Letter to the Editor from Vets for Peace member

 We are facing a global climate emergency

In a recent letter to the editor (Green New Deal for Asheville, Jan. 4), Raymond Dyer makes fun of a group of people who were holding a banner on the Montford bridge. The banner read “Climate Emergency! Green New Deal Now. RejectRaytheonAVL.com.”

I was one of those people with the banner. And I’d like to give a serious response to his easy dismissal of our efforts as “misguided.” His argument is that Asheville would be foolish to enact a green new deal alone. It’s the same argument that says we may as well welcome war profiteer Pratt & Whitney into Asheville because we locals can have no effect on the larger world.

Our call is for change at all levels, not just local. Nothing less will do. We are facing a global climate emergency propelled by multinational fossil fuel companies and war corporations.

We all are part of an interconnected web of life on this planet. We can see this and act to protect this gift of life or we can ignore it at our own peril. We stand on bridges with banners because we are calling people to awaken and insist on a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

What’s misguided is to ignore the obvious death spiral we are in and to go about one’s merry way down the road to extinction.
 
Ken Jones, Swannanoa