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Simple message forconstituents: Thank you
In this, the Thanksgiving season, my message to your readers is simple: thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve in public office for more than 40 years at five different levels: as a local school board member, city council member and mayor, county supervisor, state assemblymember and state senator.
At the end of next month, by virtue of term limits, I will step away from my current role as a county supervisor.
I know our region, state and nation face daunting challenges, but I am confident we can meet and master those challenges if our community is caring, committed, attentive and engaged. I know it because the folks I have been privileged to represent throughout the years have proven it again and again.
Thank you for all you do, and for the opportunity I’ve had to represent you.
Joe SimitianPalo Alto
As Google grows, sodoes carbon footprint
Re: “Google touts new eco-friendly mass timber office” (Page B1, Nov. 26).
I am concerned that publicity for Google’s “eco-friendly” office building only represents one side of the company’s relationship to the environment.
A building that results in less emissions is a drop in the bucket compared to the tremendous amount of resources that Google’s data centers use, and which its entire company runs on. It faces the fundamental contradiction of its goals of expansion versus its, admittedly admirable, commitment to go “net zero” by 2030. Now that they are competing with ChatGPT, their emissions are only growing, and have soared 48% since 2019.
The turn to generative AI will require untold resources and energy. Even with the development of clean energies, the priority must be to provide people with their needs, not to have a computer write its own emails. Silicon Valley must not be blinded to the climate effects of our “innovations,” nor placated by sustainable office buildings.
Jacqueline WalshSunnyvale
Congress must OKSNAP reauthorization
The season of good food is officially upon us. Thanks to fantastic Bay Area organizations offering meals, many residents can enjoy food around the holidays, no matter their income level.
However, looming changes to nutrition aid threaten to put a strain on these organizations come 2025.
Congress is past due to renew funding for SNAP, which provides food assistance to low-income Americans. If not approved under the Farm Bill by the end of the year, over 5 million SNAP recipients in California and millions more countrywide could see their benefits disappear.
We cannot willingly welcome this kind of hunger into the world’s most prosperous country.
Bay Area House representatives and California Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler, I’m calling on you to move Congress toward a renewed Farm Bill that retains all food assistance benefits. The next month is critical for the well-being of your most vulnerable constituents.
Danica BerrySan Francisco
DOGE ax threatensthe public health
Re: “DOGE can do some good” (Page A9, Nov. 24).
Tyler Cowen writes mainly about limiting regulations as a means to improve efficiency and has as his top priority preventing restrictions on AI. While AI has the potential for productivity, it also has an enormous probability of harm.
Currently, there is nothing to stop someone from using AI to create and publish many studies that prove the equivalent of 2+2=5 and then use AI to sell that idea based on those studies. There is also the risk of deepfakes. Imagine what would happen if a deepfake video of the president appeared all over social media saying Russia had used atomic weapons in Ukraine and people should prepare for the worst.
Cowen also prioritized deregulating medical trials. Before doing that I suggest people look up thalidomide, which caused over 10,000 babies worldwide with major deformities. The FDA refused approval so only a few of those occurred in the United States.
Max SteinkeSan Jose
Democratic apathyswept Trump to win
A key factor that doesn’t seem to have been discussed is that the presidential election swung on Democratic apathy.
Based on current results, Donald Trump’s vote only increased by about 2.6 million votes over 2020. However, Kamala Harris has received about 6.8 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020, which tells me that 4.2 million “Democrats” didn’t bother to vote this year, and that is sad. I am not suggesting Trump would have lost — his gain suggests he would still have swung the battleground states, but the House and Senate could still be in the hands of the Democrats if these people had bothered to vote.
What is wrong with so many people who don’t realize that voting should be seen as an obligation in a democracy? If you don’t vote, you could lose the right.
Chris WorrallSan Jose
Not funding climatefight shifts burden
Re: “Climate legacy we leave will be the financial mess” (Page A8, Nov. 24).
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The argument against spending to combat the effects of climate change in this letter is illogical. It is couched in terms of collective good, apparently failing to understand that spending money cannot cause collective harm.
Money does not disappear when it changes hands. The world cannot be made poorer by spending on climate change. And the only way the United States can be made poorer by such spending is to let U.S. companies fall behind so that we have to spend elsewhere.
The writer wants us to wait to spend until technology improves, but he doesn’t explain how technology will improve without investment.
The writer’s argument boils down to this: Let’s not spend on climate change now, let’s spend in a generation or two — when it won’t cost me anything.
Todd GutmannSunnyvale