The point is well taken, but both individual and collective action are
wanted. Al Gore has been dismissed by many because he has a pretty large
footprint himself. It is hard (and risky!) for people in glass houses to
throw stones. Moreover, failure to live our values corrodes them.
Karl asked in his post on the subject:
"There is a movement that seeks a policy change - a ban on fracking, but
why, long before the threat of gas mining of the Marcellus shale, did no
massive movement develop seeking policy changes that would end in a ban
on the use of fossil fuels in Tompkins County and transform the local
economy toward zero growth as rapidly as possible?"
There is nothing like an immediate threat to stimulate action. Some of us
are old enough to remember that the draft was in no small way responsible
for catalyzing opposition to the Vietnam war. Does anybody doubt that there
would be a lot more discussion and concern about Afghanistan on college
campuses were the draft still in place? Let's capitalize on the widespread
concern to draw more people heretofore oblivious to the threats that face
us into the discussion and action -- which is what I see Sustainable
Tompkins trying to do.
Joel
At 11:07 AM 12/15/09 -0500, you wrote:
This discussion on the morality question reminds me of a recent
article in Orion Magazine, titled "Forget Shorter Showers: Why
personal change does not equal political change."
The author writes:
"Part of the problem is that weve been victims of a campaign of
systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset
have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or
enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient
Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you
notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal
consumptionchanging light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much
and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or
stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet?"
The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/
I'm still digesting this email conversation and the article, but I
thought it was worth mentioning here.
-Alison
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_______________________________________________
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
