Abby Wisse Schachter is off-base in her criticism of my comments on alternatives to fracking at the New York Policy Forum on Oct. 6 (“Anti-Drilling Hysteria,” PostOpinion, Oct. 28).
Paraphrasing comments from a transcript, Schachter makes it sound like I was advocating an energy future based on wood pellets alone, asking “What century does Ryan think this is?”
This wood-pellet proposal was just one part of a regional approach to creating a lot of jobs, reducing energy bills, cutting greenhouse gases and protecting our environment.
This is the century in which we break our country’s addiction to a carbon-based economy, and the century when we will decide our country’s energy future.
A comprehensive energy policy and the national will to take us from a carbon-based economy to a cleaner energy future is within our grasp, if we have the political will.
Millions of jobs are not being created because of the stranglehold big-energy companies have had on our economy for decades.
Conservation measures alone could alleviate the “energy crisis” and allow us to once again take a leadership role creating a sustainable-energy future.
Matt Ryan, mayor, Binghamton
Dumpster diva
Ashley Fields is not homeless or jobless, yet she lowers herself to scrounge for food in the garbage (“Hipster Grubbers Dine a la Dumpster,” Monday, Oct, 31).
Where is her pride?
Restaurants (and schools alike) should pour bleach on food they throw out so it is not consumed by people who might get sick and sue.
Chuck Eckstein, Brooklyn
What amazes me is the photo of Ashley Fields wearing long rubber gloves so she doesn’t get dirty or pick up diseases from the dumpster.
Yet she will then eat all the food she was afraid to dirty her hands with.
Maybe her weird smile isn’t from being happy, but from stomach cramps.
Joe DiPino, Yonkers
It’s that simple
There is an alternative that Glenn Harlan Reynolds does not mention in “Screw U.” (PostScript, Oct. 30).
The government should largely get out of the loan-guarantee business, which will quit inflating the costs and lower the debt load.
Michael Rizik, Grand Blanc, Mich.
O’s ‘capitalism’
Peggy Noonan has put her finger on why we’re in the mess that we’re in (“While Rep. Ryan Rises,” PostScript, Oct. 30).
In his 2008 campaign, President Obama promised to bring us all together.
But because of his policy failures, he has no other option but the class-warfare, economic-envy card.
As government spreads its tentacles into every aspect of our economy, business leaders attempt to bribe politicians and politicians find it impossible to reject the easy money. This is crony capitalism.
Rep. Paul Ryan realizes that expanding government, with its giveaways to groups who support politicians, is the cause of the malaise that now afflicts us. His answer is to lower the amount of government spending and decrease the size of government itself.
Obama is using class warfare, while Ryan is attacking the source of the problem.
Steve Heitner, Port Jefferson Station