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Change Can Be Sustained
The Age Of Scarcity
Last updated Friday, July 11, 2008 6:39 PM CDT in Columns
By Doug Thompson
Arkansas News Bureau
I've seen the "next big thing" come and go a few times. Each time it's a different one.
Ethanol, super-conductivity, cold fusion, genetic engineering; Those are a few I can name just off the top of my head.
They don't ever really go away, though. Research into super-conductivity and genetic engineering, for instance, hasn't stopped. It just stopped making headlines.
Some should stop but don't. Ethanol from corn springs to mind.
So my well-honed "yeah, right" attitude held out for quite a while during Dan Sanker's talk in Rogers to yet another blue-ribbon panel on economic development appointed by yet another governor.
Sanker kept saying in different ways that we can do much of what we do now with a lot less energy and packaging. This is not only good for the planet. It's cheaper and easier for everybody.
The first half-dozen times, I thought "well, duh." Anybody who doubts that needs to come by my house on the day after Christmas and haul off the trash.
Then this talk of efficient operation, which Sanker insisted on calling "sustainability," brought a few other things to mind. My car was one.
The local Toyota dealer has sent me letters telling me it's time to trade that car in for at least three months in a row. This was intriguing, considering that my car has more than 106,000 miles on it.
My car radio blares out that it's "Toyota buy-back days" in Rogers, too.
I'm a little slow. That's one reason I don't make hasty decisions. That, in turn, means I don't respond well to letter advertisements and radio ads.
I finally get it, though.
Everybody wants my old four-cylinder car, which has been driven enough to circle the globe four and a half times.
Why? Well, I guess it's "sustainable."
Then there was the energy forum a few weeks ago. One of the speakers said that probably a third of the houses in America have a big hole or tear in their ductwork that could be easily repaired, wasting untold amounts of energy.
Wal-Mart gave a presentation at that same forum, talking about all the millions upon millions of dollars it has saved just by taking energy-efficiency seriously.
Then there's the fact that you can safely make a left turn on College Avenue or Gregg Avenue now. Yeah, the college kids are gone and there's some construction, but the congestion is notably less at other-than-peak times.
There are changes happening. The rest of the world is "desperate for leadership" on how to do it, Sanker said. Arkansans have the know-how because we've had to make do with less than just about all the rest of America.
There's a point in there.
Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt: Every one of those businesses flourished because they kept finding more ways to squeeze a few more pennies out of every ton of whatever they handled.
I just wish Sanker and his ilk would find another word than "sustainability." I'd always heard "sustainability" used in the context of farming. It usually advocated something like going back to plowing with mules.
I was a farm reporter and then a political reporter. Take it from me. Herbicides and the four-row cotton harvester freed more slaves than President Lincoln.
Days after that little talk, it finally occurred to me that "sustainability" is different from ethanol, super-conductivity, cold fusion, genetic engineering and so forth in a very important way.
All those other things are silver bullets. They're one-shot or at least one-direction avenues. "Sustainability" is a discipline, a method, a way of looking at and going about things. If super-conductivity progresses, for instance, it can play a big part in sustainability. If not, sustainability will use something else.
Sustainability will work because it does not rely on any one technique.
There's another reason sustainability will work. It's simple in principle. Working out a procedure is the hard part. Once that's done, all you have to do is keep improving it.
All this reminds me of the best answer I've ever heard at a political forum. Candidates for the 3rd Congressional District seat were asked to give their environmental policy in 25 words or less. There was a lot of giggling and some open laughter. The major party candidates did the best they could. Then Sarah Marsh, the Green Party candidate, answered: "Reduce, reuse and recycle."
There was applause.
Doug Thompson is a Fayetteville-based reporter and columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock.
About this columnist
Doug Thompson of Fayetteville covers politics in fast-growing Northwest Arkansas. A native Arkansan, Thompson covered the Northwest region for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for three years before he and his wife, Lisa, left to join Stephens Media Group in February 2002. Lisa is now managing editor for The Morning News.
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