To all those climate-change fanatics, please read the article in Sunday’s paper (“Changing landscape led to ice age animal deaths,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 8).

The author refers to the “astronomical drivers” of the ice ages (note the plural). Since the last ice age ended at least 10,000 years ago (typically researchers put the beginning of the end at 20,000 years ago), humanity could have had no role in the collapse of the referenced large ice sheets back then.

If cosmic changes can cause a 100-meter rise in the oceans, what does that say about the projected few feet of rise that supposedly will be caused by humanity?

Andrew Rothstein
Downtown Honolulu

Support surfing as high school sport

I support boxing, but let’s get surfing in high schools first.

It could involve hundreds, if not thousands, of boys and girls. The advantages are obvious.

I’m not proposing North Shore big-wave contests, but more like South Shore surf (Diamond Head to Kewalo breaks).

What has to be done to accomplish this for our high school kids?

Ron Sorrell
Waikiki

Add rail to things desecrating Hawaii

Why aren’t the Hawaiians protesting the rail transit system, a great atrocity that is snaking through our lands, changing forever our skyline, our Hawaii, the Hawaii the people and its visitors know and love deeply?

What makes this any less important than Mauna Kea?

Far more people are being affected by the construction of this massive project than anyone could have imagined.

Or maybe the rail advocates knew how bad it would get, like the cost that for some unforseen reason keeps escalating.

Our legislators keep approving extension of the rail tax, which makes them part of the problem, too. They are afraid to ask the hard questions.

I venture to say they knew before they turned the first shovel of soil that the cost they projected would have to be revised over and over again.

They are hoping we have reached our point of no return. It is never too late to say never.

Claudia Torres
Aiea

Council should call Grabauskas’ bluff

So the City Council has to pass the tax bill or the rail transit project is finished (“OK tax bill or project’s pau, official tells panel,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 10)?

If that was intended to give me pause, it actually has the opposite effect. I had pretty much given up on killing this monster and would settle now just to cage it. But if it can still be killed, let’s do it!

Unfortunately I don’t really believe that. I am sure the powers that are feeding at the public trough on this project will spend every available penny they can without much regard to what they end up with. Loss of ridership due to a shortened route hardly matters as the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation was always going to require massive subsidies that would increase property taxes and divert from a working system, TheBus.

But by all means, let’s call Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas’ bluff and disapprove the tax bill. Maybe we will get lucky and actually slay this dragon.

Jim King
Hawaii Kai

Wage levels depend on profit and loss

James A. Hildenbrand says that a government-mandated minimum wage of $15 an hour is a joke (“Workers just want their fair share,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Nov. 10).

I agree, but for reasons he may not appreciate.

All goods and most services we need come from the private, for-profit sector. Government actions never result in abundance, only scarcity. Why? Because government produces nothing. It gives nothing. It takes.

Politicians habitually seek approval for their alleged generosity. They are generous, but only with the money they have taken from their constituents.

When redistributing wealth in the name of “equity,” government becomes a thief. Those who fail to comprehend this are marks waiting to be played by political con artists.

Comfy slurpers at the public trough lack the savvy and integrity to set any wage floor for private-sector workers. That job is best done by those who labor in the high-stakes world of profit and loss.

Thomas E. Stuart
Kapaau, Hawaii island

Aftermath of death is in God’s hands

I am grateful to Rob Shikina for his article, which was fair and showed who my brother Marty Luippold was (“Man might not be charged in death,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 8).

The medical examiner said Marty’s death was caused by three blows to the back of his head. My mother said Marty’s face and teeth were all smashed in. The image of Marty face down in a parking lot while someone beat him to death will linger with us for a long time, and also is difficult to reconcile with the defendant’s statement that the fatal injury was due to a fall.

The man charged in the case is a single parent. As a mother of four, I cannot imagine being separated from my child. I know this is in God’s hands.

My 89-year-old mother lives two blocks from where Marty was killed. She has an irrational fear of running into his killer. The apartment she shared with Marty is too large, and filled with too many memories. We have placed her on waiting lists for senior housing.

Terry Titcomb
Kailua