MAILBAG:Reduce global warming pollution

Last year was the hottest year on record in the U.S., and the effects of global warming are already showing up in our backyards. The state took a big step forward in 2006 by adopting AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, but now it’s time for Congress to act.

The good news is that we can reduce global-warming pollution nationwide by harnessing America’s vast renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal and biomass power. Renewable energy development is a win-win solution that will create jobs, save money for consumers and reduce global warming pollution. In fact, by generating 20% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020, we can cut global-warming pollution to a level equivalent to taking more than 89 million cars off the road.

To put these solutions to work, John Campbell needs to cosponsor the Federal Renewable Electricity standard (HR 969), legislation that would require that utilities generate 20% of their electricity from clean, renewable sources by 2020. Coupled with strong limits on global warming pollution, this would be the most effective step we could take to cut global warming pollution within the next 15 years.

CHRISTOPHER GIANINO

Leave Mesa Del Mar alone

Katrina Foley has struck another blow for elitism (“Community cleanup project needs volunteers,” June 26).

Leave Mesa Del Mar alone, lady! We don’t need to clean Mission Drive of trash or graffiti — there is none. The streets get swept every week, the trash gets picked up, too. And, if there is still graffiti there by Aug. 5, the day of her cleanup, the graffiti removal guys from the city should be fired. The truth is that they generally come out the next day after they are called.

What she is trying to bring negative attention to is the apartment buildings which house mostly the hardworking 50% of the whole state of California. After closing our shopping center and turning it to blight, now she is targeting her next “If- it-ain’t-broke-fix-it-anyway” project.

My family has been in Mesa Del Mar for 40+ years and never had a dime’s worth of problems with our neighbors in the apartments. What shall we do next, put up a border fence on El Camino?

DAN MILLSTEIN