Letters: Too late for change in COVID stance; Time for carbon fee is now

Too late for change in COVID stance

After 600,000 needless deaths of our citizens, the Trump-Fox led Republican Party has begun to say they were wrong about COVID-19. Way too late. History will not forgive them. Nor will the loved ones of those half-million humans who needlessly died agonizing deaths.

Time for carbon fee is now

We didn’t see that coming.

Extreme drought in the west. Extreme wildfires out west. Flooding in the southeast. More and stronger hurricanes. More tornadoes. Dangerous heat in the west. The drying of the Great Salt Lake. Possibly a high-rise condo on a barrier island collapsing. Rivers flooding in Europe.

These are occurring due in part to misinformation campaigns by the oil industry and by climate change-deniers on social media. We can’t solve this crisis by recycling more, eating less red meat, planting trees and driving hybrids. Even electric vehicles will need a source of electricity but not produced by coal or oil.

We have to do something big now at the source of the problem. Our climate will get worse if we don’t. The cost of reducing carbon dioxide will be less than the cost of deaths, replacing homes, crops, and forests. Ask the House and Senate to put a fee on carbon at its source and give a dividend derived from these fees to us. This will compel other nations to follow us and maybe it’s not too late.

Questioning Corman’s mask survey

Republican leaders like Thompson, Corman, and Benninghoff discount scientists and politicize issues like climate change and dealing with the COVID pandemic.

In the latest example, Senator Jake Corman encouraged his email list subscribers, presumably largely his Republican supporters, to complete a survey on requiring students to wear masks.

The alleged goal is to “gauge views of local parents.” But he is “inviting all residents of the 34th Senatorial District to share their thoughts” through the survey. If he wants parental input from parents, send surveys to parents through school districts.

What will he do with the results? He says he “will share the results of this survey prior to a public hearing of the Senate Education Committee on August 6.” Six Republican-dominated states have banned requiring unvaccinated students to wear masks. Will he use the survey to create an illusion of support for similar bans in Pennsylvania? If few respondents to his unscientific survey want to protect those with, for example, immune compromised family members, will he argue that the majority should override the vulnerable?

We are not out of the COVID-19 woods yet, with the even deadlier Delta variant spreading and killing at a high rate.

Senator Corman, follow the science. Use your position to protect people, including encouraging vaccination, social distancing, and, yes, wearing a mask to protect our children and their families.