Readers respond: The 30,000-foot view of Trump's win.
Our piece last week reflecting on the uncertainty of Trump's presidential win elicited several responses. Here are three of them.
Readers respond: The 30,000-foot view of Trump's win
Nov. 14, 2016
Editor's note: Douglas Fischer's essay on the presidential election, "Checks, balances and the 30,000-foot view of Trump's win," elicited several responses from readers. Three are published below. We always welcome feedback.
Profound and lasting impacts
To the Editor:
In his commentary, Douglas Fischer fails to acknowledge that our energy and environmental policies over the next four years will have impacts in geologic time, dramatically re-shaping the view from 30,000 feet and experience in the microcosm below, well beyond the next political cycle.
After the reins on the plunderers are further loosened, these will not be mere blips that can somehow be easily corrected through wiser checks and balances. The destructive climate-changing forces that will rapidly accelerate in positive feedback loops are certain to carry us well beyond tipping points, creating an increasingly unrecognizable world, uninhabitable for a growing number of species, with much suffering, far, far into the future.
It is a grave diagnosis.
Ted Schettler
Bolinas, Calif.
Perspective for the path forward
To the Editor:
I teach a class called: “Climate change, the environment and human health." Since Wednesday morning I have been struggling with how to teach this class for the rest of the semester. The first third focused on the science underlying climate change. The next third examined the impact of those changes on human health.
The final third starts Tuesday and is where I was stuck. It's supposed to offer a mixture of reasons for hope and optimism balanced with the very real challenges ahead. Until reading your article, I had no idea how to do that. You have given me a path forward and a reason to have some clear-eyed perspective.
Michael Laiosa
Zilber School of Public Health
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
The view from 64º North
To the Editor:
Just read your article. I still feel pretty hopeless. It feels like a future without snow. I have no choice but to adapt to a new reality no matter how much I love snow.
Dave Hayden
Fairbanks, Alaska
