Natural Capitalism Solutions
Fall Newsletter

A Letter from Hunter Lovins

 

Dear Friend,

Snow settles over Colorado. About time. It's mid-November and we still have flies buzzing round.

It was unusually warm, as well, in London, where I was yesterday, working with colleagues who are creating the basis for a global carbon market, and a carbon currency. As it was several days earlier when I was in Copenhagen to present our work on whether it will be possible for humanity to avoid total system collapse.

Natural Capitalism was there as part of a team convened by the Club of Rome. My colleagues, the Swedish Parliamentarian, Anders Wijkman, the British head of New Economics Foundation, Capital Institute's John Fullerton, and I have spent the past six months looking at what could drive collapse, but more, whether humanity can avoid it. The results are sobering. Our work followed on the NASA-funded HANDY Study (Human And Nature DYnamics) which found that collapse is actually pretty common throughout human history, and that when it occurs, it tends to last hundreds to thousands of years. It happens, the study reported, when one or both of two conditions obtain: humans overrun their resource base or they allow high levels of inequality. Given that we now have both, can we avoid collapse?

The trip was made more poignant by the shattering news breaking from Paris as we met. Senseless loss of life driven by angry young men and women, society's dregs, seeking some semblance of belonging by succumbing to violence. With 500,000 people already dead in Syria and half the country displaced by a war worsened by climate change, collapse is already reality for many across the Middle East and North Africa. Failed economies fuel violence.

Scary stuff. In an article I've just submitted to Jo Confino, my favorite editor, now at Huffington Post, I talk about fear, and how to fight it. We're not doing that well these days. As presidential candidates actually echo Nazi calls for adherents of particular religions to be registered in American data bases, tough talk about widows and orphans threatens to snuff out the light that Lady Liberty has long promised to the wretched of the world.

My antidote is action. In Copenhagen I outlined how we have all of the technologies needed to solve the problems facing the world: powering our homes and industries with renewable energy, implementing regenerative agriculture to heal our soils and produce abundance, capturing the business case for more sustainable companies and communities. We can, we argued, avoid collapse.

We can transform finance ( John Fullerton's expertise), craft the new narrative of an economy in service to life ( Stewart's and my work), use a circular economy in Europe to cut carbon emissions 60-70%, increase national GDP several percent and create hundreds of thousands of jobs ( Ander's most recent study). We asked the foundation for funding to support the next task: setting forth the strategy for crafting a world that works for 100% of humanity.

In 10 days I will be in Paris for COP 21, the world's annual effort to reach an international accord to curb climate devastation. The prospect of failing yet again to put in place an effective answer to our fixation with fossil fuels scares me far more than kids with Kalashnikovs. I'll write you from there and let you know how it's going, as thousands of us from around the world seek to convince recalcitrant governments to act. My guess, though, is that it will be wholly insufficient.

Which is why I am proud to bring you this newsletter describing some of NCS' work in communities, with students, and with companies who are getting on with climate protection regardless of whether the governments decide to join us. Our work is global. In recent months, I have spoken at the International Economic Forum in Germany, the Club of Rome in Switzerland, in Sardinia, and Ecuador. I've taught classes on four continents and consulted for Fortune 100 companies. But our work is manifested locally, here in Colorado, with state agencies in California and companies in New York.

Tonight I will chair another in our series of meetings to take the Pope's " Encyclical to Action". NCS has convened leaders from business, religions and local government to ask for commitments for action. At that meeting I will ask citizens and their leaders to reach beyond their ordinary sense of what is possible, to heed the Pope's amazing call for action, and to pledge what it is that each one will be willing to do to become part of the solution.

We can avoid collapse. We can craft a finer future. But only if each one of us rises with this challenge.

Will you join us?

HL
Presidential Climate Action Project:
The Resurgence
NCS Fellow, Bill Becker, has for eight years now, directed an ambitious imitative called the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP). As its name suggests, PCAP's objective has been to provide the President of the United States with ideas on how he or she can confront global warming even if Congress does not act. 

With elections looming in 2016, PCAP has returned to guide presidential candidates in understanding how to confront climate change. With a new grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, PCAP will make our findings available to all of the candidates.


Seven sustainability studies students selected for CMC/NCS internship
Colorado Mountain College hired NCS  to coordinate a sustainability assessment. The goals of the project are to decrease the college's carbon footprint and to promote sustainable practices at all of the college's 11 locations through the development of a comprehensive sustainability action plan. 

The two entities created a student internship program involving seven CMC students. This will create a learning opportunity that connects academia with real-world sustainable development work. Student interns from campuses in Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Edwards and Steamboat Springs will analyze transportation, buildings and energy, campus and community engagement, and food, grounds and purchasing. 

NCS Housed Accounts Spotlight:
The Clean Coalition
The Clean Coalition works with communities, electric utilities, and policymakers throughout the U.S. to design, promote, and implement innovative policies and programs that are transforming the electric power system to be cleaner, more efficient, and more affordable. We established the Community Microgrid Initiative to prove how local renewable energy-like rooftop solar-can bring economic, environmental, and resiliency benefits to communities from California to New York. Our Long Island Community Microgrid Project, which received one of the first five NY Prize Community Microgrid Competition grants earlier this year, has identified how to provide 50% of the community's energy needs from local renewables and supply ongoing power backup to multiple critical facilities. By the end of 2016, this project will demonstrate how to avoid paying millions of dollars for transmission and fossil fuel generation investments, while bringing significant economic and environmental benefits to this part of Long Island. 


NCS offers p eople and organizations whose missions and values align with our own the opportunity to become a housed account. Interested? Contact Meghan Altman ( maltman@natcapsolutions.org) for more information.
New Natural Capitalist

Collin Marshall: 
NCS Fellow

Collin, a recent transplant to Colorado, is originally from Durham, North Carolina. During his tenure at Appalachian State, Collin studied sustainability, earning a BS in Appropriate Technology. Appalachian State's Director of Sustainability, Ged Moody, mentored Collin towards his goal of becoming a sustainability professional in higher education. 

Upon finishing his undergraduate degree, Collin chose to expand his sustainability perspective and pursue a Master's degree in Sustainability Solutions at Arizona State University. 

Giving Tuesday is on December 1 this year. Consider making your contribution to Natural Capitalism Solutions. Your donations are what make possible our ability to create a world that works for 100% of humanity.
 
Please donate. 
We're counting on you.
-Hunter Lovins


 

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