A friend once described Nantucket Sound as a body of water surrounded on three sides by money. The outcome of the six-year-long effort to use a small part of that water to house a 130-turbine, 468-megawatt wind farm -- still the largest proposed renewable-energy project in the eastern U.S. -- will help determine whether we, as a nation, are serious about confronting the climate crisis.
The federal agency in charge of the formal review of the Cape Wind project, the Minerals Management Service, is receiving public comments through Monday, April 21. It's the last opportunity for ordinary citizens to outshout the Kennedys and other plutocrats who would rather keep subjecting Cape Cod waters to oil tanker spills than sully their viewsheds with matchbox-sized spinning blades (which is how they'll appear from land).
The Cape-based citizens group Clean Power Now ("It's not the view, it's the vision") has an e-mail form you can fill out in a few seconds to register your support. If you prefer to compose your own message, use this form from the project developers, Cape Wind. That's how I beat the deadline with my comments, below.
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My name is Charles Komanoff. I have worked professionally for nearly four decades as a policy analyst of, and advocate for, sustainable energy and transport. Personally, I long ago committed to low-impact, energy-efficient living; for example, since the early 1970s, I have bicycled some 75,000 miles, mostly for everyday travel in New York City, where I live, while driving only a fraction of that amount.
I first learned about the Cape Wind project in 2002. It appealed to me then as an elegant, low-impact, carbon-free solution to the Cape and Island's electricity needs. Equally important, I saw Cape Wind as a test for environmentalists: Would we advocate for the idea of renewable energy but let personal convenience and privilege stand in the way of its practice? Or would we "harmonize our public positions with our private choices," as one commentator put it, and pursue sustainable energy fully and aggressively despite the compromises this might require?
I identify fully and proudly with the latter position. Having stated my case in newspaper and magazine articles, open letters to fellow environmentalists, and earlier public comments (some of which are posted on my website), I will confine myself here to explaining why.
My first reason for standing with Cape Wind is because of professional ethics. As a frequent expert witness for state and local government bodies concerned with permitting nuclear power plants in the 1970s and 1980s, I made numerous representations that wind power facilities would one day be available to provide commercial quantities of economical electricity, and that I and fellow environmentalists would support their siting. I cannot now in good conscience stand silently while the fate of the largest such project proposed for the eastern United States hangs in the balance.
My second reason for standing with Cape Wind is my children and the world they will inhabit after I am gone. I am deeply concerned about the climate crisis and believe that the fate of the earth and its people depends on decarbonizing the American and other economies as quickly as possible. Cape Wind is both a literal piece of the solution and a symbol of the capacity of our country to seize the day and move quickly to low-carbon and zero-carbon energy sources. Addressing the climate crisis requires moving forward with Cape Wind.
My third and final reason for standing with Cape Wind is rooted in my career as a policy analyst. We economists -- I am one -- perpetually deal in trade-offs, balancing virtues and flaws, costs and benefits, "bests" with "goods." Rarely, if ever, have I encountered a public policy matter in which the trade-offs were more clear than they are for Cape Wind. In physical, visceral terms, the trade-off is between tall but spindly structures whose full height -- even from the nearest point on land -- could be covered twice over with the width of a fingertip held at arm's length, and the annual mining, shipping, and burning of a quantity of coal or oil large enough to cover the entire playing field of Boston's Fenway Park to more than three times the height of the fabled Green Monster wall in left field. In a world with few true slam-dunks, Cape Wind stands out as one.
My lone qualm about the Cape Wind project is that the turbines will "put an end to the opportunity for people to experience an original view of a piece of the natural world in one of America's most famously lovely coastal regions," as naturalist Carl Safina put it. This is a loss to be mourned. And yet, Nantucket Sound hasn't been a pristine place for centuries. It is already a very heavily humanized stretch of water, though no less beautiful for that. Indeed, it is this fact -- that a humanized world need not be an ugly one -- that shows us, now, the way forward.
Thoreau famously asked, "What good is a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" To have a shot at remaining tolerable for our descendants, our fragile, stressed, precious planet needs Cape Wind.
To unlock wind power, put a price on carbon
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Blowing up our clean energy future
Comments
View as Flat
Biodiversivist Posted 4:10 pm
19 Apr 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 4:49 pm
19 Apr 2008
The ice is melting, the clock is ticking. We need to replace as much GHG power use as possible asap. Wind is the cheapest, fastest way to do it.
Conservation using geo heat exchange heating cooling powered by solar cogeneration is just as effective per dollar invested. We need both.
And plugin hybrid vehicles that use clean wind and solar for fuel, cutting gas use by up to 90%.
The big stall of Cape Wind hinders investment in other wind projects. AWEA says we need to triple wind installation to get to where we need, 20% of present grid generation capacity with wind in 20 years. Conservation can take care of half. Solar and biogas can pickup the other 30% plus charge plugin hybrids.
This plan working through a distributed generation and storage smart grid can replace fossil, nuclear, and fossil fuel agriculture within 20 years. Reversing GHG climate disaster.
Cape Wind could be part of the big kickoff as a green energy friendly uS government comes into power in '09. Make it happen! Please!!! People need to see wind working.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 6:29 pm
19 Apr 2008
I hate it when good causes collide. Is Safina actually on record as deploring the Cape Wind project? I did not find the quoted sentence in the website.
The biodiversity crisis and the climate-change crisis are not the same sorts of problem (though the latter contributes to the former). But there should be no inconsistency or conflict in being committed to dealing with both.
Already, on balance, we bird-lovers have done the appropriate accounting, and decided that, yes, some birds will die because of wind turbines in their paths; but many more birds will die if nothing is done about global warming and its effects. So, most of us are on board with Cape Wind.
Hopefully, Carl Safina and his marine-biology allies feel the same way.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:27 pm
19 Apr 2008
Press release19-04-2008
Fisher people demand justice for climate refugees
South Indian fishing community conference on Climate change and
Fisherpeople's livelihood was held on 17th April 2008 at Rotary Community
hall,Nagercoil, Kanyakumari district. This event was organized by
TamilnaduFisher workers Union (TFU), Kerala Independent Fish workers
Federation(KSMTF) and Voices from the Margins (VFM).
Mr. T. Peter Dass, President,Tamilnadu Fish workers Union (TFU) delivered
welcome address and he pointed out that fisher people are facing sea erosion
as a result ofclimate change. This public event is recognized as the first
one organized by the affected community against Climate Change and fisher
people have decided to launch public protest for their sufferings as a
result ofclimate change.
Mr.M.Pakkirisamy, district revenue officer inaugurated this workshop and in
his Chief Guest address said that sea level is rising in the last pastdecade
at an unimaginable rate of increase. Sea level is expected raise 5 meters in
the next 50 years and it is going to affect the fisher people.There is a
need to change the consumption pattern to avoid the expansion of the hole in
ozone layer.
Mr. K.P. Sasi, activist film maker wondered what the government is doing to
stop the carbon emission? There is a need to change the production process
of the industries, agriculture and the energy systems. Nothing is done so
far to the people affected by climate change and marginalized people who are
becoming refugees as a result of ecological impacts thrustupon them.
Dr. A.D.Shobana Raj, ecological researcher highlighted the factthat the
coastal Kanyakumari district has 56 km long coast with apopulation density
of 1500 per sq.km; and the coast line is vanishing. 80% of the water
resources in the coastal area have become saline and peopleare facing water
crisis because of the intrusion of sea water. 132 coastal sea weeds have
disappeared in the last 10 years. If the global temperature rises 2 degree
Celsius then it will have impact on micro organisms leadingto several
contagious diseases affecting coastal people.
Dr. S.P.Udayakumar social activist demanded that our energy consumption
pattern should change. The solution for climate change lies in shifting our
energy sector from fossil fuel dependent sector to renewable energy. Our
transportation pattern should move towards effective and efficientpublic
transport system rather than promoting cars which will lead toincrease in
carbon emission and vehicular pollution.
Mr. Sathya Sivaraman,journalist & film maker stressed the need to pinpoint
who emits more carbon and who should pay for carbon credit. USA is
responsible for 25% ofcarbon emission and it should take the responsibility
in compensation to the victims of carbon emission and climate change. The
relationship of Human species to Earth should be the equivalent to child and
mother, but this species has taken up the role of the destroyer of the earth
and other species. Carbon emitting industries should be changed and if this
is not possible all such industries should be closed.
After the people's response, Mr. T.Peter president KSMTF demanded that
chemical farming practices, polluting industries and carbon emitting
lifestyle should be stopped since the fisher people are the most affected
bythe climate change. Today, this public event is organized with the
conviction that the affected communities can not remain in halls but there
is a need to launch mass public protest not just for their survival alonebut
for the entire humanity locally, nationally and internationally.
In the concluding session Mr. S.M.Prithiviraj, Convener, Voices from the
Margins explained how the marginalized farmers of the Tamilnadu are affected
by climate change in recent heavy rains as a result unusual low pressure in
Arabian Sea. Fisher people are affected by changes in pattern of fish catch,
reduction in fish wealth, and loss of working days as a result of climate
change and tidal waves and their houses are washed away by intruding sea in
many places of South India. Why should the fisherpeople pay for the impacts
of climate change entirely created by other vested interests? The conference
ended with a resolution questioning the polluting industries, chemical
farming practices, non-renewable energy sectors,carbon emitting life style
and the need for taxing the polluters to paythe price for ecologically
affected fisher people and other marginalized communities.
Press release issued byTamilnadu Fisher workers Union (TFU)
Ph:09443294198
Kerala Independent Fish workers Federation (KSMTF)
Ph:09447429243and
Voices from the Margins
(VFM)Ph:09843080963______________
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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Erik Hoffner Posted 1:18 am
20 Apr 2008
Mass has a lack of new electrical power sources coming on line, and the need down by the Cape is well known, especially regarding the need to close the bunker-oil-burning plant there. The state had a near grid failure last summer due to demand. Bringing Cape Wind online and conserving what we already have can be part of the way forward.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 1:23 am
20 Apr 2008
_
So why is the US Minerals Service responsible for this?
Shouldn't it fall under the jurisdiction of another organization?
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:31 am
20 Apr 2008
US Senator John McCain has become the first Republican presidential candidate to endorse the Cape Wind project proposed for Nantucket Sound.
McCain was approached by this reporter after he spoke last night at a town hall forum in Amherst, N.H. (as shown in photo). Asked if he supported the Cape Wind project, McCain said that "absolutely I'm for it," describing himself as a "strong supporter."
"Except for the fact that maybe it spoils somebody's view," McCain said, a clear allusion to Senator Edward Kennedy's opposition to Cape Wind, "what in the world would you be opposed to it for?"
J. Bailo
Participant
Texeme.Construct()
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Sam Wells Posted 2:10 am
20 Apr 2008
the MMS is the reviewing agency because the turbine footings are rooted in federal waters on leased property owned C/O the federal government - in federal waters beyond 3 miles.
The state (Mass) only reviewed the impact of the transmission wires from the leasehold to the shore.
You might think that FERC would be the lead agency, similar to permitting of LNG facilities such as Broadwater (boo!).
That is a screwy part of how the Fed approaches the issue of offshore and nearshore alternative energy resources.
There is no coordinated approach for wind energy, no regional plan, no coordinated policy, and the system favors fossil fuel sources such as LNG, natural gas wells (a form of mining), and the like.
In the end the Cape project will probably succeed because the state (Mass) has no Coastal Zone Management Act authority in the area to be developed for wind energy. /sam
Onward through the fog
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:17 am
20 Apr 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/7/1352/19483/584/491 ...
_
But more on-topic, McCain was also the tie breaking vote that blocked the Renewable energy production tax credit from being reinstated in the economic stimulus bill.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/07/mccain-stimulus-2/
If he really gave a crap about renewable electricity, he would have voted, like everyone else on his flight did.
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:32 am
20 Apr 2008
Senator McCain is against pork in all forms -- such as ethanol subsidies. Setting up a red herring and calling it a "Renewable Energy Bill" when instead it's a handout shouldn't thrill anyone.
Oh, and for all you windiots (me included) check out how nicely Wind-H2 technology is progressing in Canada. Using H2 as a storage mechanism for intermittent wind has to be the best of all worlds for large generation capacity as we could put all the turbines up in the Northwest Territories and ship the gas all over North America.
http://www.thewesternstar.com/index.cfm?sid=125802&sc ...
Since early 2007, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and some research partners have been preparing to install a system in Ramea that converts excess energy generated from wind turbines into hydrogen that will be stored and converted back to electricity.
The target is to have the initiative up and running some time this fall.
"We're breaking ground," says Greg Jones, a manager of business development with the utility. "This is world-class technology that we are implementing here."
The project expands on a successful wind demonstration project implemented in the southwest coast community in 2004.
That system sees Ramea residents getting their juice from a combination of six, 65-kilowatt wind turbines owned by Frontier Power Systems and a three, 900-kilowatt diesel generators owned by Hydro.
The initiative has reduced the amount of diesel required to power the community by more than 325,000 litres since inception
J. Bailo
Participant
Texeme.Construct()
Permalink
Bart Anderson Posted 3:44 am
20 Apr 2008
The level of self-righteousness is out of place, when one has not applied the same standards to one's own sins: car travel, air travel and high-consumption lifestyles.
I think the height of hypocrisy was a high-powered environmentalist writing in Grist (can't find the URL), who lambasted the Kennedys, but confessed his love of travel to far-off countries.
Yes, wind power is important. Yes, it probably means putting man-made crap up in beautiful areas.
But step #1 is to reduce energy usage as much as possible - through efficiency and conservation. Negawatts are much cheaper than megawatts - both economically and environmentally.
If one is not willing to do that, then one is still looking for magic ways to keep the party going.
P.S. I admire Komanoff's work, which does emphasize lower energy usage.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:12 am
20 Apr 2008
Not recently.
http://greyfalcon.net/iowa
I figure biofuels are largely a wash in the presidential election, since all of them either don't know or don't care about any of the negative consequences.
And as for "McCain is against Pork", I call bullshit. His rhetoric doesn't match his track record.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200803280005
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/77541/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en0UsydYzSI
And more general stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPyKpcivQYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDc4M_PMNk
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David Roberts Posted 4:31 am
20 Apr 2008
I advocate for public policy that encourages efficiency and conservation precisely because I know that the vast majority of people (including, often, myself) will not voluntarily curtail their own activities.
So while I think people ought to do what they can in their personal lives, there is actually no hypocrisy at all in failing to do so while still advocating for public policies that push things in that direction.
grist.org
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:46 am
20 Apr 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W_K4RCisxc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVWh5jO2Dxo
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JMG Posted 5:03 am
20 Apr 2008
The dog one shows a guy playing with a dog and saying all the usual endearments ("Aren't you a pretty dog! Good Ginger! Yes, Ginger is a pretty, pretty dog!") and, in the second panel, it's "blahblahblah GINGER! blahblahblah GINGER!"
The cat one shows a similar setup, only the second panel, where he shows you what the cat hears out of all that noise we make, it's only "blahblahblah."
When you write:
I take your point, but I think you (and many other people) make far too much of it.
I advocate for public policy that encourages efficiency and conservation precisely because I know that the vast majority of people (including, often, myself) will not voluntarily curtail their own activities.
So while I think people ought to do what they can in their personal lives, there is actually no hypocrisy at all in failing to do so while still advocating for public policies that push things in that direction.
What the politicians hear loud and clear is "the vast majority of people (including, often, myself) will not voluntarily curtail their own activities." The politicians supply the " . . . and will vote against anyone who tries to make them" and, presto! Here we are.
Every airline trip is DEMAND for air travel, an industry that sits at the absolute pinnacle of a mountain of energy intensity and waste while providing an almost-entirely non-essential luxury to a tiny class of privileged elites who consider consumption of this product essential to their social status and who do so in droves, regardless of the cost it imposes on others.
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:25 am
20 Apr 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFM1xqqTX_g
Not sure if it's at all true, but certainly does beg the question why he was so insistent on not releasing those documents.
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caniscandida Posted 6:43 am
20 Apr 2008
as the husband of a librarian (yes, I have that in common with the President of the United States, along with a short attention span and a tendency to shrink from reading anything too long) (Laura, by the way, was kicked out of the American Library Association for having failed so grievously to do anything helpful with her husband), I must commend you for your excellent rapid online research skills.
But in the case of Veterans Against McCain, bashing John McCain from the right tends to nauseate me. True, the man has a notorious temper. But to suggest that he has relentlessly suppressed evidence of his collaboration as a North Vietnamese propaganda tool is crazy. And to suggest (as that Aries Irish-American NYC-born former congressman from CA, Bob Dornan, did indeed suggest) that while in prison, McCain calculated that he should opt to refuse early release because that would mean the end of his professional life, is really mean.
Also, it gives no pleasure to hear Jane Fonda's name dragged around yet again, to inspire a round of drum beats from the right. Her visit to Hanoi was perhaps the best thing she ever did; she certainly has been a remarkably boring actor -- almost as bad as her hugely over-rated father, whose best performance was in "Young Man Lincoln," when he played a white marble statue in Washington. But back during the Republican National Convention in August, 2004, I knew that we had lost, when George H.W. Bush in a skybox told either the CNN people or the Jim Lehrer people that he refused to shake Jane Fonda's hand in a receiving line at the White House.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:51 am
20 Apr 2008
I really did like the montage ones I posted tho.
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caniscandida Posted 7:35 am
20 Apr 2008
For the only time in my long life, I actually registered Republican, in 2000, in order to vote for McCain in the NY primary that Spring. Of course, I switched back right afterwards; and even if he had won the nomination, I had no intention of voting for him in November; but I thought he represented some good movement in his party.
Subsequently, though, he has flip-flopped disgracefully, especially pandering to the right. If the media get their act together -- as at least Tim Russert and Jonathan Alter seem ready to do -- , I suspect McCain will not be able to count on as much support from independents as he has so far enjoyed.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
JMG Posted 3:25 pm
20 Apr 2008
Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly inadequate to the challenge. It's hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: "Personal choices, no matter how virtuous [N.B.!], cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money." So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle -- of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences.
For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we're living our lives suggests we're not really serious about changing -- something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking -- passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists -- that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It's hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:00 pm
20 Apr 2008
The problem comes when the opposition to GHG cures go after guys like Gore. They argue that since gore wastes energy, his arguments on GHG climate disaster are wrong.
Wether or not he really does waste energy is a moot point, in the GHG climate debate.
The opposition tries to use the false dilemna/hypocricy claim to discredit his presentation on GHG problems/
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:55 pm
20 Apr 2008
Could we divide the issue into two parts?
First, turning greenness into a game of 'gotcha.' I agree with David and amazingdrx that this is silly and non-productive.
Secondly, the matter of personal integrity, of walking the talk. Are we asking people to make sacrifices that we ourselves are not willing to make? Do we have one set of rules for ourselves and our friends, and another set for other people?
A surprising thing happens when we struggle through our own shortcomings -- it makes us more tolerant of others and we dial down the self-righteousness. (David wrote an amusing piece a while back on trying to change eating habits.).
One begins to empathize with people who don't want to give up their goodies ... whether it be SUVs, coal mining jobs or pristine views.
One ceases to preach from on high, but instead is able to talk to people as a fellow human being.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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caniscandida Posted 5:01 pm
20 Apr 2008
As I recall, there are four frames. In the first and third, both the dog's person and the cat's person are scolding their respective companions for some characteristic bit of misbehavior (getting into the garbage, in Ginger the Dog's case), with their speeches in cartoon-balloons, both with the caption, "What You Say." In the second, the first frame's image (with the dog) is reprinted, with the caption, "What Your Dog Hears"; and the speech in the cartoon balloon is replaced with, "blah blah blah GINGER blah blah GINGER blah blah ... " In the fourth, the third frame's image (with the cat) is reprinted, with the caption, "What Your Cat Hears"; and the speech in the cartoon balloon is replaced with nothing, i.e. a void; the space is totally blank.
A hasty Google-search did not bring it up, but I am sure it is available online somewhere.
As for JMG's reference to virtue, by way of Michael Pollan quoting Michael Specter: I agree with the ever-excellent Amazing that this is a false dilemma. I would caution my old pal Bart not to get too hung up accusing people of hypocrisy; but I do indeed agree with him (and JMG and Michael Pollan) that our personal decisions to greenify our lives matter: not so much to avoid the charge of hypocrisy -- as if other people's opinions of us matter! -- as to instruct ourselves in accord with the Mahatma Gandhi's wise saying, that the change we wish to see in the world we must first realize in ourselves, personally.
What this has to do with democracies and electoral politics, you poli-sci types can figure out.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
David Roberts Posted 5:17 pm
20 Apr 2008
Secondly, the matter of personal integrity, of walking the talk. Are we asking people to make sacrifices that we ourselves are not willing to make? Do we have one set of rules for ourselves and our friends, and another set for other people?
This is kind of my point: I'm not asking anyone to make a sacrifice I'm not willing to make. I'm asking politicians to pass policies that realign incentives to encourage energy efficiency at both the macro and micro (personal) level. I'm asking other people to live under those policies; and yes, I'm perfectly willing to live under those policies.
So where's the hypocrisy?
grist.org
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amazingdrx Posted 5:25 pm
20 Apr 2008
Yep there it is Canis, Ghandi. Become the change.
How much more effective is a movement that does it that way? I think when Barack answers tabloid attacks by speaking out against politicis as usual, diversion from solutions to real problems. He is illustrating that very Ghandi-ism.
That is his particular genius, he does not need talking points. He is what you see. He embodies the change in his individual integrity.
Did you know he was a community organizer? He was told by his organizer, the one who trained him, to get other people involved, get them to speak in front of the group. Instead of speaking to the group himself. He was a coach.
That's how they won the caucuses. Assembled teams that were self activating. Give them the confidence to do it and set them loose.
Become the change, that's zen. All the members become the change, they know what to do.
We econauts need this tactic that's not a tactic, you be yourself, live the change.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sephyrave Posted 5:33 pm
20 Apr 2008
Utilitarianism is the best, best for everyone, best for nature.
http://environe.blogspot.com
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caniscandida Posted 5:41 pm
20 Apr 2008
Nevertheless, it is inhumane to judge our actions by utilitarian criteria. Human beings can be virtuous, even if what they attempt fails -- maybe even because it fails. Human beings can be virtuous, even if what they attempt is to help just one special beloved being, when they might instead be helping others.
Utilitarianism is a great ethics; and Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill have certainly advanced us a great deal. But there is more to living well, to living respectfully, to living flourishingly, than what is contained in utilitarianism.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
Bart Anderson Posted 7:37 pm
20 Apr 2008
So where's the hypocrisy? Policies have winners and losers. You (and I) are asking people to give up things they value -- this is implicit in the policies.
Some people will have to endure man-made structures that they abhor (the subject of this thread). Other people will lose their jobs. Developing countries will not have access to coal-power to supply energy. Many poor people may not be able to raise their standards of living. Some companies will not make the profits they otherwise might.
There is going to be pain, bright green promises to the contrary. It may be necessary, but it will hurt just the same.
Query: Are we as scrupulous in examining our favorite goodies, as we are in examining the goodies of other people?
In the case of US environmentalists, three areas stand out: Air travel Individual autos High consumption lifestyles To me it is obvious that the Earth is doomed if everyone on the planet were to imitate our behavior. Thus we are failing Kant's categorical imperative.
We get a taste of this with the rise in car ownership by China and India.
Now I agree with your belief that public policy is critical and we over-obsess with individual behavior. The problem is that we tend to ignore policies that would interfere with our pleasures (cars, air travel, consumption). Environmental organizations like Sierra Club don't talk much about air travel (has Grist done much on the climate effects of air travel?), and don't push much for legislation.
The great environmental problem seems to be how to keep our car habit going - except for a fringe, we don't question car habit itself.
I'm not targeting David Roberts or Gristmill particularly; I'm not eager about targeting anybody.
But if Grist/Gristmill doesn't take the lead, who will? If you and I and others here don't think deeply about this, who will?
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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caniscandida Posted 8:17 pm
20 Apr 2008
<<
Im lo achshav, eimatai? Im lo attah, mi?
>>
"If not now, when? If not you, who?"
So alright already: let's say everybody has to stop flying in airplanes. Nobody in the Grist community is allowed to fly in an airplane. For any reason. Period.
This is the categorical imperative: We must allow ourselves to do only what we would allow every other moral agent to do; and we must forbid ourselves from doing, what we would forbid every other moral agent from doing.
So what would happen, if Grist sent out an all-points-directive, commanding everybody in the community to cease from flying in airplanes?
Sounds fine to me; but I always hated flying. Plus, I like to stay here with Little Dog.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
Russ Posted 8:43 pm
20 Apr 2008
In the case of US environmentalists, three areas stand out:
Air travel
Individual autos
High consumption lifestyles
To me it is obvious that the Earth is doomed if everyone on the planet were to imitate our behavior. Thus we are failing Kant's categorical imperative.
In the case of air travel and high impact lifestyles, it is true that if you don't purge all voluntary hi-impacts from your lifestyle, you have no moral authority to call upon others to do so, or to advocate societal policies regarding them. I'm sorry David, but your argument sounds like that of the alcoholic who advocates prohibition "to save me from myself".
(It also sounds alot like the dance America and China have been doing - "I won't go first until we have a policy which makes you go first."
I've shaken off proximal concern with China's coal binge. I say America should go first simply because it's the right thing to do. America should have the pride of a leader. Then, once you ARE a leader, you can turn to China and say with authority, "Now how about you?"
I think the same is true in reforming our lifestyle.)
I'll use the admittedly hackneyed Gore example to distinguish gratuitous and necessary impacts.
I think Gore's jetsetting is an unfortunate but necessary part of his critical work. (I'd say the same about David flying to a green conference.) So that's a necessary hi-impact, and that's the proper place to buy offsets if you can afford them.
But I just can't accept that a mansion is "necessary" by any measure, certainly when you take into account heating and cooling it, which I assume Gore does. This is a purely voluntary, gratuitous hi-impact, and to say you're "offsetting" a destructive toy like this really is buying an indulgence (which, in spite of what some have said here, is not some tired metaphor, but a comparison precise and exact in every way).
As for the suburban car lifestyle, here it's alot harder, since decades of depraved policy seem to have locked us in and lost us within this labyrinth, and it's hard to see how to find our way out, at least within the current political configuration. Although some individuals may be able to find individual ways out, it's certainly not as easy as saying turn your thermostat down, eat less meat, and don't fly if you don't need to. Here David's right that the real action has to come first from broader policy change:
raising fuel efficiency standards, raising the gas tax, eliminating SUV subsidies, flipping the idiotic 80/20 federal transportation spending ratio (highways vs. mass transit), congestion pricing, regional planning to emphasize sustainability instead of "growth", stop favoring home ownership over renting in the tax code, tiered water use pricing, and so on.
Only this panoply can gradually discourage the whole suburban mindset and eventually bring a sea change in the way we live vis this "automobile".
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caniscandida Posted 8:52 pm
20 Apr 2008
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Backcut Posted 9:46 pm
20 Apr 2008
not bloody likely!
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Think globally and act locally!
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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem!
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(Not just catch-phrases...try walking the walk!)
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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Tom Philpott Posted 11:16 pm
20 Apr 2008
Victual Reality
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caniscandida Posted 2:57 am
21 Apr 2008
Nota bene:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/us/nationalspecial2/21c ...
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:13 am
21 Apr 2008
Here, for example, I offered this nugget:
But I agree that animal slaughter is morally troubling -- I would sooner submit myself to slaughter or the rigors of a CAFO than send my dog or two cats. [I should have said three, including the farm cat.]
At another point in the deep past, I tried to flummox a now-forgotten troll with mention of my cats (the troll was virulently anti-pet). Scroll through the comments on this post to find it. I twisted the troll into knots (I like to think so, anyway) with this quotation from Boswell's Life of Johnson:
This reminds me of the ludicrous account he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running around town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'
Grist points to anyone who can name the famous novel that uses that quote as an epigraph.
Victual Reality
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kmp Posted 5:56 am
21 Apr 2008
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ngreene Posted 6:22 am
21 Apr 2008
Today we pressed send on our written comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind project.The DEIS was prepared by the Mineral Management Service as part of the permitting process for the project. Based on our review of this the information in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers DEIS and other analyses that have been done on the project, NRDC has concluded that the project's environmental benefits will far outweigh its impacts.
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caniscandida Posted 6:41 am
21 Apr 2008
I have only read "Lolita," and some shorter things, or excerpts, or something, by Nabokov.
But even if I had read "Pale Fire," I doubt I would have remembered, my memory being such as it is.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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David Roberts Posted 8:03 am
21 Apr 2008
I'm sorry, that's just absurd on its face. I can't call for a social policy that discourages flying unless I voluntarily give up flying? The whole premise of my support for social policy is that I believe very few people will give up flying voluntarily. That's why you need public policy!
Also, the equally absurd attack on Gore's house -- which I won't get into yet again -- shows just how dangerous this business of passing judgment on other people's lives can be.
Also, Bart, I'm happy to call for public policies that will, in some incremental way, constrain my own activities -- flying, driving, whatever. Again, it is precisely my unwillingness to substantially curtail those activities on my own that leads me to believe that we need public policy.
Of course, I'm exaggerating somewhat. I do try to lighten my own footprint. I encourage others to do so, to the extent I can without feeling like a judgmental, self-righteous enviro type. I believe there are many benefits to doing so -- personal, social, economic, etc. (Pollan makes these points well in his current essay.)
But still -- there will never be enough people who voluntary do what we need. We need to advocate for public policy. And if we set the bar so high for even allowing people to advocate for public policy, we're only shooting ourselves in the foot.
grist.org
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JMG Posted 8:15 am
21 Apr 2008
Humans and certain other advanced primates use and are constantly alert for the use of deception. It's a hard-coded survival skill; children and other infant primates learn it early.
A key signal for deception being practiced against you is that the person/creature who wishes to deceive you has actions that don't align with their stated (indicated) intentions.
When this is the case, the primate brain has a very hard time hearing the words, because the limbic system is interpreting the mismatch as stemming from a threat. (Being deceived means being vulnerable, either to lost opportunity or to worse.)
So if you truly want to advocate for those policies, you best advocate for them by adopting them. That allows for the creation of trust--that what you say is what you mean, and that you don't intend them harm.
But whispering the old prayer of the man who finds himself in a bar enjoying the attentions of the beautiful maiden ("Lord, make me pure -- but not yet.") is just wasting your breath.
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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kmp Posted 8:29 am
21 Apr 2008
The reason I can't advocate it is that it does not exist.
The reason it does not exist is because there is no incentive for the air travel industry to create/provide emission-free travel.
The reason there is no incentive is because airlines can still make money by doing business as usual. They can do this because 1) people do not eliminate air travel based on global warming guilt, or on mildly increasing fares (they may reduce, but will likely not eliminate) and 2) there is no negative reinforcement for either the traveler or the airlines for continuing business as usual (i.e. carbon tax or vastly increased fares related to vastly increased fuel costs).
So, concerned greenies can do our best to eliminate all emissions, flying included.... but we all know how good humans are at resisting temptation. How many of us do not have 10 pounds to lose? Or, concerned greenies can do their best to 1) curtail/reduce personal emissions by lifestyle adjustments (flying included), while 2) pushing for legislation that gives us the best hope of continuing some form of our previously enjoyed lifestyle while not killing the planet (i.e. clean energy air travel).
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David Roberts Posted 8:30 am
21 Apr 2008
I am not deceiving anyone.
I am not asking anyone to make voluntary changes in their behavior that I am not willing to make. I am asking for policy that shifts their incentives and mine alike. There is no hypocrisy. There is no deception.
And the insistence that there is echoes, almost word for word, the specious charges enviros constantly hear from the right side of the aisle. We're going to accept their frame? Personal purity as a precondition for policy advocacy? Why would we impose so insane and so counterproductive a stricture on ourselves? Why do the right that favor?
grist.org
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Sean Casten Posted 8:33 am
21 Apr 2008
We used to praise monks who sacrificed their own personal pleasures out of deference to a higher God. To the extent that such self-sacrifice gave those individuals a greater spiritual awareness, it's all for the good. But at an individual level. Joe the Anonymous Monk may get great personal gain from sacrificing sex, wine and song, and no doubt has a unique vantage point on the world as a result. Not better, not worse - just unique. The village vinter, minstrel and nunnery-operator also had unique vantage points. And the world benefits from a diversity of perspective. We all owe thanks to Joe. But also to Ernst, Julio, Simon and Garfunkel.
This is the same standard we ought to take to our modern-day monks who chose to live a life of self-sacrifice for environmental reasons. If people individually want to live a life without a car, without meat and without a plasma TV, that's fine. We ought not question their motives, nor the fact that there different lens provides them with a useful vantage point that us (fatter, more mobile and more sitcom-knowledgeable) folks lack.
But just as Joe didn't grow his faith by telling people how awesome celibacy was, we shouldn't expect to grow environmental consciousness by telling people how great life without travel is. The challenge faced by Joe - and the most responsible of the environmental movement today - is therefore not to maximize their sacrifice, but to maximally leverage their efforts.
So the question for the environmental movement is this: how do you leverage your actions? Not how much do you sacrifice - because even if you completely eliminated your environmental signature, you've only made our challenge one-six-billionth easier. To be blunt : You don't matter. Y'all do. What Al Gore has done outside of his house is a heck of a lot more important than what he did inside it. The individual who gets their town to institute a recycling program is vastly more leveraged than the individual who sorts their paper and plastic. So let's stop judging based on irrelevant individual behavior. If we insist on evaluating individual environmentalist's impact, let's do it on the basis of how well they leveraged their beliefs to lower our collective footprint, not how big their shoe is.
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:40 am
21 Apr 2008
What I would criticize someone for is not working with other people on a national or international movement -- if there was one -- that would lead to a situation were it would be possible to take a train instead of a car or train. In other words, the problem is to change the way the society is put together, more than to change individual actions.
And to get back to the OP, what makes the situation so frustrating is that putting up a wind farm is a social solution, not just an individual one, and certain individuals (who happen to be famous liberals and environmentalists) are working against it.
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Russ Posted 8:43 am
21 Apr 2008
In the case of air travel and high impact lifestyles, it is true that if you don't purge all voluntary hi-impacts from your lifestyle, you have no moral authority to call upon others to do so, or to advocate societal policies regarding them.
I'm sorry, that's just absurd on its face. I can't call for a social policy that discourages flying unless I voluntarily give up flying? The whole premise of my support for social policy is that I believe very few people will give up flying voluntarily. That's why you need public policy!
Also, the equally absurd attack on Gore's house -- which I won't get into yet again -- shows just how dangerous this business of passing judgment on other people's lives can be.
I'm sorry I wasn't as clear as I thought I had been in distinguishing necessary flying from gratuitous, pleasure flying. Of course, if you're saying it's morally tenable to indulge in unnecessary flying but at the same time say "we need to cut down on unnecessary flying", I guess we're at an impasse there.
Of course you're right that most people will never give up their bells and whistles voluntarily. But it is unhelpful for those who advocate change and seek to educate regarding the need for change, to refuse to personally undertake that very change all they are able, to be exemplary. It tells the people, who are not by nature committed to this, who indeed want nothing more than to be able to believe none of this is real, and to forget about it and get back to the party, that it is in fact not so important.
(Not to mention how the enemy scores such easy propaganda points off examples of hypocrisy. The people find this both entertaining and convincing.)
As for my other alleged "absurdity", well, yes, anyone who thinks mansions have any constructive role to play in this world anymore looks absurd to me as well.
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JMG Posted 8:47 am
21 Apr 2008
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:52 am
21 Apr 2008
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David Roberts Posted 8:53 am
21 Apr 2008
grist.org
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:03 am
21 Apr 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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JMG Posted 11:09 am
21 Apr 2008
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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Russ Posted 6:01 pm
21 Apr 2008
On the contrary, it's modern man, a creature with no culture, no history, no context, and evidently no sense of time at all, who has departed the realms of reason on this hedonist binge which is obviously unsustainable and can't last much longer. Yet these revellers really think this dance of death is "living". They think it's the only way to live, and the only way anyone has ever lived.
As for hypocrisy in the abstract, I guess I'm just coming at all of this from a completely different angle. When I consider, why do I hate the Right?, two things come to mind. One is their actions, the policies they enact and seek to enact. The other IS the hypocrisy which their core trait. I hate them for claiming to be "moral" when they're patently not. They claim to be patriots, christians, supporters of compassion, cherishers of family, ardent for beauty, vigilant for the national interest and security, economically responsible, even solicitous of conservation issues. Yet their every action proves they have nothing but contempt for any of these things, that they are nothing but loathesome money-grubbers and waterboys of greed, and that greed fundamentalism is their only real ideology.
I hate this LIE. (Which, BTW, does not have to involve deception. All the worst hypocrisy is right out on the open. It's a brazen lie right to your face, a direct insult to your intelligence.) So I guess that's why I get so frustrated when even among decent people I see anything like this, let alone anyone actually defending hypocrisy in theory.
Hannah Arendt asked, Why have moral philosophers universally regarded hypocrisy with such disdain? her answer: "Hypocrisy is the one vice which cannot coexist with any form of integrity." (inexact quote; I don't have the book ready to hand.)
One last point - I don't understand why we shouldn't have these discussions. The fact is, we don't have any sort of coordinated movement with agreed-upon principles, the way the enemy developed over the fifties-eighties. I'm not saying there necessarily should be such a movement, but surely we can at least explore some fundamentals from time to time. Maybe this gets in the way of the wonkery, but what also gets in the way is where people seem to have fundamental disagreements on principle but lack even a mutually recognizable framework for understanding and discussing them. As for the notion that such issues should just be repressed, (1) again, that sounds like what the Right would do, (2) it can't work anyway.
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:48 pm
21 Apr 2008
Rather -- no one is perfect, being aware of our own imperfections makes us less self-righteous and more effective as activists.
I overdosed on self-righteousness during the 60s/70s. It's easy to get addicted ...
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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amazingdrx Posted 8:41 pm
21 Apr 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Black Wallaby Posted 9:04 pm
21 Apr 2008
A word that springs to mind is:
Waffle,
Or possibly:
Gobble Gobble Gobble, as found in turkey-speach
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