The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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March 15, 2010

Your View: Only citizens can aid climate change impact

By John W. Kluge, New Ulm

— Only James Hansen’s new book, “Storms of My Grandchildren,” provides information the citizens of the United States and the world will need so we can switch from a fossil fuel economy to one based on renewable energy, such as solar and wind. He also presents a strong case for the development of fourth generation breeder nuclear reactors to provide electrical energy to replace coal power plants.

This will be especially important in India and China which are using coal in increasing amounts to generate electricity. If we allow the carbon dioxide buildup to continue in the atmosphere and the oceans, we will eventually cause the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland to disappear with devastating results from rising sea levels. Dr. Hansen shows how continued warming of the oceans will result in the release of methane from its frozen state along the continental shelves to a gas which is many times more dangerous than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

I would encourage everyone to read Hansen’s book to see where we are heading if we continue business as usual. The Congress of the United States will not be able to address this pressing issue because it is under the control of corporate lobbyists and the corporations which are profiting from the use of fossil fuels.

Only concerned citizens who are informed of the risks of our current fossil fuel use and have knowledge with which to move forward can prevent global climate change from severely impacting current and future generations of human beings, as well as the lives of all the other species of plants and animals on Planet Earth.

 

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