Letters to the Editor: Tax breaks for children don’t make sense in the era of climate change

To the editor: Planting 1 trillion trees and oil companies promising to be net-zero emitters of greenhouse gases will not be enough to fight climate change, as your editorial says. There must be a worldwide cutback on consumption.

This can partially be achieved by individual and corporate conservation, but ultimately global population stabilization is the answer.

A family with two children will have stable consumption over time. A family with three will have more. There needs to be a total restructuring of the global economy concentrating on a stable population, not ever-expanding demand based on an ever-expanding population.

One way to do this is to phase out child tax deductions over time so they apply to no more than two kids. I know this sounds grim, but so is what the world faces.

Alan Johnson, Long Beach

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To the editor: It is hugely disappointing that U.S. energy companies like Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. have not shifted their operations to producing renewable fuels more aggressively.

The handwriting has been on the wall for decades, and these companies have enormous resources and engineering talent at their disposal. Yet the best they can do is to take the baby steps that your editorial describes, perhaps unsurprising considering they are capitalist enterprises driven by market conditions and price signals.

The flaw in the equation seems to be the lack of accounting for the damage that their products cause. A meaningful price on the carbon content of their fuels is an obvious, long-overdue factor needed to trigger the shift to renewable energy that these companies are eminently qualified to develop and profit from.

Kent Strumpell, Los Angeles