Ask politicians to invest in clean energy

To the editor:

The fires burning in Washington state and elsewhere show Iowans the urgency of action on climate change. Smoke from these fires travel here, aggravating asthma and respiratory illnesses. Earlier his summer, smoke from fires in Saskatchewan was visible in our streets and towns. Like western fires, burning fossil fuels affects air thousands of miles away. This hampers our love of our outdoors and affects our health.

Thankfully Iowa is a leader in clean energy like wind and solar. Cedar Falls Utilities is planning a solar plant and wind farms dot our landscape, coexisting with our fertile soils and abundant crops.

But this is threatened by pollution traveling from elsewhere. We need to do more on a national level. As our national leaders crisscross our state before the caucuses, we can ask them how they plan to help us reduce energy consumption and invest in clean energy.

Let us gift a cleaner world to our kids and grandkids so they do not have to breathe smoke from power plants or from forest fires spurred on by changes in our climate.

David Grant

Cedar Falls