Letters

So I have drawn the response I expected to my challenge of the climate alarmists. Fine. Let’s have the conversation.

At the very least, it will offer more diversity in thinking than the monolithic fanaticism of the sky-is-falling crowd. Their devotion to gloom and doom has become a religious cult, and nonobedience must be punished by ostracism and public flogging.

My experience has taught me that when everyone thinks they know something, watch out.

For the record, there was no denial of global warming in my letter. There was plenty of comment about the value and efficacy of the administration’s energy policy, and, here, Biddle Duke, I can claim it is you that is drinking the Biden Kool-Aid [“Politics Talking,” Letters, March 2]. From no less than the State of California, a bastion of liberal claptrap environmentalism, comes a report from the University of California, Davis, titled the “Climate and Community Project.”

This study had serious issues with electric vehicle substitution for gas engines. As I stated in my letter, batteries require loads of minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel) that must be pulled out of the ground, like our fossil fuels. This mining is every bit as destructive as the despised oil and gas extraction. “Large-scale mining entails social and environmental harm … irreversibly damaging landscapes,” especially in poor countries. Additionally, mining accounts for 4 to 7 percent of global greenhouse emissions. The huge increase in demand for these materials will mean more mining and — guess what? More greenhouse gases.

The report concludes that without reducing the total number of vehicles, gas or electric, climate goals are “likely incompatible.”

Mr. Duke also is a fan and consumer of the Biden nonsense that he has been expanding the opportunities to develop our natural fossil fuel resources with the many permits issued by his administration. Yes, permits have been issued. But the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior have blocked the prospective sites with pernicious new regulatory requirements that serve the same practical purpose. This ploy is plainly obvious to the financial community that invests in drilling enterprises. They see risk in tying money up in projects that are deliberately strangled and choose not to finance.

So, Mr. Duke, with one hand Mr. Biden giveth, and with the other he slyly takes away.

My sense tells me to adapt to climate change and make it work for us as best we can. Wasted effort trying to manipulate forces largely out of our control may make some feel better but likely will do more harm than good.

But the left trying to silence debate is not unlike the COVID science we all had doubts about. Fool me once.

Ed Surgan

Westhampton