Supports a price on carbon
Again this year, we’ve seen more frequent extreme climate-driven events right here in our Pacific Northwest — drought, wildfires, heat waves, floods, landslides and more.
Climate change is a crisis we are all facing, and it is caused by human-generated greenhouse gases. This is widely accepted.
What is more difficult is knowing what to do to curb climate change. One of the tools that many developed economies are using is a price on carbon. Thousands (yes, literally thousands) of economists support a carbon price as an effective tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a short period of time. Even the American Petroleum Institute supports a carbon price.
This makes sense because the alternative — ad hoc regulations that may change between administrations — would be harder for industry to deal with than a predictable pricing scenario. A carbon price would reduce emissions effectively and quickly across the economy. In addition, if a carbon price is combined with a dividend, the revenue would come back to U.S. households to spend as they want.
Please take a minute to write to your senators, representative and President Joe Biden. This is easily done at https://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/ on the national Citizens’ Climate Lobby website.
Let them know you want a carbon price now. Thank you so much for your time and your voice.
Margaret Davis
Moscow
Treat the disease
Upon reading Michael Manuel’s letter to the editor, we want to add our support to such people who have made some bad errors in life. But that doesn’t make them a bad person who should pay for having a disease.
In today’s times, it has been recognized that alcoholism is a disease. If one has an opportunity to recover from a disease, why shouldn’t he have that opportunity, thus saving the state many thousands of dollars for incarceration?
It is like not going to a doctor for heart problems because the funeral home doesn’t want you to get better as it might cut into its income. He should have a chance to get well and contribute to society.
Why should one person taking the place of a judge and jury be able to discard someone else’s life in such a manner, only because of a disease?
Lee and Gay Adams
Craigmont
No social media for kids
... I could write a million words about social media and why it’s terrible. ...
I can’t say it any better than Tristan Harris: “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” Simply put, your children are being analyzed, dissected and sold, and a lot of you seem to be OK with it.
The worst part of this: None of the things people post go away.
When I was a kid and said something stupid (yeah, I said plenty of ignorant things), I could take solace in the fact that nobody would remember it in the long run. When your kids post something racist, sexist, politically incorrect, etc., (and they probably will), it sits in cyberspace forever, just waiting to be used against them when it matters.
Mark Zuckerberg insists Facebook doesn’t sell information, but I don’t believe him. The U.S. Congress doesn’t believe him and neither should you.
Look, kids don’t need smartphones. Kids don’t need computers in their rooms. Kids need shelter, education, discipline, three meals per day and a bed that’s uncomfortable enough to ensure they won’t stay in it until noon.
Get them a flip phone capable of calling you and emergency services. Good enough.
I implore you: Don’t let your kids use social media. Even if they’re not stupid enough to say something reprehensible, which is unlikely, they’re still being sold to advertisers like a cow to a rancher. And it’s not harmless, guys. Does anyone remember when kids played outside?
Jeremy Nicholson
Clarkston
Parroting Fox News
It is hysterically funny how people — ordinary folks, Republican politicians, some famous people (such as Aaron Rodgers) and right-wing conservatives are now using terms like “woke,” “cancel culture” and “critical race theory.” Yet none of them have the faintest idea about what those terms mean. They are just parroting Fox News.
Academics in cultural studies have conducted research for years in the area of critical race theory — but they actually know what the terms mean. None of the people I’ve seen or have read about who use those terms, including letters to the editor and Fox News, knows what they are talking about. I said it was hysterically funny. But it really is hysterically embarrassing for them (and the U.S.).
Stop using those terms, people, because you don’t know what they mean. It makes you appear very ignorant. And commanding what is or is not taught in schools is censorship — which is what dictatorships do, not democracies.
Darcy Miller
Pullman
