Volstead Lounge
True Cost of Dirty Fuel
RECEIVED Tue., Aug. 25, 2009
Dear Editor,
Re: Aug. 21 article "Twisting in the Wind" [News]: In her well-written article, Nora Ankrum points out that although Austin Energy "aims to use a certain percentage of renewables, ERCOT will ultimately decide what to dispatch, and its decisions will be '100 percent economic' as [Roger] Duncan puts it." Unfortunately, these economic decisions are based upon fatally flawed models that do not include the true costs associated with the dirty fuels we use: climate change, respiratory disease, mountaintop removal, resource wars, etc.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Stern report released in 2006 regarding costs of global warming "looks at the net present value of implementing strong mitigation policies and finds that the benefits of such action exceed the costs by $2.5 trillion annually" (www.ucsusa.org).
Unless we internalize the environmental and public health costs of burning fossil fuels, we will continue on our current path toward ecological and economic catastrophe. We must reform our economic measurement tools pronto.
Let's remember the old Cree proverb: Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that money cannot be eaten. Onward!
Re: Aug. 21 article "Twisting in the Wind" [News]: In her well-written article, Nora Ankrum points out that although Austin Energy "aims to use a certain percentage of renewables, ERCOT will ultimately decide what to dispatch, and its decisions will be '100 percent economic' as [Roger] Duncan puts it." Unfortunately, these economic decisions are based upon fatally flawed models that do not include the true costs associated with the dirty fuels we use: climate change, respiratory disease, mountaintop removal, resource wars, etc.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Stern report released in 2006 regarding costs of global warming "looks at the net present value of implementing strong mitigation policies and finds that the benefits of such action exceed the costs by $2.5 trillion annually" (www.ucsusa.org).
Unless we internalize the environmental and public health costs of burning fossil fuels, we will continue on our current path toward ecological and economic catastrophe. We must reform our economic measurement tools pronto.
Let's remember the old Cree proverb: Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that money cannot be eaten. Onward!
Rick Morgan
