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It is imperative for us to understand climate change

To the editor:

Of all of the actions we can take to address the threat of climate change, the most important is to talk about it. That’s why I want to thank Mr. Curtis Schell for responding to the Sentinel article that covered my presentation to the Mifflin County Discussions Group, in which I argued that we can and should reduce greenhouse gas emissions in both the short and long term.

For the short term, we can choose a renewable source of electricity by going to papowerswitch.com. In Lewistown, the cheapest fixed-price, 12-month plan with no additional fees is $0.003 per kilowatt-hour higher for a renewable source. For typical Pennsylvania home usage of 900 kilowatt-hours per month, switching to a renewable source would add an annual cost of $32. Mr. Schell’s estimate was $904, which was 10 times too high, as he admitted to me, due to a decimal point error he made.

For the long term, we should build power plants that run on renewable energy. The financial advisory firm Lazard reports that the cost per megawatt-hour for a new plant is $32-$42 for solar, $28-$54 for wind, $44-$68 for gas, and $66-$152 for coal. Thus, even ignoring the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuels, it makes sense to shift towards renewables when building a new plant.

Human-caused global warming is having devastating impacts that are only a taste of what is to come if we don’t bring down greenhouse gas levels. It’s imperative that we educate ourselves about climate change, talk to our friends, neighbors, and leaders about it, and work together to come up with a plan to avoid its worst impacts.

Raymond Najjar

State College

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