Letters: Polluters should pay | Antisemitism fight | Zealots’ role

East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for July 17, 2024

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Polluters should bear
extreme weather costs

Re: “Extreme heat is costly for California” (Page A1, July 10).

Recent polling shows that 66% of Americans support passing a climate superfund bill making oil and gas companies pay their share of our climate crisis. With SB 1497, California has the chance to pass this type of urgent and fair legislation.

SB 1497, the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act, brought by state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, directs CalEPA to identify the largest fossil fuel polluters between 2000 and 2020 and assess fees proportionately to their emissions. Fees will be paid into a Polluters Pay Climate Fund and will cover study and program implementation costs, and pay for climate projects statewide.

Climate disaster recovery costs will climb and must be paid. The California Department of Insurance found extreme heat events between 2013 and 2022 claimed the lives of several hundred Californians, and had a “total economic impact of $7.7 billion.” Without SB 1497, California taxpayers will foot the bill — not polluters. Californians deserve better.

Valerie Ventre-Hutton
Walnut Creek

Workers have stake
in antisemitism fight

Re: “Police probe vandalism at synagogue” (Page B3, July 10).

Jew-hatred raised its head again June 21 and July 6 in acts of vandalism against the Chabad Center of Oakland. Chunks of concrete were thrown at the center’s windows. Last December, Chabad’s menorah at Lake Merritt was torn apart and tossed into the lake during Hanukkah. No one has been charged for these attacks.

The Socialist Workers Party calls on working people and trade unions to oppose these acts, to speak out against them and to organize to defend Jews against attack. We joined the protest against the vandalism at Lake Merritt and we stand with the Chabad Center today.

The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas pogrom — the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — was a warning that the rise in Jew-hatred and anti-Jewish violence that has marked the opening of the 21st century is a worldwide question. The fight against it is decisive to every working-class battle today.

Eric Simpson
Oakland

Zealotry drives push
toward theocracy

I’ve long wondered just how the Taliban came to minority rule in Afghanistan.

Now, thanks to the rising Christian Nationalist movement in this country, I understand. All you need is a group of ruthless, fanatical zealots who believe they’re acting on a mandate from God (Allah, I guess, for the Taliban) to impose their beliefs and values on the rest of the country and are quite willing to do whatever that may take.

Mark Gabin
Concord