Why drive a hybrid?
In his letter of June 14 (Tribune-Herald, Your Views), Mike Ben asks what incentive there is for drivers of hybrid and electrical vehicles.
I can’t speak for drivers of electric cars, but I have driven a Toyota Prius hybrid for the last two years. In that time, the Prius has averaged 56.6 miles per gallon.
Plugging in Ben’s average of 6,800 miles driven in a year, my Prius — at 56.6 miles per gallon — uses 120.14 gallons of gas. At $4.58 per gallon, the Prius’s annual cost for gas is $550.24. Over this same distance, Ben’s Fit — at 37 miles per gallon — would use 183.78 gallons costing $841.73 per year.
A savings of $291.49 per year is my answer to Ben’s question.
Ed Comstock
Hilo
Kids need programs
As spring gives way to summer, many after-school programs here and across the nation are morphing into summer learning programs. And just as they do in the afternoons during the school year, these programs keep kids safe, inspire them to learn and help working families.
They do it by using the after-school formula for hands-on, experiential learning. Working with community partners, programs give kids access to opportunities and experiences they might not otherwise have.
Some give kids the opportunity to design and build robots or cars, for example. Others focus on the arts, letting kids dance and sing their way through the days of summer. At Kaho‘omiki’s Fun 5 Program, we offer kids the opportunity to be active and healthy by engaging in safe, all-inclusive and fun physical and nutrition activities that give everybody a chance to participate and to experience success.
Researchers tell us that programs like these help combat kids’ “summer learning loss.” That’s absolutely true, but we’re careful to make sure we don’t program out the fun!
This fall, as part of the looming budget fight, Congress will decide whether to expand, maintain, reduce or divert 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative funds, which in the past have supported after-school and summer programs that offer the kinds of engaging learning opportunities not available during the regular school day.
Such debates usually end up focusing on numbers. But when it comes to after-school and summer learning programs, it’s our kids and their education that will be at stake.
Paula Adams
Fun 5 Program, Honolulu
Consider the source
Regarding the poll on aquarium fish collecting (Tribune-Herald, June 14): It is no surprise that a poll conducted by the Humane Society of the United States found most Hawaii respondents in support of a total ban on aquarium fish collecting.
For all the good work they do to directly care for animals, the U.S. Humane Society is politically dominated by an animal rights agenda. If they could, they would ban all fishing and hunting and the raising of livestock for meat, as well. They know better than to even try to get Hawaii citizens to entertain these propositions.
Aquarium fish collecting is a sustainable, properly regulated fishery. More than 35 percent of the west Hawaii Island coastline is designated as no-take zones for aquarium collection. Fish reproduction there provides fish larvae that enter the plankton and disperse and settle on all of the coastal reefs.
Commercial aquarium fish collecting provides jobs and tax revenue, as well as joy and marine life education to aquarium hobbyists. Aquarium fish collecting includes kids dip-netting small fish in tide pools and setting up their own marine aquariums.
And, again, it is a sustainable fishery. I would like to see results of an independent poll on this issue run by another organization not driven by an animal rights agenda.
William Mautz
Hilo
