Op-Ed

Three stories to melt your heart -- and the ice cap

Let's get rid of poisonous fossil fuel power plants  and fossil politicians

By Richard Bartlett 

This past weekend had a revealing confluence of three news  stories.

The Massachusetts House voted to make renewable energy  projects a permitted use in all of our state's coastal waters except  from Chatham to Provincetown. The Alliance spent nearly $1 million  more on obstructionism than it took in last year. (That's $12,420,000  since 2002.

Last year's contributions ranged from $420,000 tops to  the lowest of $50,000. Hardlyjustifying it's "grassroots  pretensions!) And the United Nations Fourth Assessment Report was  released on Saturday.

The broad upshot of the U.N. report is that previous predictions  were too conservative.

Worldwide measurements show climate change is  occurring much faster than had been thought. The report identifies  the many catastrophic events that have already taken place. If you  Google "U.N. Climate Report" you can read  the report for yourself. It is written in language that is within  easy comprehension of us laypersons.

I'll mention just a couple of items that are of particular  interest for those of us who have witnessed the shamefully long 6  year contest between a wealthy and powerful few against the majority  of us who want their electricity to come from clean, renewable sources.

Sea level rise will not only change our coastline, it will  endanger our drinking water supply as underground brine pushes  against the fresh water aquifer.

For all the talk about birds "hitting meatgrinders," we who  watch and feed birds will be far more alarmed by the prediction that  global warming will cause 25% of endangered mammal and 12% of bird  species to become extinct in only a couple of decades.    

We have to get rid of those poisonous fossil fuel power plants  and those fossil politicians if we want to be kind to our progeny and  to all the peoples of this planet.

Richard C. Bartlett, Cotuit