An open letter (and an appurtenant Powerpoint presentation) sent to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors regarding their politically driven climate policies pursued in a time of world crisis:
Members of the BOS:You have elected to exclude “matters from the public” from your agenda today, even though it is a “virtual” on-line meeting. The public is your link to to those who pay your salaries, and expect you to be aware of issues which you choose to ignore or of which you might be unaware. Perhaps you are convinced that you and staff already embody all possible expert knowledge on all topics, and find the public segment a time wasting distraction.As a physician, I have witnessed several viral pandemics, and treated patients first diagnosed with SARS as a new syndrome in the 1960’s. That included treating such patients with intubation and ventilator support in the ICU of a major NYC hospital. We also had a hyperbaric chamber to try to evaluate all modes of treatment to patients unresponsive to more traditional support measures.I made in person presentations to the Albemarle County BOS in the 2009 era of the swine flu epidemic. The County remained open for business then. Matters from the public remained an agenda item. Why not now?That Swine Flu epidemic is documented to have resulted in nearly 13,000 deaths in the U.S. The CDC estimated that 10,000 of these deaths occured before an effective vaccine was available. Nearly 61 million people were infected, and nearly 300,000 were hospitalized. There were 37 documented deaths in Virginia.To date, the Corona virus is reported to have killed around 4,000 people in the US. The “worst may yet to come” but we are still far from the 13,000 earlier deaths.You may have no choice other than to follow the CDC rules and halt in-person meetings. You do have the choice to open the on-line ones to public input.Attached is my Ppt for today, for the record. One item of many there is the report that the Virginia Clean Energy Plan would be using off-shore wind turbines manufactured in China from a factory near Wuhan, the site of the current viral pandemic.Thank you,Charles G. Battig, M.D.
Dr. Batting, Mr. Shilling,
Thanks so much for raising your public objection to the Albemarle County draft Climate Action Plan. My wife and I do not approve of the plan. As a county resident concerned for our environment, we believe the so called “Green” initiatives are not supported by the science and are at best misguided. Considering the environmental impact of windmills and solar panels, we believe they are worse for the environment than efficient fossil fuels at this point in our history and the added taxes and regulation are an unnecessary burden on the poor and workers of this county. We are also alarmed that there seems to be very little discussion about HB 1414 which is going to significantly and artificially raise our transportation costs.