Letter to the editor: Clean energy important to future

Last Tuesday's edition of the Quay County Sun had an informative article, "Senator pushes for wind energy tax credit extension."

Our two senators and one representative, Ben Lujan, are for the extension. Ken Starcher, associate director at Alternative Energy Institute at West Texas A&M, explained the importance of the tax credit to speed up the development of wind energy.

The dissenter quoted in the article was New Mexico Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales. He said that people should be aware that wind is not cheaper.

Under the law if you harm someone else's property you have to pay. Pollution from fossil fuels does extensive damage to our environment, which belongs to all of us, causing all kinds of health problems as well as global warming.

If a cost were assigned to the damage caused by production and use of fossil fuels it would not be cheap. A carbon tax is one way of assigning a cost to that product. When we do not assign a true cost to our fossil fuel use, we are subsidizing it.

The true cost is hidden.

There is no debate among scientists as to global warming and the causes of it. The politicians that deny it do so because of the vested interests of their base. If it were a lack of knowledge, then that person has no business of being in a position of responsibility.

Scientists agree that the future of our planet is going to be tied to clean energy and our window of opportunity to address it is getting smaller.

Leon Logan

Tucumcari