Fighting climate change
The Board of Directors of the United Nations Association (USA-Hawaii Island Chapter) is sorry to note how many pieces of legislation on climate change were allowed to die in this year’s Legislature.
We worked hard for the past four years to educate people on our island about the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include climate action, clean water, affordable clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, life below water and life on the land.
Our Legislature failed to address these priorities, allowing so much good legislation fall by the wayside this session.
The regular flooding during “king tides” we already experienced demonstrates what we can expect if we continue to fail to take action. As an island state, with so much to lose from sea rise, Hawaii should be the leader.
Ruth E Robison
Hilo
Threat to all life
Thanos can vaporize 50% of all life on Earth. Puny, weak humans can only eliminate 25% of all species.
Sad.
Joel Aycock
Keaau
Heartbeat detection
Columnist George Will (Tribune-Herald, May 5) described legislation by various states to restrict abortion to time prior to detection of a fetal heartbeat. He calls these bills “wholesome provocations.”
Such laws are pathetically ignorant of biology or more likely the product of mendacious misdirection.
The circulatory system, with a beating heart, is the earliest organ system to develop. It is present during the third week after fertilization when the embryo is about an eighth of an inch long.
This body-size point is true generally for all animals, whether adult or embryonic, because animals larger than an eighth of an inch require a circulatory system to nurture their tissues.
The only limitation to detecting the heartbeat of a fetus or embryo is technology. For women, the gestation time from fertilization to the heartbeat detection point might be expected to march back continuously from the present six weeks into the embryonic period toward three weeks.
Heartbeat detection technology will readily and rapidly advance on this front.
William Mautz
Hilo