Letters to the editor June 6
United Nations
Regarding Mark Agather’s query as to who the actual authors of the United Nation 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report are:
The UN Secretary-General appointed a diverse group of scientific experts, people with the learning, training and experience to qualify for the job of drafting the report, representing a wide range of disciplines, expertise and backgrounds.
The 15 scientists are: John Agard (Trinidad and Tobago), Kaltham Ali Al-Ghanim (Qatar), Sergey N. Bobylev (Russian Federation), Opha Pauline Dube, (Botswana), Ibrahima Hathie (Senegal), Norichika Kanie (Japan), Nyovani Janet Madise (Malawi), Shirin Malekpour (Australia), J. Jaime Miranda (Peru), Jaime C Montoya (Philippines), Jiahua Pan (China), Åsa Persson (Sweden), Ambuj D Sagar (India), Imme Scholz (Germany), Nancy Shackell (Canada). Dr. Agard and Dr. Scholz served as the co-chairs of the group.
The “we” you were questioning refers to all of the member nations in the UN (the United States included) who studied the the report and subsequently adopted it as the UN’s definitive statement regarding how to find a path forward that is compatible to both preserving human civilization and the protecting global ecosystem.
The latter would include measures to avoid a human caused a global extinction event (hundreds or thousands of species dying off for lack of habitat and/or change of climate) and scale back human produced factors that are currently driving climate change.
— Leslie F. Brown, Kalispell
EPA information clarified
Soroptimist International of Whitefish is a nonprofit club that provides programs that empower women and girls. We own the property and building at 303 E. 1st St., in which the Whitefish Thrift Haus operates to fund these programs.
Recently, the EPA published a press release about the brownfields grant that was awarded to the Montana West Economic Development Foundation to address possible contamination in properties in our area. Our property was specifically listed with erroneous details concerning our future.
As good stewards of this asset Soroptimist, engaged in the program through the Department of Environmental Quality to conduct an environmental site assessment should we ever need to rebuild the store on this property. Being in the railroad district, we were concerned there could be contamination. No contamination has been reported at this time. Soroptimist appreciates the studies and testing the brownfields program provided and recognize how valuable this program is for our community.
The EPA press release stated that we have plans to relocate the Whitefish Thrift Haus to another location while creating multi-family housing units to low- to moderate income families at our current site. This is inaccurate. Affordable housing is a critical issue but has never been part of the Soroptimist mission, nor do we have any immediate plans to rebuild the store on our current site or elsewhere.
Our true mission is to provide women and girls in our community access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment. The Whitefish Thrift Haus, as the supporting nonprofit of Soroptimist exists solely to fund the mission of Soroptimist. The Thrift haus runs the operations of the store and monies raised only fund Soroptimist programs.
Soroptimist thanks the community for its generous donations of goods, in-kind services, and money over the lifetime of the club started in 1951. We return the generosity in the forms of scholarships, grants and gifts to women and girls to access educational opportunities. Our flagship program, Live Your Dream, provides funding to women who are head of household and enrolled in a vocational/skills training program or an undergraduate degree program. Soroptimist awarded 18 area women $30,000 last year alone through this program. We also awarded $30,000 in scholarships to graduating high school girls and women in graduate programs. Our Smile of Hope program provided over $10,000 in dental care to improve health and self-esteem to local women in need.
For more information about our programs and advocacy for women and girls, or to inquire about membership, please email soroptimistwhitefish@gmail.com.
— The Soroptimist International of Whitefish executive board