CONGAS: “Don’t forget climate crisis” by Jenny Blaker

You have probably noticed that we have gone a bit quiet over the past few weeks due to the precedence of the COVID-19 situation. Once things stabilize a bit we will resume our efforts in full.

In the meantime, there is no reason why we can’t continue to remind our community that these other crises don’t just go away because another, more in-your-face (no pun intended) crisis has emerged, as Jenny so eloquently conveys in her letter. Go Jenny Go!

We welcome other ideas for what we can and/or should be doing during this surreal time.

Stay healthy everyone,

-Woody

Don’t forget climate crisis

EDITOR: Thank you for publishing the Close to Home column on new gas stations (“New gas stations conflict with climate crisis,” March 16). Even while all of our lives have been taken over right now by the novel coronavirus crisis, we can’t forget that the housing crisis and the global climate crisis are ongoing.

One small thing the county and its cities can do is to review their permitting requirements for new gas stations. All those currently proposed are unnecessary and fly in the face of existing commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s ironic that it’s taken COVID-19 for us to see that we can in fact reduce our local and international greenhouse gas emissions related to travel if we really have to. We do really have to. It’s just that the climate crisis is at a slow boil, relatively speaking, and harder to grasp and understand, than the more sudden and visible pandemic. But it is no less urgent.

JENNY BLAKER

Online here: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/10847024-181/wednesdays-letters-to-the-editor