Thanks for response
Dear Editor:
A belated thanks to all the firefighters who responded with lightning speed to the Twin Lakes (Barnaby) fire last month, no doubt preventing what could have been a huge disaster. We can never give everyone enough thanks for all the hard work and long hours you put in. Thanks for being part of our community and kicking ass!
Alan Sodell
Twin Lakes
Remembering Carl
Dear Editor:
How often have we said these words over the last 18 months: “In the future” we will meet and gather to celebrate this place we love and those we have lost. Today my family and I are announcing that our planned celebration of life on Aug. 28 for Carl Miller has been canceled.
His celebration of life was to have been filled with music and poetry. Thank you to those who would have made this celebration possible.
Carl was a morning person. All through our life together he would be full of plans and ideas. As he would say, “let’s get ’er done.” Life doesn’t always give us the choice of getting it done. I would like to share excerpts from a poem that he loved and reflects his attitude toward life.
“Why I Wake Early”
“Hello, sun in my face,
Hello you who make the morning.”
Keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light
good morning, good morning, good morning
Watch, now how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.”
— Mary Oliver
On that winter day in November when Carl left his Winthrop home, he looked at the morning sun reflecting on Mount Gardener. His words: “We are so lucky to have lived in this beautiful place and to have had the love of family and friends.”
Blessed are we, Carl’s family, for your caring and love over these past months. May your mornings be filled with light and kindness.
Roxie Miller
Winthrop
Take action
Dear Editor:
My family moved to the Methow Valley eight years ago and have experienced eight fire seasons, formally known as summers. Five of those have been dominated by record-breaking fires, multiple evacuations, and toxic air quality that stretched on for weeks. This fire season it has stretched on for months. I have reached out many times to folks who have much more experience living in the Methow, folks who have lived here for decades. “Is this normal?” I ask them. I was well aware I was moving to an ecosystem adapted for fire and that wildfires have always happened. But at this scale? Is this how it has always been?
The overwhelming answer I have received is no. This is different. Something has changed and it’s getting worse.
It is clear that we, like the rest of the planet, have warmed up, and greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of this rapid change. Denying this fact is now like denying that the laws of gravity exist. If you love this valley and its residents as much as I do, please join me in taking the following action.
Contact your senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and ask them to include a revenue-neutral carbon price in the upcoming Senate Budget Reconciliation Bill. This would put a price on carbon at the source, instead of us all paying for it down the line in the form of fighting wildfires, paying medical bills related to toxic air, etc. If the price on carbon is revenue-neutral, that means all revenue generated from this price on carbon would be returned to the taxpayers, creating no new government bureaucracy, meaning we the people get to decide how the money gets reinvested.
If carbon is expensive, likely most people will invest their extra dividends on more efficient, less carbon-intensive energy. This idea won the Nobel Prize for economics and is supported by lots of policymakers across the political spectrum. Also, contact your Representative Dan Newhouse and ask him to support a price on carbon now, before the Senate bill lands in the House.
Kelly Grayum
Twisp
