By Erik Baard

That’s a poor plea for the 21st century, but the American ecological sentiment seems to parallel the St. Augustine’s prayer for chastity and continence as a debauched youth. We seem to want to stay on the just-forgivable side of “sinning” against nature.

Is building a “sustainable economy” a matter of tweaking the machinery of our current lifestyles to stay narrowly within the Earth’s survival margins? Is conservation meant to secure images of natural plenty merely for our own peace of mind?

To save our environment, President-elect Barack Obama will have to do much more than raise automobile fuel standards, reverse President Bush’s ill-conceived executive orders, and invest in alternative energy. He must lead a profound culture change that redefines the material American Dream, or nurture the culture change that starts with us at the grass roots. Despite the campaign slogan “we are the change we need,” it’s truer to say that we need to change. Few voters want to hear that, and no politician will win on that theme.

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The NYTimes reports on a UN report.  Asia’s rise of the middle class is catching up with it and it’s affecting us all.  A large brown cloud, often a mile deep, is often formed over much of Asia and even sometimes extending as far east as California.  What makes up this brown cloud?  Soot and toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants, automobiles, wood-burning kitchen stoves, and slash-and-burn agriculture.

I find this brown cloud to be an illustrative tale of the complexity of the climate change issue.  There is no doubt this development has disastrous effects- $82 billion/year on pollution-related health issues, the further melting of the Himalayan glaciers, altered weather patterns like decreased monsoon rains and increased flooding in areas.  However, this gigantic cloud is also mitigating some of the worst effects of climate change for the rest of the planet because it is reflecting a large amount of sunlight back into space.  If this brown cloud would all of the sudden disappear, we would see accelerated polar ice cap melt and increased temperatures, among other consequences.  Perhaps this brown cloud is like the recent economic bubble and when it finally bursts, we will feel the real effects of what we’ve been doing.  If anything, this UN report should serve to spur us into even greater action to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions, as there really is not going to be any easy fix.

Wish you could turn back some of the environmental decisions the Bush administration has made over the past 8 years?  Yea, us too.  We’ve lost a lot of ground  in taking a serious and active role in mitigating the climate crisis.  But, there is hope with a new administration.  Already, President-Elect Barack Obama is considering three measures to turn back decisions made by Bush.  Read about them here.