Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wind will make a better source
Letters to the Editor
Recent letters to the editor
- Pick of the day: Passing the buck won't stop abuse
- Letters: Illegal traditions should not be tolerated
- Pick of the day: Teacher's conviction should scare parents
- Letters archive
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Wind will make a better source
of energy
Re: "Coalition is playing off the hype of being clean and green," July 12 letter:
"I don't want them in my back yard" is an honest response to wind turbines, though many people find them beautiful. Wind is especially attractive when compared with mountaintop removal coal mining, a major source of our local electricity. Steve Hanes and a few others offer all kinds of other arguments, ignoring pesky facts.
Are turbines noisy? The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that an operating modern wind farm at a distance of 750 to 1,000 feet "is no louder than a kitchen refrigerator or moderately quiet room." The nearest home to the proposed Poor Mountain project is more than 2,000 feet away.
Do turbines make people sick? Wind farms produce no known direct health impacts. Wind turbine syndrome is the invention of Nina Pierpont, an anti-wind pediatrician from upstate New York. Her study is a self-published book about 38 people from 10 families in four nations who reported stress-related symptoms from living near wind farms.
Do turbines produce electricity and help replace coal? From 2005 to 2009, wind energy generation increased 400 percent and coal decreased 10 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
President Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition
A shocking lack of outcry against BP
Last month, my wife, grandkids and I drove from Bedford to Austin, Texas. Before leaving, I took latex paint and painted the windows of our sport utility vehicle with large letters "boycott BP."
We drove 3,400 miles in 16 days, traveling through 11 states. The trip back on Interstate 10 traversed all five states that border the gulf. Several million people must have seen "boycott BP" on the windows of our SUV.
To our disappointment, we saw no other protest signs and nothing to indicate indignation with BP. Sure, we had a few honking horns and thumbs up, but no visible outrage.
BP had no viable disaster plan, lied about the facts, caused permanent hardship on people around the gulf and lasting destruction to the environment. Where is the public outrage?
Our politicians took $34 million in contributions from oil companies last year. The industry gets more tax breaks and government subsidies than any other. Where is our outrage?
Our trip convinced us that even though we saw no outrage, we could do our part. We will boycott BP. Maybe others will become outraged and also not buy its stuff.
What else we can do?
Afghan reality isn't on our side
The biggest fallacy concerning the war in Afghanistan is that we will be victorious. Thanks to our overreaction to the 9/11 disaster, the Taliban and al-Qaida have spread their hate for us to the rest of the world. What's more, Afghanistan is surrounded by Muslim countries sympathetic to their orthodox views. What good are sophisticated weapons against a philosophy?
Recently, when asked how he viewed the matter, Gen. David Petraeus said, "Not with optimism nor pessimism, but realism." Reality is rarely popular, especially with politicians. The worst thing about war, besides death and destruction, is that some people profit from it -- and those who do have powerful friends in government.
While our leaders delude themselves into thinking they are making headway in Afghanistan, our soldiers are being forced to take two steps back for each agonizing step forward.
Friendly Afghans can't be trusted either: They keep changing their allegiance to whichever side protects their interests. You can't really blame them. Their security, as well as their livelihood, is at stake.
The reality to all this? The death toll keeps rising, the enemy gets stronger, their hate grows deeper and the rich get richer.
Build a new high school now
No money should be spent on the disaster Blacksburg High School has always been. In 1975, our two sons enrolled in BHS. One had a year of chemistry without a single lab experience, as the roof leaked.
The plan of the building was apparently an open classroom design, but teachers were trying to teach as if they had traditional classrooms. The math department classrooms were separated by dividers like those used in dressing rooms, open at the top and bottom.
I saw two social studies classrooms with real walls, but no divider between them -- just an opening about 12 feet wide. Walls were built later, but small, windowless dungeons are not a good atmosphere for teaching or learning.
Turn this catastrophe into an opportunity to rescue Blacksburg's middle and high school students by immediately building a new high school. Why should it take years to build a school building when a Walmart can be built in weeks?
"Students first" should not be an empty promise. Our teachers and students deserve a well-planned learning environment, and the longer it is delayed, the more expensive it will be, not even counting the human costs.
Who inspected work on the gym?
In the past nearly six decades, I've met no perfect designers, engineers or contractors of any of the several skills employed in construction, though I have known some very good and honest ones. I can claim that none of the structures I have engineered or built has ever fallen, but on occasion I have had to correct problems in the field.
As I read the many thoughts about the Blacksburg High School gymnasium, I wonder: Has anyone asked who the inspectors were during construction? More important, who was responsible for hiring and qualifying the inspectors?
It pays to go to the zoo at dusk
Mill Mountain Zoo is now open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. My grandson and I spent an hour or so there on a recent Thursday evening, and I was disappointed to see so few people. It is a perfect time to go to the zoo. It is cooler and the animals might be more active.
There are so many new improvements to the zoo. If you haven't been there in a while, you will be surprised. There are new decking, a new reptile house and four funny otters. I encourage everyone to buy a membership, especially grandparents. There is no better place to get some quality time with those sweet grandchildren.
