My mother was a proud product of Mr. Manchin’s state, West Virginia where she was born & reared in the “suburbs” of Oak Hill (Lochgelly), near Beckley. Although her father was a coal miner immigrant from Poland, I don’t think she would agree with the Senator’s “sell-out” to the out-of-date energy source Coal Industry in this era of Climatic instability. Her sister came to the D.C. area during WWII to study for a Nursing career at American University. This (and perhaps the inadequate health care she experienced growing up) gave her a lifetime concern for the Health & Safety of her family & others. The destruction of this planet’s climatic stability thru what the media calls “Global Warming” is worsening small particle disease - similar effects to coal miner’s Black Lung disease & Silicosis - which, however attacks humans no matter what their employment (as evidenced by the increase in Asthma & bronchitis rates).
Partly due to such influence & general interest in Science I took a B.S. degree in Chemistry at the University of Virginia (since my D.C. native father married Irene Czul & raised our family in Arlington, Va.). That background, along with four years of Physical Chemistry Doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota (leaving when Reagan threatened the World with “limited Nuclear War”) and completion of my Ph.D. at Howard University in Chiral Vibrational Spectroscopy calculations has equipped me with the background to fully understand the threat to our species from the fossil fuel “greenhouse” gas pollution released over the last couple centuries. One thing to be learned from the Physics of Chemistry is that reactions don’t just occur, but importantly do so at a specific speed (rate) - the field called Kinetics. Manchin seems rather weak in his understanding of this aspect of how the gases are changing our entire Climate on this planet. He correctly points out that his “special interest” coal/gas Industry is moving in the appropriate direction to prevent a “Hellish” future for our Children, but fails to comprehend that at the rate they are changing they will NOT successfully avoid such. “All Deliberate Speed” is not adequate in this policy any more than it was in desegregating the schools in the ‘50s, Sir (“All Mountaineers are Free” is a sentiment I believe in wholeheartedly particularly given the racial pollution inequity rampant throughout our Nation). Despite your investments in the Coal Industry & your fully legitimate service to your constituents who are/will be transitioning to tomorrows Energy Industry, the obstruction you are committing to your Democratic Party’s “Build back better” package that is the MINIMUM required to protect & maintain West Virginia as a Healthy, improving part of our land seems to be careless of the vast majority of your Constituents’ true (long-term) interests.
COP26, the Global gathering of the Community of Nations to address Climate change in Glasgow is occuring in three weeks. If this planet has any chance to maintain something like todays world ( where there are STABLE seasons in which to grow crops outdoors, for instance), then it needs true leadership to reduce the rate of warming. Mr Kerry needs the corporate Carbon Tax (of a sort) that is in the Democrats bill in order to induce other mega-polluting countries like China, Russian & India to do the right thing, finally. (Seems to me an actual compromise between 1.5 & 3.5 might work out to ~ 2.5 Trillion - over the next DECADE, Sir !)
Another careless action that Mr. Manchin is committing is to prevent West Virginians the opportunity to attend Community Colleges without incurring today’s excessive college debt levels (with which I am personally quite familiar with). Again Sir, please serve the majority of people who voted for you, not just the few mega-wealthy who take home all the blood, sweat & tears profits from the Mines !
Another even more perplexing obstruction to the will of the American people as expressed in Mr. Biden’s “Build back better” bill is the inscrutable resistance from the Arizona Senator Sinema who runs into bathrooms to avoid questions regarding her opposition to protecting her constituents from Climatic instability & denial of their ability to begin an academic career which she has so successfully traversed. It seems her intellectual pursuits have been quite bereft on the Scientific side of knowledges’ ledger. She seems to be much more likely to attend fundraising meetings with special interests than engage with American activists amongst whom she used to be associated. It’s hard to scrutinize or even understand someone who is too timid (or embarrassed ?) to defend her “just say no” position on the Democratic Party’s main legislative effort. Given her challenging youth & extreme religious history (I have some of that same experience) I empathize with her to some degree, however; as with Mr. Manchin I hope she will consider the desires, needs & requirements of the MAJORITY of her constituents who placed her into her position at least as much as those whose monetary largess she seems to value more, Sister.
Dr. Steven Dwight Ferber, Ph.D. Physical BioCHEMISTRY Howard University ’05
B.S. Chemistry. U.Va. ‘76
BTW To the extent these two “Democratic” Senators actually care about our political success & maintenance of Jeffersonian democracy in this country so under threat by Putin’s puppets’ perversion of what USED to be the party of Lincoln they should at least compromise UP to say the 2.5 T figure soon so as to support Terry McAuliffe’s Governors campaign in my home state (commonwealth) of Virginia where the “Big Lie” (a Hitlerian tactic) regarding last years election is alive & well in Donald (the Chump’s) clone candidate.
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Steven Ferber
2200 N. George Mason Drive
No. 7123
Arlington, Va. 22207
571-499-7153
sdferber@hotmail.com