A long way to go

[primavera]

Just got back from a visit to the in-laws who live in West Virginia's coal mining country. There, coal is king. Everyone's living depends either directly or indirectly upon it. Everyone drives a big monster truck or a SUV the size of an aircraft carrier and conservation is a four letter word. I found myself struggling trying to find ways to explain to my father-in-law, a former coal miner, why driving a vehicle that got better than 14 mpg might be a good idea. Very tough. I found myself wondering how I might try to explain to my grandmother-in-law, a poverty-stricken elderly woman with barely enough money to feed herself, that more expensive, ecofriendly forms of generating the energy she needs to heat her home during the cold mountain winters would be preferable to the cheaper but dirtier coal-generated energy. I found myself arguing with my lefty wife about the wisdom of discussing the oil spill and its consequences with some of her relatives.

I don't know how you approach such issues with people whose lives are so dependent upon the status quo. I mean, I feel like, as a good lefty, I ought to be doing my best to try to broaden the perspective of the people I encounter. I am absolutely, 100% certain that the planet ultimately cannot afford the environmental costs of the coal upon which their lives depend and that, sooner or later, we're going to have to come up with something better. I am equally certain that, as soon as we do come up with something better, all of those little mountain coal-mining communities are going to shrivel up and blow away like so much dust. But how do you tell somebody who lives there that?

More broadly, how do you tell any American whose lifestyle and/or livelihood has customarily relied upon an abundance of cheap energy, that the real cost of the energy they're consuming is far greater than they imagine and has to change?

[The Croquist]

1. It's tough to tell people that are poor that they should give up more

That is why you see so much pollution in Third World Countries. They can't afford to be environmentalists.

[primavera]

2. Precisely so

This is why energy policy is inextricably bound to the problem of income inequality: when 80% of the country's wealth is owned by the richest 10%, the remaining 90% of the population who have to get by on only 20% of the country's wealth legitimately can't afford anything more than the cheapest of the cheap solutions. So we use dirty energy, knowing that we're destroying the planet in the process. What else can you do? You can't let your family freeze, and, since we've given the country to the billionaires and are content to be serfs living off of the aristocracy's table scraps, we peasants don't have many alternatives left to us.

[Nihil]

4. I agree, it's not their problem is it? They are just consumers.

They can just carry on as usual and let the real world sort it out for them.

I gather that 1500 or so have learned a lesson in Pakistan in the last couple
of days (700 or so in China) but only about 50 in the USA so there's not going
to be much of an impact yet.

A bit more devastation to the food crops, some more drought, plenty of flooding
and starvation, some water wars, migration ... gradually the message will sink
in that we are in fact all living on the same planet and that yes Aunt Aggie,
your actions *do* affect other people.

(Of course, it might be a bit late for Aunt Aggie or Cousin Jim-Bob by then
because the planet really doesn't give a fuck about "financial inequalities"
or "bipartisan political compromises". Tough shit.)

[The Croquist]

7. You sure are smart!

Not everybody knew that the Pakistani floods were caused by global warming. I bet they were the first floods in the entire history of Pakistan. They're so new that they invented a word to describe the rains. They called it a monsoon, a combination of mongoose and soon meaning "It's raining so hard that it won't be long until even the mongoose drowns" in Punjabi.

And China never had flooding before too? Who would have thunk it.

You mean we're going to have droughts AND floods? We're going to have less food to eat and starvation? Somebody better tell that to the 6 billion people on the planet who are living longer then ever that they are dieing.

Don't worry about Aunt Aggie or Cousin Jim-Bob because they live on their own land. They're just a couple of hicks who don't know what they are doing. They need somebody like you to tell them what to do. They just grow their own food. They make their own liquor. Hunt and fish for their own meat and shoot city folk who tell them what they're doing wrong.

They don't like to be told what to do and this fall they're going to vote and it won't be for Robert Byrd.

[Nihil]

9. Yep and I don't even have to put words into other people's mouths to prove it!

:hi:

I'm not trying to create some kind of GUT for natural disasters (or man-made
ones for that matter) but, if you want to do so, feel free but please keep
your own name on it rather than trying to "credit" it to someone else.

I'm merely pointing out that some lessons come with a little more emphasis
than others. If you want to tie that back to your pet denialist strawman,
off you go.


> Somebody better tell that to the 6 billion people on the planet who are living
> longer then ever that they are dieing.

"Hey, 6(+) billion people who are currently alive: you are all gonna DIE!
Trust me on this - it's true!"

Maybe somebody better tell that to the magic minority who are living far
longer whilst consuming far more than ever before at the cost of the majority.
Oh, wait, that's what people were trying to do before being told off for
preaching to the greedy *******.


> Don't worry about Aunt Aggie or Cousin Jim-Bob ...

I don't. I know damn well that they don't care about (or even know of the
existence of) anyone outside of their insular little lives.

I don't worry about people who are so stupid as to repeatedly rebuild on
flood plains and low-lying coastal areas. Either they'll get the hint and
move on or they'll die - it's all the same to me.

There are lots of people who I simply don't give a shit about (and the numbers
are increasing with every dumb "but it's their RIGHT to do that" defence that
is thrown back at me).


> They don't like to be told what to do and this fall they're going to vote
> and it won't be for Robert Byrd.

Like it makes a difference which of your two halves of the corporatist party
they put their cross against? Both sides will happily tell them that they have
every right to consume away as much as possible for as long as possible as
that is their Goddamn RIGHT don'cha know (and fuck the consequences) while
busily screwing them out of anything they can - much like Aggie & Jim-Bob are
doing to everyone further down the heap than they are ...

:shrug:

[FedUpWithIt All]

3. We recently moved to WV.

It is almost necessary to have the big 4 wheel drive vehicle here. The roads, especially in winter, can be quite dangerous. We got cocky last winter and decided that it is ridiculous that the area shuts down entirely over 3 inches of snow. Where we moved from 3 inches is not even really considered a snowfall, rather a light dusting. Winter here is a completely different animal. We drove into town to go shopping. We ended up staying in a hotel overnight because we were unable to get back home. Even without the weather issues the trucks are needed because the terrain is frequently difficult and the vehicles are often used for work of some sort. We are now looking for a truck ourselves.

We moved down here to live a different type of life. We have cut out most of our electrical use including the use of a washer and dryer, a lawnmower and nearly all the kitchen appliances. We are trying to live a life that has a lower impact. What we found after we moved is that many people here have been living this way for generations. Nearly everyone grows a garden (or eats seasonally), fixes their own vehicles, consolidates trips to town and uses their large vehicles to do both neighborly or community work. Quite a few line dry their clothing, hand wash their dishes and recycle and repair before purchasing new, preserve (many have root cellars) their own food and sew their own clothing. Nearly everyone we have met here supplements their home heating with renewable wood. Many only use land line phones, are not interested in computers and internet and are slow to replace things like their (once costly) vhs players and collections with dvds. These are NOT exactly the people driving our country and planet to destruction.

We have also seen a great amount of interest in our own interest in renewable energy from nearly everyone we have met.

From my own experience, it was those in the wealthier typically suburb areas that we left which could use a lecture about conservation. Many of them drive unnecessarily huge vehicles, run to the store several times a week or even every day, run sprinklers, dishwashers and washers and dryers, ride around stamp sized lawns on behemoth riding mowers, discard instead of donate and purchase only shipped in produce, meats and dairy. Where do you think the power for all these "luxuries" comes from?



"But how do you tell somebody who lives there that?"
You don't. There are enough people using that coal right in your own back yard. Their dependency on coal may not be as obvious as those who make a living extracting but they ARE just as dependent, perhaps even more so. Take away the coal and i assure you that it won't just be the coal towns that shrivel up and blow away. I am also sure you could stand outside your own home and find people who drive gas guzzling SUVS but do not actually need such a vehicle for hauling wood, transporting produce to local markets, livestock management or safe driving on treacherous roads especially when they are dusted with a deadly dusting of snow. Perhaps you might start there. :shrug:

[The Croquist]

5. Good post

I'm a global warming skeptic but I don't hate Mother Earth.

I drive a 2000 Toyota Celica that gets over 30 MPG and keep my A/C set at about 80. I also use CFLs, grow vegetables, have a compost pile and mow my lawn with one of those "behemoth riding mowers".

I don't recycle as much as I should, eat allot of meat and live the way I want including getting in my car and driving 100 miles if I want to.

In short I'm not the best but I'm not the worst either.

There is an 80 acre park behind my house with a five acre lake on it that is fed by a stream that flows behind my house. I go down there every couple of months to clean up the trash. My next door neighbor who thinks I want to destroy the world because I'm a global warming skeptic has seen me down there but doesn't help. He also doesn't use CFL's because his partner doesn't like them and keeps the A/C at about 70.

One day I was picking up trash and a couple of teenagers walked by thanking me for picking up the trash saying something along the lines of "It's about time. Somebody has to do it." I offered to let them help but they declined. One asked if I was a volunteer. I was kind of shocked. I think they thought that I had to join an organization to do this kind of crap. I replied that yes I was. I grabbed a trash bag and volunteered myself. In hindsight I'm just glad they didn't ask if I was doing community service for a DUI or something.

Frankly I've found that the true environmentalists are the ones that live in the country. They may shoot the deer that walks in their yard but they eat it. It's the city slickers (like me) that talk a big game but aren't willing to sacrifice.


Do you remember the Cape Cod wind project opposed by Ted Kennedy and John Kerry? It's a classic example.

[primavera]

8. Oh, don't get me wrong

You're quite right: conservation begins at home, which is why I drive a Prius that gets 60 mpg when I can't drive my scooter that gets 100 mpg which I drive when I can't cycle or walk. Which is why I recycle and compost, turn off unused lights, use Energy Star appliances, and keep my air conditioning set at 84 (despite the complaints of my better half about how hot it is). And yes, I lecture suburban cowboys who feel they need a Hummer to drive to the 7-11. I'm not trying to single out West Virginia as excessively consumptive, they're just on my mind at the moment as I spent the last week there and they are so vulnerable. My point was that there is so little diversification of the economy where my in-laws live: without coal, there's nothing. If we move in the direction of cleaner sources of energy - as I fervently hope that we do, as I firmly believe that it is in the best of interests of everyone on the planet for us to do so - they aren't going to have anything to fall back upon. True, we in this country are dependent upon coal right now, but there's no reason why we need to remain so - there are alternative sources of energy and much of the developed world has already shifted to those sources, with the result being a drastic reduction in consumption of oil and coal. We can - and I hope will - follow that example sooner or later, at which time, these little coal mining communities are going to be in real trouble. It's kind of a weird sensation of divided loyalties, praying for an outcome that will be so detrimental to the only lifestyle they've ever known. But when the alternative is people continuing to die in mines, the formation of vast slurry lakes that threaten safe drinking water for people and wildlife, deforestation and habitat destruction, and the release of massive quantities of greenhouse gasses, I still have to hope that they face that disaster, and preferably sooner rather than later.

[madokie]

6. As my mother would say

poor people have poor ways.
I'd like to think I've learned that lesson