What Humanity Can Do Now to Turn the Tide

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SPECIAL SECTION FROM WORLD WATCH, MARCH/APRIL 2000

W ORLD •WATCHWorking For A Sustainable Future

W ORLD •WATCHVol. 13, No. 2

March/April 2000

What Humanity Can Do Now to Turn the Tide

3 Major Global Trends,1970 to 2000

3 Denis Hayes on Global Warming3 Chris Flavin on Energy for

a New Century

3 7 Key Moments That HelpedDefine the Trends of the Past30 Years

3 7 Key Moments (Past andFuture) That Could HelpDefine the World of the Next30 Years

Earth Day 2000Earth Day 2000

© 2000 Worldwatch Institute



W ORLD • W ATCH March/April 2000 7

3ILLUSTRATION BY LUCINDA LEVINE

E A R T H D A Y 2 0 0 0

The environmental movement, having enjoyedmany successes at the city, state, and nationallevels, now needs to begin to address the global

problems that threaten to undo all our progresselsewhere. Energy and climate change will be thefirst major test.

Denis Hayes is the international chairman of Earth Day Network (EDN) and the author of The OfficialEarth Day Guide to Planet Repair (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000). EDN has more than 4,000 affili- ated organizations in 180 countries. To learn more about an Earth Day event near you, visit www.earth day.net or write to Earth Day, 91 Marion St., Seattle,WA 98104-1441.

back into equilibrium—no matter what we do.Solutions to these daunting problems have

begun to emerge. They are opposed, however, by

entrenched government bureaucrats and by privateeconomic interests that are comfortable with the sta-tus quo and could be harmed by change.

We have no institutional framework within whichto address global environmental issues. The UnitedNations Environmental Programme is underfundedand lacks regulatory or enforcement power. Thestrongest international agency, the World TradeOrganization, has proven to be aggressively anti-environmental in its goals and processes.

Whenever progress has been made on a globalenvironmental problem—such as ozone depletion—

it has been due to a worldwide outpouring of public sentiment. Earth Day can be acentral element in the campaign tomobilize an aroused citizenry.

On April 22 of each year,people in most countries cele-brate this informal, non-govern-mental holiday dedicated to theenvironmental health of ourplanet. Earth Day Network plansto focus each of these annualcampaigns on a major global prob-lem, and educate people around the

world about common-sensesolutions.

Earth Day 2000 is focused on the perilof global warming and the need to acceler-ate the transition to the solar energy era.The aim is to create an informed globalconstituency for the super-efficient use of renewable energy sources as the best way toimplement the Kyoto Protocol on Global

Warming.The global coal industry and most of the

world’s oil companies and electric utilities havesought to obfuscate, manipulate, spin, or crush pastefforts to promote a renewable energy transition.But the science is now clear. Burning more andmore carbon-based fuels into the future will producea catastrophe.

Avoiding irreversible planetary calamity—andinstead guiding human development in positive direc-tions that are healthy, diverse, and sustainable—is theprimary moral obligation of our era. This profoundmission is what makes the modern environmentalmovement more than “just one more special interest.”

Denis Hayes:The future is in our hands.



3

E A R T H D A Y 2 0 0 0

T he age of oil has so dominated social andeconomic trends for the last 100 years thatmost of us have a hard time imagining a

world without it. Oil is cheap, abundant, and conve-nient—easy to carry halfway around the world in asupertanker or across town in the tank of a family sport utility vehicle. From Joe Sixpack to the PhDenergy economists employed by governments andcorporations, we tend to assume that we will burnfossil fuels until they’re gone, and that the eventualtransition will be painful and expensive.

But if you turn the problem around, our currentenergy situation looks rather different: from an eco-logical perspective, continuing to depend on fossilfuels for even another 50 years—let alone the centu-ry or two it might take to use them up—is prepos-terous. As the new century begins, the world’s 6 bil-lion people already live with the dark legacy of theheavily polluting energy system that powered the lastcentury. It is a legacy that includes impoverishedlakes and estuaries, degraded forests, and millions of damaged human lungs.

Fossil-fuel combustion is at the same time addingbillions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphereeach year, an inexorable escalation that must endsoon if we are not to disrupt virtually every ecosys-tem and economy on the planet.

An energy transition in the new century is there-fore ecologically necessary, but it is also economical-ly logical. The same technological revolution thathas created the Internet and so many other 21stcentury wonders can be used to efficiently harnessand store the world’s vast supplies of wind, biomass,

and other forms of solar energy—which is 6,000

times as abundant on an annual basis as the fuels wenow use. A series of revolutionary technologies,including solar cells, wind turbines, and fuel cells canturn the enormously abundant but diffuse flows of renewable energy into concentrated electricity andhydrogen that can be used to power factories,homes, automobiles, and aircraft.

These new energy conversion devices occupy about the same position in the economy today thatthe internal combustion engine and electromagneticgenerator held in the 1890s. The key enabling tech-nologies have already been developed and commer-cialized, but they only occupy small niche markets—and their potential future importance is not yet

widely appreciated. As with the automobile andincandescent lightbulb before them, the solar celland hydrogen-electric car are steadily gaining marketshare—and may soon be ready to contribute to athird energy revolution. They could foster a new generation of mass-produced machines that effi-ciently and cleanly provide energy needed to take a

hot shower, sip a cold beer, or surf the Internet.Thanks to a potent combination of advancing

technology and government incentives, motivated inlarge measure by environmental concerns, the onceglacial energy markets are now shifting. During the1990s, wind power has grown at a rate of 26 per-cent per year, while solar energy has grown at 17percent per year. During the same period, the

world’s dominant energy source—oil—has grown at just 1.4 percent per year.

Wind and solar energy currently produce lessthan 1 percent of the world’s energy, but as the

computer industry long ago discovered, double-

Energy for a New Century

8 W ORLD • W ATCH March/April 2000

b y C h r i s t o p h e r F l a v i n

The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones,and the oil age will not end because we run out of oil.

Don Huberts, Shell Hydrogen

(Division of Royal Dutch Shell)



E A R T H D A Y 2 0 0 0

digit growth rates can rapidly turn a tiny sector intoa giant. In the past two years, perhaps a dozen majorcompanies have joined Royal Dutch Shell in

announcing major new investments in giant windfarms, solar manufacturing plants, and fuel celldevelopment. The “alternative” energy industry isbeginning to take on the same kind of buzz thatsurrounded John D. Rockefeller’s feverish expansionof the oil industry in the 1880s—or Bill Gates’searly moves in the software business in the 1980s.This January, stocks of solar and fuel cell companiessuddenly jumped several-fold in a month, followingthe pattern of Internet stocks.

The 21st century may be as profoundly reshapedby the move away from fossil fuels as the 20th cen-

tury was shaped by them. Energy markets, forexample, could shift abruptly, drying up sales of conventional power plants and cars in a matter of

years, and influencing the share prices of scores of companies. The economic health—and politicalpower—of whole nationscould be boosted, or inthe case of theMiddle East,sharply dimin-ished. And oureconomiesand lifestylesare likely tobecome moredecentralized

with the adventof new energy sources thatprovide theirown transportationnetwork—for exam-ple, the sunshine thatalready falls on ourrooftops.

How quickly the

world’s energy economy is transformed will dependin part on whether fossil-fuel prices remain low and

whether the opposition of many oil and electric

power companies to a new system can be overcome.The pace of change will be heavily influenced by thepace of international negotiations on climate changeand of the national implementation plans that fol-low. In the 1980s, California provided tax incentivesand access to the power grid for new energy sources,

which enabled the state to dominate renewable-energy markets worldwide. Similar incentives andaccess have spurred rapid market growth in severalEuropean countries in the 1990s. Such measureshave begun to overcome the momentum of a centu-ry’s investment in fossil fuels.

Earth Day 2000—with its central theme, “CleanEnergy Now!”—provides a timely opportunity forcitizens to express their desire for a new energy sys-tem, and to insist that their elected officials imple-ment the needed policy changes. If they do so,smokestacks and cars may soon look as antiquated asmanual typewriters and horse drawn carriages do.

Christopher Flavin is Senior Vice President at Worldwatch Institute, where he writes primarily

on energy. He is co-author with Nicholas Lenssen of Power Surge: Guide to the

Coming Energy Revolution . Twenty years ago,he was Denis Hayes’ research assistant.

Christopher Flavin:The hope for a sustainable energy economy isno longer an idealistic tilting against windmills—it’s a chance to tilt with them.

3




3

E A RT H D AY 2 0 0 0 A 3 0 - Y E A R R E P O RT C A R D

On the first Earth Day in 1970, experts warned that the planet’s natural systems were

being dangerously destabilized by human industry. Here is how we have fared on some key fronts since then:

Million tons of oil equivalent

1970 1980 1990 2000

PPM

4,800

5,200

5,600

6,000

6,400

6,800

7,200

7,600

8,000

FossilFuels

Burned

325

335

345

355

365

375

CO2Concentration

Degrees Celsius

13.8

13.9

14.0

14.1

14.2

14.3

14.4

14.5

14.6

GlobalTemperature

Billion Dollars

0

20

40

60

80

100

StormDamagesEnergy and

the Climate

Fossil Fuels

CO2

Temperature

Damages

MillionTons

0

100

200

300

400

500

Pesticide-Resistant Weeds

0

50

100

150

200

250Number

0

50

100

150

200

250

Pesticide-Resistant

Crop DiseasesMillionKilograms

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

WorldPesticide

Use

WorldProductionof Synthetic

OrganicChemicals Chemicals and

the BiologicalBoomerang

Pesticides

SyntheticOrganicChemicals Weeds

1970 1980 1990 2000

Crop Diseases

Solution: A faster shift to nonpolluting, renewable solar, wind, and hydrogen energy systems.

As our growing popu-lation increased itsburning of coal and oilto produce power, the car-bon locked in millions of years worth of ancient plant growth was released into theair, laying a heat-retainingblanket of carbon dioxideover the planet. Earth’s tem-perature increased signifi-cantly. Climate scientists hadpredicted that this increase would disrupt weather. Andindeed, annual damagesfrom weather disasters haveincreased over 40-fold.

Our consumptionof chemicals hasexploded, with about three new synthetic chemi-cals introduced each day. Almost nothing is knownabout the long-term healthand environmental effectsof new synthetics, so wehave been ambushedagain and again by belat-ed discoveries. One of themost ominous chroniceffects: as pesticide usehas increased, so has theevolution of pesticide-resistant pests.

Solution: A large-scale shift to organic farming; a shift away from excessive consumption of

synthetic chemical products; and application of the precautionary principle to the chemical indust

10 W ORLD • W ATCH March/April 2000




3

E A R T H D A Y 2 0 0 0

3.5

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0Billions MillionsPopulation

190

270

350

430

510 Autos Hectares perperson

0.11

0.12

0.13

0.14

0.15

0.16

0.17

0.18

GrainCropland

Forest Cover

53

55

57

59

61

63

65

Percent of original forest remaining

Population andthe Land

Autos

1970 1980 1990 2000

Population

Cropland

Forest Cover

Total World

Catchof AtlanticPerch

Gross WorldProduct

1970 1980 1990 2000

Million Tons

World FishCatch RateTons per ton

of fleet capacityTrillion Dollars

Total WorldFishing Fleet Capacity

9

14

19

24

29

34

39

44

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7Million pounds

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Commerce andthe Oceans

15

20

25

30

35

40

Fleet Capacity

GWP

Catch Rate

Atlantic Perch

Population has increasedby as much in the past 30 years as it did in the 100,000 years prior to the mid-20thcentury. And as the number of people has grown, the amount of land used by each person—either directly or througheconomic demand—has alsoexpanded. As a result of thisdouble expansion, incursionsof human activity into agricul-tural and forested land haveaccelerated.

Solution: Stabilize population, especially by improving the economic and social status of women; design cities in ways that reduce distances traveled between home, work, shopping, and school; and in urban transit systems, shift emphasis from cars to public transportation, bicycling, and walking

Solution: Stabilize population growth; stop subsidizing fishing fleets; and end the practice of feeding ocean-caught fish to farmed fish (it takes five pounds of ocean catch to produce one pound of farmed fish), which is still a very profitable and common practice.

The global economyhas more than doubledin the past 30 years, puttingpressure on most countries toincrease export income.Many have tried to increaserevenues by selling moreocean fish—for which thereis growing demand, since theincrease in crop yields nolonger keeps pace with popu-lation growth. Result: overfish-ing is decimating one stockafter another, and the catch isgetting thinner and thinner.

These two pagesmay be reproduced without writtenpermission, provided that they are copied in their entiretyincluding the WORLD W ATCHattributions at the foot.




3

Civil Society: Uttarakhand, India, 1958 A popular movement arises to protest government

mismanagement of Himalayan forest, and the opera-tions of large timber companies engaged in what is

widely regarded as a form of looting. Led mainly by women, the Chipko movement asserts the traditionalrights of villagers to manage their local forests ratherthan submit to management by a distant bureaucracy.The Chipko movement raises the profile of nongovern-mental environmental movements in India, as thou-sands of women stand in the way of tree-cutters. In theensuing years, grass-roots groups proliferate, and

become more numerous in India than in any othercountry. By the 1990s they have become a “thirdforce” in human organization worldwide—a “civil soci-ety” that may soon be strong enough to begin tocounterbalance unresponsive government and industry.

Precautionary Principle: New York, 1962

Rachel Carson publishes a book, Silent Spring , call-ing attention to the rising burden of chemical pollu-tants on the environment. As the burden continues to

worsen in the following decades, it provokes discussionof a new Precautionary Principle—the principle thatthe burden of proof of safety should be on those who

wish to introduce a new chemical, not on those whoclaim to have been injured by it. In the 1990s, theprinciple will be invoked by members of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, a network of the world’s leading climate scientists, in their argumentthat “uncertainty” in climate science should not be areason to avoid preventive action on climate change.

Earth Summit: Stockholm, Sweden, 1972

The United Nations Conference on HumanDevelopment becomes the first global effort to placethe protection of the biosphere on the official agendaof international policy and law. It will be followedby the UN Conference on Human Settlements(HABITAT) in 1976, the first World ClimateConference in 1979, and the UN Conference onEnvironment and Development (Earth Summit) in1992—leading to what has become an essentially con-tinuous process of international discussion on issuesthat concern transnational threats to human security.

Micropower: Sri Lanka, about 1990

In 100 villages, solar panels are installed onrooftops to provide low-cost electricity to homes that

are not on the electric grid. Similar installations arebeing made, around the same time, in the DomicanRepublic, Zimbabwe, and other developing countries.They form the first scatterings of a movement towardthe use of decentralized electric power systems, basedon nonpolluting solar or wind power, that will eventu-ally revolutionize the energy industry worldwide.

GMO-Free Food: Western Europe, 1998

European protesters compel transnational biotechcompanies to halt the rush to use genetically modifiedorganisms (GMOs) in agriculture. Monsanto’s bullishadvertising campaign is scrapped; major food produc-ers and retailers change their food-processing formulas;Monsanto halts its program to force farmers to buy terminator seed.

The Climatic Wake-Up Call: Somewhereon Earth, soon

An extreme weather event strikes a major popula-tion center head-on, with cataclysmic results. Theevent may be a gigantic hurricane or storm surge strik-ing a coastal city, or it may be an inland flood inundat-ing a heavily populated river basin. This time the disas-ter achieves a perceptual critical mass in the global

public—an undeniable recognition that the greatestthreats to human security are not those of military invasion but of environmental degradation. As a result,large-scale campaigns are undertaken to gird for—andstabilize—the future impacts of climate change.

Bioregionalism: U.S. and Canadian Pacific,early 21st century

Along the northern Pacific coast, there is yet anoth-er clash between native peoples and the companies log-ging the region’s remaining old growth rainforest. Butafter decades of controversy over the management of

coastal forests and waters, the native activists discoverthey have a constituency much broader than anythingtheir predecessors enjoyed. From Oregon throughBritish Columbia, they have awakened a latent biore-gional awareness—a widely-shared view that the regionis unique, both ecologically and culturally. This aware-ness begins to reshape local politics, to make it betterreflect the long-term interests of the region itself. Asthe region thrives, people elsewhere come to believe—and act on—the principle that environmental progressoften comes easier when natural regions are givenprecedence over political ones.

And moments (past and future) that could bekeys to the next 30 years . . .

7

E A R T H D A Y 2 0 0 0



Earth Day 2000

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