Monthly Archives: January 2018

NIMBY is Not a Four-Letter Word (Part 2)

Hey! You! Get off of my Coast (with apologies to the Rolling Stones) In these days of intense partisanship and Congressional gridlock, here’s a plan for bringing the representatives of both parties together: propose drilling for oil and gas in their coastal waters. Take the state of Maine, for example, which has a Republican senator […]

NIMBY is Not a Four-Letter Word (Part 1)

Many years ago, when I published a community newspaper in southeastern Pennsylvania, Wal-Mart announced it intended to build a super store just outside of town. For a number of reasons, we didn’t think this was a good idea, and so while our reporters were told to cover the story fully and fairly, our editorial page […]

Two Fables: Revolution by Evolution

Here are two political clichés we should reexamine: We might call the first the Populist Fable, in which the environmental movement is perceived as dominated by a backward looking band of tree-huggers who oppose all progress, put the welfare of snail darters above that of humans, and have little sympathy for the economic needs of […]