In Jon Ferry's Jun 5 article in the Vancouver Province he decides to take aim at eco-density and the trend towards living smaller. According to his account, economic realities have apparently forced him and his to downsize their digs.
And he clearly doesn't like having less elbow room. But since it's hard to argue against facts that forced a relocation, Mr. ferry has decided to rail against others by using the false proff known as character assasination.
he rails against eco-density and other downsizing measures by pointing out those high profile ecological celebrities such as David Suzuki and Al Gore have large houses. This lack of monastic piety on the part of Suzuki and Gore and others is apparently enough, if Ferry's writing is to be believed, to disprove eco-density as a useful tool.
The problem here is that one does not follow from the other. Al Gore could live in a house that ran on coal, kerosene, methane, a leaky nuclear reactor and the processed tears of unicorns; and none of that would actually change whether or not what he says about the environment is correct or not. One does not follow from the other.
Ferry compounds this by intimating that the need to be more ecologically conscious and less ecologically damaging is some sort of coercive force being thrust down upon people like an overbearing father or a school yard bully.
But as Ferry began his own article by admitting, sometimes realities force us to change, and sometimes in ways that are unpopular. I once ran myself financially into the ground and room in what could be charitably called a flop house with a friend who was similarly impoverished until I was able to dig myself out of that hole.
In the months and years leading up to my self implosion, people around me were constantly trying to warn me of the inevitable consequences of my self-destructive behavior. And some of those people, caring though they were, had similar bad habits and problems. But the fact that they were making the same mistakes, albeit on a smaller scale and with more room for error than I had been, didn't change the fact that they were right.
If a convicted murderer tells you that murder is wrong, are you going to disagree with him on the grounds that he doesn't practice what he preaches?
None of this suggests that Gore and Suzuki and Mayor Robertson, wouldn't help reduce their carbon footprints and ecological impact if they downsized. None of this further suggests that downsizing wouldn't be the best and most moral choice for these people. And none of this says anything about whether or not the living choices of these public figures damages their credibility with audiences and critics. But none of those things relate in any way to whether or not what Al Gore or David Suzuki or Gregor Robertson are correct in the ecological warnings or not. And that is the point that Jon Ferry seems either unaware of or hoping that we won't notice.
The answer to what is the sum of two plus two is not "Oh look over there! I See a monkey!" Jon Ferry is either comically missing the point or deliberately trying to mislead readers. I won't speculate on which of those is the most likely case. But I would like suggest that he never teach critical thinking professionally.
