By Art Klein and Jay Wopperer
Conservation Committee Co-chairs
Adirondack Mountain Club - Niagara Frontier Chapter (ADK-NFC)
At the Annual Meeting and Picnic the Committee selects a person whom we think should be the ADK-NFC Conservation Person of the past year.
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| Jim Holstun at the founding meeting of UB CLEAR* - NY Times |
This year we unanimously selected Jim Holstun, who teaches World Literature at SUNYAB.
Jim was the hero who forced the SUNYAB leadership to admit they had
let a wolf in sheep's clothing to slip into UB, technically the
Geology Department. Holstun was a founder and the chair of a group called UB CLEAR, the Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research.
A couple years ago the Natural Gas Industry decided to infiltrate academia
and develop "special relationships," especially in Geology Departments.
At SUNYAB, the Shale Institute was their guise and
unapologetic industry shills ran it from the Fracking side of Natural Gas
development.
Like many technological and science efforts such special bodies
work with the universities both gaining mutual benefit from the effort
and the University often realizing much needed income and special
insight to many aspects of any process that is not already part of the
academic realm.
Soon UB's Shale Institute published a report that assured the world
of the environmental safeness and theoretical total benefits of
Fracking. The report was portrayed as a peer-reviewed, valid, scientific
study.
Then the tattiness of the report began to emerge. The report was
actually "sort of peer reviewed," then it was admitted no such review
was done. Also, the authors were consultants for the oil and gas industry but failed to disclose their financial conflicts in the report.
The Public Accountability Initiative did a detailed study of the report and discerned some terrible arithmetic, distorted emphasis and even signs of repressed
data. Liberal Arts folk were now ethically aroused by a bad actor in
their midst with the blessing of the University Geology Department.
In the end the Institute was bounced and the ethically-inclined Holstun and many allies rewarded for their very special efforts.
We had a very pleasant presentation of the reward at our annual
meeting and became quite delighted with Professor Holstun who revealed
his acumen by having done some research and was glad to note
us as such wise Stewards of the Adirondacks, especially our High Peaks
Steward Program. Naturally then he briefly explored the etymology of the
word steward and expressed hope we would not diminish our efforts.
We were all equally pleased that we had one great selection on one great day to present it.
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*For more information on the many allies who helped to expose the Shale Institute shills, Click Here.
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*For more information on the many allies who helped to expose the Shale Institute shills, Click Here.
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| Editorial cartoon in The Buffalo News by Adam Zyglis |
