Don't invest in coal
If Consumers Energy's proposed new coal-fired power plant is allowed to go through, Bay City and the rest of the state could be missing out on thousands of good-paying, 21st century jobs in the clean energy sector. States like Texas and Pennsylvania have begun investing in clean energy technology, and have seen job growth spring up as a result.
Why should Michigan keep clinging to dirty coal while others prosper off the back of our missed opportunity? With a statewide unemployment rate of 12 percent (the highest it has been in 25 years), we should be investigating chances to bring many more jobs to our workforce, rather than settling for a few non-permanent construction jobs.
We can do better than more dirty coal.
Betsey Sivec
Kaleva
Cigarettes everywhere
Our names are Emma Burns, Robert O'Brien, Sara Skarshaug and Cara Ferguson. Recently The Children's House, a Montessori school, selected our elementary classrooms to go clean up and pick up trash at West End Beach. The classrooms have children ages 6 to 12 years old. We found many things, including plastic bags, bottles, food packages and many more, but the thing we wanted to write to you about was the cigar tips and the cigarettes.
Our three classrooms combined collected 163 cigar tips and 1,430 cigarettes, and we didn't even walk the entire beach. The sad thing is, we think most of it was not an accident. The roads were lined with cigarettes; wood chips around the trees had cigarettes scattered throughout them, and even the water had them floating in it.
The total amount of trash we found was 2,586 pieces and most of the trash we found was not made by children. We hope this letter helps to tell the public how important our environment is and gives some ideas on how to save it.
Cara Ferguson, Sara Skarshaug. Emma Burns, Robert O'Brien
The writers are all elementary students from The Montessori Children's House.
