Cap and trade is the easy way of saying “we did something!” Frankly it doesn’t cut it. We need uniformly intensive incentives to be applied nationally. We need a suitably stringent requirement on all utilities in America if they want to continue in business in this country.

Take every single wasted billion we keep putting into oil, coal, and nuclear power and move them over where they belong, on wind and solar. Our country is a pitiful site as the world sees us. The real centers of progress in green energy are Denmark, Germany and Spain. Too long have our people remained complacent about our pitiful national government’s failure to lead, and to grab the reins of leadership away from corporations and big money. We’ve lost it. We lost it because we fail to call campaign donations what they really are, bribes!

The day we get it back, when “we the people” again means all of us, that day will see the end of private money controlling our elections and corporate lawyers writing our laws. Our elections need no private money at all! Require that every broadcaster obtaining a license on our media airwaves assign all spaces needed in support of this piece of the national commons, our election process, as part payment for their license.

When these things I mention begin to happen, then, and only then, will we begin to recapture the democracy we have completely lost!

Paul Bixby

Oak Harbor