Think Green Sustainability Fair
Despite the dangerous threats of climate change, war and a deteriorating economy, it is possible to create a positive future for the world.
That is the view of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, who spoke at an environmental conference at the Rochester Civic Center on Saturday. Nelson-Pallmeyer is the director of peace and justice studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.
He said the current decade is the most important decade in human history and that it will determine the quality of life for all future generations.
Nelson-Pallmeyer noted that corrective action --- to be effective --- must be started in the next two years. He said that four major steps will be required.
They are:
- We must quit waging war and begin waging peace world-wide.
- We must build a sustainable economy and stop global warming by abandoning fossil fuels, switching to renewable energy and adopting green building practices.
- We must use Step 2 as a means of creating new industries and many thousands of new jobs in the United States.
- We must work to eliminate poverty and inequality around the world, to serve the goals of peace and justice and to avoid military conflicts.
He added that, in order to achieve these goals, we will need to build a nation-wide people’s movement to provide the political support for the urgent changes that the goals will require.
There is very little time for effecting these changes. Scientists have said that if no action is taken in the next two years, it will be too late to stop global warming and degradation of the environment.
In addition, we will not have the resources to address climate change if we keep spending billions on the Iraq war and other conflicts. The nation now spends 88 times as much per year for military purposes as for improving the environment.
Nelson-Pallmeyer said that support for these major reforms must come from the people --- they must energize the political leaders if substantial changes are to be made.
He quotes Lester Brown, author and head of the Earth Policy Institute, on the economic advantages of creating a sustainable society. Brown has said that, for $161 billion a year, we could end world-wide poverty, reforest the earth and improve the environment --- and that is only two-thirds of the cost of current subsides to the fossil fuel industry.
Nelson-Pallmeyer said that improving the environment will produce profits, not costs. He quotes the Stern Commission, in Great Britain, which reported that addressing climate change would cost 1 percent of the global economy while not doing so would cost 20 to 30 percent of the global economy forever into the future.
While the tasks we face are difficult, Nelson-Pallmeyer said that people are hungry for the right policies and the time is ripe for moving society in a new direction.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak also spoke at the meeting. He was invited because Minneapolis was named as #7 in the 2008 Sustainlane US City Rankings on greening of the 50 most populous cities in the nation.
The program also included 19 workshops on the many different ways to use renewable energy and improve the environment.
Sponsors of the day’s program were 22 public state and local government agencies and non-profit agencies.
