BIOLOGY and POLITICS

PREVIOUS COLUMNS

Why are there toxic plants along our roadsides?

Storm Water and Natural Capitalism

"We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities." -Pogo

posted 10/10/2007
Most of us living in San Juan County want to be good caretakers of our natural world. But it’s hard. Environmental issues are complicated. They include gut issues like private property rights, the right to make a living, and bureaucracy/technocracy. That’s enough to discourage anyone. It sure discourages me. But I think we have to keep plugging along anyway, because the guy who makes a living taking from the environment will always be there. And it is necessary to balance resource use with conservation

So, the environmental problems that we face in San Juan County these days might be summed up as follows: protect the rights of the individual, while preserving the resources of the public.

Our capitalistic system suggests that market forces can do this. It says that supply and demand will create equilibrium. Unfortunately, there is an underlying error to our system. This error sets the value of the resources themselves at near-zero. If you can get permission from the owner (usually government), you can have the coal, water, oil, wood, copper, fish, for the cost of getting it.

In reaction to this, there is a movement, described in a classic book by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins which redefines our economic system. The book, Natural Capitalism, assigns values to things such as "natural resources and living systems, as well as the social and cultural systems that are the basis of human capital."

Concepts of Natural Capital can be applied to our local fracas over storm water. A little later, I’ll describe our storm water problem (or benefit! These things do not have to be problems) in the framework of Natural Capitalism. But first, let’s take an abbreviated view of how Hawken and crew compare conventional and natural capitalism:

Conventional capitalism

• Economic progress can best occur in free-market systems of production and distribution where reinvested profits make labor and capital increasingly productive.
  
  
• Competitive advantage is gained when bigger, more efficient plants manufacture more products for sale to expanding markets.
  
  
• Growth in total output (GDP) maximizes human well-being.
  
  
• Any shortages that do occur will elicit the development of substitutes.
  
  
• Concerns for a healthy environment are important but must be balanced against the requirements of economic growth, if a high standard of living is to be maintained.
  
  
• Free enterprise and market forces will allocate people and resources to their highest and best use.

They add:

"the past two hundred years of massive growth in prosperity and manufactured capital have been accompanied by a prodigious body of economic theory analyzing it, all based on the fallacy that natural and human capital have little value as compared to final output." 3

They compare our economy to a model (like a performance stage) in which natural products enter from the left, are processed and used by the industrial system, and then the waste is pushed out, off stage right. There is little if any consideration of raw materials (nature) or of system waste; these are off-stage. However:

So here is their approach. A better way:

Natural Capitalism

• The limiting factor to future economic development is the availability and functionality of natural capital, in particular, life-supporting services that have no substitutes and currently have no market value.
  
  
• The environment is not a minor factor of production, but rather is "an envelope containing, provisioning, and sustaining the entire economy."
  
  
• Misconceived or badly designed business systems, population growth, and wasteful patterns of consumption are the primary causes of the loss of natural capital, and all three must be addressed to achieve a sustainable economy.
  
  
• Human welfare is best served by improving the quality and flow of desired services delivered, rather than by merely increasing the total dollar flow.
  
  
• Economic and environmental sustainability depends on redressing global inequalities of income and material well-being.

Storm water as a problem: Let’s look at the storm water issue in the context of natural capitalism. I was amazed to read a recent editorial by Kevin Ranker, in which he noted that former County Commissioner John Evans does not believe that we are all in this together.

Huh? Storm water (read rain) falls on all of us. It goes through roads, parking lots, golf courses, kitty litter, and who knows what else, and then, unless it is dealt with, runs out into our coastal marine habitats, where it causes harm. We drive our cars, dripping poison, into East Sound, Friday Harbor, Lopez Village. We eat, play, and work in places other than where we live. I’m sorry, we are all in this together. And if we value this shared wonderful inland sea as much as we should, we will be concerned that poisons are running into it. Poisons that are created by us. And if we don’t enact a storm water program this year, it will be another year before anything can be done. We should do something now.

I have heard presentations by the group that created the Storm Water program. It was clear to me that there was public involvement, and participation from all sides of the political spectrum. This has not snuck up on us.

It makes me sad that some of our citizens get so worked up when they think they are getting hit with a "tax," that they overlook the need that is being addressed by the "tax." Especially considering that protecting our marine near-shore area is costing property owners roughly the cost of a latte each month.

The idea that we should differentially charge citizens for "their share" of storm water is dangerous and poorly considered. Does this mean that we all owe Friday Harbor, where we all come to do commerce and government, some compensation, considering that they have been paying for storm water treatment for some time? And what about the fire department? Is it fair to charge those with safe houses, right by the fire station the same tax as a house surrounded by brush in a hard-to-get-to place?

Storm water as a benefit. We live in a place that has low rainfall, and marginal aquifers. I think it is a little ironic that we are concerned with storm water issues. We could re-write the play, and call storm water "natural, re-charge water." By creative treatment, storm water can be cleaned, transferred, and stored, to be used by a thirsty county. It can be a benefit. Even the process of cleaning can be a benefit. People for Puget Sound produced a brochure showing rain gardens and other beach treatments that enhance the shoreline. Attracting tourists, if you like. Figure one shows one of those rain gardens and beaches. We could have such attractive solutions to our "problems."

Amory Lovins has gone on to found the Rocky Mountain Institute. In an article in the 1/22/07 New Yorker, he shows customers that their problems can be made into benefits. For example, using sunlight to power office buildings, he removed the heat to cool the offices in the summer, and then used that power to heat them when it was cold. He not only solved the problem of over-heated offices, but reduced the energy needed to run the building.

The irony of all this is that sometimes Lovins’ answers are not wanted. If a building owner does not benefit, or loses income while the building is retro-fitted, he may choose to continue with massive air-conditioning systems, and massive heating systems: noisy, inefficient, expensive, and uncomfortable as they are. This could go on until natural capital (fuel for the AC and heaters) is too dear – then the retrofitting will be done.

Like-wise, we can fiddle around with our storm water, killing marine communities etc. until we reach crisis with our water or lack of it – then decide to deal with storm water sensibly. I should mention that recent studies have shown that sea water conversion (reverse osmosis) is not a good answer to water shortage. More on that at a later time.

A couple of quotes are appropriate here:

In terms of insurmountable opportunities, Lovins’ motto is: "There is no box."

In terms of denying that our resources need protection, and that we should reclaim some of our precious rain, how’s this from Abraham Lincoln:

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg."

Mike Kaill is a local resident of eighteen years. He retired as a biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, prior to which he was a professor at the University of the Pacific.

Information, like the ocean surface, seems to be a barrier to understanding and action. For example, we worry about the introduced bunnies at South Beach, but allow our rockfish to be overfished. Kaill is trying to penetrate that barrier by providing some insight to the public. He operates the Port of Friday Harbor’s Aquarium at Spring Street. He has written biology texts and manuals, and is now writing a child’s guide to local harbors and beaches, and a novel on single-handed travel in the inside passage.

SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008

news@sanjuanislander.com

ABOUT US | ADVERTISING INFO | CONTACT INFORMATION |