Keep KOCE as is, all the time...

Keep KOCE as is, all the time

I wish to urge the Coast Community College trustees to hang on to

KOCE. I listen to it all the time, and we certainly don’t need

another religious television network.

SARAH PARKER

Costa Mesa

Smith right that auto changes needed

I couldn’t agree more with Steve Smith when he says that high gas

prices are the only way that we will “begin to make the meaningful

changes in our lives that we have been putting off for decades” (“On

the Town, July 13). We have unthinkingly consumed oil for decades to

the detriment of the health of our environment and our people. How

high do gas prices need to soar before we begin to reanalyze our

driving habits? While our government does not seem to want to really

address our transportation woes, finding alternatives cannot be put

off any longer.

I don’t fully agree with Smith on what the alternatives are,

however. While telecommuting could provide a step in the right

direction, investing in renewable energy would be a leap. We simply

cannot continue to rely on oil. Industry experts predict that the

world’s oil supply will peak around the year 2010. This means that in

five years global supplies of oil will begin declining. Once we begin

to exhaust our reserves, they cannot be replaced. Equally disturbing

for oil-dependent nations such as the United States is that in the

near future more than half of the planet’s petroleum reserves will be

owned and controlled by a handful of countries in the politically

unstable Middle East. We must invest in renewable energy today. Our

government must meet 20% of our energy needs with renewable energy by

2020.

ANNE HAVEMANN

Washington, D.C.