Unwillingness to accept inconvenience the problem

I want to thank the Times Union for the longer article on trucks striking bridges (“Bridge strikes cost state millions as crashes rise,” May 29). I would love to discuss at length the advantages of adding each bridge’s height in meters to its warning signs so that the degree of danger in a value like 10’11’’ would be more readily apparent to someone who has not grown up with the disadvantages of the U.S. system of measurement.

More important is the fact that signs could be added to the bridges most frequently hit saying, “Danger! No trucks!” Knowledgeable drivers could ignore the warning if they were sure their truck could pass. Others could turn around or pull over to assess the situation. We accept great and avoidable risk lest anyone be inconvenienced unnecessarily.

Our democratic values are consistent with disregarding Circe and choosing Charybdis over Scylla, the chance of the ship sinking over the certainty of a few sailors dying, but sometimes we forget that you can go the long way around Sicily instead, just as you can around Glenville.

I hope that the analogy to the climate and biodiversity crises is obvious. We are risking our civilization and hence our species because we are unwilling to suffer the inconvenience of changing our way of life. Furthermore, just as bridges might be safer if we respected users of the metric system, we would quite naturally behave in ways that would resolve the crises and save ourselves if only we respected other life.

James Lyons Walsh

Ph.D. Albany