Letter | RTC should heed Griggs’ column on climate change - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Letter | RTC should heed Griggs’ column on climate change - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Gary Griggs’ excellent latest column (Sentinel, Sept. 24) describes some calamitous effects of human-caused climate change, and calls for drastic action on climate. Griggs laments recent climate-denialist actions in several state legislatures, like Florida approving climate denial videos to be shown to Florida school kids. We needn’t look to distant Florida to see institutionalized climate denial and science denial in action.

Santa Cruz County’s own Regional Transportation Commission is continuing its longstanding, mistaken program using public funds to encourage energy-intensive, fossil-fuel-powered vehicle travel on chronically congested Highway 1 by incrementally adding lanes. Forget the climate scientists telling us we now must dramatically and rapidly phase out fossil fuel burning to have a moonshot at a livable future.

The added science denial is this: the RTC does not follow the preponderance of evidence finding widening freeways merely induces more freeway travel. Car congestion soon returns, bigger, more entrenched. Costly car dependency is maintained. We don’t get the needed comprehensive development of healthier, economical, sustainable alternatives. CampaignForSustainableTransportation.org explores local alternatives.

There’s no do-over for failing the climate test.

— Jack Nelson, Santa Cruz

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