”Ancora una volta dagli svizzeri ci viene una lezione di civilta’. Il messaggio, che arriva soprattutto a noi che viviamo vicini a questa terra, e’ forte. Occorre un segnale forte per battere l’ideologia massonica e filoislamica che purtroppo attraversa anche le forze alleate della Lega. Credo che la Lega Nord possa e debba nel prossimo disegno di legge di riforma costituzionale chiedere l’inserimento della croce nella bandiera italiana”. Lo dichiara il viceministro alle infrastrutture Roberto Castelli della Lega Nord.

”Io se potessi scegliere dove mettere una centrale, me la metterei nel giardino di casa, per un semplice motivo: che tutto il mondo dove è stata costruita una centrale nucleare, è cresciuta l’economia del territorio e c’è stata una grande salvaguardia dell’ambiente, perché non ci sono emissioni” - Scajola, ministro dello Sviluppo economico.

Ancora una volta mi trovo d’accordo con la Lega e, ancora di più con il ministro Scajola, al quale consiglio vivamente di costruirsi una centrale nucleare nel giardino di casa sua, fa bene, non ingombra e se realizzata vicino alla toilette effettivamente contribuisce alla produzione nazionale di energia.

A questo punto, però, mi scappa un sondaggio, perché mi interessa sapere quale simbolo dell’Italia, quella dei nostri giorni, sarebbe meglio appiccicare sul Tricolore, in alternativa al crocifisso: 

- Un buco della serratura (perché a noi italiani piace molto ficcare il naso nelle camere da letto, nelle sedi di partito, nelle automobili, nelle cucce dei cani, nei camerini dei negozi alla ricerca di un ministro/parlamentare/pulce del parlamentare/cane del ministro/cugina della sorella della moglie del ministro/ zia del ministro che fa sesso con chiunque o qualunque cosa)

- Un piatto di spaghetti (il classico che non passa mai di moda)

- Una giraffa con paraocchi e paraorecchi con un biglietto per le Seychelles e un cartello con su scritto “torno quando smettete di dire idiozie”

I don’t know whether to laugh or scream sometimes about NIMBYism.

That’s how I felt this week after reading about public opposition to building low-rise apartments a 10-minute walk from my northend Brantford house.

Residents oppose building affordable housing here.

A developer wants to put up two six-storey buildings with 150 units and two four-storey ones with another 78 on a property that used to house a fitness club, gymnastics club and a RONA.  The taller building would feature apartments with market rent; the smaller ones would offer affordable housing.

Did I scare you, just then? Sorry. You’re not the only one. Area residents are spooked by the idea of affordable housing. About 25 people at a public meeting made that plain.

Perhaps resident Tony Locche put it best: “With all due respect to political correctness, affordable housing is a problem. My main concern is crime,” he was quoted in The Expositor.

Just in case you’re ignorant, it has been scientifically proven that affordable housing leads to crime. Numerous studies have shown that a family’s inability to pay market rent causes them and their children to break the law. Affordable housing is a major cause of break-ins, robberies, drug peddling and gang violence. Just ask the police, they’ll tell you. It’s a fact.

Other residents expressed fear that affordable housing would cause the value of their properties to plummet, putting them in the poorhouse — another documented fact linked to the scourge of cheaper rents.

Brantford’s director of housing tried to explain that affordable housing isn’t the same as social housing. Social housing provides rent-geared-to-income units for people living on social assistance, disability pensions and limited incomes. Social housing can offer cheaper rents than regular apartments because builders get grants from the government upfront, but their rents aren’t subsidized.

Still, residents weren’t having any of it. They still saw the mere suggestion of affordable housing as a slap in the face to honest, hard-working people everywhere. Affordable housing didn’t belong in their neighbourhood, they said. They already have a problem with teenagers hanging around and causing trouble.

Residents want the affordable apartments built somewhere else, not near their condos, which they paid $250,000 to $300,000 for. One condo resident suggested he should be compensated if the affordable units are built — based, of course, on the scientific evidence showing the drop in property value mentioned earlier.

Sadly, even city councillors got in the act, suggesting that because two dozen residents objected, the builder’s plan was clearly flawed and wrong for the neighbourhood. Send it back to the drawing board, they said. Instead of trying to make their constituents see reason, the councillors jumped on the NIMBY bandwagon. Shameful.

‘DHL verhuist uit Zaventem’…’Actiegroepen stoppen Lange Wapper’…’Project van 15 miljoen gestopt door buur’… Noem een project in België en je kan er donder op zeggen dat er wel ergens een actiegroep, meestal voorzien van klinkende naam, aan gekoppeld wordt. Het actievoeren raast, als ware het een pandemie, doorheen Vlaanderen. Dat de regering daar nog geen commissaris voor heeft aangesteld!

De professioneel actievoerder. Wie is hij? Wat drijft hem? vraag ik mij soms af. En dan stel ik mij voor dat ik een vlieg ben, aan de wand in de huiskamer van de professioneel actievoerder, en een doorsnee avond van de professioneel actievoerder gadesla : Nadat hij met gezin het macrobiotisch gecultiveerd en politiek correct ontgonnen avondmaal tot zich heeft genomen, nestelt de actievoerder zich in de zetel. Hij werpt een goedkeurende blik op het steeds wilder om zich heen grijpende okselhaar van de eega en neemt, al nippend aan z’n boekietthee, de krant van de alternatievere soort. ‘PRFFT!’ een nevel boekwietthee vindt zich gewelddadig een weg naar buiten en vermengt zich aan hoge snelheid met de inkt van de krant van de alternatievere soort. ‘Waaat?!?!? Plannen ze nu een GSM-mast/woonwijk/voetbalstadion/brug op 5, 10, 20 km van waar ik nest?’ Op dat eigenste moment vindt er in het lichaam van de professioneel actievoerder een verbazingwekkende stofwisseling plaats : Als ware de Hulk, ontwaakt in hem de soixante-huitard, de man die tegen alles en nog wat ageert. Tegen alles en nog wat ageert zonder ogenschijnlijk doel, enkel om het ageren tegen van alles en nog wat (‘rebelleren tegen de grootgrondbezitters en hun vazallen zoals vrijheidsstrijders tegen één of andere Zuid-Amerikaanse, corrupte junta’ heb ik één der ras actievoerder eens zien schrijven). Let op! Voor sommigen onder het ras der actievoerders kan eender welk feit al voldoende zijn om de metamorfose te ondergaan. Ik meen deze week nog een artikel uit een lokale krant te herinneren waar een lokale actiegroep uit Brugge een petitie startte om de hoeveelheden fijn stof in de binnenstad aan te klagen. De woordvoerder diende wel toe te geven dat de hoeveelheden fijn stof, volgens de meest recente meting, bijzonder goed bleken mee te vallen, ‘maar het kan geen kwaad dit feit onder de aandacht te brengen’ voegde hij er onmiddellijk aan toe.

Enfin,..terug naar onze actievoerder nu. Als ware het zijn 2e natuur begint hij onmiddellijk aan een strijdplan. Strijdmakkers worden gecontacteerd, argumenten tegen worden gegoogeld – argumenten gaande van de site tot archeologisch erfgoed bombarderen omdat 100.000 jaar geleden één of andere Neanderthaler daar z’n kak heeft achtergelaten (in één geval lukte het de actievoerder het argument op te voeren dat het de lichthinder van een voetbalstadion mijnheer vleermuis zou generen bij het, hoe zou Herman Brusselmans het zeggen, achterwaarts in de poes nemen van mevrouw vleermuis) tot de ‘dooddoeners’ zoals het vermaledijde fijn stof of de elektromagnetische straling -, pamfletten worden gedrukt, een website wordt aangemaakt en, essentieel aan het actievoeren, de ‘getroffen gemeentes’ worden geïnformeerd (de nimby reflex en angst zijn een zeer, zéér vruchtbare voedingsbodem voor het ras der actievoerders). Alras staan er ‘infovergaderingen’ op stapel, alwaar de betrokken inwoners geïnformeerd worden over ‘hordes hooligans die zich wekelijks aan elke maagd in de wijde omgeving vergrijpen’, tsunami’s bij de eerstvolgende plensbui, oorverdovend geraas waardoor men nooit geen oog meer dichtdoet, uiterst dodelijke hoeveelheden fijn stof of elektromagnetische stralingen die uw kleine oogappel bedreigen (misschien worden zij hierdoor wel die hooligan die het op de maagd gemunt heeft). Verontrustende rapporten steunen hun claim, rapporten met ietwat genuanceerder standpnt worden steevast als lasterlijke propaganda weggewuifd (graag geef ik hier wel toe dat de tegenpartij in het debat meestal uitblinkt door z’n afwezigheid, zoals ik hier eerder al gepost heb). De actievoerder is klaar voor een maandenlange loopgravenoorlog want, door middel van oproepen tot donatie en betalende infovergaderingen, legt hij een financiële reserve aan. Wanneer de tegenstand taaier is dan voorzien kan de professioneel actievoerder terugvallen op de Endlösung, de Raad van State, alwaar de financiële reserve kan aangesproken worden.
Nee, inspraak of zelfs burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid zijn ook mij heilig, maar we moeten erover waken dat deze begrippen niet uitgehold worden.
Trouwens, wie weet is het wild actiegroeperen wel schadelijk voor de gezondheid. Heeft er iemand al eens de correlatie tussen hart- en vaat ziekten en de ergernis die het actievoeren opwekt onder de loep genomen? Misschien moeten we wel overwegen een actiegroep op te richten tegen de wildgroei aan actiegroepen die Vlaanderen de laatste jaren overwoekert.

Bel article signé par Wilfried Hecquet dans la Voix de ce lundi 23 novembre. Ca rappelle évidemment celui de Brigitte Lemery de l’an passé, sur la crainte d’instrumentalisation des habitants tirés au sort pour les conseils consultatifs nouvelle génération… mais on était quand même loin d’imaginer que ça générerait l’expression de relents xénophobes contre les plus pauvres et d’intolérance à la Culture, à Roubaix.
“Pas de ça chez nous” comme leitmotiv NIMBY pour négocier la ville, ça va pas être simple !

L’article original est ici.

ACTUALITÉ ROUBAIX

« Moi, je… », ou la difficile mise en place du conseil de quartier Nord à Roubaix
lundi 23.11.2009, 05:03 – La Voix du Nord

Légende photo : Fabrice Belin, élu en charge de la démocratie participative, est souvent pris pour cible.

Le nouveau conseil de quartier Nord était réuni en séance plénière, vendredi. Il y a été question de la mise en place des commissions, et de deux sujets qui divisent déjà les conseillers : l’arrivée de l’oeuvre de Wim Delvoye (et plus largement la place accordée à la culture) ; et l’installation de cinq bungalows pour des familles Roms.

PAR WILFRIED HECQUET

Autant le dire tout de suite : il y a des jours où l’on n’aimerait pas s’appeler Fabrice Belin. L’élu roubaisien en charge, notamment, de la démocratie participative, a décidément fort à faire avec le dossier des conseils de quartier. Décriés avant même leur lancement, ils commencent désormais à oeuvrer. Mais si la démocratie participative, ça peut paraître très facile sur le papier, cela est une autre paire de manches dans la réalité. Chacun voit bien souvent midi à sa porte, et même la simple mise en place d’un débat constructif fait parfois figure de montagne infranchissable. La somme d’intérêts individuels ne sert jamais mécaniquement l’intérêt commun.

Wim Delvoye.
On vous a déjà parlé à plusieurs reprises de l’arrivée prévue d’une sculpture de l’artiste Wim Delvoye, face à la résidence Latine (le long de l’avenue des Nations-Unies). Le projet, porté par le comité de quartier de l’Hommelet et sur lequel travaille une commission de travail des conseils de quartier, est loin de faire l’unanimité. Dès l’évocation du projet, Mme Duquesne (CNL Latine) monte sur ses ergots : elle s’oppose fermement au lieu d’implantation de cette oeuvre d’art, arguant notamment que « la résidence Latine, c’est l’Alma ». On dirait plutôt la Fosse aux Chênes. Mais en tout cas, pour elle, ce n’est pas l’Hommelet. « Je n’aime pas trop ces réunions où on oppose les uns aux autres, interviendra Fabrice Belin, tentant de calmer les esprits. Il faut dépasser ça et construire. » Difficile pour lui de se faire entendre, cela repart de plus belle avec cette habitante : « C’est bien beau, on met en place une statue, mais dans mon quartier on ne fait rien du tout pour moi ! » Et d’évoquer des soucis visiblement personnels, réclamant une solution immédiate tout en invectivant Fabrice Belin. L’élu devra à nouveau apaiser les tensions : « Madame, ne me faites pas de procès d’intention. » Il sera aidé par une membre du conseil de quartier : « Il faut laisser le temps de mettre les choses en place, on ne peut pas construire la Tour Eiffel en un jour ! » Mais cet autre habitant n’a semble-t-il pas reçu le message. Il enchaîne sur le problème d’une place située « à côté de chez moi, qui est devenue un véritable dépotoir et personne ne fait rien ». Nouvelle intervention de Fabrice Belin : « Le conseil de quartier n’est pas une instance municipale. S’il vous plaît, laissez les choses démarrer… » Et Wim Delvoye là-dedans ? Eh bien, justement, un membre du conseil de quartier trouve ça un peu gros : « Aller à Londres pour voir un atelier, faire du voyage, en quoi cela est-il une expertise ? », faisant référence au travail du comité de quartier de l’Hommelet en lien avec l’artiste.

Un autre n’est pas d’accord, et trouve que le conseil de quartier est là aussi pour « mettre en avant la culture ». Bruno Lestienne, du comité de quartier de l’Hommelet, tente d’expliquer que l’oeuvre est un prétexte pour « sensibiliser les habitants du quartier à l’art contemporain ». Avec un travail de fond engagé pour que les riverains s’approprient cette oeuvre. Le directeur de l’association Art Connexion, impliqué dans ce projet, enchérit : « La culture, l’art, ça a une autre fonction que purement décorative. mais pour le comprendre, il faut des clés. Cet artiste est venu dans le quartier, rencontrer des gens. Et lorsqu’on est allé à Londres, c’était pour voir des oeuvres d’art fortes, commentées par des experts, pour justement avoir les clés pour comprendre. » Un membre du conseil de quartier n’est pas convaincu : « Il doit y avoir d’autres financements pour le culturel, il ne faut pas utiliser le fond d’expertise du conseil de quartier. » Car voilà justement la question cruciale : le conseil de quartier va-t-il donner son accord à la mobilisation d’un fond d’expertise pour faire avance le projet ? Ce sera finalement non, par onze votes contre et huit pour.

Roms.
Un autre sujet a en revanche obtenu une majorité de votes pour, et le fond d’expertise sera donc mobilisé en ce qui concerne la future installation de cinq bungalows pour des familles Roms entre les rues d’Alger et de Mascara. L’on sait que bon nombre d’habitants sont farouchement opposés à cette arrivée de nouveaux voisins. On sait aussi que la municipalité va faire débuter prochainement, quoi qu’il arrive, les travaux. Mais l’idée est ici de permettre aux habitants, via le conseil de quartier, d’avoir un avis juridique pour examiner tous les moyens de s’opposer à cette implantation.

Vendredi, des habitants et des élus d’opposition présents ont aussi rappelé à quel point ils regrettaient « le manque de concertation » sur ce dossier. On n’a pas fini d’en parler. •

From The Recorder

…..Highland New Wind- Letter to the Editor…Pocohontas County….

Resident takes issue with McBride’s statement
An open letter to Tal McBride, partner, Highland New Wind Development LLC:

NIMBY, the acronym for Not In My Backyard, is a pejorative label.

It’s a slur used to discredit those who question the merits of a particular development by not-so-subtly implying that we are narrow-minded and selfish, that we put our selfinterest ahead of the common good, that we are standing in the way of progress for all.

Of course, such a slur depends, for its force, on maintaining the belief among the majority of the population that a particular development is in the common interest and represents progress for all.

Industrial wind power on Appalachian ridges is not development in the common interest; it is development in the economic interest of the very few.

How do I know this? Because I have done the research. Why am I saying it? Because it is the truth. And, as George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

If industrial wind power in Appalachia made economic, environmental or common sense, I would be compelled — not just as a writer and a former environmental consultant, but as a mother with concerns for my son’s future — to say that it did.

If industrial wind power in Appalachia were actually “green,” if it limited our dependence on coal-fired utilities and reduced CO2 emissions, if it benefited local communities by creating jobs and lowering energy costs, then, yes! Yes, of course, I would be for it! Absolutely! I’m no fool.

Listen, I grew up at a hazardous waste recycling plant started by my parents in the early 1970s. Talk about witnessing, firsthand, the dark side of fossil fuels. Yikes! I have spent most of my adult life attempting to help various industries become better environmental citizens, create less waste, and, in so doing, pocket more profits.

If industrial wind power in Appalachia made economic, environmental or common sense, I would welcome it! I would work for community-based siting regulations. I would work to insure transparency in a community-based regulatory process that provided citizens an authentic cost-benefit analysis.

Make no mistake, I would support industrial wind in Appalachia if any data existed to support it other than outrageous government-guaranteed profits for wind developers.

Such data does not exist.

Industrial wind power in Appalachia is not good for the people of Appalachia. If it were good for Appalachia, I would be the first human being on board. This is my adopted home. I am a child of the Mississippi Delta, but my soul found its home in these mountains.

Not in My Back Yard? No, Tal, you got that wrong. Not in anyone’s back yard if that yard is located on the forested ridges of the eastern United States.

I have repeated the phrase that industrial wind on Appalachian ridges makes no economic, environmental or common sense. It doesn’t for the residents of Highland and Pocahontas counties. It doesn’t for the nation as a whole.

But it does for you, doesn’t it? And that, after all, is the point. You stand to make a tidy fortune, courtesy of the taxpayers, while the ratepayers take a hit underwriting the equipment upgrades necessary to tie your paltry megawatts to the grid. For you, it’s a deal too good to be true. You’ve hit a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot. No wonder you have proven yourself capable of saying just about anything if it helps to make this deal go down.

As for me, I wear the NIABY label with pride — Not in Anyone’s Back Yard. And I will continue to dedicate myself to revealing the real costs and benefits of industrial wind. Industrial wind is not the answer to slowing climate change or reducing dependence on foreign oil. Industrial wind does not lower electric bills or create jobs.

Industrial wind does disrupt scenic and historic landscapes revered for generations. Industrial wind does kill unknown numbers of eagles and other raptors.

Industrial wind does stand to make you, personally, a boatload of cash.

Dawn Baldwin Barrett
Brightside Acres
Pocahontas County, W.Va.

Accessed: http://www.therecorderonline.com/news/2009/1119/letters/022.html November 24, 2009

In the current issue of Governance (22.4), Mary Alice Haddad says that Daniel Aldrich “has written an extraordinary book” about political struggles over the location of unpopular facilities in Japan.  Site Fights is a “methodologically sophisticated book” that describes the tactics used by communities and government agencies in the struggle over facility placement.

Also reviewed in the current issue: Michael Martinez, William Richardson and Camilla Stivers on administrative ethics; William Genieys and Marc Smyrl on policy elites; Lesley McAllister on environmental protection in Brazil; Cornelia Woll on the ways in which governments shape business attitudes about global trade liberalization; and Herbert Gottweis and Alan Petersen on the governance of “human biobanks.”  Read the reviews here.

Schwerer Fall von NIMBY entdeckt:

FDP-Landtagsfraktionschef Wolfgang Kubicki rechnet mit Mindereinnahmen von 70 Millionen Euro, die ausgeglichen werden müssten. “Wir sind nicht grundsätzlich gegen Steuerentlastungen. Aber wir können und wollen sie nicht aus dem Landeshaushalt bezahlen”, sagte er der Zeitung. “Deshalb verlangen wir eine Kompensation vom Bund.”

From via National Wind Watch “Resident takes issue with McBride’s statement“

An open letter to Tal McBride, partner, Highland New Wind Development LLC:

NIMBY, the acronym for Not In My Backyard, is a pejorative label.

It’s a slur used to discredit those who question the merits of a particular development by not-so-subtly implying that we are narrow-minded and selfish, that we put our selfinterest ahead of the common good, that we are standing in the way of progress for all.

Of course, such a slur depends, for its force, on maintaining the belief among the majority of the population that a particular development is in the common interest and represents progress for all.

Industrial wind power on Appalachian ridges is not development in the common interest; it is development in the economic interest of the very few.

How do I know this? Because I have done the research. Why am I saying it? Because it is the truth. And, as George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

If industrial wind power in Appalachia made economic, environmental or common sense, I would be compelled — not just as a writer and a former environmental consultant, but as a mother with concerns for my son’s future — to say that it did.

If industrial wind power in Appalachia were actually “green,” if it limited our dependence on coal-fired utilities and reduced CO2 emissions, if it benefited local communities by creating jobs and lowering energy costs, then, yes! Yes, of course, I would be for it! Absolutely! I’m no fool.

Listen, I grew up at a hazardous waste recycling plant started by my parents in the early 1970s. Talk about witnessing, firsthand, the dark side of fossil fuels. Yikes! I have spent most of my adult life attempting to help various industries become better environmental citizens, create less waste, and, in so doing, pocket more profits.

If industrial wind power in Appalachia made economic, environmental or common sense, I would welcome it! I would work for community-based siting regulations. I would work to

insure transparency in a community-based regulatory process that provided citizens an authentic cost-benefit analysis.

Make no mistake, I would support industrial wind in Appalachia if any data existed to support it other than outrageous government-guaranteed profits for wind developers.

Such data does not exist.

Industrial wind power in Appalachia is not good for the people of Appalachia. If it were good for Appalachia, I would be the first human being on board. This is my adopted home. I am a child of the Mississippi Delta, but my soul found its home in these mountains.

Not in My Back Yard? No, Tal, you got that wrong. Not in anyone’s back yard if that yard is located on the forested ridges of the eastern United States.

I have repeated the phrase that industrial wind on Appalachian ridges makes no economic, environmental or common sense. It doesn’t for the residents of Highland and Pocahontas counties. It doesn’t for the nation as a whole.

But it does for you, doesn’t it? And that, after all, is the point. You stand to make a tidy fortune, courtesy of the taxpayers, while the ratepayers take a hit underwriting the equipment upgrades necessary to tie your paltry megawatts to the grid. For you, it’s a deal too good to be true. You’ve hit a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot. No wonder you have proven yourself capable of saying just about anything if it helps to make this deal go down.

As for me, I wear the NIABY label with pride — Not in Anyone’s Back Yard. And I will continue to dedicate myself to revealing the real costs and benefits of industrial wind. Industrial wind is not the answer to slowing climate change or reducing dependence on foreign oil. Industrial wind does not lower electric bills or create jobs.

Industrial wind does disrupt scenic and historic landscapes revered for generations. Industrial wind does kill unknown numbers of eagles and other raptors.

Industrial wind does stand to make you, personally, a boatload of cash.

Dawn Baldwin Barrett
Brightside Acres
Pocahontas County, W.Va.

The Recorder

www.therecorderonline.com

19 November 2009

The University of Manchester hoasted an event on Climate Change today, which they called CO2sts the Earth. Plenty of participation and things being thrown around, which was good. At the end of the day, we got to watch the not-so-widely discussed 2009 dystopic view of humanity’s future, The Age of Stupid. I’m in two minds about it, but still I think I should try to make some sort of review of it; at least it might help me make some sense. Here’s a trailer:

The first thing you should know is this is not the sort of slick production you will find in An Inconvenient Truth. The animations look like they came out of Monty Python, and the special effects look very 1970’s. There’s little in the way of corporate-political drive as well: it was financed by donations. Now, if donations drove it, you would expect there is a specific type of person who donates for this sort of production – the real deep-green, hardcore environmentalist – and that the producers would pander to those very people. I believe this is probably the truth.

As a result, and this is my biggest gripe with The Age of Stupid, this is the grimmest, most pessimistic film I’ve seen since Mad Max 2 and 3 – and there’s none of the assorted violence of those films to compensate: just a bunch of bad news. That does not transmit the kind of positive, we-can-do-it message I hoped it did.

On the positive side, it does tackle the serious issues. It owns up to the fact that some people in the world need to develop and increase their consumption, while other people in the world will need to reduce theirs. It presents the case for a global cap-and-trade scheme, pretty much with the efficiency conditions proposed by Chichilnisky and Heal (poorer countries get the most permits; this is necessary in a public goods market, where prices are exogenous and quality is the same for everyone), and does not avoid the development problem when looking at the environmental problem.

It also makes the case for the problem with NIMBYism in developed countries, and lands some blame of the doorstep of Big Oil and Big Business, a part of which clearly is deserved, but not all of it – but let’s not go into that issue again.

To sum it up, it’s a film that tries to spring you into action by scaring you off. Pete Postlethwaithe’s performance is haunting, the history of oil, war and Iraq is infuriating, the NIMBY’s will drive you mad, the girl in Nigeria who wants to be a doctor will make you wonder how can it be so.  If you are already scared, it will increase your drive; if you’re not, you’ll be even more put off: “how could something like that happen? Surely not”.

The fact is we don’t know. It could well be. And we can do something, beyond feeling hopeless. Just don’t bring a sceptic to watch The Age of Stupid, or he’ll walk out.

Punchline: interesting, but potentially pointless. A chilling masterpiece, which we can only hope won’t be shown in the future under the title “I told you so”.

This is one of the weirder things I ever read about the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. From an interview in 1971 with John Gerassi, a political science professor at Queens College in New York:

Sartre: Yeah, after I took mescaline, I started seeing crabs around me all the time. They followed me in the streets, into class. I got used to them. I would wake up in the morning and say, “Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?” I would talk to them all the time. I would say, “O.K., guys, we’re going into class now, so we have to be still and quiet,” and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.

Gerassi: A lot of them?

Sartre: Actually, no, just three or four.

Grassi: But you knew they were imaginary?

Sartre: Oh, yes. But after I finished school, I began to think I was going crazy, so I went to see a shrink, a young guy then with whom I have been good friends ever since, Jacques Lacan. We concluded that it was fear of being alone, fear of losing the camaraderie of the group. You know, my life changed radically from my being one of a group, which included peasants and workers, as well as bourgeois intellectuals, to it being just me and Castor. The crabs really began when my adolescence ended. At first, I avoided them by writing about them — in effect, by defining life as nausea — but then as soon as I tried to objectify it, the crabs appeared. And then they appeared whenever I walked somewhere. Not when I was writing, just when I was going someplace. … The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and that I just wouldn’t pay attention to them. And then the war came, the stalag, the Resistance, and the big political battles after the war. – NYTimes

Serves him right for having mescaline with crabs. He’d be better off with horse radish, melted garlic butter, or cocktail sauce. But what’s the sense in talking to a Frenchman about anything at all, let alone food?

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China

Just click the above link and look through all of the photos.

By purchasing cheap goods from China, we are financially supporting all of the polution pictured.  It’s globalized NIMBY.

Oops!  I found this on Small Dead Animals.

The demonstrators at the anti-Lansdowne rally at City Hall today seemed pessimistic. I’ve watched to a good deal of the testimony online for the past two days and will be watching when they start again Monday morning. I’ve been very impressed with the video quality. I guess it would be disgraceful if Ottawa didn’t have live streaming for council meetings, but it was still a pleasant surprise for me.

I understand the opponents of Lansdowne and can see where they are coming from. They don’t have a lot of faith in the city to get the project right. But I also get the impression that they just don’t want to be bothered with the noise and traffic and activity that comes with living in an urban core. It’s hard to sympathize with them there. Maybe I will feel differently when I am older but I absolutely love living in the city. I like that there are people out until late at night and that there are lots of places to go and things to see.

A lot of political capital has  been spent fighting this thing and judging from the impression I got at the rally, it’s going to pass anyway. Going forward, it would be nice to see the citizens of Ottawa working together to improve the plan and make Lansdowne a usable public space again.

villa umbra

Appuntamenti il 24 novembre e il 2 dicembre

La Scuola di Amministrazione Pubblica Villa Umbra ha messo a calendario una serie di seminari rivolti agli amministratori eletti negli enti locali dell’Umbria.

Il 24 novembre 2009 è previsto l’incontro su “La gestione del consenso politico tra vecchi e nuovi media”.  L’apertura dei lavori è affidata a Alberto Naticchioni, Amministratore unico del Consorzio “Scuola Umbra di Amministrazione Pubblica”, e a Fernanda Cecchini, Presidente ANCI Umbria. Si parlerà di come è cambiato il linguaggio della politica, della leadership dei Sindaci, Presidenti di Provincia, amministratori pubblici: un brand da costruire e conservare, delle basi del consenso nella nuova politica: coerenza nella strategia e modello organizzativo efficiente, dell’ingegneria del consenso ed il ruolo dell’opinione pubblica, della “fabbrica” delle notizie: determinare e gestire l’agenda  della centralità della comunicazione nella gestione del consenso, della semplificazione del messaggio politico, delle nuove tecnologie politiche: le pubbliche relazioni e i sondaggi d’opinione, di come gestire il consenso politico in tempi di “new media” e gestire e favorire la partecipazione come momento di formazione e condivisione della proposta politica, della costruzione del consenso intorno alla realizzazione di un’opera pubblica e di come superare la sindrome di “Nimby”** attraverso gli strumenti della partecipazione. Docente del seminario sarà Stefano Maria Cianciotta, esperto in comunicazione pubblica.

Il 2 dicembre 2009 sarà invece la volta del seminario su “La responsabilità penale, amministrativa e contabile”, presso la Scuola di Amministrazione Pubblica Villa Umbra. Si parlerà dei reati contro la pubblica amministrazione (abuso d’ufficio, omissione atti d’ufficio, peculato, concussione, corruzione, turbativa d’asta e responsabilità derivanti da omesso controllo) con il docente David Brunelli, Avvocato, Ordinario di Diritto Penale, Università degli Studi di Perugia. Mentre Alberto Avoli, Consigliere della Corte dei Conti, in servizio alla prima Sezione Centrale di Appello ed alla Sezione Controllo Enti, si occuperà della responsabilità amministrativa e penale (danno erariale, danno all’immagine e nuove competenze della Corte dei Conti). La partecipazione e’ gratuita.

** la sindrome di Nimby, protesta verso le opere pubbliche, non nel mio cortile

“Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” ~ Mark Twain

Twain’s wisdom came to mind as I read a recent article by new Dispatch columnist John Larson (another new club member; welcome!) about medical marijuana dispensaries.

Near as I can tell, Larson supports in theory patient access to medical marijuana, but opposes in practice “putting [a medical marijuana dispensary] in Gilroy.”

That’s a perfect example of a NIMBY (not in my back yard) position. A Time magazine article on ethics called NIMBYism “a perverse form of antisocial activism.”

Certainly Gilroy should ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries — which are legal in California — are appropriately located, just as planners do for pharmacies and hardware stores, for example. Dispensaries should be treated like any other business seeking to locate in Gilroy.

Larson uses pretzel-twisted logic to try to justify his NIMBY position by claiming that legalizing medical marijuana usage is part of a larger battle to legalize recreational marijuana usage, something he apparently opposes.

He claims that dispensaries have “ill effects” on “family values and safety” and that they lead to an increase in crime.

He describes how ridiculously easy it is to get marijuana (since his childhood!) and then tries to scare readers into opposing dispensaries by claiming they’ll make it easy to get marijuana. Huh?

I call foul.

Larson provides zero evidence for these assertions, but that doesn’t prevent his lame attempt to support a conclusion that’s illogical and cruel to suffering patients. He does, however, provide examples of red herring, appeal to fear, and slippery slope logical fallacies.

I assume those fallacies help squelch the cognitive dissonance that must come from acknowledging the suffering of “someone with terminal cancer who finds relief from their pain or nausea by smoking a doobie” while opposing the only way, given our current ridiculous federal laws, for that patient to safely and legally obtain the medicine that brings much-needed relief.

Many people — like me — support legalizing medical marijuana because we understand that the federal government completely misclassifies marijuana, causing people to needlessly suffer.

The federal Controlled Substances Act lists marijuana on Schedule I, the most restricted category that is supposed to include only substances with high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use, and no standards for safe use under medical supervision. This is simply not true about marijuana, as I’ve detailed in previous columns.

It’s fine to debate legalizing recreational marijuana use, but it’s completely separate from the debate about medical marijuana.

Another thing: Larson’s use of a street name for a medical marijuana cigarette, and giving his fictional medical marijuana dispensaries monikers that incorporate other street names (“Weed-Mart,” “Ganja Emporium” and “Pot-pourri”) might be cute, but the names are irrelevant, and using them is illogical and unfair. Worse, they’re examples of the ad hominem and appeal to ridicule logical fallacies.

Does Larson call pharmacies “Lude Lounges” because they sell prescription quaaludes that some people use recreationally? Maybe he prefers “Hillbilly Heroin Huts” because some people abuse prescription OxyContin? Does he call hardware and paint stores “Huff Depots” because they sell products that contain inhalants? Does he oppose the presence of these stores in Gilroy?

The use of logical fallacies is usually a sign that the fallacy-employer knows that his position is weak and is thus reduced to trying to distract his audience and hoping that they don’t notice his argument’s flaws.

Something else about Larson’s column confused me: He believes it’s relevant to emphasize that he has never smoked marijuana. I fail to grasp the relevance, but I’ll share too: I have never smoked, seen, touched or been offered marijuana. I wouldn’t even recognize the odor, I lived such a sheltered youth.

However, I’ll also share a relevant personal fact: My daughter endured two-and-half years of chemotherapy to treat cancer. She suffered from nausea, but, thankfully, it was short-lived and manageable. However, had her doctors recommended medical marijuana, here’s what Larson and his ilk would require me to do: In their pollyanna-ish, “Weed-Mart”-free utopia, I would have had to locate one of the scores of unlicensed, unregulated street marijuana dispensaries (you know, drug dealers) sprinkled throughout South County to purchase marijuana of unknown quality and strength, in the process likely supporting other far worse illegal activities, while risking arrest, prosecution and incarceration when my young daughter desperately needed me.

Why? Because they don’t want legal, regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in this community.

Put that cruel reality in your NIMBY pipe and smoke it.

If there’s one thing many conservatives solemnly agree on, it’s that “socialized medicine,” which hands life and death power to dumb-as-drool bureaucrats whose un-American lust for power and control stands for everything this country was founded to prevent, must be stopped or we open the door to a communistic takeover from within.

Yeah!  Holy Red Meat!  But Hello!  What’s this?

In May, Oklahoma state lawmakers approved a …..law requiring that abortion providers fill out a 10-page questionnaire for each procedure, and that details of abortions be posted on a public Web site.  Among other things, the intrusive questionnaire asks three dozen questions about the woman’s reasons for having an abortion, including details about her relationship with the father that the government has no business probing.

The law’s purpose is political. Its real aim is to persuade doctors to stop performing abortions by placing new burdens on their practice, to intimidate and shame women, and to stigmatize a legal medical procedure that one in three women have at some point in their lives. — NYTimes.com

Sounds like the lawmakers of this sublimely red state must have misplaced their tinfoil hats: they’re passing laws that shove government face first so far up into a patient’s body, all you see is rubber soled shoes protruding.  Fighting like true liberals, too, by ladling layers of government paperwork into the mix to build their bulwark.

Like the part about posting details on a website?  Why not photos or video clips?  I can see it now, some poor pregnant 14 year old Okie raped by her mutant HIV positive uncle explaining her reasons on camera for wanting to terminate the pregnancy.  Don’t forget to add a section for viewer comments.  Now, that’s entertainment!

So what happened to the conservative anthem of  smaller government, less intrusive government, government off our backs?  That flimsy foundation is blithely pushed aside by their overriding ideology, the deformed principle that controlling citizens’ morals — and this all about precisely that, with out-of-wedlock sex at its root — is the higher civic calling.  Like a stuffed toilet, the bible belt overflows with rotten with sanctimonious sacks of shit whose fetus-fondling fetish disguises their contempt for human beings, and goo-goo worship of Moral Order and Unthinking Obedience.

Ultimate irony: conservatives worry about government “death panels” established by so-called socialized medicine.  Yet here’s government ostensibly intruding to prevent killing and death, by their own warped understanding of abortion.  Damn fools can’t get anything right, not even their own lunacy.

Hmmm.  Perhaps conservatives in government is the reason conservatives distrust government.  By gum, they have a point.

Διάβασα στην on-line έκδοση της εφημερίδας Καθημερινή ότι η υπουργός Περιβάλλοντος κ. Μπιρμπίλη, συναντήθηκε με τους Έλληνες εφοπλιστές. Συγκεκριμένα το δημοσίευμα αναφέρει:

Όσον αφορά τη μείωση των ρύπων από τη ναυτιλία, θέμα τεραστίου ενδιαφέροντος για την Ελλάδα λόγω του σημαντικού στόλου της, η κ. Μπιρμπίλη αποκάλυψε πως είχε συνάντηση με τους εφοπλιστές πριν από το Λουξεμβούργο.

«Πετύχαμε η μείωση (σ.σ. 20% σε σχέση με το 2005) να εφαρμοστεί μόνο αν αφορά την εφαρμογή σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο», σημείωσε.

Θα ήθελα να επισημάνω, ότι η μείωση των ρύπων για την ναυτιλία ήταν ένα από τα θέματα που προταθήκαν και συζητηθήκαν στην Bangkok κατά την διάρκεια των συνομιλιών του Ο.Η.Ε. για την κλιματική αλλαγή.

H πρόταση έγινε από τη Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και συγκεκριμένα από την Σουηδία, που έχει την προεδρία αυτήν την περίοδο ενώ υποστηρίχτηκε από την Βρετανία, Ιρλανδία, Γαλλία και Ολλανδία.

Η μείωση των ρύπων είναι πιθανόν να συνδέεται με την καθιέρωση ενός φόρου στα καύσιμα, τα έσοδα του oποίου θα χρησιμοποιηθούν για να βοηθηθούν οι πιο φτωχές χώρες να αντεπεξέλθουν στις επιπτώσεις της κλιματικής αλλαγής.

Το θέμα αναμένεται ότι θα συζητηθεί στην σύνοδο της Κοπεγχάγης τον Δεκέμβριο.

Πιο πολλά για το θέμα εδώ. (στα αγγλικά)

Um, because the clientele is mostly black, to answer my own question.

Rick Flowers, who with his wife Annie Weatherby-Flowers, are owners of R Place, the only black bar in Madison. For now, at least (Courtesy: CapTimes)

And it’s not always the fault of the owners or the patrons that there’s an element that does want to prey on other black people. We don’t deny it. The cops should be on to these idiots and put the scare on them so that they don’t show up. Unfortunately, as I have said before, the authorities, residents and neighboring store owners NEVER separate those blacks who are acting a fool from those who are simply wanting a place in which to hang out. They lump us all together. We ain’t all like that.

Plus, the cops have a weird set of priorities. They’d rather crack on anything black they think is moving sideways, especially if it’s across the street from Maple Bluff, home to the Wisconsin governor’s mansion, and an exclusive gated community that borders Sherman Avenue within Madison. And why is there a double standard regarding protecting students on State Street and environs from getting drunk and out of line and not providing even one squad car to R Place on Park or A Place for Friends, to prevent this kind of behavior from manifesting? Why is it blacks’ responsibility to “clean up” the aberrant behavior when the cops are there to do just that? Aren’t they black people’s cops, too? We pay taxes to pay these cops. Separate the idiots from the customers, and let the bars go on as they are.

But for authorities, it would just be too hard. Screw pissing off law-abiding blacks who want to have fun and entertainment. Somehow, that’s looking like the real crime: that blacks are getting way too comfortable in Madison. They don’t belong here in Cheeseland. And look what they did to Milwaukee…

The Capitol Times has it:

It’s a familiar story in Madison. Neighbors of a bar who were leery of it opening in the first place complain that their worst fears are being realized as customers, traffic and noise multiply. The owners say it’s not their patrons who are causing the problems, but people hanging around outside. Disgruntled neighbors are setting them up with a campaign of police calls, they protest.

And do they protest! To the point where there is hardly a black entertainment scene to be found in the city. But they don’t want to say that race is a factor. It’s location, location, location. Meaning that they don’t want a bar here or a bar there, much less a black bar. So they say. NIMBY.

[Kevin] McGettigan, who is white, lives across Beld Street from the rear of the bar and claims credit, with his neighbors, for placing at least half the 61 calls made about the bar to police this year. Drivers that cruise R Place sell drugs and alcohol from their cars, he says, leaving neighbors to pick up the torn bits of Baggies and empty booze bottles. And then there is the noise of circulating cars with booming sound systems, arguments, fights, and the loud music emanating from the club. South Park Street, with blocks of housing right behind it, is not the place for an establishment that amounts to a small night club, McGettigan says. “A neighborhood bar in a neighborhood is fine, but if you want an entertainment venue, you need a buffer zone for sound,” he says. “And the issue has gone from sound to safety. Frankly, where there is gunplay, the neighbors are afraid.”

Maria Brown says she finds the race card hard to take. “I don’t care if he has polka dots, it’s the location of the bar that is the concern,” says Brown, a Native American who recalls that a beauty salon was operating where R Place is now 15 years ago when she and her husband bought their house on Beld Street. Neighborhood residents have worked to get drug dealing out of the neighborhood, she says, and they see the scene around R Place as a step backward. “I’m woken up two, three nights a week. I have to put my time and energy into this, and it’s not what I want to put time and energy in to,” Brown says.

So here it is again. Blacks attract crime. Blacks attract drugs. All blacks are packing guns when they visit clubs and bars. All of these statements are underlying the responses above, and they are blanket, erroneous responses. There is the same element arising from country music honkytonks and student bars and clubs, but the cops have let them proliferate. Hallowe’en at UW Madison once made headlines across the country five years ago as the number one party school in the nation (according to Playboy) showed everyone how to stage a real drunk-and-puke baccanal riot, despite the cops.

I’m not a Madison native. I was born in New Orleans, and until 2000 had called the Bay Area of Northern California my home. In New Orleans, before Katrina, there was a barroom hangout every other block, just like there’s a storefront church, and a grocery store on the corner. In San Francisco, bars used to proliferate on Fillmore Street and Third Street in the historically black areas of the city. There are fewer ones there now because blacks, after resisting the redevelopment of the Western Addition that killed the community, is moving to other places like Stockton, Tracy and Sacramento. Yet for the four years that I’ve been resident here in Madison, I have seen a marked prejudice against black people who have moved and settled here.

In particular, the discomfort is engendered by former residents of Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, WI and Chicago, IL. No doubt, many of these people are trying to escape the gang violence and poverty endemic there and get better schooling for their children. Some others, though, have been invited to come over with one-way bus tickets by friends (like single mothers with one child) and have hoped for the best. Unfortunately, some of the people find that the gang violence has either followed them here, or they find it homegrown in Madison. It may be that some of the violence comes from that.

But in order to frequent a black-friendly environment, there is always a cover charge for the entertainment featured. Not everyone can afford that cover charge, so they stand outside and listen. And listening outside is a pretext for engaging in all sorts of activity unrelated to what is occurring inside.

The controversy over black bars in Madison has been simmering for a long time. Back in the mid-1990s, closings of several venues — the Underground on Gorham Street, the Paramount Music Hall on North Park Street — after violent incidents spurred a public debate over allegations that racism was behind a heightened level of scrutiny of the mostly black crowds drawn by the hip-hop music offered there. A study by the city’s Equal Opportunities Commission found what appeared to be a different standard for bars that cater to people of color compared to campus-area bars, recalls Bert Zipperer, who is still a member of the commission. But recommendations to subject all bars to unannounced inspections and adopt a standardized point system to replace the subjective “disorderly house” standard were never adopted, he says.

More recently, an owner of A Place for Friends, across Sherman Avenue from pricey Maple Bluff, said police labeled the bar a problem because of its mostly black patrons. The city pulled the bar’s liquor license early this year, deeming it a “disorderly or riotous house,” after the pistol-whipping robbery of a patron on premises capped what police called a pattern of ordinance violations.

Governor Doyle is the adoptive father of two black men. The ludicrousness of all this pales.

As I said, most of the illegal activity occurs outside the bars. It looks like the suppression of a black entertainment industry within the city.

The Majestic Theatre, only a few steps from the Capitol Building, used to be a venue for hip-hop audiences in Madison for a few months between 2005-2006. People flipped out at the large, mostly black crowds that showed up both within and without the then-400 capacity club, that had hip-hop DJs performing Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Soon the clientele were not only coming from within Madison, but coming from way out of town. Naturally, when some of these individuals and groups came together unsupervised, violence erupted. They were the outgrowth of beefs that started or were expanded upon and finished there, sometimes under the influence of alcohol and drugs. There were knifings, beatings, and one out-and-out riot. The ownership at that time, however, were said not to have enough security at Club Majestic, but really the cops didn’t deign to work with the owners, but kept requiring them to follow this and that ordnance, and spend large sums of money making improvements. And so it went. The cops were called–not once but several times–and they upped the pressure against the owners until hip-hop in downtown Madison was effectively shut down.

Now the two bar-clubs in question don’t have 400 mostly black people milling about and getting out of hand. And the owners of Club Majestic in 2005-2006 were white. The clientele R Place wants to attract aren’t exactly hip-hop fans. They would be home-grown Old School, Quiet Storm, jazzy music lovers, a demographic that includes folks in their late 30s to 70s. Unfortunately, the dysfunction is that is occurring outside the club appears to be from a generation that’s much more recent. The pressures, though, are the same as they were for Club Majestic: telling the owners that they install more lighting, car barriers to discourage drivers from circling the establishment, more security surveillance cameras, and on and on and on.

I wish the Madison Police Department would stop this kind of passive-aggressive behavior towards citizens of color, and revise these practices.

When the majority culture cringes at bars that are “too dark,” [Rick Flowers, owner of R Place] says, that fosters policies that limit the number of black bars and puts the few allowed to operate in an impossible situation. Because there is no other “black” bar in Madison, Flowers says, R Place draws not only the mature clientele willing to pay a cover charge to hear live music, but also those who cruise outside but never come in. Because R Place is the focus of nightlife for people of color, he says, if you’ve got a beef with someone who’s black, it’s the place to go to try to get a shot at them.

Some twit commenting on the CapTimes article didn’t understand that last remark by Rick Flowers, and said that this justifies R Place being closed. “[...W]ait, what? is this condoning violence, pardoning behavior by color, or just more solid proof that the neighbors do have something to be concerned about?”

That is not what Flowers meant at all. It means that the bar is becoming a place to be for blacks, and it would follow that if someone had a beef with you, they would follow you there to continue the beef. There is nothing in that remark about condoning or pardoning antisocial, stupid behavior. It means that the speaker understands what would make this element hunt up an adversary, and bars are not safe or exempt. It’s not unlike what would occur in Marshal Dillon’s town at Miss Kitty’s Long Branch Saloon in Gunsmoke. That’s what I mean about the kind of hair-trigger, stupid response this triggers in people who are afraid of black bars around them. This is also the difference between the clientele the black bars want to attract, and the kind that they don’t want to attract.

And if the cops and the authorities want to stop antisocial behavior, it would behoove them to work with the black bar and club owners and patrons. Otherwise, black Madison residents and customers will continue to see these stepped-up actions against them as structurally and institutionally racist. They will see the cops and the authorities and the neighbors as obstructionist not because of the behavior by a minority within the minority. It’s an attack on the clientele–black people–as a whole.

Team Ontario/BC’s house.

Ruthless efficiency:

The Solar Decathlon is over, and zee Germans have won.  DCist has photos here, and DC Metrocentric has a few observations:

This year, it was evident that most of the houses were designed with mainstream marketability in mind. Most of the houses were designed around a contemporary aesthetic and open plan arrangement, while others like the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Louisiana Lafayette referred to localized American Vernacular styles. The forms of the houses were primarily long thin rectangles, some had courts, while others had breezeways, but in total they were designed according to market standards for handicap accessibility and for mass production. This plan of public accessibility and marketability was definitely working. The grounds were extremely crowded and the lines to enter the winning houses wound down the main walk. Inside, the houses were obviously over maximum occupancy, and the crowds were really excited by what they saw. I overheard endless questions about fixtures and furniture from the most unlikely guests.

Also, one thing I hadn’t noticed – following on discussions of green infrastructure and urban hydrology:

What was the most striking in the engineering field was not what the teams did, but what they weren’t allowed to do, which was re-use gray water (waste water from non-sanitary means) or rainwater within the dwelling. Many of the houses had been designed with systems to reuse water, but the DC plumbing code forbids the use of gray or rain water for any domestic purpose except landscaping. Apparently, in many jurisdictions across the country using any water besides well water or municipal water for domestic uses is prohibited. The students at many of the houses made it a point to tell the crowds about their water reduction features and the specific reason why they couldn’t use it and encouraged people to contact their representatives to change this ordinance.

Water reduction is certainly an admirable goal, but it’s also one of those features that’s going to matter much more in some geographies than others.  All the more reason for codes (enacted at the local level) to take their local context into consideration.

The other thing Lepler notes above is the popularity of the Decathlon.  I stopped by several times, each visit clogged by people waiting in long lines to stand in small, crowded houses.  This level of engagement seemed both genuine and tangible – people could envision themselves living in these places, in spaces of this size, etc.

Elsewhere…

NIMBYs under the microscope:

Ryan Avent’s found scientific discussions of NIMBYism.

Available here. This is the abstract:

This paper suggests a cause of low density in urban development or urban sprawl that has not been given much attention in the literature. There have been a number of arguments put forward for market failures that may account for urban sprawl, including incomplete pricing of infrstructure, environmental externalities, and unpriced congestion. The problem analyzed here is that urban growth creates benefits for an entire urban area, but the costs of growth are borne by individual neighborhoods. An externality problem arises because existing residents perceive the costs associated with the new residents locating in their neighborhoods, but not the full benefits of new entrants which accrue to the city as a whole. The result is that existing residents have an incentive to block new residents to their neighborhoods, resulting in cities that are less dense than is optimal, or too sprawling. The paper models several different types of urban growth, and examines the optimal and local choice outcomes under each type. In the first model, population growth is endogenous and the physical limits of the city are fixed. The second model examines the case in which population growth in the region is given, but the city boundary is allowed to vary. We show that in both cases the city will tend to be larger and less dense than is optimal. In each, we examine the sensitivity of the model to the number of neighborhoods and to the size of infrastructure and transportation costs. Finally, we examine optimal subsidies and see how they compare to current policies such as impact fees on new development.

Bold is mine.

Along those same lines…

Mammoth links to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Thomas Sugrue. Sugrue notes the problems of the ownership society and defining the American Dream in terms of homeownership – noting that renting is a far more prudent decision in many cases.

Yet the story of how the dream became a reality is not one of independence, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurial pluck. It’s not the story of the inexorable march of the free market. It’s a different kind of American story, of government, financial regulation, and taxation.

We are a nation of homeowners and home-speculators because of Uncle Sam.

I’ve had the pleasure of listening to Sugure speak on many items (including the state of Detroit), and this article doesn’t disappoint.  Mammoth notes the cultural aspects of sprawl, complimenting the economic analysis:

I tend to focus on technological (automobile), infrastructural (the interstate system, the regulatory dictatorship of the fire engine and its turning radii) and political (tax policies that favor home ownership, strict single-use zoning) reasons for the development of the form and ubiquity of the American suburb, but it is also very interesting to consider the suburb as the outgrowth of a cultural ideal, of a particular understanding of the relationship between person and home, or to consider the financial crisis as the (il)logical conclusion of that ideal, cultivated to absurd proportion and applied without regard to circumstance. That ideal is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is nearly invisible, seeming not a cultural construction but an essential and timeless rule, as deeply-embedded ideals often do.

As we re-examine the cultural underpinnings of the American Dream, we ought to re-examine the policies that biased that dream into suburban form and ask how we can give walkable, transit-oriented places a fair shake.

It seems that Ontarians are beginning to come to better grips on the realities of wind energy. I’ve always said the wind has potential to be a useful integration to our energy mix, but the current realities are that it is highly subsidizes, stochastic, lacks battery storage and will only raise hydro bills and cost us money for an energy source that produces less than 10% of the time and only shifts our reliance on coal to other energy like gas due to its inability to produce during peak hours of consumption.

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Την προηγούμενη εβδομάδα, το SKAI.gr πρόβαλλε μια εκπομπή/συζήτηση για την ενέργεια και το περιβάλλον. Προσωπικά δεν με ικανοποίησε. Μια συζήτηση καταλήγει συνήθως κάπου. Η συγκεκριμένη εκπομπή ήταν περισσότερο μια ανάπτυξη θέσεων, από πολιτικούς, και εκπροσώπους της τοπικής αυτοδιοίκησης και οργανισμών.

Εκείνο που είχε ενδιαφέρον (και για μένα προσωπικά) ήταν οι αντιδράσεις κάποιων προσώπων ή φορέων στην ανάπτυξη συγκεκριμένων έργων ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας (ΑΠΕ), το γνωστό φαινόμενο ΝΙΜΒΥ (Not In My Back Yard).

Για να δούμε όμως…. Τι είναι οι ΝΙΜΒΥς;

NIMBY-ism Credit: http://steve-rustad.blogs.petaluma360.com

Με το φαινόμενο ΝΙΜΒΥ και τους ΝΙΜΒΥς, ασχολούμαι αρκετά χρόνια. Καταρχήν να διευκρινίσω ότι η οποιαδήποτε διαφωνία η αντίρρηση στην ανάπτυξη ενός έργου δεν κάνει κάποιον ΝΙΜΒΥ. Είναι δύσκολο για κάποιον που κατοικεί σε μια περιοχή εξαιρετικής ομορφιάς να μην είναι ενάντια σε ένα έργο που ίσως μετατρέψει/καταστρέψει ανεπανόρθωτα το τοπίο.

Σε κανέναν δε αρέσει να τον αποκαλούν ΝΙΜΒΥ. Επίσης κανένας NIMBY, δεν παραδέχεται ότι είναι ΝΙΜΒΥ. Πολλοί, αμφισβητούν μάλιστα ότι υφίσταται το ΝΙΜΒΥ-ism, ως φαινόμενο.

Από την εμπειρία μου και από πρόσφατες έρευνες που έχουν γίνει κυρίως στον τομέα της ανάπτυξης ΑΠΕ, (πολιτικούς, επιστήμονες, τεχνολόγους, και κατασκευαστές – για διευκόλυνση θα τους ονομάσω developers), το NIMBΥ-ism ως φαινόμενο, και ως ιδέα, υφίσταται  και μάλιστα είναι πολύ αποτελεσματικό στην εδραίωση συγκεκριμένων απόψεων, κυρίως σε τοπικό επίπεδο.

Οι «σκληροπυρηνικοί» NIMBYs δεν είναι πολλοί. Συνήθως είναι 2- 5 τα πρόσωπα που αντιδρούν έντονα στην ανάπτυξη ενός έργου σε μια συγκεκριμένη περιοχή. Όμως αυτά  τα λίγα άτομα μπορούν να διαμορφώσουν απόψεις και να δεσμεύσουν μια τοπική κοινωνια σε ένα συγκεκριμενο σκοπο.

Παρόλο που οι  developers δεν χρησιμοποιούν, συνήθως, τον όρο NIMBY για να περιγράψουν άτομα, είναι φανερό ότι ξεκινούν έχοντας ήδη κάνει κάποιες υποθέσεις, π.χ. ότι  οι κάτοικοι θα είναι γενικώς αντίθετοι στην ανάπτυξη Ανανεώσιμων Πηγών Ενέργειας (ΑΠΕ) στην περιοχή τους. Έτσι λοιπόν, προετοιμάζονται – βρίσκονται σε μια κατάσταση συνεχούς αναμονής – για κάποιο επεισόδιο/αντίδραση που θα επηρεάσει και θα καταστήσει δύσκολη και εξαιρετικά χρονοβόρα την πραγματοποίηση του έργου.

Οι υποθέσεις αυτές είναι τις περισσότερες φορές λανθασμένες. Αυτό γιατί οι άνθρωποι δεν ειναι συνήθως αντίθετοι στην ανάπτυξη των ΑΠΕ στην περιοχη τους, αλλα στον τροπο με τον οποίο πραγματοποιείται ένα συγκεκριμένο έργο.

Δικαιολογημένα, οι κάτοικοι θέλουν να έχουν όλες τις πληροφορίες σχετικά με  το έργο στην περιοχή τους, και θέλουν αυτές τις πληροφορίες άμεσα. Οι developers αντίθετα, πιστεύουν ότι αν αρχίσουν την ανάπτυξη του έργου γρήγορα, θα περιορίσουν την δυναμική των αντιδράσεων.

Η μέχρι τώρα εμπειρία έχει αποδείξει το αντίθετο.

Είναι αναγκαίο και σημαντικό πριν την ανάπτυξη ενός έργου να υπάρχει μια περίοδος ενημέρωσης και διαβούλευσης με τους κατοίκους. Ο πιο δημοφιλής τρόπος ενημέρωσης του κοινού, που όμως εγκαταλείπεται σταδιακά, είναι οι δημόσιες συνεδριάσεις. Παρόλα τα πλεονεκτήματα που προσφέρουν, οι δημόσιες συνεδριάσεις πολλές φορές προκαλούν το αντίθετο από το επιθυμητό αποτέλεσμα, γιατί προσφέρονται πολύ εύκολα ως χώρος για  τους ΝΙΜΒΥς να αναλάβουν δράση, και να διαμορφώσουν την κοινή γνώμη.

Ίσως ο καταλληλότερος τρόπος να προωθηθεί με  επιτυχία ένα έργο ΑΠΕ είναι μια οργανωμένη δημόσια έκθεση/παρουσίαση του έργου όπου η επικοινωνία με τους κατοίκους είναι πιο άμεση και δίνεται η ευκαιρία στον καθένα να εκφράσει τον προβληματισμό του και να πάρει απάντηση στα ερωτήματα και τις απορίες που τυχόν έχει. Μπορεί να φαίνεται ως μια χρονοβόρα διαδικασία, αλλά είναι εποικοδομητική, χρήσιμη και για τις δυο πλευρές και περιορίζει στο ελάχιστο το φαινόμενο του nimby-ism.

Βέβαια η κάθε περίπτωση είναι ξεχωριστή και δεν υπάρχει  «μαγική» συνταγή. Γενικά θα μπορούσαμε να πούμε ότι τα στοιχεία που χαρακτηρίζουν την επιτυχημένη ανάπτυξη ΑΠΕ σε μια περιοχή είναι η επιλογή της κατάλληλης για της συνθήκες και την περιοχή ΑΠΕ, η ένταξη όλων των εμπλεκόμενων στο σχεδιασμό, και φυσικά ο σεβασμός προς το περιβάλλον.

Secondo il principio di prossimità, i rifiuti dovrebbero essere smaltiti nelle regioni dove sono prodotti. E’ un principio ragionevole ed eticamente corretto: lo smaltimento dei rifiuti è un’operazione per molti aspetti fastidiosa ed è giusto che ogni comunità lo realizzi nel territorio in cui vive.

Le principali criticità nella gestione dei rifiuti sono due: il trattamento dell’organico umido e lo smaltimento della parte residua. Com’è noto, l’organico è prevalentemente trattato negli impianti di compostaggio, la cui gestione è assai delicata, a causa del forte pericolo di produrre cattivi odori nelle zone circostanti. Quando il livello di raccolta differenziata è elevato, si creano elevati quantitativi di organico umido che vanno smaltiti secondo il principio di prossimità; non sempre però è così. In Trentino, ad esempio, la raccolta differenziata è molto alta (più del 60%) e quasi tutto l’organico è portato in Veneto, visto che mancano gli impianti per trattare tutto il materiale raccolto. E con costi (di trasporto e smaltimento) non proprio indifferenti.

Consideriamo ora i rifiuti residui. Questi possono essere smaltiti in discarica o bruciati. Le discariche trentine, come quelle di molte altre regioni, si stanno esaurendo. In loro sostituzione si dovrebbe realizzare un termovalorizzatore ma i dubbi e i dibattiti sono all’ordine del giorno. Tra le proposte ricorrenti c’è la realizzazione, al posto del termovalorizzatore, di un impianto per la produzione del CDR (combustibile da rifiuti): in tale impianto il rifiuto è convertito in un combustibile povero – appunto il CDR – che va poi bruciato in impianti industriali, come i cementifici o le centrali termoelettriche. I problemi tecnici per bruciare il CDR non sono pochi, e ci sono dubbi concreti che le industrie del Trentino siano in grado di utilizzarlo. La prospettiva, quindi, è che il CDR eventualmente prodotto venga bruciato fuori  provincia, con buona pace – anche stavolta – del principio di prossimità.

La gestione dei rifiuti, lo sappiamo, è molto complessa e coinvolge attività assai impattanti: nelle diverse fasi di raccolta, trattamento dell’umido, riciclo e incenerimento del residuo. Diverse regioni italiane non l’hanno ancora ottimizzata e sono pertanto obbligate a portare “fuori” gran parte dei loro rifiuti, sotto forma di organico, scarti di lavorazione (ciò che rimane da una differenziata fatta male), CDR o altro.  Tra questi territori c’è anche  il Trentino che da l’impressione, in buona sostanza, di voler estendere a tutta la provincia il ben noto principio “Nimby” (“Not in my backyard”, ossia “non nel mio giardino”), che prevede di lasciare gli impianti fastidiosi “lontani dai propri cortili”. La complessità della gestione dei rifiuti, tuttavia, non dovrebbe impedire ad ogni territorio di assumersi le proprie responsabilità, e smaltire i propri rifiuti.