Be bold about climate change

I participated in the People’s Climate March in New York on Sept. 21.

With 400,000 people, I peacefully requested immediate, bold action on climate change. Numerous placards proclaimed: "The debate is over. Climate change is real and affects us all."

Before the march, two New York City Council members spoke of divesting the city’s pension plans from $4.7 billion in fossil-fuel holdings within five years. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced it will divest from coal and oil, $50 billion worth. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pledgedto reduce New York’s carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. These are some serious goals.

With many island resources and our cash cow, Waikiki Beach, sitting precariously near or at sea level, when will Hawaii’s officials truly embrace action on climate change? When will those erecting roadblocks to renewable energy finally assume leadership or get out of the way?

As one sign in Sunday’s march said: "Friends don’t let friends avoid climate reality."

The sooner, the better.

Jan Pappas
Aiea

Homeless need birth control

My heart goes out to all homeless children, but I have no sympathy for the parents/adults who keep having babies when they know they cannot support and take care of them.

They need to practice birth control for the sake of everyone — taxpayers included.

Margaret Giles
Waikiki

HECO delaying sustainability

Stop falling for Hawaiian Electric Co.’s misinformation campaign that pits customers against each other ("No special deals for PV owners," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 11).

Unfortunately, we’re past the luxury of bickering. Climate change is real. Climate change is here. Any doubters should check out what’s happening with rising sea levels on the islands of Kiribati, then go to watchdisruption.com.

HECO’s plan slows Hawaii’s move to clean energy and self-sustainability.

In addition to slowing photovoltaic installations, it swaps oil for liquefied natural gas, another fossil fuel, drilled via "fracking," which creates climate impacts just as bad as oil.

Fracking also ruins communities by exposing them to environmental and health hazards, including toxic leakage into their drinking water.

I don’t think the people of Hawaii want to be party to this type of devastation.

We must all do everything we can to bring down carbon emissions, and that means cooperation and putting the planet before HECO profits.

Sherry Pollack
Ahuimanu

PV owners now being penalized

We installed thousands of dollars worth of photovoltaics two years ago.

It was our out-of-pocket gesture to benefit the community and help protect the environment.

It was also, incidentally, a very real subsidy to Hawaiian Electric Co., in the form of reduced fossil fuel costs, thereby freeing up funds which could be used to maintain and improve the electrical grid.

We generate all our own home power, plus some extra for the community to share. Based on our past electric bills, we won’t recoup our investment for more than 10 years. Oahu’s other 33,000 PV owners are doing essentially the same.

Let’s not forget that PV owners paid their dues, up front, when purchasing their systems. We committed personal resources to move all of us toward our shared goal: clean air and energy independence.

Why, then, should we be financially penalized and seen as part of the problem, when we’re proactively pursuing the solution?

Don Hallock
St. Louis Heights

Media needs to be discreet

Lo and behold, on the front page of my morning paper I’m greeted by the news that my country is upgrading its nuclear deterrent forces ("Pricey nuclear arsenal upgrade ongoing," Star-Advertiser, Sept. 22).

Great news for our enemies, but why did they have to read it on the front page of the newspaper? Couldn’t they have gotten it through normal channels, i.e. covertly?

This asinine notion that telegraphing all military endeavors will somehow enhance national security is getting a little old.

As a nation, let’s resolve to stop electing political hacks whose only view of national security is as a means to a political end.

Let’s elect leaders — people who place national security above their political legacies. Military secrets are not something we should be reading about on the front pages of our leftist media, right?

Michael Rodrigues
Honolulu