Category Archives: Letters to the Editor

Environment and Energy: What is the solution?

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To the Editor:
Considering that the burning of fossil hydrocarbons, with all its ramifications on the planet, will likely continue for decades to come, is The Question of the 21st Century, can technology solve the difficulties it has created?  If there is an analogy in asking, will the financial sector repair the calamity it created?  the odds on correction appear slim.  There are times I think the people I saw gathering firewood with their three-wheeled pedi-cycles along a freeway in Yucatan may be more insightful futurists than all our high tech gurus combined.  Sustainability is a word certain to be overused in the coming years in reference to food production, but, wakening to a world of limited resources, a prime concern will be,  what are appropriate, viable, and sustainable means and levels of energy production and consumption?  This should be the first focus of industry, science, and government.  The rest is just window dressing.
RP

Sun Power

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To the Editor:
There is an understandable local opposition to the construction of large solar “farms” in rural Colorado. The greatest demand for electricity is, after all, in urban areas and the resulting miles of transmission lines, while once seen as a sign of progress, are now regarded as unwelcome intrusions upon a growing environmental aesthetic of open, untrammeled land in the West. Rural communities over and over see their valuable resources, be it water, oil and gas, their children, and now treasured vistas, being drained into the seemingly insatiable metropolitan lifestyles they eschew. Apparently overlooked by the power brokers is that there are thousands of acres of roofs, already connected to the grid, in the very areas in need of additional electricity. A combination of private and governmental incentives and directives could create a modern, state-of-the-art, decentralized power generating network that would both serve our needs and preserve our Colorado landscapes. Germany, a country with far less sunshine than here, has done exactly this with remarkable success.
RP

Social Justice and Glen Beck

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To the Editor:

Politicizing religion with wedge issues like abortion and homosexuality has long been a successful campaign tactic for the Republican Party, but one has to question severely Glen Beck’s recent condemnation of the concept of “social justice”, which, besides being central to the Civil Rights Movement, is at the core of legislaton and the rule of law.  In esence, Beck is trying to demonize the Beatitudes and Christ’s, “As ye have done to the least among you, so have you done unto me” and unabashedly invoking the sanctity of wealth, of which he has plenty.

RP

Unseasonal Flooding in the World

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To the Editor:
With the flooding in Australia being described as “biblical” and a Congressman quoting scripture on the House floor and declaring his faith that God will not again destroy the earth, there is still clearly a need to clear up the understanding of global warming/climate change.  The simple chemistry of burning hydrocarbons is that water, carbon dioxide, and energy (originally from the sun) is released into the atmosphere.  The burning of fossil fuels is the release of water, carbon dioxide, and energy that have not been active on earth for millions of years.  Coal has more polluting components than natural gas, but the central dynamic is the same.
A continually rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere holds in more and more heat which then warms the oceans and melts polar and glacial ice, adding more water to the equation.  And not to be discounted is the addition of energy no longer buried deep within the earth.  The vital, dynamic exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere is becoming increasingly energized.  The occurance of unseasonal flooding, mudslides and severe weather is simply the earth finding a new equilibrium for these elements.
I would not like to say that we are now facing an angry, vengeful God (or gods), but the laws of physics are basically unrelenting and, like the people of Noah’s time, we are bringing this turn of events down upon ourselves.
Robert Porath