Letter: Focus on clean energy needed

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To the editor,

To say the least, I am very discouraged in this politically charged environment.

Many wrong and unethical things are taking place. Many people agree that the media should be more balanced, instead of slanted to the right or to the left. We are living in an America that has changed. We no longer are the leader in the world. Leadership 101 states that working as an individual is less effective than working as a group.

Our beautiful planet is very small compared with the universe, and we are headed for a disaster. Our world is losing its beauty at a rapid rate, with polar bears dying, hurricanes and fires out of control, etc. I blame the older generation for ruining the future.

I think many people agree we would not deliberately breathe car exhaust fumes. Mother Nature is at a point that it cannot do much more.

A team of volunteers and I from Citizens’ Climate Lobby have made presentations to municipal and business organizations. In our presentations, we use a climate simulator called En-Roads from MIT Sloan. There is no one solution to reduce the projected 4.1-degree Celsius rise in temperature for 2100.

However, there is one solution that makes the biggest impact. Placing a fee on carbon drastically reduces the temperature. Our bill, U.S. House Resolution 763, can reduce the temperature dramatically. Fossil fuels will be phasing out, and those workers will be retrained into the clean-energy field, where jobs will be created. Cleaner air means healthier, more productive people.

We need to work together and declare a climate emergency. Our biggest obstacle is not technology, but politics.

The air is non-partisan. Mother Nature is putting up flags, and we are in trouble. As of now, we have a 12-year window to steer this around. We should focus on clean energy that Mother Nature will embrace. Please don’t wait. I want my kids to enjoy the same planet we are enjoying now.

Ron Brandes

Waterbury