Neither For nor Against

To the editor:

When I set out to write my LNG: A Level Headed Look at the Liquefied Natural Gas Controversy, which you reviewed in your July issue, I honestly didn’t know how I felt about the subject. My natural green tendency was counteracted by what I’d heard from my tugboat friends about the safety of moving the ships, and everything published on the subject came from one side or the other, anti- or pro-LNG. I set out to see for myself what the “truth” was. It was never my intent to write a Maine-only book, although the issue is a local one as well as national.

Today, I am neither for nor against LNG. You are entirely right; as I said in my book, neither LNG nor any other fossil fuel is a permanent solution, and there are indeed questions of supply. If we get 40 years of LNG, that will be but a partial stop-gap measure, but it will help to give the engineers time to come up with one or more longer-term solutions, be it solar or nuclear or hydrogen or what.

I agree entirely that toning down our lifestyles is a key part of the equation. I wish I had the confidence to believe that we’ll do that, either in our own country or worldwide.

Virginia L. Thorndike

Morrill