Climate change denial costing nation billions in recovery efforts
Tornadoes have flattened U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky, and wildfires devastate U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s California. Yet, they and their “climate change-denying” Republican caucus continue to prefer spending billions of taxpayer dollars in recovery efforts rather than pass legislation to stanch the destruction of global warming. They appear to care nothing for the lives lost to increasingly worsening weather events as long as the fossil fuel industry is alive and supporting their reelections.
Climate scientists warn that drought, wildfires, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes will continue to break records every year due to man-made pollution. Trump’s pullout from the Paris Agreement set the planet back, not just four years, but exponentially. Those who supported his misguided efforts to halt the move to great paying jobs in alternative energy, clean transportation and a safer environment are responsible for the diminished lives we and future generations will face.
SUSAN ANDRE, DUNWOODY
School gun violence bigger issue than banning books
Kudos to Leonard Pitts Jr. for his hard-hitting column comparing the Republican attempt to ban books they consider obscene from public school libraries to the very real obscenity of Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie’s “Christmas card” tweet. Massie sent a tweet of him and his family smiling as they cradle long guns in front of a Christmas tree, along with a plea to Santa to “send ammo.” This tweet happened days after the school shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan killed four students and wounded six. As Pitts points out, conservative Republicans have no problem with Massie’s tweet but want to remove books like Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” from schools.
I don’t know of any empirical evidence that a book can harm anybody unless you hit them in the head with it, but I know that more than 100 students have died since 2009 in school shootings. So we should pay more attention to ending school gun violence than policing the library shelves.
LUCAS CARPENTER, CONYERS
