Senate needs to take action, now
Editor, The Times:
U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon continues to press the Senate to take action on climate change, and they have continued to delay moving forward with a bill [“U.N. chief prods Senate to tackle climate change,” Seattletimes.com, Business/Technology, Nov. 10]. They seem willing to postpone it until after health-care and financial reforms are enacted.
The problem with this strategy is that the longer we wait, the worse the effects of climate change will become. Even worse, we will be giving a head start to other countries who are already investing in clean-energy technology.
Instead, we should be investing in clean-energy projects that will create green-collar jobs — jobs that most anyone can do. Contrary to what some may think, these jobs don’t require fancy technology, and actually only require basic skills like the use of a caulking gun.
This is why we need Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to not only support a bill, but to urge that we confront the problem of climate change now.
With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, a climate-change bill would help provide funding that allows the U.S. to become a leader in clean energy and would provide much-needed jobs.
— Matt Ojala, Seattle
No one cares what Ban Ki-moon, United Nations thinks
All the recent discussion of U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon [“Global climate change accelerates in dozen years since Kyoto accord,” page one, Nov. 23], misses an important point: Nobody cares what Ban Ki-moon or the U.N. thinks.
If efforts to transition to clean energy are seen as appeasements to these figures, or anyone besides the American people at large, they will never enjoy success. The massive amount of political will needed to power this change can only come from one source: the economic self-interest of the American people.
In fact, clean energy is in the economic self-interest of the American people, but this is seldom talked about. According to Thomas L. Friedman, it is the next global industry, set to generate enormous amounts of wealth.
We need to be much more vocal in asserting the economic rationale for going green. It is on this point that the battle is currently being waged in Washington, D.C. And it is the point that Ban Ki-moon will need to emphasize if he wants anyone to take him seriously.
— Daniel Silbaugh, Lynnwood
Global warming is a natural disaster, nothing else
Global warming, earthquakes, volcanoes, global cooling, global freezing, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and a new ice age or melting ice caps.
They all have in common one thing: They are natural disasters that mankind has no control over. Period.
We have to prepare as best we can to cope with results of these disasters that we have no hope of stopping.
— Brian Maes, Olympia