Dear editor:

It has never been more imperative for the public to be consistently, thoroughly enlightened about dangerously mounting threats to vital connections between environmental stability and human prospects – including health, the economy, and food supplies. 

Greenhouse gases ravage the Earth’s climate while fossil-fuels and toxic chemicals not only continue proliferating, but are federally subsidized.  Now we face reckless U.S. proposals to dismantle safeguards for forests, air and water quality, and endangered species. 

Current trends and practices are a shameful tribute to short-sighted opportunism and self-destructive negligence – in brazen defiance of conclusive facts and scientific analysis. 

What fools we mortals [can] be. 

Although a well-informed public doesn’t guarantee successful political outcomes, in a functional democracy that serves the interests of its citizens, rational policies are impossible without it.

It is now crucial that we mobilize our better angels to honor facts and end this self-destructive lunacy.

David Kyler, 

Center for a Sustainable Coast