Reading the news every day about climate change in our country and on the world stage reminds me of the words of the writer Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it”.

The Biden administration, pushed by the far-left Green New Deal faction, is using billions of taxpayer dollars in the recently passed infrastructure bill to promote alternative energy sources as Biden continues his war on fossil fuels. His arbitrary actions must be set aside until there can be a legitimate plan formed to move from our current status to a rational answer to the energy question.

We’ve been asked to follow the science during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’re completely ignoring the science when it comes to alternative energy sources. We need to stop listening to the Chicken Little sky is fall stories carried by the liberal media that replicate the likes of Swedish schoolchildren and less than shrewd Freshman congressmen.

Everyone is well aware that the climate in the United States is changing and has been for many years. During the 1970s, Newsweek and the Times had ongoing investigations claiming that oil companies and the capitalist way of life were to blame for the cooling of the climate. In 1997, Vice President Al Gore used his position as Chairman of the Presidential Council on Sustainable Development to launch an assault, not against an ice age, but according to his projections, we had only a decade left to save the planet from overheating. Drastic measures would be needed to reduce greenhouse gases, otherwise the world would reach a point of no return. He then produced a film called “An Inconvenient Truth” which earned him several million dollars as well as several awards.

The only problem with the movie was that about nine major errors were discovered by scientists. Meanwhile, Chief Energy Officer Dr. William Happer testified before a congressional hearing that science does not support man-made global warming. Gore had him fired soon after. He was reinstated during the Trump presidency. Gore and his global warming minions have formed a platform uniting many other activists in a climate change industry using it to scare uneducated schoolchildren and adults into believing carbon dioxide is the cause. of global warming to the point where life will not be sustainable in the not-too-distant future.

Somehow we have to show that there is no scientific consensus on global warming issues as activists and the liberal administration are pushing the panic button. We need to revive an informed debate on climate and energy by bringing common sense into the conversations. We must put an end to this dangerous mythology which harms our society, especially our school children.

Somewhere in our technological world there must be learned people in the fields of climatology, science, energy, automotive and space industry and other like-minded people who are willing to look into this problem. pragmatically and establish timelines, projects and processes to resolve the issue. provide a true picture of the climate problem, how long we actually have, and what needs to be done in the near and distant future to continue to make the earth a viable living space for humans.

The current administration is throwing money in all directions with the idea of ​​immediately stopping all coal, natural gas and oil mining and switching to electric vehicles. Unfortunately, no one in this administration has a clue how this is to be accomplished.

I am not a climatologist, scientist or engineer, but I am a retired aircraft mechanic with a background in electricity. Therefore, I have a lot of questions swirling around in my brain that I would like to have answered by knowledgeable people.

Let’s start with a hypothetical question: what if everyone had an electric vehicle?

The first question should be: how much lithium is available in the world to build the number of batteries needed? How much weight do these batteries add to the rated weight of an automobile? What is the useful life of this battery? How many miles can a vehicle be expected to run before a replacement is needed? How much would it cost to install a charging station in every household? Who should pay for the charging stations that will replace all gas stations? What is the average life of a fully charged battery? How much battery life will be deducted from fast charging at a charging station versus slow charging overnight in the vehicle’s garage? I haven’t even mentioned trucks, semi-trailers, agricultural machinery and other heavy industrial equipment. It upsets the mind. Oh, and finally, who and how will the infrastructure costs of roads and bridges be addressed?

The second question relates to the electrical grid in the United States, which I believe is already under strain, especially in major urban areas. What will happen when everyone comes home from work each day and plugs their car into their charging station, especially while dinner is cooking, the washer and dryer are running and are all electronics turned on?

Unfortunately, our federal government continues to pour money into renewable energy sources, albeit on a part-time basis, such as solar panels and wind turbines. Wind turbines never produce enough electrical energy to offset production, installation and maintenance costs. If we provided enough solar panels loaded with their poisonous ingredients to power the country, we wouldn’t have enough farmland to grow our food supplies and we would all perish.

The answer to the energy problem continues to be the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss. My first paragraph point on repeating history now comes to the fore. European countries, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, among others, have shut down their nuclear power plants in recent years, anticipating that renewables would provide enough energy. They were wrong. All of these countries have now reintegrated natural gas and nuclear energy into their green programs to combat climate change and have reopened their coal-fired power plants. We have seen what happened in these countries as they searched for new sources of oil and natural gas during the current global crisis.

The United States must turn its energy focus to nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants have provided 60% of the carbon-free electric power in the United States for the past 60 years, without a single life being lost due to a nuclear accident. The federal government should increase the visibility of the Obama administration’s GAIN 2016 program. It is the Gateway to Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear Power, a $900 million project to ensure continued research and development of existing and new nuclear power generation, such as light water and small modular reactors. Nuclear energy is the only solution to energy and climate problems.

Likewise, the automotive industry must continue to develop viable hybrid vehicles that run on petrol, LPG or diesel while charging batteries with the ability to switch to electric at cruising speeds. These vehicles would be the springboard for the development of true, safe and viable electric vehicles.

To put a point on the above, electric vehicle pioneer Elon Musk recently told President Biden that his plan would not work in its current form. Unfortunately, providing a climate future for the United States is not the job of the federal government. This project must come from private industry and soon. A pragmatic schedule and cost analysis provided by an apolitical scientific committee would be a good start.

Dave Sutton of South Beaver Township has been a resident of Beaver County for 45 years. He grew up on a dairy farm in Iowa and began his education at a one-room country school. He is now retired from a 50-year career in commercial aviation maintenance and learned the trade while serving in the US Marine Corps.