Letters to the Editor: ‘Demoralizing’ — on Boichik Bagels’ successful effort to kill a natural gas tax

To the editor: Sammy Roth’s column about Boichik Bagels’ efforts to spike Berkeley’s eco-friendly tax measure felt particularly demoralizing.

This beloved bread maker revealed that much of the company’s gas consumption could’ve been easily reduced by switching to electric kettles and water heaters without affecting quality. It was just the ovens that posed the problem.

If we assume the ovens use as much as half her total gas each month, and she reports selling 14,000 bagels per day, and accounting for holiday store closures, the resulting tax on their $3 bagel from this measure would’ve come out to a half-cent each.

The cost of those two new kettles would’ve been less than one cent per bagel. But that was too much to help safeguard the planet, I guess.

Paul Kradin, Santa Ynez, Calif.

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To the editor: Two related stories highlight the need for imagination if humans are to respond effectively to the climate emergency.

The article on the solar power glut driving up utility bills in California while benefiting residents in other states offers a negative take on the solar boom in California. Behind this debacle are elaborate and self-defeating economics.

However, the real story is the untapped battery storage market that is needed for California to realistically wean itself off fossil fuels.

In Roth’s column on the Berkeley bagel business that helped kill a natural gas ballot measure, we learn that our creature comforts, provided via fossil fuels, are more valuable to us than the planet we’ll be leaving future generations.

Without imagination, it is a hard task to shift perceptions. We can build enough storage systems for excess solar; we can move away from methane (“natural gas”) as a fuel source.

To do so, we need accurate information, less spin from utility companies and to eliminate the brokers who determine energy costs.

Meredith Rose, Pasadena

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To the editor: The Boichik Bagels founders are poster children for the classic definition of a liberal — someone whose personal interests are not currently at stake.

No wonder Donald Trump won.

Bob Cowan, Los Angeles