A recent commentary from state Rep. Jeremy Munson induced several letter writers to object to his claim that green energy has unaccounted-for environmental costs, including the need for mining (" 'Green' energy relies on copper-nickel mining," Opinion Exchange, Dec. 12). The objecting letters included the idea that need promotes new technology and that we must accept "sacrifice" to avoid environmental degradation.
To these I say "hogwash." I know little about Rep. Munson's claims. But if technological innovation is spurred by need — with which I agree — then I wonder about the lack of a cry for carbon capture or a unified call for the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. These technologies exist today. But for various reasons, they are shunned by environmentalists.
Nuclear is the most powerful, efficient, cleanest form of energy generation. By far. For fear-mongering reasons, we don't build new plants or recycle the spent fuel, and we look to shutter the generation we have. This is based on a 1977 ban, but there have been zero incidents related to fuel-recycling anywhere — most notably in France and Japan.
Carbon capture is simple technology, although currently expensive. But with attention and research, it should be used alongside the most reliable, abundant form of energy production — especially given our vast carbon-based resources and existing generation and distribution infrastructure. Unfortunately the activist left is not interested — they seek destruction of the carbon-based fuel industry, more than they want clean, affordable energy.
History is not a story of increasing sacrifice. It is one of increasing advancement. We should put our resources where they lead to progress, not regress.
Stephen Grittman, Buffalo, Minn.
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For me there's always been just the one answer to what Rep. Munson misleadingly poses as a unresolvable dilemma. Yes, renewables and nonrenewables are bad for the environment. So ... let's use our democratically elected government to balance the voracious appetites of big business. Let's turn marketing-manipulated consumers back into informed voters. Let's take a lesson from history. Let's do an honest accounting of the original New Deal. Let's remember why people found happiness and purpose in sacrificing for the war effort.
I have long argued that before we tout the replacement of fossil fuels with renewables as a seamless, even lucrative (win-win) solution to climate change, we do the numbers with the environmental price figured in this time around. All of it. Then we'll see that conservation is the only way out of this mess: radically downsizing, by government mandate, consumer spending on useless and polluting products including phones, private jets (and most commercial aviation), disposable clothing, a vast military, toxic food, SUVs and bottled water.
We've come to think we can't tolerate life without such things. We forget that humans never had them at all a scant four decades ago, back when Americans' lifespans were going up, not down. We also had relatively equitable wealth distribution after World War II until President Ronald Reagan took office. Then the neoliberal nightmare began in earnest. "Raising all boats" was the pretext for destroying the human habitat. There have never been more billionaires; yet we have a widening wealth gap. Let's close that gap, beginning in the United States.
