Court interprets law, not the science Great challenge

The U. S. Supreme Court’s decision to consider the case against the Environmental Protection Agency (“Legal setback on climate change,” editorial, Feb. 11) has nothing to do with whether the climate is significantly impacted by human activity. Instead it is entirely concerned with authority. The Chronicle seems to believe that every government agency should have the unfettered ability to do whatever it wishes if it believes it is in the public interest. If that happened, we would go from being the best country to live in to one of the worst.

Rather than fault the conservatives on the court, The Chronicle should be condemning the four liberal justices who repeatedly place ideology over legality.

Bill McGregor, Berkeley

Over the top

Your Feb. 11 editorial “Legal setback on climate action” seemed a fair discussion of the recent Supreme Court decision. However, in the last sentence you refer to “overwhelming evidence that climate change is a serious threat.” I’m afraid you are a little too easily overwhelmed.

Donald Breyer, Sonoma

Next steps

So this is what humanity’s future depends on: five men, in the most powerful institution of the most powerful country in world history, will decide whether to allow us to take a tiny step toward preserving a habitable world for our species. If they say no, as now seems likely, will we have to renege on our Paris promises and destroy the momentum that finally seems to be gathering to reduce worldwide emissions?

Republicans can go beyond opposing President Obama and propose a better solution instead: a revenue- neutral carbon fee with all of the money refunded to American households.

This bipartisan policy will address emissions through the entire economy, not just power plants. It will improve most people’s standard of living, especially the poorest, who generally consume the least and will benefit most from an equal dividend. And it won’t expand government: The market will decide how to wean our economy from fossil fuels in the most efficient way possible.

Harry Chomsky, Albany

The GOP game

The Republicans have spent well over a year demonizing Hillary Clinton, and it seems to have worked. The young people supporting Bernie Sanders are just pawns in the GOP political game and they are too naive to see what is happening. We are going to have a Republican president.

Gloria Judd, San Francisco

People power

Dissatisfaction with policies that have served the few very well, such as financial inequality and the invasion of Iraq, have fueled the fervent desire for a political revolution. How fortunate that we are being shown the way to exert people power by Bernie Sanders. He gives us hope that we can, through the electoral process as envisioned so many years ago by our founding fathers, start to set things right.

Money in politics, which many thought impossible to change, has been shown to be vulnerable. That fact alone is remarkable. Best of all, we are being brought together by the realization that it is us, the voters, that can change the direction of this country by working within the system designed to do just that. We the People!

Barbara Krings, Sacramento

Russia’s burden

Has Russia taken in any refugees from Syria? It seems that since Vladimir Putin is committed to intervening militarily, Russia should be primarily responsible for accommodating Syrian refugees.

David Kelso, Oakland

Faculty’s plight

I’m glad to see The Chronicle paying attention to the potentiality of a strike in the CSU. As a full- time adjunct lecturer in the system for the past 17 years, however, I am discouraged by suggestions that a strike is unwarranted or that faculty are being greedy and unreasonable.

In 2006, a 15 percent raise was agreed upon by the then chancellor and Board of Trustees. As a result of the economic crisis of 2008, the raise ( at 3 percent a year for five years) was taken off the table. It’s incredible that only eight years later we’ve forgotten this long overdue increase and now the CSU is suggesting that it can’t afford the cost of paying faculty reasonable wages. An independent arbiter forced the CSU board into giving raises to faculty in 2013; most of us saw a 1.6 percent increase.

None of us got into academia for the money. But I imagine that we also didn’t anticipate needing roommates well into middle age, being shut out of housing markets around the nation, and having to wait tables to supplement our salary as professors.

Randi Rulayne Picarelli, Los Angeles

A better question

The recent article (“Oil firms accused of hiking prices,” Feb. 9) is self- admittedly laughable. But, then, the public wants to believe oil companies are evil. As a former oil company engineer and veteran of the gas shortages of the 1970s, I know that rigging the price of gasoline could only be achieved by government fiat, as in the 1970s, or by company collusion so massive that it would quickly become public knowledge and send the colluding executives to jail.

The real question — never answered during my employment by oil companies — is why gasoline on the west coast is historically 15 to 20 percent higher than elsewhere in the U. S. Rather than wasting ink and paper with silly accusations, why not investigate the price difference?

James Earhart, San Francisco

Why publish?

I am happy and relieved that CHP officers were able to prevent a woman from jumping from the Bay Bridge on Tuesday, but I am appalled that the agency posted photos of the encounter on its Facebook page and that The Chronicle published one of them.

Anne Stafford, Oakland

Dear Donald Trump: Please offer us some specifics which go beyond your trademark response about “Make American great again” and a smug look on your face. Because you are running to be my national leader, I need some basis to judge beyond you are going to take care of things or everything will be “great.”

I need to vote with my head rather than gut. What are the whats, whys, whos, and hows for your plan?

Donald Peter, San Mateo

Whole community

Congrats to Whole Foods for taking the risk of opening a new store in an underserved neighborhood. It’s pretty much what the Tenderloin needs to help with its transition into a family friendly neighborhood. What it doesn’t need is a politically motivated, Speedo- clad supervisor who has a problem with an “evil” chain store that sells quality products.

Ron Baum, Mill Valley