This Friday I attended an event convened by Sarasota Openly Promotes Excellence (SCOPE). It was titled, Summit for Environmental Action or SEA. I signed up for the summit on the SCOPE web site and was vetted by the staff before I was issued an invitation.

Sponsors of the summit were some rock solid businesses in the Sarasota, Florida community including two developers. When I arrived I went around the room to meet new people and say hello to many there who I knew. There were a number of politicians there from the state, county and cities in Sarasota County and beyond.

The introduction was given by good friend, brilliant future thinker and SCOPE Executive Director Tim Dutton. Tim pointed out the diversity of the group. People from business, neighborhood associations, environment groups, government, old, young and us retired.

The opening speaker was Nick Gladding, who's idea it was to hold such a summit. Nick said the purpose of the summit was to come up with an actionable environmental plan for our area.

The issues selected for discussion at the Summit were Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Water Issues, Living Locally and Energy Use.

Each of us participated in small-group sessions about two of the four issues. At the end of the day, all participants came together to hear a review of all issues and voted on the action plans they think are the best.

I was part of the Energy Use session in the morning and the Water Issues in the afternoon. The process was designed to brain storm new ideas and reach consensus.

As I got further into the summit I recognized that while the group was diverse demographically it was generally of one mind environmentally.

I came to the summit as a "bright green". Bright green environmentalism aims for a society that relies on new technology and improved design to achieve gains in ecological sustainability without reducing (indeed, increasing) the potential for economic growth and attending to human needs.

I came to advocate two solutions: for water, the use of Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) systems to solve our water problem and nuclear power to help us conserve our precious fossil fuels. I also came as a believer in global warming but a serious skeptic that it is human caused. I came not believing in carbon footprints, carbon credits and the need to reduce our carbon emissions. I also came believing that individuals and markets create change, not government.

Well I found myself almost alone and my ideas out of the environmental mainstream thinking at the summit. This is why I was disappointed in the summit and am skeptical of its outcomes.

Let me give you some examples.

1. The keynote speaker was Godo Stoyke. He has written several books about how to use technology to save energy, that is good. What is bad is that he is doing it to reduce carbon emissions and part of his belief system is carbon credits, taxes on carbon and carbon trading. All of these are what I call eco-socialism. I went up to Godo after his presentation and asked him what percentage of all green house gases were CO2. He said 70%. This is completely false. In fact, 95% of all green house gases are caused by water evaporation, of the remaining 5% only 1% is CO2. Of that 1% only 3% is produced by using fossil fuels. Human impact is negligible. Godo did not want to hear that.

2. I asked Godo about the many recent studies finding that global warming is caused by activity on the sun. He categorically dismissed these studies as not scientific because they have not been published in journals like Science. This, of course is not true. Godo has a vested interest in carbon based global warming, that is how he makes his money.

3. In casual conversations with some local distinguished environmental activists my idea for solving the water problem using ASR technology was dismissed. One local water expert brushed it off with the comment that when you extract the water for reuse it can have contaminants in it. My comeback was we remove the contaminants. He raised the cost of doing so, I raised the cost of not doing so. So much for ideas to solve our water problem from a local "expert".

4. In the above conversation I said that nuclear must be on the table to provide our long term power needs. I was immediately put upon. When I pointed out that my friend and environmental proponent Dr. Meg Lowman believes as I do the group was taken aback.

5. When I participated in my assigned working group I found the majority favored policies forcing environmental compliance, most wanting to teach their idea of environmental orthodoxy (via education) to our children and citizens, one member advocating tripling the price we pay for water to force conservation, another advocating a building moratorium (he is an elected official) and consensus for more government intervention, policy, and regulation.

6. The vast majority of attendees were, from my observations, committed environmentalists and therefore came with baggage.

7. After the noon break we lost about half of the morning participants. In the morning opening session we had about 190 attendees, by the closing voting we had around 96 attendees. My concern is those who stayed for the afternoon session and final voting were environmental group thinkers. They ended up presenting the final issues and voting on them. As expected the vast majority (75%+) voted "strongly agree" or "agree" with the actions to be taken.

My voice for individual responsibility for environmental behavior, market driven solutions, use of technology and innovation was drowned out by the din calling for more government and a control growth agenda.

I await the published results and action plan. When I have it I will comment again.

I remain concerned that those in attendance only re-enforced their belief system. They will sadly continue to do the same things and expect different results.