DO NOT VOTE FOR ME!
DO NOT VOTE FOR ME! Comments by Alan Page, candidate for Select Board in the Town of Belchertown, MA. It was stated in the recent “Conversations with Candidates” in this paper that I refused to be interviewed by Michael Seward, what actually happened was that I asked for a copy of what would be published before release and he refused so the interview was terminated. Prior to the face to face interview I had informed Mr. Seward that I believed that I could not serve the town any better than Mr. Barry, but that I was a candidate mainly because of what I viewed was a mistake by Mr. Barry regarding the imposition of unnecessary regulation by the Board of Health of the placement and use of outdoor wood burning boilers. This concern has three parts: 1) the nuisance regulation had already been used to shutdown an offending site where trash had bee burned near the center of town so the town already had the power to limit severe offenders, 2) the Board of Health implemented a very strict version of the “nuisance” statute in the new regulation that called for the immediate cessation of the use of all unapproved current installations, and required the operator to incriminate themselves, before the fact, of any future damage to persons unknown who might suffer from their use of an installed device, and 3) the Board of Health has declared that wood, one of the few local renewable energy resources, was hazardous to everyone’s health regardless of the fact that humanity as a whole had evolved over the last million years in the presence of wood fires for warmth in situations where they would have frozen to death if that heat source had not been used. To say that wood use is hazardous and that the current alternatives are so benign that they would not be regulated in any way by the board is false. Diesel smoke has been shown to contain micro-particles that are linked to the escalating presence of early onset of asthma in American children. I said to Mr. Seward, in his call to set up the interview, that I would ask all citizens of Belchertown not to vote for me unless they were prepared to do several things that most residents of this immigrant bedroom community would not normally be willing to do, and therefore that they should not vote for me. This does not mean that I am not willing to join in the debate. However, I have also refused the offer of a BCTV debate on the grounds that the rules restrict my right of free speech by placing issues beyond the Town of Belchertown off the table. I have told all who would listen, that “THE PARTY IS OVER!” We are rapidly approaching the point in time when it will be difficult to afford the luxuries that we believe are ours as a matter of right. The whole world is facing or will soon face: 1) climate shifts that are unable to be forecast with certainty, 2) water shortages that will cause massive migrations in the USA and globally, 3) fuel shortages that will happen because of our own actions that have defrauded the rightful owners of these resources of the control of these assets, 4) human population growth that is out of control, migration of people from population centers into less populated areas to get away from conditions of their own making, scarcity of most other resources because of the global spread of the desire for the conditions that we take as normal here, to name a few. Just as it is now a foregone conclusion that gasoline will cost more than $8.00 per gallon within the next two years (without major military action that dwarfs the current “protection efforts” of most oil producing regions and traffic lanes by our “Carter Doctrine” which declares that the USA has the right to defend its access to energy anywhere on earth) because the developed world – one-sixth of global population - has used almost half of all the oil that will ever be recovered from the earth and the unquenchable demand by the rest of the population; our climate now faces pent up forcing of warming pressure that has yet to be revealed because of lags in the global climate maintenance system. I have been a constant advocate for local sustainable systems to no effect. As a candidate for the Belchertown Agricultural Commission, I wrote to the Select Board that farmers everywhere must first be providers of energy for their own operations before they provide crops for sale, fortunately they appointed me an Associate Member so that I could not affect the decisions of the commission. Belchertown is an outrageous example of consumption gone berserk – it is an agriculture Unfriendly town in an agriculture unfriendly state in a world that faces food shortage because we have used food as a weapon for world dominance. So if you wish to vote for me be ready to help me do the things that I would have otherwise tried to do such as: 1) formation of a “Community Renewable Energy Marketing Company”, 2) acquisition of small scale carbon-negative energy technology for distribution globally as fast as it can be perfected, 3) management of local forests for local markets, and 4) training of willing youth in sustainable techniques. If you vote for me for a position on this dysfunctional poorly informed Select Board, I will have to curtail many of my actions because of time and energy constraints. I believe that such a choice would be unfortunate. There are existing technologies that can be made available to limit the ongoing degradation of conditions everywhere, but this town is not ready to do what it needs to do to be part of the solution. DO NOT VOTE FOR ME!
