Letters to the Editor: Use the Defense Production Act to fight climate change and punish Russia

President Biden speaks about further sanctions against Russia over its attack on Ukraine at the White House on March 11.
President Biden speaks about additional sanctions towards Russia over its assault on Ukraine on the White Home on March 11.
(Andrew Harnik / Related Press)

To the editor: Kudos to The Occasions Editorial Board for affirming that one of the simplest ways President Biden can reply to Russian chief Vladimir Putin’s murderous aggression is by accelerating renewable vitality and ending our dependence on fossil fuels.

As my group has described, Biden can confront the Ukraine disaster and vitality value spikes by utilizing his authority underneath the Protection Manufacturing Act. That will permit him not solely to deploy energy-efficient warmth pumps for European allies, but additionally to ramp up home manufacturing and deployment of photo voltaic, wind and energy-efficiency applied sciences on a wartime footing within the U.S. and around the globe.

This plan would alleviate the atlas of human struggling brought on by the local weather disaster, create jobs, assist folks get monetary savings on vitality and undermine the ability of petro-states equivalent to Russia. In reality, greater than 200 organizations have known as on Biden to do exactly this, with a precedence on climate-vulnerable communities.

We hope the president will hear.

Maya Golden-Krasner, Los Angeles

The author is deputy director of the Heart for Organic Range’s Local weather Legislation Institute.

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To the editor: Your editorial web page rightly argues that we “have to speed up renewable vitality and hasten the top of fossil fuels.” Nonetheless, efforts to fight local weather change should embrace a muscular public engagement part.

Have a look at the general public response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines have been developed at warp pace; the issue was that enormous numbers of individuals refused to be vaccinated and refused to do the opposite issues that might cease the virus’ unfold, equivalent to carrying a masks or social distancing.

Unscrupulous politicians exploited the general public’s unease by politicizing the state’s response to the virus: They mentioned Sacramento was the issue, not the virus. This resulted in numerous pointless hospitalizations and deaths.

We have to increase the general public’s consolation degree with the drastic modifications wanted to fight local weather change. Individuals have to be satisfied that a future wherein they reside sustainably and their vehicles, homes and garden mowers run on electrical energy won't imply a decline of their high quality of life.

In any other case, there's going to be a political backlash that can undo these vitally mandatory insurance policies.

Fred Smoller, Orange

The author is an affiliate professor of political science at Chapman College and the co-founder of the Orange County Sustainability Decathlon.

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To the editor: People are uncovered to all kinds of media that places the sights and sounds of wars, genocides, college students murdered in school rooms, terrorism, pandemics and a lot extra proper in entrance of us.

To appease and regulate, some flip to substance abuse, some shout throughout household gatherings, some arrange and attend protest rallies, some plead with authorities leaders and a few pray. Most attempt to defend their youngsters.

Many flip away, unwilling to talk of or take into account the tragic occasions that aren't on their doorstep.

In the event you look out your door and don’t see, really feel or hear it, you would possibly downplay or deny the connection of local weather change to the prolonged droughts, famine, extreme storms, disappearing shorelines and ravaging fires which can be killing life on Earth.

However what are you prepared to do when the implications of an Earth warmed by burning fossil fuels and exacerbated by your personal use of oil and gasoline are there while you do open that door?

Kathleen Brown, Santa Clarita

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To the editor: It appears to me that I learn an identical editorial nearly 50 years in the past throughout the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, concerning the pitfalls of our reliance on fossil fuels.

The circumstances and gamers are completely different, however the finish result's primarily the identical, and now greater than ever we we are able to add the specter of local weather change.

We now have the required know-how. We now want our legislators to look previous politics as regular and are available collectively to place us on a fast path to scale back our reliance on fossil fuels. Because the editorial precisely states, “The whole lot must be on the desk in pursuit of this aim.”

Joe Grauman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Oil costs are going up. Power is a nationwide safety situation. America subsidizes oil firms, that are making large income.

These are all info that don't add as much as a smart plan. Add the large menace that local weather change poses, and this enterprise as regular “plan” is outrageously silly.

Because the conflict in Ukraine has aptly proven us, we'd like to have the ability to have considerable vitality with out being beholden to antidemocratic despots.

The clear vitality transition is upon us, and we have to totally and quickly embrace this actuality. Many instruments are essential to adapt. Placing a value on carbon can be a superb mechanism to encourage utilizing much less fossil fuels and additional innovate the units that we have to guarantee clear vitality is at all times accessible.

Drilling and constructing extra pipelines take time and take us backward. Oil helped get us into the mess we're in; it isn't the reply to get us out.

Melissa Waters, Laguna Niguel

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