SEI: A Strategic Environment Initiative

Abstract

SEI: A STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT INITIATIVE Al Gore H.umankind has entered into a brand new relationship with our planet— a relationship fundamentally different from anything we have known before. Recent evidence of greenhouse gas buildup, forest land destruction, soil erosion, water and air pollution, stratospheric ozone depletion, and species extinction points to an unprecedented environmental disaster. And yet, so far, our political priorities remain remarkably unchanged. From Love Canal to the Exxon Valdez, news about our environmental vulnerability pours in. Around the world, the earth's forests are being destroyed at the rate of one football field per second. An enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer, reducing the earth's ability to protect life from deadly ultraviolet radiation. The extinction of species is occuring at such an unprecedented rate that more than half of them may disappear within our lifetimes. Chemical wastes, in growing volumes, seep downward to poison groundwater and upward to destroy the atmosphere's delicate balance. The huge quantities of carbon dioxide (CO,), methane, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) currently being dumped in the atmosphere are trapping heat and raising global temperatures. Until now, environmental considerations, if they have been taken into account at all, have usually taken second place to the requirements of economic development. The consequence of this neglect has been Al Gore is United States Senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Science, Technology , and Space Subcommitee of the Senate Commerce Committee. As a Representative in 1981, Mr. Gore co-chaired the first U.S. House of Representatives' hearing on the greenhouse effect. 59 60 SAIS REVIEW environmental deterioration at the local, regional, and now even global levels. This process threatens not only the quality of life, but life itself. The global environment has thus become an issue of national security. For that reason, I have proposed a commensurate response: a Strategic Environment Initiative (SEI). The Price of Development: An Environment in Crisis The immediate effects of environmentally irresponsible forms of development have reached a point where they cannot be ignored. Indeed , environmental deterioration now presses the limits of our physical tolerance. When billions of people are affected daily by its consequences —from air and water pollution, chemical dumping, and solid wastes—a change of attitude eventually occurs and ultimately influences the political agenda, with increasing force and effectiveness. In the wealthiest nations, the result has been a shift in thinking about the value of economic growth in relation to environmental costs. There is still wide variation in the behavior of these nations, but the trend shows an increasing readiness to accept the need for tempering development on behalf of the environment. This trend can be seen at every level of political activity, and is affecting local, national, and international affairs. The less wealthy and impoverished nations have less freedom of choice. Yet, even there, a growing awareness exists that economic development , based on unrestrained exploitation of the environment, brings with it long-term economic penalties, which will soon impose themselves. A gradual acceptance of the need for harvesting natural resources in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner is likely to follow. Regrettably, in the vast majority of Third World nations, that acceptance will necessarily remain only an aspiration— a priority that will have to take its place behind the more pressing problem ofsatisfying basic human needs. The increasing sensitivity of governments towards environmental problems is good news. Unfortunately, it is not enough. The single most significant environmental threat we face probably cannot be solved by marginal changes in behavior and defies action even by national governments . This is the phenomenon of global warming and the related problem of widespread climatic change. It is increasingly clear that this will be one of the penalties for unrestrained economic development. It is also clear that without radical changes in our methods of development the consequences of our present actions will be severe enough to threaten international security. STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT INITIATIVE 61 Given present trends, by the middle of the next century or sooner greenhouse gas emissions will have doubled the pre-Industrial Revolution level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is the "CO1 doubling" benchmark scientists have used to determine the additional greenhouse effect on...