Dear Editor:
MOUNT VERNON – Recently you have run at least four pieces, posing as news, by the Empowerment Alliance, a right-wing group backed by fossil fuel companies offering propaganda full of misleading statements on climate and energy.
Titled “Your Ohio Energy,” these tomes rely on ignorance. They reject a need to lower CO2 production, claiming CO2 is necessary to life. Well, yes, but not in deadly amounts.
Next, they claim people have said the world will end in x years, but it hasn’t. NO. Scientists have predicted major changes, many of which have happened already. Desertification has increased from California to an expanding part of Africa. Horrific fires have devastated part of our country and elsewhere with increasing frequency.
The same rising temperatures that exacerbated forest fires have melted glaciers and raised sea levels. Island nations are going under NOW. The Navy has had to adjust to changing currents affecting naval operations. Florida and other Gulf states are dealing with higher tides and deterioration of marshlands that would protect the land.
Evaporation loading up clouds has led to huge rain dumps creating flooding in Texas and elsewhere. Severe tornadoes and hurricanes have taken larger tolls across the South. Changing air currents have affected air traffic.
CO2 is not the only pollutant. Methane leaks related to fracking and waste chemicals dumped near factories, large farms, and power plants have had particularly bad effects on minority populations living near them.
The authors charge the elite, whoever they are, with serving only themselves instead of making smart choices to help progress. And yet Republicans and the oil companies, knowing full well the damaging impact of fossil fuels, have refused to address their impact on our earth, continuing to put profits ahead of the world we leave to our children.
Meanwhile, President Biden is trying to introduce cleaner sources of energy, providing many jobs and cleaner air. Of course, we’ll still need other fuels, but not exclusively and not at such a cost to Earth.
Our elected president has brought back regulations that protect workers and the environment and encourage less profligate use of fossil fuels. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to the extremely wealthy, he is aiding American families by addressing infrastructure needs, providing more jobs and serving communities that have been neglected while money is sucked up by wealthy corporations who use profits to buy more shares, driving up prices, and not sharing much with their workers. He makes clear that affordable, safe daycare is essential for women to go back to work.
Read widely, be skeptical and remember what HB6 was doing to us: Raising costs while enriching corrupt politicians.
Jill Grubb
Gambier
Editor's Note: The Empowerment Alliance pieces are labeled "opinion," and are not called "news."
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