“The environment continues to get worse, “ [said Schriner].  “We always use the example of ozone.  It’s kind of a dressed up word for rust when it oxidizes in your lungs.  We just don’t think it’s fair for little kids… to be breathing that stuff. We’re very pro-environment.” –Nebraska City (NE) News-Press

                He [Schriner] believes in an “environmental stewardship” policy that would “put me to the left of the Green Party.” –The Mississippi Press

                “We’re running as concerned parents who envision a better world for our kids,” said Schriner.  –Findlay (OH) Courier

                “I don’t want my children growing up in a world laced with pollution, global warming and ozone holes, often from the burning of fossil fuels,” said Schriner.  “Wind energy is non-polluting and we should be subsidizing the development of that nationwide.”  --The Battle Mountain (NV) Bugle

                *categories covered below include: 1) the issues (an overview); 2) the plan (an overview); 3) global warming; 4) solar energy; 5) wind energy; 6) subsidizing the shift; 7) water power; 8) alternative transportation; 9) decentralism; 10) reforesting America, one tree at a time; 11) healthy forestry, at nature’s pace; 12) Healthy Forest Restoration Act; 13) rangeland devastation and rangeland reform; 14) lawn problems; 15) vanishing species; 16) water pollution and water scarcity; 17) recycling; 18) future generations

                1) the issues (an overview):

                Okay, let’s admit it.

                Many of us in America are: ‘biophobic.’

                And while there isn’t a support group for this yet, there should be – before it’s too late for the planet.

                During a research stop at Oberlin College to meet with David Orr, who is the head of Oberlin’s Environmental Science Department and a nationally known author, he told me people who are ‘biophobic’ view the environment as “an enemy to be tamed.”

                And the closest these people often get to weather is, well: the Weather Channel.

                They live in temperature-controlled homes, temperature-controlled office spaces, temperature-controlled vehicles… 

                In Sharon, Connecticut, Kathy Amiet, a naturalist who teaches at the Audobon Society Center there, told me that people who don’t like nature (except for a few sunny, 75 degree days) -- aren’t too terribly concerned about saving it.

                And that shows.

                According to a recent Time Magazine article on the environment, “11,000 species of animals and plants are currently known to be threatened with extinction.”

                You read that right, 11,000.

                At a stop in Slidell, Louisiana (pre-Hurricane Katrina), a Fish & Wildlife official told us about a small woodpecker that’s looking at extinction.  The reason:  We’re addicted to cheap furniture made from the only wood this bird can peck.

And that’s not all.

According to the book The Living World, acid rain, heavy metal pollution and disposal of nuclear waste are all wreaking havoc on the eco-system.  Incidentally, it is us who are doing all this.

                As it is us who are rapidly destroying the earth’s vital ozone layer, which took millions of years to form.

                And have I mentioned global warming?

                Time Magazine did in a recent “Special Edition” issue dedicated to the topic.  The picture it painted was beyond alarming.

                An excerpt:

                “Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out.  Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.”

                And Time graphically noted what that looks like: 

A recent Category 5 cyclone exploded through northeastern Australia. Polar ice caps are melting faster than ever before, with predictions of sea levels rising 20 feet by the end of the century.  (This is not the kind of world my wife Liz and I want to leave our kids, I told the Circleville (OH) Herald newspaper.) 

And it was circles of fires and dust that turned the skies of Indonesia orange, because of drought fueled blazes sweeping the nation, said Time.

                Back at home, the magazine pointed to a battered Gulf Coast region and the busiest hurricane season, ever. 

On a campaign tour leg through the Gulf Coast (post-Hurricane Katrina), we stopped in Pascagoula, Mississippi, which looked like a war zone – six months after the hurricane had hit. 

Pascagoula resident Tom Caffrey took us on a tour.

At one point, he pointed to a lone knoll right on the coast, with nothing but a concrete slab left where there used to be an expansive, three-story residence.  “That home was said to be hurricane proof,” Caffrey said.

And as the home wasn’t hurricane proof, we are not bullet proof when it comes to the environment.

Nor are we innocent bystanders, especially in this country.

America has only 5% of the world population, yet we use the most energy, Bluffton College Environmental College professor Bob Antibus told me.  Professor Antibus said he points out to his classes that if everyone on earth lived like the average North American – it would require at least three earths to provide all the material and energy we’d need.

During a talk to a Moral Theology Class at St. Meinrad’s Seminary in southern Indiana, I said this type of consumption, while billed as the “American Dream,” is actually nothing less than: gluttony.

To control our domestic climates, we are burning tremendous amounts of fossil fuels that are sending plumes of global warming gases up.   And as we drive (often a tremendous amount of unnecessary miles), we’re doing the same.

Coupled with this, we’re failing to – or don’t want to (take your pick) – connect the dots between our insatiable buying of consumer products (appliances, furniture, tools, lawn care items…), and the energy it takes to make them.

During a research stop at Bowling Green State University to meet with Professor Jon Opperman, who is involved with BGSU’s Alternative Vehicle Department, he told me a car often takes more energy to make -- than the energy it will burn during it’s lifetime.

                And we’re not going to have much of a ‘lifetime’ left if we keep going at a veritable snails pace (Remember the snail darter?) with energy conservation and a shift to clean, renewable alternative energy sources.

                And have I mentioned the environmental cancer of unchecked urban sprawl these days, as it devours farmland and wildlife habitat, including forests.  These are forests with trees that are expressly designed to absorb, or all things, carbon dioxide.  Carbon dioxide is the number one global warming gas.

                An irony?

                A tragic one.

                But not the only one…

                Out West, cattle grazing has polluted more water, eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife and destroyed more vegetation than any other land use,” Ted Williams wrote for an Audubon Magazine article.

                And if it isn’t open rangeland, it’s those darned well-manicured suburban yards – that are laced with all kinds of toxic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, which leech into the groundwater.  Groundwater that goes, ultimately, all over the place.

                And it’s the world’s waterways that are becoming more and more polluted, with practically everything these days.  So polluted, in fact, that the famous marine explorer Jacques Cousteau wouldn’t even eat fish taken from the middle of the ocean toward the end of his life a few years back.

                In Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Environmental professor George Kraft told me that world is actually running out of fresh water altogether because we are not only polluting it, but we are diverting it and depleting it, at a “startling rate.”  

                And the list of environmental maladies goes on…

                I used to be a drug and alcohol counselor, and this all seems quite analogous to: an alcoholic who is hitting bottom.

                Some of the things accompanying hitting bottom might include smashing into a tree while driving drunk (Category 5 cyclone smashing into Australia, Katrina smashing into the Gulf Coast…).  As an alcoholic moves toward their bottom, they start losing friends, family (woodpeckers, spotted owls, snail darters… and 10,997 other plants and animals).

                And as all this continues to disrupt the eco-system, organic farmer Kelly Kingsland in Moscow, Idaho, told me what we have to realize is: we’re next.

                Some alcoholics never realize this and they are, indeed: next.

                Others start to recover.

                For the past 15 years, we have traveled the country extensively looking for those who have developed models to help us recover, environmentally.

                And we found them.

                2) the plan (an overview):

                We stopped at St. Gertrude Monastery in Cottonwood, Idaho, to interview a nun who manages the Monastery’s expansive 1,400-acre forest.  Sr. Carol Ann Wassmuth, who regularly gives talks on the “Spirituality of Forestry,” pointed to an edict by St. Benedict.

                That is, we should treat everything in God’s environment as we would “the sacred vessels of the altar.”

                There is a similar principle adhered to by members of the northern Minnesota Ojibwe Tribe.

                On a stop there, we interviewed the Tribe’s Winona La Duke, who ran as a vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket in Campaign 2000.  Ms. La Duke is currently coordinating a project on the Reservation to move the Native Americans there back to “traditional ways.”

                They are farming organically, fishing the rivers for sturgeon, hunting in a small-scale sustainable fashion…  It is all about ‘walking softly’ on the earth, again.

                Ms. La Duke said the Native Americans believe that how they live now in the environment ripples through proceeding generations.  And spiritually she said, they are responsible for the next: seven.

                If only we all saw it that way.

                And our administration would work stridently to create that paradigm.

                At the start of this shift, America has to move from a predominant orientation as a “society of consumers (biggest per capita on the planet),” to a: “society of conservers.”

                We must begin to lead the world in the “Art of Conserving,” at every turn.

                And one thing(s) we need to conserve, if not just stop using altogether, is fossil fuels.

                As president, I would sign the Kyoto Protocol, immediately.  (The Kyoto Protocol is a universal set of standards for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions that come from burning fossil fuels.)

                And I would go one better.

                I would turn the White House into a “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone,” and urge all Americans to do the same at their homes and businesses.  This would include a dramatic series of strategies to cut central heating, cooling, electricity use in general, while at the same time embracing clean, renewable energy technologies, en mass.

                At an “Alternative Energy Fair” in Custer, Wisconsin, John Hippensteel, owner of the Lake Michigan Wind & Sun Co., told me wind energy, as an example, is now growing by 25% worldwide every year. 

                In America, our administration would push for that figure to be, at least, 500% a year!  To repeat:  “Suddenly, and unexpectedly, the crisis (global warming) is upon us.”

                And the same would go with solar and geothermal technologies.

                These Kyoto Protocol Home Zone strategies would also include campaigns to promote much more walking and bicycling locally, use of alternative solar and electric powered vehicles and biomass fuels (Anyone ever hear of switch grass?). 

And ultimately, we’d affect a shift to a more “decentralized” society conducive to a lot more “local production for local consumption,” which, by natural attrition, would lead to the cutting back on driving, and the emission of global warming gases.

                We would also put more “teeth” in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have a stronger voice in regulating: toxic dumping, over fishing, carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles and factories…

                And to help clean up the air even more, we’d push to reforest America, quick.  (Trees absorb carbon dioxide.)

                At a stop in Rawlins, Wyoming, Mark Williams, who majored in Ecology at the University of North Dakota and works for the Bureau of Land Management, told me never mind the Brazilian rainforest, we clear cut the “entire eastern U.S.”

                Good environmental stewardship?

                Hardly.

                Our administration would push “urban forestry” and Tree City USA models, everywhere.  We’d propose a moratorium on logging in the federal old growth forests and provide incentives for farmers to switch to: tree farms.

                What’s more, we’d push for legislation to stop “cut and run” practices in the forests, allow only selective logging, and work for a mandatory Tree Replanting program.

                Out west on the rangeland, we’d follow Bureau of Land Management’s Lauren Lambertson’s “ideal solution,” by trying to stop cows from grazing on federal lands altogether – so the land can heal.

                What’s going without a few steaks anyway, huh?

                We would also push for stringent EPA standards on toxic lawn chemicals that are causing massive amounts of environmental devastation.  Just ask environmental activist Ann Salt in Menominie, Wisconsin.  We did.

                And we would push for emission control standards (there are none currently) for all motorized lawn equipment.  (I, personally, will be cutting the grass-- that is what is left of the grass after we turn much of the lawn into a permaculture -- at the White House with an engineless push mower, like I do at home now.)

                As for the vanishing species, we’d fight hard to end urban sprawl, stop pollution in general (instituting a “Zero Pollution Tolerance” policy), and draw on a preservation model we researched in Ely, Minnesota.

                The International Wolf Association in Ely has rallied people throughout the country (and around the world) to help save (and repopulate) the wolves in that area.  Their success has been phenomenal, and we propose that similar non-profits start up around every animal and plant that is endangered.

                While perhaps not as romantic as the wolf, I’ll be joining the International Snail Darter Association when it gets going.

                I could go on with this (and I do in the following sections), but I think you get the basic tenor of our environmental stance.  I told CBS News in Columbus, Ohio, that: “We are left of the Green Party -- and that’s hard to do.”

                But we are.

                I told The Press newspaper in Maumee Bay, Ohio, that we had recently gone to the Toledo Zoo with our kids.  During a “Bird Show,” narrator Emily Insalaco repeated an often-used (but seldom taken seriously) adage:

                “We’ve not inherited the earth from our parents; we’re borrowing it from our children.”

                I told the reporter Liz and I do really take that seriously.

 3) global warming

                We believe global warming is real.  And based on data from a multitude of studies we’ve read about, not only is global warming real, it poses an alarming, and quite impending, threat to the planet.

                For instance, studies show several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide.  In Alaska, melting permafrost (that’s never melted before) is pouring mud into the rivers putting fish populations at grave risk, and allowing significant amounts of carbon dioxide into an already CO2 laden atmosphere.  According to the Time Magazine article (mentioned earlier):  With sea ice vanishing, polar bears are starting to turn up drowned.  Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, predicts there will be no polar ice at all by: 2060.”

                On the West Coast, rising sea temperatures from global warming is killing off record levels of plankton – the food at the base of the food chain.  This is nothing short of catastrophic!

                Now, the Bush Administration made a decision not to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol.  This is a U.N. generated initiative to get countries to adhere to a universal set of standards for reducing global warming gases.  (A good number of countries – including many in Europe – have signed the treaty.)

                First of all, as president, I would sign this treaty, immediately.

                What’s more, during an energy seminar at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I told the general assembly there that we would ask Americans to go several steps beyond Kyoto.

                We would try to spark a mass, grassroots movement of people who become tremendously enthusiastic about the: “Art of Conserving Energy.”  (Our country uses more energy than any other country in the world, at present.  For “environmental stewardship” reasons, we would like to see a paradigm shift where we were working toward, per capita, conserving the most energy of any country in the world.) 

As was the case with rationing (and voluntary sacrifice) during World War II, our administration would initially consider rationing energy use, whether that is in connection with home or business energy use, or motor vehicle use.  We see what’s going on with the environment as nothing short of war (global warming, vanishing species…) – on the planet.

For instance, this rationing would move every homeowner to institute a version of a “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone.”

Our family has established one, and we’ve put a “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone” sign in the front yard -- to get neighbors curious and inspired.  (And we would place one of these signs, a big sign, in front of the White House.)

Some of our energy saving strategies have included not using air-conditioning (there was a time in this country when no one used air conditioning.).  In the winter we turn the heat back, close off part of the house, and wear sweaters.

                On a “Voice of the People” television show in Hibbings, Minnesota, I explained that to conserve energy even more our family usually bathes every other day – and we all share the same bath water.

                Other strategies we’ve researched include putting an insulation sleeve around hot water tanks and adding a on/off shut off valve in the shower-head to make it easier to take “GI showers.”  (That is while soaping up, the shower can be easily turned off.)

                Our family has also become very conscious of lighting, trying to only use lights in rooms being used.  (In the life of one light bulb, 500 lbs of coal is burned.)  And, we started to go to bed a bit earlier, like the Old Order Amish, Mennonites and Quakers.

                At a Luddite Congress in Barnesville, Ohio, I heard a speaker say that with improvements in artificial lighting, awake and sleeping cycles have been thrown off, with people staying up on average, considerably later.  In tandem, they are then tired all day and need stimulants like caffeine to keep them going.

                Think of the electricity we’d save in America if everyone went to bed a hour and a half earlier!

                And at a seminar at the Concord Grove Educational Center of Western Michigan, I learned that a compact fluorescent light lasts 13 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb – and uses one-fourth the energy.  What’s more, streetlights waste tremendous amounts of energy by shining sideways and up, as opposed to just training the light straight down where it’s needed.

                Another key to saving energy is: buying less.  Many people don’t make this connection, but it takes the burning of fossil fuels to make most items.  (For instance, during a campaign stop at Bowling Green State University, Professor Jon Opperman, who works with the Alternative Vehicles Department there, told me there is actually more energy used to produce a car at the factory – than will be used to power it during it’s lifespan.)

                And our administration would point to the Voluntary Simplicity Movement, where people are joining together in support groups (shopping for many in America these days has become a compulsive activity) and discussing ways to simplify their lifestyles and cut back significantly on their consumer purchases.  In all this, again, energy gets saved.  

                I told the Havre (MT) News that ours is not a “prosperity platform;” but rather we’re asking most of the American public to cut back dramatically on their lifestyle, again, including energy use.

                 4) solar energy

                After all this cutting back, there will still be need for electricity.  But instead of finding it in the continued burning of oil, coal and other polluting/global warming generating energy sources, our administration would look implement a tremendous shift to clean, renewable energy sources.

                We would, for instance, increase solar technology pursuits.

                In Burlington, Vermont, Solar Works representative Doug Wells told us the latest thing on the market is a new type of solar home system that actually allows for sending excess energy (generated by solar) into the grid – and the homeowner is reimbursed.  In Manchester, Michigan, we researched designs for a “Zero Energy Home,” utilizing a variety of creative passive, and active, solar applications.

                And our administration would propose providing incentives for homeowners, en mass, to make this transition. 

We would also point to initiatives like the non-profit “Southwest Desert Sustainability” project. 

On stop in Deming, New Mexico, we learned this project is designed to help educate homeowners per: retrofitting with more insulation and the feasibility of going to more alternative ways to heat and cool, like solar.  I told a reporter from The Deming Headlight newspaper that our administration would provide regional grants to get similar non-profit initiatives started all over the country.

Another twist to this “Southwest Desert Sustainability” project is that some local high school youth are trained in doing home insulation and alternative energy assessments.  This, in turn, starts to educate a whole new generation in the importance of energy efficiency.

When Jimmy Carter was in the White House in the ‘70s, he had solar panels put on the roof.  (Ronald Reagan subsequently had them taken down.)  At the time, Carter also enacted liberal tax credits for things like solar hot water systems, which have since expired.

Our administration would have them put back up and we would push to have extensive tax credits put back in place for homeowners going to alternative energy.  (In the new Energy Bill – Title XIII, Section 1335, there is a tax credit of 30%, up to $2,000, for the installation of new residential solar hot water systems.)

                Incidentally, the solar panels at the White House would go up right next to several small, roof mounted: wind turbines.

                5) wind energy

                Like solar, we have an unending supply of wind.  A National Geographic article said America’s Great Plains states are the: “Saudi Arabia of wind.”

                Our administration would support the creation of as many wind turbine projects as possible to tap into this clean, renewable energy source.

                We would look to help start projects similar to the Weatherford Wind Energy Center Project in Weatherford, Oklahoma.  On a stop here, we learned the project, when completed (a lot of turbines were already up), will encompass as many as 98, 1.5 mega-watt wind turbines, covering more than 5,000 acres of Custer County.  The power is sold to the Public Service Company of Oklahoma. 

                And when these Oklahoma turbines are operating at peak capacity, they produce enough electricity to power more than 40,000 homes, according to Wind Power Trail literature.  (Not to mention with our Kyoto Protocol Home Zone plan, that same amount of electricity may power 80,000 homes, or more.)

                This literature also notes that a single wind turbine’s environmental benefits are equivalent to planting one square mile of forest each year.  And, wind energy could produce more than twice the total amount of energy currently generated from all sources in America.

                I told a reporter from a radio station in the Weatherford area, that our administration would promote wind farms similar to the one in Custer County – everywhere the wind blows in America.

                Also in the Great Plains, on the outskirts of Mandan, North Dakota, we interviewed Mark Dagley.  He put up four, relatively small “Whisper 900” series wind turbines on his barn roof several years ago.  Dagley told me with wind at 28 mph, one of his turbines will generate 900 watts of electricity.  He said his energy consumption on the farm, including in his rather large farmhouse: was cut in half.

                In North Dakota, we also learned that the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, shows North Dakota to have the best wind potential of any of the lower 48 states.

                Our administration would use this kind of data to determine which 15 states in the U.S. had the best “wind potential.”  Then we would set up a program to inspire (offering tax incentives, etc.)  “Plant a Row of Wind Turbines” initiatives on farms and on other open areas in these states.

At an “Alternative Energy Fair in Custer, Wisconsin, John Hippensteel, owner of the Lake Michigan Wind & Sun Co., told me wind-generated energy is now growing by 25% worldwide every year.  In America, our administration would push to multiply that 50 times.

6) subsidizing the shift

As I’ve mentioned, we would propose that the federal government provide a series of incentives to farmers, businesses, residents… who, for instance, wanted to put up solar panels or wind turbines.

To supplement this, our administration would point to Atwood, Kansas (pop. 1,500).

On a stop in Atwood, we learned about the Second Century Fund, which was started by two local bankers who initially kicked in $10,000 a piece.  The idea was to both grow the fund and help seed things that were beneficial to the community.  And it worked, in a big way.

People started donating to the fund out of a sense of civic responsibility.  People left money to the fund in their wills.  They did it because they wanted to leave the town better for their children. 

Within 10 years, the fund had grown to a phenomenal $932,000.  And again, Atwood’s population is a mere 1,500.

A board was set up to disperse the money from the fund to all kinds of benevolent causes around town, including the city park, the Atwood Arts Council, Atwood Chamber of Commerce, The Good Samaritan Center, The Rotary Club…  The year we were there, some $71,000 went to local projects.  And the $71,000 was merely the interest on the fund that year.

It occurs to us, a common sense idea would be to add an “environmental” category to the list of “benevolent” causes in Atwood, or any community, to help low-income people with some of the cost of the solar panels or wind turbines.  (Local people helping local people – for the common good.)

Note:  In metropolitan areas we propose “Go Zones” similar to ones we researched in Wichita, Kansas.  Wichita is divided into 15 block areas with Neighborhood Associations.  In effect, the city is subdivided into small towns.  And with this model, you could incorporate Second Century Funds for each of these Go Zone communities.

7) water power

Wave action is endless.  On a stop in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, we learned that a $4 million dollar pilot project is being proposed there to turn ocean waves into electricity.  The area’s Journal Tribune newspaper carried an AP report that said in the pilot phase of the project, the wave energy plant would power 500 homes.

And our administration would try to encourage as much research and development around this clean, renewable energy resource as well.

Another way to utilize water is through geothermal applications.  In Ohio and Michigan, we researched geothermal methods of heating and cooling a home.  In Florida, Ohio, the geothermal system consisted of a series of pipes that run below the flooring and into the ground outside.  Water is pumped through these.  The homeowner, Steve Batt, told me in the winter the groundwater is warmer than the outside air temperature and the heat is drawn from it to warm the house.  In the summer, it’s the reverse.

On a stop in Houghton, Michigan, David Bach showed us his geothermal system involves tubing running from his hot water heater and snaking below smooth, painted concrete floors.  This, in turn, heats the home quite adequately – with much less energy.   Bach said with this system he averages a monthly winter heating bill, in the rather frigid Upper Peninsula, of: $17.

At the end of the interview with Bach, he said: “We need a U.S. Energy Plan based on sustainability.”   Our administration agrees, and would do everything possible to help bring that about.

8) alternative transportation

Motor vehicle emissions are causing a tremendous amount of greenhouse gas. 

Our platform is simple when it comes to this.  We would push to cut motor vehicle emissions dramatically.

And we would start by trying to inspire a tremendous tax increase on gasoline.  I told a reporter at the Cortez Journal in Cortez, Colorado, that mounting gas prices are a “good thing” for America.  That is, it will force some Americans to cut back on their driving.

Our administration would push to set up expensive tolls on the Federal Highway Systems and ask states to consider the same on their major arteries throughout each state.  This would do two things.  It would significantly curtail long-distance driving, and in turn, it would curtail the emission of global warming gases.  And two, some of the tolls could be put into funds (on both a state and federal level, to encourage more alternative energy projects.)

And to connect towns, besides the current National Highway System, our administration would line up behind Santa Cruz, California’s Martin Krieg.  On a stop in Santa Cruz, we interviewed Krieg, who is the founder of a movement to get a “National Bike Trail System.” 

And we could have used this during Election 2000, when our family did a three-month, 2,000-mile campaign tour leg through the Midwest on bicycles. 

When a reporter from the Spring Valley (WI) News asked my wife Liz: Why bicycles?  Liz replied:  “We believe this country should get back to the basics, get out of the fast lane, and slow down.  So what better way to do this campaigning than on a slower form of transportation.”

And as this entire transportation shift started to occur, we’d try to encourage much more walking and bicycling in local towns.  And common sense says the more walking and bicycling friendly a town is, the more people will walk and bicycle.

To this end, we would point to Dan Burden’s “Walkable Community Model.”  (Time Magazine has called Burden one of the top environmentalists in the country.)  On a stop in High Springs, Florida, to meet with Burden, he explained his model is designed to show towns how to significantly decrease speed limits, increase the size of walking and bicycling corridors, locate senior living facilities above downtown mercantile sections, create diagonal paths to cut distances from the periphery to center of town…  (We have touted Walkable Communities in talks, and in media, all over the country with the hopes of planting seeds about Burden’s model now.)

And as speed limits slow, the roads will also become much more friendly for slower, alternative vehicles.  Vehicles like Walter O’Dell’s GEM, mini-flatbed electric pick-up truck.  We interviewed O’Dell in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

He told me he bought the truck new for $9,500 and his first 800 miles had cost him a mere $11 in electricity.  What’s more, four other people in town had bought similar electric pick-ups since O’Dell purchased his.

At a stop in Fairfield Beach, Ohio (pop. 500), we learned that no license is required to drive a golf cart (most of them are electric) on the streets here and at least 40 golf carts can be regularly seen about town – going at a much slower and saner rate of speed.

Our administration would also push for more incentives for research and development of all sorts of alternative vehicle technology.

For instance, (as mentioned earlier) we went to Bowling Green, Ohio, to meet with Bowling Green State University’s Jon Opperman.  He is involved with BGSU’s Alternative Vehicle Department.  Helped by a NASA grant, this department has developed a “hybrid bus” that has been put into use as a shuttle bus around campus.  The friction from the bus’s frequent breaking action is transferred into energy to help power the bus.  I told the Bowling Green Sentinel Tribune newspaper that there should be a lot more grants for these types of projects all across the country.

In addition, we would propose offering cities matching grants to set up downtown charging stations for electric vehicles, like they have in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Another thing our administration would promote is more bio-diesel fuel applications.  In Durango, Colorado, we learned about a new bio-diesel fuel made of soybean and canola oil, which can be mixed in with gasoline and doesn’t require engine modification to use.

Also, while traveling through Nebraska, we learned this state now has 11 operating ethanol plants, and plans for a dozen more.

And again, our administration would push for the development of more of these plants in corn producing states all over the country.  (What’s more, in rural Bluffton, Ohio, I interviewed Ray Person who has installed a non-polluting, efficient corn burning stove to heat his farmhouse.)

Our administration would also push for incentives for growing perhaps the best biomass fuel around: switch grass.  (Switch grass is a plant native to North America’s prairies.  It grows faster and needs less fertilizer than corn.  And it grows on land unfit for other crops.”)

9) decentralism

However, we see the switch to more hybrid technology, biomass fuels, the improvement of solar and electric vehicles… as merely interim steps on the way back to a: “decentralized society.”

That is, our increased mobility has opened the door to: centralism, virtually unchecked urban sprawl; massive amounts of highway deaths (33,000 a year in America) and maiming; and the tearing apart of community.

An example:

In tiny Sea Level on the east coast of North Carolina, we met with James Styron, 61.  He told me the “sense of community” here isn’t anywhere like it used to be.

Styron said he spent his whole life in this town.  He grew up around a cluster of small oyster factories, a grocery, a couple restaurants, and a general store where the town kids listened to the “old guys” talk over checkers around a pot belly stove.  People were close.

Styron said his granddaddy was one of the first in Sea Level to own a Model T., the first affordable car for the ‘average Joe’ in America.  The grandfather started driving a bit out of Sea Level, then a bit more, as were others now.  Bigger stores went up, in more ‘central locations’ [read: centralism], with cheaper prices.

What’s left of downtown Sea Level where everyone in town used to meet, talk, shop?  Nothing.  There are no stores and the ‘old guys’ have been replaced with TV characters.

“I’d like for it to be like it used to be,” said Styron, who seemed confused about how that could happen again.

Our administration wouldn’t be confused, and we would promote a “Decentralism Campaign” to help people connect the dots between this increased mobility and the demise of community in the country.

We would encourage downtown revitalization projects nationwide.  At a stop in Plattsville, Wisconsin (pop. 9,983), we researched their “Main Street Restoration Project.”  Main Street Commission President Bob Metzger told me an exciting downtown transformation is happening here, one business at a time.  He said one twist is some shop owners, like in the old days, are renovating their shops “and moving in upstairs lofts.  “Downtown becomes their ‘front yard,’ said Metzger, who added these owners are then much more apt to push for downtown improvements. 

And promote education programs for people to understand why it’s vital to “buy locally,” moving away from patronizing big box retailers (like Wal Mart, K Mart…).  We would point to towns like Yellow Springs, Ohio, as a model.

On a stop in Yellow Springs, we learned the citizens here effectively fought a move to start to locate franchised chains on the town periphery because they wanted to maintain the small business integrity of their downtown..  This included referendums, the paper was deluged with letters to the editor, and “No Sprawl” yard signs started going up all over town.

Yellow Springs also has the non-profit agency Community Services Inc.  In an interview with agency director Marianne MacQueen, she told me her group regularly sponsors seminars on why it’s important to buy locally, including initiatives to help local businesses.  (When a local, family owned grocery was in trouble, Community Services organized a night for the grocer to tell the town about his problems.  As a result, a petition was circulated in the throughout Yellow Springs, with town people pledging to buy at his store.)

As we move back into this local paradigm, more jobs are created locally, we naturally move back into more of a “life giving” agrarian base, with more people growing food, people are able to walk, bicycle, buggy… to most locations.  And not only do we grow closer again in community, but we have cut down on pollution exponentially.

At a stop in Mt. Hope, Ohio, (pop. 2,000) we observed this decentralized dynamic in living color, so to speak.  Mt. Hope is an Amish community, with a downtown general store, a hardware, cloth store for making clothes, a shoe shop, a grocery, a health food store…  Then interspersed throughout the community are woodworking shops, buggy repair shops, leather and saddle shops…  And in a circular radius around town are farms where some of the local farmers grow for local people.  For instance, some of the produce, eggs, milk… are sold at an auction and Farmer’s Market every Wednesday in town. To get to all these locations, the Amish, for the most part, buggy, walk or bicycle.

The community interdependence is palpable.  And because of the emphasis on local and the modes of transportation the Amish use, the environmental stewardship here is next to none.

We would all do well to learn much more from the Amish when it comes to environmental stewardship, and decentralism, I told the Wooster (OH) Daily News.

                Note:  For a more comprehensive look at the issues I describe above, and more, see our: “Energy Policy” position paper.

                10) reforesting America, one tree at a time

                Living in America, we are living amidst one of the biggest clear cuts in the history of the world.  And trees continue to be a tremendously big issue in the country.

                First off, and to stay with the global warming theme, trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.  They are, in effect, natural scrubbers for our global warming gas emissions.

                And our administration would promote the growth of many more trees, and try to also help preserve the existing trees – at almost every turn.  Starting with the: “old growth” forests.

                In Brookings, Oregon, I interviewed Mick Breenan, who is a “forestry technician” with the U.S. Forest Service.  He said old growth forests are extremely important to many endangered species these days.  His proposal is to stop cutting trees altogether in the old growth federal forests.

                And in its place, Breenan proposes incentives for more farmers to start: tree farms.  Besides the ecological benefits of saving the old growth forests, and establishing more trees nationwide, Breenan said this plan would also free up many “forestry technicians,” just like him, to do more meaningful things. 

                Right now, one of these forestry technicians’ main jobs is monitoring the species being affected by cutting in the old growth forests.  If you stopped cutting in the old growth forests, there’d be no need to count, period.

                Brookings Pilot newspaper staff writer William Lundquist noted that I hoped to build a following of constituents with common sense philosophy.  And these old growth forest and tree farm initiatives seem to make a lot of sense to us, common sense.

                Another idea that makes a lot of sense, we think, is the establishment of many more “Tree City USA” towns.  Tree City USA is a federal program, which could easily be transitioned into a state or local program.

                To be a Tree City USA member, a town must have:  a tree board; a tree ordinance; an operating budget of $2 per person in the town; and have some sort of Arbor Day observance.

                In Bluffton, Ohio, I interviewed Jon Sommers who said the previous year on Arbor Day, the Bluffton Tree Board mustered a group of community volunteers to plant 500 ash trees here.

                Sommers also pointed out that besides trees absorbing carbon dioxide, they provide homes with wind breaks in the winter and natural shade in the summer, both of which helps cut down on energy use.

                Going several steps beyond Tree City USA, Nebraska City, Nebraska (birthplace of Arbor Day), is one of “10 Living Laboratory Projects” which are models for urban forestry.  On a stop here, we interviewed Arbor Day Farm manager Chris Aden.

                He said in its attempt to reforest, this town of 6,500 people is planting 10,000 trees over a 10-year period.  (This even includes tearing up concrete and asphalt in some places around town to plant trees.)

                Our administration would urge towns across America to consider the same.

                11) healthy forestry, at nature’s pace

                Going back to forests, it’s inevitable that some logging will continue.  And we went to Cottonwood, Idaho, to interview one of the top “environmental loggers” (her term) in the country.  Sr. Carol Ann Wassmuth is the “forest manager” for some 1,400 acres at the Monastery of St. Gertrude, and she regularly gives talks about forest management.

                She refers to her work as: “the spirituality of forestry.”

                St. Gertrude Monastery engages in “selective logging.”  That is, they take out the defective trees to make the forest healthier, said Sr. Carol Ann.  And as those trees come out, new seedlings are planted. 

                In addition, as healthy trees come out, new trees are planted as well.

                A forest should be sustainable.  Sr. Carol Ann said the water, wildlife habitat and underbrush should all be continually protected.  The philosophy is just the opposite of the “cut and run” philosophy in play in many forests currently.

                And Sr. Carol Ann said that some of the onus for the cut and run paradigm is on the American consumer.  That is, the consumers want a wealth of cheap paper, a glut of cheap furniture, unnecessary house additions… creating a tremendous demand for wood.

                “Forestry is an art, not a science,” said the nun who laughs about trading in a “habit for a hard hat.”

                If done right, logging can make the forests healthier, she said.  And she added that the chirping of birds, the wind rustling through trees, and the sound of a chainsaw does, actually, not have to be as incongruous as one might think.

                With all due respect to Sr. Carol Ann, while we believe some logging is necessary, we would do well to take a step back to the “old days” on this one.  We believe chain saws should, ultimately, be scrapped for manual saws. 

                For one, chain saws are not emission controlled and create a tremendous amount of pollution.

                And two, chain saws have allowed us to cut through forests at a breakneck pace, which in turn has a tendency to lead to the devaluing of the gift God has given us.  We believe going at a much slower pace (manual saws), would lend itself to a saner, forest management scenario.

                What’s more, forestry at a slower pace would mean less paper, furniture, and so on. Items which would then be sold at a higher price – and thus, valued more.  And to take it a step further, as in cutting trees without an engine, we believe there should be a return to furniture making without an engine as well, or even electricity.

                In a small backyard shop in Bluffton, Ohio, Andy Chappell-Dick does woodworking the “old way.”  He uses no electricity, just old planes, saws, chisels...  In the middle of the room is a Seneca Falls Manufacturing Co., foot-pedal table saw, circa 1895.

                “We are so awash in mass produced woodworking, I believe there’s a value in doing things slower,” Chappel-Dick told me.

                Besides having one of Mr. Chappel-Dick’s pieces in the White House, the other thing our administration would push, ardently, is for care and extensive recycling of wooden products already in existence.

                (Just walking up our block recently, there were two old, perfectly good wooden dressers, made of solid wood and sitting on a tree lawn almost in the jaws of an approaching dump truck.  I quickly talked the homeowner into flagging off the dump truck and giving it another day, or two “…someone will take them,” I assured.  And someone did, a half- hour after the dump truck passed.)

                The point is we’ve become such a “throw-away” society.  Yet these dressers represented a good amount of wood, and a good amount of manufacturing hours.  (One actually looked handmade, although I wasn’t sure.)

                In light of this, our administration would try to encourage a tremendously stepped up “recycling environment” when it comes to wood products.

                12) Healthy Forest Restoration Act

                To go back to forest management again…

                In Rawlins, Wyoming, I interviewed Mark Williams who is with the Bureau of Land Management there.  He majored in Ecology at the University of North Dakota.

                He said the Healthy Forest Restoration Act passed in 2004 is an attempt to have the same forest management techniques for all forests.  Contrary to the intent of this Act, Williams believes forests in different regions should be managed differently, determinant on climate, tree species, various undergrowth makeup…

                “And they (forests) must be managed in a sustainable way,” he added.

                Our administration would push for a policy compatible with this simply because common sense indicates forests are, indeed, different, and forest management methodology that might work for one forest, might not be as effective for another.  And we would look to local experts to make those determinations for each forest region.

                What’s more, Williams said roads are “one of the biggest problems in the forest.”  He explained that currently, some 86% of the country is within one kilometer of a road.  He said the large amount of roads in the nation’s forests exist because we have “catered to campers and loggers.”

                The construction of forest roads destroys parts of valuable eco-systems.  What’s more, the roads allow access to others who often damage the eco-systems as well.  And, dirty vehicles coming into the area carry seeds from weeds and other plants not native to a particular forest eco-system.  These, in turn, grow, multiply and change the biological integrity of a particular forest region.

                The same happens on rangeland in these parts.

                13) rangeland devastation and reform

                In an Audubon Magazine article, Ted Williams states:  “ Cattle grazing in the West has polluted more water, eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife, and destroyed more vegetation than any other land use…”

                The environmental group Green Scissors (Cutting Wasteful and Environmentally Harmful Spending) notes that the public land grazing program administered by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is highly subsidized, benefits only a tiny fraction of the nation’s livestock operators, costs the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars each year, and is highly detrimental to the environment.

                Karl Hess Jr. and Jerry Holechek would agree.  Hess Jr. is a senior fellow of Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute and Holecheck is a professor of Rangeland Science at New Mexico State University.

                In an extensive paper on the subject, these experts explained that three-fourths of the federal land in the West is dedicated to public land grazing.  This equates to 265 million acres, eclipsing logging, farming and mining.  (Yet the grazing, although extremely extensive, only accounts for less than 3.5% of the nation’s beef.)

                Hess Jr. and Holechek  also note that the Rangeland Reform Act championed by former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, has not been very effective in stemming overgrazing and it’s attendant damage to the eco-system.

                Rangeland Reform was intended to triple grazing fees on public lands, which, in turn, was intended to discourage overgrazing.  However, this received opposition from Western congressional delegates.

                The Act was also intended to help heal damaged rangeland and curb future deterioration of rangeland soils, plants, wildlife and wetlands.

                Hess Jr. and Holechek contend, however, that subsidies to ranchers is the major cause of degradation in both public and private components of federal grazing allotments, and has further undermined the intent of Rangeland Reform.  For example, they write that subsidies to livestock producers help keep the most marginal – and often most environmentally fragile – land in production by raising incomes and lowering costs sufficiently to justify levels of grazing that otherwise wouldn’t be cost effective, or environmentally sound.

                Lauren Lambertson, who has been with the Bureau of Land Management in Rawlins, Wyoming, (their Conservation District covers 4.2 million square miles) for 20 years, told me that it was her opinion that: “Rangeland Reform did nothing for us.”

                And she listed several major concerns.

                She said besides overgrazing, roads through the rangeland here allow for foreign weed infestation (again, brought in on dirty trucks), which destroys forage for deer, elk, antelope, sage grouse…  And as a result, there’s a natural drop in animal population. 

She said roads in this area are attributable to drilling operations.

Our administration would push for a moratorium on new roads through many of these federal forest and rangeland regions.

In addition, Ms. Lambertson echoed what Hess Jr. and Holechek contend.  That is that overgrazing has become a major problem to the eco-system in her district.

And she said the “ideal” solution is to “get all the cows off the federal land.”  This would curb the erosion and help the land start to heal.  However, Ms. Lambertson said in Wyoming, the beef market accounts for significant income in the state.  She said it is a “rancher state,” and this issue is a “political football.”

It would be our administration’s contention that the time for playing ‘political football’ and pandering to big money interests is over.  And it is time simply to: just do the right thing when it comes to the environment.

In this case, doing the right thing would be allowing for the land to heal.

                Beyond this, we would consider a program to give the Native Americans back some of this land with the agreement it be used in their traditional ways for hunting, fishing and organic growing.

                As stated earlier, at a stop at the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, I met with Winona LaDuke.  Ms. LaDuke was Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket during Campaign 2000.  She has started a White Earth Land Recovery Project on the Reservation to encourage outside interests (like corporate farms) to sell, or give back, some of the land so the Native Americans there can go back to traditional forms of hunting, fishing (sturgeon are being reintroduced back into the rivers), organic farming…

                Ms. La Duke told me here philosophy, as is the philosophy of her Ojibwe Tribe, is that this generation of Native Americans is responsible for “seven generations” to come.

                And as with Natives Americans, we need to get that across to suburban Americans.

14) lawn problems

Now, to go from open rangeland to boxed suburban grassland, if you will…

Another huge environmental problem in America is your run of the mill, neatly groomed: suburban yards.

For one, these often contain massive amounts of toxic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, which are destroying topsoil and leaching into all sorts of water sources, like Menomin Lake.

Menomon Lake is in Menomonie, Wisconsin.  On a campaign stop here, we met with Ann Salt who was mounting a drive to make Menomonie as “toxin free” as possible.  She told us lawn chemicals were leaching into the lake killing off fish, plants, and even worse, Ms. Salt said she believed these chemicals were ending up in residents’ water.

A couple years before we met Ms. Salt, she had written a play for the town entitled: “H2, Oh, Oh!” about the toxin/water problem, and she was planning to approach city council to lobby for a “Toxin Free Menomonie.”

As president, I would go to Menomonie and hold up Ms. Salt’s efforts as a model that could be replicated in every town across the country.  It is these types of local, grassroots initiatives that, ultimately, will be the best vehicle for lasting, societal change.

Case Western Reserve University Professor Ted Steinberg wrote the book:  American Green:  The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn.

In the book, he addresses the toxic chemical issue with lawns and points out, that besides groundwater pollution, these toxic lawn pesticides are responsible for some 7 million bird deaths each year.

Steinberg also points out that Americans spend approximately $40 billion on lawn care annually, more than the gross domestic product of Vietnam.  Americans spill 17 million gallons of gas refueling their lawn mowers and leaf blowers, or about 50% more oil than what was spilled during the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.  What’s more, a car would have to drive 7,700 miles at 30 mph to create as many pollutant hydrocarbons emissions – as using a gas-powered leaf blower for half an hour.  (You read that right!)  And on top of this, lawn mowers don’t have any emission controls and spew a tremendous amount of global warming gases.

During a talk on “Simple Living” in Bluffton, Ohio, I said as president I would cut the White House lawn with an engineless push mower, the same as I’m cutting my lawn with now.  I would also push to provide purchase incentives for Americans wanting to buy similar, low-tech, non-polluting (good exercise) lawn mowers. And I would rake the leaves at the White House (once we got the trees in) with similarly low-tech: rake. 

I would also promote a Bill for strict emission controls on lawn mowers and leaf blowers with engines, for both new and existing motorized yard implements.  What’s more, we would push to develop solar powered and electric mowers.

And for some regions, I would propose incentives for homeowners to have: no lawns.

In Rawlins, Wyoming, I interviewed Dan Mika who is the supervisor for the Parks Department here.  He said he is colloquially referred to as the “Grass Nazi.”  He told me he is forever trying to educate people here in this rangeland region about the negatives of putting in grass lawns.

He said the area only gets nine inches of precipitation a year, which means the lawns need an exorbitant amount of watering, which in his opinion, wastes water and money.  What’s more, he said many people put chemicals on the lawns that significantly pollute groundwater.

Mika added that perhaps the most environmentally sane thing to do in these regions is to leave the natural landscape – the way it is.

And throughout the country, there is a move to return some of the land back to the way it was – starting in one’s backyard.

In Ohio, for instance, there are now more than 20,000 people who participate in this state’s Backyard Habitat Program.  With the help of state provided nature consultants, these people are planting indigenous plants, and coming up with other strategies to once again provide natural habitat for many species.

In North Olmsted, Ohio, I talked with Ted Zawistoski who is participating in the program, and who proudly displays a “Backyard Habitat” plaque in his den.  The Zawistoski’s have planted trees indigenous to the area, put in butterfly bushes, have an extensive garden and even a couple beehives in their one-fourth of an acre backyard.

The Zawistoski’s yard is just shy of a full-blown permaculture -- a concept that has been gaining more and more popularity across the country in recent years.  We have researched permacultures in Citronelle, Alabama, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Siler City, North Carolina.

 At the Silk Hope Catholic Worker Farm in Siler City, Dan Schwankl pointed out that permaculture stands for: permanent agriculture.  Schwankl, who has an Associates Degree in Sustainable Agriculture from Central Carolina Community College, explained that permaculture is about setting up a synergistic environment where all the natural systems enhance and sustain one another.

He said an example of a permaculture (which closely matches the one they have on an acre of land at Silk Hope – and will closely match what we do with the White House grounds, really) might be one that incorporates ponds, chickens, organic vegetable gardens and orchards all in very close proximity to one another.  Toads who like the moist banks of the ponds during the day come into the gardens at night and can each eat up to ten pounds of insects a month.

When they go back into the water during the day to keep cool, their excrement helps fertilize the pond bed.  Duckweed then grows easily on the pond surface and, thanks to the nutrient rich pond water, can be skimmed off and used as a food source for the chickens.  If the orchard is connected to the chicken coop, the chickens can fertilize the orchard yard. As they scratch for bugs to feed themselves, they’ll keep the insect level low. 

All the while, Schwankl notes, the people who live in this well-designed system get fresh eggs, vegetables, fruit, fish and meat without the need for fertilizers (natural chicken manure) and pesticides (bugs eaten by chickens and frogs).

                That is, if there are any frogs left.

                15) vanishing species

                According to an Aug. 26, 2002, Time Magazine article on the environment, “11,000 species of animals and plants are known to be threatened with extinction.”

Frogs, while not on the list yet, are apparently approaching it.

                In Mt. Vernon, Ohio, I attended an Ohio Department of Natural Resources talk.  ODNR official Mike Miller said current levels of farm herbicides and pesticides are throwing off “eco-system stability.”  And as one result, the frog population in the Kokosing River here has dropped dramatically in recent years, he explained.              

                It’s not much better for frogs in Slidell, Louisiana.

                At a campaign stop in Slidell, a Louisiana U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biology expert, who requested anonymity, told me his department had just got a grant to study deformities in frogs from increased levels of water pollution in the area.

                This expert also said a small variety of woodpecker, indigenous to the area, has become endangered.  He said the reason why this woodpecker is in trouble is because it is losing its habitat, which are 16-year-old, and older, pine trees.  (The wood becomes soft enough for them to effectively peck at this age, he said.)

                The problem is, he continued, that when the pines get this old – they also make good lumber.  And corporate interests are trumping the existence of one of God’s species.

                Our administration would fight to help protect this woodpecker legislatively.  And as mentioned earlier, if we became better stewards of the forests in general – managing them in a sustainable fashion – these birds wouldn’t be in danger in the first place.

                Neither would wolves.

                In Ely, Minnesota, (right at the northern Boundary Waters) we stopped at the International Wolf Center.  There we learned that several years prior, the wolf population in the area was dramatically down to some 600 wolves.  The Center’s Gretchen Diessner told me that with the help of the Wolf Center Association, with members in 50 states and 48 countries, in tandem with this highly innovative and interactive Center in Ely, the wolf population is now up to 3,000.

                I told the editor of Ely’s newspaper that our administration would try to inspire similar initiatives around each endangered species, even the more ‘unromantic’ ones, like small Louisiana woodpeckers, snail darters and spotted owls.

                Another real threat to wildlife habitat has been the environmental cancer of urban sprawl.  It is eating away at wildlife areas, farm areas, everything.

                At a stop in Fairborn, Ohio, we met with a man who is trying to do something about urban sprawl on a grassroots level.  Bob Jurick has established the B-W Community Land Trust here to buy and protect area wetlands and forests, while creating a “greenbelt” area around the greater Dayton area.

                And just southwest of here, a group of farmers have gotten together in Brown County, Ohio (which is right in the jaws of Cincinnati sprawl) to create a land trust to buy as much farmland as possible.  They are then leasing the land, with the provision it only be used for farming.

                And as sprawl was threatening to engulf these areas, it was doing the same in the Beaufort, South Carolina area.  Development had been happening here pretty much unchecked until 1998.  That was the year a small band of citizens formed SOS (Save Our Small islands).

                On a stop here, SOS spokesperson Reed Armstrong said the group’s lobbying and protests had been successful in blocking development on three, small seven-acre islands sitting in a salt-water marsh.

                And it is water in general that has become a big problem, in America and around the world.

                16) water pollution and water scarcity

                Water in America increasingly becomes more polluted.  And clean water in the Third World increasingly becomes more and more scarce.

                In Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, we met with University of Wisconsin Environmental Professor George Kraft.  He told me that 70% of the world’s water is used for irrigation, 20% for industrial use, and 10% for drinking and cooking.  Professor Kraft said the book Blue Gold points out that the world is running out of fresh water because man is “polluting it, diverting it and depleting it at a startling rate.”

                So what we do with water in America has international implications.

                Perhaps the most alarming water pollution problem is that United Nations Food and Agriculture figures show up to 1 billion children each year (mostly in the Third World) suffer from diarrhea caused by drinking contaminated water, and 5 million of those children die.

                At a Renewable Energy & Sustainable Living Fair in Custer, Wisconsin, I learned that a lot of these contaminated drinking water deaths could be avoided by getting as many simple, low-tech solar ovens to as many people as possible in the Third World.

                Solar ovens can be used to pasteurize water.  At a temperature of 149 degrees for 10 minutes, all water-born bacteria and parasites are killed.

                Our administration would start a drive to get these solar ovens out worldwide -- as soon as possible. And one of the sources we would propose tapping for this is: NASA funding.      

                I told reporter Kate Baldwin of the Moscow (ID)-Pullman Daily News that as president I would work to end the U.S. Space Program.  I said, for instance, we are spending billions of dollars to get to Mars to see if there was ever water there (so we can perhaps in the future make it habitable); and meanwhile on “this planet” there are scores of Third World children dying from drinking contaminated water – every day.  I added that I believed the money would be much better spent on cleaning up the water on this planet now – for these children’s sakes.

                Another big worldwide water problem, is scarcity of water in some countries. 

                In Hibbings, Minnesota, I interviewed Sheila Arimond who went on a mission trip to Tanzania.  She said every day she would walk to a dry creek bed with some rural villagers to dig for water.  Sometimes they’d find some, sometimes they wouldn’t – and would go thirsty that day.

                Returning to America, Sheila (who lives in a modest, ranch style two-bedroom home) told me the Tanzanian experience made her reflect on the “opulence” of her life.  “I’d feel guilty turning on the water (when she got back from Tanzania),” she said.            

                Our administration would point to Sheila Arimond’s story, and ask the American people to cut back dramatically on their water use, water no one has to dig for, water that flows freely from taps.  And in turn, we would ask the public to put some of the savings into a “Water Fund” for the Third World. 

To cut water expenses, we would suggest “low flush toilets” that use only half the water and compost toilets that use no water.  As mentioned earlier, we would suggest sharing bath water and installing inexpensive water shut-off valves in shower-heads to make it easier to take “GI showers.”  We would also suggest curtailing the use of water wasting electric dishwashers, using washing machines that use half the water…

                We would suggest minimal watering of lawns.  And if watering is necessary, we would suggest drip irrigation that targets water specifically to a plant, as opposed to general sprinklers where some of the water evaporates before hitting the ground, and some of the water never ends up where it’s intended. 

                In addition, we would ask some of the American public to consider “rainwater harvesting” from gutter systems set up for this.  Bluffton, Ohio’s Lynn Miller told me he was doing research into installing such a system.  He said rainwater is some of the cleanest water you’ll find, and is already “soft water,” which doesn’t have to be treated like “hard water” is.

                Miller said this water can be used for watering plants, washing dishes, flushing toilets, drinking, cooking, bathing…

                And money saved in all this, could go toward funding similar “rain harvesting” projects in, say, Kenya.

                At a stop in Marquette, Michigan, we interviewed Robert Gagnon who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya.  Fresh out of Michigan University Engineering School, Gagnon was assigned to design a system to provide fresh drinking water for a hospital complex in Kenya, an “extremely arid” country, he said.

                  Gagnon said he set up a gutter system there, then installed a cluster of holding tanks.  He said after several good rains, the tanks would be so full that they could provide fresh water for the entire hospital complex – for two years.

                Our administration would work to bolster the U.S. Peace Corps tremendously, and mobilize similar water projects, as an example, in as many places as possible.

                (Incidentally, Gagnon added that a “common sense” practice in America to cut down on water use, would be to make sure every house is metered for water usage.  He said if that were the case, we’d see a big drop in water usage.)

                What’s more, maybe some parts of this country that experience abundant amounts of water, could consider sharing with other parts of the country, if not the world.  In Cambridge, Ohio, newspaper reporter Dan Davis said he believes a national water pipeline(s) from the East to the often much more drought stricken West, would be a good idea.

                And we’d propose something else as well.  What about transcontinental water pipe lines to places like Africa and Indonesia, who have a real shortage of fresh drinking water? 

                Also, while we were on the West Coast we learned of a Desalinization Project that was being developed there to turn Pacific Ocean saltwater to fresh water.  (This is a proven technology that is being used in places like some of the oil rich, water scarce countries of the Middle East.)

                Our administration would propose raising funds to get similar plants in operation in Africa – which is surrounded by ocean water.               

                In addition, it would be our administration’s stance that how we treat the water here, not only affects America, but the world.

                As an example, on a stop at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula or Michigan, we learned the National Weather Service Station at the Northern Michigan University campus was showing abnormally high levels of mercury in rain samples.  According to the North Wind newspaper, the samples contained up to 5.5 parts per trillion mercury – 3.7 parts higher than suggested safe for humans.

                NMU Environmental Science Director Ron Sundell said the high levels of mercury could be coming from local power plants that burn coal, or it could be coming from hundreds of miles away.

                Wherever it’s coming from, mercury moves into lakes and streams that, ultimately, travel all around the globe.  It is a neurotoxin that pollutes, not only water, but fish – and then the rest of the food chain.

                The samples had been sent to the National Wildlife Federation at the University of Minnesota at Duluth.

17) recycle

And it was in Duluth, Minnesota, that we toured the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District Headquarters, perhaps one of the most creative organizations in the country when it comes to recycling.

We were told they had a multitude of recycling programs. 

For instance, their recycling and waste reduction programs for businesses are extremely comprehensive.  They show businesses how to reduce and recycle: white paper, legal pads, adding machine tape, unsolicited mail, paper cups and plates, corrugated cardboard…

The sanitation department here also has an Organic Waste Composting Facility  that accepts almost all food waste and they had just started a pilot project to actually collect food compost curbside at several neighborhoods.  (We learned composting organic wastes is preferable to land-filling them because it recycles nutrients back into the soil as high quality soil amendment.)

During an interview with CBS News in Duluth, I told the reporter that every Sanitation Department in the country should shoot for being as thorough and creative as the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District Headquarters.

And every consumer should be as well.

Our administration would urge more colleges (elementary and high schools) teach comprehensive classes on recycling to change this “throw away” mindset at as early an age as possible.

18) future generations

And it is future generations that we want to start inspiring now, if the planet is to remain sustainable.

In Sharon, Connecticut, Audobon’s Kathy Amiet (mentioned earlier) told me for youth to develop a “love of nature,” you have to take them out into it.  She regularly takes youth out for extended nature walks in the area, as does my wife Liz.

As we travel, the kids have hiked through the desert in Arizona, mountain paths in New Hampshire, the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut, along riverbanks all over… What’s more, they keep an ongoing “Nature Notebook” to write and draw about things they observe.

Liz had read a Yes Magazine article that cited studies done with environmentalists. A consistent factor in an environmentalist’s commitment to help the environment came from spending many hours outdoors, often with an adult who taught respect for nature.

During Campaign 2000, I gave a talk to a group of elementary school students in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  Afterwards, one of the teachers, Betty Yeadneck, told me her class had taken four trips to the nearby desert that year to clean up trash.

I repeated that story for Daily Rocket-Miner reporter Amelia Holden later in the day.  And I said we’re so good at teaching youth work skills, “but how are we at sending them out with environmental and social justice awareness?”

                Our administration would believe the latter would be just as important, if not more, as work skills.