Cool off on climate change

I read Matt Cornell’s passionate letter in last week’s Durango Telegraph on the media’s role in sounding the alarm on climate change. The first things I thought of were the cover stories of Time (6/24/74) and Newsweek (4/28/75) warning that we were on the verge of a new ice age. These stories quoted well-known scientists and institutions. How did that work out?

Next, Cornell’s letter takes on the oil companies and blames them for marginalizing-low income residents. It took less than five minutes to run a Google search and determine that Mobil-Exxon, Shell and Chevron have some of the largest investments in sustainable energy projects in the world. I found it interesting that all three companies are investing a ton of money in hydrogen projects.

Lately, there have been some interesting interviews on TV and in business journals on the subject of transitioning from a carbon/petroleum-based economy to one dependent on sustainable energy sources. The consensus was that there is no leadership on the subject. President Joe Biden calling for a string of electric vehicle charging stations isn’t really a plan. There was no politics involved in the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb or to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Elon Musk, Larry Ellison or Jeff Bezos would be the type of people that we need to transition to sustainable energy, not lifetime politicians like Biden and Al Gore.

Unless – and until – China and India fall into line with the goals of Western industrial nations on the subject of climate change, all of the calls to shut down coal-fired power plants won’t do a damn thing to clean up the environment.

– Dennis Pierce, Durango