Sustainable Redevelopment
Excerpts from: A “Jim Bell & Commonsense” Commentary
Various critics have pointed out that the term “sustainable development” is an oxymoron. For the most part, I think they make a good point.
What we need is Sustainable Redevelopment. We need to prove our proficiency to develop sustainably by fixing the mess we’ve already made—before we go out and “sustainably develop” new land.
Obviously, if the human family is to achieve its full potential, we must transform our current non-sustainable economies and ways of life into economies and ways of life that are life-support sustaining. To show how this can happen gracefully, I’ll use the San Diego/Tijuana Region, where I live, as a case study. On a foundational level, the San Diego/Tijuana Region is 6 million people today, projected to grow to 8 million circa 2050 (1), and we currently import 98% of our energy (2) and 90% of our water (3) and food. (4)
The goal of Sustainable Redevelopment is to invest in bringing the human made world into harmony with human and life-support system health, happiness and prosperity. As the foundation of all this, we need to become life-support sustaining as gracefully and soon as possible. We have to transform our current non-sustainable economies and ways of life into prosperous economies and ways of life that are completely life-support sustaining; completely symbiotic.
But we consume so much energy, water and food, can we ever supply all that is needed for our Region’s current 6 million population, let alone do it for the 8 million people projected to be living here circa 2050?
The surprising answer is, yes, and we can do it on all three counts. All we have to do is start redirecting the $17 to $20 billion we will spend each year any way on imported energy, water and food (assuming their cost does not rise) – to make our region renewable energy, water and food self-sufficient.
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