No escape?

Readers discuss climate change and the role alternative energy can play in addressing it

Methane hotspot needs addressing

THE MOST recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate change report from scientists worldwide is a clarion call for action. New Mexico should be leading the response because we have the brains — Los Alamos Labs, Sandia labs and others — and we’re blessed with the solar and wind power to transition our country ... from fossil fuels.

New Mexico also has the nation’s largest concentration of methane — a 2,500-squaremile cloud of methane hovering over the Four Corners region. Methane gas is 30 times more potent than CO2 greenhouse gases. New Mexico’s oil and gas operations are emitting 570,000 tons of methane every year through venting, flaring and leaking — equivalent to the climate impact of approximately 12 coal-fired power plants, according to a report of the Environmental Defense Fund. Furthermore, N.M. taxpayers are losing up to $27.6 million in taxes and royalty revenues per year from methane emissions.

Will the next governor take action to regulate and reduce the methane hotspot in the Four Corners, as well as regulate and reduce the revenue loss from methane emissions? I hope so. This should be a priority for both political parties and for all New Mexicans. Let’s lead the way forward.

LORA LUCERO Albuquerque

Climate change reaching critical

WE ARE RUNNING out of time.

The Oct. 9 Journal included the story “Report: Global warming life or death,” which outlined conclusions from the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The report lays out some differences between what will happen at a couple of levels of global warming. Currently, the globally-agreed upon limit is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems ambitious but is not enough. If humanity can lower that change to just 0.9 degrees F, we will still have major change, but not as damaging.

For one example, half as many people would suffer from lack of water. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, New Mexico is often abnormally dry, even for being a desert. In the meantime, havoc is wreaked by stronger and more frequent disasters, such as hurricane Michael.

According to the article, “Limiting warming to 0.9 degrees from now means the world can keep ‘a semblance’ of the ecosystems we have.”

But we are running out of time to avoid the worst damages. We have just a few years to make the needed changes.

And we have just a ... week to elect people who understand the crisis and will work to mitigate it — Democrats.

In Albuquerque, that means sending Deb Haaland to Congress. She’ll fight for clean energy, and bringing solar jobs to New Mexico. We can bank on our sunshine.

I want a bright future for my little niece. She is 2 years old. What’s ahead for her, and all the children?

We are running out of time to make those decisions.

... Our future depends on your vote.

MAURREEN SKOWRAN Interim Chair, Congressional District 1 Adelante Progressive Caucus Albuquerque

Climate cycle needs more space in press

THE ABQ JOURNAL, and all the other papers in town, committed the sin of omission that has plagued response to climate change science since I was born in 1966. The IPCC released a ... groundbreaking report showing the accelerated timeline of climate change effects and no one cared. But everyone cares when the hurricane lands or the fire destroys houses, or the crops are failing.

I know the climate cycle is hard to fit into the news cycle, but this is the most crucial background story the human race has caused and still lives with. All of our decisions need to factor in the contributions to atmospheric change

I am working with the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge on creating an installation to showcase their new ecological question about climate variability and aridity. The installation will use techniques of water collection and redistribution to model the variability of the changing climate and its effects on vegetation, just like the multi-decade experimental stations they are setting up in the Refuge. That’s not just an academic exercise. That’s articulating for the public what the world will look like when their children are having children.

We will all be asking why didn’t someone tell us, as the rains keep drying up and the floods keep ripping up the ground as the forests die and lose their roots. We will be asking “why didn’t you tell us?” as food becomes more and more expensive, as families are homeless due to fire, wind and flood destruction, as economies on the coasts crash, as insurance becomes a thing of the past, when premiums are too high for anyone to afford. We will be asking, “why didn’t you tell us?” Let’s all try to communicate now.

CATHERINE PAGE HARRIS Albuquerque

100 percent renewable electricity is doable

100% Renewable Electricity in 25 Years

IN SEPTEMBER the Journal published a column from PNM’s Ron Darnell the same day that Vox published an article by David Roberts, who had gotten a hold of a public survey and messaging advice by the Edison Electric Institute, the nationwide utility trade group, about renewable energy.

The survey found that 70 percent of Americans agree that: “In the near future, we should produce 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.”

Majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents agree that renewable energy is clean, cheap, provides new jobs and is the wave of the future, in addition, of course, to helping prevent climate disaster.

But many utilities aren’t crazy about changing their business model. They want to build costly gas plants, which tend to require lots of repairs and capital investment on which utilities can charge their customers a high rate of return.

“In short,” the article says, “their customers are stampeding in a direction that terrifies them.”

The industry group found that “customers do not want to hear excuses” and so offers instructions for framing the excuses: ‘Positive, prorenewable message first” by touting clean-energy investments. Then, electricity companies like PNM can turn the conversation to slowing things down — using words like “balanced,” “gradual” and “reliable.”

Which brings us to Darnell’s op-ed: After touting PNM’s renewable investments and commitment to get out of coal comes Darnell’s list of “buts” about the “feasibility” of wind, solar and storage and about PNM’s claimed need for nuclear energy.

But then, why is solar 75 percent cheaper than it was 10 years ago? Because we the people pushed elected leaders in dozens of states to create renewable requirements that spurred growth and sent costs plummeting. Why is rooftop solar a great deal? Our Public Regulation Commission, like those in many states, put a framework in place that allowed local installation companies to boom, lowering costs and creating jobs. By connecting PNM’s grid to the larger region we drastically reduce the impact of the variability of wind and solar.

We get to 100 percent renewable electricity within 25 years. What we can’t do is risk widespread drought, famine and skyrocketing food prices in our children’s lifetimes because we left their fates in the hands of the companies that profit from pollution.

MELINDA SMITH Albuquerque

Support climate change candidates

THE COLLISION of two different mental universes has been on full display recently in the Journal op-ed pages. In one universe, the advocates of coal, oil and gas tout their benefits. “Look at the profits, the jobs, the booming N.M. tax revenues!” Don’t worry about water and air pollution; and ignore climate change completely.

In the other universe we have the Oct. 6. report by the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issuing its most dire warning yet, nearly screaming at us — in sober scientific language — to do something to prevent the coming disastrous effects of global warming, which is caused by CO2 emissions from the same coal, oil and gas extraction profiting New Mexico.

And then on Oct. 10, Cat. 4 Hurricane Michael slams into Florida, literally scrubbing Mexico Beach from the map in a 10-milewide swath of nature’s destruction. News reports note that this storm’s 155 mph winds were juiced up by the “unusually warm” waters of the Gulf. But with 93 percent of global warming going into the oceans, the old “unusual” is the new normal and keeps getting worse as we burn those “profitable” fossil fuels.

I present a talk on moving New Mexico to 100 percent clean renewable energy, and I get the following recurring questions after showing the record levels of warming and the coming devastation forecast by 97 percent of climate scientists, “Why aren’t we doing something about it? Don’t these CEOs have children too? Don’t they care? Do they think they’ll be immune from the coming droughts, heat waves, rising oceans, hurricanes, the famines in coming decades as crop yields suffer?” And all I can say is, “It’s all about the money”. What an unsatisfying answer! We know what we have to do. We must convert urgently to 100 percent clean energy, slow our population growth, conserve energy, eat less red meat, etc. — see more at Drawdown.org. But we need our government to help solve this, not make it worse. So what can we do? Be climate voters. Vote like your future depends on it. Vote on Nov. 6.

TOM SOLOMON, Co-coordinator of 350.org New Mexico Albuquerque