AFS Cinema
Shortsighted Ignorance
RECEIVED Mon., Feb. 12, 2007
Dear Editor,
A little history lesson for our coal-fired governor. Approximately 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum, sea levels around the world were significantly lower. A recent high-resolution chronometric study by the Florida Geologic Survey puts the Gulf of Mexico roughly 400 feet lower than it is today. Much of what is presently ocean water was glacial ice during the Pleistocene. This allowed the colonization of North America by humans via the Bering Land Bridge and possibly along contiguous ice extending to Western Europe (though the later route is debatable). Slowly, over the course of 15,000 years, the sea level raised to its present level approximately 5,000 years ago.
Today, more than a dozen coal-fired power plants are being fast-tracked for the TXU Corporation by their top recipient of campaign contributions, Rick Perry. The shortsighted ignorance of this is appalling at best. The emissions produced by the proposed power plants not only have health-related ramifications for the citizens of Texas in terms of particulate air pollution and mercury air emissions but will make Texas the seventh-largest greenhouse gas contributor in the world.
With the increasing pace of glacial ice melt caused by global warming, we will soon see a human-accelerated version of the sea-level change seen at the end of the Pleistocene. Over the next several decades, we will start to see incremental increases in coastal sea level. Initially, this will cause increased flooding during high tide and storm events, and as time passes, we will begin to lose low-lying coastal communities. In a hundred years, the barrier islands will be reduced to a sliver if not completely inundated, and the town of Rockport (where I presently reside) will be largely underwater.
Perry is only mimicking his predecessor, George Bush, who has taken this disastrous short-term gain today/environmental catastrophe tomorrow energy plan and made it national policy. Please raise hell, and stop this.
A little history lesson for our coal-fired governor. Approximately 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum, sea levels around the world were significantly lower. A recent high-resolution chronometric study by the Florida Geologic Survey puts the Gulf of Mexico roughly 400 feet lower than it is today. Much of what is presently ocean water was glacial ice during the Pleistocene. This allowed the colonization of North America by humans via the Bering Land Bridge and possibly along contiguous ice extending to Western Europe (though the later route is debatable). Slowly, over the course of 15,000 years, the sea level raised to its present level approximately 5,000 years ago.
Today, more than a dozen coal-fired power plants are being fast-tracked for the TXU Corporation by their top recipient of campaign contributions, Rick Perry. The shortsighted ignorance of this is appalling at best. The emissions produced by the proposed power plants not only have health-related ramifications for the citizens of Texas in terms of particulate air pollution and mercury air emissions but will make Texas the seventh-largest greenhouse gas contributor in the world.
With the increasing pace of glacial ice melt caused by global warming, we will soon see a human-accelerated version of the sea-level change seen at the end of the Pleistocene. Over the next several decades, we will start to see incremental increases in coastal sea level. Initially, this will cause increased flooding during high tide and storm events, and as time passes, we will begin to lose low-lying coastal communities. In a hundred years, the barrier islands will be reduced to a sliver if not completely inundated, and the town of Rockport (where I presently reside) will be largely underwater.
Perry is only mimicking his predecessor, George Bush, who has taken this disastrous short-term gain today/environmental catastrophe tomorrow energy plan and made it national policy. Please raise hell, and stop this.
Christopher W. Ringstaff
Rockport
Rockport
