‘Climate superfund’ needed in California

I am responding to Marin IJ’s important coverage of the wildfires in Los Angeles. The catastrophic images in the newspaper are a wake-up call for all of us. While Marin was spared this time, we can no longer pretend that any place is truly safe from climate change.

I have been lucky to call the rolling hills of Terra Linda home for just about three decades. Growing up, I would play in the tributaries — creating imaginary worlds among the bay trees and manzanitas. I was blissfully unaware of the looming fossil-fueled crisis ahead.

As I grew up, caring for the environment meant recycling and beach cleanups. Meanwhile, as early as 1997, investigations have proven that Exxon and other fossil-fuel CEOs knew the implications of their business models, but instead of making significant changes, they peddled false information and bought politicians to cover their tracks.

We are all vulnerable, and we must act now. I call on Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jared Huffman to support the reintroduction of a “climate superfund” bill in California.

The fund would be used for climate disaster relief and recovery; infrastructure improvements for climate resilience; and supporting communities most affected by climate change. We need to make polluters pay for the crisis they’ve fueled and use those funds to protect our communities from future disasters.

I’m also calling on our leaders in Washington to support a national climate superfund. It’s high time “Big Oil” was held responsible for decades of putting profits over our planet and our lives.

We can’t sit around waiting for the next disaster to hit, because Marin might be next. The time to hold polluters accountable is now before it’s too late — for us and for future generations.

— Laurel Levin, San Rafeal

Research shows our impact on climate now

If, hypothetically, we somehow quickly stopped using fossil fuels, it would drive our economy into depression because the economy remains largely dependent on them. One of the ironic consequences of such an eventuality is that the funds available for a gradual conversion to non-carbon-dioxide producing sources would be abruptly stopped.

This is not a letter in favor of using fossil fuels, but a recognition that our conversion needs to be on the fast side of gradual. We need to protect the future without impoverishing the present.

It is with this knowledge that I take strong exception to Tim Peterson’s letter published Jan. 18. In it, he states, “the climate is always changing, because it has been changing over the past four billion years.” I consider that to be a distortion of the facts.

Natural climate change is, in part, driven by changes in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit in cycles of 24,000 to 36,000 years, driving the planet into and out of ice ages.

It is clear to me that the climate change we face now is human caused. Some of these changes are taking place over a 100-year period, not 24,000 years.

It hasn’t been for millions of years that our atmosphere and oceans have contained as much carbon dioxide as now. Excess carbon dioxide is known to prevent the reradiation of energy from the sun, back into space, thus heating the land and oceans as well as acidifying the oceans with significant effects on all marine life.

Neither Peterson, nor anyone else, should suggest that this is inconsequential.

— Chet Seligman, Point Reyes Station

Marinwood group’s lawsuit appears to be shameless

I am writing in response to the article published Jan. 12 with the headline, “Marinwood lawsuit alleges ‘segregation’ in affordable housing plan,” Jan. 12).

As a board member for the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, I would like to ask if any of the members of the Marinwood Coalition Against Segregation group that filed the suit live in affordable housing themselves.

I suspect that none of them do. If that’s true, then shame on them for pretending to speak for a group whose interests they neither appear to understand nor appear to genuinely support. In my opinion, it is more likely that many of them vigorously oppose the incorporation of affordable housing into their neighborhoods in any manner, let alone the integrated way they purport to advocate for.

The irony is that many people who qualify for affordable housing are the same people these plaintiffs see and rely on every day — teachers, firefighters and retail employees, as well as day-care and health-care providers.

— Gail Napell, San Rafael