Re: “Lofty goals”, May 26 commentary

Vincent Carroll gets a lot right when he targets “Lofty Goals” of changing over everything to new technology for our energy sources. It has not been easy to move Colorado just this far away from burning stuff for our energy. And getting to 100 percent renewable energy will cost. But as any significant transition, say, indoor plumbing, or road networks, or international travel, those initial costs are seen in retrospect as investments.

Moving toward the new energy economy — simply because the physics of electricity are cleaner, healthier and more efficient — promises a better life for everyone.

Yet, Carroll also skirts the issue of the “apocalypse.” The scientific findings are out there for anyone to read, and a man of Carroll’s intellect should be familiar with them, but he doesn’t seem to be.

We burn fossil fuels today and the stuff lingers in the atmosphere for generations, heating up the air and the oceans. Damage is already done; people are already dying, storms are worse, rains heavier, droughts droughtier and forests in flames, just as predicted decades ago.

The solutions are not one big thing. Business and government must and, in many good examples, are working together. But this climate crisis is also a moral issue for all Americans.

The Republicans tell us that business will take care of us.

The Democrats say the government and business.

But it is a free people who will choose what cost they will bear for their children.

Jeff Neuman-Lee, Denver