Tag Archives: Richard Whiteford

Cut carbon emissions to save our health, planet

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Letter in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Oct 22, 2019. Richard Whiteford and World Information Transfer are affiliated with CCEA.

Last November, both the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports said humanity has 12 years to cut carbon emission in half and to zero by 2045 or it is highly possible that humans may not survive the ravishes of climate change. These reports were compiled by over 2,000 peer reviewed climatologists from over 160 nations.

Despite this, Pennsylvania’s Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee scheduled a hearing to pass legislation to protect coal-fired power plants, the most polluting and CO2 emitting power source in existence, from a proposed carbon tax.

Heading this effort is Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, supported by Reps. James Struzzi, R-Indiana, Donna Oberlander, R-Clarion, and Pam Snyder D-Green. Rep. Daryl Metcalf, R-Butler, is holding a House hearing on the same issue Oct. 28.

Their efforts, if successful, will increase CO2 emissions. Are they blind to the health care cost from burning coal, the cost of extreme storm damage from floods caused by a heating atmosphere (2017 was the worst on record costing Pennsylvania $163.5 million) or the economic benefits of the 90,772 clean energy jobs created in Pennsylvania in 2019?

Mr. Yaw pays lip service to clean energy but is working very hard to kill it behind the scenes. They whip out the same old saw that cutting fossil fuels will kill jobs, hurt the economy and disrupt our energy supply. Well, not if they strongly supported clean energy and gave it more incentives than given to the fossil industry.

What kind of moral ethics, or lack thereof, allow them to sacrifice the futures of our children to an uninhabitable planet to keep the dirty fossil industry alive? How old will your children be in 2045?

RICHARD WHITEFORD, Downingtown, Pa.
The writer is a climate change consultant and educator and a board member of the World Information Transfer.

We only have 12 years to save the planet

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Letter, Washington Post, 1/14/19. See the calendar for Richard Whiteford’s presentation on climate change in Downington on June 17.

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions surged 3.4 percent in 2018, but that doesn’t stop climate change deniers from peddling their “climate change is a hoax” snake oil [“U.S. greenhouse gas emissions spiked 3.4 percent in 2018,” Politics & the Nation, Jan. 8]. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Assessment reports late last year made it clear that the world must cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 45 percent in 12 years to preserve any hope of maintaining a livable planet.

Twelve years. All of humanity should be tackling the climate change problem as though their lives depend on it — because they do. Do climate-change deniers not have children and grandchildren? For what reason are they willing to forfeit the welfare of future lives?

Two immediate needs are to convert energy systems from fossil to clean-energy technology and to tax fossil fuels at their source. Converting world energy from fossil to clean energy would stimulate economies and negate the need for developing countries to rely on fossil fuels to build their economies.

Richard Whiteford, Downington, Pa.

The writer is a climate change adviser and board member of World Information Transfer, a nonprofit organization promoting environmental health and literacy.