Tired of choking on wildfire smoke? Only addressing climate change head-on will help | Opinion

Climate change stokes wildfires

The frequency, intensity and duration of natural disasters have been on the rise in recent years. Among these are severe flooding, droughts and, notably massive and destructive wildfires. Examples include Lahaina (2023), Yellowknife (and all Canada, 2023), Fort McMurray (2016), Australia (2019-2020), and California (2018, 2020).

We are presently dealing with the consequences of local fires and murky, smoky skies are now a routine part of summer weather in the Pacific Northwest.

These are signs of a heating planet. There is convincing evidence that our planet is shifting into an ever more wildly violent, massively destructive and deadly wildfire regime, an often unstoppable force due to the effects of global warming (see “Fire Weather,” by John Vaillant).

The only way to stop this is to end the dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We need to rapidly transition to non-fossil fuel-based energy sources with accompanying investments in infrastructure electrification and revised agro-forestry practices.

A carbon fee and dividend program would be of great value for this. It is not too late for society to assert control over entrenched interests and the greed and corruption of fossil energy corporations to claim a brighter future for generations to come.

Dennis Finn, Pasco

Voters need to put GOP in timeout

The 2017 Republican tax cut added trillions to the projected budget deficit at a time when the economy was strong and needed no stimulation. The tax cuts were huge for the richest Americans but were small and sun-setting for everyone else.

Financing the solutions for climate change and FEMA, which deals with the immediate effects of climate change and is underfunded, was made more difficult as a result. Republicans, including Rep. Dan Newhouse, rage against Bidenomics as if it is solely responsible for the deficit and inflation.

They try to distract voters from the fact that the U.S. economy is the envy of the world. Inflation is still too high, but it is better than the rest of the rich world and moderating. The Republican response to all our problems is to deny and obstruct.

Their cynical strategy is to break the economy when they don’t have the presidency and step on the gas when they do. They maintain a smokescreen of perpetual outrage that disguises their disinterest in anything other than political power. Voters need to send them to a “time out” to reinvent themselves.

Greg Carl, Richland

School vouchers prompt legal fight

The nation’s Supreme Court recently ruled private schools could receive public funds from school voucher programs and government grants. The Oklahoma attorney general disagrees, arguing these cases have “little precedential value” to charter school law and that no legal history exists to prove charter schools are private.

Catholic officials contend charter schools are private schools, despite their reliance on taxpayer dollars, and a faith-based institution shouldn’t be excluded from the state’s charter school funding. As a result, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa plan to open the St. Isidore of Seville school in 2024 to provide a Catholic education online to students in all parts of the state.

Critics argue the concept of a government-funded religious school violates the separation of church and state and could result in discrimination against certain groups. I agree with this assessment and that taxpayers should not pay for public-funded religious schools.

The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee, a nonpartisan public school advocacy group, joins nine other parents, faith leaders and public education advocates in filing a lawsuit, contending a Catholic charter school would contradict state law and asked a district judge to block the school from opening and receiving state funds.

Bill Petrie, Richland