TO THE EDITOR:
This letter is a response to those who claim that being a Luddite is the best way to be an environmentalist.
They say, first, that fracking is a product of society’s technological values.
They do not say what they would replace fossil fuels with, but I believe that high technology for energy is one key to our salvation from climate change.
Not only could it provide independence from coal and oil, but it could also decentralize the power grid, which would then no longer be in the hands of a few.
Solar panels on houses could allow residents, through the formation of energy cooperatives composed of people with many different skills, to self-manage energy.
The Luddites conflate technology with pollution and see technology as an unnatural and destructive blight on the beautiful natural landscape.
The main thing I would like to address is the Luddites’ unrealistic vision. If we were to reject the Industrial Revolution, we would all have to farm the way most people did during the Middle Ages.
I have nothing against farming in and of itself, but all that subsistence farming would force the billions of people who live on the planet to clear the last remaining forests, deserts and wetlands in the hopes of reaching the high yields we have achieved technologically.
