LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Coal plan good, but world lags
6/7/2014The Obama Administration’s plan to reduce carbon emissions have environmentalists smiling (“EPA orders bigger cuts in emissions; New goal for coal plants is raised to 30% by 2030,” June 2). This will help clean the air in the United States, but for the rest of the world, not so much.
A Wall Street Journal article last month said that low domestic demand for coal is fueling a rise in U.S. coal exports to Europe. The Journal added that the United States ranked second only to Russia in supplying Europe with coal last year, and that U.S. exports could rise if political tensions with Moscow disrupt Russian shipments.
The article quoted an energy analyst: “Before the financial crisis, Europe was happy to favor the environment, but when the economy started not doing well, they weren’t quite ready to accept the high power price,” so energy consumers returned to coal.
Unless there is unanimity on a global scale, individual nation-states will choose their own economies over the greater good.
WILLIAM NICHOLS
Whitehouse
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Miami’s OK, but Toledo’s home
I agree with Kirk Baird’s May 23 Culture Shock column, “Culture in Toledo? You bet.” My family and I recently were able to relocate to Toledo after seven long years in Miami.
I’m so happy to raise my three children in the Midwest. We have the Toledo Zoo, the Toledo Museum of Art, Imagination Station, the Mud Hens, and the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.
I’m asked almost daily why we left Florida for Toledo. Sure, the beaches down there are great. But there’s no place like home.
MONICA RIZZO
Orono Drive
Pride in city good, but it can be better
Kirk Baird’s column highlighted a few of the things that make the Toledo metropolitan area a great place to live and grow. In addition, we are blessed with top-rated medical care. Our infrastructure gets us around to any place in a half-hour or less.
Housing is more affordable than in many other cities. We have a solid faith community with many worship centers.
People should be proud of Toledo. Then people should work together to help make it an even better place.
C. CRAIG COVRETT
Sylvania Township
Lourdes’ school for kids to be missed
I returned from an awesome “last howl” party for the students at the Franciscan Academy, a Catholic elementary school affiliated with and adjacent to Lourdes University in Sylvania. They didn’t realize what a sad occasion it was, because the academy is closing after 40 years of providing high-quality education to children.
I wonder whether Lourdes officials realize or care how closing the academy will turn the lives of these students and their parents upside down. The high-quality academic experience at the academy will be hard to replicate.
Universities are not in business to make a profit, but it seems making a profit was Lourdes’ only concern.
PAULA GILLESPIE
Saturn Drive