The Liberation of the Environment

1
The Liberation of the Environment

• By Jesse H. Ausubel

Summary Danny Colles Critique
Samuel Parker
2
What is Liberation?

• The decoupling of goods and services from demands
  on planetary resources by using energy, land,
  water, and materials more efficiently.
• Ausubel argues that present cultural conditions
  already favor this liberation.

3
Energy

• The energy system is defined by two properties
• 1) Freeing itself from carbon
• 2) Rising efficiency

4
Decarbonization

• Carbon is in coal, oil, gas, and wood but we
  dont use it for energy. We use the hydrogen.
• Over the last two hundred years the world has
  been using less and less carbon.
• The ratio of tons of carbon in the primary energy
  supply to units of energy produced decreases
  0.3 each year. It is down 40 since 1860.
• Benefits of hydrogen are that it can be produced
  from water and its combustion does not pollute.

5
Rising Energy Efficiency

• Rising efficiency in the generation,
  transmission, distribution, and consumption of
  energy.
• In the US since 1800, goods and services have
  cost 1 less energy each year to produce.
• Ratio of theoretical minimum energy consumption
  to actual energy consumption is still only around
  5.

6
Energy Efficiency Continued

• In three hundred years the efficiency of engines
  increased form 1 to about 50 of theoretical
  limit. Fuel cells are expected to raise this to
  70 in another fifty years.
• Since the invention of the first lamp in 1879 to
  gallium arsenide diodes in the 1960s, efficiency
  has greatly increased. Ausubel theorized that
  nightglasses that run on milliwatts of power may
  increase efficiencies even more.
• Ausubel also theorizes magnetically levitated
  trains in low pressure tunnels that can travel at
  several thousand kilometers per hour.

7
Land

• Agriculture has the most impact on the
  environment. In the US, 20 of the land is used
  for crops and another 25 is used for pasture.
• Even with increasing population the amount of
  land used globally for agriculture has remained
  stable.
• A shift toward vegetarian diets could roughly
  halve our need for land. This is not likely
  since humans naturally resist this sort of shift.
  Therefore we must depend on increased yield per
  area of land.

8
Increased Yield

• Due to innovations in seeds, chemicals, and
  irrigation US wheat yields have tripled since
  1940 and corn fields have quintupled.
• These rising yields save a lot of land from being
  used for crops and prevents the loss of
  biodiversity and other environmental problems.

9
Water

• Water is often considered our most valuable
  natural resource. It is also one of the most
  wasted.
• In the US, total per capita water withdrawals
  quadrupled between 1900 and 1970. However, since
  1975 water use has been falling at an annual rate
  of 1.3.
• In the 1980s wastewater made up 90 of US
  hazardous waste. With the invention and rising
  efficiency of wastewater purifiers, water use is
  being greatly reduced.

10
Dematerialization

• Ausubel defines dematerialization as the decline
  in the weight of materials used to meet a given
  economic function.
• Lowering the amount of materials we use preserves
  natural resources and reduces garbage.
• Lumber, steel, lead, and copper are being used
  much less while plastic and aluminum are used
  more.
• The problem with dematerialization is even though
  superior materials lower the amount used per unit
  of quantity, they also cause markets to grow and
  more units are produced. This offsets the
  benefit of minimized waste.
• Recycling is an important part of decreasing
  waste. Since 1990 recycling has accounted for
  over half of the metals consumed in the US

11
Liberation from the Environment

• Science and technology have been liberating us
  from our environment more and more. They allow
  us to protect our health and safety in the face
  of dangerous environmental conditions.
• Typhoid and Cholera were contained by water
  filtration, chlorination and water/sewage
  treatment.
• Air borne diseases were contained by replacing
  sweatshops with larger better ventilated
  workplaces and medical intervention.
• Also, humans spend much less time outside than
  they used to. Fewer than 5 of people in
  industrialized nations work outdoors. Japan even
  has indoor ski-slopes and an indoor beach.
• Due to advancements in medicine and other
  technologies, people are affected less and less
  by the changes in the natural environment in
  which they live.

12
Liberation of the Environment

• In gaining the security we now have against
  environmental dangers, we have transformed the
  landscape around us. Now people have realized
  that they may have changed too much.
• Ausubel claims that Green is the new religion.
  He believes that a highly efficient hydrogen
  economy, landless agriculture, and industrial
  ecosystems in which waste virtually disappears,
  will allow for prosperous human populations to
  coexist with the whales and the lions and the
  eagles and all that underlie them.

13
The Liberation of the Environment

• By Jesse H. Ausubel
• Critique by Samuel Parker

14
Critique

• Thesis/Main Point of the article
• Strengths in the authors arguments
• Weaknesses in the arguments
• Conclusion

15
Thesis

• The question is whether the technology that has
  extended our reach can now also liberate the
  environment from human impact and perhaps even
  transform the environment for the better. My
  answer is that well-established trajectories,
  raising the efficiency with which people use
  energy, land, water, and materials, can cut
  pollution and leave much more soil unturned. What
  is more, present cultural conditions favor this
  movement.

16
Strengths

• Covers a relatively broad range of issues
• Points out that there are forces other than
  environmental awareness that move nations toward
  better practices
• Addresses differences between developed and
  developing nations

17
Weaknesses

• Majority of arguments and statistics are loosely
  supported, if at all.
• Generalizes trajectories and attitudes in the US
  and Europe extending them to all nations.
• Arguments build upon each other.

18
Conclusion

• A highly efficient hydrogen economy, landless
  agriculture, industrial ecosystems in which waste
  virtually disappears over the coming century
  these can enable large, prosperous human
  populations to co-exist with the whales and the
  lions and the eagles and all that underlie them
  if we are mentally prepared, which I believe we
  are. We have liberated ourselves from the
  environment. Now it is time to liberate the
  environment itself.

19
The Liberation of the Environment

• By Jesse H. Ausubel
• Critique by Samuel Parker