Another Scrap Paper from Roland earlier in December: THE SCRAP PAPER #329 Fri., 19 Dec., 14 Published by the Wayne County Free Press WEVE WON A BATTLE.....LETS NOT LOSE THE WAR... Well, good people, by now every activist in the U.S. of A. has heard about New York States Governor Andrew Cuomos landmark decision to prohibit hydrofracking here in the Empire State. We are honoring him for his display of good common sense and refusal to knuckle under to the formidable clout of the shale gas industry. He has established a precedent for the beleaguered peoples of Pennsylvania and other states, who have had their drinking water contaminated, their air saturated with methane, and the tranquil ambiance of their rural communities violated by the presence of 24/7 fracking operations. But the honeymoon is short-lived. And heartened tho we may be by the Guvs action, were under no illusion that the avarice and determination of the fossil fuel establishment has in any way been compromised by this move from Albany. As I compose this, serious plans are underway to lay a very intrusive pipeline through the heart of Virginia to transport shale oil and probably natural gas to terminals on the coast. Landowners in the path of the proposed pipeline will have no legal say-so to prevent the dozers, trucks, and other heavy equipment from invading their property by right of eminent domain. Such a policy should enrage anyone with even a mild sense of justice. We have here a private, for-profit corporation with the authority to confiscate private land for its own self-aggrandizement; land whose owners may or may not wish have invaded. The fact that they will be compensated for the use of their land still denies landowners the option of refusing. But above and beyond that, there are considerations now which were not contentious issues in the early days of the auto and rural electrification. Few argued that more roads were needed to accommodate the growing popularity and use of the horseless carriage. And electricity was a godsend to people formerly reliant on lamps, ice boxes, wood stoves, and human and animal muscle power to deal with the demands of everyday living. These innovations required additional lands for power lines and roads, much of which was private property; hence the invocation of eminent domain. In the 21st century, however, its become a whole new ball game. The long and the short of it is, that In considering a pipeline to transport fossil fuel derived from this environmentally destructive operation, we are—among other bad things--exacerbating climate change. Instead of an all-out effort to wean ourselves from fossil fuels to investments in time, labor, and financial resources into developing a viable alternative energy technology, we continue to pursue the fossil fuel route, making it increasingly more likely that we will be experiencing the out-of-control weather patterns that have been more commonplace over the past decade than at any other time since record keeping began. This is a suicidal course that ramps up the carbon count of the atmosphere, and moves us ever closer to a point of no return—a point at which efforts to curb greenhouses gases will be futile. And so, contrary to the stated purposes of eminent domain, the law as likely as not is of more benefit to private, not the public interest. And considering the current status of a destabilized atmosphere resulting from human activity, the proposed pipeline is not a good idea...
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:17:03 +0000
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