<div> </div>
<div>Pat et. al.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I first lived in Moscow, Idaho, in 1965. Life was comfortable, safe and peaceful (far more than now), and most all the reasonable necessities were available locally, without having to drive long distances to shop. The reasonable necessities were shipped to Moscow even then (and many of the reasonable necessities Moscow offered were not a matter of shopping) ...with no mega malls: good food, materials for construction of shelter (our house was newly built), dishwasher, washer and drier, education, culture, art, safe streets and community, medical care, phone and television, electricity (yes, even in those primitive and brutal days before the "Malling of America" we had electricity, wired into our cave), a record/stereo shop downtown, Haddock and Laughlin, from which I could special order most any recording; and very importantly, a sense of being connected to Nature without feeling that connection being eroded by the manifest destiny of the economic and lifestyle logic of endless development, population growth, increasing resource extraction, and increasing energy consumption, a destiny that if modeled just in </div>
<div>China and India, let alone the USA, will rape the planet of resources, induce runaway climate change, ecosystems collapse and mass extinctions of species on a global scale. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The US level of consumption of resources and energy, with an assumption of endless development and urbanization, is not a sustainable model, certainly not without massive roll out of alternative energy. If Pat is correct, I must be wrong in stating that Moscow, Idaho in 1965, with no mega malls, was a good place to live, and that most all the necessities for that good life did not require driving long distances to shop.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Pat, it seems you are not looking at the big picture of the impacts our incredible consumer lifestyle has globally. Local water conservation or fossil fuel use are just part of the equation. Consider the impacts of buying goods made in China, that the Hawkins Mall will no doubt stock to the roof. For example, Home Depot sells wood products made in China. China, after devastating their own forests, now imports a huge amount of wood from other nations, some of it illegally logged or logged with environmentally destructive practices. China in some respects is like the "Wild West" of free market capitalism. So US consumers are supporting global deforestation to some extent when shopping at Home Depot. And China's huge manufacturing sector, growing in size at a fantastic rate, is powered in large measure by coal power, polluting China's cities, pollution that drifts across the Pacific to hit the USA; and emitting so much CO2 that US efforts to reduce CO2 emissions to mitigate climate change appear futile to many. Many of the products US consumers buy from China are manufactured using dirty coal power, dirty coal power that would not be tolerated if the coal fired plant was located in the Moscow/Pullman corridor. We export the pollution resulting from our consumer lifestyle, at an increasing rate since the globalization economic model has been expanding.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>These issues are immensely complex, far too so for a Vision2020 post to explore in detail. If the Hawkins mall was being built employing alternative energy and emphasizing sustainability, I would not feel so uneasy about what it represents in the big picture. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>But I think there is a moral question underlying our way of life that seems to be forgotten in many of the discussions about economic growth. Given that US rates of consumption of resources and energy simply cannot be realistically extended to the six billion plus other humans populating our planet, as third world nations expand development, we have two options: either we announce that we in the USA get to live the way we do, and most of the rest of the world cannot, based on whatever economic, theological, military and/or moral logic, or we downsize our resource and energy consumption to more sustainable levels (though technological breakthroughs may in part solve the energy problem). There is another option, lowering world population by billions below current levels. This may happen anyway, by necessity, due to war, climate change, agricultural collapse, etc. <br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm">http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm</a><br> </div>
<div>Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/17/08, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:pkraut@moscow.com">pkraut@moscow.com</a></b> <<a href="mailto:pkraut@moscow.com">pkraut@moscow.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">I have attended city meetings for years and the talk about water and how<br>much we do not have has gone on and on and on and on and on.....<br>
Many of us do not need to hear any more of it and we are well aware that<br>the group who belives that will be unhappy with anything that<br>might...just might have an effect on the water useage. My problem is that<br>no difinitive study, and we have spent a lot of money on studies, will<br>
say we will be out soon or maybe sooner than soon. I the mean time<br>Pendleton, Yakima, TriCities and many others are growing and using water<br>at will. So, here we sit...not growing, still driving for an hour or two<br>
to find shopping and I say enough already. Lets spend our money on<br>something that will help our population such as better options on housing<br>and not driving long distances to shop. If it will help our no water<br>crowd build a resevoir (SP) somewhere but lets get on with life!<br>
<br><br><br>> On Feb 17, 2008 2:32 PM, Ted Moffett <<a href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">starbliss@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > <a href="mailto:chasuk@gmail.com">chasuk@gmail.com</a> wrote:<br>><br>> > After reading Tom Lamar's Moscow/Pullman Daily News editorial<br>
explaining his<br>> > no vote on the Hawkins deal with the city of Moscow, I am even more<br>> > convinced claiming that "every nuance of opinon had already been<br>expressed<br>> > ad nauseum" is simply untrue, and expresses a dismissiveness towards<br>
the<br>> > critics of the Hawkins deal that appears an attempt to shut down<br>debate and<br>> > discussion about an important set of issues that should have been<br>placed<br>> > before the public for discussion, as Tom Lamar stated:<br>
><br>> You may be right, up to a point. The opinion I expressed was just<br>> that -- an opinion -- and it may have been wrong. I tend to be wrong<br>> about as often as I am right, sometimes more. However, I have no<br>
> sinister plan to shut down debate, which is what you seem to imply.<br>> Debate away, please. When I made my admittedly dismissive post, I was<br>> of the opinion that the issue was akin to flogging a dead horse. I am<br>
> still half of that opinion, but am feeling gently dissuaded. Who<br>> knows what tomorrow will bring?<br>><br>> Chas<br>><br>> =======================================================<br>> List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>
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