Letters: Support Spotlight PA; Campaign brought people together
Support Spotlight PA
If you believe as I do that information is the oxygen of democracy, could I interest you in contributing to Spotlight PA? Spotlight is a public service journalism enterprise fueled by the Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/thePatriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and WITF Public Media.
Its stories, which appear in this newspaper, reveal what Pennsylvania’s politicians, including State Sen. Jake Corman of Centre County, do not want you to know about how they spend your money and the outside money that influences them. If you want to refresh your memory about some of those stories, go to https://www.spotlightpa.org/series/. With several statewide offices open in next year’s election, we need as much information about the candidates and their financial backers as we can get so we can make informed decisions.
Your donation is tax deductible and helps keep the sunshine shining on our politicians. Go to spotlightpa.org to contribute.
Campaign brought people together
I want to express my deepest gratitude for support during my campaign for State College Borough Council. While the results are not what we had hoped, our campaign showed that a message can transcend party lines. We brought many people together from across both parties to build a message of inclusivity, community safety, need for civility, and fiscal transparency. I want to thank neighbors who supported me on this journey and all neighbors who were kind and thoughtful in our discussions. I look forward to saying hello when I see you around town. Together WE ARE so much more!
The key to saving humanity
As a veteran, the worst aspect of Veterans Day to me is that it co-opted Armistice Day in 1954, when the idea of celebrating the World War I Armistice was expunged as being out of step with a growing nationalized war culture. And also I can’t help but notice that Veterans Day this year falls in the midst of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26 in Glasgow).
The carbon footprint of the U.S. military is larger than most countries. It is by far the largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases on Earth yet was exempted from any constraints whatsoever under the Paris Climate Agreement. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s wars for oil and other resources support the fossil fuels-based status quo.
Every penny that governments around the world have spent to address the climate crisis amounts to a small fraction of what the USA alone has spent on its war machine during the same period. The military portion of President Biden’s proposed discretionary budget for 2022 is $1.25 trillion!
We have spent $6.4 trillion on war in the last 20 years. The cost of shifting to 100% renewable energy here, by contrast, is $4.5 trillion. The resources spent on militarism and war should clearly be redirected to respond to the existential threat of the climate emergency.
“Street heat” activists, not the suits in COP26, will be key to saving humanity. As UN Secretary General Antonio Gutterres told world leaders in Glasgow, “The climate action army — led by young people — is unstoppable.”