Letter to the Editor: Climate Change – Truth or Consequence for Wisconsin

I am disappointed with Wisconsin’s current policies that eviscerate evidence-based science from the DNR public information regarding climate change. “As it has done throughout the centuries, the earth is going through change. The reasons for this change at this particular time in the earth’s long history are being debated and researched by academic entities outside the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.” The DNR recently changed its site [with a page] titled “The Great Lakes and a changing world.” Less than three percent of climate scientists would make such a statement. The science is settled with the same certainty as cigarette smoking being connected to cancer.

I am also disappointed that Wisconsin is at the bottom of Midwestern states for clean energy jobs.

I am disappointed that Wisconsin spends close to $16 billion each year on imported fossil fuels resulting in that money leaving our economy.

I am disappointed in all the health effects resulting in both economic and personal hardship that the burning of fossil fuels causes.

I am disappointed that our burning of fossil fuels will harm other innocent people and wildlife. As a country we have the highest per capita contribution to greenhouse gases compared to the rest of the world. Our wealth has come from the extraction of resources and their combustion at the expense to a sustainable ecosystem.

We are out of touch with reality and the reckoning is approaching. This reckoning will include the removal of politicians that have overreached and chosen the wrong side of this issue. This reckoning will result in future generations having to carry a heavier burden because we did not respond to what science is telling us, sooner. Our choice to address climate change is an insurance policy most rationale people prefer to choose.

The good news is that study after study shows the costs of mitigation to be relatively minimal resulting in better economies and less health problems. There are effective market-based proposals such as a carbon fee and household dividend that most citizens should be able to stomach if not embrace.

The rest of the world and other states are looking at us and scratching their heads.

Fortunately there are other states like California and Minnesota that are taking a more rational approach to climate and energy policy.

I wish we would join them on this path.

John Hermanson

Sturgeon Bay, Wis.