Letters: U.S. lags in confronting global warming - The Oshkosh Northwestern

U.S. lags in confronting global warming

Are you as dismayed as I am about the dumbing down of America? Some know-nothings believe vaccination leads to autism. Other cranks thought fluoridation was a Communist plot.

Unfortunately the problem with global warming isn't with the science but with the unfair-and-unbalanced propaganda of interest groups and politicians. The American fossil-fuel industries and their allies debunk and lobby against remedial action.

In 2008, both presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, warned about man-made global warming and supported legislation to curb emissions. In 2011 only Jon Huntsman among the GOP presidential contenders agreed that the problem is real. Obama, too, is backsliding. (His Administration is fighting to exempt US airlines from Europe's plan to charge for CO2 emissions and is going along with the proposed oil pipeline from Canada which will put relatively high levels of emissions into the atmosphere.)

In 2006 79 percent of Americans believed we were experiencing global warming, In 2011 this was down to 59 percent. Whereas in the US only 38 perfect were willing to pay more for energy in order to address climate change, more than 70 percent of those polled in China, India, and South Korea were willing. Brazil and Australia are among nations taking remedial action. Many countries in Europe have come to see combating climate change as about "opportunities rather than costs." China and India, which stonewalled at the UN's Copenhagen conference, have changed their policies. (China enacted a cap-and-trade system. India passed a carbon tax on coal.)

Martin Gruberg

Oshkosh