WARMING TO WIND POWER
The venting of wind-power skeptics in the Phoenix piece "What's Wrong With Wind Power" (by Deirdre Fulton, August 21) really misses a major point — global warming. When we finally get down to grappling with dangerous climate disruption all forms of non-carbon emitting power will rise. The slogan "No new electric power generation" cannot be our salvation because America must decommission 1100 coal-fired power plants or spend large sums capturing and storing their emissions. On the other hand, finding space for solar installations will get easier as deserts expand opening up new expanses of dry, uninhabitable real estate. It looks now like wind and solar power, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and above all else, breathtaking new energy-efficiency techniques will all be key. Maine needs to get wind power right, but I say "Blow, baby, blow."
Jon Hinck
State Representative
Co-Chairman of the Utilities & Energy Committee
Portland
CORRECTIONS IS BROKEN
Lance Tapley's continuous critique of Maine's Department of Corrections (for the latest installment, see "Secret, Co-Opted, and Unaccountable," August 14) gives us the most focused and objective reporting available on behalf of prisoners, prison staff, and overburdened taxpayers. In a society where prisoners, and the conditions and treatment they are subjected to, is often ignored by an uncaring public and glossed over by the DOC in the name of security and budget controls, Tapley has been a steadfast and courageous voice of advocacy for humanitarian treatment.
With a failed system based on political motives ("get tough on crime"), fear, and prejudice whereby we imprison 2.3 million citizens, 25 percent of the world's incarcerated — five to eight times more than Canada and Western Europe — Lance Tapley's body of work speaks the truth and exposes a correctional system that doesn't work and is shrouded by complicit quiet.
Jim Bergin
Blue Hill
