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DRAWING BY TOM BURGESS
THE PEOPLE VERSUS LNG
BY TOM DUNCAN
Everyone wants economic development and a better
world for their children and grandchildren, but beyond that there
is less agreement about what that means exactly.
Although we are all different in many ways, we still
share the same world, and so conflict is unavoidable. Conflict
isn't necessarily ■negative" or something to be avoided — there
is no progress without conflict and revolution — and as Donald
Rumsfeld famously observed, "Democracy is messy." Still, the
conflict has to be contained and directed to positive ends if
democratic civilization is to persist — and that is the challenge
of boards and commissions.
It is pretty much obvious that the era of cheap energy
is over. At the beginning of the United States, energy was
essentially free. Water power, coal, natural gas and oil were just
there, essentially for the taking, and there was enough to power
STEWARDS OF THE RIVER
What should we do about LNG? The question is part
of a larger one — what should we do with our home landscape,
the one for which we are the appointed stewards?
Most of us find that the best thing about Warrenton and
Astoria is their location next to the River. From it we are allowed
views that strengthen us and make us more considerate. We
can't always explain how or why this happens, and we can't
quantify it, but we are grateful. Even our silence can express
that.
To be thankful makes us conservative, in the old, true
sense of that word. We want to be sure to protect a precious
gift. There is currently a proposal, for example, to place art
along the River Walk, an idea put forward by good people
with good intentions. But is it a good idea, given the absence
of any appropriately strict methods for soliciting and siting
first quality public art? (One thinks with embarrassment of
the wooden Indian head, and the cement park at 9th Street.)
It should be difficult to win the right to build at the
River’s edge. For now however, unfortunately, the main
requirement is just to bring money. Corporations wanting
to develop LNG terminals bring lots of money, but they are
bankrupt of more important qualifications — humility, civic
concern, a love for the natural geography, and, yes, rever
ence for its creator.
-ROBERT ADAMS
Robert Adams is a great American photographer who
lives in Astoria.
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a dynamic USA to superpower status. But now, we are in conflict
over energy.
In 2005, even the most optimistic experts agree that
North American energy supplies are maxed out, and even
in decline. Increasingly, we require energy from sources in
unstable and hostile areas of the world, and the cost of that
energy — in treasure and blood — is getting higher. If our
economy is to remain stable, let alone grow, we must make
some difficult choices about sources and use of energy.
The basic questions — who profits? who pays? —
have yet to be answered in the case of liquefied natural gas.
It is reasonable for the public to expect to get accurate technical
and engineering answers to our questions from industry sources,
but they aren’t likely to be a very good source for cost-benefit
analysis from the public’s point of view. It is not reasonable to
expect the industry to be concerned about the “common good”
— even if that could be defined — over the needs of their share
holders. That is not how one does business, even in the most
enlightened companies. They must vote their balance sheet
— and in the short term. That is why we need a viable political
system — one that doesn’t shy from conflict. The people, not
the corporations, are responsible for the long-term view.
The U.S. Constitution makes “the people" sovereign.
But that doesn’t guarantee that the people will always win.
“Sovereignty" is not absolute power — if it was, King George III
would have destroyed the American revolutionaries. He didn’t,
P O L K A IL E Y 'S P A IN T IN G • A S T O A IA 5 0 3 3 2 5 .7 7 7 5 1 8 0 0 7 3 2 7 7 7 5
and now we are stuck with an excruciatingly slow, seemingly
inefficient political process to determine the “will" of the people.
Armed with that will, the sovereign “people" must still compete
in the real world of power politics with the “will" of the corporate
shareholders and the “will" of powerful individuals for the control
of resources — and the outcome is far from certain.
There are sensible alternatives to foreign oil and gas
that will help us build a strong community and develop a solid
economy that can last for generations — not just the thirty to
fifty years that are predicted for natural gas supplies. Check
out www.columbiarivervision.org, the Web site of a local group
RiverVision, for more information and links to the world of
energy.
Tom Duncan is a medical doctor living in Astoria.
He and Susan Skinner are partners in the Lower Columbia
Medical Clinic and are members o f RiverVision, a group
formed to challenge the politics and purpose o f constructing
liquid natural gas terminals in the lower Columbia River.
LNG IS AN ALIEN
Against the dollars-and-cents boasting of the Calpine
LNG terminal proposal, there is an esthetic argument that is
also economic. The mouth of the Columbia River and its terrain
has a commerce value that is intrinsic with its beauty — and that
beauty and that drama should be appointed in selective and not
in subtractive ways. To mention, for instance, a Conference
Center and an LNG plant in the same breath is truly absurd
since no brotherhood of hematologists, astrophysicists or stage
magicians is going to convene in Astoria in order to gaze at a
landscape of giant petro-udders. Nor will the patrons of hotels,
restaurants or mercantile buildings.
Astoria has a proud heritage Clatsop County Port
Commissioners should be able to build and capitalize upon
without dealing in pure frightfulness. A freighter, a barge or a
towboat is by no means unsightly. A pier piling, a gantry or a
fish hopper is part of our seaport's natural pageant. On the other
hand, an LNG plant is despoiling imagery. It's the Red Desert,
West Texas and Alien all rolled into one. It would phase us
lightning-fast out of the postcard category of destinations and
into an ordinariness that Astorians, from an economic point of
view (and from all others), do not need.
-TOM BURGESS
Tom Burgess is a writer and artist living in Astoria.