On climate, a study in opposites
I’m writing in response to two recent pieces in — an article (“Can we have a ‘moonshot’ for climate?,” July 20), and a commentary (“PNM’s message doesn’t square with reality,” July 20). Both appeared in the paper on a day when the temperature in Santa Fe reached 95 degrees.
Across the country that day, 19 cities set or matched high temperature records. In Baton Rouge, La., the Mississippi River measured 41 feet, higher than normal, still a foot above major flood stage, five days after Hurricane Barry made landfall. According to CBS News, at least six deaths in the United States that day were blamed on excessive heat. The Public Service Company of New Mexico website reported at 1:30 p.m. delivering 14 percent renewable energy to customers. By 3 p.m., PNM renewable energy dropped to 9 percent.
We don’t need a multitrillion dollar climate change research project that might or might not produce a positive outcome in a decade. The psychology of a “‘moonshot” project lets ordinary people live our daily lives without doing anything right now about climate change.
To the reporter’s credit, the “moonshot” article does close by citing a researcher who calls for a shift in attitude toward a sense of urgency. The psychology of the “PNM message” commentary is misleading and divisive. The writer, Larry Behrens, disparages unnamed organizations with the term “eco-left” and accuses PNM
of dishonestly crafting the Energy Transition Act in a series of closed meetings and email exchanges.
The Energy Transition Act was the subject of multiple public committee hearings in the New Mexico House and Senate. Amendments to the bill were offered and voted on by our elected officials from across the state. You can’t please everybody all the time, but in the end the final version of the bill attempted to thread a needle between renewable energy development and the economic impact on the citizens of our state whose livelihood depends on coal.
Ultimately, the Energy Transition Act passed the Legislature and was signed by the governor to become law. Power the Future participated in the legislative process and lost.
Behrens, author of the “PNM message” commentary, is identified on the Power the Future website as a former communications director for New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez. Power the Future is a 501(c)(4) organization founded by a former employee of the Charles Koch Institute and not required to publicly disclose funding sources.