Don’t abandon pollution fight

Posted

To the editor: 

I was disappointed to hear the news of Governor Cuomo’s block on the New York City plastic bag fee. 

Plastic bags are another dangerous form of pollution poisoning our environment and this is unacceptable when there has been an entire series of federal attacks on policies aiming to decrease harmful pollution.

 Another major form of pollution we should work to decrease is global warming pollution. Big polluters want to continue to dump large amounts of dangerous carbon pollution into the air instead of cleaning up their act; that is wrong! 

We have an obligation to protect our children from climate change. We need to aggressively cut emissions and chart a course to a 100 percent clean energy future. 

In addition to passing the New York City plastic bag fee, I’d like to see Governor Cuomo double the strength of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to accelerate our progress in cleaning up carbon pollution from power plants, while increasing the amount of power we get from clean, renewable energy sources. 

Ultimately, we should build a zero-emission electricity system that does not put our climate or our communities at risk.

Let’s do what we know is right: act on climate!

Melanie Perl

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