Opinion | Worries About Climate Change Should Spur Us to Action - The New York Times

Opinion | Worries About Climate Change Should Spur Us to Action - The New York Times

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Worries About Climate Change Should Spur Us to Action

To the Editor:

Re “ America Still Stands in the Way of Solving Climate Change,” by Lydia Millet (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 20):

“The race to decarbonize should be embraced” — a brilliant line from Ms. Millet’s essay — speaks volumes. Earlier this week an estimated 75,000 people marched in New York City calling for an end to fossil fuels. This movement desperately needs to become a united, feel-good process.

Ditching fossil fuels encompasses a lot. Financially, we need to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and investments. We need to dramatically cut the extraction of dirty fuels. Plans for new infrastructure like pipelines and compressor stations need to be abandoned. These changes will be hard.

But the list of pluses for decarbonization is long. Our world will be quieter, less polluted and more equitable. Human health will improve. A plethora of jobs will be generated. Most important, our disrupted climate will start to stabilize, ensuring a more sustainable future.

Leaders at the forefront of this change will need to be brave. The need to educate everyone about the potential ravages of a changing climate has never been greater. Quite simply, as Ms. Millet suggests, we need to embrace this change. We have little choice!

Sally Courtright

Albany, N.Y.

To the Editor:

On Sunday, tens of thousands of demonstrators protested in Manhattan, blaming President Biden for the shortcomings of U.S. climate policy. Echoing them, Lydia Millet called America “the colossus that stands in the way of a planetary crackdown on emissions,” and demanded that Mr. Biden take decisive, unilateral action against fossil fuels.

Yes, Mr. Biden could declare a climate emergency, ban fossil fuel exports, cancel oil leases and stop fossil fuel investing abroad. After being immediately halted by conservative judges, those emergency actions would go down in flames on 6-to-3 votes in the Supreme Court.

This is the court that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to restrict power plant emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Presidents have cultivated the image that they are all-powerful. But critics are fooling themselves if they think that Mr. Biden, acting alone, could be the solution. In reality, his options are very limited.

Dan Farber

Oakland, Calif.

The writer is a law professor and faculty director at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of “Contested Ground: How to Understand the Limits of Presidential Power.”

To the Editor:

Re “ That Feeling of Climate Doom? It’s Called Eco-Anxiety” (Europe Dispatch, Sept. 17):

Feeling anxious about climate change isn’t a pathology. It’s an accurate reflection of the situation we’re in. Making climate anxiety a mental health issue is just another form of climate change denial.

Actually, it’s not feeling extremely anxious that’s the pathology. It’s called delusion. And on the evidence of their own lack of action on climate change, most of the world’s financial and political leaders suffer from it.

Stuart Waldman

New York

McCarthy’s Snub of Zelensky

To the Editor:

Re “ McCarthy Declines to Allow Ukraine Leader to Address House” (news article, Sept. 21):

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, once again demonstrates his fear of his own members and his willingness to take whatever position will allow him to keep his job.

If Mr. McCarthy opposes further aid to Ukraine, so be it. But to snub President Volodymyr Zelensky and prevent him from making his case before the entire House is a slap in the face, not to Mr. Zelensky, who is stronger than Mr. McCarthy and well able to take the hit, but to the other 434 members of the House, who might want to show a little courtesy and hear what the man has to say.

John T. Dillon

West Caldwell, N.J.

Garland Could Have Said …

To the Editor:

Re “ Angry Garland Rebuffs G.O.P. on Biden Case” (front page, Sept. 21):

I presume that at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Merrick Garland chose to remain professional instead of responding: “With all due respect, is there a question you would like me to answer so we can have an actual discussion, or are you interested only in voicing unsubstantiated accusations to score points?”

Clifford Reiss

Riverview, Fla.

A Survivor of the 1963 Birmingham Bombing

To the Editor:

Re “ What We Owe Survivors of Racial Terror,” by Charles M. Blow (column, Sept. 14):

Ten years ago, as a civil rights historian and an activist, I led a nationwide initiative to commemorate the four martyred girls in the Birmingham bombing — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley — on its 50th anniversary. The initiative was planned so that the girls’ heroic sacrifice wouldn’t get marginalized by the larger commemoration of the August 1963 March on Washington (I attended as a young boy).

I deeply regret that we did not include Sarah Collins Rudolph, who barely survived, in the commemoration of her sister and friends. It is past time to honor Ms. Rudolph. The just way to do that is to raise funds for her medical expenses.

Please write to your senators and representatives, urging them to provide funding in whatever way they can. Long overdue as it is, let’s make this a nationwide effort to secure restitution and justice for the courageous Sarah Collins Rudolph.

Stewart Burns

North Adams, Mass.

The writer is the author of “To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Mission and the Movement That Made Him.”