SALUSTRA--Sustainable Alternative Technologies.

All we truly have in this or any age is our dreams; dreams to grow, change, create. This particular phase in human history is one of crucial import. We have accumulated the power to upset any and all ecological systems on this planet . Our societies (particularly the industrial societies of the Northern Hemisphere), have developed on a course which brings us further from a sustainability with each passing minute. The resultant threat stems from the fact that ecological systems, like the human body, can only withstand a finite amount of stress in order for recovery to take place. The alternative is total impoverishment of the ecological system and a resultant drastic loss of biodiversity and population. As an individual organism holds many analogies for a particular ecosystem, and an ecosystem can be held analogous to the entire biosphere (call it what you will--a massive ecosystem or a single organism). The laws of life cycling hold regardless of the particular scale of life you consider. According to current research at Harvard University, the Earth is losing at least 140 species/day. This estimate is conservative-- some estimates place it more along the lines of 100 species/day. This rate of extinction is incresing exponentially as pollution and habitat destruction accelerate. The end resuld of this path we are taking is obvious. Complete ecological collapse, with a few hardy species low on the food chain surviving to be the progenitors of a new evolutionary age. Keep in mind that in the past when 50%-80% of all species were eliminated through climate upheavals, thes extinction periods covered several million years, and in all cases, the dominant species went first. We are competing with the magnitude of the great extinction epochs in only a few decades' time. We have also, and rather arrogantly, assumed the position of dominant species. Think about it. This threat of complete ecological breakdown is due to greed, ignorance, lack of foresight, and absence of vision. Many of us do not see the developing instability in the global system as readily as we see "the button." or some other immediate threats, such as which person on the street will be gunned down tomorrow, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, etc. How do we prioritize our energies to eliminate the threats to our common future? We cannot bury our heads in the sand or rely on others to take the initiative, for time is not a luxury here. A suggestion may be to overcome one of the more intractable aspects of our society which has wrought havoc ecologically while at the same time building cohesion between people. This is what Salustra is about. You can see Salustra as holding ecology as an initial priority, given its angle of focus. This is not to say that social problems are regarded here as less important or meaningful. A closer look at this list of social and ecological ills will yield the realization that there is no difference between ecological and social injustice in terms of the root causes. Salustra is an attempt at a root solution. Such a solution to this building problem will take courage--courage to look inside ourselves and question what is important to us. Our minds must expand to grasp and create the alternatives we need to restore ecological balance. It has been said for centuries that as we divide ourselves from nature, we in turn create divisions between and within ourselves. If we fail to reevaluate and change our course, then our future lies in serious question. Those of us who have initiated the idea of SALUSTRA have incredible faith in the potential of humanity. We do believe that a healthy future is possible. We cannot accept the cynical view that nothing will improve. It is our intention that hope for our future and exuberance for life will reemerge in stride with SALUSTRA's implementation. HISTORY The idea of SALUSTRA was created in July, 1991, by David Pyles, who was coordinating outreach for COMMON GROUND, the third national student environmental conference hosted by the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC). The focus of SALUSTRA initially involved only college campuses in the U.S., and was to be included as an extension of SEAC's Campaign for Energy Independence, begun as a response to the National Energy Strategy. Through informal conversations with several of the other conference organizers, the focus shifted to low-income areas of the U.S. and the idea of the cooperative began here. It was also becoming evident that there was a need to consider SALUSTRA as an international project due to the need for global elimination of fossil fuel use. The entire SEAC National Council and coordinators of SEAC's international project were consulted throughout the rest of the summer. In addition, leaders of the National Green Movement and other grassroots environmental organizations were consulted. By the time of the SEAC conference in October, it had become known through the national grapevine that SALUSTRA was the most comprehensive specific plan of its kind in the American grassroots environmental movement. It had also become clear that the scope of SALUSTRA was tooIt had also become evident that SEAC would not be able to provide the organizational resources necessary to include SALUSTRA in its agenda at that time. SALUSTRA will be a worldwide effort to build a grassroots energy policy based on conservation, solar and/or wind generated electricity, and solar electricity and/or hydrogen combustion for transportation. This plan is not to be thought of as a year long effort. Setting up viable pilot alternative energy projects will take years--a lot of hard, long, and even dangerous years to begin making a significant impact. It is well understood that 20th century human activities, particularly energy intensive industrial activities, have significantly altered the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere. The only dispute in the scientific community is precisely how severely this will affect climate--how many more hurricanes there will be, how much the sea will rise, how many species will become extinct, how much agriculture will be harmed, etc. In fact. the Union of Concerned Scientists publicly announced in November, 1991, that if global emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced by at least 70% by 2030, the world's climate faces a dramatic, perhaps irreversible upheaval on an unprecedented scale. There is good reason to pilot SALUSTRA in the U.S. The United States has 5% of the world's population, and yet it produces 25%-30% of the global anthropogenic flux of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (Stephen Schneider, Coevolution of Climate and Life). The U.S. has considerable economic and military influence internationally, and as a result, actions in the industrialized world which have significant environmental impacts are often influenced by U.S. Government decisions. One cooperative will be set up during the first year of implementation, then 5 the following year, and 10 the third pilot year. As soon as the pilot projects are developed to the extent that they can become models for international replication, mass implementation of this energy policy should reflect a three-pronged effort. That is, the initial focus should be in low-income and urban areas of the United States and Western Europe, Latin America and Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. The three subprojects will be called the Western Arm, Southern Arm, and Eastern Arm, respectively. At the completion of 6 independent SALUSTRA cooperatives in urban areas of the U.S., agencies, individuals, and governments outside the U.S. will be approached with proposals for the creation of solar cooperatives and mass transit vehicle conversion. Funding in the U.S. will come from sources outside the federal government until leadership exists that would support the efforts of SALUSTRA. There exists no known comprehensive plan other than SALUSTRA to rid the world of fossil fuel use to this day. There does exist the IEAE, an international organization of industrialized nations concerned with energy issues. Set up in response to the oil embargo of 1973, this organization seems to be geared toward energy security based on strategic oil reserves, market gerrymandering to keep petroleum prices minimal, and nominal efforts to build conservation policies. There is, though, a climate in this international governmental community which mildly supports pollution-free energy, and this would be stronger if there was a clearer vision on how to accomplish energy independence and greater knowledge of how feasible pollution-free alternatives are. However, there is also a significant bloc of petroleum exporters in the IEAE, which does shift the focus of policy debate toward the status quo. The current U.S. administration has done nothing substantive to reverse the 'burying one's head in the sand' policies of the Reagan/Bush years. This is probably due to the current political climate of the country more than the personal whims of the Clinton Administration. Basically, it is highly unlikely that any reform-minded administration will get congress to pass a truly alternative energy policy within the next several decades. No, if anything, policies like the National Energy Strategy (NES) will emerge and give us little hope of improvement. Much more: http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/salustra.html [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 1, 2007]

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