Pleas for climate change action, peace, and a calm Black Friday: letters to the editor
‘Place a price on carbon emissions’
Within the past month, both a report from a UN panel on climate change and a study published in the journal Nature concluded that the earth’s climate is warming faster than predicted and that the impacts of that warming will be worse than previously anticipated. People around the globe are already experiencing the early stages of these impacts in the form of massive hurricanes, heat waves, flooding, and, as is currently the case in California, deadly fires.
As these impacts are only expected to worsen, the time for action on climate change is now. There are many ways we can limit global warming, but one particularly effective way is to call on Congress to enact legislation that places a price on carbon emissions.
This “Carbon Fee and Dividend” approach, one advocated by the non-partisan Citizen’s Climate Lobby, would place a steadily rising fee on each ton of carbon dioxide emissions associated with fossil fuels. The fees collected would be returned to U.S. households in the form of a monthly dividend that, for most families, will exceed any higher product costs associated with the fee. Not only would such an approach significantly reduce carbon emissions and their impacts, it is also expected to create an economic stimulus that adds millions of jobs.
Furthermore, it allows for sound business and investment planning through the predictable fee increases. We cannot afford to wait any longer to act on climate change. Please urge your Congressional representatives to support “Carbon Fee and Dividend” legislation now. - Michael McCann, State College, PA
‘30 minutes for 30 days’
I am an ordinary person who keeps observing our country falling deeper and deeper into polarized division driven by fear. Hate, bigotry, bullying, racism, and anti-Semitism fill our headlines daily and all of these are driven by fear. I question how I, as one person, can help bring about a loving change, which brings me to my invitation to you.
I am inviting you to join me at 6 a.m. (or the beginning of your day) for 30 minutes (if you must, start with less time and work up to 30) for 30 days to participate in utilizing the one sacred gift we have all been given, the gift of our breath. Join me in breathing in fear and breathing out love.
Whether that fear is your own, someone close to you, or the world’s collective fear, inhale fear/exhale love. Yes, there are names for this practice but I have consciously chosen not to name anything so as to not put this invitation into one box or another. So please, do not label, just come with your own sacred gift of your breath.
Join me at 6 a.m. for 30 minutes for 30 days beginning November 20th through December 20th to breathe in fear and breathe out love. I have no set goal or outcome, just a deep commitment of the contribution of love to our culture that is so devastated by fear at this time and so needs the gift of love right now. Thank you. - Maxine E. Marak, State College, PA
‘Shopping ought to be civilized’
During this holiday season, as in any other, shopping ought to be a civilized experience. But for retail clerks and cashiers, Black Friday is not a joke or a sales ploy. It used to be their name for one of the most physically and emotionally brutal work days of the year.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, working in retail sales can feel like trying to fend off a barbarian army on a looting spree. Employees know to expect personal insults, accusations, threats, ethnic and (for women) sexist slurs, while encountering anything from misbehaving children to attempted fraud, shoplifting, and careless or willful destruction of merchandise.
Actual injuries are rare, but they happen, and through it all the salespeople must remain courteous and smiling. So please, people, try a little more do-as-you-would-be-done-to this year. Shoppers have a choice about that; the clerk who can’t immediately find the item you’re looking for, doesn’t. - Carolyn R. Meredith, State College, PA