Web Letters: A Global Green Deal

I think we rush too fast to the still-hypothetical global warming model. Also, my scientist husband (and many other experts) are not sure that the global warming logic/data is correct.

But putting global warming debates aside, this ambitious article outlines several goals--which are worthy, if indeed we achieve them and still preserve human families and jobs.

The article says on reducing emissions: "Pursuing sharp emissions reductions, however, would give America leverage to press China to do its part." However, China is not embarrassed by its still poor and widespread human rights violations. Why would China even care if the US reduces emissions?

When China wanted to host the last Olympics, they reduced pollution in their cities--at least enough to satisfy the Olympic Committee. That was real leverage.

V. L. Knutsen

St. John, IN

There is only one way this can work, and that is to put the science on the table, in a very open, transparent and accessible way.

Then the whole world must be invited to come and look at the science and the numbers, and to achieve a solution that fits the science. A political solution won't do, only a scientific one. If political solutions are offered, they must be quietly sent back to the drawing board until they match the science.

A public model (or series of models) can be used to evaluate how much each proposed solution adds to the total effort needed to reach the target.

Mike Cope

Cape Town, South Africa

Please, please, please stop this childish gibberish regarding climate change. When people say we need to save the earth, I always laugh, because the earth will go on with or without us. The earth is indifferent. The people that are losing sleep over climate change should go on with their lives and stop trying keep the earth forever locked in its current form with the shoreline and mountains exactly as we see them now. I wonder if the Ice Age people of several thousand years ago were hunkering down in their caves or shelters losing valuable time from the finite thing called life worrying about how to stop the sea ice from receding.

robert karasek

Washington, DC