--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Jan Quarles <[email protected]> wrote: "I hope you're not asking that question as a way, yet again, to say that protesting fracking is morally wrong as long as the protestors are heating with gas. That's a trap that could have a chilling effect on the learning curve."
+++++++ Sorry, Jan, but that is exactly the point of my question regarding how IC heats its buildings. Who are we as a region to say NO!" to natural gas drilling,and its associated risks, when our robust economy and associated affluence are so dependent on burning natural gas? What give us the right, as a region, to continue to foist off the environmental externalities of our affluance on the poorer regions of the United States and the world? My questioning of the morality of blind opposition to drilling in our region, and my "lazy, crazy, deserves to die" leisure class environmentalism position with regard to opposition to drilling remain on the table. So the new "green" building at IC is heated and cooled using geothermal technology. (If it is.) So is my home. But what about the other 75 buildings on the I.C. campus, or the other 10,999 homes in the city and town of Ithaca? What about the Cornell campus, where they are now converting from a coal fired central heating plant to one burning natural gas? Why in the Ithaca Times (12/2/09) is the mayor of Ithaca using as a rationale for demolishing the Ithaca Commons the need to install larger natural gas service lines to enable more restaurants to open there? As far as my position having any chilling effect on any learning curves, we've been "learning" now for forty years. Where are we today as a result? As a nation we now burn up land for development at 8 times the rate of our underlying population growth. There is no evidence to indicate the Ithaca and Tompkins County areany different in this regard. On the contrary in Ithaca and Tompkins County it's not merely environmentally acceptable, but even environmentally chic to live 5, 10, 15 miles or more beyond the urban fringe and alternatives to the single-occupancy vehicle, and commute into Ithaca on a daily basis. (burning gallons of gasoline imported from elsewhere and generating in the process a pound of greenhouse gases per mile in the process) In 2007 Americans generated 26.5 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per person, versus 11 ton per person in Europe and 6 tons per person in China. Just how much more is there to learn, and when are we actually move beyond pious pronouncements like "Not in Anybody's Back Yard" and "Light in My Back Yard" and make the necessary changes? George Frantz ____________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
