From the “there’s hope yet”department comes this remarkable personal story of how one environmentalist in Colorado came to embrace the very thing she had been programmed to hate: oil and natural gas extraction.
I was tipped off to this essay by Dr. Roger Piekle Jr. on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/964192390251597824
Some excerpts:
Reclaiming Environmentalism
How I Changed My Mind Without Changing My Values
In hindsight, I don’t blame them for being hostile. I was insufferable.
…
Their crossed arms and narrowed eyes stunned me. I was hurt, embarrassed, angry, and self-righteous at the reception I got. If only these people could understand how important this was! They needed to listen to me!
I tried different tactics to soften the atmosphere, some more effective than others. But most importantly, I learned to begin all the sessions with questions. I asked questions, and I listened — about their work, about what was important to them, about what “environmental” meant to them.
By learning the language of these oil and gas workers, by listening to their stories about their work and their lives, I quickly found common ground with them. They cared about their families and their communities. They wanted to protect them. They valued clean air, clean water, and proper management of waste. The key was changing the way I communicated.
…
But on this particular day in 2005, after several hours of driving on rural, two-lane highways, I pulled up to a staggering sight. Literally, as far as the eye could see, were massive wind turbines — gigantic machines that created the effect of an army of alien robots coming to take over eastern Colorado.
I exhaled and mentally fell to my knees. The sweet smell of grass, the cool breeze — and the sound! The whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the turning turbines was disturbingly disorienting. I looked to the horizon and was surprised to find that I was dizzy. This was wind energy?
It was an emotional moment, but not for the reasons I might have imagined when I decided to sign up for wind energy. I turned my attention back to the natural gas facility I was permitting. One lonely acre that had already been subjected to numerous cultural and biological surveys and a forest’s worth of paperwork requirements. Which had more overall environmental impact? I remember thinking.
I didn’t have the answers, but I knew it was time to find out.
…
Then came the threats. When I think about them, I still fold my body forward and round my shoulders. For more than a year, my family had regular check-ins from the Boulder County Sheriff. We removed all identifying names and numbers from our house and mailbox. Our neighbors and the Four Mile Fire Department kept photographs of the individuals who had threatened us. The boys often had a sheriff at their school, ever since one group of activists had posted pictures of them, their school, and school address online with taglines like “Disgusting.”
…
For several years, I stopped calling myself an environmentalist. After five years of threats, extremism, and misinformation from a community I’d once considered myself a part of, I simply couldn’t use the term anymore.
It’s easier, now, to unwind my complex relationship with environmentalism and environmentalists. I’m no longer a target of constant criticism and threats, for one, and I have the mental leisure to dissect my own experiences and prejudices. With the benefit of hindsight, I’ve become passionate about reclaiming the term. I am an environmentalist.
But I can no longer embrace many of the totems that have come to define environmentalism for many people. For those of us chugging along in our liberal, urban lives, the environmental truisms are clear-cut: Recycling is good. SUVs are bad (if necessary). Light rail is good (if not always practical). Wind and solar energy are good. Fracking and nuclear energy are bad.
Highly recommended that you read this entire extraordinary essay here: https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/no.-8-winter-2018/reclaiming-environmentalism
Then email it to your liberal friends, paste it on Facebook, make copies and mail it to people. It’s that good.
I feel a kindred spirit with Tisha Schuller. Our professional careers led us down a path to a new understanding of what it truly means to be an environmentalist and an honest critical-thinking scientist , and shedding the political BS and alarmism
An example of a person that seems to have lived a life, as so many do, based on emotions. Her emotions though led her to a situation where she was motivated to start thinking critically. A whole new world much different than the one she had been living in was then revealed to her.
WTF? In what distorted world can a sports utility vehicle be called “necessary” ?
Necessary to go to the supermarket ? Necessary to pick up the kids? Necessary to impress the neighbours and business colleges ?
sports utility vehicle is an oxymoron. Sport is not done for utility. It is done for fun. Besides the vast majority of SUV drivers don’t even know how to engage the 4WD.
The majority of SUV owners don’t have to know how to engage 4wd and couldn’t if they wanted to because their vehicles have AWD.
An SUV is generally a pickup truck with a backseat and a complete enclosure of what would normally be the truck bed. They come in different sizes: quarter-ton (Ford Escape), half-ton (Ford Explorer), and the two largest sizes, both capable of carrying a full ton load in the back end, the Ford Explorer and Expedition. They’re handy to have if you run a lot of errands as I do, or go on a hike and want to carry photo equipment with you which includes a tripod, cameras, backpack and water container.
Why would anyone need one?
Because those wickerbill windup toy cars like Nissan’s Versa and Versa Note are so small and so low to the ground that they are nearly invisible to the big rig drivers, never mind the distracted drivers on the road now.
Ha! This big truck driver has always wondered what a “Smart car” would look like if it got tangled up with a big rig. Golf carts with a windshield and doors really don’t have a chance. But really I have no room to talk. Years ago I owned a cherry Triumph Spitfire and had a ball tooling around in it. But at least it had the turning ability to get the hell out of the way.
Today I own a Toyota FJ Cruiser and an old Chevy 3/4 ton extended cab short bed pickup. Really Love my FJ and the 4wd. Drive the pickup to work and leave the FJ for my wife and it gives me peace of mind that she can get out and go even in the snow and ice if she needs to. And it’s short enough that she really feels very comfortable driving it. The ONLY things I don’t like about it is that the side mirrors are not heated and it’s limited range because of a rather small gas tank for a V-6 powered vehicle. But no matter, we intend of keeping that vehicle for the duration.
I once saw a picture of a “smart car” that got sandwiched between to loaded gravel trucks. The only way you knew that had happen was one of the “smart car” wheels were alongside the rear duel wheels of the gravel truck. I had the morbid thought of what the unfortunate personnel who’s job was to recover the remains and what he/she used to scrape the smart car occupants bodies from the smart car once the sheet metal was pulled apart.
Two loaded gravel truck would do pretty much the same thing to any car. Probably even most SUVs.
Safety and cargo space.
Just because you don’t need one is not evidence that nobody needs one.
You are not the measure by which the world is judged.
Secondly, not everyone can afford two cars. One for the big jobs, and one for everything else.
Greg. Let me guess. You live in a coastal city. Your Priuswont serve you well off 5he grid in Colorado.
The SUV replace the station wagon of my youth, if you need to haul more than four people now days it what the car industry has to offer, the other offering is a mini van. Even what called a midsize car of today is hard press to carry five people.
The station wagon that was killed by the government’s CAFE standards.
For my wildlife surveys, a high clearance SUV with ample storage space was absolutely critical to negotiate logging roads and carry equipment. There are many rural activities where SUV’s are invaluable.
“And thus began the process of changing my mind. Or I should say, learning to change my mind because, as I’ve discovered, changing one’s mind requires more effort and self-awareness than holding onto one’s beliefs.” It wasn’t by the same route, but this is like what I experienced when I realised that Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, on global warming, was rubbish, scientifically, and then read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”. So then I started reading the actual scientific literature, and discovered that a lot of scientists are sceptical of “global warming” and related themes, and the evidence for it is very weak. I also realised that climate alarmism was pushing just about all genuine environmental problems out of the public eye and concern. I also realised more deeply the immense benefits that access to reliable energy brings, and how necessary it is to solve the human questions of poverty, disease and conflicts. So I appreciate this essay, and recommend reading it. Thank you, Watts Up With That:
Go visit Drax power station at night.
(The public highway passes right past/under it)
Burning trees – though not obvious from the outside.
There is an actual Doomsday Machine – created by Kindergarten science, Good Intentions and Sheer Greed milking those 2 things
Nicely written article. Thank you WUWT for linking to it. I appreciate the part about the whooshing wind turbine army of alien intruders. I hope Tisha Schuller eventually has another epiphany by watching the weather, especially thunderstorms, “un-trap” the heat that was “trapped” by carbon dioxide and methane.
Well she’s almost there. Maybe when she reads up on diminishing returns she’ll understand most environmental victories were complete by the early 90s. Everything after that has been destructive.
When you are spending other people’s money, the law of diminishing returns never applies.
I wonder if the Russians had anything to do with the rapid groundswell of opposition to natural gas?
The lunatic fringe wags the dog.
Excellent piece, Anthony. Thank you so much for posting it.
It takes a long, long time for a major piece of one’s mental map of Reality to change. It seems Ms. Shiller’s is in the process of being recast. That’s encouraging. :>)
Oops, Tisha Schuller. Apologies.
Tisha’s curriculum vitae as posted on 6/02/2017 at
http://energythinks.com/executive-guide-dont-dismiss-the-fossil-fuel-divest-movement/
:
“Tisha Schuller founded Adamantine Energy to provide thought leadership to transform energy policy and politics across the country and around the world. Tisha consults private clients from Fortune 500 energy companies to non-profit environmental organizations in energy policy, business strategy, politics, and community engagement. She also serves as the Strategic Advisor for Stanford University’s Natural Gas Initiative (NGI). In this role, she chairs Stanford NGI’s symposium to reduce energy poverty in the developing world using natural gas, scheduled for May 2017. Tisha conducts public speaking and consulting across the United States focused on energy policy, managing the divest-from-fossil-fuels movement, understanding the polarized landscape, and navigating successful stakeholder engagement strategies.
Tisha most recently worked as President & Chief Executive Officer of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association in one of the most dramatic and contentious times for energy development in Colorado’s history. Prior to COGA, she served as a Principal and Vice President with Tetra Tech, a national environmental consulting and engineering firm for 15 years.
Tisha has a B.S. in Earth Systems with an emphasis in Geology from Stanford University. She is incoming Board Chair of the Colorado-Wyoming Chapter of the American Red Cross, a member of the Board of Visitors of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, a member of the Board of Directors for the Butterfly Pavilion, a member of the Board of Directors for the Breakthrough Institute, and a member of the National Petroleum Council, an advisory board to the U.S. Secretary of Energy.”
So, based on the last sentence, she has at least some input into the Trump administration’s energy policy.