The extinction of several species in Hawaii has just been formally documented under the federal Endangered Species Act (“U.S. says ivory-billed woodpecker, 22 other species extinct,” Star-Advertiser, Top News, Sept. 29). The current formal list of threatened and endangered species still surviving in Hawaii is extensive and many could become extinct without protection.

What is little known is that, as of April 2020, there are more than 600 additional Hawaiian species that are not formally listed but are considered endangered or imperiled according to nationally or internationally based conservation organizations, a Society for Conservation Biology policy statement said. The state of Hawaii has the ability to add some or all of these currently nonlisted species under its own endangered species law (Hawaii Revised Statute 195D).

This would have numerous benefits, including raising the profile and promoting the conservation of these overlooked species by nongovernmental organizations, governmental agencies and the public.

Glenn Metzler

Keaau, Hawaii island

Mandates stop us from living life to the fullest

We have been subjected to a mask-wearing requirement to conduct business. Next, we are bullied into getting vaccine shots or lose our jobs.

On the mainland, people are filling up 80,000-capacity stadiums for college and pro football games. People are getting on with their lives. This whole thing is about control and the majority of people in Hawaii have surrendered their liberties.

If you are scared, stay home and let the rest of us get on with our lives.

Big-box stores are packed and airplanes are full, with passengers sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. Wake up, folks. The virus is real; just take the same precautions you do during flu season. Stop living like a scared child. You are just existing, and not living your life to its fullest.

Al Phillips

Mililani

Socialism is dangerous to America’s future

The Democratic Party is struggling to pass two massive socialist infrastructure and reconciliation bills in support of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are deceiving the American people that the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill will cost them zero dollars, while being funded by increases in corporate taxes and taxes from the wealthy.

This bill is laden with freebies like college education, extended health care and housing that will eventually become permanent benefits like welfare checks and food stamps.

Americans know there is no free lunch in government spending. Our country was founded on a capitalistic system. Successful private businesses are the backbone of our country’s wealth and are why we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world.

Socialism breeds economic failure, as in the Soviet Union, Venezuela and some European nations.

Our present national debt is nearly $29 trillion and counting. We owe a frightening $479 billion in interest to our creditors each day.

We should not jeopardize our children and their children’s future by burdening them with reckless and ill- advised spending.

Robert Hatakeyama

Salt Lake

Invest more to make America great again

The Democrats — most of them anyway — are proposing a $3.5 trillion rebuild of America, including increased benefits to most Americans.

When this $3.5 trillion is divided by the number of years it is proposed to cover (10 years), it comes to $350 billion per year. That is less than half of what we spend on defense per year.

So, yes, it is expensive, but we need to ask ourselves the old butter-versus- guns question.

Dwight Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

How do we make America great again? If we can spend that much on defending our “national interests” against sometimes dubious external threats, why can’t we spend half that much making ourselves internally strong as well?

Roman Leverenz

Aliamanu

Earthquake shows risks from Red Hill fuel tanks

Sunday morning’s bit of earthquake, centered south of Kau but felt also on Oahu, should remind us of the urgency of relocating the Navy’s Red Hill fuel tanks.

They currently sit on top of an aquifer supplying water to hundreds of thousands of people and are presumably vulnerable to sufficiently large shaking.

John Swindle

Kalihi

Delay coal plant closure until things get cooler

Wouldn’t it make sense to extend by one month the Sept. 1, 2022, shutdown date for the AES Corp. coal-fired power plant, to get us past the peak seasonal demand for air conditioning (“Views clash over Oahu’s impending shift from coal to clean energy,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 11)?

Given the problems with bringing solar power online in time, that would provide an extra margin of safety.

Richard Stancliff

Makiki

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