ExxonMobil ignoring issues

As I write this, I’m in Phoenix attending the first Renewable Energy Fellowship program held in the U.S. Our "task force" is composed of 30 students and four professors from around the country, in all fields of study, including mechanical, environmental, electrical and chemical engineering, business, natural resources, economics, chemistry and so forth. I’m writing to highlight a pressing issue.

ExxonMobil is reporting yet another quarter of staggering profits near $10 billion. While we pay the high gas prices that pump up Exxon’s profits, we are also paying for Exxon’s campaign to block action on global warming. ExxonMobil is the only oil giant directly funding global-warming-denier groups. The company’s own public records show that through 2006, ExxonMobil has spent up to $21 million bankrolling global-warming-denier groups such as the Heartland Institute _ which describes global warming as nothing more than "environmental alarmism."

Although ExxonMobil says it is taking action on global warming, the company’s latest Corporate Citizenship Report shows that its own global warming pollution levels actually increased by more than 5 percent last year.

Other oil giants are taking global warming seriously while continuing to make healthy profits. They invest their profits in renewable energy and set limits on their own pollution or support a federal bill that would do so. But ExxonMobil does none of these things. Studies used by Congress show that if we increase our use of homegrown renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass, then consumer energy prices will drop and new high-paying jobs will be created.

ExxonMobil is the only oil giant still refusing to invest in renewable energy. It’s about time we start tackling issues that are meaningful not only toward this "American way of life," but even less selfishly, toward the survival of the human species as a whole.

Nicholas Laskoski

Cooperstown

Unfortunately, we should stay

I guess you could call me a liberal. I vote Democratic most of the time, am pro-choice and think the civil-rights movements of the ’60s did much good for our country.

But I vote for a good Republican when he or she comes along (e.g., Senator Seward), and I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan "" and wish that we’d completed our mission, thereby crushing the Taliban, capturing bin Laden and crippling al-Qaida.

On the other hand, I thought from the beginning that invading Iraq was a huge mistake, and I’m appalled by the way Bush and Co. have mismanaged the war and just about everything else.

You’d think, then, that I’d be in favor of immediately withdrawing our valiant, exhausted troops from Iraq. I’m not: because we’ve made a mess there; because we’ve opened the door to savage sectarian violence; because we’ve destabilized the country and created a safe haven, a training ground, for fundamentalist terrorists, including al-Qaida.

We have to help Iraqis put their country back together, and it’s going to cost us many more dollars and many more lives.

I hate it, but it’s the only responsible thing to do. Thanks, George, for putting us in this position.

Thomas Beattie

Oneonta

Name-calling tears us apart

I am so tired of the conservative/liberal name-calling like that which is found in Sean Streek’s July 21 letter about the "liberal’s screed." This kind of nuance-free easy name-calling only serves to further divide the people of this country in a complicated time when we should all be mindful that we are all in this together.

What this country needs now, be they left or right or conservative or liberal or whatever easy label you need to apply to them, are leaders who can bring the good people of this country together, not further divide them for political gain. I am sick and tired of this cynical ploy, and I look forward to a new day in this country when it is no longer tolerated.

Kevin Adams

Richfield Springs