Letters | 12-13-15

How can our government protect us from harm?

The first paragraph from David Polhemus’ letter printed Dec. 1 in West Hawaii Today may be politically correct but it doesn’t state the facts under debate correctly. He states that the reaction to “the admission of 10,000 carefully vetted Syrian refugees is downright embarrassing.” The term “carefully vetted” was never included in the original aloha by our governor to accept Syrians refugees. Neither was it included in the statement by our president in his offer to accept the refugees. All the accounts I read say that the vetting process takes two years and the refugees are on the march out of Syria now. The president will be out of office in a year and two months. You draw the conclusion.

Hawaii has the best barrier to keep out any unwanted persons, plants, animals, insects, diseases and any other unwanteds. We have a 2,500-mile stretch of ocean separating us from any other land mass. Unfortunately, it is not a large enough divide for our state government to successfully keep out the hundreds of invasive species that have arrived and thrived here. To name just a few, we have the wasp that supposedly arrived with some Christmas trees, we have the coqui frog that came to Hawaii and has taken over the nights in some places. There is the small hive beetle that has wiped out thousands of wild honey bee hives, the bug that threatens the coffee industry, the ohia tree wilt that is creeping across the island and the latest, dengue fever. These new arrivals did not get together and conspire to come to Hawaii and interrupt our way of life. (A conclusion for which I have no facts to corroborate).

If our state government cannot prevent these invasive arrivals from establishing residence, can our government really deal with anyone who may conspire to do us harm? Just a question to think about before we open our arms and say “aloha.”

Leningrad Elarionoff

Waimea

False statements or not?

Michelle Kerr wants a balance in your paper’s climate change articles. Ninety-seven percent of the world’s scientists are hard to argue with. There is only one major political party in the world that agrees with the 3 percent. What we have here is a false equivalency — her statement is not the same as scientific knowledge.

Those old enough to remember the tobacco wars will recall that tobacco companies always had doctors and scientists that they’d trot out to say tobacco wasn’t harmful. That went on for years because there was big bucks involved. How many of the 3 percent do you think are being paid by the coal, oil, and gas industries? How many Congress members are in the pocket of Koch Industries?

May I humbly suggest that for every 100 articles on climate that you include 97 that admit man-made change is a problem and then three that don’t.

As to Ms. Kerr’s use of the past tense to infer that there is no longer a free press (or country), her letter did get published.

Donald Gross

Kailua-Kona

Rift caused by TMT, BLNR hard to fix

Once again something has been screwed up by the dysfunctional Board of Land and Natural Resources. TMT was a touchy subject to begin with, and the board took an illegal shortcut.

If they hold the hearings now it will be so polarized no one will feel safe to speak in favor.

TMT organization: Shame on you for not engaging the Native Hawaiian community from day one. All communication has been science or business. You could have given it a Hawaiian name. You could have found a Hawaiian cultural practitioner, kahuna, to point out the connection of astronomy to the culture, but your colonial mentality has created a rift that will be hard to fix.

Ken Obenski

Kaohe, South Kona