LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Virginia Must Focus On Clean Energy
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
In response to the editorial, "The Ax Falls": When transportation officials are threatening to cut spending in Virginia, we can't just hope they choose the best infrastructure plans to invest in. We must demand to get out of the same traps that got us here in the first place. Does it make sense to invest in road repair and bridge building? Doesn't that just mean we'll depend even more on cars and gas?Virginia needs to put its resources toward innovative projects to get trucks off the roads, like a railway along I-81. We need to extend the Norfolk light rail -- seven miles is not enough. But most of all, we need to create jobs around renewable energy -- not road building.
In Virginia, investments in energy efficiency can create as many as 10,000 new jobs by 2025. One recent study projected that a transformation to a clean-energy economy could bring more than 56,000 jobs to the commonwealth. Virginians can make this happen.
Our economy and environment demand that we switch to an economy powered by clean, renewable energy. Environment Virginia calls on Rep. Eric Cantor to support clean energy that stimulates job development.
Lindsey Hajduk. Charlottesville.
Perhaps Conservatives Gave to Charity Instead
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
Letter-writer Robert T. Adams suggested that liberals read more than conservatives. He made this conclusion upon the sole observation that there were several anti-Republican bumper stickers on cars in the parking lot of an area retail bookstore.He was asking for a response, and I have a logical one.
If Adams would read a real book, I suggest Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, by Arthur C. Brooks.
For an understanding of this book, there is an article in Chronicles of Philanthropy (Nov. 23, 2006). Brooks' survey gave statistical evidence that Republicans donate a greater percentage of their income to charity than Democrats.
Liberals tend to dig into the wallets of others through government; conservatives give a larger percentage of their own money to the charities of their choice. Apparently, area Republicans have recognized the need to donate more to charities this year -- and because of that, it is possible they might be purchasing fewer books at retail stores.
Just answering.
Pat O'Bannon.Henrico Board of Supervisors, Tuckahoe District.
Henrico.. . .
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Robert T. Adams made some interesting observations after his recent visit to a local bookstore [letter, "Maybe Liberals Are Simply Less Ignorant"]. I would disagree with his conclusion that liberals read real books more than conservatives.I, too, pass by the hybrids with the "No Nukes" and "1/20/2009" bumper stickers in the parking lots of my favorite bookstores. I notice the progressives settled in the overstuffed chairs reading current copies of Utne Reader or the latest biography of President-elect Barack Obama.
Since there are few liberals in line actually buying the books, I quickly make my purchases and depart. Maybe it's just that conservatives can tell the difference between a business and a library. Tom McGrath. Chesterfield.
Do We Want to Sequester All Those Os?
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
The scientists of the world have a plan to save us from Al Gore's greenhouse gasses. This brilliant but costly and energy-consuming process is called carbon sequestration. For every three tons of CO2 these brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning scientists sequester (while burning lots of additional energy in the process), they remove two tons of oxygen from the atmosphere and trap it for thousands of years. Hmmmm. People breath oxygen. Sequestering two tons of oxygen for every three tons of CO2 sounds like it just may cause a bigger problem than global warming down the road.Not that sequestering CO2 isn't a good idea. If you sequester it into a dying oil well, you double, sometimes quadruple the output of that well, and you definitely increase the overall barrels removed from the ground. More domestic oil is always a good thing, but to just pump it into the ground for no other reason than to waste energy and run self-righteous carbon credit commercials is something that borders on criminal.
CO2: Two parts oxygen and one part carbon. Isn't it funny that the smartest scientists in the room haven't figured that out? Maybe they aren't smarter than the average fifth-grader, either.
Trevor Berwick. Bumpass.
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Reader Reactions
A progressive is simply an embarassed liberal.
Brook’s stats on the generosity of conservatives vs liberals is well documented.
When liberals start spending their own money on charity and stop dictating how others should spend theirs. Pick up more non-fiction and less fairy tales, we can all get on with the business at hand.
There is an old adage that seems very on target for this discussion.
Conservatives believe that liberals ideas are wrong. Liberals believe that conservatives are stupid (ignorant) and that is why they always lose out in the end.
Amen
Big bad oil has indeed been using both natural and anthropogenic CO2 for years as a solvant to bring new life to old wells. It has the technology to capture and transmit the greenhouse gas to designated locations. Once there it is put to good use flushing out wells that were considered “dry.“
The “clean coal” proposal of sequestering CO2 in giant underground bunkers is a very dicey idea at best.
There is no technology at the moment to accomplish this and no one has any idea how volatile the gasses would be.
They would be like nuclear waste in that they would have to be stored for eons. And any seepage would simply drift back into the atmosphere to cause, what? Global warming.
There is some very promising experiments going on with algae ponds.
Algae just loves CO2 and thrives and grows mightily. This algae produces a sort of instant biomass that can then be converted to a form of fuel. Unfortunately at the moment the hundreds of acres of ponds required is prohibitive. Algae blooms the size of Cleveland would be a bit daunting.
But along with a little geo-engineering proposed at the latest global warming conference in Poland I am sure that we can come up with a solution for this non existant problem before the absent but not forgotten sun spots resume bouncing off the planet and reduce the recent chill…
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