Abandon the planet to pollution? What a bad idea

My compliments to the Daily Herald for its recent editorial (Oct. 4), highlighting the report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asserting that by 2100 the earth will have warmed by 7°F over its preindustrial average.

The NHTSA study apparently concludes that since the earth is warming already there is no reason to take extraordinary steps to impede that warming. That is like telling a patient stricken with a serious cancer that since you are probably going to die from cancer anyway, there is no reason to take extraordinary steps to stop the cancer.

While most of us take the environment around us for granted, our environment is threatened by the harmful actions of a growing worldwide population. The Industrial Revolution has given the world a higher standard of living, and for that we can all be glad. At the same time, elements of that same revolution, especially related to fossil fuels and various manufacturing processes, have caused genuine concern about the protections needed for clean air and water.

We owe it to our children, to our children's children and to their children to bequeath to them a world with clean air and water. Thanks to the Technological Revolution the tools are at our disposal to do that, and to do it without overly burdensome or costly regulations.

Around the world nations are using the various tools already on hand to ensure a level of environmental protection and to impede global warming. But for the NHTSA to essentially throw up its hands and say that it is not necessary to take prudent action because the warming is going to happen anyway is a dereliction of its duty to help protect the public it is meant to serve.

State Rep. David Harris

Arlington Heights