With climate change looming as unquestionably the biggest issue of our time, century and millennium, Ohio is among the worst culprits yet the least responsive of any state in the country to this issue.
And we in the United States, with 4 percent of the world's population, emit 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. We need a massive change to efficiency, wind and solar energy that will also boost our economy in many ways.
First, it would eliminate the sensitivity of our market to energy prices, as we are seeing now in the automotive, trucking and other energy-wasteful sectors.
Second, it will create the jobs that we now ship overseas by producing that energy here at home in Ohio with solar, wind and ecological biofuels.
We need to kick out corrupt Republicans who are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, and elect Democrats that care about the future quality of life on our planet.
I have lived with entirely solar energy since more than a decade ago and know firsthand how well it works. And the technology is improving massively. Ohio has better solar resources than Germany, a country that is among the world leaders in solar energy use.
One thing every Ohioan should immediately do is replace energy-wasteful incandescent lights to compact fluorescents. You will save more than ten times the cost of the bulbs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Statewide, we need to end our taxpayer subsidy of coal. That's right, we are actually subsidizing the biggest culprit of climate change ' coal. Our coal industry bought off Republican lawmakers are subsidizing the poisoning of our air and water and the decimation of our land with coal mining with tens of millions of our state taxpayer dollars. These subsidies should instead go to energy efficiency, and solar and wind energy production.
If we care about our future and about how our actions affect the health of our planet, we need massive change toward the proven technology of wind, solar and biofuels. We have known for decades the need for this change. It is time to get political, register to vote, campaign for Democrats and kick out the main cause of global warming in America: Republican anti-environmental policies and Global Warming Bush.Chad Kister writes from Athens.
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Letter to the Editor
