Tag Archive for: mainstream environmentalism

Civic Finance & Civitas Fidelis

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We’re back. The posts already appearing here on CIV FI were originally written and accessible at a website launched in the summer of 2009 that was taken down for several months, and now appear here as the opening posts on CIV FI, or https://civicfinance.org. The earlier site was a placeholder, whereas this one is intended to grow into its name.

As stated on the “About” page, “CivFi.com was created to answer a need for greater discussion among and between investors and policymakers on the issues of financial sustainability.” That is a tall order, but it is truly the only theme that feels appropriate as human civilization enters the 2nd decade of the 21st century facing its biggest financial challenges in eighty years. And these challenges are not over. They’ve just begun. But they can be solved. Ongoing, downwardly spiraling financial catastrophe is not inevitable.

Civic finance is not quite the same as economics. Unlike an economic theory, you can analyze civic finance on a spreadsheet. You can reduce it to cash flow projections. You can isolate your assumptions and you can identify your options, often with unsettling precision. This website was created because there is far too little of this sort of analysis available on the internet, and as a result, there is grossly inadequate discussion regarding everything from infrastructure investment to environmental cost/benefit analysis to public sector deficits, and on and on.

Given the times we live in, with far too many consumers still mired in debt to their eyeballs, and therefore unable to buy more products or pay higher taxes, the challenge to finance the advancement of civilization is possibly the central challenge of our time. The challenge of accumulating and deploying massive quantities of capital to build the next big pieces of our advancing civilization has become, inconveniently, a nearly impossible prerequisite. Until resolved, it thwarts our attempts to realize the dreams-come-true that advancing technology already can offer us. Dreams are expensive. Choices are hard. And the old days of endlessly available credit are done.

CIV FI is an abbreviation for Civic Finance, but it doesn’t end there. The more you examine the pair of words, the more they may grow on you. In Latin, the abbreviation “CIV” forms the beginning of the word “civicus,” meaning civic, but it also forms the beginning of the words “civilus” (civil – as in political or courteous), “civilitas” (politics), “civis” (citizen), and “civitas” (community state). Similarly, in Latin, the abbreviation “FI” forms the beginning of the word “fiducia,” meaning financial trust or assurance, but it also forms the beginning of the words “fidelis” (faithful), “fides” (belief, honor, loyalty, truth), “fidentia” (self confidence), and even “fidicen” (a lyric poet).

With all these connotations, CIV FI feels like the right name at the right time. Civitas Fidelis. Faith in Civilization. How can anyone hope to create and conduct an open, utterly transparent forum for the discussion of creative, sustainable, humane and equitable ways to restore our Civic Finance, unless their creed were also one of Civitas Fidelis. In that spirit, let us begin.

Before writing the 19 posts already available here, all written between June and August, 2009, I edited an online magazine called EcoWorld. From early 1995 through May 2009, http://ecoworld.com was a platform where I posted nearly 1,000 articles and commentaries, about half of them written by guest authors, the rest by me. That website began as an attempt to promote free market environmentalism, but as I continued to immerse myself in the environmental movement as well as, much later, within the clean technology industry, I realized there were fallacies surrounding environmentalism so profound that what was necessary was to completely redefine environmentalism.

As a participant in the clean technology industry, I further realized, especially in the last few years, that the funding and the priorities of clean technology were severely skewed. Investment and deployment of worthy technologies were being deferred, while marginal, fanciful projects and technologies were being advanced due to environmentalist concerns – reflected in government incentives – that were often without scientific merit or financial merit. Finally, I realized that these flaws that afflict mainstream environmentalism are part of something much bigger – a struggle to define what sort of political economy we choose to live under. A debate over what model for civilization is optimal, and how to get there from here.

CIV FI aspires therefore to continue where EcoWorld left off, to join that larger debate, armed with not only analysis and commentary, but spreadsheets as well.

The Prosperity Choice

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Advocates of policies designed to regulate CO2 tend to invoke the precautionary principle – that is, even if something incredibly horrible is not really happening, preparing for this horror is something worth doing, because the consequences of preparation for nothing are less than the consequences of doing nothing and having the worst scenarios actually come to pass.

This position rests on two fundamental assumptions, regulating CO2 helps the economy more than it hurts the economy, and regulating CO2 would actually have a positive impact on global climate trends. But there is an alternative version of environmentalism that would argue against this, and make the following claims:

(1) CO2 regulations will cause grievous harm to the U.S. and global economy and will trample upon the freedom of individuals and nations.

(2) Imposing CO2 regulations will do nothing to mitigate alleged harmful trends in global climate.

(3) Humanity is poised at the brink of unprecedented prosperity and CO2 regulations will create a tyrannical global order of rationing and arbitrary power that will rob humanity of this positive destiny.

In support of these positions, especially the third – that we are poised at the brink of unprecedented abundance and prosperity, are three articles:

The Abundance Choice –  Abundance is a choice, and it is a choice the privileged elite must make – in order for humanity to achieve abundance, the elites must accept the competition of disruptive technologies, the competition of emerging nations, and a vision of environmentalism that embraces resource development and rejects self-serving anti-growth alarmist extremism. The irony of our time is that the policies of socialism and extreme environmentalism do more harm than good to both ordinary people and the environment, while enabling wealthy elites to perpetuate their position of privilege at the same time as they embrace the comforting but false ideology of scarcity.

Humanity’s Prosperous Destiny –  It is often easy to overlook the many positive forces of history, forces that can be identified with Euclidean precision, immutable forces that will deliver to humanity abundance in all forms, wealth to conquer poverty, cleanse the planet, and satiate the longings of peoples and nations. As the world urbanizes, voluntarily and en-masse, rural lands and wildernesses are relieved, and open space becomes abundant. As technological innovation advances at exponential rates, energy and water will also become abundant. The most important natural resource in the world is human creativity, and it is inexhaustible and will find a way to alleviate any scarcity.

Fossil Fuel Reality –  In terms of choosing between fossil fuel development and alternative energy development, another point which should be put to rest is the notion we are running out of fossil fuel. The next three charts show the potential reserves of the primary fossil fuels – oil, coal, and gas. In order to develop estimates for unconventional sources of these fuels, we have taken the midpoint between the high and low estimates. (1) If oil provided 100% of global energy, and we used twice as much as we do today (1,000 Quad BTUs per year), there would be a 59 year supply of oil based on known reserves. (2) If coal provided 100% of global energy, and we used twice as as much as we do today (1,000 Quad BTUs per year), there would be a 218 year supply of coal based on known reserves. (3) If gas provided 100% of global energy, and we used twice as much as we do today (1,000 Quad BTUs per year), there would be a 45 year supply of gas based on known reserves. So when you add it all up, at twice the current energy consumption overall, oil, gas and coal could potentially supply all the energy we need in the world for the next 300 years – not including gas hydrates.

Prosperity is indeed a choice, and to achieve global prosperity there are indeed competing versions of environmentalism. The mainstream environmentalist vision is to effectively ration fossil fuel in order to accelerate development of alternatives to fossil fuel, at the same time as this vision allegedly attempts to mitigate the allegedly harmful effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. And this mainstream environmentalist vision also opposes nuclear power, genetically modified crops or biochemical feedstocks, hydroelectric power, desalination, and new aquaducts, and even imposes crippling lawsuits and regulatory barriers to establishment of solar and wind energy.

An alternative to mainstream environmentalism may be characterized as clean technology environmentalism, or clean development environmentalism. In this version of environmentalism, the emphasis is on economic development as the best way to empower society to have the ability to mitigate environmental challenges, whether they are the costs to clean up a superfund site or restore a habitat, or the costs to better adapt to extreme weather. The conflicts between those who want to pursue cleantech development and those who want to stop all development, everywhere, are rife with profound nuances and insufficiently explored by all concerned. Environmentalism is not monolithic, despite the roar from Gore and his like-minded multitudes.