After having seen the powerful documentary Gasland that shows the impact of “fracking” on households across the United States, including flammable tap water and cancer clusters that are the inevitable outcome of natural gas drilling byproducts, I have begun to pay closer attention to news coverage, including my hometown papers in Upstate NY where energy companies are attempting to buy support from impoverished land owners.
So with that in mind, I read the article “When a Rig Moves In Next Door” by Clifford Krauss and Tom Zeller Jr. in the Business section of today’s NY Times with keen interest.
As is so often the case with the newspaper of record, it has to maintain the illusion of objectivity, so necessary for its market niche: college-educated professionals who vote Democrat, watch PBS, listen to NPR, drive a Lexus, and donate money to the ACLU or mainstream environmentalist organizations. It simply would not suffice for Krauss and Zeller Jr. to write the sort of thing that you would hear from Rupert Murdoch hirelings, even if it amounts to the same thing more or less.
I especially enjoyed his reporting on how some environmentalists are for gas drilling despite the inflammatory water faucets and cancer clusters:
“Some environmentalists support fracking and other means of extracting natural gas because gas emits a fraction of the carbon of either oil or coal. They also prefer it because it could replace coal as the nation’s principal source of electricity and provide a lower-carbon bridge before renewable energy sources can be developed on a larger scale.”
You don’t have to be working at FAIR to ask the question which environmentalists?
See also: Louis Proyect Columbia Univertsity Home Page.
“I am the moderator of the Marxism mailing list, where my various articles first appear.”
See also: Louis Proyect. Louis Proyect: I Have Always Identified with People Trying to Change Things. 28 Aug 2021. Jacobin Magazine.
Louis Proyect, who died this week, spent the 1980s organizing international delegations of technical workers to support the Nicaraguan revolution. In this previously unpublished interview, he reflects on Central American solidarity efforts and a life lived on the Left.
See also: Les Schaffer. Louis N. Proyect 1/26/45 – 8/25/21. 28 Aug 2021. Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist.
It’s with much sadness that, at Lou’s request, I let readers of Lou’s blog know that Lou died two days ago after a courageous struggle with cancer. And, he commanded me to be brief.
Lou did not want to share his personal health battle with the public. His passion was Marxism in thought and action, and that was alive and well in him as we talked, right up to a few days before his death.
He asked me to forgo writing anything biographical about his life. He said that if anyone wanted to know who he was, they can read The Unrepentant Marxist comic book, by Harvey Pekar. I’ve included a link, below.
Meanwhile, many people have been writing tributes to him elsewhere. So I can keep my promise to Lou to be brief in word, while disagreeing in spirit, by adding what other people have said about him. I will update what will be the last page of his blog over the next couple days with these tributes.
It is not possible to express my tears in writing here without breaking my promise to Lou.
Les Schaffer
Les Schaffer. Louis N. Proyect 1/26/45 – 8/25/21. 28 Aug 2021. Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist.
See: Bluedaze – Drilling Reform for Texas
See: The top five stories of the year for climate hawks
See: Gasland – The Debate
See: Affirming Gasland
