There’s no Civil War
Columnist Guy W. Farmer, “A Republican Civil War” Feb. 27, Appeal, furthered the phony meme of a Civil War between so-called Republican “moderates” and Trump supporters. Mitch McConnell and other faithless congressmen took advantage of President Trump’s power to expedite their policy initiatives. Now they curry favor from political elites by falsely blaming Trump for the Capitol riot. That’s not a civil war, that’s betrayal of trust.
I’m a Republican activist who’s seen Trump live, twice, and facilitated attendance at his Minden Airport rally. Nowhere in my observations was there a civil war among rank-and-file Republican voters. Borrowing from my last Appeal letter, Trump gave America real borders, the Abraham accords that brought peace to the Middle East, ended unfair trade deals, killed terrorist masterminds Soleimani and al-Baghdadi, rebuilt our military, put real sanctions on Russia and Iran, armed Ukraine, recovered our overseas hostages without shipping pallets of cash to dictators, and made more progress denuclearizing North Korea than any of his predecessors.
Last election, Farmer said he couldn’t bring himself to vote for either Trump or Biden. I know Trump’s blunt-spoken style bothers Farmer, but if that caused Farmer to equate the administration of a cognitively challenged politician and his radical vice president with Trump’s very real pro-American accomplishments, your readers should question the value of his so-called political analysis.
Lynn Muzzy
Minden
The financial incentive to reduce carbon pollution
I applaud Ernie Adler for his letter pointing out the shortcomings and misinformation in Shelly Aldean’s column about the power debacle in Texas.
There also is another perspective to consider. Aldean references a 2015 Guardian article that indicates that the immediate halt of fossil fuels use would be devastating to the economy. I agree, and no one is suggesting that. Considering the external costs inflicted by using fossil fuels (polluted air, water and land; health issues exacerbated by fossil fuel pollutants; costs associated with mega-wildfires, excessive flooding, and more frequent and powerful storms) and also considering what the scientific community has been saying for years, we need to move away from fossil fuels and quickly!
What is being proffered is to develop greener methods to power our country: solar, wind, geothermal and yes, even nuclear. However, don’t forget hydrogen! There’s a lot of it and when it is burned the byproduct is water!
While technology to capture and sequester carbon is maturing and the movement to plant trees is “growing,” we need to price fossil fuels according to the external costs we ultimately pay.
Based upon more recent studies, the climate problem is now a crisis due to the shorter timeline. The time to aggressively address this crisis was “yesterday” but it is definitely now!
Put a price (fee) on carbon pollution potential, increasing annually, assessed against the producers of the fossil fuels. That price increase will assuredly be passed along to the public. That will incentivize us to use less. To offset the price increase, rebate those fees back to the public, monthly. This concept is known as Carbon Fee and Dividend. It is a conservative concept that is market-based, revenue neutral and equitable.
Rob Bastien
Carson City
