Letters to the Editor | June 11, 2024

Looking forward to the 2050 goal of few to no fossil vehicles and limited to no fossil fuel energy powering our nation’s energy grid. I do wonder, though, how are we going to go from the current 20% of energy production coming from renewable sources to 100%? In all my reading on climate change, nobody has realistically addressed the increased stress on the grid that will result from having to power just about everything in our daily lives, or how to get there by 2050. There is no discussion of a likely dramatic increase in nuclear energy. Climate change is a problem with no currently available solutions — just unrealistic goals.

Tom Elsasser, Philadelphia, elsasser64@aol.com

Another holiday has come and gone. I go to the cemetery, as I have since I was a very little girl. Decoration Day, as my grandfather used to tell me, is a time to celebrate the people who fell defending our liberties. I struggle right now because our liberties are hanging in the balance. I’ve never been a political person, but I find I’m being pushed to make some hard decisions. I don’t need people screaming at me. I need a country that votes. Being complacent about our future is unimaginable. I vote for those whom I see holding our liberty together and not trying to divide us.

I am a first-generation American. My father was born in Italy, and my mother in Sicily. I was given opportunities they never had. I don’t know if I took advantage of them. I think I took it for granted. I look at all the waving flags in the cemetery and I realize how important it was that there were people who defended our liberty. The names on the graves are Polish, Irish, Italian, etc. Don’t tell me immigrants are the problem. We need to find solutions in this country. We need to respect our neighbors and be kind to one another. Please, put down the hatred and try to find the goodness in the air. We have no idea how lucky we are to breathe it in a free country.

Kathy Williams, Merion

Bump stocks and Glock switches are devices that turn legal semiautomatic weapons into illegal machine guns. Machine guns are illegal, so it seems it would be simple to ban these devices, as well. But on May 7, every Republican House representative voted against HR 335, which would have moved bump stocks and Glock switches closer to becoming illegal in Pennsylvania. Think of what goes through the minds of our law enforcement officers if they face a machine gun. When your children, grandchildren, family, and neighbors are out and about, think of the horror of encountering an assailant with a machine gun. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives saw a fivefold increase in the number of guns with modifications seized in the past five years. This is very bad for everyone. Call or write your representative. Demand they act. Tell them our law enforcement and children must be protected, and that illegal machine guns are unacceptable. Outlaw bump stocks and Glock switches.

Bill Thames, Lower Merion

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