An open letter to Congressman Tiffany

Dear Congressman Tiffany,

In the latest edition of your weekly e-newsletter, The Tiffany Telegram, you were highly critical of President Biden’s policies to address climate change, but you didn’t offer your views on climate change or any alternative proposals to address it.

According to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 58% of your constituents are worried about global warming; 67% believe it will harm future generations; 54% believe it is already harming people in the U.S.; and 53% think Congress should do more to address it.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently reported, “The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief, rapidly closing window to secure a livable future.” 

That is, if we seek to achieve energy independence by increasing our production of fossil fuels instead of greatly accelerating our transition to renewable energy, we’ll be sacrificing human well-being, the health of the planet, and a livable future.

This is a very serious concern for many of your constituents.  I think they deserve to know your position on climate change and what actions, if any, you think Congress should take to address it. I hope you’ll forthrightly address these concerns in the next issue of The Tiffany Telegram.

Bill Bussey
Bayfield, Wisconsin

Examining political affiliation

Most folks consider themselves Democrats, Republicans, other or refuse to be involved in politics altogether. How people become political might be traditional, through life experiences or not at all. Whatever the result, people seem to cling to their perspective firmly without questioning why.

In my own case my politics were formed by my upbringing and then by my business. I retired and moved to Northern Minnesota in 1999 and almost immediately discovered that many people were suffering from shortage of basic needs. My then political party was doing little to address these needs.

So I did some research and what I found was transformative for me. I discovered that the primary focus of Democrats was on individual basic needs such as food, shelter, jobs, health care, education and more.
The primary focus of Republicans is more about power and control, evidenced today as Republicans at both the federal and state level disregard legislation aimed at improving the lives of people including infrastructure investment.

Everything that Democrats stand for is prolife, meaning they support all peoples basic life essentials. The Democratic party does not judge who a person is, where a person was born, who can vote and even the woman who seeks to end a pregnancy.

The bottom line is should we and the government address people’s needs or only be concerned about maintaining power and control for its own sake?

Pure power and control lead to loss of democracy which quickly leads to loss of freedom. This has been demonstrated throughout history, Hitler’s Germany being a prime example.

I suggest we think about our political affiliations and consider what kind of country we wish to inhabit and leave for our children and grandchildren. And do vote accordingly!

Jack Pick
Goodland, Minnesota