Biden picks a strong environment team
I’ve awaited announcement of a plan to address concerns of global salvation. Presidentelect Joe Biden’s naming of an environmental issues team restores some hope that the U. S. will redirect national efforts toward replenishing, rather than ravishing, Earth’s ecosystems.
Environmentalism is the vaccine to fight the pandemic of climate change and to revive the immune system of conservation. I look forward to our rejoining the international community in the effort.
John Kallio, Pleasanton
Hearth and health
Our health and air quality have suffered mightily this past year. Yet, here we are again — our air full of smoke and our health at risk because people are burning wood and manufactured fire logs in fireplaces, backyard fire pits and wood stoves. Woodburning emissions create particle pollution, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds and contribute to the climate emergency we are facing.
In the Bay Area, woodburning in the winter is the single largest source of hazardous particle pollution. What’s more, this pollution is right in our neighborhoods, where we live. If you can smell wood smoke, you are breathing pollution that is hazardous to your health.
Everyone needs to do their part to improve and protect air quality and public health. Please do not burn wood or manufactured logs.
Nancy Arbuckle, San Francisco
Enforce the law
My husband and I have owned our condo in San Francisco for 19 years. We have watched an alarming increase in building and automobile breakins because of the district attorney’s decision to not prosecute “nonviolent” property crimes against the community. I call on our district attorney to rethink this attitude of permissiveness that victimizes all of us.
Lelan R. Hanson, San Francisco
Fiction in real life
Time to reread “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Marian Goldman, Burlingame
Essence of learning
To students of all ages: The phrases we’re hearing in stories about COVID’s influence on education distance learning or remote learning imply that the essence of the process is a distant educator and the student is an ancillary node. A better thought is that learning is organic, and that the process has a soul within oneself.
Allow some separation from society’s plan for your mental development long enough to find your own curiosity, questions to ponder, then answers to your questions, and then a new cycle of questions that arise from your deepening knowledge. The paths this will lead you down are unique to your own values and way of looking at the world, as were those for Isaac Newton when he pondered gravity and calculus during his absence from student life during the plague.
These times are an opportunity to do things your way. No invention or worthwhile work of art comes from straightforward thinking according to someone else’s plan. When you later reflect upon your most fulfilling accomplishments, you will find their roots along those paths you had the curiosity and bravery to discover on your own, which no one else could lead you down.
Ed Oswalt, Kensington
Trust but verify
Any nuclear deal with Iran or North Korea — both of which are necessary — must allow for inspection of all sites at all times, whether known or suspected. Otherwise, they will have unlimited ability to move their nukes from one place to another.
Alex Sokolow, Santa Monica
A very fun fountain
I was pleased to read Tony Bravo’s Dec. 21 column, “Vaillancourt Fountain both ugly, charming.” As a single mom back in the ’ 80s, my son and I would go on adventures in our city, and the fountain at Justin Herman Plaza was a favorite. We would walk underneath on the paving stones and get lightly sprayed by the water, climb the stairs to the top and make believe we were on the battlements of an Irish Castle, delighted with the rush of water spilling out of the concrete blocks. We thought of it as a tumble of building blocks a child might create or as a survivor of a San Francisco earthquake even before Loma Prieta. We’d sit beside it eating ice cream cones while listening and looking at the water and the sea gulls. In the ’ 90s, I worked near the Embarcadero and would see tourists and children doing what my son and I did!
I was so very sad that the city closed the steps and let things deteriorate. It is a part of the city visited by tourists and passed through by everyone.
Poor fountain! Foolish San Francisco government.
Marilyn Healy, San Francisco
Love indie bookstores
Thank you for Peter Hartlaub’s excellent Dec. 20 article, “Indie bookstores have nurtured us. It’s our turn.” I am a loyal and longtime customer of Green Apple Books in the Richmond District. However, the devastating impact of this pandemic on bookstores, restaurants and other small businesses requires much more than individuals buying locally. This massive economic crisis requires bold federal investments in these small businesses that are the heart and soul of neighborhoods. Without this relief, the ongoing suffering of ordinary Americans will deepen and result in longterm economic damage to San Francisco, but also to communities across the United States.
Sheila R. Tully, San Francisco