South Jersey speaks up: Letters to the editor for the week of Jul. 12, 2024
- Updated
Our weekly round-up of letters published in the Press of Atlantic City.
Disputes Jeff Van Drew offshore wind opposition
In a recent op-ed piece, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew highlighted the many downsides to offshore wind. The talking points appear to be right out of the Koch Brothers playbook, loaded with fears, scare tactics and misinformation. Yes, there are some concerns which need to be addressed, but none appear to be apocalyptic.
As to the ruination of tourism and fishing, we can examine two real life instances. The first offshore wind project in the U.S. was about 4 miles off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. Several years after completion, studies and articles published by the University of Rhode Island and the Smithsonian Magazine cited an interesting conclusion. Both tourism and fishing went up. As a matter of fact, tourists were willing to pay more for accommodations with views of the windmills.
We can look in our own backyard and note that the most successful casino in Atlantic City, the Borgata, has windmills within walking distance.
While it may exist, I couldn’t find any articles published by the offshore wind industry citing billions in potential tourism losses. I’m sure Mr. Van Drew can provide them, and I, for one, would be interested in reading them.
While nuclear energy is a good addition to our energy mix, nuclear facilities have virtually always resulted in cost overruns several times their original estimates and have taken as much as a decade to construct.
Ask yourselves if you actually know someone who will stop going to their favorite restaurant or casino show because windmills are 10 miles offshore.
Dig around sources who have studied marine mammals for decades such as Woods Hole Oceanographic and NOAA and you’ll probably find the same questionable conclusions about whale deaths that Van Drew sets forth about tourism, fishing and cost overruns.
I’m not against questioning legitimate concerns about offshore wind development, but hysteria orchestrated by politicians gets us no closer to a balanced view.
Richard J. Cohen
Margate
Biden failed on border security
“No Way to Run a Country” was the headline on “The Economist” magazine’s front page. It depicted the presidential seal on a walker. The world knows that our president is an elderly man with a poor memory. How embarrassing is that?
We’re not electing someone with whom we would like to have a beer. We’ll be electing the president of the United States. We must consider our safety, which has been jeopardized by the immigration policy of this administration.
According to Homeland Security, since President Biden took office, through September 2023, there have been 7.5 million encounters nationwide and 1.7 million known “gotaways” that have evaded U.S. Border Patrol.
I’m old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001. At that time, we said, “We will never forget.” But the fact of the matter is that our government has forgotten.
Our military protects borders all over the world. National security starts with border security.
So when you go to the polls to elect a commander-in-chief, elect someone who is tough enough to protect our national security.
Annamarie Donley
Egg Harbor Township
Trump why we pay more for everything
“Elections have consequences,” as Gary Varvel’s political cartoon (6/29) tells us. But he errs in saying the depicted senior couple must go back to work because of “Bidenflation.”
It was actually Donald’s Trump’s insanely callous, incompetent and egocentric response to COVID-19 that caused hundreds of thousands of American deaths, ravaged the economy and sent prices skyrocketing. Trump hurt us both as president and afterwards when he continued to spread harmful disinformation that thwarted President Biden’s efforts to help all Americans. That’s why the United States had the highest death rate of any wealthy nation. And that, along with Trump benefactor Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and, of course, profiteering by big corporations shielded from regulations and taxes by Republican legislators, is why you pay more for everything.
While Joe Biden and the Democratic Party always work to protect workers and the interests of average Americans, it is Donald Trump who has proposed another big tax cut for the wealthy, while raising the age of Social Security retirement for the rest of us suckers.
Neil Scheck
Belmar
More like this...
Disputes Jeff Van Drew offshore wind opposition
In a recent op-ed piece, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew highlighted the many downsides to offshore wind. The talking points appear to be right out of the Koch Brothers playbook, loaded with fears, scare tactics and misinformation. Yes, there are some concerns which need to be addressed, but none appear to be apocalyptic.
As to the ruination of tourism and fishing, we can examine two real life instances. The first offshore wind project in the U.S. was about 4 miles off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. Several years after completion, studies and articles published by the University of Rhode Island and the Smithsonian Magazine cited an interesting conclusion. Both tourism and fishing went up. As a matter of fact, tourists were willing to pay more for accommodations with views of the windmills.
We can look in our own backyard and note that the most successful casino in Atlantic City, the Borgata, has windmills within walking distance.
While it may exist, I couldn’t find any articles published by the offshore wind industry citing billions in potential tourism losses. I’m sure Mr. Van Drew can provide them, and I, for one, would be interested in reading them.
While nuclear energy is a good addition to our energy mix, nuclear facilities have virtually always resulted in cost overruns several times their original estimates and have taken as much as a decade to construct.
Ask yourselves if you actually know someone who will stop going to their favorite restaurant or casino show because windmills are 10 miles offshore.
Dig around sources who have studied marine mammals for decades such as Woods Hole Oceanographic and NOAA and you’ll probably find the same questionable conclusions about whale deaths that Van Drew sets forth about tourism, fishing and cost overruns.
I’m not against questioning legitimate concerns about offshore wind development, but hysteria orchestrated by politicians gets us no closer to a balanced view.
Richard J. Cohen
Margate
Biden failed on border security
“No Way to Run a Country” was the headline on “The Economist” magazine’s front page. It depicted the presidential seal on a walker. The world knows that our president is an elderly man with a poor memory. How embarrassing is that?
We’re not electing someone with whom we would like to have a beer. We’ll be electing the president of the United States. We must consider our safety, which has been jeopardized by the immigration policy of this administration.
According to Homeland Security, since President Biden took office, through September 2023, there have been 7.5 million encounters nationwide and 1.7 million known “gotaways” that have evaded U.S. Border Patrol.
I’m old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001. At that time, we said, “We will never forget.” But the fact of the matter is that our government has forgotten.
Our military protects borders all over the world. National security starts with border security.
So when you go to the polls to elect a commander-in-chief, elect someone who is tough enough to protect our national security.
Annamarie Donley
Egg Harbor Township
Trump why we pay more for everything
“Elections have consequences,” as Gary Varvel’s political cartoon (6/29) tells us. But he errs in saying the depicted senior couple must go back to work because of “Bidenflation.”
It was actually Donald’s Trump’s insanely callous, incompetent and egocentric response to COVID-19 that caused hundreds of thousands of American deaths, ravaged the economy and sent prices skyrocketing. Trump hurt us both as president and afterwards when he continued to spread harmful disinformation that thwarted President Biden’s efforts to help all Americans. That’s why the United States had the highest death rate of any wealthy nation. And that, along with Trump benefactor Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and, of course, profiteering by big corporations shielded from regulations and taxes by Republican legislators, is why you pay more for everything.
While Joe Biden and the Democratic Party always work to protect workers and the interests of average Americans, it is Donald Trump who has proposed another big tax cut for the wealthy, while raising the age of Social Security retirement for the rest of us suckers.
Neil Scheck
Belmar
More like this...
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