Focus on achievable climate actions

The news that National Grid will use only “renewable” sources of gas by 2050 is good, insofar as it shows the company is beginning to address the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“Committing to ‘green’ power grid,” April 24).

But assuring the public that pipelines will one day be flowing with “renewable” gas looks suspiciously like an unrealistic promise, delivered in order to keep pipelines, rather than the planet, operating.

The technologies to produce “green” hydrogen and biogas from cow manure have great potential, but they are not yet up to providing energy at the scale, and within the timeline, that the climate crisis demands.

Perhaps National Grid hopes that beguiling us with possible future solutions will take our minds off the actual solutions, which are waiting to be enacted in the current Legislature. Many of these focus on electrifying the housing and transportation sectors.

Following the lead of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie must support the All-electric Building Act and encourage a plan to retrofit millions of homes for renewable heat.

On the transportation front, we need legislation that increases the affordability and ease of ownership of electric vehicles for lower-income New Yorkers and provides more electric vehicle charging stations.

A day may come when green hydrogen powers our machines and cow manure is transmogrified on a large scale into biogas. As for now, however, we need to concentrate on what’s in front of us.

Elizabeth Poreba

New Lebanon