Letter: Climate-friendly options are not pain free

A letter in the Dec. 30 Daily Herald was very misleading in my opinion. The writer wants "urgent climate action by Congress" to stop climate change, claims weather events are getting worse and going to a carbon-less lifestyle will not hurt consumers. I beg to differ.

In the case of climate events, if you look back at prior records, things like the Buffalo snowstorm are not rare. If we measure them in terms of cost, well everything costs more now than years ago, so of course the costs are more than years ago. If you measure in lives lost, though very sad, you have to realize there are more people moving to and living in areas where these events happen. Think Florida and hurricanes.

Going on to the more outrageous claims that going carbon-less will not hurt consumers, I wonder if Mr. Rausch has actually checked into the cost of purchase and operation of electric cars, or for that matter, the heat pumps being promoted as home heating and cooling solutions. Both items cost significantly more than current gas equivalents. Additionally, in cold weather neither electric cars nor heat pumps work efficiently.

Electric cars have reduced range in cold weather and sometimes can't charge up. In the case of heat pumps, there are currently none on the market that work below 5 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point they switch to full-bore radiant heaters which are horribly inefficient and expensive.

In short, let's face it: any assertion that a carbon-less future will be a painless and cost-neutral transition are false. Electric cars are out of reach for the average consumer, even with state and federal subsidies, as are solar cells and heat pumps. It's just going to cost more.

And I might add those "climate change" costs will start going up with the Biden tax hikes that took effect Jan. 1.

John Becker

Downers Grove