Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    One wonders if the press will do its job or just hound petty victims, rather than find facts and players now that Trump's collusion “accusion” fizzled? Dare say they don't have the stomach, much less the “intelligence” to find and prosecute the actual players.
    This is where Russia, or any third party, comes in to drive the narrative. “Domesticated journalists” accept lies and pass them on to an accepting press. It's food that has no protein or sustenance. It's a sugar-high news cycle perpetuated by late-night comics and other clowns and Congress.
    On the other hand, the press could demand to find those “heads of state” who collude with third parties to tarnish historical leaders, our form of government, our religion, and our way of life. The product is revisionist history for the makings of a dystopian society.
    Replay the destruction of American Indian culture … it's just that American Indians were subsumed by Western culture. No such thing in dystopia.
    Find and prosecute those who seek to hijack us and our government, starting with that Steele Dossier.

Dear Editor,
    I wrote it when Patty Griffin was on the Chronicle’s cover, May 17, 2002, and I will write it again today. What an absolutely beautiful woman! 😊

Dear Editor,
    Very fine review of a mind-blowing production from Salvage Vanguard Theater of Anne-middle-name-awesome-Carson’s translation of Antigone [“How Far to Fall,” Arts Review, March 29]. I’m a huge, huge fan of Anne Carson’s work – plays, poetry, novels in verse, and just about everything she’s done that I’ve been able to get my hands on. Carson takes these ancient human-operating-system texts and fuses them with liquid fire – fire that was already there in the originals, but the air we breathe is different now, so we need a different kind of flame to energize our intellects – and those same ideas explode on the page and on the stage. Let me repeat, I was so impressed, along with my fellow author John Hubner, to whom I was pleased to introduce Carson’s work only recently, and we were the guys in the front row adding our own chorus of “Wow … omigod … far out … perfect!!”
    We left the play walking on air, then ducked into a pub for some whiskies and more talk about what we’d just experienced. Brilliant, as in brilliant fire. … Three cheers for SVT, Anne Carson, Sophocles, and civil disobedience.
    p.s. Jay Byrd, with his repertoire of sour, dour, and hydrochloride expressions, kept reminding me of James Ellroy, whose right-wing nastiness has distilled into a kind of primordial awfulness. And as far as Byrd’s acting skills go, that was a good thing. I’m sure he’s actually a very nice guy. Right, colleagues?

Dear Editor,
    In response to your article “Point Austin: It Ain’t Easy Being Weird” [News, March 15]: I am glad that you mentioned the issue of catastrophic flooding as a planetary effect due to global warming. Texas is one of the most affected states from climate change, and the issue must be addressed soon before more damage is done.
    Growing up in Austin, I have found that I have to drive to almost every destination. Cars always flood the streets of Downtown, and I discover that I have to fill up my tank constantly. You stated that tailpipes remain the greatest contributor to global warming, yet we continue to drive personal vehicles around and add to the destruction of the ozone layer. The proposal by City Hall to expand the convention center and create a more human-friendly streetscape would be good to reduce the feelings of claustrophobia within the building and area. However, I don’t see how this proposal would do much in helping reduce the amount of carbon emissions. While we do have a small public transit system, the majority of Austinites still drive their cars to work, appointments, or restaurants.
    With the recent growth, Austin will only receive more traffic, and therefore more emissions. Climate change, though very broad and widespread, poses an imminent threat to Texas (as well as the rest of the world). We need to start taking action and focus on how to combat and prevent further disturbances, perhaps through more regulations.

Dear Editor,
    I believe, like stated in your article “Science Groups Demand Textbook Publishers Remove Climate Change Denialism” [Daily News, Nov. 12, 2014], that it is wrong for textbook publishers to provide false information on climate change. It is wrong to mislead students, but the statement provided from the fifth-grade social studies book is not as misleading as the article claims. Yes, the scientific consensus says that climate change is caused by the emissions of fossil fuels, but there are differences in opinions, so to say that scientists disagree is not completely false. Some scientists believe that climate change is caused by the natural heating and cooling trends of the Earth and the Milankovitch cycles, but not by the emissions of fossil fuels. Also, the excerpt from the textbook does provide the harmful effects of climate change, like storms and sea level rise, so to say it is misleading is a strong claim. I also believe that the McGraw-Hill world cultures and geography book for sixth-graders prepares students for the controversy of climate change in the real world by providing sources from both believers and deniers, because it introduces students to the ideas and beliefs of both sides of the argument. The generalization that parents are alarmed and opposing the publications appears to be a fallacy of an appeal to popularity – what parents were interviewed? How many were there? It seems as if the opinion of a group of parents was accepted as the opinion for all parents. For a textbook to be written based on political belief should be prohibited, but one that addresses the facts of global warming while addressing the controversies behind it is a valid point.

Dear Editor,
    As a first-year student enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, I would like to respond to an article written by journalist Michael King titled “Point Austin: Signing On to a Green New Deal” that was published earlier this month [News, March 1]. I think it is high time that as a nation we come together and create/enact comprehensive environmental legislation reform, and I firmly believe the direction that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey have laid out in House Resolution 109 is of the United States’ best interest.
    I am excited to see such positive and energized receptions from members of the public and from those public servants whom we have voted into office, especially with the support offered by Lloyd Doggett, our congressional representative for the city of Austin. With the current administration’s denial of scientists’ warnings about the looming threat of climate change, it is the responsibility of all of us to combat this barrage of environmental ignorance and apathy toward the state of our natural, shared world.
    The article references the controversial “inevitable economic consequences” that the environmental changes will inevitably result in, and Doggett suggests that “we need to plan for economic dislocation as well as climate disaster.” But taking into account a utilitarian approach to this issue, it is clear that the Green New Deal is our premier option. It is wholly necessary for us to ignore the short-term monetary gains if they are at the expense of the sanctity of the natural world, and to begin to invest in our future so that we may continue to exist unhindered on this green and blue planet. It is imperative that we pursue this course of action, for posterity’s sake.

Dear Editor,
    “Liberal” has become “literal.” History is therefore irrelevant. How dishonest. The term “Make America Great Again” baffles people who only see in one direction and judge history by today’s terms … be it religious or political. In other words, historical hypocrisy.
    “Making America great” was fueled by a spirit unrestrained by the past: Overcoming man and nature with new possibilities … railroads, steel, oil, cars, airplanes, radios, television, defeat of fascism and Nazis, DNA, integrated circuits, etc.
    The “Green New Deal” gets the cart before the horse. It’s a step in the right direction, but can’t be shoved down people’s throats. Who pays? If it works out, with 700-mph trains, one could commute 500 miles in 42 minutes.
     America is not a lifeboat, it is a beacon. May American dreams remain unrestrained, practical and great.

Dear Editor,
    It was very alarming reading “Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Promotes Air Pollution” [News, Feb. 8] because of how human lives are at stake. Air pollution is a huge problem throughout the world, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollutants kill around 4 million people every year (WHO, 2019). The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) should keep a sharper eye on these facilities because they are breaking the law and also contributing to the death of innocent lives by promoting poor air quality. The facilities are basically only getting a slap on the wrist from the TCEQ and are easily paying off the fines they are being faced with. This has been a reoccurring cycle according to the article. These polluters should face harsher consequences that would maybe put their business sales in jeopardy or an alternative outcome that would really intimidate them. If they are not faced with stiffer consequences, then they will continue to pollute the air in massive amounts and endanger the people of Texas. The Paris Agreement is all about decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and 174 countries have agreed to follow this deal. Unfortunately, the United States withdrew from the agreement last year, which does not make for a bright future for our environment. This article raises a lot of questions for the people of Texas and the air quality that they are breathing every day.

Dear Editor,
    Within a year, for-profit electric scooters have spread across Austin like a fungus, clogging streets, sidewalks, and bikeways and polluting Lady Bird Lake when they’re not engaged and terrorizing the citizenry when they are. The city of Austin has attempted such calming measures as restricting scooters from the Ann & Roy Butler Hike & Bike Trail, but the fungus remains defiant. I have contacted all of the scooter companies involved, 311, APD, my City Council member, and the mayor to request enforcement, but the problem persists. The scooter companies sent generic, empty responses or none at all. City representatives expressed neutered commiseration or didn’t respond either. When informed of the trail rules, scooterists have ignored, laughed at, or profanely insulted me. The bike trail is one of the only places in Central Austin where people can safely exercise and recreate outdoors without motorized threat, and now we are at risk of losing that. What is the purpose of the scooters? Is it to provide a sustainable transportation option? Users are already allowed to scoot roughshod over every street in town to meet their transportation needs; do they need to strangle the trails as well? Perhaps Austin can look to clear-headed sibling cities like Seattle, which has banned electric scooters outright, or San Francisco, which has limited their numbers and use to a much greater extent than has our city. Failing that, at the very least it is incumbent upon our leaders to 1) protect our beautiful trails and their users from motor vehicles, 2) compel the scooter companies and their users to respect regulations such as those of the Ann & Roy Butler Hike & Bike Trail, and 3) find a way to make the scooters a financial and transportational boon to the city rather than a parasite upon it.

Dear Editor,
    I am writing in response to your article “What Are the Birds Telling Us About Climate Change?” [News, Feb. 23, 2018]. I would like to start by saying the writing was very compelling and an informative read. As someone interested in both avians and climate change, it was fascinating to see the two connect in such an unexpected way. The fact that something as simple as migration patterns can be used to track the effects of global warming across different regions is pretty amazing. How remarkable it is that something as simple as a bird’s migration can graph even the most subtle of changes in regional temperatures. It is curious to see how these migration ranges and breeding patterns have been affected due to climate change, perhaps more curious to think how these changes might affect other species besides the observed birds. I believe continuing to follow these trends would be very beneficial for the future, not only to continue observing the state of the environment, but to use as a guide for what should be done to protect it. With the more harmful effects of our changing climate becoming increasingly apparent (harsher storms, warmer temperatures, etc.), it is of utmost importance that we take care of the world we are living in to preserve these species that have been giving us all of this data in the first place, as well as the numerous other species we share the planet with. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that losing these species would be more than a loss of valuable data. It is quite possible that the data described in this article could be a great starting point for some new methods of environmental observation and protection.
    Thank you for your time.

Dear Editor,
    While reading the article “Climate Change: City Targets Zero Emissions” by Lizzie Jespersen [News, May 23, 2014], I felt hope because I learned that Austin is implementing a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions plan. It was encouraging that the city I live in took the initiative to create a new climate protection plan because the old plan was outdated and didn’t address the major issues of climate change. If every city in the United States would do the same as Austin, then this country would be one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world.
    This new plan will develop a program to help citizens, businesses, organizations, and visitors to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. These programs that focus on energy, transportation, and waste will do wonders to help each entity stay on track to net-zero emissions. Having short- and long-term goals will also help the city stay on track and stay focused on their plan. This new plan will also address city operations and climate resilience. This will also be important because it is unethical for the politicians to allow for Austin to be vulnerable to climate change.
    This new plan in my opinion is ethically the right decision because to continue to release greenhouse gas emissions as if there are no negative consequences is unethical. Austin is setting the example for every city in the United States to create a Climate Protection Plan that will help the country reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late.

Dear Editor,
    I recently read “Austin’s Least-Loved Landfill May Be Poised to Grow Again” [News, Jan. 18], and I was disappointed to hear the news. As a new Austin resident and UT student, I’ve loved seeing the different steps both Austin and the university are taking in hopes to better the environment. However, I strongly believe we still need to do more.
    Landfills like the one mentioned in the article pose a large threat to the planet and its inhabitants for a variety of reasons, including the harmful gases excreted. It is estimated that around two-thirds of landfill waste is organic matter, which releases methane when it decomposes, creating an effect that can be thought of as a blanket around the planet. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
    Biodiversity is also altered due to tainted water and soil. When it rains, the buried matter dissolves, producing toxic chemicals that leak into nearby water streams. This may not seem like a big deal; however, it affects all living things in the area. If this toxic waste finds its way into an aquifer it can lead to non-potable water, and if it ends up in other water sources that support fisheries, the species residing there might be in danger. This waste also affects surrounding plant life due to contaminated soil.
    Climate change, impacts on fisheries, and a significant increase in endangered species have all been directly linked to human behavior. Unfortunately, we’ve progressed our lifestyles at the cost of other species and potentially future generations. Time is running out for us and although global warming isn’t a problem we can fix overnight, we can start with small steps. Making changes in our daily routines along with demanding government action will be highly beneficial for our future.

Dear Editor,
    I read the “Point Austin” article by Michael King about signing on to a Green New Deal [News, March 1] and wanted to add my own thoughts on the subject. This is because I think that King understated the most important part of the GND, which is the economic impact. The original New Deal was created in response to an economic emergency in the Great Depression. Our society has reached a point where environmental policy is becoming a large part of economic policy. An increasing number of Americans want to see more action from their governments in this area. Benefits for our outdated infrastructure and drastic reductions to carbon emissions are items that anyone can rally in support of investment. To me, however, the most important parts are the 20 million new jobs estimated to be created due to developments in clean transportation and infrastructure and the long-term economic benefits from investing in renewable energy.
    Conservative media has loudly proclaimed the estimated costs, rightly, to be in the trillions of dollars. However, this does not take into account the exponential increases in cost for every year that we wait to take action on our climate. The GND is only half of a responsive action. It is a response to the calls for policy changes as well the mounting scientific data foretelling the dramatic impacts of human-caused climate change. The other half is a proactive measure to protect ourselves and the future generations.