Thank you for another excellent column by Russ Vernon-Jones (”Solving humanity’s shared climate crisis,” Gazette, March 14). He’s right to ask us to take a global perspective on climate change. We’re all in this together. I also appreciated Daniel Lyons’ response (”World’s energy systems will not change in the short term,” Gazette, March 29), although I don’t share his pessimism. He cited three events that do indeed sound like setbacks on the road to a clean energy future, events related to wind farms, EVs sales, and UK regulations.

Well, setbacks happen. But it’s easy to find good news, too. Last August, the Department of Energy reported that 22% of new electricity capacity installed in 2022 came from wind power — second only to solar! Wind power, they said, “is poised for rapid growth,” as one of our lowest-cost sources of electricity. In 31 nations, EVs now make up over 5% of new car sales, a threshold said to signal the start of mass adoption. And right next door, as reported in the Gazette (“Sublime Systems lands $87M federal award for low-carbon cement plant in Holyoke,” March 26), a breakthrough innovation may clean up the production of cement, “the third largest industrial source of pollution in the U.S.” That $87M award was possible thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest investment in cutting carbon pollution in US history. U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey all supported both bills. We owe them our thanks.

Linda Butler, volunteer Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Pioneer Valley Chapter

Leeds