We knew that smoking was harmful long before the surgeon general’s warning was put on packs of cigarettes in 1970. Despite ads featuring medical doctors touting the benefits of their brand of cigarettes, common sense told us that inhaling particulates of tar and nicotine conveyed by 1,000-degree Fahrenheit smoke into our lungs was not good for us. We witnessed the harm that cigarettes did to ourselves and loved ones. But the powerful tobacco industry continued to invest in the assertion that there was still a “controversy” over whether cigarettes were unhealthy until as late as 1998. That year, the Tobacco Institute and the Committee for Tobacco Research (as it was then known) disbanded. If we wanted to deny what we knew to be true, we could point to “experts” to support our position.
We are now in a similar position with energy as we were with cigarettes. We know that emitting particulates into the atmosphere by coal and gas power plants cannot be good. We know that the resultant CO2 emissions are contributing to climate change that is an existential threat to our planet and species. We know that sending our soldiers to protect oil fields in Syria is not good. We know that the coal burning power plant on Burton Island is causing asthma among our young children of Sussex County. We know that the mountains of coal ash, lined and unlined, produced by the Indian River power plant are the single biggest threat to our treasured natural resource, the beautiful Inland Bays. But if we aren’t ready to spend the energy to break our addiction on coal and gas, we can lean on the specious arguments of well-funded entities acting on behalf of worldwide energy companies to feel better. These alphabet groups, both national and local, exist to tell us not to believe our lying eyes.
It is incumbent upon us to inform our common sense by conducting our own research. The Cape Gazette edition of Nov. 18 contained a fascinating assortment of information: a wind farm builder offering Delaware $18 million, a local solar farm to add another 400 homes powered by solar in which electric rates will not be increased for members of the co-op and will provide stable, competitive prices for the next 25 years. Interestingly, a third article informed us that Delaware will spend $200,000 to understand the impact of an oil spill off our coast.
We need to look up from our research, exercise common sense and act on what we know to be true.
Tom Brett
Millsboro
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