Switch to EV to prevent deadly storms

As the father of an 8-year-old daughter, I'm following the Texas Hill Country floods with a sick feeling in my stomach. More than 121 Texans — including many campers my child’s age — were killed when a warmer Gulf supercharged a July rainstorm. Nationwide, transportation remains our biggest source of storm-amplifying pollution.

The cheapest and most effective way to help is to swap gasoline for electrons. Three-year-old Nissan Leafs and Chevy Bolts now list for under $15,000. If you need occasional long range, plug-in hybrids such as the Ford Escape PHEV handle daily errands on battery power and automatically switch to gas for road trips. Every electric mile counts.

If even a third of our vehicles shifted to EVs or plug-ins by 2030, we’d slash tens of millions of tons of CO₂, tamping down the very storms that threaten our lives, while using our cheap and abundant Iowa wind energy. We owe it to the families mourning in Kerr County to make the change now.

Eric Johnson

Oxford