The Debauchery of Moral Imagination: Josh Fox, "How to Let Go of the World" and Animal Agriculture

Don't get me wrong. I like Josh Fox. We have loads of things in common--including our opposition to the continuing emission of greenhouse gases.



But that's what makes his new film, "How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change" all the more disappointing--well, actually, disturbing.

I watched the movie very attentively, hoping  that given Mr. Fox' tremendous and loyal following--let's call them the Foxilytes--he'd actually do something courageous, and lend some real substance to his references throughout the film to the concept of "moral imagination."

Indeed, he laid out a cornucopia of climate change catastrophes from Hurricane Sandy to the deforestation of the Amazon to the drowning of entire islands--all of it important and utterly tragic.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee, 6.13.16

And all of it entirely anthropocentric--no, actually chauvinistic.

That is, insofar as "How to Let go..." is narrowly and almost exclusively focused on the effects of climate change for human beings and human populations, he actually reinforces precisely what he'd seem to reject, namely, that human self-interest ought to determine value.

Mr. Fox demonstrates this human chauvinism in several ways throughout the film, not the least of which is his merely passing references to the loss of species habitat and diversity, and his persistent need to put himself in virtually every frame--making us wonder if the documentary is about climate change or Josh Fox. 

But these are minor issues compared to his truly stunning lack of courage and honesty concerning the role that animal agriculture plays as a major cause of climate change.

Let me lay this out:

The film included a follow-up Q&A. Mr. Fox called on me in a "very short questions" set of three raised hands at the tail end. I pointed out that I appreciated his mention of animal agriculture in a long list of causes of climate change. He interrupted me--as if I had no question, but simply sought to praise him. I persisted, and asked why--given that animal agriculture plays an enormous role in the production of greenhouse gases--he had not discussed it more thoroughly.

His answer was as peremptory as it was factually bankrupt: "You're wrong. Science says your wrong."

I persisted, and pointed out that the film was, among other things, about the causes of climate change. 

Mr. Fox' answer here was truly mystifying--and disingenuous: "The film's not about the causes of climate change."

I'm quoting Mr. Fox verbatim. Let me get at these one at a time:

Here's the facts about the contribution of animal agriculture--factory farms and more--to climate change:

From:  http://www.fao.org/agriculture/lead/themes0/climate/en/

Livestock contribute both directly and indirectly to climate change through the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Globally, the sector contributes 18 percent (7.1 billion tonnes CO₂ equivalent) of global greenhouse gas emissions. Although it accounts for only nine percent of global CO₂, it generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide (N₂O) and 35 percent of methane (CH₄), which have 296 times and 23 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO₂ respectively. Methane emissions mostly occur as part of the natural digestive process of animals (enteric fermentation) and manure management in livestock operations. Methane emissions from livestock are estimated at about 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, accounting for about 80% of agricultural CH₄ and 35% of the total anthropogenic methane emissions. Nitrous oxide emissions are associated with manure management and the application and deposition of manure. Indirect N₂O emissions from livestock production include emissions from fertilizer use for feed production, emissions from leguminous feedcrops and emissions from aquatic sources following fertilizer application. The livestock sector contributes about 75 percent of the agricultural N₂O emissions (2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent). Carbon dioxide emissions from the livestock sector are related to fossil fuel burning during production of fertilizer for feed production, the livestock production process, processing and transportation of refrigerated products. Furthermore, livestock are a major driver of the global trends in land-use and land-use change including deforestation (conversion of forest to pasture and cropland), desertification, as well as the release of carbon from cultivated soils. The overall contribution of CO₂ emissions from the livestock sector are estimated at 2.7 billion tonnes of CO₂. 

From:  http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/hsus-fact-sheet-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-animal-agriculture.pdf

 [T]he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that the over-accumulation of these natural and human-made gases since the Industrial Revolution has caused anthropogenic global warming. Global warming is responsible for a range of climate-related events, such as more extreme weather occurences including increased flooding and drought, as well as melting of Arctic ice and the loss of plant and animal biodiversity as a result of changes in temperature. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the animal agriculture sector—which includes the production of feed crops, the manufacturing of fertilizer, and the shipment of meat, eggs, and milk — is responsible for 18% of all GHG emissions, measured in carbon- dioxide equivalent. In fact, the farm animal sector annually accounts for: 9% of human-inducedemissions of carbon dioxide (Co2), 37% of emissions of methane (CH), which has more than 20 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2, and 65% of emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), which has nearly 300 times the GWP of CO2.  Farm Animals in the United States: Nearly 10 billion land animals are raised for meat, eggs, and milk annually in the United States, with many of them confined in the nation’s approximately 18,800 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Typical factory farms intensively restrict animals in large, overcrowded, and barren sheds, denying them the ability to engage in most of their natural behavior. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Factory Farms Farm animal waste and other aspects of the animal agriculture sector generate GHG emissions, as well as ammonia and other air borne pollutants. Carbon Dioxide, CO2 is c onsidered the most powerful GHG as it has the most significant direct-warming impact on global temperature as a result of the sheer volume of its emissions.CO2 is released from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and petroleum, and deforestation and other land-use changes that remove vegetative cover. Animal agriculture produces CO2 in a number of ways: High-Energy Feed. Factory-farmed animalsare typically fed high-energy crops such ascorn, which is dependent onlarge amounts of chemical fertilizer.The FAO estimates that the production of fertilizer for feed crops may emit 41 million tonnes of CO2 per year globally. Fueling Factory Farms. Intensive confinement operations require vast amounts of fossil fuel-based energy to cool, heat, and ventilate the facilities, and energy is also used to operate farm machinery to cultivate and harvest feed crops, resulting in at least 90 million tonnes of CO2annually worldwide.

 There is no question that animal agriculture makes an immense contribution to climate change. The implications are absolutely clear:

We in the industrialized West/Global North must stop eating nonhuman animal bodies.

We must discourage it in every corner 

of the developing world. 

We must substitute for it education about nutrition, 

land use, water scarcity, food insecurity, 

species habitat and extinction, and aggressive conservation premised on the scientific facts.

No desirable future can sustain the industrialization of animal bodies.

Mr. Fox didn't touch any of this, and that's not just a lack of courage--it's a gross lack of the very "moral imagination" he makes so much of.

Virtually none in the U.S. have any excuse for continuing the barbaric practice of nonhuman animal body consumption--and note carefully that to this point I haven't even spoken about the abject cruelty of factory farms.

 
Indeed, even if--as Fox makes clear in a "joke" he makes about the great smell of broiling chicken in a solar cooker--we don't give a tinker's damn about suffering, the effects on human health of animal agriculture are so significant that to ignore these in a documentary about the effects of climate change amounts to a complete distortion of the facts.

Factory farm waste pit from the air

Why would Mr. Fox do that?

Is it that he feels forced to pander to an audience of activists who he surely knows have no interest in giving up their Chik-Fil-A? 


Is it that Mr. Fox himself is committed to KFC? 

Was he telling the truth when he said that the movie wasn't about climate change? Is "How to Let Go and Love..." really just about Josh Fox making a movie about, well, whatever?


Is it that his Kickstarter campaign to raise money for and from the film isn't going to do as well if folks come out of the movie less likely to feel like dancing because their lives as carnivores have been threatened?

But isn't that what we rightly call "pandering" when we point it out in the Sierra Club or the Environmental Defense Fund?

I don't know. What I do know is that it's a grotesque lack of that moral imagination called a conscience to make a movie ostensibly about loving the things climate can't change--and then mislead your audience about the causes of climate change.

In fact, there's only one thing worse: 

Making a movie about love--and then leaving out of the equation the overwhelming majority of the world's sentient beings--

except for when they "smell good" on the grill.

Grilling Chicken body

 Human chauvinism has devastating consequences. To pretend that the only effects of climate change that really matter are the ones that impact human lives and human communities reinforces that conception of value out of which we've built not only speciesism--but its direct and awful correlates: racism, heterosexism, and classism.

Ironic then that Mr. Fox rightly decries the patent bigotry of Donald Trump--but then reinforces its very foundation in the speciesism of his willful omission of animal agriculture.  For that omission can have only one explanation: Mr. Fox simply does not care enough about the experience and suffering of nonhuman animals to consider even what the circumstances of that suffering mean to human health and well-being.

At the end of the film, Mr. Fox prodded his audience to "get up and dance" for all the things climate can't change. Lots of folks did. I didn't. 

He then prodded us further to stand up for a group pic. Nope--not gonna do that either. Not really interested in that group-think manipulation that either convinces us--for a moment anyways--that everything's OK, or shames us into refraining from asking the hard questions.

Discarded slaughtered baby male chicks

Fact: there are no such things as things climate change isn't going to change, Mr. Fox. 


In fact, it's the very worldview that makes us think we're entitled to factory farm, slaughter, and grill that chicken that's going to fuck us.


To think that so long as we human critters can find a way to adapt--to be, what's that corny catch phrase we saw in the movie?--resilient, that the world's going to be habitable for all the other species of living critter on it--especially the ones we manufacture for our own consumption--well, that's not moral imagination.

It's moral failure. 

We earn the right to dance when the least among us have the possibility of being, if  not free from suffering and death, at least free from that suffering and death caused by human greed and the morally depraved capacity to objectify whatever we can subjugate, enslave, and slaughter.

"Realism" is Frack-Speak for "So long as I get mine...": Marcellus Drilling News and the Breathin' Easy "Total Commitment" of John Hanger's Good NIMBYs

In October, 2013, Marcellus Drilling News reported that Victoria Switzer, "Starlet of Gasland II," "leaves anti-drilling behind," and "adopts realism" (http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/10/gasland-ii-starlet-leaves-anti-drilling-behind-adopts-realism/):

What’s this…one of the stars of Gasland II, someone who trash-talked the shale drilling industry in Dimock, PA has changed sides? Yep. Well, sort of. Victoria Switzer has given up what she calls “tunnel vision” and has adopted “realism.” She says, “Realism is good.” She no longer calls for a halt to drilling in PA and instead wants to ensure it’s done safely–by working with industry and regulators. Welcome to logic and sanity! Glad to have you on our side. Watch out Josh Fox: Switzer is not the only former anti-driller now whistling a different tune…

What's immediately remarkable about this quote is the reference to "trash-talking" the shale gas industry--as if Switzer, who MDN now refers to affectionately as "Vickie," and Gasland/Gasland II maker Josh Fox never really had a leg to stand on with respect to the claim that Cabot Oil and Gas was responsible for, say, an 8,000 gallon drilling fluids spill along with the contamination of drinking water wells in Dimock, Susquehanna County.

Let's review:

Pennsylvania environment officials are racing to clean up as much as 8,000 gallons of dangerous drilling fluids after a series of spills at a natural gas production site near the town of Dimock last week.

The spills, which occurred at a well site run by Cabot Oil and Gas, involve a compound manufactured by Halliburton that is described as a "potential carcinogen" and is used in the drilling process of hydraulic fracturing, according to state officials. The contaminants have seeped into a nearby creek, where a fish kill was reported by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP also reported fish "swimming erratically."

The incident is the latest in a series of environmental problems connected to Cabot’s drilling in the Dimock area. Last winter, drinking water in several area homes was found to contain metals and methane gas that state officials determined leaked underground from Cabot wells. And in the spring, the company was fined for several other spills, including an 800-gallon diesel spill from a truck that overturned. (http://www.propublica.org/article/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock-contaminates-stream-killing-fish-921).

Apparently 2009 is ancient history for Switzer who, in the name of "realism," conveniently forgets that even John Hanger--Democratic Party contender for the 2014 governor's race--admits that "mistakes caused in gas drilling by Cabot [Oil and Gas] caused methane to pollute the water wells of 18 families" (http://pipeline.post-gazette.com/news/archives/25238-pa-gov-hopeful-john-hanger-upset-with-portrayal-of-dimock-pa-incident-in-gasland-2). Hanger's band-aid solution to the methane contamination, an "extension of a water line to the families," also failed, and as opposed to drawing the right conclusion, namely, that the law clearly favored the gas companies over the rights of citizens and communities, Hanger essentially gave up. The then head of DEP knew that Department of Environmental Protection regulations utterly failed to protect the 18 families in Dimock, and he did nothing to change the law. Indeed, this is as much as John Hanger wanted from Cabot--and this is what John Hanger thinks is enough:

[T]he Consent Order included not issuing for a period any new drilling permits to Cabot statewide; stopping Cabot from drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Dimock area; requiring Cabot to plug or repair gas wells to stop the source of the methane migration; install machines at each of the 18 water wells to get methane out of the water; to provide water deliveries to the 18 families impacted; and substantial fines that eventually added up to more than $1 million. (http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2013/07/gasland-2-and-dimock-water-line-real.html).

A million dollars in fine amounts to nothing more than a light slap on the wrist even if Hanger had achieved it--and of course he didn't. Moreover, absolutely nothing in this Consent Order actually prevents future methane contamination of drinking water. Nothing raises any question whatsoever about the hazards of fracking itself. Nonetheless, "Vickie" Switzer has become one of Hanger's most adoring supporters--and that makes sense since both are "realists," which seems to be code for "not looking beyond the law," "not asking the critical question whether the law is just," and "not paying attention to the fact that the industry has, in flat fact, written the law for themselves."

Both have conceded to living in a world where it is enough that regulation controls--to some very limited and laughably inadequate extent (see Dimock)--the rate of harm from hydraulic fracturing, compressor stations, pipeline, waste tanker, waste pit, truck traffic, etc. Note carefully that "rate" in no way implies "amount."

Fact is, there's no reason on earth to believe that the amount of harm will be one iota different.

Where the consequences are climate change, notions like "amount" don't really even make any sense. We will all be affected by climate change--and just because there are a tiny few who may be in a position to mitigate those effects for themselves, say, by holing up in their "dream homes," does not mean that that smattering bit of mitigation comes free.

It's not. In fact, it's bought directly at your expense. After all, you may not have the time, the leisure--or even the John Hanger--to deploy to get the gas companies to utilize their "best practices" to diminish your chances of cancer or neurological damage or asthma or endocrine disease. Plus, the money they're spending to appease starlets like Vickie is money they'll be looking to make up somewhere else--like cutting corners drilling under your "special place," say, your yard.

While folks like Vickie are chattin' it up with the gas companies, distracting all of our attention away from the real issues, the gas companies are frackin' away--and converting Pennsylvania into a deforested mineral extraction colony for LNG export. While Vickie's busy being "realistic," the gas companies are too--all the way to the very real deposits they're off-shoring, the real moola they're spending to make sure they are protected from the carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and other toxins to which you and your family may be exposed.

In fact, what Vickie Switzer clearly regards as "realistic" is "controlling the rate of harm to her, her family, her neighbors."

And that ain't you.

My name is Victoria Switzer, and I live in Gasland. I also live in the real world. I am here today to offer my total commitment and support for John Hanger's bid for the Democratic nominee for Governor of my Commonwealth, my Penn's Woods.

But Vickie's Penns Woods aren't your Penns Woods, and while she's retiring to her "dream house" to "paint, write and make jewelry," it's clear that the Not-in-My-Back-Yard--NIMBY--argument that the natural gas industry decries against you when you refuse to sign a gas lease isn't the same NIMBY argument when Vickie--and her "total commitment" friends at Breathe Easy Susquehanna County (BESC) settle down for a cup-o-joe with their new friends at Cabot Oil and Gas.

Except it is exactly the same--with this caveat: when Vickie decides that she doesn't want to fight the gas anymore, and wants to delude herself that John Hanger's interest in her and in Dimock amounts to anything other than political expediency, she forms an entire organization--BESC--to effect her--and Cabot's--vision of the good NIMBY, the NIMBY who, behind the very thin veil of "realism," gets into bed with the same companies that may very well destroy your water wells, your property values, your children's health, your animal's health, your community, and you.

And then, of course, there's Marcellus Drilling News who recognizes that MDN's on "shaky ground" admitting that "there is a growing body of evidence that shows a marked increase in air pollution in heavily drilled areas–mostly from compressor plants, but also from drilling rigs, truck traffic, etc." (http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/11/the-one-issue-on-which-anti-and-pro-drillers-agree/).

Talk about understatement.

In other words, just like John Hanger, and just like the industry itself, MDN can exploit their recent convert--starlet Vickie Switzer--to simultaneously acknowledge that there is increasing evidence of harm and deny that it really matters. After all, if it's not so serious that it prevents Vickie and the folks of BESC from snuggling up to the gas, it can't really be that bad, right?

Except it really is--and that's the only "realism" that matters.

Put it this way: today, January 6th, 2014 the AP reports that the price of natural gas fell from $4.37 per 1000 cubic feet to $4.30--in just one week. Imagine the pressure to get export facilities on-line and the gas to the global markets to sell to China and to India.

That should put some reality into your realism.

Now imagine just what lengths the gas industry will go to to get the gas to market--think "BP," "Anadarko," Deep Water Horizon," and you get a little closer to reality.

Now consider just how much that gas representative sitting across the table from you with his cup-o-joe is likely to actually give a fuck about your local air emissions or water contamination problems.

Seriously, how daft and self-deluded do you have to be to buy that barrel of bull shit?

Just one more return to ancient history--2009:

According to a Material Safety Data Sheet provided to the state this week by Halliburton, the spilled drilling fluid contained a liquid gel concentrate consisting of a paraffinic solvent and polysaccharide, chemicals listed as possible carcinogens for people. The MSDS form – for Halliburton’s proprietary product called LGC-35 CBM – does not list the entire makeup of the gel or the quantity of its constituents, but it warns that the substances have led to skin cancer in animals and "may cause headache, dizziness and other central nervous system effects" to anyone who breathes or swallows the fluids. (http://www.propublica.org/article/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock-contaminates-stream-killing-fish-921)

Nevertheless, Vickie insists that she "had to work with the industry."

“We had to work with the industry. There is no magic wand to make this go away,” said Switzer, who recently formed a group that seeks to work with drillers on improved air quality standards. “Tunnel vision isn’t good. Realism is good” (http://nypost.com/2013/10/07/anti-fracking-activists-learn-to-work-with-gas-industry/).

She has that partly right--there is no magic wand to make the damage to Pennsylvania's air and water go away.

But no one has to work with the industry anymore than anyone had to work with, say, the enforcers of Apartheid. No one had to work with those who deliberately contaminated blankets given to Native Americans with small pox. No one has to concede to being silent in the face of animal abuse, child molestation, battery.

No one has to turn their back on the real or potential suffering of others.

She or he just needs a conscience and a courage that tells them when undertaking a risk is warranted--like when the stakes are as high as the planet is round, for example.

Speaking out forcefully against real harm is risky.

But what Switzer--and BESC--have decided is not that they had to work with the industry--that is nothing but excuse. What these folks decided is simply the cost is too high for them, that the welfare of folks they don't know and won't ever know wasn't worth the risk. "Realism" is that case means "puttin' my head in the sand," (or the silica, if you prefer). And that is the NIMBY's "so long as I get mine" "realism."

If we "have to work with the industry," why on earth do we pretend that we are citizens, that we live in a nation of laws designed to protect us, that we are anything other than disposable tools--that is, when we're not irritating obstacles, or, if we've had a really good day in the movement, momentary liabilities to profit?

If we "have to work with the industry," why can't we just call this what it is: corporatist fascism? That's not "radical," that's just an "is what it is."

Why, if he's elected, doesn't this make John Hanger's administration a "kinder, gentler fascism"?

It's no wonder that Marcellus Drilling News took immediate advantage of Vickie's "realism."

The only wonder is that she--the folks at BESC--don't realize they're industry tools.

This year, Switzer and [Rebecca] Roter co-founded Breathe Easy Susquehanna County, an organization that seeks to persuade companies to use advanced technologies to limit emissions. The group has won plaudits for its non-confrontational style ( http://nypost.com/2013/10/07/anti-fracking-activists-learn-to-work-with-gas-industry). /

You bet they did. Hell, following out their "total commitment" to John Hanger, BESC can't even bring itself to support the Democratic party moratorium resolution.

I acknowledge forthrightly that I am taking some real heat from within the anti-fracking movement for calling out what I regard as concession to a real moral evil. I have---not surprisingly--been accused of "dividing the movement."

But if "keeping the movement together" requires we concede to the gas industry--what's the point of having a movement at all?

What's our movement for if not to end the conversion of Pennsylvania--and everywhere industrialized extraction occurs--from a beautiful forested countryside where people want to live into wasteland where "reclamation" means green paint, grass seed, and straw?

How many years did Nelson Mandela go to prison for resisting apartheid? If he'd sat down over a cup-o-joe with the racist government of South Africa, would apartheid have ended?

No.

Was it "realism" that governed Mandela's decision--or was it a conscience that demanded he think beyond his own fortunes?

I think Mandela would have this to say: where the right thing to do is clear, "realism" must take a back seat to conscience--even where that means your dream house and your jewelry making have to wait.

Wendy Lynne Lee

*All photographs taken by Wendy Lynne Lee except photo of Victoria Switzer and logo of Marcellus Drilling News.