Get Energy Smart! NOW!

WarrenS has taken on an admirable resolution: to send a letter to the editor (LTE) (or, well, a major politician) every single day, on the critical issues of climate change and energy. This discusses his approach and here is an amusing ‘template’ to for rapid letter writing.

Now, I have always written letters and even had many published — just not one every day. WarrenS inspires me to do better.

Many newspapers state that they will reject letters that have been published elsewhere, thus I have not been blogging letters … perhaps that should change. Thus, below is part of an “unpublished letters” series publishing, with some delay, those LTEs that don’t get picked up by the editors.

15 April 2010

To The Editor, The Washington Post

The effects of global warming are not abstract. We’re feeling them in our noses. According to a just released National Wildlife Federation study, increased CO2 levels and longer growing seasons (did you know spring arrives 10-14 days earlier than just 20 years ago) increase pollen production. And, as global warming worsens, the pollen production will skyrocket. A doubling or tripling of ragweed allergens in the United States is going to have huge economic impacts. We already lose around $12 billion dollars a year to hay fever suffering; we lose over 14 million school and work days, over $15 billion in medical costs and over $5 billion in lost earnings a year to asthma. What will the Global Warming multiplier be?

But wait! There’s more! Fungal production will probably quadruple with doubled CO2 levels; tree pollen levels are expected to increase drastically — and did I mention that poison ivy will be faster-growing and more virulent?

But it’s not all bad news. Investing in pharmaceutical companies should be a winning strategy. As asthma and allergy debilitates huge segments of the population, we can sneeze all the way to the bank.

A. Siegel

NOTE: Not an employee or otherwise affiliated with NWF.

Source: NWF Extreme Allergies & Global Warming: