To the Editor:
Ahh, if the reality was like that —

A short letter in the Feb. 24th edition titled “Energy costs hurt poor and elderly” was nice — but inaccurate to say the least.

The title was accurate though, but the rest of it ignored reality: rising energy costs adversely affect the poorest, especially those that are not or can not be gainfully employed.

Two corrections:

— The pipelines referred to were to transport a heavy crude obtained from the oil shales mined in Canada. That crude was to then go to refineries along the eastern seaboard for either refinement there and being added to the global trade (i.e. going out to the highest bidder) or just shipped as crude to be refined elsewhere, again part of the global trade. Neither situation was defined as destined for American consumption;

— Furthermore, those pipelines were years away from completion. So, even if they were to “heat and power our lives” we would not be seeing any of that at this date.

The world is a complex place. It would be nice if much of the propaganda and myths were reflected in reality.

But that is rarely the case.

It is good and proper that those pipelines were stopped. It is good to protect waters, wetlands, and all wildlife. And it is also good to retain resources that may be required hundreds or thousands of years down the line by those future generations — banking them if you will.

The world should be hesitant to release huge additions of carbon that has been sequestered for millions of years. The science is proven that doing this has changed the air we all depend on for the worse; and the same for the climate.

One more point: Most of the coal and oil we bring up was created before the dinosaurs. This was plant material, most of which formed before there were microbes to break them down! As these plants died off, they got buried and buried some more.

Until we can put all of it back into the ground we should all be very worried about what may happen by bringing even more up.

Sam Crosby

Altamont