Fresno Bee letters: On climate change, Putin aggression, CSU golden handshake

On county denying funds for study

I truly appreciated your March 1 editorial, taking the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to task for turning away funds to study the local impacts of climate change. It is disturbing that we have elected leaders who would prefer to ignore urgent public health hazards so that they can carry on with business as usual.

It is especially disturbing that the study would have focused on vulnerable populations and would likely be useful for applying for more funds to address problems in the Valley. Thank you for providing the public with information about this issue.

I will share your editorial with the 1,000-plus members of Citizens’ Climate Lobby-Fresno.

America must stand for freedom

I read the letters to the editor today, and they were full of right-wing nonsense on Russia's war of choice in Ukraine. To clarify NATO is a defensive alliance. If one member is attacked, the others are treaty bound to come to the others defense.

To the nations of Eastern Europe, Russia is a clear and present danger to their nations and way of life. That is why they have joined, or want to join, NATO. The dictator, Putin, attacked Ukraine not because it was a threat to the people of Russia, but because the example freedom-loving Ukrainians made for the Russian people threated the dictator’s oppressive criminal rule over the Russian people.

The war criminal, Putin needs to be resisted. Standing by and doing nothing did not stop the dictator Hitler before World War II. The United States with its allies need to stand firm against this unwarranted, murderous attack upon a peaceful people.

Even if this costs us treasure and blood, it must be done. We must stand for freedom.

Time to become prepared is now

I was disappointed that the Fresno County Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal by the Dept. of Public Health to accept $175,000 to fund a study on the health impacts of climate change on Fresno County residents.

We need to better understand the health impacts of increasingly common events like wildfire smoke drifting in from across the state. We need to find ways to shield our most vulnerable residents with asthma, COPD and heart disease from those events.

I agree with the county supervisors that agriculture is important to Fresno County. But climate change threatens both Valley crops and Valley children.

As any girl or boy Scout would tell you, “Be prepared.”

Misspending funds on chancellor

Now we are told that the former chancellor of the CSU system will be paid to be an adviser to the board for one year at the cost of at least $636,845 (salary, housing allowance and, I assume, benefits that I estimate at about 35% of salary). Regardless of what the board says, it is the taxpayers who will be paying that very generous “settlement” and this taxpayer says no, no, no.

I offer the following free advice to the board since they are in such a generous frame of mind: At an estimated annual cost of $25,000 per year, these funds could pay for a full-year scholarship at Fresno State for 25 students from our Central Valley. It could pay the full four-year cost for six students. Let’s invest in our Valley’s future, not foot the bill to reward abuse and discrimination.

These adults must quit their tantrums

Regarding the adult anti-mask protesters at Dailey Elementary: When my sons were young and I was asked to interact with other’s children, whether it was on a classroom field trip or with my son’s Boy Scout troop outings, I was required to sign a permission slip concerning taking photos or video of other’s children. Very odd, then, that hostile adult strangers can stand outside of a school, take videos of other people’s children, post them to their favorite social media and brag about their aggressive behavior.

It really is time for American adults to find a useful and positive way to publicly interact with each other, or just find a hobby. This outrage over nonissues is a tiresome, first-world temper tantrum.

Denial of study funding is shocking

I was shocked that the Fresno Country Board of Supervisors would vote against a project that would collect data on the effects of climate change in rural areas of the Valley. Problems can’t be solved unless they are first understood.

The data collected over a 20-year period would give us important information.

I hope the supervisors will reconsider their vote.

Climate-study denial hurts ag

How do we determine the most fundamental reason the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted against spending an approved grant to assess the impact of climate deterioration on rural communities? A variety of board members’ negative comments amounted to ad hominem attacks on the survey and revealed a lack of understanding of the nature and importance of empirically derived facts.

Just like many people who put off seeing their physician because they don't want to know they might be seriously ill, Steve Brandau (my district's supervisor) and the others do not want to know the answers to critical questions in this situation because it likely will mean making changes to safeguard the health of the most vulnerable and the least represented. That stance is not only opposing the well-being of all, it actually works against agriculture by not knowing precisely what needs to be done to help keep its work force healthy and on the job.

GOP engages in silly diversions

They are all diversionary tactics. There was the 1960s military corporation’s contractors, the military itself, and/or the U.S. war propaganda media twisting the Vietnam civil war into communist aggression. There is Donald Trump’s racism and Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian delusions. They are all diversionary tactics — coverups for the weaknesses and failures of incompetent leaders who have failed their people.

We have the benefits of democracies like voting out liars. The Republicans do not want voters to vote and never have. They want state legislators to override voters’ wishes so they can control state and federal elections.

Some ignorant, exploited conservatives prefer mindlessness and not taking responsibility for their futures or those of their children. The Republican pretense is that global warming does not exist despite obvious warming temperatures in early February and a much-too-warm, too-early spring in the Central Valley. What could be more mass-suicidal than the government doing nothing?

This story was originally published March 27, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno Bee letters: On climate change, Putin aggression, CSU golden handshake."