Opinion: How many more cities must burn before the climate-change deniers give up?

To the editor: The photo of 7-year-old Chloe Hoskins walking through her devastated neighborhood in Santa Rosa evoked memories in me of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by Nick Ut in 1972 of the napalm-bombed Vietnamese 11-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running burned and naked to escape the horror to which she had been subjected. (“The staggering toll in Santa Rosa: At least 15 dead, 2,834 homes destroyed in firestorm,” Oct. 12)

Both tragedies resulted from senseless wars, one from a mistaken mission to interfere in a civil war, and the other caused in part by global warming deniers who conduct an aggressive war on the science of climate change and the role humans play in the overall environmental picture.

Thousands more had to die before Richard Nixon finally ended the carnage in Vietnam. How many more neighborhoods must be razed and lives lost before the Trump administration ends this senseless war on the environment and agrees to join the rest of the world in a cooperative effort to save our planet?

Bob Constantine, Placentia

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To the editor: The mega-fires in the West are equally as shocking as the images of underwater cities were in Texas and Florida. The human cost, including the mounting deaths, is immeasurable.

Scientists are unequivocal that thanks to decades of Republican obstruction to cleaner energies, we are experiencing only the beginning of man-made climate change and its horrific effects. But the Trump administration, led by the absurd head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, is uninterested in the facts and science and wants oil and coal burned with abandon.

Thankfully the courts and state attorneys general are holding the line, but what an obscene waste of the nation’s time and resources with the very planet at stake.

Wendy Blais, North Hills

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To the editor: Fire-prone California needs new building codes that require the outside of all homes be fireproof. Re-roofing of older homes must be done with fire-resistant materials, and flammable, exposed exterior portions of the house must be coated with fire retardant.

The agony and grief of Californians losing their homes must not be repeated every fire season.

Gerald Staack, Santa Clarita

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To the editor: Your editorial ties the increase in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes and fires to climate change caused by the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. I agree with you.

But where that agreement begins, further agreement on how to rectify this situation ends.

Many environmentalists and scientists believe that we need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels by perhaps 50% by a date uncertain. I believe that it’s too late already to turn back, and we would need to reduce burning fossil fuels by 90% yesterday.

There is one possible solution, and that would be to stop having children and over a relatively short time reduce world population from 7 or 8 billion to a sustainable 1 billion. I know this is a pipe dream.

The good news is the world won’t be coming to an end tomorrow, and I won’t be here when it does.

Ron Garber, Duarte

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