In his opinion piece “To keep America competitive, we must prioritize infrastructure funding” (Triblive, July 18), PPG’s Brian Iams urges the United States to make renewing the country’s infrastructure a priority as our economy is rebuilt following the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic.
That suggestion is spot on. With so many Americans out of work and the nation’s infrastructure overlooked for so long, now is the time to fix both problems. The question becomes not whether to modernize our infrastructure, but rather how to do that.
Our world has gotten to this point in time riding on a tidal wave of fossil fuels, a world our forebearers of just 150 years ago would hardly recognize. But because the waste products of fossil fuel now threaten the health of the planet, we must take this rare opportunity to rebuild toward a green energy economy, one that doesn’t poison our air and water.
As the United States and other countries tee up trillions of dollars to rebuild, let’s make the choice to save ourselves, and the planet, by putting our workers on projects that look to the future instead of reinstating the past. From making buildings more energy-efficient to modernizing mass transit, let’s create the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than patching the infrastructure of the past.
I urge you to let your political leaders know you support a green energy economy. Let’s leave fossil fuels where they belong … in the ground. Your grandchildren will thank you.
Bruce Cooper
Cranberry Township
The writer is group leader of the Slippery Rock chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.