Design Is The Problem. Nathan Shedroff
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the emotion and ambiguity surrounding most social issues aren’t part of the picture. Environmental issues are often measured and addressed in terms of materials and energy use (both amount and type of each). There is often little disagreement that toxins, for example, are bad for people, but there may be considerable disagreement over how they should be measured, how bad they may be for people, what levels are “acceptable,” and how these concerns weigh against financial, sourcing, or access trade-offs.
Like social criteria, environmental measures can be exhaustive with little agreement over priorities or validation, and include the following areas to consider:
Consumption and conservation of energy
Consumption and conservation of water
Consumption and conservation of air
Consumption and conservation of organic materials (including food)
Consumption and conservation of inorganic materials
Consumption and conservation of recycled and upcycled materials
Consumption, conservation, and source of energy (and percentage renewable)
Production and reduction of pollution and other toxic emissions to air, water, and land (there are thousands of potential substances under this category alone)
Production and reduction of waste
Production and reduction of product packaging (including biodegradable)
Consumption and conservation of transportation (including energy, source, amount, and emissions)
Area of land disturbed, protected, or restored
Disturbance or preservation of biodiversity
Example: Nuclear Power
For example, nuclear power is once again considered a prominent alternative, despite the disregard it was met with in the 1970s. This is because it’s now being touted as a more environmentally beneficial solution since it emits far fewer greenhouse gases during electricity generation than coal or other traditional power plants. It is widely accepted as a somewhat dangerous, potentially problematic, but manageable source of generating electricity. Radiation isn’t easily dealt with, especially in nuclear waste and maintenance materials, and expensive solutions are needed to contain, control, and shield both people and the environment from its harm. The dialogue about using nuclear power—and expanding it—centers on weighing these risks against the rewards, as well as the risks inherent in other forms of power generation. These are just some of the issues involved.
Pros
Lower carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) released into the atmosphere in power generation.
Low operating costs (relatively).
Known, developed technology “ready” for market.
Large power-generating capacity able to meet industrial and city needs (as opposed to low-power technologies like solar that might meet only local, residential, or office needs but cannot generate power for heavy manufacturing).
Existing and future nuclear waste can be reduced through waste recycling and reprocessing, similar to Japan and the EU (at added cost).
Cons
High construction costs due to complex radiation containment systems and procedures.
High subsidies needed for construction and operation, as well as loan guarantees.
Subsidies and investment could be spent on other solutions (such as renewable energy systems).
High-known risks in an accident.
Unknown risks.
Long construction time.
Target for terrorism (as are all centralized power generation sources).
Waivers are required to limit liability of companies in the event of an accident. (This means that either no one will be responsible for physical, environmental, or health damages in the case of an accident or leakage over time from waste storage, or that the government will ultimately have to cover the cost of any damages.)
Nuclear is a centralized power source requiring large infrastructure, investment, and coordination where decentralized sources (including solar and wind) can be more efficient, less costly, and more resilient.
Uranium sources are just as finite as other fuel sources, such as coal, natural gas, etc., and are expensive to mine, refine, and transport, and produce considerable environmental waste (including greenhouse gasses) during all of these processes.
The majority of known uranium around the world lies under land controlled by tribes or indigenous peoples who don’t support it being mined from the earth.
The legacy of environmental contamination and health costs for miners and mines has been catastrophic.
Waste lasts 200–500 thousand years.
There are no operating long-term waste storage sites in the U.S. One is in development, but its capacity is already oversubscribed. Yucca Mountain is in danger of contaminating ground water to a large water basin, affecting millions of people. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to impose its will on the state of Nevada (or other places) if they don’t want to host long-term storage of waste.
There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors and particle-beam activated reactors, that are reported to produce less waste and have reduced safety concerns. Even if these technologies were ready, they wouldn’t be deployable commercially for another two decades.
Shipping nuclear waste internationally poses an increased potential threat to interception to terrorism (though this has not happened yet with any of the waste shipped by other countries). Increasing the amount of waste shipped, particularly in less secure countries, is seen as a significant increase in risk to nuclear terrorism.
This is just a taste of the complexity of issues involved with nuclear power. Every issue, from a systems perspective, quickly becomes a complex discussion juxtaposing factors from financial, environmental, social, and political realms.
Financial Measures
How we measure financial returns says a lot about our values, just as it does with social and environmental returns. We can’t ignore financial measures—even in nonprofit endeavors—but we have to be aware of what to measure and what not to measure. Sustainability asks us to consider a host of nonfinancial issues in designing and developing new solutions. These may not be able to be quantified in numbers or currency. Regardless, even when they can’t be represented in financial terms, they are still important.
Currently, economic activities are measured in time-honored ways, such as assets, liabilities, expenses, profits, interest, and so on. These, however, are based on assumptions about how markets work that date back decades and ignore environmental and social values. For example, our markets assume that the value of money decreases over time. This is why interest exists: to compensate for getting back less value than what you loaned. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. It’s simply an agreement in our economic models. We could have just as easily created a model that assumed the opposite. Again, this is about design.
A common approach to business and finances in the West was famously described by Milton Friedman: “The business of business is business.” This is an attempt to dismiss social and environmental concerns from business and the marketplace, partly because it’s so difficult to measure and integrate these issues. This attitude has dismissed businesses from any requirement of responsibility based on social and environmental outcomes and their effects.
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