Dr. James Hansen Honored as a Rebel With a Cause

In the early to mid seventies, working at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. James Hansen assembled a team to perform climate modeling of the earth and found some of the first reliable and predictive computer models of global warming. In the late eighties the testimony that he gave before Congress was noted for its drama and certitude that yes, we did have a problem. The CO2 we were pumping into the air was warming our world, and if we didn’t curtail this process, heat waves and droughts lay in our future.[i]

            Hansen has not tired of warning the rest of us about global warming. In more recent years he has gone beyond speaking at seminars and writing articles in journals and has taken up work as an activist. He’s been arrested, along with Daryl Hannah, protesting the Keystone Pipeline and mountaintop removal, both of which, besides causing environmental damage to their immediate environments, add or will add greatly to global warming.

            Yesterday, Conservation Colorado announced that James Hansen will be honored as their “Rebel With a Cause” at their annual gala to be held in June. Looking back over the decades, Hansen certainly deserves the recognition. Is the Nobel Committee taking note?

James Dean caused a ruckus in the fifties still from Rebel Without a Cause Warner Bros. 1955

James Hansen is causing a ruckus now, and he doesn't even need a leather jacket and cigarette photo Goddard Institute for Space Studies

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[i] Philip Shabecoff, Special to The New,York Times. Sharp cut in burning of fossil fuels is urged to battle shift in climate. New York Times June 24, 1988

TransCanada and Eleanor Fairchild: Is a Texas Great-Grandmother an Eco-Terrorist?

This story out of Texas is kind of a double whammy for me: one, because of how corporations now have ever greater power over our lives and property, and two, because of how we now allow corporations and their promoters the power over the way we think.

The story concerns Eleanor Fairchild, a Texas great-grandmother who was arrested for putting up a fuss over TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline coming through her property. She owns a 425-acre hay farm and recently stood her ground in front of a large mechanized shovel as it was being deployed to make way for the pipeline through her farm.

She, along with other protesters, including actress and activist Daryl Hannah, were arrested on misdemeanor trespass charges. She was fingerprinted, photographed, and held in isolation at the county jail.

Now here is the part that troubles me. Fairchild is upset because of the way her land wound up under the blades of a huge mechanized shovel. The state of Texas took a portion of Fairchild’s land though eminent domain and transferred ownership to TransCanada. Eminent domain has been around forever. It’s the ability of a government to seize private property for the public use, traditionally things like highways and bridges. Of course landowners must be fairly compensated when their property is taken.

But it is through a newer and corporate friendly understanding of eminent domain that Fairchild’s land was taken. The Supreme Court took up a case in 2004, Kelo vs. City of New London, in which they ruled that private property could be taken and transferred to another individual or company for business reasons, as long as there was a “public benefit,” such as jobs provided or the gentrification of a part of a city. This opens up a big can of worms for property owners. Like Fairchild, their land is now vulnerable to any corporation that can say that they are providing jobs or enhancing economic activity.

TransCanada says that their XL Pipeline provides jobs and oil, so they get Fairchild’s land, as well as other folks’ land, too. Fairchild also claims that the oil company did not compensate her to the degree of their original offer.

The other part of the story is scary, too. About a week after Fairchild was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, she was served with legal papers from TransCanada and their lawyers labeling Fairchild and other protesters as “eco-terrorists.”

I’ve blogged about the term eco-terrorism before, and it’s awfully upsetting to see that word rear it’s ugly hyphenated head again. It is believed that Ron Arnold, who is vehemently opposed to environmental concerns, coined the term in the late eighties or early nineties as a smear against people like Fairchild. Even if it was not Arnold’s neologism, the term has been used to make the suggestion that Fairchild and others like her are somehow equivalent to car bombers and Osama bin Laden.

The term has gone from being a smear to taking on the life of a real word with legal consequences. The FBI now has a definition for it and says it’s a crime. Which goes to show you how successful the corporations and right wing folks like Arnold have influenced people’s thinking.

I’m glad Eleanor Fairchild doesn’t think the way corporations want her to.