2012 A New Year’s Message

Many readers of the Green Machine blogs have asked me to be more optimistic and provide a solution to our energy and ecology problems. I know the limitations of the laws of thermodynamics and Newton’s laws of motion so most of my writing is that we have to have smaller lighter vehicles with hybridization of the power train and that we also have to change our way of living with smaller homes closer to work and use public transport, walk or ride bicycles that can be electrified. I do think there is a political solution that should be explored and this is my New Year’s sermon.

I have hinted that the cost of membership of countries to belong to the UN should be in direct proportion to their carbon emissions. While I think the UN is a broken organization I do believe the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a thriving organization and is the cornerstone of economic development for all countries that belong to this global organization. My suggestion is therefore that the cost of membership in the WTO be in direct proportion to the country’s CO2 emissions. This would start in 2012 at $10 per ton of CO2 emissions and will increase by $1 per ton each year going forward. You may ask what will the WTO do with $300 billion that falls into its lap in 2012? My suggestion is that the WTO take over the operation of the WHO (World Health Organization) as well as create a World Children's Organization (WCO) to replace UNESCO. The WTO should also take over the World Bank for the funding of development projects and concentrate on small projects that actually assist the extremely poor in rural areas of the developing world. This new bank will be called the WBO (World Banking Organization)

Let’s look a little more deeply at my idea for the WHO. It should concentrate on preventable diseases and work to stop the spread of infectious diseases. The WCO needs to deal with basic education (non-religious and non-biased) of the children of the world and assure that children everywhere are adequately nourished, housed, educated, and respectfully treated. UNESCO was supposed to do this but has failed as the parent organization (UN) is compromised politically. The World Bank is also a politically incompetent organization and simply has not delivered projects that bring improvement to the lives of the extremely poor around the globe. Instead of large power projects that simply make money for the likes of GE to supply expensive equipment and large engineering contractors to install this expensive equipment, I suggest the new WBO look at three immediate aspects of improving the lives of the very poor. The first is clean and safe drinking water, the second is lighting, and the third is cooking fuel for folks in remote villages. I can solve all three to improve the lives of 500 million people with 50 billion dollars of investment and rapidly lower the carbon intensity and despoliation of the land that surrounds these rural poor. The first step is to deploy PV cells or small wind turbines to create a small amount of electricity in each little village. A portion of the electric power can be used to produce ozone (from the air) or bleach (if salt is available) to render the water drinkable and safe. Some of the electricity will be stored in lead acid, nickel metal hydride, or lithium ion batteries and then used in LED lighting at night. The lighting could even be via portable lanterns. I suggest for cooking fuel that the WBO provide systems to anaerobically digest sewage and animal dung or even help set up the infrastructure to bring in propane or kerosene for cooking fuel. Wood fires should be avoided and subsidies should be given to substitute the above fuels for wood that primarily come from deforestation of the surrounding areas.

My blogs are limited to short crisp message so I will end here and continue the thoughts in further blogs. The real problem with my solution is to make sure the WTO does not become another bloated and incapable organization. For that I propose I become the Head of the WGO and the WGO will run the WTO. The WGO stands for the World’s Greenest Organization. If I am not given the post and it is given to Donald Trump instead the WGO will be the World’s Greediest Organization. In the case of Donald at the helm of the WGO the WTO will then become the World’s Trumpiest Organization, the WCO will be the World’s Costliest Organization, The WHO will be the World’s Hugest Organization, and the WBO will become the World’s Boastiest Organization. “Be Green Vote Leveen” will be on bumper stickers in 2012. Actually on a very serious note if Donald chooses to run as an independent for President I have my “Take a Dump, Vote For Trump” bumper sticker printed and ready for action.

To you all Seasons Greeting and a Happy Healthy and Prosperous New Year