Heat wave underscores high stakes of climate policy | READER COMMENTARY

Thanks so much for your exploration of the health threats of heat waves (“Baltimore can be cool. Just not right now,” June 21). I appreciate that your coverage includes the fact that climate change is responsible for the increased incidence of potentially deadly heat waves.

Let’s follow up this thought. We do not grow our food indoors so climate change means potential human famine. How about the terrifying floods that happened in Iowa with a foot of rain falling in one day without the presence of a hurricane? Air conditioning won’t fix that, just as it won’t fix the collapse of coral reefs from a warming and acidifying ocean.

When we confront any short-term emergency, we must also analyze the cause and look for a path to future survival. The root cause of expanding heat waves is the expansion of our global carbon emissions. We could impose carbon tariffs on China to pressure it to reduce carbon emissions and we could impose carbon fee and dividend here at home to reduce our own emissions without punishing the poor and powerless.

This problem is cumulative and long-term and it transcends partisan politics. Let’s vote in November as if climate change is real since it clearly is.

— Chris Wiegard, Chester, Virginia

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