To the editor:

After reading his recent guest commentary (“Recent storms require a rethinking of New York state’s green agenda, Aug. 2), I’m left wondering if Senator Stec knows why the North Country has been suffering from sweltering summers and increasingly severe thunderstorms these past few years. He might be interested in reading the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fifth National Climate Assessment (nca2023.globalchange.gov) detailing climate impacts across the country. There’s an entire chapter on the Northeast and it contains the following key takeaway for citizens and policymakers like Mr. Stec:

The Northeast continues to be confronted with extreme weather, most notably extreme precipitation–which has caused problematic flooding across the region–and heatwaves. In response, climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, including nature-based solutions, have increased across the region, with a focus on emissions reductions, carbon sequestration, and resilience building. (NCA 2023, Chapter 21.)

One wonders if Mr. Stec has read these reports, for it was his own party’s Trump Administration that scrubbed such life-saving information from the EPA’s website when they held power. Such actions are not surprising, as Mr. Stec’s Republican Party is one of the only conservative parties in the world that denies the science of human-caused climate change.

Instead of actual solutions to mitigate the threats of climate change, we instead get nothing but disingenuous concern-trolling from Mr. Stec. Rather than deal with the root cause of the climate crisis — carbon pollution — Mr. Stec instead deflects attention away from his own culpability and toward those trying to solve the problem via the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a piece of legislation that most of his party voted against anyway.

On the other hand, I’m happy to see Mr. Stec supporting efforts to modernize our energy grid to make it more resilient. On this point, we agree! Mr. Stec surely knows that the Build Public Renewables Act (Senate Bill 4134) supported public investments and jobs to develop more affordable, reliable, and sustainable grid infrastructure. Mr. Stec voted against this bill.

And so, I’m left wondering exactly what Mr. Stec is even advocating for in his commentary. Being able to use your kitchen stove to heat your house? Seems like a bad thing for a state senator to advocate for given the inherent health and safety hazards of such an approach. His heat resiliency argument makes no sense either, as most fossil fuel heating systems rely on some form of electricity. These are unserious ideas from someone who belongs to a party that doesn’t take climate change seriously in the first place.

North Country residents deserve political leaders who can address the climate crisis with the seriousness that it demands. One wonders where those political leaders are these days …

Dr. Joseph A. Henderson

Associate professor of Social Sciences

Paul Smith’s College

Saranac Lake