Letter writer Baruch Blum urges The Link to print more stories regarding global warming (“Cover Climate Change” July 20, 2023). The author would have the world void itself of fossil fuels and as a result, go electric via solar and wind. No doubt a noble gesture but naïve, nonetheless. I suspect that after the first summer rolling blackout in Teaneck (as in many other cities), global warmingists would change their tune. In truth, the author’s request is long on emotional hysteria and short of facts, to wit: based upon what transpired last year in California, state officials warned EV owners not to charge their cars. That said, unless nuclear power provides the needed power to supply the already tottering US electrical grid, the loss of fossil fuels would throw the U.S. back to the Stone Age.
The global warming activists and politicians (who routinely jet around the world) have usurped, misappropriated and commandeered meteorological science for their misguided agendas. For every so-called scientist who claims that CO2 is the main culprit for rising oceans, one can find 10 scientists who prove otherwise. For every politician demanding we purchase an EV, one can find medical experts who theorize that driving a Tesla is as dangerous as living under high-tension power lines.
And what of the batteries supplying EVs? Ninety percent of lithium batteries are manufactured in China (of all places), a country that controls the supply of rare earth (and devastatingly polluting) elements that go into the production of batteries. Activist politicians are ignorant of the fact that the energy needed to mine those elements (via fossil fuel sources) far exceeds the amount of battery power produced.
I have no qualms about harnessing cleaner sources of energy to keep our world clean and safe. But there is a need for rational assessments, consensus and forethought to properly plan these issues through. Ramming down our throats untested and un-researched governmental mandates and policies is akin to high diving into an inch of water.
Herbert Burack
Teaneck
