Two Harveys Among Us

By Peter Molenaar

Almost everyone in the Phillips Community knows something about Hurricane Harvey and associates.  Not as many are acquainted with Harvey Winje, editor of the Alley Newspaper.  So sad.

Truth to tell, Harvey (the hurricane) is not a totally bad sort of being.  Actually, Mother Earth deploys hurricanes to flush excess heat from her oceans into outer space.  As is revealed in great beds of fossils, this was a common practice in olden times.  However, it is no longer the methane of dinosaur farts which confines Sun”'s rays to our atmosphere, rather it is the burning of fossil fuels.

So in the recent teaching moment, H. Harvey posed some questions:

1.) How much energy will it take to create the infrastructure for a post-fossil-fuel economy?

2.) How might we mitigate ongoing damage in the process?

3.) Will the pivot from coal to natural gas slow global warming?

4.)  Are market forces combined with the profit motive impeding necessary developments?

5.)  How might a “just transition” be administered?

6.)  Will democracy ever fully blossom beneath the “rule of capital?”

The other Harvey has endeavored, as well, to deepen the discussion.  A carpenter by trade his knowledge of the “nooks and crannies” has made The Alley conversation possible.… Read the rest “Two Harveys Among Us”