A low-carbon fuel standard is necessary for climate, health
Published 1:30 am Monday, April 19, 2021
Dan Bartleheimer’s recent guest commentary (“Low-carbon fuel standard is too costly, won’t work,” The Herald, April 15) says “no” to a Washington state clean fuel standard.
He cites increased fuel costs with no value being offered in return as the reason. I disagree. Two reasons:
1. Transportation is causing 40 percent of our state’s air pollution. 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists agree that air pollution is causing global warming. Global warming is real. If we don’t do anything about it now it’s going to cost us to fix it, and that cost is only going to increase the longer we wait. Mr. Bartleheimer ignores this and offers no viable alternatives to cleaning up our dirty air.
2. I and many others like me have a chronic lung disease. Mine is called COPD. There’s no cure but I can manage it if I have clean air to breathe. Continuing to breath dirty air from our transportation sector will shorten my life span. And many others like me. Unless Mr. Bartleheimer thinks of us as necessary collateral damage in the quest to keep prices down, perhaps he’d like to offer a viable alternative solution instead of just saying “no” to clean air.
Bill Adams
Des Moines
