[Vision2020] My Column / Megaloads & Hippies

[Ted Moffett]

On 6/8/11, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

"On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone here address his main point,
i.e. that the highways are public and the need for a special permit
because of large load size shouldn't be used as an excuse to
discriminate against businesses that some people disagree with."

Did you read all posts on this subject?  It seems not...

An argument for considering the non-local impacts of the mega-loads as
a important ethical issue that the Moscow City Council should
consider, was made in this discussion, that specifically focuses on
negative impacts from the tar sands project in Canada:

Art Deco deco at moscow.com
Tue Jun 7 11:01:51 PDT 2011
wrote:

[Vision2020] Megaloads and Hippies
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-June/076832.html

The line of reasoning used in this article is the same as that which
supported "Separate but Equal" and a host of other laws with horrible
consequences.

This week the Spokesman-Review featured articles bout the consequences
of uranium mining on the health of native Americans.

Suppose some company wanted to mine and to process uranium here in
Latah County.  Suppose as in the case of the oil sands there would
demonstrated dire health and environmental consequences from the
project.  Suppose that the equipment needed for this project was to
come through Cranbrook BC en route from Vancouver, BC.

I would hope that the residents of Cranbrook would have enough concern
about their neighbors to object to the equipment passing through their
city.

When looking at any proposal, it is simply ignorance and arrogance not
to consider the whole range of consequences of the proposal.  The very
conservative Prime Minister of Canada, Steven Harper, has now
expressed some grave reservations about aspects of the oil sands
projects.  To ignore the possible long range adverse effects of this
project on the lives of many Canadians, including death from cancer,
and on the environment is utter hubris by the Moscow City Council and
demonstrates disregard for anything but alleged local interests.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 6/8/11, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 06/08/2011 12:18 AM, Ted Moffett wrote:

>> Note he does not address any of the objections expressed on
>> Vision2020, to the facts or logic in his column, in his response on
>> Vision2020.
>
> On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone here address his main point,
> i.e. that the highways are public and the need for a special permit
> because of large load size shouldn't be used as an excuse to
> discriminate against businesses that some people disagree with.
>
> I'm not necessarily behind giving the megaloads a free pass, since I
> think that Sunil's points about the noise and the lack of public input
> at the council meeting are good ones, but I do think that if people here
> object to the Kearl oil sands project there are better ways of
> expressing that opinion than to throw bureaucratic roadblocks (no pun
> intended) in their way just because we have the opportunity to do so.
>
> Paul
>