Thinking Outside the Box

[This is a letter I sent to Mother Jones magazine on November 9, 2012, asking that they do an article on how the national fracking campaign developed, which I believe was consciously created by Dick Cheney and lawyers from the oil and gas industry in the early 2000's, resulting in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which created the infamous "Halliburton Loophole."] Hello Mother Jones,  I am a subscriber to your magazine, and really enjoy your quality investigative journalism.  I would like to suggest that you do a story that would have national significance on the topic of fracking, global climate change, and the actions of the multinational oil and gas corporations to fight the global need to transition our economies off of fossil fuels and into alternative, renewable energy.  I have taught environmental economics at Front Range Community College here in Colorado since 2009. I've watched with growing alarm over the past three years as the growth of fracking...

[These are remarks I made to the Boulder Planning Commissioners on October 17, 2012, as part of the public input process. I was among the dozen or so persons who spoke out against fracking, while there were two people who spoke in support. ] Greetings Commissioners, My name is Rick Casey, and I live at 1118 Centaur Circle in Lafayette. Thank you for this opportunity to express my concerns about fracking, which I consider a dangerous and unwise policy to allow on county lands. I've taught environmental economics at Front Range Community College since 2009, and have become firmly convinced that fracking is a wrong and unnecessary policy of resource development. We should instead be investing in alternative energy, and building the base for a truly sustainable energy future, instead of the short term opportunistic policy of hydraulic fracturing.   I last spoke to you on Sept 24, and spoke in support of extending the county moratorium on fracking. I am actively engaged ...

[Remarks I made to a meeting of the Boulder County Commissioners regarding oil and gas development in Boulder County, in the public meeting room, 3rd floor, Boulder County Courthouse, Sept 24, 2012. I was about 10th in line, right after Carolyn Bninski from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. The meeting was packed, to standing room only, where the oil & gas spokespersons got to speak first for about an hour. Thereafter, the public was allowed to make comments within three minute periods or pooled periods up to twelve minutes....quite the contrast.] Good evening Commissioners: My name is Rick Casey, I have lived at 1118 Centaur Circle in Lafayette since 2003, and have been a Colorado resident since 1981. Thank you for this opportunity to express my concerns as a Boulder County resident.  I am speaking as a concerned citizen, and as a member of East Boulder County United, an anti-fracking citizen's group based in Lafayette. I hope the Commissioners wi...

[This is an email that I sent to Danielle Forrest, who addressed the adjunct faculty at an administrative meeting at the beginning of the fall semester at Front Range Community College, in her capacity as the administrator of a new program, Veteran Services, August 16, 2012. She spoke rather strongly against singling out veterans in class, which I can understand; but she crossed the line when she said that "liberal minded" instructors should "keep their opinions to themselves" about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I wrote her this email the following day...] Dear Ms. Forrest, I am an adjunct faculty member in the Behavioral and Social Science department at FRCC's Larimer campus, and attended the required in-service meeting last night, where I heard your presentation about the new veteran services that is being offered. I have taught environmental economics there since fall 2009. While I agree this type of service is needed and will help some veterans, ...

[This is a comment I made at bobedwardsradio.com on 12 Aug 2012, the website for the excellent radio show by Bob Edwards, well known for his decades of broadcasting at NPR.] Dear Mr Edwards, I listened with rapt attention to your show this weekend, "The Betrayal of the American Dream." I teach environmental economics at a local community college (part-time), and am keenly aware of the issues the excellent authors were so eloquently discussing, and fully intend to read their book to help me in my own local activism to help raise awareness of the public about these and other issues. Your well respected show is one of the few sources in mainstream media for such sensible discussions. Consequently, I hope you might consider interviewing two other excellent authors, whose ideas also concern these deep societal problems: David Korten (see davidkorten.org ), and Riane Eisler (see www.rianeeisler.com ). If you are not already aware of their excellent work, I believe you, and your...

[This was a letter to the editor I submitted to the Colorado Daily, Daily Camera, Boulder Weekly and Denver Post, Aug 7, 2012, as well as the Lafayette City Council.] Dear Lafayette City Council members, As a Lafayette resident, I have observed with growing alarm that fracking is getting closer and closer to our town. A new five well drill site was started this week, just a few miles north of us, near Hi 52 and Niwot Road, by the infamous Encana. You can see pictures of this new drilling activity at http://www.facebook.com/groups/151428164981130. Due to the great uncertainty surrounding the short-term risks of air and water pollution from fracking, and the longer term implications for the overallocation of our precious water supplies in Colorado, the placement of poisonous and carcinogen fluids deep into the earth from their disposal wells, and the placement of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, I would like to see the Lafayette City Council pass a moratorium on any new fr...

[This is a letter to the editor I wrote in April 2006. I include it here only to show how I was thinking about the structural unemployment problem created by global capitalism at that time.] To the Editor of the New York Times The article 'Academia Dissects the Service Sector...' (April 18, 2006, page C1) was interesting for what it omits. Attempts by American universities to develop interdisciplinary approaches to coping with economic globalization – aided by willing multinationals with their own idled engineers – is unconvincing. Beneath the sophistry that an ever more “complex” economy requires ever more “complex solutions” to keep high-value jobs at home is the simple truth of increasing global unemployment. When the current fever of wage arbitrage between nations is over, this is is the real problem with economic globalization which every nation, no matter how “developed”, will need to face – witness Europe and restive France. Simply put, increasingly less people ar...

[This was a response I posted at the New York Times on May 6, 2012, in response to an outrageous article I had read in the Times Magazine that day, written by Adam Davidson, a fine reporter on economic issues otherwise, about a new book by a certain Edward Conrad, a self-made Wall Street millionaire who also worked for a time at Bain Capital with Mitt Romney -- which reveals some rather startling insights into the true world views that such people can hold. It is a testament to the lessons of history, when madmen in positions of power have delusions of grandeur, such as Nero, Hitler, George W. Bush...and now Edward Conrad.] Given the outrage that Mr Edward Conrad's pompous article has caused within one day of its appearance, I hope the dear man realizes how out of touch with reality he is. (1,857 comments at the end of the day of publication; oh ho! Well done!) I also hope he realizes with what a resounding thud of inconsequence his book will make within the economic community....

[This is a comment I posted at Market Place on March 28, 2012 in reaction to a series of stories that they did on the effect that increasing use of robots is having on the economy. I point out that they are missing the bigger picture...] As much as I have enjoyed David Brancaccio's reporting over the years, I have to comment that he (or his writers, I cannot tell which) are missing a much bigger story about what is going on here -- and it will have dramatic consequences for our economy, and broader society, if it is not recognized, resisted and reversed. More than the hollowing out of middle class jobs, the imperative to shrink labor costs at all costs has become the drumbeat of modern capitalism, creating what economists refer to as "increasing structural unemployment." What this means is increasing unemployment, decreasing aggregate demand, a shrinking tax base, etc; in short, a vicious downward spiral. (If only the Occupy Movement would start making these connectio...