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Letters to the editor Jan. 29

| January 29, 2024 12:00 AM

Fighting for the American Dream

When people ask me why I vote for Democrats, I point no further than the Copper Kings of Butte during the 20th century. The Copper Kings kicked working people in the teeth. They slashed wages. They broke up unions. They bought off politicians, and denied countless families from the American dream.

As I see it, the Montana Democratic Party stands for one simple lesson: opportunity for everyone. We go after big corporations and reign in price gouging. We cut taxes for working families. We reduce the costs of health care, prescription drugs, energy bills, and housing.

The Copper Kings aren’t gone — they’ve just changed. Now, property management companies based in New York and Los Angeles raise our housing prices. Pharmaceutical companies raise our health-care costs with no accountability. And the now-prevalent service industry pays stagnant wages we can barely live on. Today, the wealthiest 10% of society controls about 70% of America’s wealth according to the Federal Reserve.

While tech-billionaires like Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte buy themselves elections and sell Montana to the highest bidder, the Montana Democratic Party will fight for the American dream and lower costs for working families. Vote Jon Tester, Monica Tranel, and Ryan Busse in 2024!

— Rex Koenig, Missoula

Climate change hysteria

In a recent opinion column, Bob Brown used about 600 words to repeat leftist misinformed talking points with no references. I intend to refute most of it with my allotment of 300 words. 

Global temperature increased 2.1 degrees from second half of 15th century. Sea level increases 0.1” to 0.13” per year. These aren’t very scary numbers.  

Former Vice President Al Gore and former President Barack Obama are building expensive beachside mansions; they don’t seem worried. Five of the six most intense hurricanes were in the 20th century. Melting arctic ice (all floating freshwater sea ice) added a miniscule 0.04” from 1994 to 2017.  Antarctic ice is slightly building up, so even with that giant coastal iceberg breaking off, sea level was not affected. Glaciers (remnants of the ice age ice sheets) have been melting since the end of the Ice Age.

I see the forested area increased 7% globally in the last 30 years; planting more trees can’t hurt. I searched for greenhouse gases and got a list of all except water vapor, which I found accounts for half the earth’s greenhouse effect. Without greenhouse gases, earth’s temperature would be about 59 degrees colder. Wildfire acreage varied tremendously over time; so many variables came into play, it was too hard to call a winner. Overall, the easy conclusion is that we enjoy cleaner water, air, rivers, lakes than any time is the last century; just ask anyone over 50 years old with an intact memory. You can easily verify all of this on the internet just as I did.

Climate change hysteria is not about an obvious runaway warming event and certainly doesn’t warrant spending insane amounts of borrowed money to try to fix something that is not man-caused, rather it seems to be a natural condition that has been fluctuating for many centuries.

— Gary Goers, Kalispell