Dear Readers,

While listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR a few days back, I caught an interview with an expert on refrigeration. While the interview was mostly about what should and should not be put in your fridge, the commentator made a few salient points. Remember from your high school physics class that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” When we cool our inside world through refrigeration, and also through air conditioning, we are heating the world outside.

The multiple wildfires that have popped up around us are showing us the consequences of this. Our world is heating up. The heat domes and droughts are bigger, and more long-lasting. 2023 was the hottest year on record for the earth, with 2024 expected to top that. The millions of migrants globally who have left their homes because they are un-livable is a very turbulent effect of this.

The commentator made the point that a new proposed federal regulation would eliminate some of the most harmful chemicals that we put into our refrigerants to create this artificial cooling. She listed some of these at many thousands of times more heat trapping than CO2. The regulation would still permit refrigerants that were only several hundred times more heat trapping than CO2. One would expect that there would be voluntary acceptance of these more sensible regulations, but no…. not with our “head in the sand” Republican congress. Ever quick to make a culture war out of sensible adaptations, they have attempted to pass the “save our refrigerators” law.

It is useful to recall that when Trump was president, he rolled back, by executive order, over 100 environmental regulations that control methane emissions, another potent greenhouse gas. Joe Biden then reinstated many of these regulations. A few weeks ago, Trump met with CEOs of many oil companies, and promised to re-roll back these same regulations if they would contribute ONE BILLION DOLLARS to his 3rd presidential bid.

It seems to me that if you care about this earth, your children’s and your grandchildren’s future, it would be hard to vote for any Republican who ignores these basic facts. And yes, there are facts that are indisputable. You can turn up the AC at Mar a Lago, but who are you blasting with your discharge?

Vote Democrat to begin to chip away at this denial.

We have a long way to go.

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County