A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver Post, Sept. 3, on climate change:
Recent news about climate change has been all bad and devastatingly so.
The Arctic ice cap is retreating at record rates. We had the hottest July on record. And one expert after another is blaming increasing temperatures on human-caused global warming.
Yet, despite the red flags, our political conversations during this presidential election year have largely skirted this important issue.
We were glad to hear the Obama administration last week announced strict new fuel economy standards. Those are projected to cut in half the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by cars and trucks by 2025.
It’s a step forward, but others must follow. The evidence cannot be ignored.
The rapidly shrinking cap of ice that sits on the North Pole is not just a problem for polar bears and walruses, it will accelerate the warming process. That’s because the light-colored ice reflected sunlight that a darker-colored sea will absorb.
According to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, the ice cap has shrunk to a record extent and likely will continue to do so. An area of ice equivalent to the size of South Carolina is melting each day. That’s about twice the rate observed since 1979.
“As far as the larger scale, when you’re heating up a region of the world, compared to what it used to be, you’re changing the balance of the climate system,” NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said during a conference call. “Now, your air conditioner is losing coolant, so to speak. It’s not as efficient as it used to be.”
It’s bad news, and it deserves more attention than it has gotten.
Earlier this month, a study co-authored by NASA climate scientist James Hansen concluded that a jump in the number of very hot summers can only be attributable to human-caused global warming.
Hansen linked several severe heat waves and droughts to global warming via statistical analysis.
In an op-ed piece that appeared in The Washington Post, Hansen wrote: “There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time.”
There is no doubt climate change is a polarizing issue that pits climate change doubters against each other in what often are heated exchanges.
However, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication recently reported that 72 percent of Americans think global warming should be a very high, high or medium priority for the president and Congress. Those sentiments, by the way, cut across party lines.
The dangers presented by a warming planet clearly have captured the attention of the public.
It’s the responsibility of our elected officials to craft policies at home and forge agreements abroad to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating global warming.
Editorial:
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Montrose Daily Press, Sept. 2, on campaign ads
As a battleground state in the presidential election, Colorado has, for weeks now, been inundated with television commercials from the campaigns of both President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney, even though the election remains more than two months away. It has become clear that the strident and accusatory tone of the message from both sides represents yet another ratcheting-up of the use of negative campaigning in this country.
Judging from the letters to the editor received by the Daily Press, as well as our interactions with fellow citizens, this approach isn’t going over well. Voters from both parties are wondering aloud whether it makes sense to support either man’s bid for the White House.
Not every political campaign in this country has become an exercise in tearing down the other side—not yet, anyway. But recent developments in the race for the District 3 seat on the Montrose County Commission are leading us to wonder how much longer that will be the case.
The Daily Press recently was approached by a Montrose resident expressing concern about the tone of a fundraising letter they had received from incumbent Commissioner David White. In the letter, White, a Republican, accuses his opponent, Democrat Kjersten Davis, of being an Obama liberal and a trust funder, and hints she would turn Montrose into another Telluride if elected.
We find that ironic, since six months ago, when she announced her candidacy, we found Davis’ stated agenda almost identical to that of the GOP candidates.
Ultimately, that citizens was not willing to go on the record, which led us to conclude there was no story to be covered. White, of course, is free to run his campaign any way he sees fit.
But it is the role of a newspaper to question the propriety of such a strategy, especially when we—and a significant number of our readers, apparently—believe that approach to politicking is having a very real and unfortunate impact on citizen engagement. Is it really necessary to try to reduce your opponent to rubble in order to get elected to public office? It isn’t our intention to get into the specifics of White’s fundraising letter, but we do feel it’s our obligation to ask whether the public interest is being served by the issues his camp raises.
We recognize, as many others have said, that political campaigns are about differences between candidates, not similarities. But more and more, it seems as if those differences are all that political campaigns address—and in increasingly negative tones. It used to be that campaigns focused primarily on how a candidate was best qualified for the office he or she was seeking. And we, as Americans, didn’t give in to fear mongering, choosing instead to wade through such rhetoric and determine for ourselves which candidate would better serve the interests of our community.
We’re not here to say how campaigns should be run, but we do believe that discourse at a higher level between competitors demonstrates the type of leadership our county and our country deserve. We believe Americans expect more from politicians on both sides of the aisle than just the flinging of accusations. Remember, it speaks volumes when people talk about what they have done that makes them different, rather than what someone else has or hasn’t done.
Clearly, we have a love-hate relationship with politics in this country. For all the fresh hope and excitement elections bring, more and more, they seem to promote equal parts cynicism and disgust, as well. Fortunately, we get to decide whether we’ll give up on the former and give in to the latter.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Coloradoan, Sept. 1, on Allegiant air pulling out of the Fort Collins area:
This week’s news that Allegiant was pulling out of Fort Collins-Loveland Airport in October came as a shock.
Comments from former and prospective flyers flooded the Coloradoan’s Facebook page. “I moved here two months ago from Vegas and was counting on Allegiant for my trips back-and-forth to see my daughter,” said Lisa Kulpa Jackson.
After nearly a decade of service to the area, why the abrupt change? The reasons that Allegiant is walking away from the airport are a mystery.
The airline’s financials are superb—in Q2 of 2012, their net income more than doubled that of the same quarter in 2011. They were serving more passengers and increasing the size of their fleet, too. Locally, the company said that their flights to Las Vegas have been upward of 95 percent full.
The company has repeated that the matter was a simple business decision, but they have refused to elaborate.
Allegiant has been a good partner for Northern Colorado. Its simple menu of flights to Las Vegas and Phoenix provided a convenient alternative to the commute and wait times of Denver International Airport.
Compared to the pre-Allegiant days, when United Express ran quick flights to Denver, our most recent partner’s destinations were welcome direct stops.
With the news that Allegiant is flying the coop, where do we go next?
— Go carrier-free: By far our least favorite option, the runway could find life as a commercial and charter destination. This would be bad news for the airport—they’d lose most of their annual federal $1 million in funding, and secondary jobs at the airport would suffer.
— Back to Allegiant: The airline has repeatedly said that the door to Fort Collins service is still open. And that’s not just hot air—they’ve returned to markets they’ve left in the past. The ball is in their court, however, and we can’t afford to wait.
— Think big: Maybe we’re just optimists, but perhaps there’s a silver lining to Allegiant pulling out. With no passenger service to the area, the region will be desperate to attract a new carrier.
Given Allegiant’s packed flights to and from Fort Collins and solid revenue numbers, a new carrier might not be difficult to attract. In fact, an airline like Spirit, that makes stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix as well 50 other locations, could be an even better match for our market.
As the end of October approaches and Northern Coloradans find themselves without local air service, we don’t doubt that the airport authorities are seeking a replacement. The clock is ticking, though; if an airport doesn’t board more than 10,000 commercial passengers per year, the $1 million in FAA money goes away.
We don’t think they’ll have to look far. Given the booming population in the region, we suggest Airport Director Jason Licon to stay close to his phone.
Editorial:
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The Daily Sentinel, Sept. 2, on the Secretary of State and voting rolls:
Imagine you are a recently sworn-in, naturalized citizen of the United States, living in Colorado. You receive a letter from Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, questioning your citizenship status and your right to vote, and demanding documentation regarding both.
Most people would be more than a little angry that their newly adopted country was treating them so shabbily, challenging one of their most fundamental rights as new citizens of our representative democracy.
Others, especially those who immigrated from more repressive countries than ours, might think twice about exercising their right to vote after being called out by one of the state’s top bureaucrats.
We don’t know if it was Gessler’s intention to intimidate voters, primarily Democratic and independent ones, as some of his critics contend. But it’s hard to conclude that intimidation was not one of the effects of his unnecessary and largely ineffective personal crusade to purge Colorado voter rolls of any people who aren’t citizens of this country.
Furthermore, one has to ask: Which is the greater sin, allowing a few people to vote who don’t meet all voting requirements or preventing legitimate U.S. citizens from exercising their right to vote?
Without question, it’s the latter.
This country and this state should take reasonable measures to prevent voter fraud. The Daily Sentinel has never accepted the “sky is falling” claims from some folks that requiring a photo ID to vote is tantamount to a poll tax and old Jim Crow voting laws in the South. Neither has the U.S. Supreme Court. It upheld Indiana’s photo ID law several years ago.
But Gessler’s effort to go after supposedly illegal voters in Colorado is something different. He began his crusade shortly after taking office early in 2011. He claimed large numbers of potential illegal voters in the state, but he refused to share the names of those supposedly illegitimate voters with county clerks, who could have begun the process of checking them.
He sent out letters to roughly 3,900 people last month, questioning their citizenship and voter status, before he got access to a federal database that allowed him to check citizenship.
Once Gessler’s office obtained access to that database and ran the names of approximately 1,400 people on that list of 3,900, it found no confirmed cases of noncitizens being registered to vote among the 1,400. Most were people who recently became citizens.
Last week, the Secretary of State’s office announced that 16 people out of those 3,900 who received letters last month had voluntarily asked to have their names removed from voting rolls. But there’s no word on whether all 16 of those were noncitizens, ineligible to vote, or whether they were legal citizens who simply abandoned their rights rather than continue to deal with Gessler’s heavy-handed tactics.
Editorial:
