[MCN] "I can't breathe" -- if ocean fish could speak- How Lance Olsen got it wrong

[Ari LeVaux]

Lance, 

I appreciate what you contribute to the list serve. I don’t think I’m alone, and I don't understand how your activity might be chasing off other posters. Regarding your use of "I Can’t Breathe.”  I personally found it understandable, but perhaps you could have explained it better so that those with less of an understanding of environmental justice could make the many important connections between racial and environmental oppression. 

I would encourage everyone to check out this recent article by Matt Taibi on the dangers of “moral mania” and the left’s propensity to attack itself. The article focuses on some things happening in the media, but the principle applies broadly.  People are losing their jobs and careers for comments like Lance’s, which is a scary thing. 

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself

If anyone on this list objects to my not objecting to Lance’s subject line, please respond to me directly. No need to antagonize the entire list with debate over who needs to breathe more, or who owns this moment. 

Ari


> On Jun 18, 2020, at 8:40 AM, Lance Olsen via Missoula-Community-News <missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Trevor
> 
> First, for a variety of reasons, I will be sharply reducing the number of my posts to Missoula Community News
> 
> And I get what Annie said, and have no problem with Annie, and understand why she — and you — are outraged by my post “I can’t breathe” — if ocean fish could speak
> 
> I decided not to get into a debate about it on MCN, but I did tell Annie that my post came from an old and well-known story about rising ocean heat.
> 
> I told her that, as the ocean warms up, fish need more of its oxygen. Trouble is, as water warms, it loses oxygen. 
> 
> The result, as a fisheries scientist put it some years ago, is suffocation.
> 
> I had that suffocation very much in mind when posting "I can't breathe" -- if ocean fish could speak. It seemed appropriate.
> 
> And I assumed it was an everybody-knows-it kind of thing
> 
> Annie had and has no way to know how much I share her outrage over the entrenched, systematic racism behind the violence including police murder of George Floyd and many others of many skin colors. But she can tell you that I told her my opinion that the fossil fuel industry has its knees on all our necks
> -----------------
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