Get over it, because the apocalypse is here. We all like democracy, but democracy will be unable to address the issue of climate change.
When given the choice between doing something meaningful or cheaper gasoline prices, cheaper gas will win every time.
As I look at pictures of young climate activists they are all young, too young to drive. Light switches, thermostats, and car keys all make us adequately in denial.
My natural gas supplier wants me to change my appliances to electric. The switch makes no sense to a gas supplier unless you consider the latest European war has opened a new, more profitable, market for our surplus natural gas. The TPP reported on two new LNG facilities in the US at $15 billion each. The switch makes no sense to me because $2,500 for a heat pump water heater the gas company wanted to sell me will pay for a lot of hot water.
The answers are the same today as 35 years ago when James Hansen told Congress of the danger we faced. In the end the answer will be an involuntary lowering of the human population, not selling every one a Tesla. Besides, V8-powered monster trucks, pulling trailer loads of gasoline-powered toys seem to be the most popular item on the car lot.
In 20 years, today’s 10-year-olds will kill the old for what we do today.
Take shorter showers, turn off lights and appliances when not in use, and for all of our sake, shut off your vehicle before you get lost in some stupidity that has you fascinated on your not-so-smart device.
JAMES BOSEK, Essex Junction, Vt.
Open Letter: Dear President Biden nnI am writing to implore you to become familiar with the main project of the Planetary Sunshade Foundation. It is simply to retard earth warming by constructing, between the sun and the earth a solar shade. There is a unique gravitational balance area near Lagrange Point1, at which a shade could remain, always shading the entire Earth. Several of our astronomical instruments have already been stationed there. The shade, a large object, could be created from materials on the surface of the moon. No fear of falling: Lagrange P1 is about 1.2 million miles from Earth.
You know from experience that in an eclipse the air briefly gets cooler; in a total one, as much as 10 degrees. The shade would be translucent. The degree of translucency could be changed.
Some Net Zero projects are slightly helpful. But no Earth-bound ones are up to the scale needed to retard world warming. “Heat attack” disasters: drought, fire, hurricanes and monsoons really need an alliance of nations like World War II to attack the cause. World Warming is World War III!
The Planetary Sunshade project is neutral among nations and beneficial to all humans. The US could lead with consultation and partnership with other nations. Raise awareness of this now, implement it, before heat attacks kill more people and severely degrade the progress of world industrial civilization.
Contacts: Morgan Goodwin at Planetary Sunshade Foundation; Elizabeth Scott, Colorado School of Mines
ROBERT COGAN, Ph.D., Boynton Beach, Fla.
In “Trump’s Luck,” [8/15/23 TPP], Barry Friedman outlines all the reasons why Trump is unlikely to be jailed for his crimes against the nation. I hope he is wrong.
Friedman cites a 2000 legal ruling from Clinton’s Department of Justice that a president cannot be prosecuted while in office. Has this ruling become an unmitigated law of the land?
Although Clinton was admittedly a bit of a buffoon, and lied about his sex life and his cannabis use in college, he did not stand accused of seditious behavior, nor did he abscond with dozens of crates of classified documents. There’s really no comparison.
President or not, if Trump isn’t prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law, the US will likely — and rightly — be the laughingstock of the world. We love to go after corrupt, power-grabbing politicians in other countries — we need to do the same with our own.
Lock him up.
BETTY CROWDER, Honeydew, Calif.
Editor’s Note: Since the 1970s it has been Department of Justice policy that a president cannot be prosecuted while in office, but the Supreme Court has never held that a president is immune from criminal prosecution. Saikrishna B. Prakash, a University of Virginia School of Law professor and expert on presidential power, said in a Jan. 20, 2023, online interview.
The members of the US Supreme Court might as well begin thinking about Article 14 Section 3 of the Constitution and whether Donald Trump is eligible to run for president again. While they are at it, they might as well start ruminating on whether the president of the United States can pardon himself. You never know, he can get back in. And while the honorable justices are chewing all this over, they might want to do us all a favor and share their thoughts. I see nothing unconstitutional about that.
STEVEN ROSENZWEIG, Brooklyn, N.Y.
When I first saw Trump’s mug shot, I laughed out loud. It reminded of a WANTED poster in Deadwood from an old cowboy movie. It reminded my spouse of a Mafia WANTED poster in a post office.
The national media has taken the mug shot so seriously. Lighten up, guys! If someone snapped a shot of a turd coming out of Trump’s asshole, Trump would put that on T-shirt and sell it, too, inspiring his worshippers to erect an altar with a giant plastic turd topped with a MAGA cap, and they’d fall down and worship it. How low graven images have fallen! Sad.
GIL FRENCH, Rochester, N.Y.
Readers of this newspaper deplore Trump and may wonder how he could have ever been elected. Blame the policies — they matter! When leaders get them right things go better, and the populace is content. But, get them wrong and the populace becomes disgruntled, often with devastating consequences, as in 1930s Germany. Here, Democratic Party policy errors paved-the-way for Trump.
During the 1930s-60s the Democrats enjoyed great popularity. However, starting in the 1970s the Party leaders began backing away from Franklin Roosevelt’s progressive policies — a huge error. Thus began the Party’s downfall; eventually, many even embraced Milton Freedman’s free-market bunk. That 1970s change facilitated the following, and other, policy errors: (1) President Clinton’s approval of the 1993 NAFTA treaty sucked jobs, and life, out of manufacturing towns and cities. (2) Multiple decades of blind-eyed tax policies allowed most gains from productivity improvements to flow upward while inflation-adjusted hourly-wages stagnated — Policies Matter.
The working-class saw these as governmental raw-deals so Barack Obama’s 2008 slogan, “Be the Change,” resonated, and he was elected along with Democratic House and Senate majorities. For two years they had the power, but oblivious to the masses’ immense dissatisfaction they failed to enact anything major to help them except the inadequate Affordable Care Act. Policies Matter.
By 2016; much of the electorate was thoroughly disgruntled, then, “tone-deaf,” Clinton’s,“Basket of Deplorables,” speech clinched Trump’s win. Today much of the national Democratic Party continues — “tone-deaf.” However, progressive leadership is expanding in locals and states, though much too slowly.
So, the Democratic Party’s 60-year shift away from FDR’s progressive policies sired millions of disgruntled Trumpers, and endangered our 250-year-old Democracy. Oh lord, how Policies Matter.
THOMAS McKEE, Cary, N.C.
“Don’t choose to be wrong for the sake of being different.” In the context of democracy, this is a wise piece of advice. We all have opinions that conflict and clash with those of others — often those of friends and neighbors.
In political and economic affairs, we should attempt to fathom the sentiments of others as best we’re able. Since we all are the product of different experiences, it cannot be otherwise, since we observe society through quite different metaphorical lenses.
There are reasons and rationalities we cannot know that must be sought, sometimes diligently and time-consuming. Yet it’s for sure that we won’t comprehend the attitudes of others unless we strive to know from which said attitudes arise.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
The irony of the song, “Try That in a Small Town” is that those who founded and created all these small towns throughout America could not have done so without criminal activity upon Native Americans.
My White ancestors did “try that,” many times, and “how far did they make it down the road,” well, we’re still going down that road, playing stupid songs while we’re at it.
Maybe — “Try That on Native Land.”
FRANK ERICKSON, Minneapolis, Minn.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2023
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