Jeffrey Sachs has a outstanding new book out called The Price of Civilization. The title of the book refers to remarks made by US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who spoke of the need for citizens of a country, who enjoyed the benefits of living in that country, to pay the price to support that civilization.
Sachs provides a thoughtful, cogent analysis of challenges facing America, and how to address those challenges. The book has a clean straightforward jargon-free narrative that is balanced and has elements that will appeal to conservatives, independents and progressives alike – though each group will find things to disagree with, there is much that will be embraced.
Sachs looks at the nature of America, through the lens of democracy, fairness, civic virtue, compassion, and happiness, and asks the question “What is our role in the 21st century?”
Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.
Here’s Sachs being interviewed by Charlie Rose, about The Price of Civilization.
Here’s Sachs in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, taking questions from reporters. Sachs is articulate, plain speaking and clearly frustrated with the faltering state of the nation and the cozy monied relationship between government and big business.
On a related note, Charles M. Blow had an excellent graphic from the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation report “Social Justice in the OECD — How Do the Member States Compare?” It helps give some context to issues driving the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and challenges facing America.
I am on a road trip across America, interviewing sustainable business leaders for a new book I am working on. Entering Iowa from the Northwest corner, hundreds of wind turbines rise majestically from the endless corn and soybean fields that are a staple of the Iowa landscape.
Pulling into an access road, I drive up to a newly installed wind turbine that looks like it is ready to be commissioned. It is a GE 1.6 megawatt (MW) wind turbine. The GE on-site engineer has obvious pride as he describes the wind turbine specs, design, and geology of the area that makes this site so amenable to wind power generation.
This wind turbine is located on the Coteau des Prairies, sometimes referred to as Buffalo Ridge. The ridge is composed of thick glacial deposits that gently rise to about 900 feet, from the surrounding prairie flatlands. The ridge runs eastward, from eastern South Dakota, through southwestern Minnesota, and northwestern Iowa. Numerous wind farms have been built along the ridge to take advantage of the high average wind speeds.
Iowa wind power accounts for about 20% of the electricity generated in the state – about 4 billion watts of power (4 GW). Iowa leads the US in percentage of electrical power generated by wind. Wind turbines will produce from 12 to 16 times more revenue per acre than corn or soybeans. And farmers can plant crops around the wind turbine, reaping the benefits of both. In addition, in the winter, winds are stronger, generating much needed revenue while the fields lay fallow.
Coincidentally, I saw this news today, about farmers in the UK ramping up their investment in renewable energy:
More than one third of UK farmers want to install renewable energy projects on their farmland, most of them within the next year, and hope to generate average returns of 25,000 pounds ($40,565) per year, UK bank Barclays said.
The bank’s business arm on Tuesday launched a 100-million pound fund to help farmers finance renewable energy projects, including solar panels, wind farms, hydro plants and organic waste power as a growing number of agricultural businesses seek to benefit from government support tariffs.
“We want to signal very clearly to the market that we consider this to be a big future industry, a big opportunity for agricultural businesses and also a big opportunity for the renewables,” said Barclays Business’ Product and Marketing Director, Travers Clarke-Walker, whose team will be managing the fund.
“This is a quickly emerging industry.”
A Barclays survey of 300 agricultural customers also showed four out of five farmers recognize renewable energy can save costs and 60 percent see it as a source of additional income.
The use of renewable energy on farmland has been brought to public attention in Britain by Michael Eavis, farmer and founder of the Glastonbury music festival, who installed over one thousand solar panels on his land.
The cost of installing renewable energy projects can be recovered after around 10 years, Clarke-Walker said.
The UK government slashed state support for large-scale solar plants earlier this month as it was concerned a few huge commercial projects would scoop up money intended for household and community projects.
Nevertheless, Clarke-Walker expects around 80-90 percent of projects will be solar and wind farms as they are cheapest to build and their costs are forecast to drop by up to 50 percent in the next three to five years as demand rises and technology improves.
Britain aims to generate 15 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020, compared with 7.4 percent reached in 2010.
The fund’s loan budget is unlimited and the first 100 million pounds could support well over 100 projects as the average cost varies between 250,000-700,000 pounds, Clarke-Walker said.
Suffolk-based farmer Mike Porter, who plants crops such as wheat and oil seed rape, received a 130,000 pound loan from Barclays to install solar panels on a grain store last month and is expected to make 20,000 pounds per year by exporting power to the national grid.
Some good jobs news: “Solar is the fastest-growing industry in the US” according to Rhone Resch, President of The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), during his remarks accompanying release of the quarterly report “US Solar Market Insight.” The report was jointly prepared and released by SEIA and Greentech Media (GTM).
The graphic at right summarizes the stunning growth of the solar industry. Here are highlights from the report:
Solar Driving Jobs Creation
Rhone Resch said that the solar industry employs 100,000 Americans and that that number could double in the next two years. Within a few years, the US will be the world’s largest solar market, according to SEIA.
While California, New Jersey, and Arizona remained the top three states for solar installations, Pennsylvania jumped to the number 4 position, from number 8 in the rank last year. Maryland made the biggest move from 16th to 8th in the ranks.
Solar Growing Fast
Solar electric installations surpassed one gigawatt for the first time, and the US shows signs of being one of the top, if not the top global market for solar in the coming years. New solar photovoltaic (PV) installations for Q1 2011 grew 66% over Q1 2010. Total growth of the US solar market was up 67% in 2010, over 2009.
Solar industry manufacturing growth exceeded 31%, compared to less than 4% for overall manufacturing in the US in 2010.
Solar Pricing Continues To Improve
In Q1 2011 for the solar industry, jobs were up, installations were way up for PV and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), manufacturing growth was up and prices are coming down. Solar system pricing is down 15 percent from Q1 2010.
While fossil fuels continue getting more and more expensive and extraction of oil, gas and coal becomes more and more toxic, the much cleaner renewable energy sector, including the solar industry, pricing is getting cheaper and cheaper.
Key Details
Photovoltaics (PV):
Grid-connected PV installations in Q1 2011 grew 66% over Q1 2010 to reach 252 MW.
Cumulative grid-connected PV in the U.S. has now reached over 2.3 GW.
Cumulative grid-connected solar electric (PV and CSP) has now reached 2.85 GW.
The top seven states installed 88% of all PV in Q1 2011, up from 82% in 2010.
Commercial installations in Q1 2011 more than doubled over Q1 2010 in 10 of the top 21 states.
U.S. module production increased by 17% relative to Q4 2010, from 297 MW to 348 MW. While production from export-oriented firms and facilities dipped materially because of soft demand in the key feed-in tariff markets of Germany and Italy, plants that serve the domestic market enjoyed far healthier utilization of manufacturing capacity.
After a year of flat-to-increased pricing for some PV components in 2010, annual beginning-of-year feed-in tariff cuts and depressed global demand in Q1 2011 resulted in substantial price declines. Wafer and cell prices dropped by around 15% each, while module prices fell around 7%.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP):
The 500-MW Blythe CSP plant obtained a $2.1 billion DOE loan guarantee.
Construction is underway on the-30 MW Alamosa CPV plant, with expected completion in 2011.
There is a concentrating solar (combined CSP and CPV) pipeline of over 9 GW in the U.S.; more than 2.4 GW have signed power purchase agreements.
In total, 1,100 MW of CSP and CPV are now under construction in the U.S.
All Solar Markets:
The total value of US solar market installations grew 67 percent from $3.6 billion in 2009 to $6.0 billion in 2010.
Solar electric installations in 2010 totaled 956 megawatts (MW) to reach a cumulative installed capacity of 2.6 gigawatts (GW), enough to power more than half a million households.
Solar PV installations continue their exponential growth.
US PV Installations 2005 through Q1 2011
The extraordinary growth of solar makes sense. Think of sunlight as free oil. It’s all around us every day, available for collection. No need for drilling and no threat of oil spills or toxic emissions. Solar panels convert the free energy into electricity or heat. And they do it with remarkable efficiency. It takes energy to produce energy, and to my mind, one of the most important ways to measure the energy performance of something is by calculating the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) – which measures how much energy it takes to produce the energy. The higher the ERoEI, the better. Here’s a chart showing the ERoEI for various energy sources.
Solar and wind have the highest ERoEI of all sources of energy, and they are trending higher. Meanwhile, looking at oil, the easy oil has been extracted, what remains is increasingly expensive and difficult to get to, and toxic to extract and process. It takes much more energy to produce a barrel of oil today than it did just 50 years ago. Oil’s ERoEI has plummeted from about 100:1 in the 1950’s to about 10:1 today.
In the US Energy Information Administration’s most recent Monthly Energy Review, they show that domestic production of renewable energy has surpassed that of nuclear power.
During the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (note that this includes biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind):
Provided 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production.
Delivered 5.65 percent more than that from nuclear power.
Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production.
Looking at just the electricity sector, according to the latest issue of EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, for the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (biomass, geothermal, solar, water, wind) accounted for 12.94 percent of net U.S. electrical generation — up from 10.31 percent during the same period in 2010.
In terms of actual production, renewable electrical output increased by 25.82 percent in the first three months of 2011 compared to the first quarter of 2010. Solar-generated electricity increased by 104.8 percent, wind-generated electricity rose by 40.3 percent, hydropower output expanded by 28.7 percent, and geothermal electrical generation rose by 5.8 percent. Only electricity from biomass sources dropped, by 4.8 percent. By comparison, natural gas electrical output rose by 1.8 percent and nuclear-generated electricity increased by only 0.4 percent, while coal-generated electricity dropped by 5.7 percent.
The chart below is a concise view of the energy flow from various energy sources and destinations. Though it is only current through 2009, it gives a remarkable view into the complex landscape of where our energy comes from and how we use it.
Democrats of the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce just released a new report detailing chemicals used in the toxic gas exploration process known as Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking or fracing). Fracking is a technique used to extract natural gas from oil shale beneath the earths surface. Communities are increasingly concerned about fracking polluting public water systems and the environment, when the chemicals leak into aquifers, rivers, streams and the atmosphere.
While the oil/gas industry has denied any problem, there is mounting evidence that public water systems and private wells are being polluted in areas around the drilling sites. In states such as Pennsylvania, politicians have welcomed Big Oil in with open arms, and thousands of gas extraction wells are expected to be drilled this year. Presently, the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used, but scientists have identified known carcinogens and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. The chemicals can most often leak in to the water system in several ways:
Derrick – The natural gas process involves drilling 5,000 feet or more down and a comparable distance horizontally. The majority of the drilling liquid remains in the ground and is not biodegradable.
Well Casing – If the well casing that penetrates through the aquifer is not well sealed, chemicals can leak in to the aquifer.
Fractured Shale – To release the gas from underground, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into the well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well. These fissures may allow the chemicals to enter the water system. In addition, recent reports suggest that radiation in the ground is contaminating the fracking fluid. This radiation has been showing up in drinking water. For more on that see the NY Times investigative article by Ian Urbina Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers.
Surface Contamination – The gas comes up wet in produced water and has to be separated from the wastewater on the surface. Only 30-50% of the water is typically recovered from a well. This wastewater can be highly toxic. Holding ponds, and handling mishaps can release this toxic brew into the environment. For some examples, see the video below about residents in Pennsylvania and the impact of fracking on their water systems. Surface evaporation of VOCs coming into contact with diesel exhaust from trucks and generators at the well site, can produce ground level ozone. Ozone plumes can travel up to 250 miles.
For more detailed interactive image, see below.
Horizontal fracking uses up to 300 tons of a mixture of 750 chemicals, many of them proprietary, and millions of gallons of water per frack. This water then becomes contaminated and must be cleaned and disposed of. To date, the oil/gas industry has been secretive about what chemicals are used, and has lobbied Congress for a variety of protections. Much of the contaminated water is taken to water treatment plants that are not designed to process the chemicals and radiation found in fracking fluids.
In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.
The FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemical Act) is a House bill intended to repeal the Halliburton Loophole and to require the natural gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.
The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed by Congress, in 1974, to ensure clean drinking water free from both natural and man-made contaminates. Remember the days when rivers were so polluted with toxic industrial waste that they would ignite into flame?
Here’s the introduction from the Democrats report from the Energy and Commerce Committee – Chemicals Used In Hydraulic Fracturing (N.B. click on the link at left to see the actual report and list of chemicals):
Today Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman, Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Edward J. Markey, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette released a new report that summarizes the types, volumes, and chemical contents of the hydraulic fracturing products used by the 14 leading oil and gas service companies. The report contains the first comprehensive national inventory of chemicals used by hydraulic fracturing companies during the drilling process.
“Hydraulic fracturing has helped to expand natural gas production in the United States, but we must ensure that these new resources don’t come at the expense of public health,” said Rep. Waxman. “This report shows that these companies are injecting millions of gallons of products that contain potentially hazardous chemicals, including known carcinogens. I urge EPA and DOE to make certain that we have strong protections in place to prevent these chemicals from entering drinking water supplies.”
“With our river ways and drinking water at stake, it’s an absolute necessity that the American public knows what is in these fracking chemicals,” said Rep. Markey. “This report is the most comprehensive look yet at the composition of the chemicals used in the fracking process, and should help the industry, the government, and the American public push for a safer way to extract natural gas.”
During the last Congress, the Committee launched an investigation into the practice of hydraulic fracturing in the United States, asking the leading oil and gas service companies to disclose information on the products used in this process between 2005 and 2009.
The Democratic Committee staff analyzed the data provided by the companies about their practices, finding that:
The 14 leading oil and gas service companies used more than 780 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products, not including water added at the well site. Overall, the companies used more than 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products containing 750 different chemicals and other components.
The components used in the hydraulic fracturing products ranged from generally harmless and common substances, such as salt and citric acid, to extremely toxic substances, such as benzene and lead. Some companies even used instant coffee and walnut hulls in their fracturing fluids.
Between 2005 and 2009, the oil and gas service companies used hydraulic fracturing products containing 29 chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for their risks to human health, or listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The BTEX compounds – benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene – are SDWA contaminants and hazardous air pollutants. Benzene also is a known human carcinogen. The hydraulic fracturing companies injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical over the five-year period.
Methanol, which was used in 342 hydraulic fracturing products, was the most widely used chemical between 2005 and 2009. The substance is a hazardous air pollutant and is on the candidate list for potential regulation under SDWA. Isopropyl alcohol, 2-butoxyethanol, and ethylene glycol were the other most widely used chemicals.
Many of the hydraulic fracturing fluids contain chemical components that are listed as “proprietary” or “trade secret.” The companies used 94 million gallons of 279 products that contained at least one chemical or component that the manufacturers deemed proprietary or a trade secret. In many instances, the oil and gas service companies were unable to identify these “proprietary” chemicals, suggesting that the companies are injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify.
How Fracking Can Effect Your Community And What You Can Do About It
Once a communities water system is made toxic, property values plummet. Homeowners end up with homes that can’t be sold at anywhere near their original value. They are forced to live in their un-sellable homes and continue to be exposed to the toxic environment. Fracking can compromise public health and environmental quality. The map below from the Gasland project shows where oil shale gas drilling areas are most intensive, in red.
Here’s a more detailed map from the Energy Information Administration showing “Shale Plays.”
Shale Plays – Click for larger image (Source: EIA)
The term “play” is used in the oil and gas industry to refer to a geographic area which has been targeted for exploration due to: favorable geoseismic survey results; well logs; or production results from a new or “wildcat well” in the area. An area comes into play when it is generally recognized that there is a valuable quantity of oil or gas to be found. Oil and gas companies will send out professional “land men” who research property records at the local courthouses and after having located landowners who own the mineral rights in the play area, will offer them an oil and gas lease deal. Competition for acreage usually increases based on how hot the play is in terms of production from discovery wells in the area. The more oil and gas there is to be had, the higher the lease payments per acre are.
And money talks. Homeowners and towns can be attracted to the offer of money for exploitation of the shale. The heavy costs paid are only realized after the deal is signed – costs to the environment, increased industrial traffic through the community, attraction of outsider oil/gas workforce that can stress local community wellbeing, and of course – environmental degradation, and risk to public water systems.
Bryan Walsh, one of my favorite environmental reporters, just published this evenhanded video that looks at some specific examples of toxic fracking related events in Pennsylvania, the heart of east coast gas extraction. While business leaders in the community enjoy the increased hotel and travel related economics, the devastating impact on homeowners and communities can be tragic.
As the video shows, there is a growing conflict between public health interests and business interests. Anytime oil/gas is involved, big money is at stake. Big Oil spends tens of millions of dollars lobbying politicians to favor their business, often at the expense of public health and the environment. Local businesses welcome all the truckers, traffic and drilling personnel because it means increased commerce. But at what cost?
Communities are fighting back. Do your homework and get to know about fracking. The articles below in Recommended Reading are a good start, and rent the HBO movie documentary Gasland. You will get a good background on how communities across the US are being effected. If you think your community is being impacted by fracking, the Gasland producers have setup a good website to learn more and with tips on how to Take Action, including links to elected officials, info on local organizations, and email action alerts. Remember – oil companies are funneling big money into politicians coffers to influence public policy. It will take your steady, informed, organized community voice to counter big oil special interests.
April 11 anti-fracking protest in Albany, NY, for safe drinking water
For ideas on how to hold your elected officials accountable, read Nicholas Kristof’s really fine article on The Power of Mockery. It highlights one of the most effective ways for grass-roots movements to speak truth to power. He also features Tina Rosenberg’s new book Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World. Kristoff offers examples of the techniques in action, including: how kids took on Big Tobacco and reduced teen smoking in Florida; the Egyptian revolution; Serbia, etc.
I just added this excellent video by Josh Fox, calling out NY Governor Cuomo on fracking. It is an excellent review of secret memos leaked from the gas industry, detailing how fracking system failures pollute our water resources. Rolling Stone Magazine online has a good article calling the Governor out on fracking.
And finally, support politicians that are committed to a strong Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Trend Is Our Friend
Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive and extraction more toxic. The easy stuff has already been extracted over the decades. What remains poses greater and greater risk to public health and the environment. Fossil fuels are our past. Renewable energy is our future. Renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper and are much cleaner to produce. Let’s not compromise our future trying to ring every last drop of oil and gas out of the ground. Support politicians that understand the pressing need to rapidly transition to renewable energy and invest in research and development, education, and regulation.
I’ll leave you with this interactive diagram from the Gasland website. Click on the small circles to learn more about fracking. Click on the “To The City” arrow to scroll the image to the left to see how fracking contaminated water effects community water systems.
Charles M. Blow, one of my favorite “number crunchers”, and op-ed columnist at the NY Times, has a good article today on what causes a revolution. He turns the lens on Egypt and Tunisia, as well as other countries that might be poised for revolution, and looks at what factors can contribute to people rising up and overthrowing their government.
Though agitating factors like unemployment and age have featured in many articles on the situation in Egypt and Tunisia, Charles M. Blow digs deeper. He prepared the table below, which shows median age, unemployment rate, income inequality, food as a percentage household spending, level of democracy, regime type, and internet penetration.
Worth noting: The real US unemployment rate is about 16%, when considering the more comprehensive U6 Rate. The US has the highest income inequality of all the countries considered in the list above. The US ranks with Rwanda and Uganda. For more on that, see the recent 8020 Vision article When Does the Wealth of a Nation Hurt its Wellbeing?
I am glad Blow listed food as one of the metrics to consider. There is a proverb that governments ignore at their peril:
“Lo que separa la civilización de la anarquía son solo siete comidas.”
(Civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart.)
—Spanish proverb
Though Egypt is not unique – corrupt repressive governance and cronyism can be found at the heart of many dysfunctional nations – once corruption interferes with meeting the basic needs of the populace, revolution is imminent.
Time dependence of FAO Food Price Index from January 2004 to May 2011. Red dashed vertical lines correspond to beginning dates of “food riots” and protests associated with the major recent unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. The overall death toll is reported in parentheses. Blue vertical line indicates the date, December 13, 2010, on which author submitted a report to the U.S. government, warning of the link between food prices, social unrest and political instability. Inset shows FAO Food Price Index from 1990 to 2011. (Source: The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East, New England Complex Systems Institute)
The Basics Of Revolution
When I work with clients and this subject comes up, I like to turn to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to put this in perspective. As we can see, two of Charles Blow’s metrics – food and unemployment – are fundamental components of basic human needs.
The lower down on Maslow’s pyramid a dysfunctional regime effects the populace, the deeper the impact, and the more likely the effected people will rebel. In other words, when a government fails to meet the basic human needs of its people, the people rise up.
Looking back in history for examples of how food and government are connected at the hip, our eyes come to rest on the Roman empire. Though the causes of the fall of Rome are debated still, one thing is certain: As the Roman empire devolved into the late-stage “Bread and Circuses” phase, once the farm system failed and the bread ran out, the rulers quickly lost the support of the people. The party was over.
The Fall of Rome by Thomas Cole
The party is over in Egypt. President Mubarak now requires plainclothes thugs with clubs to beat back the public, losing what little credibility and dignity he might have had. How will he sleep? I don’t think the prideful Mubarak’s $60 billion family bank account will numb the shame he must feel as he watches the Egyptian army protect the people from his secret police.
As Tunisia and Egypt fail, Charles M. Blow scans his table of cold hard data and asks “Who’s next?”
“Seen through that prism (of food, income inequality, and internet penetration), Tunisia and Egypt look a lot alike, and Algeria, Iran, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen look ominously similar.“
A Global Perspective on Food
Pulling the lens back for a more global view – as world population expands inexorably – we are approaching a tipping point with regard to food production.
This week, a report that gained little attention in the news, but has major ramifications for every nation – especially those where food is a larger percentage of household income – was published by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The FAO report – The World Food Situation – reports that world food prices surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month. The FAO Food Price Index (below) is a commodity basket that regularly tracks monthly changes in global food prices.
This is the highest level (both in real and nominal terms) since FAO started measuring food prices in 1990.
As we can see from the chart on the right, the price of individual commodities that comprise the index – meat, dairy, cereals, oil and fats, and sugar – are all on the rise.
Global food prices have exceeded their pre-recession price levels. Some of this is due to the price of petroleum returning to pre-recession levels. About 17% of all petroleum production is consumed for food production. Petroleum is a key ingredient in the manufacture of fertilizer and pesticides, and sources energy for irrigation, food transport, etc. Note how the Food Price Index closely parallels the price of oil.
In addition, climate change is driving an increase in extreme weather, including record heat during growing seasons, record flooding, and extreme rain.
And as nations move up the affluence curve, their consumption of food increases, creating rising demand from a limited supply. As Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It, astutely points out – as developing nations become more affluent, they consume more protein, in the form of fish, meat, milk, eggs, etc. For an example from China, read the article that appeared in The Financial Times today: Chinese Corn Imports Forecast to Soar. Note the mention of corn for meat production.
(source: US Department of Agriculture)
Protein is usually produced with grain, and it is an inefficient process:
It takes 1,ooo tons of water to produce a ton of grain
It takes about 15 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef
So, it takes about 5,200 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef
As our population increases, and as each nation seeks affluence, food will become a major factor in the stability of all nations, not just the rotting authoritarian regimes of the world.
Most cities in the U.S. have operated on the assumption that growth is inherently beneficial and that more and faster growth will benefit local residents economically. Local growth is often cited as the cure for urban ailments, especially the need for local jobs. But does the empirical evidence show that growth is actually providing these benefits?
To test claims about the benefits of local growth, I examined the relationship between growth and prosperity in US metro areas. This study looked at the 100 largest US metro areas (representing 66% of the total US population) using the latest federal data for the 2000-09 period. The average annual population growth rate of each metro area was compared with unemployment rate, per capita income, and poverty rate using graphical and statistical analysis.
The “conventional wisdom” that growth generates economic and employment benefits was not supported by these data. The study found that those metro areas that have fared the best had the lowest growth rates. Even metro areas with stable or declining populations tended to fare better than fast-growing areas in terms of basic measures of economic well-being.
Some of the remarkable findings:
Faster-growing areas did not have lower unemployment rates.
Faster-growing areas tended to have lower per capita income than slower-growing areas. Per capita income in 2009 tended to decline almost $2,500 for each 1% increase in growth rate.
Residents of faster-growing areas had greater income declines during the recession.
Faster-growing areas tended to have higher poverty rates.
The 25 slowest-growing and 25 fastest-growing areas were compared. The 25 slowest-growing metro areas outperformed the 25 fastest-growing in every category and averaged $8,455 more in per capita personal income in 2009. They also had lower unemployment and poverty rates.
Another remarkable finding is that stable metro areas (those with little or no growth) did relatively well. Statistically-speaking, residents of an area with no growth over the 9-year period tended to have 43% more income gain than an area growing at 3%/year. Undoubtedly this offers a ray of hope that stable, sustainable communities may be perfectly viable — even prosperous — within our current economic system.
Per Capita Income versus Growth Rate Chart top 100 MSAs
While certain businesses prosper from growth, apparently the balance of the community does not. The statistics showing that fast-growing areas tend to have lower and declining incomes, indicate that any gains by the businesses that directly benefit from growth are more than offset by losses to the rest of the local population. In other words, a small segment of the local population may benefit from faster growth, but the larger population tends to see their prosperity decline.
This study was not an attempt to explain all the complex relationships that exist, but merely to test whether there is a correlation between growth and some of the benefits that are so often attributed to it. More research is clearly needed on this important topic.
Population growth tends to be directly linked to urban growth. There is a close, linear relationship between the two, as more people require more housing units and more commercial buildings for employment and shopping.
Public policies and plans regarding urban growth typically involve tradeoffs between economic, environmental, and social impacts. Local residents may view a policy to encourage land development or growth as negatively impacting their quality of life through increased traffic congestion, environmental quality impacts, loss of farm and forest lands, and loss of amenity values (such as tranquility, sense of community, and open space). They may also be concerned about higher taxes to fund the cost of the new public infrastructure (roads, schools, sewer and water systems, etc.) required to serve growth. However, the prospect that new growth will bring jobs and economic prosperity that may benefit local residents is often viewed as compelling enough to outweigh these costs.
So if growth is actually not providing these benefits, then the decision-making balance shifts towards the fiscal, environmental, and quality-of-life impacts. With greater awareness of the relationship between growth and prosperity, perhaps we will see a shift in our focus toward making our cities better places, not just bigger places.
Most US cities have been actively pursuing growth with all the policy and financial tools at their disposal under the presumption that they are fostering local prosperity. As US cities seek a path out of the recession, this study suggests that new economic development strategies will be needed that do not rely so heavily on growth. ###
Eben Fodor is the Principal of Fodor & Associates, a consulting firm based in Eugene, Oregon specializing in studying the fiscal, economic, and environmental impacts of urban growth and land development. This independent research was funded by Fodor & Associates as a public service.
