Pearce’s climate talk is full of hot air

(REP.) STEVE PEARCE’S op-ed, “Climate change rhetoric is now way overheated” (Dec. 13), follows the Republican playbook of spouting the same misinformation with the goal of getting the uninformed to believe it.

He states that Democrats and Republicans strongly oppose the climate accord. Only Republican congressmen strongly oppose it; Republican citizens do not strongly oppose it.

The reason (President) Obama did not want Congress to approve it was because he knew they would not. Republicans would, as usual, ignore science and what was best for the planet and stick with their base — the fossil fuel industry. The industry now is switching to acknowledging the facts of global warming and the causes — not Republicans.

Pearce is concerned about devastating electricity cost increases due to controlling emissions at power plants. He is not concerned about the deaths caused by pollution. Reducing pollution caused by coalburning power plants is the largest single step that could be made, not minimal as he states. Power rate increases can be minimized by taxing pollution and refunding it to the customers.

He claims that switching to clean energy will cost thousands of jobs. Experience shows that not to be true. It creates jobs of a different type. How many jobs did the conservative austerity ideology cost during the recession?

President Obama was quoting what science says will be the result of global warming. Science says the time left to address global warming is limited and the peak temperature rise we can stand is rather small. The military says rise in water levels — they believe in science — will cause big problems. The volume of refugees will be far greater than today and they are going somewhere.

Pearce bemoans the cost of the assistance we are going to give to developing countries because of global warming. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are the primary cause of it and should shoulder a share of the cost to address it.

Scientists say the results of not addressing the problem will be dire to our planet and civilization. We should not have anyone in a position of importance in our government who denies global warming.

LEON LOGAN

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