Readers Write: Climate change, Xcel’s electricity costs, polarization

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We always think of seasonal disorder as a winter thing that’s brought on by long nights and a winter sun that hangs much lower in the sky. The winter of 2023-2024 has given us a seasonal disorder of an altogether different flavor, with extraordinarily high temps and dull brown landscapes.

This stuff would have killed me as a kid. I grew up on the East Side of St. Paul where we lived, ate and breathed outdoor hockey. Every last practice and game was held outdoors until one got to high school, and even then practices were outdoors at the old Phalen Youth Club. All us kids who lived west of Arcade Street had to blaze our own trails a half mile across the golf course to get to the youth club, and often through knee-deep snow. It was a legacy we inherited from the hockey legends of the East Side, and I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t do that each and every winter.

Dale Jernberg, Minneapolis

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I don’t know if humans have noticed or not, but we need earth — earth doesn’t need us. Let imagination take us to a place with no planes, no cars, no factories, no asphalt, no smoky skies, no cement, no guns, no drones, no oversized houses, no rockets, no weapons, no war. Quiet, breezes and winds. Seeds sprouting where they fall. Trees are saved from the chain saw, water is clearing, air is cleaned, glaciers remain and oceans sift away plastics. Where animals are existing and wandering unimpeded.

The planet might miss our admiration. Our music, for sure. Our artistic interpretation on canvas and stage. Twirling dancers embodying the joy of living. The caring hands picking up raptors with injuries and healing them. The written word, our highest achievement. The emotion we bathe over each square inch we inhabit. The curiosity. The amazement, the striving, the discovery, the love. Surely it would miss the love we have for our home.

But it doesn’t have to have us. We have to have it. We have to have it because there’s nothing as far as our eyes or telescopes can see that would sustain us. The vast universe likely contains someone or something. But not in cellphone range. No ambulance is speeding toward us, that we know of.

I love a warm winter day as much as anyone, but a day that hasn’t occurred in over a hundred years? My old lake seeing this for the first time in written record? That I’m not sure I can celebrate. Perhaps we can have a normal weather cycle? A normal climate cycle amplified by our voracious and beautiful species?

The planet has sported dinosaurs, oceans, molten rock and mountain upheavals. It functions well with or without us. We are frosting on the cake — beautiful, fragile, precious decor. So on this exceptional sunny winter spring day, let our imagination spin out again. What if this was the year that spring came now, prematurely? Fields would be unready; sap would rise too soon. Crop cycles would be disturbed. Hibernators would be awakened before their natural alarm clocks.

We need nature; nature doesn’t necessarily need us. Are we listening, watching, paying attention and taking action to keep our balance in a changing world?

Kris Potter, South Haven

I agree that Xcel should institute variable pricing for residential customers, but it needs to do it to promote conservation, in addition to just smoothing the company’s load and reducing its costs (”Xcel seeks to charge variable peak prices,” Feb. 7). The variability it needs to introduce is tiered pricing, in which the first certain number of kilowatts are at a low price that meets the basic needs of an approximately 1,500- to 2,000-square-foot house in an average year. After that, the tiers would be smaller, and the rates would go up in an increasingly steeper curve. This is the only way that consumers will not just monitor their daily usage, thermometer settings, etc., but also won’t build unnecessary space to heat and cool in the first place (or they’ll pay dearly if they do).

Xcel would need to determine some parameters, as you would need to establish separate tiers for a fully electric vs. electric/gas house, and to be fair, the same tier system would need to be done for gas or propane usage. Ideally, at the higher tiers, a rising portion of the increase would mainly be a tax that would go toward pollution reduction rather than profit for the energy companies. Setting up a billing system to accomplish this is well within current computer capabilities and could easily be averaged out on an annual or running basis with quarterly and annual adjustments to allow for natural monthly fluctuations of temperatures and conditions.

Miles Anderson, Minneapolis

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We don’t like change, especially when it involves the price we pay to our government-approved monopolies. However, Xcel’s plan to implement time-of-use pricing is a fantastic idea. It will help us take advantage of our clean-energy revolution and manage the strain on our electric grid. Promoting usage during low-demand periods will help reduce energy consumption overall, contributing to our state’s environmental goals. And reducing Xcel’s infrastructure investments means cost savings for consumers — according to the U.S. Department of Energy, these programs can reduce peak electricity demand by up to 15%. A study by the Brattle Group found that just a 1% decrease in peak demand could save $1 billion in electricity infrastructure costs!

However, one of the biggest benefits of Xcel’s plan isn’t mentioned in the article. It significantly improves the value proposition for electric vehicle adoption. EVs already help clean the air, improve the climate and help lower gas costs for other drivers. With this new program, they will also save EV drivers significantly more on operating costs. Imagine “filling up” your car for the equivalent of 30 cents per gallon! That’s what it would cost to charge up during the night. This, combined with our new state EV rebates and new point-of-purchase federal rebates, means owning an EV is even more appealing. More EVs on the road is a win for all Minnesotans.

Mark Andersen, Wayzata

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I understand Xcel’s need to increase revenue. There are company owners and executives who need a higher salary. The people that are going to get hit hard by this change are the retired who are on fixed incomes, the people who work night shifts such as nurses, and families with children during hot summer days. If Xcel needs to increase revenue, the increase needs to affect everyone.

Phillip Paulson, Blaine

Tragically, too many fellow Minnesotans have reached the point where they believe political differences can justify actual violence against those of opposing views. The latest example occurred in recent days when the offices of three nonprofit, conservatively oriented organizations in a suburban office park were destroyed by fire in a suspected arson attack (”Think tank fire is a troubling twist,” editorial, Feb. 6). As a consequence of that violence, wholly innocent nearby small businesses have been forced to do without space. But the far greater consequence is that we are losing the fundamental requisite of any civil society — space and reason allowing for competing voices to be heard in the never-ending search for truth. While this most recent suspected arson episode is telling, we received an enormous wake-up call to this lurch into violence when protesters destroyed over half a billion dollars of the Twin Cities’ business base during the George Floyd riots.

Those who commit violence must pay a serious price. Sadly, it rarely happens in the progressive worldview that predominates here.

Mark H. Reed, Plymouth