Once a friend of mine introduced me to a branch of organizational
psychology that used "lazy, crazy, deserves to die" as a way to capture
the rhetoric of people who vilify others with differing points-of-view.
This is done to shame others into silence or justify aggression.
Although "lazy, crazy, deserves to die" takes many linguistically
creative forms, it's fascinating to watch how this sort of language is
used time and time again to disempower groups of people. It is used
against Arabs to justify war and state sponsored torture and against the
poor to justify an economically stratified society. It is also used in
smaller venues.
"Leisure environmentalist" falls into the "lazy" class, I think, and
"NIMBYism" appears to be an extension of "deserves to die." Also,
"anecdotal" the way it's been used on this list serve, as the antagonist
of "science and research," in the course of the hydraulic fracturing
discussions fills the "crazy" category.
In a world as complex, out-of-control and vast as ours, perhaps the only
place we can hope to have an impact (as Voltaire suggested in Candide)
is our own backyard. Tending our own gardens, being stewards of our own
land, protecting our nest. That the expression of this instinct should
be ridiculed or belittled because Tompkins County is part of a larger
toxic culture/global system is unfair and anger about the societal
contradictions it highlights misplaced.
From my perspective, people trying to defend themselves from being
consumed by an indifferent large-scale systemic illness makes perfect
sense. This is a very old. very common sense thing to do. What's more
I'm sure that everyone can agree that if Tompkins County throws itself
willingly into the maul of global energy markets, it will change
nothing. The irony of the very group that is supposed to be promoting
sustainability (ST) criticizing citizens' who at last are coming to
awareness about the urgency of environmental depletion that our culture
is predicated on is only eclipsed by the fact that Halliburton and its
minions has set its sites on one of the rare community's in our country
that is actively promoting sustainable lifestyles.
This not-so-constructive criticism also smacks of a double standard --
and classism. While discussions on ST are tolerant of uninformed rural
landowners who cut deals with the energy companies because they are
strapped for cash, suburban middle income folks aren't granted the same
largess for how their culture defines the life decisions they make.
NIMBY and proud,
Katie Quinn-Jacobs
Margaret McCasland wrote:
One danger with cross posting (which I did when I posted a portion of
this Shaleshock thread on Sustainable Tompkins) is that the context of
the full thread of the list-serves in general is lacking. And I think
this may have contributed to george's reactions.
The reason I made the cross-post is because I felt the Shaleshock
thread underscored the need for the work ST does on energy
conservation and efficiency, which I wanted to reinforce.
The lost context did not show the lack of NIMBYism among
Shaleshockers: I have heard only increased sympathy for people living
in other extraction "sacrifice zones," such as mountaintop removal
and long wall mining, not to mention the folks who have been fracked
in other states. There is no good acronym for this sort of compassion
and cooperation: but it would look like NIABY (not in anybody's back
yard).
Which gets us back to where we each should be: buttoning up our
houses, cutting our own use of gas and coal, while calling for
appropriate state and national public policies which support safe
energy production (safe enough to have in anyone's back yard!)
Margaret
On Nov 19, 2009, at 9:56 PM, George Frantz wrote:
Thank you, Margaret and Autumn.
I'm not in agreement with all the points you've made. I think
however that you've raise a critical issue in that much of the debate
over Marcellus shale drilling is sounding more and more like simple
NIMBYism.
I see nothing progressive or enlightened about the vehement
opposition to any and all frack-based natural gas drilling in this
region. As I've said before we are confronted with an industry that
would dig up its mothers' graves if there was a chance of finding
natural gas beneith them, but I also think that some of the
outrageous exaggerations and distortions by Shaleshock and its ilk
would even impress the great SpinMeister Karl Rove.
The current controversy is just another of a long string of examples
in Ithaca of what true progressives and true environmentalists refer
to as "leisure class environmentalism." It's probably not a term
you'll hear on NPR or read in the New York Times, but by definition
it is the constant action of more affluent cities and regions to push
off the significant adverse environmental impacts of their middle
class American lifestyle onto poorer regions and communities of the
world.
Some three-quarters of homes in the city and the town of Ithaca are
heated with natural gas, as are all of our centers of employment, our
stores, bars, restaurants and I suspect even the State Theatre.
Overall in Tompkins County almost 6 in ten homes are heated with
natural gas or propane from afar. Indeed the entire economy of
Upstate New York is dependent of natural gas and propane produced
and imported from thousands of miles away.
I've seen too much of the damage wreaked by energy companies first
hand in poor communities of Appalachia and Louisiana in their quest
to meet Ithaca's demands for coal, natural gas and gasoline. I
personally refuse to be a party to an effort by Ithaca-style
progressives to once again push off on other, poorer, regions of
America and the world the severe environmental costs of maintaining
our little paradise here in the Finger Lakes.
And, speaking of dairy farms, there are over 300 Marcellus Shale
wells either drilled, being drilled, or have been permitted across
the border in Bradford County, PA. Many of them are on dairy farms.
In many cases you can not even see the finished wells, because the
drilling sites have been restored and crops have been planted.
Millions of gallons of fracking fluids are flowing right now.
Probably some 5-6 billion gallons or so of water have been pulled
from the Susquehanna River or its tributaries by now. Take a drive
down and check out the environmental havoc wreaked by the drilling
companies, if you can find it.
George Frantz
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