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To the editor:
I'm writing to address the piece by Richard Nolan that was published in the Herald-Star last Sunday.
The EPA carries out laws passed by elected officials. There has long been a cynical effort by greedy polluters to blame the EPA for laws enacted through the normal legislative process. Voters are becoming more informed about climate change. Many of us have had personal experience with illegal dumping, abandoned strip mines and dirty water and air.
You'll never hear the fossil fuels industry mention the phrase "superfund site" because they would rather you not think about how things turn out when industry gets to monitor itself without constraint. They'd like you to concentrate your hatred around the EPA. And that's what this is all about, a campaign of hatred and fear in an attempt to get the focus away from the enormous amount of greenhouse gases that are being pumped into the atmosphere.
We can do something about this, but things would go so much better if we all put our efforts into making the future safe and clean for the generations who will live in that future instead of grubbing for money and ignoring what science says about the effects CO2 emissions are having on our planet.
One other issue that gets lost in all the scaremongering and misinformation concerns employment. When jobs are lost due to the transition to clean energy, the workers affected must be compensated without having to jump through a lot of hoops, they must not be made to bear the burden of going from the present dangerous energy policy to a safe future. If we can bail out Wall Street titans like we did 15 years ago, then we can help those who have had their livelihoods taken from them as we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
We have one planet, let's work cooperatively and unselfishly to make it safe for those who will have to live here.
John Rucki
Amsterdam