To the Editor:

The token efforts made by taxpayer-supported Sustainable Princeton to address future problems may be inadequate and misdirected. The following examples come from my hand-out, whose distribution at the January 29th meeting was not allowed by the Princeton Public Library:

• Rain Barrels were distributed to some residents for use in watering their lawns. The director of Sustainable Princeton informed me that the barrels were not for use in growing vegetables, but only for lawns. Sustainable lawns? Lawns originated in merrie olde England, where owning some land that did not have to be cultivated for food or used for grazing was an early display of wealth. In our era where living standards are declining because of the exhaustion of available crude oil, should lawns really have a priority call on resources in Princeton?

• Composting is certainly going to be a useful activity in the future. I compost my vegetable garden wastes on site in the downtown area. But the system promoted by Sustainable Princeton, to put your compostables in a plastic can, have them collected weekly and driven to Delaware to be processed misses the point. It wastes money and precious petroleum, and relies on actions of people far away. You pay to haul it away, and again if you want to get the compost back for your garden. This misallocation may make its participants feel good, but does not address the need to relocalize critical future resources.

• Giving awards, as Sustainable Princeton does, may give the recipients a false sense of achievement and divert us all from acquiring useful knowledge and skills for the incipient future. See John Michael Greer’s 1/15/2014 blog.

• Using Sustainable Princeton meetings to allow peddlers of various so-called “green” products to offer wares and services that exploit the purchasers’ emotional vulnerabilities seems to be of dubious real value. These products are all promoted because someone can make a buck from them even if the claims made for them are suspect (remember ethanol?). There are no hucksters for anything that does not offer profit opportunities, even if it really matters, such as growing vegetables, self-composting garden wastes, saving seeds, and working cooperatively with neighbors. Nor are they offering sustainable local solutions to other challenges, such as blackouts, unavailable fuels, no in-town hospital, and a vanishing willingness of non-local governments and people to provide aid should we need it (Katrina or Sandy, anyone?). PSE&G has notified Princeton residents that in the event of a power outage, backup generators may have insufficient natural gas pressure. That’s the future, and our efforts may be better rewarded if directed toward community self-reliance.

• “Environmental” films or books matter little unless they inspire us to act intelligently.

But does it really matter? Perhaps not. Runaway global warming may now also be inevitable, and could come sooner. If so, humans may become extinct from starvation because extreme heat destroys parts of the food chain. See Dr. Guy McPherson’s October 2013 lecture at DePauw University.

Ronald C. Nielsen

Humbert Street