New York State’s anti-gas movement is a very modern movement indeed. By “modern,” I mean it asks not one sacrifice or inconvenience from its adherents and membership while demanding something extreme from someone else.

It’s been said this lack of personal sacrifice for a desired result is at the center of America’s general decline, specifically when compared with the extreme personal sacrifice of our grandparents’ generation.

If all the hot air I’ve been listening to at the various public hearings from local laymen posing as scientists, doctors, geologists and lawyers could be captured, Sullivan County would never need to use a fossil fuel again. Similarly, if the leaders of these various pro-foreign oil organizations would demand that their members reduce their fossil fuel usage by installing solar or geothermal, or even carpooling, perhaps their hysterics would ring more true.

If the leaders of these movements would finally ask something of their constituents, Sullivan County should be and could be a leader in solar and geothermal installations industries. Instead, even the rich among the activists, even the newspapers rallying the cause, even the most vocal of the pro-foreign energy movement, refuse to spend their money reducing their energy usage.

Sullivan County, leading in the anti-domestic energy agenda, is lacking in any real commitment to reduce its energy usage. If half the people who rally around the pro-foreign energy cause would put their money where their mouth is, then they could single-handedly reinvent this county with a new industry.

On a modern twist to Mr. Kennedy’s most famous adage: Ask not what you have to do, but rather find a reason someone else should do something.

Charles Petersheim

Eldred, NY