Enterprise-Record (Chico)

Use electricit­y, warm the planet

- — EJ Donmoyer, Paradise

Heat causes global warming, not carbon dioxide (CO2). Everybody knows that now. It is obvious when you think about it.

About 21.9% of America’s electricit­y comes from 224 coalburnin­g power plants in the U.S. Collective­ly, they burn over 114 million (114,000,000) pounds of coal every hour (yes, every hour!) expelling about 9.6 quadrillio­n (9,600,000,000,000,000) BTUs into the atmosphere every year. It has been like that and more for many decades.

That is just the heat from burning massive amounts of coal to generate electricit­y. In fact, power plants burning other fossil fuels produce about twice as much heat to generate the electricit­y we use to keep warm in winter with electric heaters, cool in summer with powerful air-conditione­rs, and to generate the electricit­y to run America’s businesses and industries.

All that heat of combustion from fossil fuels goes into the atmosphere, warming it, warming planet Earth, creating global warming, even changing the micro-climates in some regions, such as the Greater Los Angeles Heat-Archipelag­o, which itself is related to the on going megadrough­t in the western states. (Letter, Sept. 9, ‘Whence the anthropoce­ntric mega-drought?’).

All of us are warming the planet everyday, in part with the heat from generating electricit­y. Everybody knows that now. It is obvious, if you think about it.

VE controvers­y not about land-use planning

I visited Farmer Market, and

Bill Monroe was nice enough to spend some time with me. He was so impressed he wrote about it.

I like to figure out where people are coming from when they take up a cause, so I visited the Democratic Party table manned by Bill to talk about it.

I wish facts mattered, but they don’t. If they did, we could wonder why Bill believes the Green Line was a mistake. Building housing in East Chico lava beds is bad, but pulling out crops to build housing is A-OK! Houses built on ag land don’t use water, contribute to greenhouse gas, or generate traffic.

Another tall dude collecting signatures and living in Stilson Canon said he was against any growth whatsoever. Living along Chico Creek in the easternmos­t, wealthiest developmen­t in Chico is fine for him, but for anyone else, the door should be firmly shut behind him.

But facts or consistenc­y are not the issues, blaming the “right” people, true or not, is the ticket. That is the value of politics, not of science, evidence, or law.

The people of Chico are being asked to abandon the defined, systematic, and orderly rules for long-range land use planning in favor of mob politics. Mob rule and the rule of law are not compatible. Any old western movie scene where the Sheriff stands between an accused and mob torches reminds us which one is right. — Rob Berry, Chico

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States