Readers React: Good billionaire vs. bad billionaire won’t solve climate change

To the editor: I agree with hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer that global warming is a critical issue. But I don’t think we’ll solve this crisis via a billionaire-vs.-billionaire grudge match, with him trying to shout down the Koch brothers from the opposite end of the political realm. (“Tom Steyer’s climate change crusade focuses on midterm races, for now,” Oct. 11)

We need solutions that bring us together, addressing the economic as well as the environmental effects of policy decisions. For instance, by putting a price on carbon-based fuels and returning the revenue to households, we can choose both the Earth and the economy and avoid more government regulation.

A recent study shows that this approach will add more than 2 million jobs and $1 trillion in gross domestic product over 10 years by speeding our transition to a renewable-energy economy, without picking winners.

The answer isn’t more partisan billionaire voices; it’s us raising ours to champion unifying solutions.

Dennis Arp, Brea

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To the editor: Steyer is right that climate change is the “seismic issue” of our day. But he’s wrong when he laments that he is “trying at least to be congruent and consistent” in what he does about it.

Case in point: While sitting for his interview with The Times, he was “working his way” through a cheeseburger. According to recent United Nations and Worldwatch Institute reports, animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change. The methane that the billions of factory farm animals produce and the enormous quantities of fresh water and energy used to grow food for them (and related carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions) are contributing more to global warming than any other single cause.

As long as Steyer keeps eating those cheeseburgers, he gives credence to all the claims being made about him by conservatives as “Steyer the liar.”

Mitch Wallis, San Diego

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