MAILBAG:

In the early 1970s, National Geographic printed an article on the effects of smog on the Earth’s temperature using the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa as a model.

As I remember the article, that eruption lofted 25 cubic kilometers of pumice soot and ash, which then took two years to be spread throughout the stratosphere by the jet stream. This blocked out some of the sun’s rays, and the overall average temperature of the planet was lowered by 4 degrees.

The effect lasted seven years, causing snow storms on the East Coast of the U.S. during summers, and creating general agricultural difficulty worldwide. If all jets flying over oceans dropped a little powdered white rock or whatever, it would have a similar cooling effect, no?

Thus, balancing out global warming and saving the planet. No applause, please; but if you all would send me $5 each and the government would not tax me, I would be so grateful. You’re all on the honor system now. Remember I just saved your planet.

WAYNE LEFFLER

Costa Mesa

Kudos to those who do their jobs well

It is so very refreshing nowadays to actually see someone take pride in what they do.

Amid the quick, swift and almost blurry life scenarios whereby people seem to just float through the actions of everyday life, once in a while one catches a prideful deed or act of doing one’s best.

I witnessed such an event Monday when drinking my coffee and watching the street sweeping machine lumbering up my street doing its thing and tossing all the cigarette butts, papers and broken bottles into the machine’s hungry belly.

When the machine’s driver was directly in front of me and I thought he was just going to keep on driving, he stopped and peered into his rearview mirror. What he saw, and what I noticed after he checked the mirror, was a bunch of sand on the street that he missed the first time. He then backed up about a half block and ran his cleaners once again, this time getting all of what he missed the first time.

But then he again stopped directly in front of me and looked back to the previous house and noticed he again missed a spot.

So once again he backed up to get the second spot he missed and this time he made a clean sweep of it and missed nothing.

It would have been so easy for him to just keep on going to finish his designated route and be done with it.

I take my hat off to this person to acknowledge that there apparently are still people around who do take pride in their actions, be it a brain surgeon, grocery checker or a civil servant just making sure the streets are clean.

BILL SPITALNICK

Newport Beach