Letter: Will Herald's climate change reporting be worth it?

On March 4 I received an email request from the Daily Herald asking for contributions to hire a reporter to write about climate change locally. At first, I was interested.

But to me this sounds like more of buying in to the common narrative that we are destroying the earth, and I hope no one supports this monetarily. Sadly, it is VERY political.

I have taught science for 40 years and the basis for all systems are the Laws of Energy. We cannot create or destroy energy. It changes forms in transforming from one form to another. We cannot maintain America's current standard of living using wind and solar power. Americans like to drive and electric cars are not the answer. Sure, they are great for tooling around the city and suburbs, but how about driving the open road or just trying to drive to see my daughter in Minnesota? If everyone lived (and stayed) in the city, walked to work and the market like in many smaller cities in Europe we would all have a Kumbaya moment and life would be great.

The Herald should investigate a cost basis analysis to show the actual costs in carbon output, since that seems to be the Left's nemesis of: making, shipping and maintaining a wind turbine and solar panels. Same for the batteries in electric cars. Not to mention where all the rare earth minerals to make these come from, how we get them and dispose of them in the future.

When Jim Edgar was governor of Illinois my friend at Amoco did a cost-benefit analysis of using corn to make ethanol and showed him that it was a loser. You can see where we are today, because of politics. Farmers wanted to sell corn. We wanted American "sustainable fuel." Today, it is even more proven that it takes more energy to grow the corn, harvest it and convert it to ethanol than we get out of the product.

Nicholas DiGiovanni

Naperville