Time for clean energy

The geopolitics of oil is, once again, showing the dark underbelly of reliance on fossil fuels. Today it’s the German people being held hostage to Russian oil, and the entire world made victims of Middle Eastern petrol policies to keep prices high.

We should be running, not crawling, toward a solar and renewable energy future. Big government can’t control, cut supply, or manipulate its price.  Solar provides great self-sufficiency, avoids conflict and dependency, and provides much greater individual and national security. It promotes small government solutions and free market policies to flourish.

Closer to home, clean energy also has a significant and growing positive impact on Wisconsin’s economy. In our state in 2015, renewable energy generated nearly $6 billion and employed 24,000 workers. Wisconsin can and should be a national leader in the development of innovative technology that will revolutionize our energy production and increase our security. Yet too many politicians, like our Rep. Tom Tiffany, are mired in the past, solely focused on fossil fuels. He hardly mentions renewable energy. This is akin to promoting the horse and buggy industry over a century ago as Henry Ford was gearing up his Model-T assembly plant.  

As the owner of solar panels that power my household, I couldn’t be happier having the electric company pay me for the power I’m generating, for a system that requires nothing of me. Our elected “leaders” should promote renewable energy. It’s a win-win future of greater security and lower cost. A no-brainer.

 Mark Peterson
Bayfield, Wisconsin

All wars are bad

Chuck Bracken of Cannon Falls seems to think that wars started by Democrats are/were bad and those started by Republicans are/were good. I think that all wars are/were bad. Wars cause death to soldiers and civilians as well as physical, emotional, mental and psychological injuries. Also, physical damage like in Ukraine etc.

We are fortunate that North America had only two wars before XXth century - Revolutionary War and Civil War. Of course, there were ugly wars with American Indians.

I read a book written by a US Army retired officer, who said that we were involved only with two wars in the XXth century that were necessary i.e. World War I and World War II. The rest of them were wrong. I agree with him. President Harry Truman, Democrat, got us involved in the Korean War. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson got us into South East Asian Wars of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. President George Bush, Sr., Republican, involved us in the Middle Eastern Wars against Iraq because Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil. President Bush, Jr. Republican, attacked Afghanistan 2001 because Saudi Arabian fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden was hiding there after his agents bombed New York’s Twin Towers and Pentagon. Why did U.S. stay there for 20 years when it could have done what President Obama did? It should have just captured Osama! President George Bush, Jr. Republican, accused Iraqi President Hussein of obtaining nuclear material from Niger, Africa. President Saddam Hussein was killed, because Washing-ton wanted to install democracy there. The problem was/is that Iraqi population is 60% Shia fundamentalist Muslim like in Iran and only 20% Sunni moderate Muslim; plus 20% Kurds. Thus, after the election, fundamentalists won. Why did not Bush and his advisers know that? Hussein was a Dictator, but he was fighting Iranian fundamentalists for eight years. They also captured American diplomats 1979, When President Carter, Democrat, allowed the Shah of Iran to get medical treatment in the United States until President Reagan, Republican, took over 1981.   

Mike Jaros
Duluth, Minnesota

Make oil companies utilities

This should make Americans ask the fundamental question: what is the difference between what a public non-profit utility company provides and what a private for-profit oil company provides? After all they both sell energy to all United States citizens. The difference is that natural gas and electricity are sold in the form of a public good whereas oil is sold in the form of a private good. Accordingly, on the grounds of promoting national security, the U.S. Congress should convert all oil companies to utility companies.

This would eliminate the windfall profits and force the oil industry to earn just enough income to cover operating expenses just as natural gas and electric utility companies are required to do. The resulting drop in gasoline prices would further stimulate the economy and lighten the energy stranglehold upon the United States by the Middle East. It would also eliminate the influence of the oil lobby. In this case, desperate times call for deliberate measures. But as pathetic as the energy policy is in the United States the effort to develop alternative sources of energy won’t really be accelerated until the oil dries up and the Saudi’s place solar cells all across their desert and then sell us the electricity.

Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio