TNT letters: Climate change; props for Tacoma’s interim police chief; voting rights

Climate change

Re: “Alaska Smashes heat record for December” (TNT, 12/29).

Temperatures in the Arctic are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, due in large part to two perpetuating feedback loops.

First, the sea ice has diminished by anywhere from a third to a half in the last 20 years. Known as the albedo effect, sunlight is reflected off the ice sheet back into the atmosphere. Where there is no ice, sunlight is absorbed by the darker water, thereby increasing its temperature. Also known as arctic amplification, the ice retreats from shore lines, affecting the ability of polar bears to survive.

Secondly, the permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere contains twice the carbon of the atmosphere, and three times more than in the global forests. Arctic warming promotes conversion of that carbon into carbon dioxide and methane, thereby promoting the feedback loop that drives global warming.

Further, such warming has altered the pattern of the northern jet stream, leading to such events as the “polar express” — i.e. the Texas ice storm — and the Northwest “heat dome.”

Our year of 2021 was a destructive year for extreme weather — what does the future hold for our good Mother Earth?

Chuck Jensen, North Tacoma

Tacoma police chief

Let us not forget the excellent job that Tacoma interim police chief Mike Ake has done while serving the department.

For full disclosure: I was one of the people who did not think Ake was the man for the job — the man who would bring about the much needed equity and transparency to the Tacoma Police Department that was needed to bridge the wide terrain between our police department and community, especially in communities of color.

Out of all people I should know better than to judge a book by its cover. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.”

Thank you Interim Chief Ake, you stepped up at a time when —at any moment — the City of Tacoma could have erupted with days and weeks of unrest. You reached out to community leaders, you calmed the raging seas, you made the hard and difficult choices when you had to - and Tacoma is better because of your leadership. It’s greatly appreciated.

Rev. Gregory Christopher, Tacoma

Voting rights

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the King family has asked that commemoration of Dr. King be by taking action to support voting rights, rather than the usual celebrations.

We in Washington State have been fortunate to experience good access to voting, with our mail-in ballot system and trust in our election officials, reinforced by election observers from both political parties and nonpartisans through the League of Women Voters in many counties. So it is challenging to think about how we can act in support of voting rights across the rest of the country. But we must. Our democratic republic can’t be sustained without fair and equal voting access.

Here’s what we can do: Talk to friends and family across the country about encouraging their Congressional delegations to enact both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and let our Congressional delegation know that we want them to convince other states’ delegations of how important these acts are.

Let’s use MLK Day to contribute to Dr. King’s prophecy that, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” and help assure that equal voting rights are sustained nationwide.

Cynthia Stewart, Tacoma