The President Pro Tem of the Vermont Senate, Peter Shumlin, was in St. Johnsbury last night talking about climate change: "Ski areas and even snowmobilers have been hit by the changes in climates," he said, to illustrate how dire the situation is.
What this really illustrates is the twisted thinking around this issue, because ski areas and snowmobilers are major contributors to climate change. The crisis is not that recreational energy use is threatened. And the solution is certainly not in protecting such wasteful and environmentally damaging recreational energy use.
In fact, it is in encouraging their further demise. Alas, politicians would rather pretend to tackle an issue with grand symbolic gestures -- no matter who or what it might harm -- than face it honestly. And so President Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and Shumlin would invade our forested ridgeline and rural communities to erect giant wind turbines of very doubtful benefit.
And the crises remain. Which may, of course, be the whole point.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism
