Electric buses help climate as well as school districts

According to a recent editorial, Republicans are proposing a bill to delay replacing diesel school buses with electric buses, although diesel fumes are bad for our children and our environment (“The electrification slide,” Feb. 19).

The editorial points out that there are “pots” of government money available to help school districts with the costs of transitioning to an electric fleet. To many citizens, however, those “pots” represent either “other people’s money” or profligate governmental spending. People who think this way are not climate deniers or fossil fuel lackeys. They just don’t like the idea of throwing money at problems.

The best way to convince those reluctant to invest in electric buses is to remind them of what we would all like to forget: the urgency of the climate crisis. At the rate we are going, the global temperature is going to rise about 2.5 degrees Celsius to 2.9 degrees Celsius, yet a rise over 1.5 degrees Celsius is guaranteed to bring incalculable harm to the planet. This urgency makes it incumbent on school districts to find creative, flexible ways to eliminate the pollution coming from their buses, perhaps by first electrifying the easier routes as electric technology improves.

Besides, speaking of throwing money at problems, each electric school bus costs approximately $100,000 less in fuel and maintenance over its life than a diesel bus. This means that districts will ultimately save — not throw away — money by doing the right thing. Christine Sheppard Ithaca