Regarding Don Brunell’s May 26 column, “Looking at fossil fuels through different lens,” I agree that “a rational energy policy must include both traditional and alternative energy sources” but unfortunately we have an irrational energy policy determined by an excessively profitable, subsidized fossil fuel industry. It buys votes of our elected officials while bullying consumers and governments into using fossil fuels.
Carbon pollution and climate change have been understood since at least the 1990s but the fossil fuel industry uses its inordinate profits to fight a green-energy transition, despite public will, health and welfare.
Yes, fossil fuel extraction will be with us as we rely on “raw materials made from coal, oil and gas” for endless devices from medical equipment to kayaks to pharmaceuticals to plastic wrap. But burning fossil fuels to heat our buildings, generate electricity and power our vehicles is the issue. The air and oceans aren’t trash cans for carbon waste, as shown by Washington’s disappearing oyster industry, shrinking polar ice caps, record droughts (Texas, California), record flooding (Texas), and 2,000 deaths in India in May due to 117-degree temperatures.
A businessman’s uninformed drivel only slows down the inevitable. It’s time for global grassroots action to save our very lives.
