All year long we have been subjected to an unending parade of frivolous, meaningless nonsense masquerading as "issues" in the Presidential campaign. The mainstream media repetitively parrots every bit of gossip conjured up and bats it back and forth between the candidates, to get their "reaction" to it, and that of their supporters, then the opinions of analysts as to how the gossip or their reaction to it or their supporters reaction to it will affect the campaign. Why does this pass for news?
Perhaps this is to be expected of the same news channels that otherwise fill their airtime with the latest goings on of trashy bimbos in Hollywood, but often the more cerebral activist class gets drawn into discussing the same drivel. We should be propounding issues that matter.
Have you ever stopped to consider how some of the most mundane and boring policy changes might radically improve the world - and be enacted with a minimum of wailing and gnashing of teeth? (more...)
Why dont we ever hear any discussion from our leaders of things that actually make a difference?
Here are a few examples:
A Frenzy over The Standard Building Code - Virtually all municipal and county governments have adopted the standard Building Code for their region of the country, which their Building Departments employ legions of clerks, inspectors, and bureaucrats to enforce. For the moment, ignore the ways which even having a standard ("one size fits all") Code impacts technical innovation toward 'building green' generally. Lets not even go into the issues of insulation, double pane windows and the like, which the new Residential LEED standard addresses. The Code as written enfranchises some real absurdities, which, if changed, would profoundly affect the environment.
- Half of all tap water used in the United States is spent to flush toilets. Were the Building Code to specify the use of on-site greywater to flush all commodes in new residential construction, and to supply outside faucets for lawn watering/landscape irrigation, the impact would be monumental. They flush their toilets with DRINKING water? What's THAT all about??
- In most of the country for most of the year, the fresh water condensate from residential and commercial Air Conditioning systems is quite substantial. If you dont believe this, just plug up the drain on your unit, and watch the flood materialize in your home. In most households, this quantity of water (15 - 20 gallons/day in the south) can easily exceed the amount of water people in the home actually consume or cook with. Reclamation of this distilled water is as simple as making sure there is no lead solder used in the condenser, and that microbial buildup is inhibited (there are many ways to do this). Put through a simple filter, this water will then test as clean as what comes out of the tap from the local municipal supply. Much has been made of the Code encouraging the use of A/C units with higher SEER (energy efficiency) ratings, but Code changes to establish condensate water recovery from A/C systems would have at least as great an overall impact.
- The use of waterless urinals in public [male] restrooms has been on the GSA schedule for new federal construction for years. They turn out to be bionetically cleaner than wet urinals, without residual water to provide a growth medium for bacteria. The water savings are phenomenal, and to the "user" the fixture looks about the same and no changes in its usage are required.
- Asphalt Shingles and Rainwater Catchment are incompatible. Asphalt, a product made from petroleum, lasts 10 to 15 years on a roof before requiring replacement; during that time, it gradually dissolves, leaching dozens of toxic organic compounds into the rainwater which drains off it. It is unwise to drink rainwater from an asphalt roof, as the leachate is carcinogenic. After being replaced (houses generally last through several successive roofings with asphalt shingles), the old shingles continue to dissolve at the landfill, and the toxic leachate just drains into the water table. Standing seam metal roofs, which are warranted to last 50 to 60 years (depending on manufacturer) leach nothing into the rainwater which passes over them, and facilitate its use as a major source of residential tap water. (Ceramic tile, and the emerging variety of building-integral Solar PV roofing systems also enable this, but with different cost and longevity factors.) If the Code were to eliminate the use of asphalt shingles and provide for the use of cisterns in rainwater catchment, incorporated into the residential plumbing system, a dramatic new source of water is added to the equation.
The Excitement of Sanitary Landfills - I remember, years ago in Central Florida, being struck by the fact that archeologists had just identified the Ayce Indians, who had lived in the area 5,000 years earlier, by their "kitchen middens", because their answer to solid waste was to pile it up into heaps, and let it rot. Five Thousand Years of Human Progress later, we still do the same thing. Municipalities everywhere are running out of landfill capacity, and its just as well. The ones which already exist are one of the nation's largest sources of pollution, as they outgas Methane into the atmosphere, leach toxic chemicals into the water table, and contaminate the soil for all time.
In the last 20 years, Waste-to-Energy technology has advanced from simply 'Co-Firing' shredded refuse with Coal, to practical [thermobaric] liquifaction and [plama] gasification, which result in valuable - and Carbon neutral - synthetic fuels. These systems are now profitable to operate, and some are even being built by commercial investors without the use of "tipping fees" collected by the municipality from the residential garbage hauling contractors, or the residential solid waste charges billed to utility customers on a monthly basis.
Since this can now be done in ways which pay for itself, and all such Waste-to-Energy systems both displace fossil fuels and keep Methane (which is 20x to 70x as potent a Greenhouse Gas as Carbon Dioxide) out of the atmosphere, no city in America has a justification for not moving in this direction. Capturing Methane from existing Landfills is nice, but ending the entire practice of landfilling is a more significant solution. Financially, the new generation of WTE systems turn a municipal expense (solid waste management) into a source of revenue (from net tipping fees, customer receipts, and participation in the energy revenues).
The bottom line is that a wise and simple policy of banning the practice of Municipal Landfilling in the United States (over some phase-out period, to allow for WTE plant construction) would have a greater impact in terms of environmental energy, pollution, and climate change than the more glamorous issues of Solar, Wind, or Nuclear. Of course, these are not mutually exclusive options.
The Sensational Nature of Sewage - Even more so than their landfills, municipal sewage systems are one of America's largest sources of Water and Air pollution, particularly contributing to the release of Methane and severe contamination of the nation's waterways and coastal environments. As with Municipal Solid Waste, Municipal Sewage Sludge can now be converted to fuel gas economically (by either Anaerobic Digester or Plasma Gasification) or converted to Syncrude by any of several competing technologies. Unfortunately, local public works bureaucrats are loathe to adopt new technology which changes the way they've been doing things for the past century. Sewage is usually not talked about as an issue in local politics any more than it is in state or national politics, but its implications are greater than those of most other items which command the national attention.
This issue will come onto the national agenda sooner or later under any circumstances, as existing wastewater treatment systems are reaching capacity all over the country, and a large percentage of these local governments are already at or near their statutory limits on bonded indebtedness.
An outright ban on the municipal discharge of wastewater, and on the release of Methane from treatment facilities would lead to the conversion of all American sludge into energy in a fairly short period of transition. Again, the needed facilities can be financed with private capital, representing a financial boon to the cities involved. The residue from biogas production using digesters is a liquid fertilizer product which is far superior to the use of biosolids directly, while plasma processing produces a vitreous (glassy) inorganic mineral solid which makes an excellent aggregate for use in road construction. The vast amounts of water which would be reclaimed as a byproduct of this policy are obviously going to be needed in the very near future.
All of these issues can be addressed at the local, state, or national levels, by regulation, legislation, or litigation. The only source of political opposition to the Building Code issues would come from the homebuilder industry - and they are, as a trade association, already firmly commited to advancing the penetration of 'green building' technologies into their industry. The changes suggested above are milder and offer less disruptive impact to the typical builder than many others already being implemented in the Residential LEED standard. Since many communities now impose "utility impact fees" on each new home constructed (from which houses compliant with the above might be exempted), the net cost impact on the builder and homebuyer would turn out to be significantly less than seems apparent at first glance, especially once utility savings over the life of the home are taken into account.
Putting an end to the pollution of municipal landfills and municipal sewage plants is even more straight forward. It is difficult to imagine anyone other than municipal public works bureaucrats forming a serious bloc in opposition to these measures. Local elected officials - and taxpayers - cannot help but benefit from the transformation of their garbage and sewage systems from major cost centers into sources of revenue. The Waste-to-Energy industry has now matured, technologies and financing options have proliferated, and billions of dollars in private capital are already raised in funds which invest in public/private partnerships for municipal infrastructure development.
Nobody wants to apply political effort to these very mundane and unglamorous issues. We'd rather fight about Abortion, Gay Marriage, Flag Burning, Stem Cells, and displays of the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Have you checked the vanishing mountain snow melt lately?