From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Ca. Green Platform, Ecology Section (was Re: Gas Tax?)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:46:24 GMT

In article <28531@dog.ee.lbl.gov> b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman) writes:
>I wish the Green Party well, but as I pay particular attention to
>solid waste issues, I was very disappointed when I ran across this
>section of the platform a year ago or so, and I don't have the
>impression that there is interest in the Party in radically changing
>it.
>
>I'll deal with just the first few paragraphs as an example of what
>is wrong with the rest of it.
>
>>> Nature uses and reuses everything through continual recycling. We 
>>> should pattern our use of resources after this model; we should 
>>> use resources in sustainable cycles. Our motto should be reduce, 
>>> reuse and recycle.
>
>The idea here is that because nature recycles materials, and because
>it is often an improvement for people to recycle, there is an
>equivalency between these.  If recycling was good in and of itself,
>we'd want to produce as much waste as possible, then recycle all of it.
>The fact that recycling in a human context is often good is derived
>from the options we face, not because the act of recycling has any
>specific inherent value.  More simply, recycling is a means, not an
>ends, but the platform treats recycling as the end.
>
>It also lumps in reduction with recycling (some reuse most resembles
>reduction and some is closer to recycling).  Reduction is much more
>important than recycling and not particularly similar to it.
>Putting them together obscures the reasons why and how we want to
>pursue each of these.
>
>>> California alone produces more waste than does the whole of 
>>> China.  We are squandering our resources through wasteful 
>>> practices like excessive packaging.  We are throwing away useful 
>>> resources by burying them in massive and useless landfills. 
>
>It may be unintentional, but paragraphs like this make it seem as
>though landfills are the main reason to worry about waste, but
>for the kinds of waste being discussed, they are a small part
>of the picture, environmentally AND economically.  The landfill-focus
>detracts from focusing on the real benefits of changing consumption
>and disposal patterns, and how to be effective at it.
>
>(skipping down)
>
>>> + We should rapidly phase out composites and other materials that 
>>> cannot be recycled.
>
>It is simplistic, absolutist, and simply wrong statements like
>this that cause the Green Party to lose credibility with many
>people who might otherwise be sympathetic.
>
>>> + We should restructure garbage rates to encourage reduction in 
>>> the volume of waste.
>
>Aside from yard waste, is there any evidence that this actually
>happens?  It can encourage people to recycle, but that doesn't
>do anything about the volume of waste.  And diverting yard waste,
>while laudable, doesn't affect industrial production, and so
>has a much smaller effect than reducing other parts of the solid
>waste stream.
>
>The Green Party isn't unique in its approach to this issue,
>but I would have hoped for a more enlightened view of the
>topics from them.  I'm a long-run optimist, and hope to one
>day read a substantially different platform, that would provide
>the basis for making substantial improvements in the environment
>along these lines.
>
>Bruce Nordman
>B_Nordman@lbl.gov

If someone were to read the platforms of the Democratic or Republican
parties, I think you would see many statements which are as absolutist
as any in the Green platforms.  Republican cave-ins to the religious
right are well known.  I assume there are similar things in the
Democratic platform.  Frankly, platforms aren't known for being
pragmatic documents and maybe the Hawai'ian document has a head start
here.  We are developing ours in Colorado and we will see how it turns
out.

I hope people  make their judgements on the Greens (or anyone) based on
overall content, as Bruce seems to be doing, and not on a few items.  
-- 
==============================================================================
	Dean Myerson     (aka dingo in boulder)     dean@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.environment