Thursday, October 25, 2007

Rhetoric

My friend Ned Farquhar had a great column in the Albuquerque Journal today. His thoughtful opinions on energy and environment are refreshing and make up for a bizarre Journal editorial last week supporting the burning of our pinon-juniper forests to generate electricity. (It is all really a ploy to clear land for more grazing for the Land Commissioners friends.) The Journal did put in a good letter to the editor explaining why their editorial was wrong.

Ned hit on one thing that I have been noticing more and more. That is the propensity of some environmental organizations towards turning adversaries into enemies with bad rhetoric and name calling. I recently took to task one group who I generally support for demonizing some politicians who were generally better than most on environmental matters. I don't know why such rhetoric is used even if frustration is high. It will always come back to haunt you.

We need to make more friends in the fight for Planet Earth, not drive away our sometime friends.

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