Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Prioritize spending, using good sense

Does the City Council have pea soup for brains? Those on it don’t seem to see through their own fog to comprehend what the voters were saying with Initiative 695. They don’t seem to know the difference between fat and lean.

The police and fire departments, which are essential to the public’s safety and well-being, are already working with skeleton crews. I would not like to see any more bones removed.

Money could be saved in the police department by fully investing Roger Bragdon as chief of police. He is the best chief we have had in some time. Why spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars scouring the country for empty oyster shells when there is a pearl sitting on the chair that needs to be filled? If educational standards are the problem, the standards can be changed or a few paltry tax dollars could be invested in upgrading his education.

I support trimming fat by eliminating travel expenses, cars, cell phones and other amenities. We, the working public, provide these things for ourselves from our own earned wages.

Library and parks are good, but not essential to our safety. If my house is on fire or an intruder is entering my home, I am not going to pick up my cell phone to check vacations with a travel agent, read a book or go for a walk in the park.

I would introduce the concept of prioritizing, rather than an ill-conceived notion of fairness utilizing across-the-board cuts. Serena R. Smith Spokane

Children’s Museum workshop great

The people of Spokane often lament a lack of cultural events in the area. I’d like to thank The Children’s Museum of Spokane for its Meeting Today’s Pilgrims workshop on Nov. 20.

This event was a wonderful opportunity to meet and learn about the culture of some of the newest members of the Spokane community. Four families from locations as diverse as Ethiopia and Eastern Europe shared stories, artwork, dances and customs from their native countries with Spokane-area families.

Everyone who attended this workshop left with a greater understanding of the different components of our community and a better appreciation of what it means to be a pilgrim.

Keep up the good work, Children’s Museum of Spokane! I hope Meeting Today’s Pilgrims becomes an annual event. Cindy K. Morris Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

Murray bill best solution for the reach

Your recent guest column supporting the position of county governments near the Hanford Reach asserts that wild and scenic designation of the Hanford Reach would preclude local input.

The counties are wrong about that. Sen. Patty Murray’s bill, S715, would establish a commission of local stakeholders to write the management plan in consultation with state and federal wildlife agencies.

The real issue is not local control. Rather, it is how the the reach will be managed - for development or for conservation of the natural resource.

Rep. Doc Hastings’ bill, which the counties support, would allow development and exploitation of the reach by heavily weighting management toward county control that excludes tribes, citizens and federal wildlife experts.

I favor Sen. Murray’s wild and scenic bill because I know this designation will provide true protection, rather than development, of the 51-mile reach. We do not need more development that will only exacerbate the current glut of apples and further depress apple prices paid to farmers. We do need to take a long-term view and protect natural resources that are vanishing as population and development increase in our region.

Conserving the reach is the most near-term and cost- effective action that can be taken to protect endangered Columbia River salmon runs. Such a management decision involves no dam removal, no private property and costs the taxpayer nothing extra.

The Hanford Reach is also an important outdoor recreational resource for the entire region. Phil Hoge Yakima

Those were not climatologists

I hate to burst K. Julian Powers’ bubble (Letters, Nov. 21) but as is often the case when people promote their side of the story, scare tactics are used and facts are omitted.

Look a little bit closer at the persons who were responsible for the findings in the report that Powers refers to (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The participants were not climatologists, as Powers claims. By their own admission, the Panel on Climate Change refers to these specialists as scientists, not climatologists.

Even this is a bit of a stretch. Members of the PCC’s scientific panel consisted, in part, of two landscape architects, a plastic surgeon, a hotel administrator, a gynecologist, seven linguists, an economist and a person whose background is in traditional Chinese medicine.

These people hardly constitute a group at the forefront of atmospheric research!

In fact, there is approximately 60 climatologists and atmospheric physicists in the United States. These people - who are the best qualified to know - are often referred to as the skeptics. In a recent Gallup poll, 83 percent of these climatologists and physicists polled debunked the global warming “myth,” citing these facts:

Data collected from NASA shows a slight cooling trend of .04 degrees Celsius over the last 18 years.

Half of the warming cited by believers in global warming occurred prior to World War II.

Approximately 97 percent to 98 percent of all CO2 released into the atmosphere occurs naturally.

I’m sorry, all of you global warming Chicken Littles, but the sky is not falling - or arming. Scott Meyers Mead

Simple solutions for a complex issue

I was pleased to read staff writer Karen Dorn Steele’s article, “Northwest forecast: steadily warmer,” on the local impacts of global warming. The article made it clear the Northwest won’t be immune to the serious effects of a few degrees’ change in our climate.

However, there are viable solutions. It’s not too late to avert much of the predicted damage. For example, more widespread use of cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar would lessen global warming. More fuelefficient automobiles or less driving could also reduce the impact.

If we reduce carbon dioxide emissions by using cleaner energy sources, we will reduce air pollution at the same time. Moving toward cleaner energy sources would also make the United States more economically competitive on a global scale. Although global warming is a complex issue, there are simple solutions. Emily K. Platt Spokane

Enough talk, let’s deal with causes

Plenty of evidence supports the theory that global warming is occurring. It is everywhere: continually rising sea levels, extreme flooding, horrific and costly storms, and the most obvious: rising temperatures.

All these results have been caused by us and our overproduction and use of greenhouse gases every day. One car will put about 50 tons of carbon dioxide out into our atmosphere. Now, think about how many cars are in Spokane, America and the world. That’s a tremendous amount of pollution every day. Those contaminating gases we’re emitting are causing global warming and all of the storms and floods that come with it.

Do we really want to put ourselves through this distress? We should stop researching the theory and start acting to implement solutions, as a world. Breanne M. Rolando Spokane