim that this relationship can be breeched for a short time provided the output eventually exceeds the input costs in the long term. We just defined the argument for borrowing money. But certainly if too much money gets borrowed or the output/input cost relationship never materializes, we go bankrupt.

Our analysis leads us to the big point of my discussion: Debt IS the measure of sustainability. Any system which does not create debt can be sustained. Debt will eventually kill any system regardless of history or perceived viability. Debt destroys families, companies, villages, nations and empires. Once this demon gets his grip, no one escapes. This demon IS the yoke of Father Time.

So this brings us all the way back to the TEA Party movement. We protest too much government, too much spending and too much intrusion in our lives. The country's debt clock speeds its way forward, racing ever closer to that point of no return. Our current course we all know instinctively to be unsustainable, and the debt clock proves it.

How do companies die? Eventually the long-term cost commitments of promised healthcare and retirement benefits cannot be provided by the producing workforce. Too many people are being paid that are not producing product or providing services.

The same applies to governments. Every government worker and worker benefit paid takes away productivity from the rest of the country's producing economy. Eventually the producing economy cannot provide for the non-producing government, and you have Greece (or Ireland, Spain, Portugal, U.K. or maybe the USA).

So we also see some good news. Sustainability cannot be cited simply because we cannot foresee how future generations will accomplish their challenges. If petroleum becomes scarce, something else will replace it. If the population continues to grow we will and have always found ways to accommodate and embrace these opportunities. The more people, the more creative minds available to come up with new ideas.

The sustainability concepts pushed by the Progressives like "Smart Growth," biofuels and urban farming embody the complete opposite of the dictionary meaning of sustainable. Smart Growth imposes a boatload of restrictions on development which leads to greater traffic congestion and logistical inefficiencies in order to restrict individual choice while rationing goods and services. The ultimate purpose of Smart Growth is to force unwanted lifestyle choices on individuals to fulfill the vision of life as it should be according to the Progressive Planner.

Biofuels use agricultural and food resources to make fuels for transportation and other "sustainable" applications. Using food to make fuel truly makes no sense and certainly cannot be considered sustainable in conjunction with a growing population.

Urban farming died decades ago and for good reason. Lets keep it that way.

We must never forget that resources are never lost. They just change form when used. The Planet is a big place, the Universe even bigger, and Man's imagination even bigger still. There are many mysteries yet to solve. I doubt we'll be be running out of resources anytime soon.