English visitors to city: 'Great job'
This is the second time we have visited your beautiful city. Our son Kieran plays for the Chattanooga Football Club and, like us, loves this city. Especially the Chattahooligans!
The people here have been so friendly and welcoming everywhere we have been. I have enjoyed picking up a copy of your paper, too, every morning at breakfast in my hotel.
As a former UK commando (Iraq, 1991), I have to say the way you treat and respect your veterans is top class.
Many thanks for a great holiday and to finish with a local saying: "Great job," Chattanooga.
Simon and Melanie Bywater
Cambridge, England
Students need more teachers
A group of Chattanooga business leaders suggested that the solution to improving local schools is to have fewer teachers. I am sure they are sincere, but they are business people, not educators.
Over and over again research has shown that the fewer students in the classroom the better the educational results. More teachers, more teachers' aides and more children with individual educational plans are the answers.
Volunteer mentors for at-risk children are needed as well as plans to increase parental involvement. Everything else will fail a generation of children.
Leslie Conway Coomer
Athens, Tenn.
Bashing Trump is not godly act
You are maybe not receiving pro-Trump letters. He doesn't deserve the thrashing he is getting. Let's put both sides out there.
In "Hang 'Em High," cattlemen hung Clint Eastwood without knowing the facts or the truth. The media is doing the same to our president. They don't care about the truth. They just hate him, period.
Grow up and pray for your country and leaders. Christian Democrats, this bashing is not godly.
Janette Roberts
Paris Accord exit bad for country
Finally Trump has withdrawn from Paris Climate Agreement to align with Syria and make America great again! Can we make America great without destroying the planet?
We have pulled the plug on America's leadership as a technological innovator in renewable energy and made sure that next generation of jobs go to China, Europe and India. What has happened to his business acumen?
Clean energy is the fastest growing job market right now. The wind power industry has added more jobs in a year than the coal industry. Is Trump planning to build another wall around America to protect Americans from climate change effects? "Red" states are also part of this planet.
How does saving the Earth disadvantage the American people? Foreign countries will be afraid to enter into any agreements with U.S. as we are capable of backing out of any accords and may not be dependable from their points of view.
It is good that individual states are stepping up to fill the gap. Now, the people and industry have to lead and not depend on Trump government.
Ashok Patel
Tullahoma, Tenn.
Climate change: The magic of CO2
The reaction to Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement from the editor of the Times page, left-wing politicians, our mayor, most Democrats and the usual Hollywood class leaves me wondering if they have studied what they are protesting or if they are deliberately ignoring facts to promote a political agenda.
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas with a small impact and is essential to life. The climate is changing; it always has.
CO2 levels were 10-times higher during the ice age. The claim that 2016 was the hottest year on record is based on differences smaller than the margin of error in measuring. It was not hotter than the Medieval warm period, ca. 1000 AD. The claim 97 percent of scientists agree on man-made climate change is baloney. The Arctic is not ice-free as predicted but has more ice than in 2012. Sea levels have been rising since the ice age and show no sign of acceleration. The polar bear population is stable or growing.
As Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences, puts it, "believing that CO2 controls the climate is pretty close to believing in magic."
Terence Knee
Hixson
Belief not issue in climate change
I applaud the Times page for its June 3 editorial on climate change. Part of our problem in addressing this issue lies with a linguistic challenge. "Belief" is not the normal endpoint of science. Science produces knowledge.
Religious believers want to make science and religion equivalent. They are not. Science produces empirical data that can be displayed to the world. Religion and spirituality are personal experiences with the divine.
No one has issues with the theories of gravity or electromagnetism, but evolution and climate change present challenges to our religious beliefs and economic comforts.
It's not an issue of "believing" climate change. Reality is revealed by science because it requires evidence and proof. The data is solid. You can choose not to accept it, but then you have nothing to contribute to solving the problem.
Belief allows people to escape reality. The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows freedom of religion. It needs to be understood that means my freedom from your religion. Don't bring your unproven beliefs into the public realm when serious issues need to be discussed.
Gene Mesco, Ph.D.
Flintstone, Ga.
Will meat go the way of the circus?
Animal rights activists recently shut down the 146-year-old Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus after years of effectively exposing them for animal abuse. Can the meat and dairy industry be far behind?
The shift toward plant-based eating is everywhere. Fast-food chains like Chipotle, Quiznos, Starbucks, Subway, Taco Bell and Wendy's offer plant-based options. Parade, Better Homes and Garden, and Eating Well tout vegan recipes. Global Meat News reports nearly half of consumers are reducing their meat intake.
Beef consumption has dropped 43 percent in the past 40 years. Google CEO Eric Schmidt views replacement of meat by plant protein as the world's No. 1 technical trend. The financial investment community is betting on innovative start-ups like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods while warning clients about the "death of meat." Even Tyson Foods' new CEO, Tom Hayes, sees plant protein as the meat industry's future.
The industry needs to transition to plant-based foods or shut down. In the meantime, we can shut the meat and dairy industry out of our kitchens by checking out plant-based entrees, milks, cheeses and ice creams in our supermarkets.
Tristan Bell
Allow our elected choice to govern
What has happened to our America? Millions, after searching their hearts, voted for the candidate they believed would be the best president. Then the media tells us we are fools for choosing this man. It's not the media's or politicians' job to tell us we were wrong. Trump is president; political parties should have nothing to do with running this country God blessed us with. I am 87 years old, and this is not the America I grew up in. Something is terribly wrong. I hope and pray it can be fixed for our children - that it's not too late.
Jim Rose
Signal Mountain