The oil issue, as I understand the proponents, is about jobs and keeping energy costs down. Jobs are important, but I believe the quantity to be created is greatly exaggerated. The real question is whether we are paying the true cost of carbon at the pump, or are we being sucked into consumption by a discount? A discount we will have to make up at a later date, after the oil companies have taken their profits.
These future payments will most likely come in the form of cleanup taxes and huge losses to our economy and infrastructure caused by climate change. Ask the people in drought-ridden California, or snowbound New England, or the mayors of coastal cities who are faced with sea rise, or a thousand other places about to face similar costs. Are we paying the true cost, and do we expect our kids to suffer the consequence of our neglect?
Keep this in mind as you drive — what comes up out of the ground, is burned and becomes a clear gas, must come back down to the ground. If left floating around in our atmosphere, we are not paying the full cost of consumption. In fact, our garbage is creating great additional expense over which we have little control. How smart is that?
Ron Pulliam
Ridgefield
