Mahalo to Audrey Lin for her commentary (“High temperatures, shortage of water threaten forests,” Star- Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 30). She highlighted forests drying due to less rain and higher heat. This diminishes their ability to draw greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, desperately needed before irreversible climate change grows any further.

One critical solution is composting organic waste to fortify the soil with friendly organisms doing the crucial work of retaining moisture, promoting aeration and boosting fertility. This is good for forest, agricultural and pastoral lands, and how nature likes to work.

Each county is developing waste management systems to put organic waste back into soil. Please support these efforts. Our soils can promote a healthier atmosphere and produce more food, helping us withstand the next hurricane.

Charley Ice

Aiea

Safety of loved ones over right to carry guns

I would like everyone to think of the three to five people they care most about in their life. Then say to yourself, “Other people’s right to carry any kind of gun they want when and wherever they want is so important that I am willing to have these people I love killed or maimed.” That is the implication of the gun laws that are being forced upon us throughout the country.

Since virtually anyone can get a gun, legally or otherwise, we are all at the mercy of someone in a bad mood, or drunk or angry, randomly opening fire anywhere.

Law-abiding citizens are only law-abiding until they’re not. And the likelihood that a helpful armed person will be at the right spot at the right time is low (“Trained person with gun can make streets safer,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 25). So think about those special people you love and how much you really care about them.

Ann Marten

Kailua

Lax enforcement allows homeowner violations

I read and hear about taxing vacant homes and penalizing or fining homeowners who basically are doing what they want with no accountability.

We can assess, but we don’t collect, fines or fees. Homeowners basically snub their noses at the government. There has to be a successful way to collect. We need to go after individuals and businesses more aggressively to send a message that government and other authorities are serious.

Government needs to stop the lip service and show more action. I would like to know the percentage of fines and penalties levied and collected. I know this has been going on for years.

Derick Wurst

Kaneohe

No parallels between Hawaiians, Palestinians

I was surprised by the enmity expressed by Robert Stiver concerning Gov. David Ige’s plan to share technology with Israel (“Ige should withdraw from Israel agreement,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 27). Stiver referred to Israel pejoratively as a “Zionist regime.”

Israel is a vibrant, Western-leaning democracy surrounded by hostile Arab countries that have waged war against it since its inception in 1948. Stiver somehow conflates the problems of our local indigenous Hawaiian population with the “illegal occupation of the native Palestinian people’s holy land, where Jesus was born and ministered.” At the time of Jesus’s birth, Israel was a Jewish state occupied by the Romans; Jerusalem was the center of its religion and government. Islam had not been invented yet.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s founding charter has a core tenet: the destruction of the Jewish state. This is constantly demonstrated with terrorist attacks that no other country would tolerate. It is understandable that Israel has a hard time making peace with the PLO or its deadly rival, Hamas. But what does that have to do with Native Hawaiians or sharing Israeli technology?

Stanley K. Patz

Waikiki

Hatred, intolerance has no place in Hawaii

Robert H. Stiver’s letter is a stark reminder of why antisemitism is known as “The Longest Hatred” (“Ige should withdraw from Israel agreement,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 27).

Natan Sharansky asks about anti- semitism: Does it delegitimize, demonize and treat the subject with a double standard?

Stiver delegitimizes and demonizes Israel as a nation-state and society and the Jewish nationalist movement.

The double standard? Israel and Jews are attacked whereas others are not.

A bit of history helps: Jews and Palestinians are both “native” to the land in question. There is no history of Israel spying on Americans. The differences between Israel and Hawaii are as important as the similarities. The letter expresses hatred and intolerance that belongs in other places and other times, and not in today’s Hawaii, America and the world.

What would Jesus say? I think he would have a lot to say to Stiver and his local supporters, and they would not be happy to hear it.

Peter Hoffenberg

Hawaii Kai

Sigall’s baseball article a pleasure to read

I really enjoy Bob Sigall’s articles. They are always a relief from the trials and tribulations of the world in most of the paper, whether historical, informative or just entertaining.

But when I read the headline, I thought: Why do I care what happened with a high school baseball team 50 years ago (“Punahou School’s perfect game has never been duplicated,” Star-Advertiser, Rearview Mirror, Oct. 28)?

But before I turned the page I read the ninth-inning play-by-play description, and started over and read the whole article.

What a pleasure for the men to have a reunion after 50 years and still have the honor of being the only team to play a perfect game. Thanks for another good story, Bob.

Shirley Hasenyager

Kailua

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