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The cost of climateinaction is too steep

Re: “Major flooding swamps Santa Cruz Mountains,” Page A1, Jan. 10:

Tuesday’s front-page headline looks very familiar. For the past two weeks, The Mercury News has featured the storms in California, and especially the Bay Area, either as a headline or somewhere on the front page. Not long ago, the headlines featured the devastation caused by wildfires. Not coincidentally, both of these types of events occur in the same areas, as barren hillsides give way to mudslides once the weather changes.

Extreme weather events caused $115 billion in insured losses worldwide in 2022, a reminder that the cost of climate inaction is far greater than the cost of taking action. We need more policy solutions to quickly reduce climate pollution and fast-track a clean-energy future that benefits all Americans.

Renee HinsonMountain View

CEQA is effectivelyserving its purpose

Dan Walters’ Jan. 8 column (“Environmental law’s misuse blocking housing brings calls for CEQA reform,” Page A9) seems to imply that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) involves approval or denial of development proposals. But CEQA simply requires analysis, mitigation and public disclosure of those projects’ harmful environmental impacts. Furthermore, CEQA contains broad exemptions for multifamily affordable housing.

A prime example of how CEQA is working to protect the environment while also defending disadvantaged communities is the Sargent Ranch Quarry project that has been proposed on the sacred indigenous landscape of Juristac. This open-pit sand and gravel mine would cause 14 separate significant and unavoidable impacts to the Juristac tribal cultural landscape, wildlife connectivity, air quality and scenic vistas.

Without CEQA, none of these devastating environmental impacts would have been analyzed or revealed to the public — or to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. Don’t be fooled by over-heated rhetoric; CEQA is working well.

Alice KaufmanPalo Alto

City council disruptorstrample First Amendment

Joe Mathews writes about how politicians badly treat protesters who disrupt city council meetings (“Mutual contempt — one-sided protection,” Page A9, Jan. 8). It is a sort of “plague on both your houses” type of argument.

Mathews and most other commentators miss the main point — the mistreatment of those well-behaved citizens who are there to observe, learn, and voice their opinions.

The First Amendment to the Constitution protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Those who disrupt a properly organized meeting and those who abuse their authority in such meetings are trampling on the rights of those citizens who are behaving and trying to exercise their rights as Americans. We should come up with a way to remove the disrupters and authoritarians and take them away from the public meeting.

The rest of civil society can then proceed upon their mission of creating a better democracy.

John CormodeMountain View

GOP, Dems shouldmeet in the middle

Re. “How minority rule could be used to implode U.S. democracy in 2023,” Page A6, Jan. 10:

Why is it we have come to assume that thoughtful congresspersons will always vote along party lines? Sure, a minority of Republicans can prevent a simple majority if the Democrats all vote against anything the Republicans bring up for a vote. Why does this need to be?

The country isn’t split 50-50. It’s more like 10-80-10 except the 10 on each extreme are allowed to hold the rest of us hostage. It’s about time centrists on both sides start talking to each other.

Phil ArnoldRedwood City

Democrats wasted votesduring speaker battle

House Democratic unity in voting for a speaker was admirable but pointless.

They could have identified a Republican congressmember that the Democrats could best work with. With the votes of all Democrats and only 5 Republicans, that Republican could have become speaker.

There is something wrong with this strategy.

Vanya MatzekCupertino

Shooting by 6-year-oldshould not surprise

On Friday, Jan. 6, a 6-year-old first-grader in Virginia pulled out a gun in class and shot his teacher.

Newport News Public School Superintendent George Parker, apparently surprised, commented, “In no way do I believe that we were fully prepared for a 6-year-old student to bring a gun, this weapon, to school and shoot his teacher.”

Let’s not pretend this is a surprise. One need only refer back to Christmas cards published byReps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, in 2021. In both cards, the representatives shared Christmas good wishes with photographs of their families, adults and children, all fully armed with guns.

Those folks were re-elected and along with the rest of their party, stand firm on “gun rights.” A teacher’s life endangered, a classroom full of children traumatized … horrifying, but hardly surprising.

Judith HurleySan Jose