Letters

I was struck by the opening remarks in Cailin Riley’s piece titled “Fossil Fuel Ban Proposed” [Residence, February 2]. She begins with: “Over the past few years, climate change has become a crisis that is impossible to ignore.”

This view, referring to an imminent climate crisis, has lost its sense of urgency for me. I have listened to it since the 1970s, and we certainly had real pollution issues then. But, as many of you can attest, reports of the Earth’s demise have been greatly exaggerated for some time.

Yes, we have data and prognostications charting a warming trend in global temperatures. I am not a “flat Earther.” But the hysterical doom being peddled by some does seem to collide with reason, and even science.

As humans, we endeavor to understand our planet. Yet it seems the more we learn, the more questions are raised about what we think we know.

From the study of our continents and their birth from the supercontinent Pangea, we must acknowledge the dynamic forces always at work here on Earth. We are one volcanic eruption away from an extinction event. Frankly, we are along for the ride. We are not driving the bus. This doesn’t absolve us of responsible stewardship, but the fear and self-loathing in the name of climate activism is disturbing.

The Biden administration has unilaterally imposed draconian responses to these climate concerns. Obstructing the use of available and plentiful natural gas and oil has imposed high energy costs. These self-limitations are pointless if India, China and Russia ignore the call for compliance.

Much of our current debt explosion and inflation derives from environmental policy that will not accomplish anything sustainable. Our cure to this anxiety is to sacrifice our progress for a meaningless sense of virtue. We have abandoned reason to a cult that has frightened our nation into compliance.

Our obsession with EV modes of transportation will require an electrification infrastructure and power generation that we don’t have and can’t afford. The raw materials needed in EV batteries are in very short supply. Mining the cobalt, lithium and nickel in undeveloped countries actually does significant harm to the environment. Mining and refining these materials produces 4 to 7 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. In Africa, the working conditions of the hand labor used in mining cobalt is horrendous. Replacing autos with EVs without decreasing ownership will not stop the warming trend.

The cost of energy keeps going up. Passive generation like wind farming adds to this. The progressive’s devotion in this administration to end our current energy usage to satisfy dubious climate initiatives blinds us to our true potentials and future.

Ed Surgan

Westhampton