Polluted planet: Letters to the editor, March 4, 2019

Just look at what is happening

If you believe a Creator, whether divine or scientific, know that he, she or it is not happy. I know because the Creator’s messenger is telling me — telling us — every day.

Our rivers and seas are sick. Much of the air we breathe is foul. Animal species are disappearing at alarming rates. Insect species are vanishing and may be gone, entirely, sooner than you think. (And, yes, insects are important to our survival.)

And by ignoring the plight of the world’s poor and the threat of overpopulating this good earth, coupled with a significant part of the people who inhabit it not caring or not acting, it’s only going to get worse.

Despite the deniers’s rants, this beautiful blue marble, once of clear skies and rivers, bountiful seas and lands, has a rapidly metastasizing cancer: us.

The signs are everywhere if you’ll just look, if you’ll just listen, if you’ll just pay heed.

No matter your beliefs, there will be no redemption for anyone — for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for their children — unless and until we do something.

Don’t wait until tomorrow. Begin now.

Making the Creator happy is good. The alternative is not.

Green New Deal appeals to all

Two Florida congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, recently introduced the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. It is projected to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent in 12 years.

This bipartisan bill can be part of either a conservative, market-based economic plan, or a progressive reshaping of our economy promoted in the Green New Deal.

EICDA adds a price to carbon fuels to encourage American families and businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, but does not dictate how. Businesses can invest in conservation and green energy, or pay the higher price for carbon fuels. Farmers get a rebate for their equipment fuel. Government does not keep the money; carbon dividends go to each household. Conservatives like these features.

The Green New Deal combines green businesses and jobs with guaranteed full employment, universal health insurance, financial reform and other major changes. These ambitious goals cannot pass until at least the 2020 elections, when progressives hope to use them to win Congress and the White House.

EICDA would be a major step towards the climate protection goals of the Green New Deal. But it could pass in the current session, because it also fits into conservative climate programs. Write your representative.

Diversion tactics from real issues

Why should dictator Kim stop diverting his people’s attention from his minority rule by reducing his propaganda about imminent U.S. attack? As part of his exploitation of his own people, his nuclear weapons divert their attention away from their poverty.

America’s wealthiest 1 percent love a diversionary-tactic showman who pretends we are being attacked by a nonwhite invader. While they steal more than their share, the 1 percent supports politicians who dismantle voting rights and their continuation of the fossil-fuel destruction of our planet.

I do not want climate change dooming our grandchildren to civilization collapse. Germans pay more for renewable electricity, Japanese shame executives who want to get rich, Scandinavians tax inheritance, net worth, and income, and Denmark’s employees are 70 percent unionized.

With Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez capturing American middle-class and working-class attention with proposals fostering a Green New Deal, free public college and trade school, infrastructure projects for renewable energy, and a 70 percent marginal tax rate for incomes above $10 million, will the rich people’s puppets, the Republican party, start screaming about commies to divert your attention? Maybe they will try to just start a war somewhere. Shall we stop them? Why not?