Phil von Hake's Letter to the Editor re: "'Global problem for business,' and National & Local Denial of the Problem"

August 20, 2006

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_4204536
> Global warming

(parts of the letter that were actually published appear in bold)

Kudos to Gail Schoettler for her column on Global Climate Change - and attitudes toward its very existence - in the August 14 Sunday Denver Post. While Climate Change may be the biggest problem to ever confront humanity, I wonder if individuals' resistance to new ways of thinking and behaving is an even bigger problem. That resistance is certainly evident when we witness the White House and Congress ignore this problem in favor of frivolous wedge issues. But perhaps the greatest example of resistance to near-universal scientific consensus on Climate Change is happening right here in Colorado.

It has already been reported on in this and a few (but only a few) other Colorado papers that Intermountain Rural Electric Association recently gave $100,000 to Dr. Patrick Michaels, one of the scientific community's few remaining skeptics over humans' responsibility for the Climate Change problem (or that there even IS a problem). IREA is the co-op electric utility serving Denver's outer eastern, southern, and western suburbs. It remains 100%-coal-fired, and has fought Colorado's renewable energy efforts every step of the way. This latest action to counter "alarmists" like Al Gore – and almost everybody in the scientific community except Pat Michaels – is 19th-Century thinking at its finest: that we have unlimited resources, unlimited means for exploiting them, and unlimited places to dump the waste when we're done.

But just as the Apollo 13 astronauts nearly suffocated on their own carbon dioxide while returning home, we are pumping (or "dumping") unprecedented amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere in an experiment with global (and probably disastrous) consequences ... especially considering how we are running this experiment while living inside the test tube!

I am working with a new group of disaffected IREA customers called IREA Voices, dedicated to "Changing IREA, one voice at a time." Whether or not you are an IREA customer (but especially if you are a customer!), I urge you join us by sending an e-mail to IREAnews@gmail.com. Stay up to date with the latest news and actions we can take to stop this denial of reality, and help turn IREA from one of our most backward-thinking utilities into one more suited for life in the 21st Century.

Phil von Hake
Morrison, CO