About two thirds of the way into Josh Fox’ Solutions Grassroots Tour performance at Clarke Chapel, Lycoming College, Pennsylvania, I got up and walked out. I wasn’t noisy–but I was definitive.
I could say that Fox’ gig just wasn’t very well put together (it wasn’t), or that it seemed pretty cheesy on the side of a pitch for his new installment in the Gasland documentary series (it was). I could say that the “theater” promised in the trailer was wholly MIA, and that it wasn’t much of a concert–but the surprise musical guests were really really great.
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee
Nope, I got up and walked out because the Progressive Democrat brand of politics being sold to an audience mostly made up of all the usual anti-fracking movement suspects–and no one really new–is a recipe for reinforcing the very system of commodification and exchange that generates endemic social and economic injustice and–through both willful blindness and the demand that the solutions be easy–contributes to climate change.
I walked out because it’s just not true that we Westerners can keep consuming practically everything at the massive level we do, and that–just by the easy-peasy switch from centralized fossil fuel production to centralized solar and wind–we’re actually making a substantial difference.
Here’s just a few reasons why:
1. Corporatized solar/wind is as much a privatizing of a public utility as were fossil fuels, and therefore every bit as much the province of the profit motive as are their predecessors. For anyone committed to the view that a system–in this case globalized corporatism–capable of converting public utilities into private profit ventures is intrinsically inconsistent with basic human rights of access to necessities like water, the prospect of any privatized and corporatized control of a centralized power grid ought to be troubling. It doesn’t matter, moreover, what the resource is–if people and nonhuman animal lives depend on it, it ought not ever be a source of profit-generation. What goes for water goes for education goes for medicine goes for heat. We have precisely no more reason to think poor folks will benefit from this systemic reinforcement of a national–and global–system of economic class than we did under the fossil fuel barons–and every reason to believe otherwise. By making solar and wind power just another high stakes commodity for big corporate players, we will do damage to our communities–and we will maintain a class structure that was mirrored in that chapel: white, relatively affluent, Western.
2. In addition to reinforcing a system–centralized corporatized utilities–that re-produces an economic and class system within which some benefit while others are likely to continue to struggle to pay their utility bills, still others–out of sight and apparently out of mind–remain vulnerable to labor exploitation and to exposure to harmful toxins in the manufacture of these panels. As reported by National Geographic, although solar panels are certainly an improvement over coal-fired power plants because they produce renewable energy:
[f]abricating the panels requires caustic chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid, and the process uses water as well as electricity, the production of which emits greenhouse gases. It also creates waste. These problems could undercut solar’s ability to fight climate change and reduce environmental toxics. (How Green Are Those Solar Panels, Really?)
Among these chemicals is cadmium: “OSHA estimates that 300,000 workers are exposed to cadmium in the United States. Worker exposure to cadmium can occur in all industry sectors but mostly in manufacturing and construction. Workers may be exposed during smelting and refining of metals, and manufacturing batteries, plastics, coatings, and solar panels.” (Safety and Health Topics | Cadmium). To be clear, considerable improvements are and will likely continue to be made in the manufacture of solar panels (see: Solar Energy Isn’t Always as Green as You Think – IEEE Spectrum). There is much to recommend them.
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee
But to blithely entrust the manufacture and marketing of solar technology to the same economic and political system that generated the conditions of deforestation, desertification, species extinction, pollution, and climate change is folly in the extreme–and that is precisely what the Solutions Grassroots Tour is doing. Indeed, just because a corporation has the word “ethical” in its name is no guarantee that they actually care about how their product is manufactured.
For example, Ethical Electric–one of the companies for which Fox stumps on the tour–includes nothing whatever on their website about their commitment to insuring that their solar or wind energy suppliers from the “wholesale market” are themselves committed to fair labor practices or safe working conditions–and there is nothing on their “activism” page that speaks to these central issues. Although they claim on their “mission” page to be committed as a B-Corps corporation to “having a positive impact on the world and benefitting society,” they provide no information about how they do that other than by being a renewable energy supplier company. Indeed, Ethical Electric propagandizes the idea that just by signing up with them and their 56,000 customers, you’re part of a “movement,” a tidily cathartic claim for the activist who wants an easy way to feel good about themselves–all the while being given a pass to wholly ignore how solar panels are actually made–and by whom (Ethical Electric). To be fair, CEO Tom Matzzie could rightly respond that the 588,471 pounds of Co2 not emitted into the atmosphere since 2012 is a contribution to mitigating climate change, and that is also a contribution to an improved global environment. But this is cold comfort to the developing world laborer whose potential for toxic exposure is very likely to rise as the competition for alternative sources of energy heats up (no pun intended).
We can tell a similar story about the manufacture of industrial scale wind turbines which requires a substantial commitment to mining rare earth metals–itself a serious environmental and toxic exposure problem:
[E]very wind farm has a few turbines standing idle because their fragile gearboxes have broken down. They can be fixed, of course, but that takes time – and meanwhile wind power isn’t being gathered. Now you can make a more reliable wind turbine that doesn’t need a gearbox at all, King points out, but you need truckload of so-called “rare earth” metals to do it, and there simply isn’t the supply. (A Scarcity of Rare Metals Is Hindering Green Technologies by Nicola Jones: Yale Environment 360).
The moral of both wind and solar technology production is the same: if the winners of centralized utility scale renewables benefit at the cost of others–especially all of the same others both at home trying to make their heating bills and in the global economies of extraction–as labor and resources–then we’re just lying to ourselves that what we have are really “renewables,” are a “solution” to climate change–and most of all are in any way socially or economically just. If it ain’t accessible as well as renewable for my neighbor here and everywhere, it ain’t really renewable for me. And to whatever extent I am participating in the reproduction of exploitive labor conditions in addition to ecologically damaging ones–even if CO2 emissions are reduced–I am still responsible for harm.
3. The number of times the word “easy” appears on the Solutions Grassroots website is designed to give us the impression that just switching over to, say, Sungevity (where you can get $750.00 and Solutions Grassroots gets $750.00 for finding the company through the tour), is a real and meaningful contribution to mitigating climate change. This is deceptive. Fact is, the word “conservation” didn’t appear once in the hour I spent at the Clarke Chapel–but the notion that we in the West can continue to live the way we live, consume what we consume, and ignore what we ignore is crazy. Fact is, we haven’t gotten even close to confronting one of the most significant contributions to climate change–one that all the solar panels and wind turbines in the world aren’t going to affect one bit: animal agriculture.
4. There’s a tremendous lots more to be said here, but suffice it for now that it’s a sure sign that we don’t really expect any real change in the activist audience–let alone the sort of systemic change that’s clearly demanded if we’re to mitigate climate change–that no one even whispers “factory farm” in the equation. But the facts here are as plain as the day for any animal unfortunate enough to be born into a factory farm is horrific. From Cowspiracy (COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret)
• Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32 million tons of carbon dioxide per year or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gases. (Livestock and Climate Change | Worldwatch Institute)
• Methane is 25-100 time more destructive that CO2. (Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions)
• Methane has a global warming power 86 times that of CO2. (Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions)
• Livestock is responsible for 65%of all emissions of nitrous oxide–a greenhouse gas 296 times more destructive than carbon dioxide and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. (Livestock’s long shadow: environmental issues and options)
• Fracking…water use ranges from 70-140 billion gallons annually. (http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/HFStudyPlanDraft_SAB_020711.pdf)
• Animal agriculture use ranges from 34-76 trillion gallons of water annually. (http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/10/909.full)
• Agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of water consumption. (USDA ERS – Irrigation & Water Use: Background)
• The meat and dairy industry use 1/3 of the earth’s fresh water. (Forks Over Knives | Freshwater Abuse and Loss: Where Is It All Going?)
Photo Mother Jones
The moral here is obvious: stop eating bacon. In fact, stop eating beef, pork, chicken, and fish. Stop now. “A plant based diet cuts your carbon footprint by 50%” (COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret).
Here’s at least two implications that follow directly from the facts above–neither of which rated any mention at Solutions Grassroots:
1. If we put an end to animal agriculture in all of its forms–including sea and ocean–we could keep on driving our Hummers and still significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Conversely, we could convert every fossil fuel consuming industry, car–whatever–into a solar and/or wind-driven dream–and it isn’t going to make any but the most teeny of differences to climate change if we don’t end animal agriculture.
Obviously, if we really gave a tinker’s damn, we’d do both–we’d stop eating, wearing, using animal products altogether–now that’s easy!–and we’d head for decentralized, truly community based solar and wind solutions–with a clear eye to the conditions under which everything we use and consume is produced.
So why wasn’t animal agriculture prominently featured in Mr Fox’ Solutions Grassroots tour?
Because there’s nothing whatever grassroots about Solutions Grassroots.
I actually have no clue what Mr. Fox means by “grassroots.” But what I do know is that he doesn’t mean:
1. Solutions to energy consumption. Fox’ program plays like an infomercial for Big Alternative Still-Centralized Energy like Ethical Energy, Solar City, etc. And we’ve got no really good reason to think that these companies are any more interested in you or your community going solo than Big Gas does. Their first objective is to make a profit, and they’re not going to make it off you or your neighbors if you’ve got it figured out for yourselves–along perhaps with a nifty community rights bill that keeps out the Big Players. Hells Bells, even if the Big Players are renewables, that by itself is no justification for sanctioning the labor abuses and environmental destruction you’re buying into when you sign up with them.
2. Looking to the grassroots anti-carbon extraction community for sponsorship of his message: that the Responsible Drilling Alliance sponsored the Clarke Chapel gig suggests that (a) Mr. Fox or his people have no idea what grassroots organizing in Pennsylvania looks like, (b) Mr. Fox simply called up friends he happened to know in PA, and/or (c) Mr. Fox doesn’t really care much where the sponsorship money comes from. All are troubling since RDA is in no way anti-drilling. Indeed, the meme “responsible drilling” has been publicly and enthusiastically appropriated by Department of Environmental Protection’s new leader John Quigley who–following the governor’s lead to “have our cake and eat it too”–is now spouting the meme as the rallying cry for thousands of new wells, compressors, and pipeline. Mr. Fox mentioned that he understood the Williamsport region as the “belly of the beast.” Indeed, it is–and among those he should be thanking for their contribution to the gas industry’s despoiling of Lycoming County is RDA. Not only is RDA in no way “grassroots”–arguing for the protection of “special places” that are manifestly not your back yard or your working class neighbor’s–they’re not even anti-fracking.
The big donors listed on the Solutions Grassroots homepage like the Rockfellers who–behind the green-washing magical words “divestment” have (a) not actually divested from natural gas and transport–at least yet, and (b) were clearly more interested in making sure their companies are viable into the future than they are the future of the planet:
The Rockefeller family is attracting adulatory press coverage for its decision to divest their $860 million charity, the Rockefeller’s Brother’s Fund, of its investment in fossil fuels. There are at least two significant catches, however. As the statement from the Rockefeller’s Brother’s Fund puts it:
Given the structure of some commingled investment funds and investments in highly diversified energy companies, we recognize that there may continue to be minimal investments in out portfolio in those energy sectors, but we are committed to reducing our exposure to coal and tar sands to less than 1% of the total portfolio by the end of 2014…we are also undertaking a comprehensive analysis of out exposure to any remaining fossil fuel investments and will work with the RBF investment committee and board of trustees to determine an appropriate strategy for further divestment over the next few years.
Second, there’s no word at all indicating that Rockefeller and Co., the family investment and wealth management firm, that says it has $44 billion of Rockefeller and outside money undermanagement, will follow suit. As recently as November of 2012, Rockefeller and Co. was touting North American shale oil and natural gas as a “once or twice in every generation” investment opportunity…It’s as if the Rockfeller family decided that vegetarianism is such a fine idea that by year end all of its household staff are going to stop eating meat. Divest the charity from fossil fuels, but not the family’s own personal wealth and not the wealth of the clients that the family earns money for managing. (Rockefeller Energy Divestment :: The Future of Capitalism)
This is a lot of hypocrisy for Mr. Fox to sleep with at night.
But here’s the far more important upshot: Mr. Fox’ Solutions Grassroots Tour is really just one more example of “in the box,” “in the system,” “in the Democratic Party’s Political Tank” thinking. By making an infomercial for Big Solar and Big Wind, by wholly ignoring the more uncomfortable issues of conservation and animal agriculture, by making an advertisement for the “easy activism” of switching from one centralized industry to another, he effectively just creates one more apology for the same-old neo-liberalism that got us the global disparities of North and South, the 1%, the conditions of contemporary war and terrorism, and climate change in the first place.
Why on earth would we think that the same centralized structures of power and wealth that got us this list of woe could get us to a desirable future–even a survivable one?
It won’t. Mr. Fox doesn’t have much excuse for not knowing better.
But this isn’t really about him since neither do any of the adoring fans in his audience have that excuse. I think we have a right to expect a lot better from our leaders and heros.
And “leader” and “hero” are not necessarily, I have learned, the same thing as “frack-a-lebrity,” and Mr. Fox is clearly more interested in avoiding offense than mitigating climate change.
Thing is, we absolutely positively could do the right thing by our families and our communities. We have the roof tops. We have the science. We have the capacity for a conscience. We can say no to a system that systematically reinforces global economic disparity, social injustice, animal cruelty, and ecological destruction.
It won’t be easy.
But when was the worthwhile ever easy? It wasn’t easy to get up and walk out of the Clarke Chapel–but to stay knowing that by doing so I had signed on to the next fawning endorsement of the same old status quo…nah.
For the original piece, please go here: http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2015/03/when-roots-arent-made-of-grass.html
For the Academic.edu down-loadable, please go here: https://www.academia.edu/11470915/When_the_Roots_Arent_Made_of_Grass_the_Solutions_Save_the_System_and_the_Only_Thing_Hotter_than_the_Planet_is_the_Bacon
This type of divisive, rambling rant has nothing but negative impact on this movement.
Josh Fox is pushing DEREGULATED private energy. Now THAT is what’s divisive. If you don’t understand the implications of privatized energy, then you should probably hold the stone throwing until you do. Of course, if you’re wealthy enough, as many who applaud Fox & his suggestions surely are, well maybe you really do like the idea of privatizing energy & water. But if that’s the case then we are not part of tye same movement.
HI Angela l–and thank you so much for these supportive comments. There are some awesome, grassroots, hardworking activist folks here in PA–especially working on issues around pipeline and township charters to keep out industrial harms. I love these folks and admire them enormously. It IS for THEM that I am taking a stand here–against the “frack-a-lebrities” who’d appropriate the hard work of the grassroots as opportunities to fundraise and otherwise promote themselves. I absolutely don’t dispute the claim that Mr. Fox has done some fine and very useful work–but I fault him for being pretty willfully ignorant about whose money he’s willing to take (Rockefeller), whose sponsorship he’s willing to accept (RDA), whose organizations he’s willing to thump for (Food and Water Watch), whose centralized privatized deregulated utility companies he’s willing to make an infomercial for (Ethical Energy)–and what he just plain ignores–at least on this tour–factory farms. If he is going to be a leader claiming the grassroots–he needs to be OF the grassroots, LISTENING to the grassroots, and working FOR the grassroots. I see little evidence that he does this–and much to the contrary.
As a former board member, and current apostate, of the RDA I concur with Wendy Lee’s observations. The “Grassroots Solutions Tour” may have started out strong and green but by the time it got to Williamsport it looked as though it had been sprayed with a 2% Round-up solution. Ten minutes of spectacular cello playing was buried within an amateurish infomercial for the centralized generation of renewable energy. The late Billy Mays (of OxyClean fame) must have been spinning in his grave over this latest manifestation of cheesy hucksterism. I spent twenty five years as an environmental scientist and the solution was so clear all along – just get people to buy more of the right kind of stuff!
No change in gross consumption, no redistribution of wealth and power, no moral extension to other species – saving the planet is as easy as switching your corporate electric provider while you order yet another bacon burger (with extra cheese!).
Decentralized power with in-situ solar, wind, and geothermal? Now that be crazy talk! We need to cover up that desert with miles of panels and rip up that ridgetop forest with bat-grinding wind farms! How else we gonna keep the bread and circuses flowing?
The cult of Frack-a-lebrity that was evident at the Williamsport show could have easily been mistaken for Beatle-mania if not for the gray hair and prominent paunches. Hopefully a defibrillator was on stand-by in case the hero worship became too overwhelming for cardiovascular systems weakened by decades of eating bacon.
At least Josh got one thing right – he did say there was no such thing as “safe fracking”. This statement however is clearly at odds with the phrase “responsible drilling” and it was entertaining to see Josh verbally stumble as he tried to substitute “RDA” for the organization’s official name – “The Responsible Drilling Alliance”. I tried to get the RDA to lose that oxymoronic albatross of a moniker years ago but, strange as it may seem, there are many people who cannot imagine a world without fossil fuels and lots of bacon bits on their blue plate special.
Dear Mr. Marshall,
I have no clue as to what you mean by divisive rambling–and you don’t apparently see any reason to justify your claim. But if what you mean is, say, any of the points I make in my response to Angela above, I’d simply ask you: what of these arguments are rambling? What have I said that’s false or lacks supporting evidence? I am more than happy to entertain any questions any of my readers might have about my reasoning, evidence, conclusions (and I’d be delighted to have an open and honest exchange with Mr. Fox) –but all you’ve done is effectively called the piece “stinky,” and pointed out that you don’t like it. Well and good. I don’t like Kale–but there’s not really much reason to post to a blog about it.
Wendy,
I did not “justify” my comment, as it really did not take specific issue with any of your opinions concerning what is right or proper or effective or moral as far as combatting Fracking, pollution, or any other of the many social ills mentioned in the piece. Since you ask tho, and claim to “have no clue…” I will clarify. I believe that you have a right to freedom expression and whether your opinions are right wrong or somewhere in between has nothing to do with my remarks.
What is confusing to me is how you can expect that your right of free speech and freedom of expression must be honored, yet you have systematically attacked a long list of individuals, groups and Political Parties for exercising their right to take part in or support activities or beliefs that you object to.
“Angela”as quick to defend your assessment of the Grassroots Solutions Tour and chide me for “throwing stones” when throwing stones was exactly what I was protesting! If this was a singular incident of Name-calling, Labeling, and Trash talking it might be different. The rant I refer to was the parts of your blog that left the realm of stating an opposing position, and resorting to ad hominem barbs such as “Frack-a-lebrity” and inferring that the efforts of not only Josh and his team were suspect, but a salvo or two aimed at RDA for good measure.
I just cannot believe that the longstanding efforts of RDA, BES, FWW, Daily Kos, Keystone Trails, SOC, CAC, Sierra Club, NWF, and all the other groups you have bad-mouthed publicly have been the work of “False-Fractivists”, Posers or just plain misguided sheep, based on venomous postings on one Blog! THE WRENCH used to inspire me and many others who are concerned for the Environment and our future. Your photos and research had a hard hitting, right on target message aimed at the enemies of our safety, health and quality of life. This is a time for us all to work for those goals. The enemy has vast power and resources, and the transition away from fossil fuel will take huge investments. I am not sure how you think we can just overthrow corrupt, entrenched industries, shut off their control of our energy and restart some utopian dream world where the necessities of life are provided with No Profit. Where will this Brave New World get the incentive to build itself? This is a quote from your opening lines : “It doesn’t matter, moreover, what the resource is–if people and nonhuman animal lives depend on it, it ought not ever be a source of profit-generation. What goes for water goes for education goes for medicine goes for heat.” Can you explain how this will be realized? Can you agree that it may take either a very long transition or do you favor a boody revolution and mass chaos, anarchy and struggle to rebuild what has been torn down ?
I hear so much hatred of the status quo, but no solution. Could it be that the Grassroots Solutions is not so evil, but rather a first step to finding some solution?
Dear Mr. Marshall,
Instead of actually trying to engage any of the arguments–you offer a wholesale red herring–and not a convincing one.
I have attacked no one personally–I have shown that some of their arguments are faulty and/or lead to consequences that create harm. That you’d opt for this claim shows only that you do not wish to engage the arguments–opting instead for the easy route of shoot the messenger. This is a common–if shoddy–route. Demonize the messenger instead of dealing with an argument that may be right on the dollar so you don’t have to concede the messenger may be onto something.
Not an iota of this has to do with freedom of expression. I post your comments. None are deprived of this in any fashion whatever. That is a red herring.
I have not “bad-mouthed” these groups/orgs. I have shown that their positions are either incoherent and/or hypocritical.if you think their positions are defensible, that’s great. Defend them on the evidence and the arguments. In other words, if you believe you’re correct–show my readers why and how my arguments fail.
Here’s what you’re really saying, Mr. Marshall: so long as I was doing the work of groups and organizations that THEY wanted me to do–without any critical reflection on their messaging or their strategy–I was a GOOD fractivist. If I dare to level criticism–no matter how compelling are my arguments, no matter how compelling the evidence–I am now a BAD fractivist. A GOOD fractivist just goes along no matter how incoherent and/or myopic the messaging, no matter how flawed its strategies. A BAD one dares to say “Warning!!”
Clearly, few want to hear “warning!” THAT would force us to think about whether it makes sense–or ever did–to think that petitions, comment periods, FERC, polite protests—years and YEARS of the same–would have an effect on this behemoth.
I am happy to be that BAD fractivist. A movement that cannot brook its internal critics is no movement at all–it’s just a club. You’re correct–the enemy does have vast power and resources–which is precisely why our “Kumbaya” strategies are failing.
Lastly, the question as you pose it about long transition Vs. bloody revolution is bait and a false dichotomy. The Grassroots Solution will reinforce the status quo–not dismantle it–and until we see this far bigger picture–we will simply continue to produce the same as we are now–a lot of whining about the enemy, then concession, then we go out for bacon-burgers–congratulating ourselves for making the switch to another corporate profit-center–while the world continues to burn and while human lives are injured beyond repair.
I’d rather be reviled than concede a Chinese worker, a West Kenyan pastoralist, a Pennsylvanian farmer, a Congolese fisherwoman, a Ferguson teenager, a Mexican villager to the ongoing privatization and corporatization of the necessities of life. And I’ll be no part of a movement that’s willing to horse-trade these folks’ lives for mine.
One quick observation before I comment on renewable energy and global warming: Dean Marshall wrote “What is confusing to me is how you can expect that your right of free speech and freedom of expression must be honored, yet you have systematically attacked a long list of individuals, groups and Political Parties for exercising their right to take part in or support activities or beliefs that you object to.” There is a difference between denying someone their freedom of speech and disagreeing with their opinions. As far as I can tell, Wendy is engaging in the latter activity–i.e. she is exercising her own right to disagree with the statements of others. We all have the right to say what we think; we all have the right to agree or disagree with what others may say.
—————
I haven’t seen the Solutions Grassroots tour, so I don’t feel qualified to comment on whatever strengths or weaknesses it might have. I do think that Gasland did a great job of getting the truth about fracking out to an audience that was considerably larger than the usual choir, and I also think that there is a very great and urgent need to get the truth about global warming and its consequences out to the entire, worldwide audience.
Grassroots action is wonderful and can be amazingly effective (as we’ve just seen in NY), and indeed, given the level of corruption in our current system, working from within the system is a dubious proposition at best. However, when the problem requiring a solution is as large as global warming, a successful grassroots solution would have to involve literally billions of people. So we need to get the word out and we need to do it very quickly because we’ve dithered around for the last 40 years or so and now the situation is truly dire. We have a huge, dying system with an incredible amount of inertia and we more or less have to turn that thing on a dime. Maybe Josh Fox can help with that, maybe not–as I said, I have not seen his latest effort so I cannot really judge whether he is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction. I have noticed, however, that more often than not, those who formulate methods of dealing with global warming and then pitch those methods to the public tend to sugarcoat things. I think in some cases this is an honest but naive attempt at optimism, in some cases it’s a well-intentioned but ultimately manipulative way of dealing with the general public, and in some cases it’s just a lie put forward by those who would like us all to keep consuming as if there is no tomorrow. But in any case, I think that anyone who thinks we can just blithely switch everything over to renewables and then continue business as usual has not done the math. Along those lines, here are a couple of links—
The first is to a short article (containing several helpful links) re the high energy costs of eating meat:
http://www.newsweek.com/if-we-all-eat-meat-were-doomed-303014
The second link is to an essay that, in my opinion, is very valuable reading for anyone who is trying to think seriously about our energy future. I think this essay has been posted to No Fracking Way before, but for those who missed it, here is the link to the original essay:
http://www.postcarbon.org/our-renewable-future-essay/
Dear M. Sweeney–thank you for your observations. Indeed, Gasland WAS a fine documentary. So much so, in fact, that it makes Mr. Fox’ current venture that much more disappointing. You make an excellent point about switching over–and doing the math.
Thank you–and thanks for the link as well.
w 🙂
Wendy,
I find it hard to believe that you could miss a simple point by so much! I did explain quite clearly that my objection was in no way related to your opinions of anyone’s activities, so you just keep returning to your entreaty for rebuttal of your arguments. I cannot be any clearer on this. You have a right to those opinions. Period. You do not, however, seem to be able to put forth your arguments without using derisive, debasing, dismissive, and demeaning rhetoric against those you are in disagreement with. You say you have attacked no one personally. That is not the truth. Your insulting labels and public attempts to humiliate and/or discredit an ever-growing list of folks who display various and commendable levels of activism is becoming legendary. I take issue with That and it is not some philosophical debating tactic. Red Herring? No idea how that applies to my true feelings.
Putting words in my mouth or writing “Here’s what you are really saying….” is a tactic I have seen you use many times, but it is just not going to work in this case. I SAID what I am Really saying! You have Bad-mouthed many orgs. and individuals publicly and to say you have merely countered their misguided efforts is just false. As far as Straw Man, False Dichotomy, Red herrings, and Demonizing the messenger, you are again way off the mark. As I said, this is an ongoing problem where good, well meaning and hard working people have been hurt and angered by your representations of them as Fools, False-Fractivists, Frack-alebrity’s and even Collaborators with the polluters and profiteers they fight! Right when we need a coalition of the broadest segment of the public, you chose to alienate and debase so many!
“Not one iota of of this has to do with freedom of expression”, you claim. I did think I made my view crystal clear that the people you Have repeatedly slandered Were expressing themselves freely by joining whatever group they Chose, and formulating their Own opinions and agendas. That is everyone’s Right. You say the “Kumbya strategies are failing,” yet everyday we gain more ground and every dollar invested in any form of Green energy is better than another Buck for Big Oil. Again, you side-stepped the real Question, What is your plan? There was no “bait” in my seriously asking if you embrace a gradual transition to a better world or a bloody revolution. You do mention “dismantling the status quo”. Just how shall we do that with a fractured movement with the smoke of burnt bridges rising in our midst! Do you, or do you not have an answer that can include everyone and disparage none?
I must also respond to M Sweeney and say that perhaps just reading this particular Blog installment could lead to understandable assumptions, so I suggest a read or re-read of the last 8 or 10 may give a better understanding.
Finally, I do not wish you to be “reviled “or thought of as anything but the true fighter for justice you have always been Wendy. I just think you can do this with more acceptance of diversity and human dignity that we all deserve.
Dean H. Marshall
Dear Mr. Marshall–
What’s quite clear here is that you’re far more interested in having the last word than you are in engaging any of the ideas in the piece–which you have stalwartly avoided.
As for you claim that “You do not, however, seem to be able to put forth your arguments without using derisive, debasing, dismissive, and demeaning rhetoric against those you are in disagreement with,” that could not make it clearer that you have not read the piece, are not interested in engaging with the arguments, and care nothing for the evidence. Had you, you’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have attacked no one. Your apparent unwillingness or inability to distinguish between an attack on a person and a criticism of an argument is simply not on me. Your apparent unwillingness or inability to distinguish between “humiliation” and calling out evidenced hypocrisy is also not on me. And if you think “frack-a-lebrity” is insulting, I can’t imagine what you think isn’t. Indeed, we ought not to slather ourselves in hero worship–as we have a penchant to do. That Mr. Fox is a frack-a-lebrity is something WE made of him. THAT he’s looking to make opportunistic use of it is on HIM.
The only question worth pursuing here is whether my ARGUMENTS and EVIDENCE bear scrutiny. The question is not “Have I tweaked someone’s feelings?” But rather “Has she told the truth about where this movement is going?” You aim at nothing but the avoidance of THAT question–that is a red herring–and it is designed to do nothing but shoot the messenger. So the question then for you is why you are so interested in making that shot. What ARE you defending here?
If it is a movement then show me where my arguments are wrong–or better, become one of its leaders.
So you just are not able to answer the question? You are doing a wonderful job of telling everyone who will listen what we should Not be doing. With the exception of your divergence into animal agriculture as perhaps a bigger villain than fossil fuel, you have yet to explain what we Should be doing in any detail. BTW, the figures you cited re: Agricultural water use is as bogus as Tom Shepstone equating Golf Course watering with Fracking. Fracking is Consumptive use that permanently contaminates the water it uses where most of the water used in agriculture returns to the hydrologic cycle. Yes, I agree that there are boogeymen and evil profiteers all around and our civilized society has become dependent on a lifestyle that is grossly unsustainable. None of this gives license to point accusatory fingers at anyone who is mounting an effort to correct these ills. I have no intention of scrutinizing your arguments. that they are right or wrong makes no difference to me. What I feel is wrong is the lengths you go to, at others expense, to try to “Prove” you are right. Perhaps you will direct more of that rapier wit at the Political/Corporate SOB’s and less at potential allies if you care to become a Real leader.
Dear Mr. Marshall–
This is the last time I will respond to you with respect to this post. You are simply repeating yourself–and clarifying once again that you’ve no interest in the arguments I offered. Moreover, you have now made clear that you did not pay any real attention to either the argument or the facts provided with respect to animal agriculture. This issue is unequivocally not merely about water use–hence the golf course comparison is vacuous. The issue–as I showed–is about the production of greenhouse gases whose contribution to climate change in fact far exceeds that of natural gas infrastructure across the board. Is that an argument for continuing natural gas extraction? Of course not. It is an argument that we must see how intimately these issues are connected and we must respond as such.
As I said: put down the bacon.
As for leading–that requires a commitment reject resignation.
“What’s quite clear here is that you’re far more interested in having the last word”
TF: Pot/kettle
You know, Mr. Frost, I just have to wonder whether you’d ever presume you could talk to a man like you seem to think you can speak to me in all the venues where you stalk me. I think we know the answer here–and it’s the one that makes you look silly as well as sexist. You launch vaguely worded barbs as if they actually had aim and a a point. But they simply fall limp onto the ground at your feet.
Not as limp as your textbook-fake-feminist, strawman introduction of sexism into a discussion where none had theretofore existed. However, since you brought up the issue of the percentage of men vs. women whom I’ve “stalked” as opponents, be careful what you wish for, because equalizing it will require that I increase my “stalking” of YOU! And I’ll starting by asking you a more-relevant-to-this-thread thing that I meant to ask you earlier in this thread but was using too much of my usual restraint to do so: How much jet fuel have you been burning up lately? Still more than just about anybody I know, like you were the last time I checked?
In reply to Dean Marshall: Please do not assume that I came to this particular blog entry cold. I did not. Nor should you assume that I agree 100% with absolutely everything Wendy Lee has written here or elsewhere. But I do think she has made a crucially important point about the incompatibility of our current culture and true sustainability. The real problem isn’t so much an energy crisis as it is an over-population and over-consumption crisis and unless/until we change the underlying behavior that got us into our current mess, we’re going to have one new mess after another. For example, anyone who is paying attention can surely see that a water crisis is already underway in numerous parts of the world, including some parts of the United States.
It isn’t as if Wendy Lee has written a blog in which she’s engaged in pointless name-calling or something of that nature. She has explained, in concrete terms, why she does not agree with Josh Fox’s current approach. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech–it does not mean freedom from criticism. In fact, individuals and organizations working for constructive change should welcome criticism. They are always, of course, free to ignore the criticism, but in many cases it should at least be considered. If, for example, the Sierra Club had listened to some well-intentioned criticism, it might have avoided the embarrassment it suffered when the story broke about the Club’s having accepted millions of dollars from the gas industry.
Thank you, M. Sweeney, for your dispassionate and well-reasoned reply. I certainly don’t expect agreement–much less placid concession. What I do at least hope for is a discussion on the arguments, their reasoning, and their evidential merit. I have no commitment to being right for its own sake. I do have a commitment to tell the truth–especially where its implications are so significant–as they are here. Mr. Fox’ plan–and its infomercial concession to more Big Business–will produce tremendous harm–even if those who experience it first are people and their animals whom we’re not required to see. Any plan to mitigate climate change must account for its effects on the most vulnerable–no matter where they are. These include, I would argue, first and foremost the peoples and nonhuman animals who have suffered under our current exploitive forms of exchange. I’ll not endorse another plan that harms them–no matter who it belongs to–that plainly generates this harm. If that position is offensive–then so be it.
Thanks again.
‘every day we gain more ground’
What fantasy land are you living in? This is just straight up false.
Thank you Angela–and you’re dead-on.
w
For Mr. Frost:
There’s really no other response to you (besides silence) more appropriate than this one:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OPPONENT? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thanks for once AGAIN demonstrating for my readers how amazingly little you know about me–AND how ridiculously entitled you think yourself to be.
You couldn’t have made my point any clearer.
Really. Thanks. That was AWARD-WINNING-AWESOME-CRAZY-AS-ALL-GET-OUT…Silly.
And now–I am done responding to you.
Just too funny.