Big Thoughts from the Last 48

Unlike a normal posts, this is a bit of a smathering of thoughts.  The last few days have me asking big questions in response to posts by others.  Here are just a few:

“Pastor, it is on days like today that I think on the two kingdoms principle. We live in the temporal kingdom stained by sin and suffering. The life we have, however, comes from the kingdom of grace, love, and peace. These tragedies defy our understanding, but a God who is called love is ever with us, standing in our midst, holding us and those struck by this pain. Our call is not so much understand, but to be understood in our grief. The kingdom of Christ is a different place, a place that is beyond our pain, that he has given us his grace to see. My best to you as you prepare a message for this third Sunday in Advent. May Christ's kingdom come.”

“But on the training of morality, responsibility, and honor, how are we doing as a society? I don't question actually that parents are the ones that have primacy to ensure that their minor(s) understand the rules of conduct and gains understanding of self worth and values. I just ask, are we, as Americans being effective or are we failing at this?

Having asked the question, another comes to mind. How can a society that has prohibited it self from the establishment of religion (now interpreted beyond simply the choosing of one or another Judeo- Christian denomination, to the possible imposition of any religion's imagery being placed in or prayers being led by an institution of state), define for itself a set of morals that are universal and can't be countered as a violation of that same establishment clause? And as a complimentary question, how can a society exist with out a core set of values and morals without a resulting chaos and morass of tragedy because there is not a universal ethic that can be enforced or referenced that defines appropriate and stable social constructs and relationships?

..., but how are we doing at holding one another accountable? What is the standard we should follow to determine good parenting from bad? Who enforces responsibility? I am not giving answers to these questions because I don't have iron clad good responses. But the questions are at the core of the issue here and can't be avoided.”

“…, got it, but when do we know when someone's going to crack? This is very analogous to the suicide issue we have been contending with in the Army. We have signs, we have done training, it's about butting into another person's life, and at least in the Army we have a method and process that allows us to do that, but we have struggled, at best, to arrest the problem. Keeping those that are mentally and/or emotionally unsuitable away from guns is a very hard thing to do, and is antithetical to part of our fundamental ethos of privacy and individualism. This is tough, tough stuff that we can't continue to pretend has any easy or one sided answers, and I don't pretend to even have a hard answer at this point.”

Who built it?

This morning I saw a post from a High School friend on Facebook commenting on the following blog post by John Green (of “The Fault in Our Stars” et. al. fame):  http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/30565841330/i-didnt-build-that

In an election year that is charged with hyperbole, this is a current end to a back and forth debate of “who built that?”  It is most prominently/contemporaneously a counterpoint to a punch-line of the just completed Republican National Convention, where many a placard stated “We built that”; a clear indication that it is those entrepreneurs that invest or develop businesses that are the engines for prosperity and job growth in the American economic system.  This article (the blog post above) cites the opposite thesis, in that, it is not “you who built it” but the system and workers that work for you that built it, or at the very least made it possible.  I have posted elsewhere some notes on economics, but I think I need to wade in on this banter between two poles that seem unwilling to see the common ground between them.

As I cited in my comment reply to my friend, this is not an “either/or” proposition, but one that needs to be recognized as a “both/and” proposition.  We need individuals that are risk takers, investors, entrepreneurs, business owners, capital investors, and industrious to help drive the economy.  We also need to have stable markets, consistent and just courts and laws, effectual government, protective regulations, and investment of all forms of infrastructure to enable our economy to flourish.  Using an eastern metaphor, you cant have your ying without your yang.  We need the creative chaos of individual actors in free markets to be tempered by the needs of society, and we need the rules of society to support, not hinder, the individual to be willing and able to succeed.  At their core, both poles in our political discourse are missing the critical fact that they need each other; neither theory works without the other.

For my part, I am tired of the rhetoric that our discourse has put forth, especially in light of the facts on the ground evidenced by the actions seen in history.  As one of my most favorite historic figures Abe Lincoln said, “Your actions speak so loud, I can hardly hear what you say.”  Republicans touting themselves as budget hawks and fiscal conservatives turned a surplus government budget to a deficit, and that was before emergency spending after September 11^th.  Democrats, wanting us all to believe that tomorrow can take care of itself, continue to enact stop gap budget measures to shore up what is rapidly becoming an untenable safety net and enacting new entitlements by framing them as a “right” we all ought to have, that we can’t get close to affording (I will not delve deep here, but global evidence cannot even get close to supporting a right to healthcare, it is a privilege and based significantly upon the culture and prosperity of it and the actors within it).  Both parties have and continue to fail to level with themselves, never mind the American people, that neither side is right about substantial economic policy on their own. 

The reality is that we have so mortgaged our future, that we have to start looking at the next page of the American experience, one that isn’t as rosy as they want to paint; but also isn’t one we can’t overcome.  Our hope isn’t in post-WW II euphoric unleashing of the arsenal of democracy, but instead in the power to put on the yoke of the burdens we have wrought through overreach in some cases, and simple necessity of history on the other, and plow a new field going forward.  This involves a step into the place my grandparents experienced in the 1940s, that after a massive contraction in their lives, they opted to accept rationing, and sacrificed being able to drive to a station and get gas on demand, to be able to afford to pay to save the world from tyranny.  Since that time, we have gone from being savers to being debtors.  We shouldn’t see our future as a downgrade, but an in-grade.  By each individual and all of us collectively reassessing how we engage in our economic lives, we can not merely pay for the errors of almost 50 years of borrowing tomorrow, but again become the vehicle of growth in the world for the next 50 years or longer.  This is not a cut and save or a spend and borrow scheme I am talking about; both are colossal failures on their own.  But, we need to invest and capitalize.  Many eons ago I learned that probably the most important reason that the Roman Republic/Empire became what it was, was because of its infrastructure and its granting of citizenship to the people they conquered.  It was an investment in infrastructure by the government as a collective good and the capitalizing on the ingenuity and drive of new vigorous races and people that enabled the phenomenal growth and prosperity of Rome to last well over 500 years.  This is the strategy we need to employ, it’s a “both/and” way forward, one that is in the center if we are only willing to gain the humility to see it; “we both built it together”.

CBA letter to the NHL

The following is a letter I sent off to the NHL last week in regards to the ongoing contract negotiations between it and the Players Association (NHLPA).  As a general fan of the game, I really dread the possibility of another work-stoppage.  Take a read:

August 16, 2012

National Hockey League

1185 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Dear Commissioner Bettman,

I write to you today to express my great concern about the trajectory of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations.  While I self admit that I am not fully knowledgeable about the details of the negotiations, and I rely substantially on media reports which cannot hope to fully describe the facts (and in some cases may distort them), I am greatly saddened to learn that there is a strong potential that another bad day for the game of ice hockey may be on its way.

Let me succinct, having any kind of work stoppage is a bad day for the sport of ice hockey and is a bad thing for everyone, owners, players, and especially the consumer who pays in to make the sport a success.

The National Hockey League (NHL), like any other sports franchise, is a business fundamentally, and ought to be.  Ultimately, it is an entertainment business that engages its customers in spending their income on something that is not required to sustain life, but hopefully enlivens it.  To work, there have to be consumers who are willing to pay for not only the expenses, but also enough to prolong and make an investment in the industry worthwhile.  So in essence, I do not argue the economic facts that the owners need to make a profit, the players need to make a requisite amount for their services, and the consumer has to be able to be willing to pay the ticket/concessions/merchandise costs to make it all work.  A work stoppage, as you have now seen twice, is a serious downer for any and all of this to work.

I am fundamentally a fan of the sport of hockey; the NHL surely, but more centrally the sport of hockey.  The NHL as the flagship form of the sport is critical to the image of what the sport is in the wider marketplace of sports generally.  I concur with your numerous reiterations that hockey has never been faster, more talented, and simply better than it has ever been thanks to the level of competition and what is put on the ice in the NHL as a product.  I, for one, have been glad to see the rise in market share the NHL has gotten relative to Basketball (NBA), Baseball (MLB), and Football (NFL) in the US.  Hockey is really on the verge of not being the perennial “next rung” sport in the US market, but instead be on par, or even perhaps surpass some of them in terms of viewer-ship, following, and overall profitability.  There is, however, the specter in the closet that the NHL cannot be counted on to get past itself to rise to a true contender for prominence, and another work stoppage would backslide all of the gains you have made; I say again it would be a sad day for hockey.

As I said, I am a fan of the sport, and I play the sport.  The groundswell of support that ice hockey is getting in areas across the USA at all levels is there because of the absolute interest that the sport has garnered at the professional level.  Looking purely at the NCAA college hockey scene, there is excitement at all levels, programs are growing, and more schools are seeing that hockey is a great addition to their portfolio (especially as women’s hockey has really flourished in the US).  If the NHL doesn’t have games, I can promise you I will get my hockey fix, and it very well be a switch that is made that may have repercussions of frequency for when the NHL is back playing.  I am sure I am not the only fan that is out there that is gravely concerned that the modus operandi for CBA negotiation cycles is that there is going to be a work stoppage in the NHL henceforward.  That kind of thinking makes any potential work stoppage a bad day for hockey.

Lastly, because of the international nature of ice hockey, I would hate to see the best league for hockey move from a North American center of gravity to Europe.  The KHL has continued to prove it is highly competitive and is starting to draw serious prospects that are delaying coming to the NHL., if not altogether choosing to stay in Russia.  What has been the hallmark of the level of play in the NHL, which the best players in the world come to North America to play, will be seriously damaged, if not destroyed if there is yet another work stoppage.  Again, a bad day for hockey.

Mr. Fehr has offered that the NHLPA is willing to work on some sort of interim level or agreement into the beginning of next season, it would seem that the owner’s side has been a hold up for any hope that an interim accommodation could be made.  Again, I am without the benefit of the full facts, but I implore you to not allow the season to start late or a single game be cancelled as a part of the present negotiation effort.  As I opened, this is a business decision on a fundamental level, and I don’t want the business of hockey to suffer because of intractability on any side.  The best answer, the non-damaging answer, is that you and others work through the challenges and come to an agreement for a long period of time.  If that is not possible, get into place an interim agreement that allows hockey to be played while the parties hammer out that long-term deal.  I am all for tragedy on the stage and accepting of the agony of the defeat of my favorite hockey club on the ice, but I am forcefully against a tragedy that can occur because those in board rooms and in front offices won’t see the forest for the trees, inclusive of their own best interest in starting and playing this next season on-time and without a break in work.

Thanks for your reading the above and willingness to see this through to a good and fruitful end and simply not have a bad day in hockey.

Yours,

Erik C. Backus, P.E., LEED AP

Hockey Fan

Reply to Pat - Trust in Politics

As per usual, my posts are prompted by friends and great thinking.  Today my fraternity brother, Pat Aurience posted to his blog something that is really good, take a read at: 

http://paurience.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-i-am-incompatible-with.html

Here is my reply and response:

Pat,

Great post, and I am similarly concerned.  It does come down to trust, but my question lies in why is it we don’t trust?  Now in asking this I am not asking why we don’t trust our current leadership, because you laid that out quite well.  My question is how is it that a government, or as Alexis Tocqueville stated, the American Experiment, has devolved so far that we feel that a government founded under a preamble that starts, “We the people, …” cannot be trusted?

I see two fundamental possible answers:  1) that there is something wrong with the people or 2) there is something wrong with the government.  And/or there is the possibility it is both.  I also think we have a bit of a complex regarding our founding generation and the perfection or lack thereof they wrought in the founding of our republic.

On the people side of the equation you have tragic voter apathy, civic institutional membership apathy, and you have complacency in our way of life.  I saw a recent poster that showed that the last national election had a 38% participation rate as compared with the Iraqis at 95%.  If having 62% of Americans sit out from the election process in a democratic based society doesn’t spell disaster for making the political process responsible, I am not sure what does.  My hometown Boy Scout troop recently posted to Facebook the fact that it may fold next March because there is no one who will step up to be Scoutmaster.  I serve as the President of my Lutheran congregation, and it continues to be challenging to fill the council seats, never mind actually having committees to do the ministry of the church.  I also am a participant in many regional and local government efforts (through my work) and when you look at who all is partaking, its mostly technocrats, professionals and those that at the table as part of their job/local politician's office; citizens represent less than a handful.  A recent politician said corporations are people; he was only partially right and only if I take his message out of its context.  Institutions, no matter what they are only as good as the people that take part in them and work for them.  In a representative society, we have no choice but to partake, as our lack thereof allows for others to make choices for us.  The less and less we engage, the more and more it becomes a smaller group telling the larger group how life is going to be.  So apathy, both at the polls and in the hard work of meeting and grappling with issues with our neighbors (broadly and locally defined) is a vicious spinning whirlpool that only continues to go downward until something breaks the cycle.

Now why the apathy?  I contend that Americans default to a role of being lazy, complacent, and unwilling to have to face up to responsibility.  Your notion that we ought to be responsible for ourselves is not misplaced, but we like the fact we don’t have to be.  Just think about the last time you were in a car accident.  We like the good life, and we get disturbed when we are inconvenienced by the fact that we live a privileged life that the vast majority of the globe could only wish to have.  We have building codes that require public water fountains that provide free water to anyone who walks in.  I can promise you that in Africa, Asia, South America, and even parts of Europe such a provision would be seen as an absolute luxury.  How can American’s say that healthcare is a “right”, when children can’t get malaria pills in Africa, young women can’t even find a doctor to give birth in Central Asia, and there isn’t even a hospital on most of the south pacific islands in nations like Micronesia?  Perhaps our first place status in obesity is the icing on the proverbial cake in this regard.  My point is we, as a people, take everything for granted and, as I see each successive generation post the Depression/WWII generation come to the fore, I see one that feels more entitled and yet less willing to earn those entitlements.  I can speak from my own experience in this regard, being a part of the 1% that has chosen to defend the rest, even I feel a sense of entitlement that I may or may not deserve.  We have a lack of housewives/husbands, engineers, doctors, technologists, laborers in the political process because everything is seen as “their job/problem” and not ours.  Our problem is the great run of the Pax Americana is going to close unless that changes drastically.

So that is the people side.  How about the institution; the government?  I have written elsewhere on this, but there are several things that are broken that we need to relook.  I would contend that the direct elections of Senators is one.  While repealing the amendment that allowed for this would be less “democratic,” it would reassert a balance that has been lost with regards to: a) separation of powers between the states and the federal government, b) the ability for lobbying in Washington (albeit in the states it may still yet occur) to drive the agenda of the body because Senators are not beholden to running for elections publically but with the state legislators (albeit they are politicians too, but I will get to this), and c) keep them from getting as radicalized and give better geographic influence instead, thus weakening power of political party in this body.  Another issue is the problem that on a per-capita basis, each of our representatives in congress have way too many of us to represent.  The result has been ever growing distance between the voter/opinion holder and that of the one that is supposed to speak for us.  While it may become unwieldy (which may end up requiring a two tier body), I would suggest that we cap the number of people any one representative can represent at a specific number.  Having 435 people represent a nation of over 300 million can’t even get close to addressing in a real way the various concerns and enable the brokering that is required to effectively govern.  I firmly believe the closer the politician is to the people, the less radical, the more responsible to them, they become.  I would also assert that with a representative body that is larger, the media would have a harder time keeping up, thus, perhaps, making their influence on the process decrease.  There are also legislative things that can be done (relook how we budget things (somewhat ridiculous to run all of the things that government ought to be doing on one year increments) for instance) but I think we need to also look long and hard at where we came from and where we are going to in our government and our society.  The constitution has proven a reliable and malleable document for us for over 200 years.  The question is, isn’t it high time we review and rethink it given our separation from the milieu where it was formed?  It became clear that the articles of confederation were not working well, so a group came together to write the document we have today, and that was within a decade.  How much longer should we rely on a document that was lucky to survive its first 25 years?  I am not one for throwing the baby out with the bath water in this regard, but if some trusted men and women came together, statesmen of good repute from all walks of life (just imagine if Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Oprah, Bill Bradley, and others got together and put in 6 months of effort) redrafted the document, what it might look like.  In my final analysis on the two sides of a need to regain trust, I think that without fixing both sides, ourselves as people and our form of government, a “more perfect union” is still in the works.

My final theme is our god complex, as a people, about the founding generation.  It is often hard to separate fact from fiction with this group; who can’t remember the cherry tree story for Washington.  But the more you study and know this generation and each generation subsequent, the more you realize that there has never been a “golden age” of good governance in America.  Our government, from the get-go was filled with flawed squabbling people.  Whether it was the prima-donna Thomas Jefferson or the unscrupulous Aaron Burr, or it was the headstrong and unabashed Alexander Hamilton or the overly analytic John Adams, or even the head in the sand Washington, the founders couldn’t be trusted, ask George Mason.  I contend that America still hasn’t a clue as to what it wants to be.  The tension of rights and organization, the tension of states versus the federal, the tension between legislatures, the courts, and the executive, all remain unsolved and a work in progress.  Lincoln was right, our founders “brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  And we also are “testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”  Our role, our job, I suppose, again using his words, is to ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  To sum up from Tocqueville, “Let it not be said that the time for the experiment is already past; for the old age of nations is not like the old age of men, and every fresh generation is a new people ready for the care of the legislator.”  We need to get on with the business, because no one is going to do it for us, and no one can build the trust until we do.

Yours,

Erik

Free Market Economics, History, Thoughts

Of late, I have been following, as most American’s have, the reports, commentary and opinions in the political sphere regarding the economy.  The strongest, or more accurately, most clarion voices in this discussion have been those on the political right calling for “free markets” while those on the left focusing on protecting the poor, the elderly, the vulnerable desiring “fair share” economics (at least, at this moment, this is the core of what I am hearing; thus, putting a label on it is very hard at this point, making it muddled, and thus less clarion).  This has gotten me thinking, more about the former position than the latter, and its place in history.

What this got me thinking about is when in history have we seen a pure free market economy in action?  I will not sidetrack into what a “free market” economy is except to say that it, in its purest sense, is one based on individual sovereign right to act/own things, in which the exchange of goods and services are evaluated, developed and done based on individual perceptions between the parties involved without any outside influence or stricture.  So when did this occur in history?  When was the golden era of free market economics that we can look back on with longing eyes?

I would posit that perhaps one such era was circa 600 AD in Northern and Central Europe.  I use this point, given that by this time, the last vestiges of Roman governance were void and the collection of tribes and government control of commerce was nearly non-existent.  Coinage, the medium of trade in the Empire, was still around.  However, there was no central system to provide controls on the use of coinage or even determine its value.  It was also an era well before the Carolingian dynasty started by Charlemagne, lulled Europe into feudalism and the manor system of much study in our high school history classrooms.  It was a period when what you could get for something was what you got.  It was a time when the rules were what you made, and your power to enforce them was based on your ability to garner support, by charisma, the sword, or whatever means you might have.  Save for familial relationships, you were unbound to stake claim to what was yours (or you supposed it to be) or to stake out to a new place so long as you had the means to carry you.  There wasn’t taxes in the sense we know them, however if you sought security or other things from someone to protect you from the bands of thugs that abounded, you would pay a portion of your bounty to one who could prevent their stealing.  Matters of justice and equity were resolved in the most basic of manners, retribution or revenge, until the rounds of which lead to exhaustion of family lines or physical separation and/or settlement between the mutual parties.  I could dive into a satirical painting at this point, but I am trying to be quite serious.  In the utter chaos of the loss of Roman administration and before secular or religious administration could take hold, this period was one where there was the true unfettered interference of government, government of any type.  A “free market” economy?

In putting this example forward, and admittedly it is an extreme case and somewhat still flawed, I am trying to provide the purest example of what the logical conclusion of a fully free market economy would be.  I would not say, in any way, that I think this is the best system or that it worked well.  Nevertheless, it was an economy, for its time, which was without stricture of false markets created by floors or ceilings imposed by governments, without tariffs protecting the weak from the strong, and it was fully functional for a period of years.  I for one would not want to go back to that kind of system, nor do I think those that purport to support “free markets” want that kind of system in reality, but it is the consequence that their rhetoric is calling for.

I could cite other more modern examples (perhaps an ironic but good one might be Afghanistan from 1991 to 2001, or numerous African cases), but I think the point is made that no one, if you think about the inevitable conclusion, wants pure free market economics.  Businesses want to have predictability and stability in financial markets and laws that give them a shield of corporate protection.  People want to have a reasonable expectation of stability and support to ensure contracts are honored and equity is established between parties, never mind wanting safety for themselves, their progeny, their liberties, and their property.  Thus, enter governments, that have existed since time immemorial that regulate the transactions of groups and individuals to provide this level of protection and stability, especially after having gone through the dark ages of chaos that nearly every society has encountered at one point or another in its history.  So order, order established by some form of government, is good for the development of an economy, one has to submit.  Thus, fully free markets are not what are desired, but disciplined markets with relatively free actors are desired.  The degree of discipline in the market and the relative freedom of the actors is still left for conjecture as to the right mix, fully submitting that fully controlled economic systems are just as inadequate as full free market economics (e.g. Soviet market control, state controlled feudalism, etc.).

I will be the first to admit that I do not empirically know what the right balance is.  One cannot discount the individual actor and their rational or illogical/poor choices (the Austrian school) nor can one deny that there are trends that ring true about supply, demand, price controls and tariffs (Keynesian economics).  I submit that both sides have Pollyanna visions of their positions.  The right, that everyone will act in a way as to not damage others and everyone will be able to have equal opportunity; the left, that the government will not quash the individual actor and that people will be equally industrious in their pursuits.  My thesis was what was a “free market” economy that I can draw from history, and what does it mean.  I have not even entered into a religious or moral argument as a part of this effort.  Regardless, however, I do not look with longing eyes on the closest to pure examples that I can think of for “free markets”, so I am not sure that a golden era exists for them.  While I could do a similar analysis for controlled economics, and find it equally undesirable, it really is already in evidence given our very near-term, bipolar, communism – democracy struggle of the latter half of the 20^th century.  I cannot speak for the left of the political spectrum, but I do not hear rhetoric for state controlled economics like the rhetoric I do for “free markets”.  I would beg those that are supporting “free markets” to be careful that they do not destroy the centrist disciplined economy with relatively free actors that truly uplifts all.

Clean Energy discussion from back in 2010

The following is a reply I made on 9JUN2010 to a post made on facebook back on 2JUN2010 related to the realities of "Clean Coal" as it was used in the lexicon of the time, by a collegue of mine, Colin Bennett of the George Mason University Sustainability Office.  While a tad old, I thought I needed to get it into my blog posts for some wider readership than a reply to a facebook post gives.

"Colin,

Thanks for the open letter and I greatly appreciate your perspective and taking on this issue. I too agree we need to call things as they really are, and “----- coal” is simply not clean from a purely objective, bottom line point of view.I do have two comments on this however:

1) One of the tragedies of environmental and energy sustainability is the hyper-sensitivity of the general public to the drawbacks to nuclear energy. When you say “nuclear” two things come to mind: a) a mushroom cloud or b) the fallout of Chernobyl. We have to recognize that so long as we require energy to live our lives (and turning back the clock on technology and a way of life without it is highly unlikely) we have to have an energy source to power them. There is no energy source, NONE, that does not have a draw back in some way that has potential to hurt the environment. Nuclear is no exception, and I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. But I will state that most people discount it so rapidly because of the over-hyped, over-scared, over-stigmatized campaign that was waged for the entirety of the Cold War period. The immediacy of the end of the world as a result of nuclear war, and radiation, was pressed upon insidiously through all forms of media and was amazing pervasive. The parsing of the difference between a rocket with a nuclear warhead and the image of the cooling tower as being distinct and starkly unrelated was never emphasized in this context. Consequently, pressing now, like many nations have, for energy independence through the use of nuclear energy is not just smirked at in some circles, but seen as antithetical to being environmentally friendly. I bring this up in relation to “----- coal” because, I think all of us who are fighting for the world to reduce GHG emissions, need to remember this past history and not over stigmatize something to the point that we have done with nuclear energy. I say this because of point #2.

2) With regards to fossil fuels, specifically, when we look at defining the broader “sustainable energy future” we must recognize that there are two ways to define “sustainable” that may or may not be congruent.

The first, which I think we both subscribe to, is based upon a world-wide view of ecology, resources, and sociology that desires us to overall reduce our net consumption of the earth and, if possible, enable it to be in balance such that the current net ecological trends can be reversed or at least stabilized for the future, infinatum.

The second, which we have to acknowledge, is that a society uses such resources at its disposal such that they are renewed or enable continued growth in such a way as to not further curtail consumption or enable us to continue in the social norms we have for the foreseeable future and doing so without harm to others or the planet, as much as is possible, at the same time.

While we would all like to see the end of fossil fuel emissions as a way to stop the vast majority of GHG emissions, I will tell you that no matter what happens in the future, burning things to get energy from them will remain fundamental in societies as the grow, especially in the developing world, for the decades, if not centuries, to come. This is mainly because much of the global south finds itself either in a position where it is prohibitive to develop non GHG power generation schemes (capital outlays and credit extensions are out of reach for massive solar, wind, or hydro projects) or they are banned from them (fear of any kind of nuclear proliferation is at the cornerstone of this). As a result of this, many of these nation states will continue to try to use definition #2 of sustainability, if they are even that egalitarian. So finding ways to better burn things (e.g. "cleaner"), such as dirty coal, is not an unworthy investment of time, material and human energy; and, honesty, should be encouraged. We just have long way to go to the point where fossil fuels are going to be dinosaurs again. One of our keys to making sustainability work is making an economic model that turns environmental stewardship into a net profit maker, not a “cost of business”, and, while it isn’t a final or “best” solution, developing and looking to use “----- coal” technology, until we can realize an economy that does not ignore the maxims of the first definition of sustainability, we have to press some measures that are interim and at least making a step in the right direction.

Thanks again for your heartfelt and on target plea. And I thank you for the chance to comment on it to ensure that the “green dialogue” is indeed a dialogue that all can get into."