Change In How We Figure GDP Might Change Environmental Debate

As pointed out by the Harvard Business Review in its January-February issue, "Since World War II, gross national product and its replacement, gross domestic product, have been the chief measures of national success." That measuring stick of economic progress is under fire from many environmental and nonprofit groups who feel that it is a flawed method by which to measure actual, productive economic activity.

Harvard Psychology Professor Daniel Gilbert, among others, has championed the fact that happiness should also be included in any analysis of a nation's wealth, even that concept can be attacked as more subjective than the amount of unpaid household rent that is currently included in GDP or GNP. These same commentators are also calling for inclusion of data measuring economic and environmental sustainability, as well as educational achievement and life expectancy.

Too often, it has been written, GDP can not distinguish between economic activities that actually increases a nation's wealth and one that pollutes or uses unrenewable resources for temporary economic advantage. This so-called "Green GDP", championed by Joseph Stiglitz, suggests that sustainability estimates are no more speculative than some of the estimates now included in current GDP, arguing that, "Taking into account resource depletion and some aspects of sustainability is fairly easy."

The U.N. , in measuring its top countries for human development, includes three basic aspects of quality of life: health and longevity, knowledge, and income. In that index, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands all finish above the U.S. It is all something to think carefully about as we plot the nation's future economic and social programs going forward.

"Full World" Economics Demands a Global Approach

An article by environmental scientist Herman E. Daly, "Economics in a Full World," published in Scientific American magazine in 2005, was one of the first to mote that, "The economic status quo cannot be maintained long into the future. If radical changes are not made, we face loss of well-being and possible ecological catastrophe."

The tripling of the human population in the past seventy years, as well as the rapid expansion of resource extraction and manufacturing to all points of the globe, has put the earth's ecosystem at risk. Daly, trained initially as an economist, maintains that resource usage must be limited to rates that can be absorbed into the ecosystem safely, that such resource exploitation must be sustainable, and the usage of nonrenewable must be limited as much as  possible to rates that do "not exceed the rate of development of renewable alternatives."

Daly believes that adjustments must be made to economic policy, with special attention to product lifetimes. He suggests that perhaps one step in this direction would be for consumption to be carried out by service contracts for leased commodities, wherein the "vendor, owns, maintains, reclaims, and recycles the product at the end of its useful life."

Clearly this is a concept that should be made part of our political and social dialogue as soon as possible, preferably not in the white-hot partisan environment of partisan politics.

Recycling Becomes Big Business, Aiding Environment

States and local governments are finally getting serious about the issue of recycling and more companies inthe United States are accepting the sustainability challenge to not only reduce waste but aid their bottom line. This development of what is termed "extended producer brought about by cash-strapped municipalities and states looking to reduce the cost of throwing away mountains of garbage at great expense.

It has long been known that almost 95 percent of aluminum is recycled, but what is new is that plastic bottles and other materials are now also being widely recycled. Coca-Cola now has its own subsidiary, Coca-Cola Recycling L.L.C., which is attempting to reach a stated goal of recycling 100 per cent of its cans and bottles in North America by 2015, and fifty per cent in the rest of the world.

Starbucks, long known for its sustainability efforts, knows that recycling lowers operating costs, saves money, and builds brand reputation at no cost to the marketing budget. Whole Foods has encouraged customers to return margarine tubs and yogurt containers to the store for collection, collecting 11 million containers in 2011.

The next development is for states and municipalities to mandate what is termed extended producer responsibility, requiring companies who manufacture containers to require its suppliers to set up container-collection systems for consumers of their products. It remains to be seen if and when such a system might be implemented.

Private Sector Crafts Solution to Fracking Wastewater

An entire new industry has grown up in response to the need to find an environmentally safe way to dispose of hydraulic fracturing waste water. Although the technology has been in existence sine at least 2002, the explosion in fracking operations around the country has propelled the industry into new prominence.

According to industry sources, it takes approximately 120,000 barrels of water to frac a well. The main expense is not the cost of the water, but the expense in transporting to the drill site, and transporting the contaminated water back to another site for treatment.

The newest method to reduce this expense calls for the reengineering of the units so that they can be fit on truck-transported lowboy trailers directly to the job site, in convoys of three trailers. the typical unit produces about 2,000 barrels a day of distilled water.

These systems have been approved for a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit under the federal Clean Water Act. In Arkansas, the plan will be for the water to be reused to irrigate crops, retaining the water in the hydrological cycle.