Opinion: Massive fires, destroyed property: The costs of climate change are adding up

To the editor: The denial of human-caused climate isn’t so bad until you find yourself paying for destroyed public infrastructure and ruined private property or experiencing lost lives. (“Human-caused warming doubled how much of the West has burned since 1984,” Oct. 10)

The number of multibillion-dollar weather disasters keeps on going up. Expect to pay more for insurance and to lose economic opportunities as our government will increasingly have to help pay for these disasters. It is time to live sustainably on this planet, and it is past time for our country to be the world’s leader on this issue.

Remember the profound change in technology, industrial production and labor that our country experienced during World War II. We can do it. We can leave a sustainable economy and environment behind for our children and grandchildren to inherit.

Tom Mooney, Aspen, Colo.

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To the editor: Wait a minute. The Times reported that scientists have linked human-caused warming to a nearly doubling of area burned in the West by wildfires. But Donald Trump has stated, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.”

There go the liberal media again.

Joe Hilberman, Los Angeles

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