Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Double Negatives Are Not Always A Positive

Stanley Fish, who seems often to provoke my bloviation, does so again today by praising NIMBY opposition to windmills, while simultaneously opposing 'fracking' in extracting natural gas:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/windfall-in-new-york/?hp#preview

He offers no evidence that he recognises that fossil fuel use poses any problems whatever. Nor does he suggest any alternatives. Nor does he consider that the 'fracking' he opposes (rightly, in my view) is in service of fossil fuel use which wind energy, which he, too, opposes,in his backyard and others', might lessen the need for. He'd be more credible had he done so.

If we continue to use power by the terawatt, we'll be required to make choices which will have consequences good and bad. Such choices are the very essence of politics, for better or worse. If they can't, or won't, be made, and paralysis results,that, too, will have consequences, serious ones, which it would be well for Prof. Fish to address.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of the few things that pissed me off about our dear departed Uncle Ted was the whole Cape Wind thing.

ProfWombat said...

Yup. He set back the debate, became a NIMBY, invited righty accusations of hypocrisy.