SUSTAINABILITY

An intellectual compost as old as fossil fuels.

By Steven J. Manning

May 17, 2024

So many experts, real and self-anointed, and hapless talking heads, writing and spewing copious word-salads about sustainability. Occasionally stuff beyond ordinary and unoriginal drivel. And so much from A.I. disciples.

Indulge me with the unconventional start to this column with what one might consider a wrap-up paragraph. Much about the unholy alliance of resources and sustainability, defined a number of ways, including some that appear mutually incompatible; climate change hysteria, even fascism. And profits.

How about the perceived-by-many perversion of the peaceful coexistence of sustainability of resources and profit-making — the reason d’etre of business — and the intellectually bankrupt pursuit of climate hysteria? Let us be clear: without profits, continuity in business is not possible, and corporate altruism does not exist.

And much about how the relevance and abundance or lack of resources have taken a back seat to ownership and control of those. Globally.

Any discussion on the matter cannot be undertaken without first addressing the quantitative and qualitative sides of the existence of this, a significant issue, considered by some an existential threat to the very survival of the planet.

What percentage of climate change, particularly global warming and all associated with that, is human caused rather than ordinarily cyclical. Must remember that a decade or two are really de minimis in terms of climate change trends.

Twenty years ago, we were warned by purportedly relevant experts and shameless self-promoters that an ice age was coming. The globe would freeze over. Rather audacious and thoughtless prognosticators about such doom in twelve years; even seven years. A short few years later, some of the same people warned us that we will be inundated by rising seas and perish in unlivable heat. In fact, I would have to move many miles inland from the present location of my studio — a stone throw from the Pacific — lest I drown in it in seven, eight, twelve years… Even by some members of the U.S. Congress. Perhaps the latter is entirely irrelevant given the woefully limited brain power and intellectual honesty of too many people in Congress. Thus, given the latest pronouncements by failed Nostradamics, we are doomed lest we eliminate fossil fuels immediately. How practical is that in the short or medium term. How challenging if not impossible in the long term?

Irrelevant question, I opine. Likely simply not possible to do, until and unless the brilliant minds find ways to generate electricity – in sufficient quantity – without the use of fossil fuels. Including the fossil fuels that are absolutely indispensable in the mining process for the core components of batteries…

Climate change? Yes, but best we quantify that. Then do the proactive stuff. Climate hysteria, foolish yet alarming. Climate fascism, fringe lunacy and acutely worrisome.

We — all thoughtful people — have been preoccupied for decades with the availability and sustainability of resources around the globe. Do we have enough food-stuffs to feed the billions of us? Now and in the future. How about raw materials that we as a population must have to survive. Enough of all resources necessary to sustain the population growth around the world.

And do that given the geographic asymmetry of massive populations — and population growth — with availability of resources to them.

To be clear, I am not questioning the basic, objective availability of critical resources. Just one, food, albeit the second most critical resource, second only the absolutes of air and water, the latter suffers of cataclysmic realities, the United States alone can likely feed much of the disadvantaged world at virtually no cost to the beneficiaries.

Do not throw anything heavy or sharp at your computer screen. I write that with understanding of the economic impossibility of it. You can all imagine the economic tsunami that would ensue: the collapse of the American producing sector and the cascading economic effect across economies, domestic and international, and the almost certain collapse of world trade-economics. A regrettably unaffordable cure to world hunger et al.

Objectively viewed, the U.S. and much of the E.U. have relinquished rights and surrendered control to the most critical resources worldwide to China and Russia. Those governments are entirely bereft of altruism. Africa, Latin and South America, Eurasia, leverage critical resources for qualitatively dubious benefits. Think about rare earth minerals that in short order will be principally the property of China.

How about you trade your graphite, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, iron, and manganese rights and production to us in exchange for that bridge you want. Or railroad tracks. Or, cynically, a couple dirty coal-burning electric plants. How about the aforewritten paragraph being a daily reality all over the not yet a third world nor yet developing world country. Perhaps, not likely to ever become a developing country once they give away ownership, control and usage of their intrinsic valuables for a few shiny trinkets. Right: I think a new bridge or some railroad tracks or ultra-expensive, evergreen loans designed such that principal can never be repaid, are shiny trinkets compared to a small cobalt or lithium mine.

Just some of my admittedly cynical perspectives on alternative energy…

We certainly have alternatives to fossil fuels, however never at the total exclusion of those. What those alternatives are, their availability and abundance, who controls those and how, and how those are used are massive topics. I do not lose sleep over that. A senior government official — think cabinet level ambassador — assured me that I can sleep peacefully since there are so many phenomenally smart and professionally qualified people in government who lose a lot of sleep over all that, for your and my benefit. That trust likely speaks to my naiveté.

But for too much of the world not having sunshine three hundred days a year, as we have in Southern California, how about solar panels. Great. Likely my readers and watching and listening audience have heard this: “Sorry, Maryellen. Cannot watch TV because it has been raining all day. I know, I know. We could kick on our little diesel generator for the day. I know. I know. I know. It spews out much more pollution than our two-aging gas-guzzling SUVs do in a month. But, way too much mindless TV must be consumed.”

Of course, all good and well assuming that we have the wherewithal to transport and store that at industrial scale. Once we deal with small stuff like the need to cover the entire land-mass of the tri-state area (NY, NJ, PA) with solar panels just to power Manhattan for a week. Or so I am told…

You have to love wind power. Assuming the wind is blowing. And, again, you figured out how to cost-effectively store and transport the meager volume created by most wind farms. Never mind the destruction of real estate. And the genuinely upset fishermen around the globe. I have dealt with some in Northern Europe who repeatedly sabotaged our undersea cables because — they asserted — the cables were buzzing and genuinely upsetting the fish that were waiting to be caught and ultimately eaten.

Nuclear power. Some one hundred of those plants supply twenty-five percent of power to the EU. Half of that in France. Perhaps we should consider that we, the collective technology brains in the so-called civilized world, know how not to build Chernobyl-like plants.

How about those coal-burning electricity generating plants? Those eighty-one dirty coal burning plants that have come online in China last year, with two new plants coming online every week this year. As are in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and some of Africa. So much of that world is reluctantly glad — sorry about the tenuous oxymoron — to align with Russia and China for their infrastructure needs rather than genuflect to impossible American climate change dictums.

Lastly, can somebody please come up with an acceptable name — and a slick acronym — for clean burning coal. Without the world “coal!” That might become acceptable. We certainly can generate power therefrom for a hundred generations to come. Right: a clean burning “wonderful and abundant resource.” Do you think WAR will do as a good acronym?

If profit making is not your reason to operate a business, you do not exist as a business. Except a “Red Cross,” which — here comes the circular thing you know is coming next — without your business turning profits and your altruism, the Red Cross and their brethren simply cease to exist.

Hamstringing business with hands behind their backs, with regulations that in and of themselves are not sustainable, business is not sustainable.

We need to find a marriage, perhaps an unholy alliance of profit making and “doing the right thing.” We can certainly destroy ourselves. We, the US and EU, can grotesquely underserve the world that does not relate to our western lifestyle and norms. We can contribute to the improvement of the now devolving economic, social and even anthropological structure of a lot of the world. To some extent, that has to do with sustainability of resources as their changes of ownership and control.

We can all lose some sleep over all this. Know that we can change things for the better. We can protect the environment. We, the collective billions of us, can survive, live and thrive.

Steven J. Manning

stevenjmanning.com

sjmanning@fymc.com

310.402.6666

©2024. Steven J. Manning. All rights reserved worldwide. Any reproduction, in part or whole, in any medium whatsoever, is strictly prohibited.