{"id":2487,"date":"2011-01-22T18:40:46","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T23:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/i-dont-feel-my-interests-were-adequately-represented-matt-flumerfelt.html"},"modified":"2011-01-22T18:40:46","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T23:40:46","slug":"i-dont-feel-my-interests-were-adequately-represented-matt-flumerfelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/i-dont-feel-my-interests-were-adequately-represented-matt-flumerfelt.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I don&#8217;t feel my interests were adequately represented&#8221; &#8211;Matt Flumerfelt"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/5378213270\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5125\/5378213270_c3c0cb084a_m.jpg\"><\/a>\nFirst-time speaker Matt Flumerfelt notes the Valdosta City Council\nand the Lowndes County Commission both disclaim responsibility for the\nIndustrial Authority even though both appoint its members,\nand he thinks that may make VLCIA&#8217;s contract for the biomass plant\nchallengeable on constitutional grounds.\nHe also sent LAKE the appended article on 20 Jan 2011.\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8SMDR2d0XXw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowFullScreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\nVideo by John S. Quarterman of the regular meeting\nof the Valdosta City Council, 20 January 2011,\nfor LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.\n<blockquote>\n<H3>Faith In Technology Is What Got Us Into This Mess<\/H3>\nby Matt Flumerfelt\n<p>\nMany people in the Valdosta-Lowndes County community have faith that the\nproposed Biomass incinerator won&#8217;t harm anyone or anything, but faith in\ntechnology is what got us into our current environmental mess in the first\nplace. Those old enough to remember the nuclear power debate will remember\nhow many people gave assurances that nuclear power was safe, yet we see\ntoday how difficult nuclear waste is to dispose of and how much damage it\nhas caused when things go wrong, which, human nature being what it is, they\ninevitably do. The recent gulf oil spill would not have happened if\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\nthose\noverseeing the oil drilling equipment hadn&#8217;t tried to skimp and shortchange\nthe inspections and other safety measures designed to ensure its safe\noperation.\n<p>\nThis country is at a crossroads. We need leaders with vision and courage,\nnot just practical sense, leaders who will make energy and other decisions\nthat will reverse the trend toward more polluting technologies. We see where\nbeing practical has gotten us. It&#8217;s time to be a little impractical and say\nno to some of these industrialists who can make no guarantees of public\nhealth and safety. Those who do end up getting sick from these insidious\nemissions will have no other recourse but to die. There is no smoking gun,\njust a huge smokestack.\n<p>\nThe City Council and County Commission should lead the way in energy\nefficiency. The bottom line in all this is that we have to consume less.\n<p>\nThe environment is a huge concern and business types are only too happy to\ncompromise the environment if it puts more money in their pockets. It is an\ninvolved issue, which is why more people have chosen to remain\nuninvolved&#8211;they don&#8217;t feel qualified to decide. Business interests take\nadvantage of people&#8217;s ignorance to push things through that a more\nenlightened populace won&#8217;t stand still for.\n<p>\nI for one don&#8217;t feel I was adequately represented when the Industrial\nAuthority signed the contract with Sterling Planet. Even a simple\nrisk-benefit analysis would show that the risks, measured in human lives and\nsuffering, far outweigh the benefits, measured in dollars and cents.\n<p>\nAll those birds dropping dead from the skies over Arkansas recently are a\nharbinger of things to come if we don&#8217;t find ways to conserve that don&#8217;t add\nto the problem. There are no good emissions, and this plant will only add to\nan already overburdened ecosystem. We only have one planet, one environment.\nNature is irreplaceable and very fragile in many instances. Let&#8217;s not kill\nourselves and others through a misplaced faith in technology based on the\nbiased opinions of those more interested in their profits than your health.\nIf we let others make money their bottom line, it will be our bottoms on the\nline when the biocrap hits the fan.\n<\/blockquote>\nSee also his <a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/01\/using-sludge-to-build-better-communities-matt-flumerfelt.html\">LTE to the VDT<\/a> of 20\nJan 2011.\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First-time speaker Matt Flumerfelt notes the Valdosta City Council and the Lowndes County Commission both disclaim responsibility for the Industrial Authority even though both appoint its members, and he thinks that may make VLCIA&#8217;s contract for the biomass plant challengeable on constitutional grounds. He also sent LAKE the appended article on 20 Jan 2011. Video [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,48,14,16,2,41,19,88,32,1794,54,178],"tags":[5153,8701,548,8702,12,7,8734,6,8726,180,8749],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-code-enforcement","category-economy","category-environment","category-government","category-health-care","category-history","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-pollution","category-sterling-planet","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vlcia","tag-20-january-2011","tag-georgia","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-E7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}