Cannamela letter: Our environment

We’ve made that mistake already.

My brother-in-law calls himself a tree-hugging Republican; actually he’s a fly-fisher, birdwatcher, etc. Either way, if you are of that ilk, please step up to tell your president-elect that we want to go forward not backwards. If the extraction industries are in charge of our energy and natural resource agencies, we can expect a return to the days of a dirty, unsustainable economy with deleterious impacts on our health and environment. We can look forward to low-paying jobs in the smog — the next Bejing? Is Flint, Mich., a hoax? Is this your vision for making America great? We don’t have to trash our environment to have a healthy economy. Why remain hostage to fossil fuels? We can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, regardless of whose land they are buried under, by curbing consumption and investing in clean energy. Solar represents a clean economy that’s just ripe for the picking — if we have the wisdom, political will, and government leadership to pursue it. And viable electric cars, charged by solar-generated juice, are increasingly available. Why on Earth would we go back to primitive and deleterious practices? We should be looking up, not down.

This story was originally published December 24, 2016 at 7:57 PM with the headline "Cannamela letter: Our environment."