Planet, people over profit and politics
Over the past decade or so, in various letters and presentations regarding climate change, I have frequently concluded by invoking the Rule of the Nine P’s: Please prioritize planet and people over profit, power, politics, poisons, and partisanship.
While lacking specificity as to what grass-root actions might be relevant, the rule delineates broad areas of consideration in discussing how to prevent and avoid the devastation and destruction of our common home.
On the other hand, a very concrete effort is the recently outlined campaign by President Biden. He has laid out a 10-year goal of conserving 30% of the U.S. by 2030, an inclusive and bold vision for safeguarding America’s lands, water, and wildlife. This is clearly an ambitious but necessary goal, for scientists have declared that protecting 30% is the very bare minimum needed to save nature and ameliorate the worst impacts of climate change.
With its scenic and spacious territory, Colorado is an enviable outdoor mecca providing world-class outdoor recreational opportunities on public lands, and can certainly benefit from this program. We must do everything we can to preserve these opportunities.
To achieve 30% protection of our state’s lands (or, 20 million acres thereof), with about 10% (or, 6 million acres thereof) already protected, we need to mobilize our populace to seek to protect and restore at least 20% more of additional land (or, 14 million acres).
Actions might include becoming familiar with the Save the Colorado movement, writing state legislators to support the Colorado CORE (Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy) Act, or familiarizing oneself with the Rights of Nature movement. Each of these can be easily accessed through Google.
And, any one of those would be helping to implement the favored Rule of the Nine P’s.
Tom Stumpf
Longmont
Trust science? Then trust renewable energy
The engineer from Fredrick has told us to totally pack it. There is no chance renewable energy will succeed in any way. The automobile industry is wasting its time on non-fossil fuel vehicles. He tells Colorado to forget any attempt to stop the damage that carbon-based fuels have created for our planet. I can’t help wonder what this guy owes the oil industry. Does he, or anyone, deny that carbon-based fuels have damaged our environment? He can have the opinion that climate change is not man-made. Fine, but I am not sure there is any scientist that believes fossil fuels do not hurt the environment.
He uses Texas’ inability to sufficiently weatherproof its systems and the stupidity of isolating its electrical grid which caused them great problems as proof green energy cannot work. In contrast, El Paso, Texas, had no problem because they were on a shared grid.
Our engineer sounds like the carriage manufacture or a wheelwright at the turn of the 20th Century. I would think an engineer would have some faith in technology that can and will overcome what we see as limitations at this moment. We have watched science and technology progress by leaps and bounds in the last 60 years and do nothing but accelerate. All the known renewables plus some that may be unknown at the present are there for technology to work their magic on. There was a time that crude oil was looked at as messy gunk ruining a piece of land, and technology turned it into a product that made millions before it ruined all the land. It’s time to change.
To quote Bob Dylan, “Your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand. For the times they are a-changin’.”
Jim Davies
Longmont
