Green Leader

We were raised with the ideal that ‘all men are created equal’. It took us a long time to achieve this ideal at least in policy/law, and our consciousness, if not yet in all our actions, except probably for the Gay community today. In fact, we had to make the ideal more real because our founding fathers excluded some (at least women and blacks, gays for sure) from the equality ideal. We’re still working on race and other biases and the mental models or generalizations we have for each other. Our strength is in our diversity, our commitment to equality, along with a willingness to update our mental models to get closer and closer to the ideal that ‘all men are created equal’ in all aspects of our society.

We were also raised with ideal that we have ‘certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. Our mental model of personal freedom derives from that statement in Declaration of Independence, the body of our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights. Because those mental models were supported by the historical concept and stories of our ‘manifest destiny’; Paul Bunyan chopping down trees, Daniel Boone conquering the wilderness up through John Wayne winning the West, ‘Westward Ho!’ and all that, we have a mental model of personal freedom that is expansive, consumptive, and pits man against nature. Personal freedom has come to mean you can do anything, have anything, throw away anything as long as you don’t harm anyone else directly or break the law.

In the 21st Century, we have to radically change our views of personal freedom. Our personal freedom has to be restricted by the needs of other people, the declining resources available, and the waste and pollution caused by personal freedom choices. Personal freedom in the 21st century still means that we pursue Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but supported by sustainable and responsible personal freedom. We don’t have the right to over-consume, over-waste, over-populate, over-pollute, or further degrade the environment. You don’t have the right to destroy the future for our kids and grandkids.

In a democratic society right now, we are not likely to issue personal freedom edict limits. China took an unusual and harsh step in the 20th century because they had no choice but to limit population growth with their one child/family law or face rampant poverty, starvation, famine. I am not a fan of communism, nor the China regime, and maybe not even their one child/family law imposition, but I admire their fortitude (whether communist or not, this was not a popular or public supported decision) and their commitment to protecting China and more of their humans from the plight of starvation and poverty. Since edict in a democratic country isn’t our way, to drive behavior change and/or to recoup the costs of non-sustainable personal lifestyle choices, we have to drive cost to cost causer. What are the costs, you say? The costs in aggregate are easy to list, the cost of fixing added pollution in earth, air, and water, the cost to society of depleting resources that are not recoverable, the cost of using resources faster than they can renew themselves, the cost of environmental clean-up or the loss of total environments. Assigning those costs exactly or directly would be difficult, but it doesn’t need to be that accurate. An order of magnitude percentage would be totally workable. Yes, I do mean progressively tax the heck out of unsustainable lifestyle choices, purchases, activities, and services. Sometimes the additional cost to the business or consumer customer would have to be reasonable, other times so high that the additional cost all but stops the unsustainable action. As we start this move to more sustainable living and driving cost to the cost causer, we would need to relook at our income tax structure to determine if it would require reform to align with cost to cost causer taxes and to ensure that the government doesn’t get more money for the general pool except in relation to priorities the public can more directly impact and so that the public can assure no earmarks and pork.

Let’s have some fun with whether you or I have the right to make some specific personal or personal lifestyle choices:

Do we have the right to fly a private jet or plane whenever, wherever, no matter how many people are flying?

• As someone that lives in the same atmosphere as you, you don’t have the right to release that much Greenhouse Gas into the air I have to breathe and then cause me, my kids and grandkids to live in the climate change you contributed to.
• I don’t own a plane; I love the convenience of commercial flying, but limit my flying due to GHG emissions.
• Solutions: Ban businesses from having private jets (most governmental applications too); Apply significant luxury tax to plane/jet purchase with annual tax for use plus additional tax for jet fuel use for any flying except commercial.
• This approach probably applies to pleasure boats as well.

As a smoker, do I have the right to pay the same amount for health insurance as someone who doesn’t smoke?

• Although for me it is very hard to quit, it is still my personal choice to continue smoking. Smokers cost society’s healthcare system a lot more. My insurance needs to cost me more. It does have to be reasonable to ensure I maintain my insurance, say 20% more than the average person of the same age and sex.

1. The same applies for obesity: 50 lbs overweight (maybe 10% more cost), 100 lbs overweight (20% more), over 100 lbs overweight (30% more cost). Although very hard to lose weight as we all know, being overweight and not exercising is a lifestyle choice.
2. The same applies to drug and alcohol abuse and probably some other health related personal choices, e.g., riding a motorcycle without a helmet ( we already have laws about not wearing a seatbelt), etc.
3. What this increased coverage cost does NOT apply to (unlike our broken current system) are pre-existing conditions, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, MS, Parkinson’s, genetic diseases, preventive care, etc. The objective is to focus on the root cause, not a symptom or something an individual has no control of.

Do I have the right to buy and drive a car that is large and gets terrible gas mileage?

• No and over time there should be a minimum miles per gallon for all vehicles on our roads, as well as a higher standard for miles per gallon with a tax, if your car doesn’t meet those standards. Any non-work related vehicle over a certain wait also carries an upfront luxury tax and an annual recurring tax.

Do I have the right to have more than two kids, even three kids?

• I see families on TV with 18 kids showing off as if having that many kids is a badge of honor. I think back to stories with my kids, like “What If Everybody Did That?”, I am not impressed. It is irresponsible.
• Understand that adding one middle class person in the United States, Europe, or really anywhere in the world costs the world 30 to 32 more in resources consumed, energy, consumed, waste and pollution created, and significantly adds to environmental degradation, as seemingly ‘free’ ecosystem services are further taxed by human demand. Keep in mind, we have already surpassed the Earth’s human carrying capacity by all the 14 studies I reviewed and none of those studies used the high level of the American lifestyle to calculate how many humans the Earth can support.
• This is a tough one. You keep your deductions up to two kids, but lose the deductions and pay more, if you have additional kids?!

In addition

• Do I have the right to have multiple houses with huge square footage?
• Do I have the right to have multiple boats, cars, etc.?
• Do I have the right to idle my car for as long as I want?
• Does America have the right to have drive-throughs (strong contribution to GHG emissions)?
• Do we have the right to build even one more coal plant?
• Do I have the right to buy books that are not printed on recycled paper with soy-based inks? I have worked at reducing my consumption, so my love of reading and having books is where I consume. I probably don’t have the right, but don’t have a sustainable choice. The personal freedom question is more does a company have a right to sell non-sustainable products and services when there are viable alternatives? And/or, does society have a responsibility to ban the non-sustainable product or service and help those businesses transition.
• Do governments have the right to build anymore arms when the resources are a direct reduction in what can be applied to meet human needs? No one will tackle this one.
• Does anyone have the right to use agricultural lands to grow plants for biofuel when we know that every inch of farmable land is required to feed the people we have?
• ETC. and ETC. and ETC.

The discussion of personal freedom easily slips into the rights of America as a country in world society. We don’t have the right with 3% of the population, to consume 25% of the world’s oil, over 25% more resources per capita, create over 25% more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than any other country (our use of fresh water per capita is even worse). This is not just from a climate change and environmental impact perspective, but a fairness and responsibility basis. Would it be much of a surprise for the International Community at some point to apply sanctions to the US for over-use of resources, too much emission of GH gases? Heck, if I could figure out a way to sue us or a corporation loudly enough, I would do it just to wake us up to the changes we have to make.

Since that suing for change daydream is not going to happen, it is important for each of us to look at our mental models and create a new mental model for personal freedom that includes sustainability and responsibility. Each of us needs a foundation in sustainability, which is very easy to learn at www.thenaturalstep.org. It also means helping other people to change their mental models of personal freedom.

By Debbie Deland, Director of The 10% Initiative. She works with Green Cities Florida, the Chamber of Commerce, and NetImpact.

Tags: Sustainability

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Sustainability, US. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.