To the editor:
Greenwashing is expensive, whether it’s Taylor Run or DASH’s new electric buses, but may be less expensive than fixing the actual environmental problem.
The Commonwealth is giving city hall a bunch of money to greenwash Taylor Run, a project so controversial because of the collateral environmental damage that the resulting outcry will take attention away from the overdevelopment upstream which causes the problem to begin with.
So rather than say, “No,” to the inappropriate development, city hall would rather ravage Taylor Run’s pristine ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth is handing out free money from the Volkswagen settlement to purchase electric buses. A great photo-op for city council and the governor, but from where is that electricity coming?
Natural gas and other carbon-generating sources provide the vast majority of the electricity generated in Virginia, so are these electric buses really just a shell-game where the amount of greenhouse gas generated is not reduced but merely shunted somewhere else?
While virtue-signaling might be a Millennial trait, shouldn’t they and the rest of us be concerned about its consequences?
-Dino Drudi, Alexandria
