The real emergencies

Climate change is a national emergency. The latest scientific reports say we only have a dozen years to possibly slow the progression of the horrific storms, droughts, fires and floods we now experience. Unless we act quickly to bring down greenhouse gases our planet may become uninhabitable.

Gun violence is a national emergency. Since the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting one year ago, in which 17 children and adults lost their lives, our country has experienced 350 mass shootings. This is nearly one mass shooting every day! Every day four or more people are shot excluding the shooter. Tomorrow it could be your child.

Poor, threatened, Latin American women men, and children who try to slip into our rich country is not a national emergency. We know that the numbers of people trying to illegally cross our borders has greatly decreased over the years. We know that the vast majority of drugs do not flow into America where Trump wants to spend billions on a fence building fiasco. We need to ask who is going to make all this money for building and overseeing the wall and more detention centers? How much better could those billions be used to care for our true national emergencies?

The poor are not coming to get us in the night. The real horror of our country is not dealing with the perilous present that will continue to take the food, shelter and lives from those we love.

Robin Ivey-Black

Colville, Wash.