Editorials / Opinion

Seattle Times letters to the editor

Michael Osbun / OP ART

Climate change warrants attention

Of course State Sen. Don Benton thinks there are more important things “at the moment” than climate change. Of course he’s ready to advocate “little things that add up over time” that may help us address what he charmingly calls the “climate-change situation.” [“Vancouver Republican basking in state Senate majority,” NWMonday, March 18.]

There will always be more pressing short-term issues than climate change, because even a steadily accelerating greenhouse effect is going to offer consequences on a time scale larger than that of electoral politics. While there is no magic bullet that will fix the burgeoning climate crisis any more than there is a pill to cure lung cancer, this fact simply reinforces Gov. Jay Inslee’s sense of genuine responsibility.

That the climate “situation” is vastly larger than the problems usually preoccupying our politicians is no reason to dismiss it. There may be more important things at the moment — but climate change is not an issue of the moment, but of the millennium.

– Warren Senders, Medford, Mass.

Where’s my train?

If Gov. Jay Inslee is so passionate about climate change, why can’t I take an electric train to Spokane, to the Tri-Cities or to anywhere in the state of Washington? [“Inslee’s passion: climate change,” page one, March 18.]

Should that be made possible by a logical running of the Department of Transportation? We have the electric power from r

enewable resources and yet we have no choice but to use the car or an airplane.

In other advanced countries, one can take a train faster than the car, any hour, and to the minute on-time!

– Reiner Decher, Bellevue