Climate change deadline quickly approaching
As we make our way into the 2020s, a serious deadline follows us. By the year 2030, several of the impacts created by climate change will be irreversible. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) states that we need to cut our carbon emissions by half to avoid a climate disaster. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s deadline of 2045 for 100% clean energy will be much too late. As a California resident, the destructive consequences of severe wildfires became apparent in 2014, when I singlehandedly watched a wildfire engulf the area around my school.
If we don’t start enacting change now, the effects will only worsen, and California as we know it will become unlivable. We can prevent a crisis by utilizing green technology and calling on Newsom to move up the renewable energy deadline to 2030. Moving away from dirty oil practices that increase the Earth’s temperature through greenhouse gas emissions will greatly help us fight against climate change. Solving the climate change crisis may seem daunting, but if we start fighting for a greener planet now, we can ensure that there will be a safe and sustainable planet for our generation, and for many generations to come.
Nisha Ahmed, Carlsbad (San Diego County)
Flawed economic plan
Regarding $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, Wow! I didn’t realize economics was this simple: Spend our way to prosperity by printing trillions of dollars and passing it out. Then repeat. Repeat again. And again. I mean, what could go wrong?
Richard Sanborn, Bayside (Humboldt County)
Keep teachers healthy
I am tired of people telling the teachers that they should return to school without being vaccinated because it’s safe, and citing the employees in grocery stores, pharmacies, etc., who aren’t vaccinated. I don’t spend five hours a day in the grocery store, and the grocery clerks do not see the same people throughout their shifts. Teachers sit in the same room with children for several hours each day. We all know that young children in schools are petri dishes for the common cold, mumps, measles, etc. If one child gets sick, chances are that many children in the same classroom will get sick. I’m glad to see that San Francisco will now vaccinate all the teachers before they return to school. They deserve the peace of mind before having to face the possibility of getting infected on the job.
Susan Blomberg, San Francisco
Donate extra cash
President Biden has now signed the American Rescue Plan Act, which means among many other things that most of us are about to receive a windfall of $1,400. But let’s be honest: Although many of us need that money, many of us don’t.
May I suggest, then, that those of us who don’t actually need that infusion of extra cash simply donate it to people and organizations that do? Donate to your local food bank, to your church, to your favorite performing arts group, to that neighborhood momandpop restaurant struggling to keep its doors open. Heck, drop by the corner of Cesar Chavez Street and South Van Ness Avenue and hand out 20dollar bills to the day workers gathered there in search of honest labor.
Rik Mylewski, San Francisco
Vulnerable to flooding
Regarding “Central Valley transforms into a hot housing market” (Front Page, March 10) and “Build in cities, not the hinterlands” (Editorial, March 11): You carried a front page story on the rapidly expanding Central Valley development of River Islands, and the following day another on the Lake County sprawl of Guenoc Valley paired with an editorial criticizing the latter for the danger it faces from wildfires. Why do projects like River Islands get a pass for what flooding and sea level rise will do to them? They are both vulnerable (as are cities like San Francisco) as climate change accelerates.
Gray Brechin, Inverness
Don’t call it housing
To characterize the Guenoc development as housing is hilarious. This is a luxury development for 1 percenters for whom this is likely to be a second home or vacation rental. There is no indication it would bring prosperity to Middletown. The only reason it is being developed is its proximity to Napa County where no new development is possible. This is not housing. This is resort development.
Pam Strayer, Oakland