While I have embraced a more sustainable lifestyle through such personal changes as a hybrid car, mulch pile, eating organic and local as much as possible as well as solar water heating, my major policy impact has been advocacy against the use of herbicides in Mexico and the United States. Through this work, I realized that the environment cuts across all issues. I've never worked directly on environmental issues (professionally), but have worked on drug policy reform, ending the Iraq war, political campaigns and democracy issues (paper trail for e-voting). Early in my career, in 1978, I participated in a litigation and lobbying effort to stop the use of herbicides in marijuana and poppy eradication in Mexico. We succeeded by using the combination of litigation under NEPA and lobbying with the passage of the Percy Amendment forbidding federal funding of such programs. Shortly after that we made efforts to end herbicide spraying of marijuana in the United States. At the time, the early 1980s, I was Chief Counsel of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and was able to form a coalition with Friends of the Earth, the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides and the Sierra Club. Through litigation we stopped the use of herbicides in US marijuana enforcement.

As our global economy outgrows the Earth’s capacity to support it, the damage to the environment is reaching crisis proportions. From expanding deserts, to shrinking aquifers, to ever-bigger dead zones in our bays and seas, the signs of environmental stress are everywhere. All of these areas overlap so that it is difficult to single any one issue as being most important. Efforts to preserve our remaining wilderness will come to nothing if we do not move toward a sustainable society. I propose three major areas to concentrate on: smart development, an efficient, renewable energy system, and sustainable farming. These approaches will also face-up to the global crisis of climate change.

We are not only addicted to oil, we have built our lifestyle around it. Ever growing suburbs pave over more and more land, increasing rainwater runoff and polluting waterways, while our dependency on cars adds to the accumulation of global warming gasses. We must move toward community planning that employs smart building and green building technologies. Residential and commercial cluster development should preserve green space and enhance community identity and civic life, and provide affordable housing. These communities should include a local business infrastructure that provides human necessities within a walkable environment and should provide convenient and affordable public transportation to town centers and areas of employment. Efficient building techniques can greatly reduce energy use and pollution. Reclaiming abandoned buildings in our cities and converting them into affordable, environmentally friendly residences can help reduce the demand in the suburbs. In Baltimore alone there are some 14,000 abandoned residential buildings.

Renewable energy should be pursued in all forms: passive and active solar, biomass, biofuels, ocean, wind, cogeneration, and other technologies. But it is equally important to increase the efficiency of our energy system. For example, clear-cutting the side of a mountain to put up windmills the size of a jet aircraft, only to feed the electricity into the terribly inefficient national power grid, is only marginally beneficial. An equally important concern is to find energy solutions that are off the grid. We should copy California’s million solar homes initiative. Local cogeneration systems that create both energy and useable heat can double efficiency, save money and reduce pollution.

Subsidies to corporate farming should be ended and incentives given to more sustainable, organic farming methods. We need to cut back on our use to chemical fertilizers and pesticides that often end up polluting our water systems. We should invest in Community Supported Agriculture, which encourages local family farming. Most food in our stores travels for thousands of miles from its source, a terribly energy inefficient process. Urban farming would also reduce our dependence on corporate farms and provide another source of fresh, local produce.

The other broad change I would focus on would be giving individuals and organizations standing to sue for environmental damage. While regulation serves a purpose, it can fail without the ability of people to sue for environmental damage since the interests regulatory agencies are supposed to be overseeing can use their political influence to capture those agencies. Giving the people power to protect their own interests must be a high priority. Property owners must learn that with their property rights come responsibilities for how that property is used.

The U.N.'s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (http://www.millenniumassessment.org) highlights ways in which people depend on services provided by ecosystems, how those ecosystem services are changing, and the ramifications for society. It "focuses on ecosystem services (the benefits people obtain from ecosystems), how changes in ecosystem services have affected human wellbeing, how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades, and response options that might be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation... Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth. In addition, approximately 60% (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services it examined are being degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards, and pests."

Stepping back from these policy specifics, it is important for us to begin to look at the environment as more central to our economy. Conventional economists focus only on a narrow part of our well-being (consumption), and ignore other parts of the economy that provide for the sustainable well-being of people, such as social capital and natural capital. For example, increased crime is seen as good from an economic standpoint because people spend money on alarms and window bars, but common sense dictates that increased crime is bad for people's well-being (unless you are one of the criminals). Conventional economics is based on an "open world", where resources are infinite, human impact is relatively small, and modes of capital are infinitely substitutable (e.g., increased technology will compensate for loss of forest and cropland). But today we are living in a closed world, where human impact dominates global processes, resources are rapidly shrinking at an unsustainable rate, and in fact, substitutability is limited.

Natural ecosystems contribute more to the global economy than does the market economy. A study by Costanza et al. (1997; The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital; Nature 387:252-259) estimated the economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and original calculations. These ecosystem services include gas regulation, climate regulation, disturbance regulation, water regulation, water supply, erosion control and sediment retention, soil formation, nutrient cycling, waste treatment, pollination, biological control, refugia, food production, raw materials, genetic resources, recreation, and cultural benefits. A minimum estimate of the global total was between $16-54 trillion per year (1994 U.S. dollars), with an average of $33 trillion per year, almost twice the global Gross National Product (GNP). This was considered a conservative estimate; the true figure may be much higher.

Conservation and environmental protection are usually regarded by politicians as luxuries that should be at the bottom of the priority list. This is because of the blinders that conventional economics place on us - it is an incomplete picture of the world. But protection of natural land is a vital investment. Ecosystem services, such as cleaning the air, filtering and cooling water, storing and cycling nutrients, conserving and generating soils, pollinating crops and other plants, regulating climate, protecting areas against storm and flood damage, and maintaining hydrologic function, are all provided by the existing expanses of forests, wetlands, and other natural lands. These ecologically valuable lands also provide marketable goods and services, like forest products, fish and wildlife, and recreation. They serve as vital habitat for wild species, maintain a vast genetic library, provide scenery, and contribute in many ways to the health and quality of life.

Preserving open space stimulates spending by local residents, increases property values, increases tourism, attracts businesses, and reduces public costs. Biodiversity is responsible for at least $1.9 billion in economic and environmental services in Maryland (Pimentel, D.; 1998; Benefits of biological diversity in the state of Maryland; Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences). In fact, if the values of ecological services are considered, the benefits from conserving natural land gives a return on investment of at least 100 to 1 (Balmford et al; 2002; Economic reasons for conserving wild nature; Science 2002 August 9; 297: 950-953).

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) includes only the official market economy, and ignores things like caring for children, air and water quality, etc. The alternate ISEW (Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) or the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) are significantly different and more comprehensive approaches to assessing economic progress than conventional measures like GDP. The GPI is a better, more comprehensive approximation to economic welfare than GDP, because it accounts for income distribution effects, the value of household and volunteer work, costs of mobility and pollution, depletion of social and natural capital, and other things. Comparing GDP and GPI for the US shows that, while GDP has steadily increased since 1950, with the occasional dip or recession, GPI peaked around 1975 and has been gradually decreasing ever since. As proof of this, it used to be possible to support a family, with a house and car, on one blue-collar wage. Today, even if both husband and wife are working, most can barely scrape by, and are heavily in debt.

3. SMART ENERGY SOLUTIONS

CAFE standards of 40 mgp should only be the first step. Hybrid cars already get 40 to 60 mpg. There is growing interest in producing plug-in hybrid cars that can run off a battery then switch to a regular hybrid engine. These cars can get as much as 100 mpg. In addition, new technologies such as lithium-ion batteries may finally allow for practical electric powered cars.

Also, we must realize that gasoline use is inextricably intertwined with development policy. Investment in smart land use can drastically reduce our dependence on the automobile. This also includes the need to develop a variety of forms of transit. The missed opportunity of 9/11 was the failure to use this horrible event to point out our addiction to oil and the need to end that addiction so that the Middle East does not have such a dramatic impact on us.

Yes, clean, sustainable energy sources need to be the goal, including passive and active solar, biomass, biofuels, ocean, wind, cogeneration, and other technologies. Again, this issue is intertwined with the issue of energy efficiency. The University of Maryland at College park has just recently installed a cogeneration power plant that provides most of the school’s energy needs. At the same time the heat generated is used to heat buildings and provide hot water. The system has twice the efficiency of grid based electrical systems. Efficiency reduces the demand for electricity, cuts pollution and saves money. It is a win-win-win situation.

With regard to global warming we must first admit we have a serious problem caused by human behavior that we must aggressively deal with. We should let scientists, not oil companies or fiction writers like Michael Crichton, tell us what is needed to address global warming. We have to take serious actions, not follow the do-nothing approach of the Bush administration and their allies in Congress. If we act now we can protect economic growth and avoid economic catastrophe. Indeed we can save money and energy and create new jobs through a program of refurbishing homes and buildings, replacing inefficient cars, researching and developing new energy sources, and promoting local self-sufficiency. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, US infrastructure needs a major upgrade or our economy will be in crisis. As part of that rebuilding we need to incorporate energy efficient buildings, low pollution transit, smart land use planning to avoid sprawl.

We need to stop corporate welfare to oil, gas and coal companies. This creates an artificially low price for fossil fuel and discourages the use of clean, sustainable energy. In addition, those who pollute need to pay the price. Whether it is a factory or an automobile, those costs must be recognized and included in the cost of operation. Those who create pollution need to be held responsible. Yes, they have property rights but with those rights come responsibilities and polluting is irresponsible.

Finally, we need to aggressively pursue new technologies that can cut pollution from existing power plants. For example, Greenfuel Technologies Corporation has developed a technology that uses nontoxic, naturally occurring algae to process carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides from smokestack emissions into biofuels, which can then be substituted for conventional coal, petroleum, or natural gas fuels. Companies using their technology can actually make money from their smokestack gases while cutting CO2 emissions by 40% and nitrous oxide emissions by 86%. Technology being used at the R.E. Burger plant in Ohio has removed more than 98% of sulfur dioxide, about three-quarters of nitrogen oxides, 85% of mercury and 95% of particulates down to 2½ microns. The final product can be sold as feedstock for fertilizer, again realizing the company profits from its waste. This year, the R.E. Burger plant will begin testing CO2 removal technology. This process is expected to be readily integrated with the existing technology. Initial laboratory testing resulted in absorption of 90% of CO2. Initial estimates by the DOE indicate that this ammonia-based process would cost less than half of the next lowest-cost CO2 capture technology currently under investigation.

Conserving, protecting and restoring the environment is a proper function of government. It is not something an individual can do or a community can do. It requires a consorted effort not only by the federal government, but also by state and local government as well. New technologies show promise for drastically reducing pollution from power plants so there is no reason not to pursue more protective EPA rules. Companies need to be encouraged to adopt these technologies. The technology to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants has been around for many years. A recent study (Levy, J.I., S.L. Greco, and J.D. Spengler; 2002; The Importance of population susceptibility for air pollution risk assessment: a case study of power plants near Washington, DC; Environmental Health Perspectives) estimated that economic losses associated with loss of intelligence from exposure to mercury pollution from American power plants was $1.3 billion annually. Similarly, estimates for costs to remove SO2 are as little as $300 per ton, while every ton of SO2 costs the public approximately $7,000, according to the White House’s own Office of Management and Budget.

At the same time, off the grid technologies such as renewables and cogeneration can lessen the need for power plants. The Alliance to Save Energy has calculated that energy efficiency measures alone could eliminate the need for 600 new power plants over the next 15 years. We may not be able to eliminate fossil fuel use immediately, but power companies need to keep up with technological advances or they will become fossil companies.

Yes. All of our freshwater resources are being strained by poorly planned growth and need to be protected. Water policy will also require greater emphasis on efficiency as growing populations compete for ever scarcer water resources. The Colorado River no longer makes it to the ocean most of the year due to overuse. This, again, interrelates with smart development policies. We have a responsibility to future generations to preserve our natural heritage, not destroy it for short-term profits.

Yes. Water treatment is one important example of our failing infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers issues an annual report card on the state of the US infrastructure. They point out the problems in sewage and other water treatment issues are serious – giving the US a near failing grade in this category. The Society correctly warns of a looming economic crisis because of our failing infrastructure. Polluted waters will certainly be part of that economic crisis if we do not improve our water and sewage treatment capability.

Storm water drainage systems also need a systematic overhaul, beginning in the communities with the replacement of nonporous street, parking and sidewalk surfaces with more porous material to allow rainwater to soak into the ground; greater use of green roofs to capture storm water and prevent pollution; and planting of more trees to hold water that would otherwise run off. Excessive rainwater runoff is carrying pollutants into our bays and estuaries, contributing to the dead zones in these waters.

Yes. And, I would be advocating for an energy plan that breaks our addiction to fossil fuels, especially oil. The Alaska drilling – for tiny amounts of oil that will make little difference – is a symptom of our desperation – our addiction to oil. Doubling CAFÉ standards alone will save us half the oil as Saudi Arabia produces—nearly eight times the most optimistic estimates for ANWR production. Rather than feeding our addiction we need to break it.

Yes, I favor protecting endangered habitat and would oppose weakening such rules. Diversity of species (plant and animal) is critical to the survival of the planet. The predictions of plant and animal extinction in the coming century are frightening. We need stronger, not weaker protections. Once again, this issue relates to poorly planned growth that takes ever larger bites out of our remaining wilderness lands.

Yes to both questions. We need to protect national parks and forests from development not aid in their development. In addition, we need to move toward more sustainable building and paper producing practices. Adding more roads to cut down more trees is not a long-term solution. The solution is finding sustainable and clean alternatives to wood and wood pulp.

Population growth aggravates every other environmental problem that we face, making family planning programs absolutely vital for our future survival. In Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay is challenged by many issues but if we do not control the growth of people living, working and traveling in the Bay then we will be unable to do enough clean up to save the Bay.

But we must also realize that most countries have already made remarkable progress bringing their birth rates down to replacement rates. Large developing countries such as China, Iran and Brazil have brought their birth rates down to replacement levels while many European countries have birth rates below replacement levels. Much of the growth we face in the future will come from larger numbers of young people moving up in the population age groups. Birth control alone will not alleviate pressures on the environment. We must also support international efforts to contain environmental damage. China is attempting to halt the advance of deserts by planting a wall of trees in their paths. Nigeria has proposed a similar green wall, 7,000 kilometers long, to halt the expansion of the Sahara. Efforts such as these will be expensive and should receive foreign aid money. Indeed, a Martial Plan for environmental protection and restoration is necessary.

Yes. Abstinence only plans have proven to be a failure. The only alternative is a comprehensive sex education program with ready access to contraceptives.

I favor repeal of these trade agreements. They put the environment at risk by giving greater importance to profit then all other matters. Not only can companies bring suit against another nation’s environmental laws, the hearings on these complaints are kept tightly secret; only the companies and governments involved are represented--public interest groups have no standing. Environmental protection should not be seen as a 'restraint on trade' rather it should be treated as something for which every business and property owner must take responsibility. I would favor trade agreements that encourage robust trade, but that include environmental protection, as well as labor rights, human rights and consumer rights. Finally, trade agreements should not be allowed to undermine the sovereignty of the United States by giving power to corporations or other governments to declare our laws void as a restraint on trade. Current trade agreements should not be called free trade agreements but rather corporate trade agreements because they make private corporations and their pursuit of profit the top trade priority and makes them more powerful than governments.