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State energy policy
comes home to roost
Rolling blackouts took place when the sun went down along with 10 gigawatts of solar power (“Power outages in state loom,” Aug. 18). Our electrical system can’t go negative. It requires instant backup for lost power or the grid will become unstable and risk collapse. The only sources that can supply instant backup are existing fossil fuel plants already running for that purpose. Battery-powered backup is a distant hope of limited scope.
California didn’t have sufficient fossil fuel backup to cover the loss of solar power. Immediate power from outside the state was unavailable. California was on its own.
Simply defined, it is California policy to subsidize the growth of solar and wind power and reduce (eventually shut down) fossil fuel production to force the transition. The state’s success at closing down fossil fuel power sources has come home to roost. Much like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
Donald Eagling
Retired scientist, Lawerence Berkeley Laboratory
Danville
Are we defunding
the mask enforcers?
Counties, cities and individuals are now demanding that fines be imposed on those who don’t wear a mask while out in public (even if they are not around other people) (“Livermore to fine people without masks,” Aug. 15). Some in this group also likely support the “Defund the Police” movement.
So let me get this straight, you want sworn officers to start being the “mask police” while also supporting an effort to reduce their funding?
Residents are continuously complaining about the clearance rates of criminal investigations for homicide, vehicle theft, home invasions and much more. Now you want to remove more officers from this vital role so they can go out and enforce your desire to control other people and their choice to wear a mask or not while walking in their neighborhood by themselves?
Be honest, what’s more important at the moment, catching people who aren’t wearing a mask or catching those committing a felony?
Devin Foley
Fremont
Reject problematic
police endorsements
Here we go again. With Fox News help, Trump is touting the endorsement of the New York City police union to claim Biden is soft on crime. Politicians down to the California local level will try the same tactic. I urge ethical candidates not to fight fire with fire. Throw cold water on this bogus issue.
Candidates should not accept money from police unions. Don’t trumpet their endorsements. Black Lives Matter, #Metoo and Occupy Wall Street started in the United States and spread worldwide. Seize this opportunity to achieve racial justice and end the brutality of entitlement, gender violence and class privilege.
Break the long-standing sycophantic corrupting bonds between politicians and law enforcement. We must demand this and not return to the same old, same old.
Terry Sutherland
Concord
Socialist slant makes
election choice obvious
One party has nominated a man that has been in politics his entire life and accomplished nothing. The other party will nominate a man that is an egotistical maniac. What a choice for a country that has over 328 million people.
The party platforms, however, are quite different. The Democratic Party leans socialist. It supports free health care for everyone including undocumented, free college for all, and cities that want to defund the police. It is not the party of Kennedy and Clinton; it is the party of Sanders and Warren.
The Republican Party supports individual freedom and less government control. Before COVID-19 it created the best economy since WWII, and reduced welfare.
There are many more differences in the two parties, but it should be obvious who to vote for unless you are blinded by your hate for President Trump.
James Tasker
Moraga
Similar cases garner
vastly different response
We all know who George Floyd is. Does anyone know the name George Robinson?
We should. The East Bay Times reported the murder of this black man at the hands of three Jackson, Miss., police officers in the Aug. 16 edition (buried mid-paper). Originally the police approached him because they “thought they had seen him dealing drugs.” They “pulled him from his car,” threw him “headfirst into the roadway,” and struck and kicked him “multiple times in the head and chest.” The county coroner ruled the death a homicide by blunt force trauma. The indictment of second-degree murder describes the officers’ actions as manifesting a “depraved heart, regardless of human life.”
No front-page news. No protest. Inexplicably, Jackson, Miss., is not burning. BLM is not marching down Main Street.
Stacy Spink
Castro Valley
