Some people have observed that this blog tends to take a harsh view of policy-makers in general, and certain county commissioners in particular.  Why do I seem so set on criticizing people?  Why don't I try to see politicians as allies, rather than opponents?  Haven't I heard that you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar?

Well, there's a brand of environmentalism that says we will only get anywhere by focusing on the positive, cooperating with polluters rather than campaigning against them, and forging alliances with politicians rather than attacking their reputations.  Perhaps the loudest proponents of this view are Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, whose essay, "The Death of Environmentalism," argued, soon after the 2004 elections, that environmentalists were losing ground because they focus on doom and gloom.  Who wants to read about pollution and habitat destruction, right?  According to Shellenberger and Nordhaus, the route many environmentalists are pursuing would have been equivalent to Martin Luther King attempting to inspire his audience with the admonition, "I have a nightmare."  Didn't the Civil Rights Movement achieve success by focusing on the positive?  Shouldn't environmentalists do the same?

Well, I have some issues with Shellenberger and Nordhaus' analysis.  First of all, that's a pretty simplistic view of the Civil Rights Movement.  Listening to these guys, you would think that racial segregation was solved because one day day Martin Luther King came along and said, "Hey, people - wouldn't it be great if we were all equal?  Wouldn't you like to live in a world where everyone was good to each other?  Isn't that an inspiring vision of the future?"  Ridiculous, of course.  Visions of a better future were an essential part of the Civil Rights Movement, but so was protest - the loud, bitter criticism of racial prejudice and those upholding it.  King himself was often one of those loud critics.  And in fact, from the end of the Civil War to the classic Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, there were people pursuing both strategies - trying to work "with" policymakers, and railing against them.  To me, the groups and individuals suggesting today that we congratulate car companies for the few hybrids they churn out, and ingratiate ourselves with politicians so they'll do us favors later, are a little too reminiscent of Civil Rights strategists who ended up getting very little done, because they tried too hard to "cooperate" with those in power.

The livability of this planet is at risk.  Young people like me stand a greater chance of having our future destroyed than any generation since the one at the height of the Cold War.  Is this a time to "cooperate," and hope that politicians will do something about our problems if we just ask them nicely?  I don't think so.  Do I seem angry, or bitter, on this blog?  Well guess, what: I often am.  And I have a reason to be.  Let me end with a quote from one of my personal Civil Rights heroes - W. E. B. Du Bois.  It's from a letter Du Bois wrote in answer to a reader of his magazine articles, who thought Du Bois was being too negative and "bitter":

"For now  nearly twenty years we [African Americans] have echoed and applauded every shameful accusation made against 10,000,000 victims of slavery...And what was the result?  We got 'friends.'  I do not believe any people ever had so many 'friends' as the American Negro today!  He has nothing but 'friends' and may the good God deliver him from most of them, for they are like to lynch his soul...If this be bitterness, we are bitter."   - W. E. B. Du Bois

I'm not in this to make friends.  I'm not in this to suck up to anyone.  I'm in this because my own future, and the future of every other young person on the planet depends on it.  All of us have reason to rail against the catastrophe that has been thrown in our faces by previous generations.  We have a reason to shout.  We have reason to be seriously ticked off.  And if this is bitterness, we are bitter.