Letter: Why does governor ignore Nevadans?

Thursday, March 1, 2007 | 7:09 a.m.

The mayors of Reno, Sparks, Henderson and Las Vegas, representing close to half of Nevada's population, have all signed onto the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. This agreement was in response to President Bush's lack of support of the Kyoto Protocol. The goal was set to reduce by 2012 our carbon dioxide emissions (greenhouse gas-causing global warming) to 7 percent below 1990 levels. Originally 141 mayors signed on to the agreement, but the United States now has more than 350 mayors across the nation who have signed on to the agreement pledging to address global warming.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, by not agreeing to join five Western governors' fight to reduce carbon emissions, is ignoring a large portion of his constituents represented by the state's four mayors who have signed the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement.

Gov. Gibbons would rather waste time and resources studying a problem that has already been proven by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To make matters even worse, Gov. Gibbons joined with the coal industry and other coal states in NextGen, which would only increase our carbon dioxide emissions. As a geologist, Gov. Gibbons should know we don't have coal here in Nevada, and importing coal to Nevada to burn is importing other states' pollution!

Lydia Ball, Las Vegas

The writer is a regional representative of the Sierra Club.