I agree with Walter Dods Jr. and Mitch D’Olier that Hawaii needs outside investment (“Timely Next- Era decision urged for state’s energy future, business rep,” Island Voices, Star-Advertiser, April 3).

What I disagree with them on is their statement that “Hawaii is regularly ranked as one of the worst business climates in the U.S.”

If that be the case, why is Next-Era pushing so hard to do business in Hawaii?

And it seems ironic that Dods and D’Olier, two pillars of Hawaii’s business world, would take a swipe at the business community after both pocketed millions when their respective businesses were sold to apparently eager buyers.

Wouldn’t we all be better off if those two would get out in the world and start touting how great Hawaii is as a place to do business?

David Cheever

Pacific Heights

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Legislators making housing crisis worse

We have an acknowledged serious rental housing shortage, and the proliferation of vacation rentals adds significantly to the problem.

Our state House of Representatives aggravated the shortage of rental housing when it killed a bill that would have phased out old nonconforming vacation rentals (House Bill 1573), and passed a bill (House Bill 1850), supported by Airbnb, that will make it harder to enforce against illegal vacation rentals.

Then the Senate Ways and Means Committee voted $50 million for the Rental Housing Trust Fund, putting the burden on the taxpayer.

Go figure. Some of that could have been used to balance the budget, or maybe air-conditioning our public school classrooms.

Chuck Prentiss

Kailua

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City funds definitely do get spent on rail

The letter by Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s information specialist, Bill Brennan, took a really cheap shot at a cartoon by David Swann that pointed out that we can’t afford everything (like a zoo) because we have to pay for rail (“Rail cartoon was off the mark,” Star-Advertiser, April 6).

For Brennan to say that city funds do not go to rail is a dishonest statement. The city’s transit-oriented development division of the city Department of Planning and Permitting had an operating budget of $4.4 million and a CIP budget of $20 million for fiscal year 2015.

This does not even include the hundreds, or possibly thousands, of hours city departments must spend dealing with rail construction permits and plans, and the myriad of other details that only the city’s employees can perform.

Garry P. Smith

Ewa Beach

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There is no solution to global warming

A letter writer remarked that he would have liked for University of Hawaii professor Richard Zeebe to come up with more solutions to our excessive carbon production (“Global Warming has few overall solutions,” Letters, Star-Advertiser, March 29).

And I’d like to know how to raise the old Titanic and send it cruising again.

Our way of life does not allow solutions. We poison our soil and our air. We use the oceans as toxic dumps. We pump megatons of semi-processed poop into the waves every day. It’s our way of doing things that preclude solutions.

When the chemistry of our oceans changes enough, the micro-plant organism in it that gives us oxygen will not survive — and neither will we.

Who will become extinct first? Those who breathe oxygen on land or in the sea?

Barry Commoner, a scientist and prominent ecologist, warned us way back in 1970 in a TIME magazine cover article.

We can’t even give up disposable chopsticks made from oxygen-giving trees. There’s always a race on to consume more and create carbon.

Rosemarie H. Tucker

Aala

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Contents of local litter seem to be changing

One of my New Year’s resolutions has been to pick up litter while I am walking in Honolulu.

I have been pretty consistent in doing so.

My mantra is, “Have hand-disinfectant, will travel.”

During the past month, I have noticed an uptick in the amount of trash strewn about on sidewalks of Waikiki. Sure, the usual suspects are never out of fashion: bottles, cans, plastics and the omnipresent cigarette butts.

In March, however, I collected some odder items: a mildewed sock, a deformed shoe, a shredded glove, a cracked pocket mirror, a discolored belt, an almost intact ant-infested pupu platter and a partially ripped canopy.

It seems that the litterers are getting more inventive as spring approaches.

Stan Satz

Waikiki