Letter: Tough fight needed against global warming

Talk about it

Wesley Lindstrom’s letter in the Daily Globe on global warming showed up the day after I wrote one to the Argus Leader. When I read the Bible verses he quoted, my first thought was that it might be a lack of faith if I keep working on the global warming issue, even though it is obviously warmer here than in the ’70s.

The fact that there will always be seed time and harvest does not make the world a perfect place to live. Does God also tell us to be good stewards of the land, resources and talents he gives us? We pollute the earth and waste much more resources that our population deserves. If God gives us global warming as a direct result of our greed, is he making us pay for our sin? Being a Christian is not an excuse to assume we are right and ignore our own mistakes. We will not be forgiven till we turn from our greedy ways.

Greenland lost 48 cubic miles of ice in one year. That is three times as much as five years before. If all the ice on Greenland alone melted, the oceans would rise by 21.3 feet. That information all came from John Roach, National Geographic News, Aug. 10, 2006. The year 2001 was al-ready one of the warmest years on record.

Fifty percent of the citizens of the USA live within 50 miles of the ocean because they like water. They will get flooded. Where will they move to?

South Dakota is outside the corn belt because we do not get enough rain to raise the best yields. With global warming, we will have less wetlands. This tells any farmer that he will have less crops here in South Dakota, both from less water and more heat. But we will have a lot more ranchland and desert.

So the conservative ap-proach in Washington is to allow everyone choose to make improvements on their own. They give huge tax breaks to oil companies to encourage them to explore for oil when they are already making huge profits, but they will not take decisive action to stop global warming.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is the only Democrat to not sign onto the legislation the other Dems on the committee for global warming agree to. But, as a Blue Dog Dem, she is more conservative than the rest. She and Nancy Pelosi have seen potatoes growing in Greenland where there previously was ice. To those who grew up in a conservative state, “regulations” is a naughty word. But regulations and laws and penalties may be needed for more than just speeding governors.

Tags: opinion, globalwarming