Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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The July 12 commentaries on the Talon mine by Chris Baldwin, warning of the dangers ("Beware 'limited scope' Talon Metals project"), and Todd Malan, justifying the mine as contributing to green technology ("Talon can help Minn. lead way to clean energy future"), perfectly illustrate the impasse we are at in the climate change debate.

We literally must destroy the environment in order to save it. Hard rock mining in water-rich places is only one of the problems with the plan for wind and solar to supply electricity. The land needed to supply the projected demand would use up an area the size of Texas, according to an article by Harry Stevens in the Washington Post on May 10. Despite at least a decade of adding wind and solar to the grid, carbon dioxide emissions have gone up, not down. Those two technologies will never be able to meet the demand for electricity, and people will not accept the use of so much land for a threat many do not believe is real, nor will they accept energy privation.

Of note, the nuclear accidents that have occurred have not resulted in any deaths in the U.S. The Fukushima plant accident in Japan was a tidal wave disaster because of an inadequate sea wall and unprotected backup generators. Still, no one died of radiation from Fukushima. Chernobyl, in the Soviet Union, was a government-caused disaster from bad design and lack of protective gear for workers attempting to mitigate the damage.

The only available source for the expected demand is nuclear-generated electricity. It is a technology that has proven safe from the mining of uranium to the generation of electricity and storage of the waste. Sweden and France are two countries that use nuclear with excellent safety records. The arguments for nuclear energy are spelled out in Oliver Stone's documentary, "Nuclear Now." It is based on the book by Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist titled "A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow."

We will need to reconsider nuclear-generated electricity if we intend a carbon-free future. I urge a bipartisan move to end the moratorium on new nuclear power plants and renewal of the operating licenses of the two nuclear plants in Minnesota.

William A. Smithson, Rochester

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There was an article in the New York Times last week that discussed work at Purdue University studying paint that reflects essentially all of the visible light that hits it. The reflected light goes into space and does not heat the earth. This results in a cooling effect with no energy input. If this paint is used on the roof, the roof can actually be cooler than the air, even when in sunshine. I recommend that the Star Tribune develop a series of articles that review the science behind the greenhouse effect and global warming to put these findings into perspective. They can make a significant difference in global heating and open another line of climate control to augment carbon dioxide control.

Martin Urberg, Edina

UKRAINE

Send everything, even cluster arms

In a July 11 letter to this newspaper, a gentleman from Minneapolis made an impassioned case against the use of cluster bombs ("No to severed limbs, shredded eyes," Readers Write). Citing his experience in Vietnam in a U.S. artillery battalion, he correctly claims that these munitions continue to maim or kill innocent Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian civilians, children and adults alike. While correct, it's a false equivalence to compare what the U.S. did in Southeast Asia with what the Ukrainians will do in their own country.

First, let's not forget that the American war in Vietnam was fought in the jungle. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is being fought on farmland. The jungle effectively hid enemy troop movements and concentrations, thus limiting the U.S. military's ability to confront the enemy in open combat. So the use of cluster bombs probably made sense to the military leadership. However, once the decision was made to withdraw, the U.S. had not the time, resources or incentive to find and disarm unexploded ordnance, leaving the battlefields to what we euphemistically call collateral damage.

Second, while finding unexploded weaponry in the jungle is almost impossible, that won't be the case on Ukrainian farmland. And Ukraine obviously doesn't want to kill or injure its own citizens. It wants to drive the Russian invaders out of the country. The way to do that is to kill Russian soldiers. The way to do that is to incorporate the most effective military equipment and munitions you can get. The Ukrainians are fully aware that no one ever won a war by dying for their country; they won it by making the other guy die for his. When enough Russian soldiers have died and peace is won, the Ukrainian military can get about the job of finding and disarming these unexploded munitions. And the U.S. should send endless teams of sappers to help with the process.

Until then, we (NATO) should send Ukraine anything and everything it needs to get the job done. Send rockets, missiles, artillery, tanks, fighter jets, even cluster bombs. Give the Ukrainians what they need to kill as many Russian soldiers as necessary to get them out of Ukraine and end Russian adventurism.

Michael Alwin, Woodbury

RACISM IN HEALTH CARE

How much proof do you need?

Cory Franklin is shocked — shocked! — by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's use of research finding that for "high risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die" ("Unequal outcomes in health care: A justice's unjust accusation," Opinion Exchange, July 13).

Franklin seems to think that his personal experience and his belief that systemic racism plays no role in disparate health outcomes between Black people and white people outweigh decades of scientific findings. This is an odd position for someone with extensive scientific training to take. Perhaps his stance would be more supportable if the study to which Justice Jackson referred was an isolated finding or otherwise questionable. It is not, however.

Rather, it is part of a vast and ever-growing body of research. To take just one example, a study published this year in JAMA Network Open found a direct correlation between Black representation in the primary care workforce and increased life expectancy for Black people residing in the counties in which those clinicians practiced. Numerous other studies have found that physician-patient concordance in race improves communication and treatment adherence. This is on top of a staggeringly huge body of research that continues to this day to find worse outcomes for Black patients as compared to white patients for nearly every health condition and treatment studied. It also comes on top of numerous studies that continue to find that clinicians — the large majority of whom are white or Asian — are less likely to provide Black people than white people with health care that adheres to relevant evidence-based guidelines.

Franklin offers not one bit of objective evidence to support his belief that systemic racism plays no role in these outcomes. Rather, it appears he will continue to be offended by the suggestion until researchers come forward with indisputable, causal proof. But as a retired physician, he should realize that indubitable, scientific proof of a causal effect is often quite difficult to achieve. This is especially true where the causal mechanism under study is not a single, tangible thing or intentional act but rather a tangle of intangible biases and beliefs affecting medical care, education, employment, interactions with the criminal justice system and, in fact, our whole society. Right now, we've got many thousands of studies finding adverse outcomes for Black people in all these areas. Rather than waiting like Franklin for more evidence, it is time instead to restructure our society so that it works as fairly for Black people and all other minoritized groups as it does for white people.

Laura Hermer, St. Paul