Valley News – Forum, August 24: Have your say locally on climate change



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Have your say on climate change locally

The recent climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unequivocally stated that the weather events we see around the world – forest fires, floods, more intense storms, heat waves and droughts – are only the beginning of the effects of the climate induced by man. cash. And it’s going to get worse – it’s out of our control. What we have control over is how much worse it is.

Personally, I am heartbroken when I consider the world we are going to hand over to our children and grandchildren, angry with our leaders who have been kicking this box for three decades, and tired of my own helplessness. .

Here is the good news. This IPCC report is the prologue to the World Climate Summit in Scotland in November. We have more than two months to make our voices heard so that the American delegates come to Glasgow with a sense of urgency.

What can we do?

Read the IPCC report summary for policymakers (41 pages). At the very least, read the summaries in blue at the start of each section.

Contact members of Congress. Did you know that only one in 10 Americans has contacted their elected officials about climate change, according to the Pew Research Center? It’s discouraging.

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and one of the state newspapers.

Wear a climate change pin and interact with people who notice it.

It is now. If not, what are you going to tell your children and grandchildren when they ask you what you have done about climate change?

Allan R. MacDonald

New London

The importance
OF shared community

The politicization of the COVID-19 vaccination issue in the United States is a disheartening national tragedy – a Greek tragedy experienced not by the few but by all of our country’s citizenship.

It is a tragedy of individuals acting against their own interests to create a mythology for a narcissistic sociopath for his own personal aggrandizement. While it might be satisfying to wish the Darwin Effect would resolve this resistance to logic and the enthusiastic acceptance of a vaccine that would save their lives and the lives of others, it would not actually achieve such a resolution, for several reasons.

The first is that even if all anti-vaccines were infected, most would not succumb to the disease. The second is that the disease would only increase in strength and spread as befitted to the mutants it spawns, the fourth version to date. And therefore, the third is that the vulnerable, unsuspecting and reluctant victims of our society would continue to experience, suffer and die from this pandemic.

It is only when a society achieves a herd immunity (more correctly and personally called “community”) of 93% that a disease can be reduced to extinction, as it has too few people to affect more and loses. thus the opportunity and the number of mutations.

The tragedy of this politicization is that it comes from a distorted version of the American value of individualism. This current biased and unhealthy expression is tragically unbalanced by another important American value – that of shared community – the care and concern of others. The rugged individual mythology must always be balanced with the community barn building experience of our history.

Therefore, I call on and beg the anti-COVID vaccines to once again join America’s long history of coming together as a society and recognize that this combination of individualism and community is what made it so successful. of the first true democracy in history. Please, for your sake and that of our nation, get vaccinated!

Philippe Eller

Norwich

Contact lawmakers now
on redistribution

In February, the New Hampshire Senate Election Laws and Municipal Affairs Committee rejected SB 80, which would have established an independent advisory committee on redistribution – on partisan lines just days after the bill was tabled.

Liz Tentarelli, president of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, said: “The speed at which this bipartisan bill was defeated should concern all Granite Staters. Politicians shouldn’t be able to strike behind-the-scenes deals that rig the balance of power for the next 10 years. “

Now that the census data is available, residents of New Hampshire should be very concerned about the fairness with which we are represented in Congress.

The Fair Maps Coalition wants the House Special Committee on Redistribution to be fully transparent. They must:

■ have at least one open meeting before and after drawing the cards;

■ notify the public seven days before each meeting;

■ create a way for all citizens to see and submit redistribution alternatives;

■ allow all citizens to view and submit comments;

■ immediately disclose to the public all data at their disposal.

I ask New Hampshire voters to get involved by writing to House Committee Chair and Deputy Chair Barbara Griffin, [email protected], and Steven Smith, Steven.Smith @ leg.state.nh .us, or by calling them at 603-271-3661, before Wednesday. Tell them you want a fair and transparent redistribution, citing the points listed above.

Sharon Racusin

Hanover

Biden is poorly designed
retirement in afghanistan

The level of incompetence that President Joe Biden has shown in implementing his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan is more than shocking. It is clearly evident to the whole world to see that our Commander-in-Chief was ill-prepared for the consequences and failed to understand the consequences of his reckless decision.

The hasty and brutal troop withdrawal that delivered Afghanistan to the Taliban is a costly defeat and the Neville Chamberlain moment from our country. In the end, Biden’s ill-conceived retirement wasted a trillion dollars of taxpayer dollars and, more importantly, the lives of over 2,400 American soldiers, as well as many of our allies and Afghans.

It is one of the most shameful episodes in our history and it has done irreparable damage to our already badly damaged global reputation. With the Taliban firmly in control, Afghanistan may very well once again become a haven for fanatic jihadists seeking to destroy the United States and other freedom-loving nations through the instruments of terror.

Marc Latham

Hartford



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