Letters to the Editor
New Deal Democrat
Published Letters: 210 Editor's Choice: 43
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Knowing and doing are two different things
[Read the article: Lifestyles of the green and Californian]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Explain how all these wonderful things that are allegedly happening will actually stabilize, not to mention reduce, the macro level output of greenhouse gases in the absence of a) population control and b) a massive effort in the developed world to consume less of all the earth's resources. I'd like to know.
As an aside, we could put a big dent in the output of greenhouse gases by building more nuclear power plants, but of course that just goes to show that there's more to the environment than the obsession with carbon. Nobody wants a nuclear plant anywhere in their vicinity.
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It's a lot bigger than Al
[Read the article: Lifestyles of the green and Californian]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What I'm ridiculing is the notion that we can have meaningful environmental change without radical changes in lifestyle. It's the ersatz "commitment" to all things "green" that I find intellectually insulting. Most of it is just clever marketing, and Al Gore is the greatest promoter of this kind of ridiculous hype. Maybe now that he's employed by a venture capitalist firm, he can figure out how to really cash in.
Nothing you've written answers the questions I asked in my last post. Everyone agrees that incremental change is better than nothing; the difference is that not all of us pretend it's something more than it is, which is not much. And even those gains will be meaningless in the face of continued population growth.
As for nuclear energy, yes, it's potentially very dangerous, but where do you propose to get the energy for your own computer outside of either burning fossil fuels or splitting atoms? Solar is great, but it's not able to satisfy the massive demand that contemporary society has created. Hydro is nice too, but it requires building dams that destroy wild landscapes and change ecosystems.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but there simply is no feel-good solution to these big environmental issues. Any actual solution will require significant sacrifice. The first step in that direction is, like the addict's challenge, admitting that we have a problem.
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I see hucksterism where you see idealism
[Read the article: Lifestyles of the green and Californian]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem with your reasoning is that it's entirely possible, and even reasonable, that someone could look at the gulf between what someone like Gore says and what he does in his own life and draw conclusions completely opposite from yours.
The reasoning is thus: Al Gore uses a lot more energy than Person X (bigger house, vastly more travel) and Gore is seen as a champion of the environmental movement. Why should Person X obsess about whether he/she drives a car a little too much, or turns up the heat a bit too high in the house? None of that will even bring him/her close to the big champ's consumption. It's just another chapter in the story of the haves and have nots, where the former are always preaching "virtue" to the latter, while making convenient excuses for themselves.
I don't know why you can't just acknowledge the inherent elitism that's embodied in Gore, and others like him, who use vast amounts of energy to preach to the rest of us about how we're ruining the planet. Doctor, heal thyself. Obviously, I'm not saying that everything Gore states is wrong; much of it may very well be right. But he's as much a part of the problem as the solution. Until we solve the riddle of humans' defining their social status through resource consumption, Gore will be a poster child for the hypocrisy that surrounds these issues.
I also dispute the notion that some sort of disaster is imminent. How can you presume to know that? It's also possible that the environment will just continue to slowly degrade because of population growth and its attendant increase in resource use (no matter how many Priuses are sold). That's a far more alarming prospect because, as you note, there won't be any wake-up moment.
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A harbinger for the Democrats?
[Read the article: Can money buy Mitt Romney love in Iowa?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If my suspicions are correct that anti-Mormonism is fueling Huckabee's rise, I wonder if the same dynamic will occur in the general election should either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination.
For the record, I support none of the "leading Democrats" (I'm for Dodd), but if Huckabee turns out to the victor in Iowa, it will add a lot of credibility to the idea that people will say one thing to pollsters early in the game (that they would have no problem voting for a woman or a black man, for example) and then get cold feet by the time Election Day arrives.
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Why not Dodd?
[Read the article: Let the voting begin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's really disappointing that even this early in the race - without a single vote having yet been cast - only one of these "celebrities" has endorsed the bravest of the bunch: Chris Dodd.
I know that Dodd is polling near the bottom, and that his chances are very slim, but it's still disappointing that all but one of these people would rather jump on one of the cool kids' bandwagons than support the person who has actually done what the presidential oath requires: protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Dodd didn't waffle or waver; he did exactly what he said he would do to foil Harry Reid's giveaway to big corporate lawbreakers and their politician-enablers, which include Clinton and Obama.
I would expect a little more from people who are considered luminaries for whatever reason, but it just goes to show that, even among "progressives," popularity trumps substance every time.