Page 35 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

12 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

involved and part of the GIR must be recognized and implemented by nations
and communities sooner rather than later. The United States, for example, must
go beyond the 2IR, with its massive and inefficient fossil fuel generation,
environmental degradation and move rapidly into the GIR, with its community-
centric and environmentally friendly renewable energy generation. Europe and
Japan have already done so for the last 2 decades. Where is America?
Social and economic forces are coming together as the nation ponders its
sustainable future. Now with global warming and climate change impacting
everyone’s daily lives, can anyone wait any longer? On an economic front, the
world is battling the most severe economic turndown since the Great Depression
of the 1930s. Nationwide, states are reeling with the loss of tax and real estate
development revenue. California has been “bankrupted” by its governor, whose
efforts to balance a shattered budget are subject to serious questions.
California is the world’s eighth largest economy. Nine years ago, the state
was the world’s sixth largest economy and held the distinction as number seven
from 2003 to 2008. However, in mid-2008, the recession started. The basic
result of the California budget signed in September 2009 was to handicap the
entire state from its public education and welfare systems to basic needs such as
fire, police, water, energy, waste, transportation, and prisons. On the other coast,
the American auto industry, once the nation’s pride as the leader of the global
manufacturing sector, is on life support from the federal government. The era of
the V8 and the megaton SUV is fading in the review mirror as it should have a
decade ago. Now General Motors (GM) is renamed by the general public and
federal government decision makers as Government Motors.
Americans are wondering what their vital interests in any international arena
should be. The world’s oil and natural gas supplies have peaked and are rapidly
declining. As the Shell Oil geophysicist M. King Hubbert observed in his
startling prediction, first made in 1949, the fossil fuel era would be of very short
duration in “Energy from Fossil Fuels, Science” [February 4, 1949]. In 1956,
Hubert predicted that US oil production would peak in about 1970 and then
decline. At the time he was scoffed at, but in hindsight he proved remarkably
accurate.
Just as the world’s oil and natural gas supplies have peaked, there is renewed
interest in nuclear power. This too is a false hope. The US Department of
Energy has reported a key set of figures documenting the declining and limited
supplies of gas, oil, and coal. One surprising statistic, which bodes badly for the
nuclear industry, is that, there are only 61 years left of uranium.
While America’s domestic oil supplies peaked in the 1970s, and interna-
tional oil supplies sometime around the early part of the 21st century (estimates
are now at 2030), and with demand rising from newly developed nations,
pushing for more oil and gas with tax breaks or even land options is the wrong
policy and certainly not part of the GIR. When these measures and others
related to “balancing a budget” for the short term are then implemented, it
means future generations will be paying taxes for years at triple or quadruple