To the Editor: The opinion pages of the August 18 edition of your excellent paper should be required reading. Chris Cox’s editorial tells it like it is, pulling no punches. Kudos to him. Mr. Wirth’s rebuttal to Mr. Gaston’s letter of the previous week dealt with the misinformation in the aforementioned letter and echoed my own thoughts (if only I had been able to organize them as eloquently as he). Scott McLeod’s editorial was proven correct by Mr. Wirth’s letter. Print the opposing views to stimulate discourse. Finally, Guest Columnist Hite’s piece on the fall of Afghanistan was also right on point. Keep up the good work. John Acuti Maggie Valley
Maskless, unvaccinated bear a responsibility
Cawthorn should think before he speaks
The alarmist rhetoric and proclamations found in Mary Jane Curry’s recent column published in The Mountaineer, “A Life Or Death Matter,” (Aug. 15) are certainly worrisome. The good news is that they are completely detached from reality. Don’t take my word for it. Instead I encourage Ms. Curry and other climate alarmists to read Unsettled, a new book released this year by Steven Koonin, who served in the Obama administration as the undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy. In his book, Dr. Koonin debunks the apocalyptic arguments made by activists like Ms. Curry. As Dr. Koonin points out, heat waves are no more common today than in 1900, the warmest temperatures in the U.S. haven’t risen in 50 years, there is no detectable human impact on hurricanes, the Greenland ice sheet is not shrinking at an increasing rate, and, most importantly, the economic impact of climate change is negligible. What’s more, despite the recent high-profile fires in California and Australia, Dr. Koonin points out that wildfire activity has declined since 2003. Ms. Curry touts solar as a cure all without acknowledging the dramatic increase in mining activity that would be required to produce more electricity from solar and wind. Nor does Curry address the fact that solar and wind energy are extremely land intensive and, as such, Guest Columnist logistically incapable of powering a modern economy. “No amount of marketing could change the poor physics of resourceintensive and land-intensive renewables,” explains Mike Shellenberger, founder of the Environmental Progress, a Berkeley-based non-profit, who was named “Hero of the Environment” by Time Magazine. “Solar farms take 450 times more land than nuclear plants, and wind farms take 700 times more land than natural gas wells, to produce the same amount of energy.” Ms. Curry says she wants to “stop pipelines and fracking.” Yet horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, by increasing the use of natural gas at the expense of coal, have done more to reduce carbon emissions in this century than any government program ever dreamt up by environmentalists. Contrary to the doom and gloom spread by Ms. Curry, the fact is that climate-related deaths have plummeted over the past century, despite a rising population and emissions. For the past 100 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations rose from approximately 305 parts per million to more than 400 ppm, while global average temperatures rose by about 1°C. However, as the below chart illustrates, a person’s risk of losing their life in a weather-related disaster has declined by 99 percent during this period. “In other words, despite there being many more people and lots more stuff in harm’s way, the relative economic impact of extreme weather is decreasing,” said Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “It is difficult to reconcile that trend with claims that ours is an ‘unsustainable’ civilization.” Unsettled and the data displayed within highlights some uplifting facts that contradict Ms. Curry’s catastrophic narrative. This includes the fact that the number and severity of droughts are not rising, nor are the frequency and severity of tornados. A review of the data in Unsettled also demonstrates that the rate of sea level rise is not increasing, but global crop yields are. Contrary to the environmental apocalypse predicted by Curry and others, in reality many aspects of the environment are improving, even with a growing population and economy. Ms. Curry would do well to stop scaring people and instead educate herself on the science and actual historical record. While the good environmental news listed here won’t garner attention and clicks as well as Ms. Curry’s alarmist rhetoric, it has the benefit of being based in fact. (Patrick Gleason, a resident of Haywood County and Washington, D.C., is vice president of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform and a senior fellow at the Beacon Center of Tennessee. pgleason@atr.org.)
Smoky Mountain News
To the Editor: For many years I served as a Child Medical Examiner for Haywood County. I was also a founding member of KARE’s Child Abuse Task Force. Along with law enforcement, the Department of Social Services and mental health, I participated in the evaluation, investigation and at times prosecution of hundreds of cases of alleged, and actual, child abuse — physical, psychological and sexual. It was a difficult but necessary job. So I was pretty disgusted but not really surprised when our local congressman, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, publicly denounced people who advocated that school children wear masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19. He declared they were guilty of child abuse. I believe I know a lot more than this inexperienced young man about child abuse. There may be legitimate questions about the usefulness, safety and comfort of mask wearing for school children. But, Mr. Cawthorn owes an immediate apology to the members of the Haywood County, Henderson County and Swain County school boards and all the other public officials who have made the difficult decision to move forward with masks mandates. Issues like masks and vaccinations should be discussed with decency, drawing upon current verifiable medical knowledge. Dragging the discussion into the gutter is unworthy of any public official. In Mr. Cawthorn’s recent letter to The Mountaineer, he condemned a letter writer for criticizing his response to the terrible flooding in Haywood County. I agree that now is the time to pull together and help our neighbors and not make political attacks. This means we pull together whether it’s dealing with the floods or combatting the pandemic. Child abuse is a terrible problem in our society. Accusing public figures of child abuse for considering a mask requirement is a new low. Child abuse is not an issue to misuse for making political statements to score cheap media headlines. Steve Wall Waynesville
Climate alarmism is not based in reality
September 1-7, 2021
To the Editor: In the Aug. 11 edition, a letter from a Franklin man was posted in both print and electronic editions of The Smoky Mountain News. In addition to false information, the writer wants to absolve the unvaccinated from any accountability about the current pandemic. The writer claims that 99.7% of those who get COVID achieve a full recovery. This is false. The fatality rate in the US for those who get COVID is currently just under 2% according to ourworldindata.org. That means that for every 50 to 60 people who get COVID, one dies. Also, according to several studies, between 25% to more than 30% of those who have COVID become “long haulers” who have a variety of symptoms from shortness of breath to “brain fog” for months after they supposedly recover. Does being concerned about contracting COVID sound like fearmongering? Then there was the contention that masks don’t work because they didn’t in 1918. This is just plain stupid. In general, the data clearly show that masks reduce spread of COVID, but not all masks are created equal. Cloth masks and bandanas are not as effective as the N95 and KN95 masks, according to the Mayo Clinic. Then there are the unvaccinated. They are largely responsible for the continuing spread of the virus, especially the new Delta Variant. They are the vulnerable pool of individuals susceptible to infection where the virus can mutate as it spreads. The vast majority of individuals currently spreading and getting infected are the unvaccinated who refuse to wear a mask.
The maskless and unvaccinated are not just making a “personal decision” about their own heath. They are choosing to put everyone they come in contact with at risk. No, I will not “lay off ” the unvaccinated. They are accountable for the continuation of the pandemic and its restrictions. As someone with an immunocompromising condition, they are the reason I now still need to protect myself from them by wearing a mask. Norman Hoffman Waynesville
Patrick Gleason
SMN opinion pages are required reading
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