Re: greenyes-d Digest V99 #336, Roger's comments on dialog with the media

Tanis Skislak (tskisl@yahoo.com)
Wed, 10 Nov 1999 08:04:37 -0800 (PST)


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I feel like we are preparing for another wave of media sniping which seems to occur when there aren't enough sexy stories to keep them busy. It was interesting to read your reasoned comments, Roger. As always, I admire your intelligence and balance. I am posting a letter I wrote in response to a call I received from a columnist for Scripps Howard Newspapers. Given the tone of the conversation, this time I just could not bring myself to let things happen as they may and wrote to her not as a county employee, but as a person who has been in the field in several guises for a long time. Here is the letter:

We spoke yesterday concerning the Fairfax County Recycling Program and I promised to send you some information about recycling and the industry’s response to the New York Times article on recycling. I am sending it to you but felt compelled to write to you and express concerns I have over our conversation. I am not responding to you as a County employee but as a resident of Fairfax County. What I have to say is not an official representation of the County in any way; it is only my personal opinion.

I sensed that in developing your opinion piece for Scripps Howard Newspapers, that you already had determined what you were going to say in the article and were just looking for facts to back up your opinion. I got the strong impression that your article is going to take the tone that recycling is a nice thing to do but maybe is being placed too high in local government funding priorities. It was your comment that the funding for recycling might be better spent on education or for public safety that did it. I did not get the idea that you were open to investigating this view and that you were discounting what I told you about the issues surrounding recycling. I suppose that as a journalist, you are used to encountering people who are dogmatic about their chosen field of work and that your tendency is not to give too much credence to what we have to say because it is suspect or biased. I can certainly understand that may occur because I, too, frequently encounter the phenomena of people defending their belief
s to the point that they simply will not listen to anything that threatens their belief structure. This is that well-documented process called “cognitive dissonance” and it is something that some people take extreme measures to avoid.

I perceive that you may be approaching this article in that same manner. For example, when I stated that much of the information in Tierney’s article was incorrect, your immediate response was disbelief. Your position was that the New York Times carefully researches all articles before publishing so you were doubtful that what I said was true. You probably felt that I was making this statement from my own dogma in support of recycling and that I was trying to attack Tierney’s credibility because I did not want to accept that what he said was true.

I have been in this field since 1982 and I am not what I would term a dogmatic “recycle or die” type. I have studied these issues from many perspectives: from the local, national and global; from energy and natural resource use; and from the impacts on the economy. I admit that the recycling that occurs in Fairfax County, in and of itself, will not save the world or its resources but that does not mean that it does not have value or that it should be cast aside in favor of addressing another more easily identifiable problem; one I might add, that is very visible at the local level.

Skislak
Page two

Also, money is not the be-all and end-all in any debate. To say that the money we spend on recycling would be better spent on education is simplistic. It assumes that the monies used for recycling would be available for other uses, which in the case of Fairfax County, they would not. It assumes that spending another $1 million on education would solve the problems inherent in that institution ( which it probably would not) and lastly, it assumes that throwing money at something is the way to solve a problem. In my opinion, throwing money at something is sometimes more a sop to one’s conscience than a real help. When I first came to Virginia in 1987 to start this program, all of the newspaper recycling was done by boy scouts. When I met with them for the first time, they very succinctly summed up some of the attitude in this affluent county when they recounted the following anecdote. The scouts were doing a paper drive in Great Falls (and yes, it actually occurred in Great Falls). They went door to door
to collect newspapers and when they knocked at one door, the man asked how much money they made on the newspaper collected from each household. The scouts said it was about $2 per house. The man reached in his pocket and handed them a $5 bill, telling them that he would rather give them $5 than to be bothered with saving his newspaper. He obviously just saw the issue in terms of money and felt it was appropriate to buy his way out of any environmental commitment.

It is comfortable and much easier to take a narrow and short-term view of one’s world. Looking at all of the issues and conceptualizing what will happen without action is overwhelmingly crushing to our psyches. This is truly the stuff of madness. Just think about it: rainforest depletion and with it the beneficial effect on ozone, medicine and wildlife + increasing population on a finite planet with finite resources + taking some of the land used to grow food for growing populations and converting it to land to grow crops for other uses such as kenaf for paper instead of trees + the increasing gap between the have’s and the have not’s in the distribution of wealth + increasing reliance on fossil fuels through gas-guzzling SUVs + wholesale disposal of our natural resources through disposable products and disposing mentalities. The list goes on and on and it is depressing.

If we just think of ourselves and what we experience, if we just worry about having enough in our life time, if we ignore the implications of continued profligate waste and disposal, then it is easy to discount the importance of programs like recycling, especially when one takes the system apart in order to look at one local program. Recycling does not exist locally and in a vacuum. In a biological sense, it exists, as does every other thing, in a synergistic system of interrelated, interdependent subsystems. Recycling is not a pernicious parasite feeding itself and destroying its host in order to survive. Local recycling feeds into regional recycling, which feeds into national recycling and then into international recycling and reuse of resources. It does make sense and it is important.

I know most people do not think strategically; we either do not have the skill or time to look beyond our own immediate needs. Nor do we take the time to integrate all of the events occurring in the world into either a linear or a three-dimensional projection of what the future will bring if we don’t rethink our values. Without investing the time and effort to understand the whole, we end up with a society without the foresight and strategic integration, without the commitment to hard choices and the courage of our convictions to do the ethical thing. Rather, to some it becomes more like a Saturday afternoon parlor game of scoffing at the “environmentalists” and feeling smug in one’s own superior knowledge that this is just the old shell game being replayed on the many in order to benefit the few. One of my favorite cartoons was in Frank and Ernst. A senator is sitting at his desk and his aide comes in to announce his next meeting with constituents. Everyone in the group is holding up
signs that read “save the world,” “environmental protection,” “think globally, act locally,” etc. The senator looks at the aide and says “I hate dealing with these special interest groups.”

Without a strategic perspective, it is easy to believe that all this environmental furor is just a self-serving smoke screen for environmental do-gooders who don’t have the benefit of one’s own superior knowledge and understanding of how the world really works. Patting oneself on the back in a group of like-minded individuals brings us back to dogma and the danger of such GroupThink.

Perhaps I am reading this situation incorrectly and this is not at all your intention. Maybe I hit it on the head, in which case you might not be inclined to regard anything I write as valid. I couldn’t help but hope that you are a journalist and as such, you are open to other perspectives; that you do write opinion pieces rather than opinionated pieces. I would be glad to hear back from you and to continue the dialog. If you want to read up on the issues yourself, I would be glad to give you some good URLs to follow.

Very truly yours,

Tanis Skislak

---------------------------------
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I feel like we are preparing for another wave of media sniping which seems to occur when there aren't enough sexy stories to keep them busy. It was interesting to read your reasoned comments, Roger. As always, I admire your intelligence and balance. I am posting a letter I wrote in response to a call I received from a columnist for Scripps Howard Newspapers. Given the tone of the conversation, this time I just could not bring myself to let things happen as they may and wrote to her not as a county employee, but as a person who has been in the field in several guises for a long time. Here is the letter: <BR><BR>We spoke yesterday concerning the Fairfax County Recycling Program and I promised to send you some information about recycling and the industry&rsquo;s response to the <EM>New York Times </EM>article on recycling. I am sending it to you but felt compelled to write to you and express concerns I have over our conversation. I am not responding to you as a County employee but as a resident of Fairfax Count
y. What I have to say is not an official representation of the County in any way; it is only my personal opinion. <BR><BR>I sensed that in developing your opinion piece for <EM>Scripps Howard Newspapers</EM>, that you already had determined what you were going to say in the article and were just looking for facts to back up your opinion. I got the strong impression that your article is going to take the tone that recycling is a nice thing to do but maybe is being placed too high in local government funding priorities. It was your comment that the funding for recycling might be better spent on education or for public safety that did it. I did not get the idea that you were open to investigating this view and that you were discounting what I told you about the issues surrounding recycling. I suppose that as a journalist, you are used to encountering people who are dogmatic about their chosen field of work and that your tendency is not to give too much credence to what we have to say because it is suspect or bi
ased. I can certainly understand that may occur because I, too, frequently encounter the phenomena of people defending their beliefs to the point that they simply will not listen to anything that threatens their belief structure. This is that well-documented process called &ldquo;cognitive dissonance&rdquo; and it is something that some people take extreme measures to avoid. <BR><BR>I perceive that you may be approaching this article in that same manner. For example, when I stated that much of the information in Tierney&rsquo;s article was incorrect, your immediate response was disbelief. Your position was that the New York Times carefully researches all articles before publishing so you were doubtful that what I said was true. You probably felt that I was making this statement from my own dogma in support of recycling and that I was trying to attack Tierney&rsquo;s credibility because I did not want to accept that what he said was true. <BR><BR>I have been in this field since 1982 and I am not what I would
term a dogmatic &ldquo;recycle or die&rdquo; type. I have studied these issues from many perspectives: from the local, national and global; from energy and natural resource use; and from the impacts on the economy. I admit that the recycling that occurs in Fairfax County, in and of itself, will not save the world or its resources but that does not mean that it does not have value or that it should be cast aside in favor of addressing another more easily identifiable problem; one I might add, that is very visible at the local level. <BR><BR>Skislak <BR>Page two <BR><BR>Also, money is not the be-all and end-all in any debate. To say that the money we spend on recycling would be better spent on education is simplistic. It assumes that the monies used for recycling would be available for other uses, which in the case of Fairfax County, they would not. It assumes that spending another $1 million on education would solve the problems inherent in that institution ( which it probably would not) and lastly, it assume
s that throwing money at something is the way to solve a problem. In my opinion, throwing money at something is sometimes more a sop to one&rsquo;s conscience than a real help. When I first came to Virginia in 1987 to start this program, all of the newspaper recycling was done by boy scouts. When I met with them for the first time, they very succinctly summed up some of the attitude in this affluent county when they recounted the following anecdote. The scouts were doing a paper drive in Great Falls (and yes, it actually occurred in Great Falls). They went door to door to collect newspapers and when they knocked at one door, the man asked how much money they made on the newspaper collected from each household. The scouts said it was about $2 per house. The man reached in his pocket and handed them a $5 bill, telling them that he would rather give them $5 than to be bothered with saving his newspaper. He obviously just saw the issue in terms of money and felt it was appropriate to buy his way out of any envir
onmental commitment. <BR><BR>It is comfortable and much easier to take a narrow and short-term view of one&rsquo;s world. Looking at all of the issues and conceptualizing what will happen without action is overwhelmingly crushing to our psyches. This is truly the stuff of madness. Just think about it: rainforest depletion and with it the beneficial effect on ozone, medicine and wildlife + increasing population on a finite planet with finite resources + taking some of the land used to grow food for growing populations and converting it to land to grow crops for other uses such as kenaf for paper instead of trees + the increasing gap between the have&rsquo;s and the have not&rsquo;s in the distribution of wealth + increasing reliance on fossil fuels through gas-guzzling SUVs + wholesale disposal of our natural resources through disposable products and disposing mentalities. The list goes on and on and it is depressing. <BR><BR>If we just think of ourselves and what we experience, if we just worry about having
enough in our life time, if we ignore the implications of continued profligate waste and disposal, then it is easy to discount the importance of programs like recycling, especially when one takes the system apart in order to look at one local program. Recycling does not exist locally and in a vacuum. In a biological sense, it exists, as does every other thing, in a synergistic system of interrelated, interdependent subsystems. Recycling is not a pernicious parasite feeding itself and destroying its host in order to survive. Local recycling feeds into regional recycling, which feeds into national recycling and then into international recycling and reuse of resources. It does make sense and it is important. <BR><BR>I know most people do not think strategically; we either do not have the skill or time to look beyond our own immediate needs. Nor do we take the time to integrate all of the events occurring in the world into either a linear or a three-dimensional projection of what the future will bring if we don&
rsquo;t rethink our values. Without investing the time and effort to understand the whole, we end up with a society without the foresight and strategic integration, without the commitment to hard choices and the courage of our convictions to do the ethical thing. Rather, to some it becomes more like a Saturday afternoon parlor game of scoffing at the &ldquo;environmentalists&rdquo; and feeling smug in one&rsquo;s own superior knowledge that this is just the old shell game being replayed on the many in order to benefit the few. One of my favorite cartoons was in Frank and Ernst. A senator is sitting at his desk and his aide comes in to announce his next meeting with constituents. Everyone in the group is holding up signs that read &ldquo;save the world,&rdquo; &ldquo;environmental protection,&rdquo; &ldquo;think globally, act locally,&rdquo; etc. The senator looks at the aide and says &ldquo;I hate dealing with these special interest groups.&rdquo; <BR><BR>Without a strategic perspective, it is easy to believ
e that all this environmental furor is just a self-serving smoke screen for environmental do-gooders who don&rsquo;t have the benefit of one&rsquo;s own superior knowledge and understanding of how the world really works. Patting oneself on the back in a group of like-minded individuals brings us back to dogma and the danger of such GroupThink. <BR><BR>Perhaps I am reading this situation incorrectly and this is not at all your intention. Maybe I hit it on the head, in which case you might not be inclined to regard anything I write as valid. I couldn&rsquo;t help but hope that you are a journalist and as such, you are open to other perspectives; that you do write opinion pieces rather than opinionated pieces. I would be glad to hear back from you and to continue the dialog. If you want to read up on the issues yourself, I would be glad to give you some good URLs to follow. <BR><BR>Very truly yours, <BR><BR><BR>Tanis Skislak <BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
<br><hr size=1><b>Do You Yahoo!?</b><br>Bid and sell for free at <a href="http://auctions.yahoo.com/">Yahoo! Auctions</a>.<br>
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