The Nonfiction Portions of Legacy: Chapter 8

In most novels, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction is all part of the fun. In Legacy, understanding which items are really happening in our nonfiction world is an essential part of the project. Listed below are references to further information on many of the real parts of Legacy.  These are presented in the sequence in which they appear in the book.  See also the Resources section of this website, as well as Chapter 11 of the novel.

Caution: This page may contain plot spoilers!

Chapter 8

Herbal remedies (Section 2)
* Plantain poultice: herbal remedy for swelling

Herbal remedies (Section 3)
* Aloe vera, for skin ailments, excellent for sunburn. Lavender for melancholy. Yarrow is a fever modulator. Calendula is for skin aliments, including blisters.

Coyote Creek projects (Section 6)
* Solar oven explanation
and plans - accessed April 1, 2005
The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy works to preserve open spaces and natural habitats, and to educate youth in stewardship. http://www.ovlc.org
accessed June 16, 2005. (Legacy note 85)

News headlines (Section 8)
* The headlines quoted are actual headlines from CNN.com from 6/23/05, 6/20/05, 6/20/05 and 7/3/03.

Accessibility for impoverished countries (Section 9)
* East Asia, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa are the countries listed with the greatest numbers of extreme poor in Figure 1a: Numbers of extreme poor, Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, p.21.
* “… even the best-intentioned humanitarian aid can have negative consequences if the recipient government is based on elite local and foreign interests. An immediate step that we as citizens can take is to tell our representatives that the best use for our money is not supporting the status quo but alleviating the largest economic barrier to true development in the third world – its foreign debt.” From World Hunger: 12 Myths, by Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, accessed July 20, 2005. (Legacy note 84)
* “It is time for the debts of the highly indebted poor countries to be cancelled outright as part of the financing package for the Millennium Goals-based poverty reduction strategies.” Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, New York: Penguin Press, 2005, p. 281. (Legacy note 84)

Agricultural issues and ROOTS creation (Section 10)
* Chill hours: fruit trees require a certain number of hours below 45° to set fruit. The number of hours differs by specific variety- here is an example. Warming trends with climate change will mean fewer chill hours. As fruit trees are a long-term investment, requiring several years to mature to bearing age, orchards cannot be relocated, nor can varieties be substituted in a short number of growing seasons.
* “Increased winter flows to San Francisco Bay could increase the risk of flooding. The fragile environment could be at risk from increased flooding and the upstream movement of saltwater from the bay.” Per “Climate Change and California” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 230-F-97-008e, September 1997, available as PDF accessed 9/11/05. JP believes the conditional tense of verbs in this quote should be read in the context of the EPA’s mandate for presenting a “balanced picture,” and that the presence of even the conditional statement is significant.
* California warming forecasts of 3 degrees by 2030 and 4-6.5 degrees are from the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Climate Change in California: Choosing our Future.” Published circa 2004.
accessed 9/11/05. The higher emissions scenario predicts temperature rise of 8-12.5 degrees by 2090. 
* Agricultural yield tolerance of up to 7.2 degrees is from Richard Adams, et al, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, “A Review of Impacts to U.S. Agricultural Resources,” February 1999. http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/all_reports/agriculture/index.cfm  accessed 9/11/05
* Forecasting of climate change impacts on U.S. agriculture are being prepared by many sources, including: National Assessment Synthesis Team, “U.S. National Assessment of the potential consequences of climate variability and change, Sector: Agriculture,” U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2000
; Richard M. Adams et al, “A Review of Impacts to U.S. Agricultural Resources,” Pew Center on Global Climate Change, February 1999 accessed 9/11/05; the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the United Kingdom Meteorological Office, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research accessed 9/11/05. (Legacy note 85)
* “For the Southeast, the fine-scale model for 2060 shows a loss of 33% of the region’s agricultural economic base without adaptation and 20% even with adaptation,” says the National Center for Atmospheric Research in interpreting the Adams study. Per Oct. 15, 2003 Press Release, National Center for Atmospheric Research, accessed 4/19/05
* Forecasts of the impacts of temperature increase on California vineyards are from the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Climate Change in California: Choosing our Future.” Published circa 2004. accessed 9/11/05.
* “Integrated farming systems [employed by smaller farms] produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop – corn, for example – may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture farm, the total production per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher.” Peter Rosset, “Small is Bountiful,” The Ecologist, v.29, i.8, Dec99 accessed May 3, 2005. (Legacy note 86)
* The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Oklahoma is a nonprofit policy organization. It has produced “Seeds of Change: Food and Agriculture Policy for Oklahoma’s Future” and also has identified “Steps to a Sustainable Agriculture: Priority Areas for Oklahoma Producer Grants.” Both documents are available free at their website http://www.kerrcenter.com/ accessed Aug. 8, 2005. (Legacy note 86)
* “…to go along with growing soil, we have to grow people as well – not more people, but rather people who understand the importance of growing soil.” John Jeavons, quoted in Gardening for the Future of the Earth, Howard-Yana Shapiro, New York: Bantam, 2000, p. 79. (Legacy note 87)

Umbrella concept for international treaties (Section 12)
* “In a speech given by Mohammed Valli Moosa, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in March 2002 … He asserted that ‘[t]he power of the [Global Deal] concept lies in its integration of economic, social and environmental issues. Economic issues – trade, finance, investment, technology transfer – are therefore a crucial part of the Johannesburg agenda.’ … the US (with tacit support from a handful of countries including Australia and Japan) effectively exerted a veto on the wishes of others to initiate an ambitious attempt to bring together relevant international policy activities under the umbrella of sustainable development.” From “The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Was it worthwhile?” by Tom Bigg, IIED, PDF available at http://www.iied.org/wssd/pubs.html  [need link] accessed 9/11/05.

Problem-defined approach to international treaties (Section 13)
* “Another significant feature of the international response to the global change agenda is that the responses have followed closely what we can call the ‘problem-defined approach.’ A biodiversity problem led to a biodiversity convention. The challenge of climate change yielded a climate change convention. The real problem may be poverty, weak and corrupt governments, or fossil fuels, or transportation, or chlorine-based organic chemistry, but the conventions were framed to address the surface worry rather than the deeper problems.  They did not go after the underlying causes or drivers of deterioration.” James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, p. 102.

Locusts and plant diseases (Section 14)
* Verticulum wilt, a form of tomato plant virus, is a current problem in Eastern Tennessee, attributed to the cooler airflow brought on by unusual shifts in the jet stream.  Source: veteran organic gardeners on YahooGroups’ Gardening Organically, June 2005.
*  “Pesticide use is projected to increase for most crops studied and in most states, under the climate scenarios considered.” Per U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change Sector: Agriculture, a publication by the National Assessment Synthesis Team, U.S. Global Change Research Programs, Published 2000.
* Locust invasions are typical of drought conditions and are being studied by NASA per Earth Observatory article September 2002. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Locusts/  accessed 7/24/05

Agricultural apprenticeship programs / Seth’s list (Section 18)
* ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agricultural Service runs sustainable farming internships and apprenticeships.  http://attra.ncat.org/who.html accessed 6/29/05. (Legacy note 88)
* The Mariposa School for Biodynamic Agriculture offers an Organic Agriculture Apprenticeship Program http://www.freywine.com/freywine/mariposa.html  as does the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz http://zzyx.ucsc.edu/casfs/ SAREP (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program) is a statewide program through the University of California. (Legacy note 88)
* John Jeavons’ Ecology Action works with people worldwide teaching sustainable agriculture. http://www.growbiointensive.org/  (Legacy note 88)
* Snakeroot Organic Farm has published online an extensive Farmers’ Retirement Plan for a family farm, including an apprenticeship program http://home.gwi.net/~troberts/farm/Retirement.html accessed 6/29/05. (Legacy note 88)

Agricultural politics / Gavin’s protest (Section 18)
* New Zealand is well into its second decade of subsidy-free farming. Laura Sayre, “Farming without subsidies?”, The New Farm, from the Rodale Institute. accessed July 20, 3005. (Legacy note 89)
* Organic Consumers works toward consumer education about the inequities of agricultural subsidies. www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm
accessed April 12, 2005. (Legacy note 89)
* The Environmental Working Group is very active in policy formation, legal action, statistics accumulation, and public information regarding agricultural subsidies. www.ewg.org (Legacy note 89)

ROOTS consumer education program (Section 22)
* The city dwellers suggestions in the text are from The American Farmland Trust and the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, “Seeds of Change: Food and Agriculture Policy for Oklahoma’s Future” (report) by James E. Horne, PhD, and Anita Poole, JD, LL.M. PDF available at http://www.kerrcenter.com/HTML/policy_report.html  accessed 9/11/05

ROOTS national tour (Section 23)
* A tour such as Ari’s and Gavin’s fictional tour would follow the Palmer drought areas http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/dm/pdi.html , then cover the Ogallala aquifer area.

Drying peaches (Section 24)
* As we move away from dependence upon a massive industrialized food machine, and rediscover the richness of locally grown foods, we will similarly rediscover chemical-free preservation of harvest abundance for the off-season.
* Eliot Coleman and the Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante have compiled numerous techniques for preserving garden abundance in Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques and Recipes. Coleman encourages us to renew our trust in the food preservation techniques that served generations of people. (Legacy note 91)
* Path to Freedom urban homestead project has built a solar food dehydrator (Source link accessed 9/11/05)

Wetlands and intertidal restoration (Section 24)
* In Newport, Oregon at Quarry Cove there are man-made tidepools. “Newport, Oregon,”
accessed April 12, 2005. (Legacy note 92)
* In Ormond Beach, Ventura County, CA, the Coastal Conservancy has secured conservation easements on farmlands adjoining marshland and dunes in anticipation of sea level rise. “The Meaning of a Foot: Looking out for the Wetlands,” California Coast & Ocean, Volume 19, No.3, Autumn 2003.
accessed 9/11/05 (Legacy note 92)
* Philip Williams Associates is projecting the impact of the next 50 years of sea level rise on such projects as the Redwood Creek watershed in Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the Cargill Salt tidal wetlands and managed ponds in the San Francisco Bay area. “The Meaning of a Foot: Looking out for the Wetlands,” California Coast & Ocean, Volume 19, No.3, Autumn 2003. accessed 9/11/05 (Legacy note 92)
* “In some habitat restoration projects, sea level projections for the next 50 to 100 years are being factored in. … In most other places, however, wetlands are caught in a squeeze between the ocean and roads, buildings, and other hard structures.”  California Coast & Ocean, Volume 19, No.3, Autumn 2003. accessed 9/11/05
* “Will Wetlands Return: Carl’s Marsh quickly flourished …” by Jane Kay, San Francisco Chronicle March 12, 2001 accessed 6/29/05
* “Conversations with a Tidepool” by Nancy Bartosek describes the changes in the tidepools at the Hopkins Marine Station between Willis Hewatt’s 1930 observations of marine species and Rafe Sagarin’s present day counts. [check link] (source link accessed 10/15/05)

News headlines (Section 24)
* The first three headlines quoted are actual headlines from CNN.com from 8/18/03, 12/9/98, and 7/3/05. 
*  “[Robert] Muir-Wood [chief research officer of Risk Management Solutions, a consulting firm] believes the 2003 heat wave that helped cause more than 20,000 deaths in Europe may have been a manifestation of climate change. That summer, believed to be the hottest to hit Europe in half a millennium, also triggered forest fires and crop losses and led some insurers to conclude that global warming may have more ramifications than they realized.” Per “Disaster Losses Lead Insurers to Global Warming Debate,” by Miguel Bustillo, LATimes July 3, 2005.
* The glacier headline, a reference to Glacier National Park, is a fictional projection. The Sierra Club states that “by the year 2030 Park scientists predict there may not be a single glacier left in Glacier National Park.” Per “Glacier National Park is a Global Warming Laboratory,” accessed 9/11/05.

Water issues (Section 27)
 * Lack of Planning for Climate Change: “Among the engineering community, I think there is a great deal of skepticism about climate change and global warming,” said Maurice Roos, chief hydrologist at the California Department of Water Resources. “There are also a lot of pressing short-term problems to focus on and these issues are 50 to 100 years out in the future.”  From Western Water Magazine, “Global Change and Water: What Might the Future Hold” May/June 1998.
* Gary Bobker, Program Director, The Bay Institute testified before the Committee on Resources, House of Representatives in opposition to dams and similar hardscape, on June 28, 2003. He advocated conservation, efficiency, markets and improved technology rather than new dams and surface storage infrastructure. A PDF transcript is available online. (Legacy note 93)
* Los Angeles water sourcing information is per websites of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Metropolitan Water District.
* “Seawater intrusion is one of the most common forms of groundwater contamination … Intrusion occurs when pumping lowers the hydraulic potential in a coastal aquifer, allowing seawater to migrate inland.” Trayle V. Kulshan, “Analysis of Saltwater Intrusion” See also Historical Perspective on Seawater Barriers, City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works -accessed 7/20/05. The projection that sea level rise will worsen the intrusion issue is fictional projection.
* Jay R. Lund and associates at the University of California, Davis have created models projecting California water availability, deliveries and scarcities through 2100 under climate change. Select data from these CALVIN models are available as a PDF. Jay R. Lund et al, “Climate Warming and California’s Water Future,” Feb. 23, 2003, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis. http://cee.engr.ucdavis.edu/faculty/lund/CALVIN/  accessed 9/11/05 (Legacy note 94)
* “Projections for the 30s through the 90s are for much dryer times”: The CALVIN models project Raw Water Availability in wet-warming and dry-warming scenarios through 2100.  Although the wet-warming scenarios forecast wetter winters for California, the summers remain the same or dryer. In all dry-warming scenarios, winters would be comparable to historical, or less than historical, while summers would be less than historical. “Central Valley agriculture is most sensitive to dry climate warming.” Per Jay R. Lund, et al, “Climate Warming and California’s Water Future,” University of California, Davis.
* The climate depicted in Legacy follows wet-warming scenarios through Chapter 7, and then evolves into dry-warming scenarios.
* In 1997 a Memorandum of Understanding was made between the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Inyo County, the Owens Valley Committee and other parties, requiring Los Angeles to partially rewater the lower Owens River. 1992 followup agreements require dust mitigation and environmental mitigation. The history between Los Angeles and the Owens River Valley is briefly summarized here: accessed 9/11/05
* Streamflow: “Because evaporation is likely to increase with warmer climate, it could result in lower river flow and lower lake levels, particularly in the summer. In addition, more intense precipitation could increase flooding. … Winter runoff most likely would increase, while spring and summer runoff would decrease. This shift could be problematic, because the existing reservoirs are not large enough to store the increased winter flows for release in the summer.” Per “Climate Change and California” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 230-F-97-008e, September 1997, available as PDF. JP believes the conditional tense of verbs in this quote should be read in the context of the EPA’s mandate for presenting a “balanced picture,” and that the presence of even the conditional statement is significant.
* “For rivers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Basin, researchers generally predict a future of more winter runoff – increasing flood risks – and less summer runoff, increasing risks of water cutbacks. For the Colorado River Basin, even if precipitation increases, a number of hypothetical scenarios point to a reduction in streamflow and a greater risk of drought if average daily temperatures increase.” Per Sue McClurg, “Global Climate Change and Water: What Might the Future Hold?”, Western Water May/June 1998. Clay J. Landry has created “How Water Markets Can End Conflicts: A Guide for Policy Makers.” This PDF, available free online - accessed 9/11/05, explains such water issues as Beneficial Use Standards and the Use-It-Or-Lose-It rule. (Legacy note 95)
* Privatization of water: “‘These companies completely reject the idea that water is a common property belonging to all living creatures. Their only goal is to commodify the earth’s most precious resource,’ says Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy group. … The concept of privatizing water service has been around since Napoleon III … at a World Water Forum in the Hague, a triumvirate of multinational water companies backed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) successfully strong-armed the UN into defining water as a human need (which can be sold for profit by private companies) instead of a human right (which means people are ensured equal access on a nonprofit basis).” per “A World Without Water” Village Voice, August 21, 2002. This article indicates that this issue was scheduled for further discussion at the WSSD in Johannesburg.
* In side sessions (“shadow summits just down the street”) to the 2002 WSSD in Johannesburg, “thousands of anti-globalization activists and environmentalists … [called] attention to the dangers of privatizing the world’s water supplies.” For a brief introduction to worldwide water issues, see Ginger Adams Otis, “A World Without Water: Advocates Warn of Thirst and Turmoil for a Parched Planet,” Aug. 21, 2002, The Village Voice, www.villagevoice.com/issues/0234/otis.php accessed Aug. 15, 2005. (Legacy note 96)

Children’s books (Section 28)
* Children’s books referred to in the text are The Garden in the City, by Gerta Bauer, and The Secret Garden, Frances Hobson Burnett. Also see the children’s booklist, under Resources.

Zone 5 plants (Section 29)
* Most plants mentioned are California natives, appropriate for the light chaparral plant community. The fennel is a nonnative (a naturalized exotic), but is a larval food plant for many, including the Anise Swallowtail butterfly. accessed 7/24/05

Greenhouse gasses (Section 30)
* The Kyoto Protocol limits emissions on the six main greenhouse gasses: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane, Nitrous oxide, Hydrofluorocarbons, Perfluorocarbons and Sulphur hexafluoride. Source: UNFCCC, “Kyoto Protocol,” accessed 8/3/05
* Carbon sequestration: “…in every ecosystem, trees represent carbon that the biosphere has borrowed from the atmosphere and is holding on to – an old oak has held on to much of its carbon for more than one hundred years.” “In an unbroken forest, plants hold an average of anywhere between four and twenty-five kilograms of carbon in each square meter – a plot the size of a coffee table.  In an interrupted forest, one that has been infiltrated by roads and houses, plants hold three to six kilograms of carbon. In land that is cropped, residential , or commercial, plants hold even less.” (emphasis theirs)  Jonathan Weiner, The Next One Hundred Years, p. 54.
* Time delay: the millions of tons of CFCs already released into the atmosphere will continue to magnify the greenhouse effect for more than a century. “The average molecule of nitrous oxide lingers in the atmosphere for about 125 years.” Jonathan Weiner, The Next One Hundred Years, p. 47, 51.
* While the text emphasizes the concept of balancing emissions, and designing balance for the impacts of our human interventions, the Holmgren quote in Legacy note 97 philosophically reminds us that our productivity is both our strength and our potential undoing: “Permaculture involves the transition from dependent consumer to responsible producer, but it is just as important to acknowledge that it is our energetic creative side trying to control and manipulate nature that is the root of the environmental crisis.” David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, p.241 (Legacy note 97)

Reclaimed land from roadways (Section 31)
* Land near roadways would likely be polluted by toxins from the asphalt or the automobile traffic.  Legacy note 98 presents phytoremediation as an illustration that solutions could be invented for such pollution.  (Phytoremediation, not photoremediation)
*   Phytoremediation is the use of plants to remove pollution from the soil. Alpine pennycress Thlaspi caerulescens, pigweed Amaranthus retroflexus, thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana and pumpkins Cucurbita pepo – plants known as hyperaccumulators – have been used to clean up zinc, cadmium, nickel, DDT and PCBs. Rufus L. Chaney, “Phytoremediation: using plants to clean up soils,” USDA Agricultural Research Service,
accessed Aug. 12, 2005, and “Please Don’t Eat the Pumpkins,” World Ark Magazine, September/October 2004. (Legacy note 98)

Agricultural issues (Section 32)
*   Massive corporations and disaster aid: www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm  accessed 4/22/05 lists examples of who is currently getting farm subsidies:  International Paper, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, Caterpillar, DuPont, Westvaco Corp, among others.
* Hobby loss rules: Internal Revenue Code Section 183 defines hobby losses, and its standard of profit in at least 3 out of 5 consecutive years is used as a rule of thumb in financial arenas. Applying this standard to agricultural subsidies, while not impractical, is a leap of fiction.

California High-Speed Rail (Section 33)
* The California High Speed Rail was in draft Environmental Impact Report stage in 2005. The tentative route runs from Sacramento to San Diego, with a line to the Bay Area. California High Speed Rail Authority, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/route/default.asp accessed March 25, 2005. (Legacy note 99)
* Debates about the California project possibly being MagLev technology are at http://www.spur.org/documents/991101_article_03.shtm at Section G: Technology, accessed 7/25/05 and at http://www.calmaglev.org/default.php?getpage=home  accessed 7/24/05
* The Pennsylvania MagLev project is in planning phases http://www.maglevpa.com/ accessed 7/24/05
* Japan runs several experimental MagLev trains (source link accessed 7/24/05). Germany has MagLevs in the planning stage (source link) and Shanghai has them operational (source link accessed 7/24/05).  The photo of the MagLev used in this website is of the Shanghai system.
* Multiple international MagLev and High-Speed Rail projects http://www.artech.se/~sandblom/archive/hst.html
*   Whether MagLev is more energy efficient than conventional trains seems to be a matter under debate. www.maglevpa.com/faq.html “Energy Useage” would make it seem that MagLev was comparable in energy useage to conventional high-speed rail. www.skytran.net/04Technical/pod09.htm  accessed 4/23/05 would make it seem that MagLev was superior in energy efficiency. Certainly MagLev is superior to airplane travel in energy efficiency (see www.maglevpa.com/faq.html “Energy Useage” graphic) and in greenhouse gas emissions and radiative forcing http://gfleet.co.uk/sustainability.htm  accessed 3/15/05. Additionally, with the quicker travel time of MagLev, the public is more likely to embrace it in lieu of air travel.

Agricultural pollution (Section 34)
* “Nutrients from fertilizers and manure travel from Midwest farm states down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, causing a massive ‘dead zone’ on the Louisiana coast. The nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorous, trigger a process whereby excess algael growth and decomposition reduces oxygen levels in the water killing fish, shrimp, crabs and other sea life.” Quoting American Rivers http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm  accessed 4/12/05
* “According to 1998 EPA data, agricultural pollution is the leading cause of water quality impairment in lakes, streams and rivers. Agricultural pollution is the fifth leading cause of water quality impairment in estuaries.” Quoting U.S. EPA brochure PDF http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm  accessed 4/12/05

REGROW (Section 35)
 * The Wetlands Action Network has been active in stalling sprawling development across Southern California wetlands properties, and taking legal action against polluters. Heal the Bay is active in citizen awareness, beach and creek cleanups and political policy to preserve the ecology of the Santa Monica Bay. http://www.healthebay.org/ (Legacy note 100)

The future of buildings (Section 36)
* “In addition to the dramatic hemorrhage of jobs and capital over the last decade, aging suburbia also suffers from premature physical obsolescence. Much of what was built in the postwar period (and continues to be built today) is throwaway architecture, with a functional lifespan of 30 years or less.” Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear, p. 404
* “Critics argue that higher densities lead to “poorer” environments. But that does not follow. Monaco and Macao, the world’s densest urban communities, are at opposite ends of the economic spectrum. In London some of the most densely populated areas offer the most desirable lifestyle: Kensington and Chelsea have population densities up to three times those of London’s poorest boroughs.”  From “Building a Sustainable Future,” by Norman Foster, principal of Norman Foster & Partners, London (source link accessed 5/26/05)
* “If you want to build efficient offices, you build what are called ‘groundscrapers’ – perhaps eight or 10 stories high – they’re the more practical, efficient way of actually using space.” Diana Magnay et al, “The era of the record-breaking American skyscraper is over” accessed 5/6/05

Habitat restoration under climate change (Section 40)
*   “… between 1992 and 1996 the range of the bay checkerspot butterfly shifted 130 miles to the north and to higher altitudes as a result of climate change. Without natural corridors to allow migration, isolated species could be limited in their ability to adapt to climate change. Plant and animal species near the borders of their ranges are likely to be most affected. … Cold water species such as mountain whitefish and brook trout could lose all of their habitat because of climate change.” Per “Climate Change and California” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 230-F-97-008e, September 1997, available as PDF

Large versus small farms (Section 40)
* "Simultaneously, the commitment of family members to maintaining soil fertility on the family farm means an active interest in long-term sustainability not found on large farms owned by absentee investors." (Source link accessed 7/24/05)

International poverty tax (Section 39)
* Taxes on international money transfers, known as Tobin Taxes, are advocated by many groups. http://www.ceedweb.org/iirp/factsheet.htm Guy Dauncey proposes Tobin Taxes to create a Global Climate Fund or Energy Modernization Fund. Guy Dauncey, Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change, New Society Publishers, 2001, p. xii and Solution #93. (Legacy note 101)
* The list of poverty-reduction goals found in the text is from Jeffrey D. Sachs, “On-the-ground solutions for Ending Poverty,” Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty. It is a distillation of the U.N.’s Millennium Project. (Legacy note 101)

CO2 emissions plateau (Section 41)
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projection curves anticipate several years of plateau just before decrease. (Source link)
* CFC flourocarbon emissions (CFC as contrasted with CO2) have been capped by international treaty for several decades and will be subject to further phase-in limitations in future years.  CFC emissions have now decreased sufficiently that positive change can be noted in the ozone hole.  Scientists recently announced that the ozone hole appears to have plateaued.  It will be several decades before the problem will begin to correct itself, but it has now ceased getting worse.  This is a true tribute to the power of international solutions.  [need source link]

World Environment Organization (Section 42)
* Creation of a World Environment Organization is described by James Gustave Speth in Chapter 9 of Red Sky at Morning. He proposes several models, including one which groups WEO with WTO and WHO under jurisdiction of the United Nations. Strengthening the United Nations is also a recommendation of Jeffrey D. Sachs, chapter 18, The End of Poverty. The ‘triple bottom line’ is a paraphrasing of James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, p.180. The ideal attributes of a World Environment Organization are summarized by James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, p. 178-179. (Legacy note 102)

 

Photo credits: Gardening by M. Proebster, Heidelberg, Germany; Marmalade by Nathalie Dulex, Montreaux, Vaud, Switzerland; Swiss Chard 6 by Nathalie Dulex, Montreaux, Vaud, Switzerland; Tidepool by Stephanie Syjuco, San Francisco, CA; Heron by Niall Crotty, Ashford, Co. Wicklow, Ireland Eire.