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Thanks to the present administration, unaffordable costs for heat and electricity are going to make the winter ahead a challenge. The decrease in oil supply caused by the unauthorized war with Iran has allowed prices on everything transported or made with oil to skyrocket. Energy from oil and gas, fossil fuels, is now more expensive than energy from solar and wind.
Currently, wind farms can deliver energy at half the cost of fossil fuels. Widespread rooftop solar would achieve the kind of energy independence needed to protect against private or foreign control.
Almost 50 years ago, Exxon research scientists accurately predicted that fossil fuel emissions would lead to global warming. Exxon from 1977 to 2003 issued propaganda that denied their own research in order to mislead the public and undermine the development of renewable energy. Continued fossil fuel use resulting in environmental damage and pollution has cost U.S. taxpayers $700 billion every year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
There was bipartisan support for climate protection bills until 2010 when Citizens United was passed and allowed fossil fuel corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns and climate legislation was blocked. As Republican Sen. John McCain warned Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse as they worked on a bipartisan climate package: “The fossil fuel industry has basically locked up my party on this.”
People need low cost clean energy. When you vote in November, think about this future within our reach and those who I believe will make it possible — Matt Dunlap, Troy Jackson, and Hannah Pingree.
Elizabeth Hill
Brooksville