Two issues in the headlines — inflation and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine — could be made better by addressing climate change through more renewable energy.
In 2021, climate change was a driver of inflation. Any time extreme weather interrupts supply chains, prices go up, and the science has shown that climate change makes extreme weather much more likely. Climate change also causes wildlife to migrate to new areas, greatly increasing the chances of creating pandemic viruses. We all know how a pandemic can further damage supply chains.
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Russia is a massive fossil fuel exporter, and lessening the need for those fossil fuels weakens Russia. If Congress adopted a carbon price combined with a carbon border adjustment, it would hit Russia again by making any goods they wish to sell here more expensive. Russia is already nervous about a coming European Union carbon border adjustment, and adding one in the U.S. would apply even more pressure.
A price on carbon with a carbon border adjustment gets us a long way toward lowering our dependence on fossil fuels by increasing renewable energy, reducing inflation, and of course, mitigating climate change.
Alex Marianyi, Avondale
Communicating with facial expression
It is Laura Washington’s prerogative to choose to keep wearing a mask, of course, but she might be reminded that, in fact, the vaccines are extremely protective. The latest CDC data show that the COVID mortality rate for the fully vaccinated and boosted is 0.4 per 100,000; the mortality rate for seasonal influenza is 1.8 per 100,000.
I also think we need to remember that living indefinitely in a masked-up world bereft of facial expressions, fearing ourselves and one another as toxic, is not mentally healthy — for children or adults — and should not be accepted as “normal,” now or in the future.
Over 60% of human communication, including showing/sharing empathy, occurs through facial expressions. It’s indigenous to our humanity; it is how we have evolved. Even a cursory Google search of the terms “human communication” and “facial expressions” will reveal a plethora of good, accessible scientific writing on this topic.
It is essential that we find a way to return to a mentally healthy society in which everyday face-to-face human interaction is again recognized as essential to our social and mental well-being.
David G. Whiteis, Humboldt Park
Advice for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
In his confirmation hearings, then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assured Sen. Susan Collins of Maine that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case affirming a woman’s constitutional right to choose abortion, was “settled law.”
Now, as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson goes through her own confirmation hearing, she will surely be asked questions about Roe v. Wade by senators who want to see it overturned. My advice to her is to answer all such questions with the following nine-word response: “I agree with Justice Kavanaugh, it is settled law.”
Michael Tarnoff, Highland Park
