To the editor:

The Guardian website published an article last week on more than 100 Arctic wildfires with blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska visible from space. “The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever…” The amount of carbon dioxide being released is adding to the already high level of CO2 in the atmosphere which is leading to a warmer planet.

The World of NPR, the BBC, and WGBH had a radio and internet series on the melting Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica and numerous scientific studies have reported on receding glaciers and loss of snow melt to communities in Southeast Asia. The number of days above 95 degrees F is expected to increase dramatically in the midwest, south, and southwest U.S. over the next 30-70 years, if climate change is allowed to become worse.

In your editorial in the NUJ Wed. 7-17-10, you allege that the Green New Deal would be a terrible policy mistake. We disagree. We are faced with eliminating use of fossil fuels for energy as soon possible to reduce the costs climate change will have for everyone in the world or continue business as usual and pay much higher costs as conditions become worse.

Do we endure short term pain and costs while transforming to renewable forms of energy or endure severe disruption and costs from doing nothing? The fossil fuel companies would prefer we do the latter as their profits` would continue. We are experiencing changes in the world climate at a much more rapid rate than thought likely only 10 years ago. The time to act is now.

Dr. John Kluge

Mary Kluge

New Ulm