Letters to the Editor
Kevin C
Published Letters: 142 Editor's Choice: 23
-
Romans
[Read the article: The Salon Interview: Elizabeth Edwards]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So we are supposed to believe that the arbiter of what Jesus believed is some guy who never met him.
Saul does a face-plant on the road to Damascus and we're supposed to buy everything he says? I think not.
-
MarieA
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Brouhaha isn't hyphenated.
-
so maybe we should be saying 'organic (compound) neutral'?
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't what makes something "organic" is presence of carbon?
I'm just saying. I move that until we clarify whether to call things "carbon neutral" or "carbon dioxide neutral" that we put off all efforts to actually combat climate change. Let's be sure to focus on what is key, i.e. semantics.
After all, why reduce an issue to something simple that the hoi polloi can understand. Be precise! Don't take the advice of C students even if it is potentially right (and even if perhaps it occurred when 80% of Harvard Grads did not graduate with honors).
-
More information please on wine discussion
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I need to know how one could use lachrymose appropriately when discussing wine.
I prefer my wine to be phlegmatic, but not bilious.
-
bi-carbon-ate
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't that when Carbon reacts with both "left handed" and "right handed" molecules?
I haven't taken chemistry in a while, so I may be wrong...
-
As long as we are picking at nits
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bill Lamb, I just want to raise the point that cow farts aren't as much anthropogenic as much as they are bovopogenic, at least at the source. Ok, I know/strongly suspect bovopogenic isn't a word, but it ought to be.
-
Let's look at the big picture here
[Read the article: You are now free to pollute about the country]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]According to the Economist's survey on flight (which is in the 6/14 issue, and is worth a read) and this article air transport makes up 1.8 to 2% of CO2 emissions.
Road transport, however makes up 18% of emissions (with "other transport" accounting for another 4%. To me, this means reducing emissions from cars and trucks by 10% would completely offset a projected doubling of emissions from air travel. It is a no-brainer to me--if you focus on the larger slice you'd have the larger impact (now "public electricity/public heat" is 35%, but I'm not exactly sure what that is--does that mean plug in electric cars are a bad idea?).
Do we focus on air travel because for most of us (not me as a consultant, though), that is something that we can give up with less inconvenience to us individually? Forgoing a trip to Tahiti may be less painful, especially if that wasn't something that you'd do anyway.
That is not to say that there aren't things that are unfair about air travel--they tend to be exempt from fuel taxes which encourages poor use of fuel. Additionally, private planes do not pay the full impact of their costs on air traffic control and congestion in the skies (j'accuse Laurie David).
Airlines have plenty of reasons to reduce fuel consumption per passenger (witness the 787's brisk sales). Do we have enough of a carbon tax to encourage people to move themselves and goods via roads more efficiently, considering some economists don't see motorists changing their behavior much until gas hits $5 a gallon?
-
To re-emphasize--tax, tax, tax, the carbon
[Read the article: You are now free to pollute about the country]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Then there is free will, but people are paying for the consequences of using carbon. Additionally, don't exempt anyone (e.g. power producers, airlines, etc.). It is a regressive tax, but then just give poor people refundable tax credits.
Just think about it--no need to rely on people's good will to think twice about flying, go solar, adopt wind power, weatherstrip the house, put in new windows, etc. All of these things would have significantly better payoff.
With all the money raised, the government could invest in alternative energy research and lower other regressive taxes (e.g. sales taxes). It really is the easiest way, in my opinion.
-
My pet peeve is people whose pet peeves are based on errors
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Main Entry: pro·ac·tive
Pronunciation: (")prO-'ak-tiv
Function: adjective
1 [1pro-] : relating to, caused by, or being interference between previous learning and the recall or performance of later learning
2 [2pro- + reactive] : acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes
- pro·ac·tive·ly adverb
-
The hard hitting rebuttal to the Psychology Today left me cold
[Read the article: Pseudopsychology Today]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was there anything in there except for rhetorical questions and unsupported alternate explanations for the conclusions? Hardly more rigorous than the article in question (which at least claims to be based on research).
I don't think attacking Evolutionary Psychology (which, by the way I think is a growing rather than shrinking discipline, although I may be wrong. Carol Lloyd seems to think it is a holdover from the 1800s or something) by fostering reasonable doubt is a meaningful rebuttal. This isn't a murder case.
-
Why not a propane camp stove?
[Read the article: Breast milk on board]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Then I can use my lighter and my jug of breast milk to make hot cocoa.
-
Dear Andrew
[Read the article: Back by popular demand: Taxing the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope you wrote out your post on a legal pad in longhand or better yet dictated it to a secretary. Then she or he, could type it up for you (in triplicate) on a manual typewriter. Finally you could have it typeset and distributed to people in parking lots througout the land...
After all, that system would generate vastly more jobs than posing on the internets. Just think of the clerical staff, typesetters, distribution folks, postmen, etc. that you put out of work by having a blog.
-
I don't know why the previous quote posted to this thread
[Read the article: Back by popular demand: Taxing the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was writing it for the previous thread. My bad, presumably.
-
Comment (in the right place, hopefully)
[Read the article: Grape harvesters of illegal immigration wrath]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope you wrote out your post on a legal pad in longhand or better yet dictated it to a secretary. Then she or he, could type it up for you (in triplicate) on a manual typewriter. Finally you could have it typeset and distributed to people in parking lots througout the land...
After all, that system would generate vastly more jobs than posing on the internets. Just think of the clerical staff, typesetters, distribution folks, postmen, etc. that you put out of work by having a blog.
-
Don't see the place to donate associated with the tournament
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where is it????