Cut off funds to those who deforest
To the editor:
Re: 31 Dec 2010 deforestation & electric cars. If we truly want to stop the destruction of our rain forests, just to identify one of the numerous problems, all we have to do is get our government to make the point. You stop burning the forests or we stop giving you dollars. Watch how quickly the smoke will clear away. But to do this, we need leadership with a backbone, and we are so lacking in that area today.
It’s easy to complain, but the solution is creating a reason for “them” to stop cutting and burning, and there in lays the problem.
About electric vehicles. May I question where our electricity comes from? Do we have a genie that just flips a switch for us? Friends, electricity comes from generators that are powered by coal, oil, water or atomic reaction. The only difference is that with electricity you don’t see or smell the results because power plants are out of sight. Out of sight don’t make it cleaner!! And to make things even worse, electricity requires transmission lines, storage points and distribution stations. Look at what we’re encompassing just so that you “think” that you’re running & burning cleaner energy. Electricity is not one bit cleaner, and, in the long run, more expensive than the processed fossil fuel you burn in your vehicle today. We need that thing called “an alternative energy source.” Alternative being a source of energy other than what we use today, right now in mass quantities. Hydrogen, solar, wind and nuclear to start with. It’s easy to re-package fossil fuels, and make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but we’re still polluting our immediate environment….We just don’t see it! “Please”, don’t allow marketing to brainwash you. Electric cars, battery powered cars and hybrids are not the real, long-term answer. For now, efficiency is our only viable point in sight, but we must allow the private sector to develop “alternative energy” that will power our homes, industry and vehicles in our world of tomorrow. Not government, Not social, but private industry and entrepreneurs, working hand in hand as they did in the past, without government interference.
Tony Silvain
Cape Coral