Are we protecting the planet?

Readers discuss climate change, including activism at UConn and a critique of President Trump’s narrative around natural disasters.

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make

Thank you to The Hartford Courant for the inspiring article “Meet Sena Wazer, the 15-year-old climate change activist and UConn freshman determined to protect the planet” [Nov. 25, Connecticut].

Wazer embodies the quote by Jane Goodall, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Wazer also made good on her fathers’ wise words “if she felt that bad, she should do something about it.”

I applaud Wazer’s commitment to action. We can all take lesson from this young woman. Making a difference with climate change requires us all to take actions that assist in transitioning away from carbon-intensive lifestyles to a clean energy economy.

Susan Atkinson, Durango, Colorado

Too many humans, not enough resources

The Hartford Courant ran a Washington Post article [Nov. 27, A3, “UN raises critical alarm on climate”] stating that slowing future warming levels will require “monumental changes, such as phasing out gas-powered cars, halting the construction of coal-fired power plants and overhauling how humans grow food and manage land.”

I don’t believe this gets to the heart of the problem of climate degradation, which seems to be too many humans. Here’s my plan the world going forward:

Stop having babies. We can no longer be squeamish about teaching birth control in schools and churches. We shouldn’t be pressuring the newly married couples to give us grandchildren.

Encourage federal adoption of death with dignity laws. Death is a part of living and should be just as much a part of the discussion as anything else is. There is great health care now but sometimes it is all so futile and unwanted.

Make it easier to adopt and foster children. In order to do so now is a laborious process of classes, applications and home studies, making it seem much easier to just have your own children. But that means that children already born are not being cared for, resulting in neglect, poorer education, higher crime rates and crowded prisons. Adopting would lead to fewer babies overall.

Do not take this idea to the extreme. I know that we can look at the Nazis or other extremist groups who used this way of thinking to eliminate those who they deemed unacceptable. I am not preaching that idea. Once a person is born, they should be cared for, loved and educated — not weeded out.

I’m sure this all sounds very radical but what we need now is some radical thinking. Finding more ways for more people to populate the earth just won’t do it anymore. I will vote for the first candidate that is brave enough to stand up and endorse such a program.

Laura Phillips, Naugatuck

Ukraine scandal is not enough; there is more

Trump should be impeached for his crimes against humanity, as evident in the separation of children from their parents with no plan in place of how to reunite them. He should be impeached for his racist speech that often incites violence.

He should be impeached for his lack of empathy for all of the Americans that have suffered through natural disasters. His treatment of the victims as somehow deserving the total destruction that happened to them is reprehensible. People who survived the devastation of hurricanes in Puerto Rico and wildfires in California needed help not denigration. He is turning the EPA over to the fossil fuel industry, destroying decades of environmental protection. We cannot live without clean air and clean water.

And he should be impeached for betraying America — promoting policies of dictators over democracy; attacks on the press; pardoning war criminals; the constant debasement of the intelligence community, law, and courts.

Robyn Kaminski, Plantsville