Air conditioning is a basic need for Georgia inmates
I’m glad to read that the Fulton County jail has repaired its air conditioning, but many state prisons don’t even have air conditioning.
Some of the 47,000 inmates are elderly, and we know that the elderly are more likely to have heat-related illnesses. Conditions in Georgia prisons are volatile at best, and extreme heat creates a situation that endangers inmates and prison workers.
What if we used some of the budget surplus to install and repair air conditioning in our prisons? The safety of prisoners and prison staff is compromised when we don’t address basic needs.
NEVA CORBIN, DECATUR
Shady companies know where to find a gullible audience
I’m afraid I can’t muster much sympathy for the people who have watched their hard-earned nest eggs evaporate due to their investments in gold and silver coins, “How right-wing news powers the ‘gold IRA,’” (News, Aug. 1).
Why do you think these shady companies advertise almost exclusively on right-wing media outlets? Could it be because they know that’s where the suckers are watching and listening, the gullible souls who swallow everything they hear on those platforms?
These are the same outlets that repeatedly lied about the 2020 presidential election being stolen and continue to give credence to the former and oft-indicted president who continues to lie about it now.
A rational person would realize that their credibility is shot. I believe an old adage is appropriate in this instance: Buyer beware!
KEN MOORE, SMYRNA
Parents are banning explicit books, but not smartphones
The public is now controlling the libraries in schools and often the public libraries in cities and states. As an example, the Harris County Schools in Texas just emptied their libraries, and got rid of the librarians in one of the independent school districts and made the space available basically for a detention hall to handle troublesome students.
What is happening is interesting, however. The parents are getting rid of all of the books with explicit materials on sex, sexuality and things like that in the schools, but in turn, are giving all of their children smartphones -- a better source of information with tons of interesting sites available. Children are curious and will find out what they want by one means or another.
RALEIGH C. PERRY, BUFORD
Transportation not only sector where state must reduce emissions
It appears that Georgia’s so-called climate plan, actually an emissions reduction plan funded through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, is already being misguided by political motives.
Emphasis is placed on reducing transportation emissions by hastening the conversion to electric vehicles. While transportation generates more emissions than other Georgia sectors, it is only marginally worse than our power-generating industry. Yet, there’s scant mention of converting to clean energy among initial comments reported about the state’s emissions reduction plan.
In Georgia, many electric vehicles will be recharged with power produced by burning natural gas, which is linked to methane leaks having far worse heat-trapping effects than carbon dioxide. Unjustifiably, using natural gas to produce electricity is a mainstay in Georgia Power’s 20-year plan, approved by the Public Service Commission last year.
Considering dangerously accelerating temperature extremes, emissions must be minimized as soon as possible. Burning natural gas while continuing to impede rooftop solar undercuts that vital goal.
DAVID KYLER, CENTER FOR A SUSTAINABLE COAST, SAINT SIMONS ISLAND
