Letters: Fit for inclusion | Public transit | Wrong tack | Too expensive | Community support

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A Palo Alto gardenfit for inclusion

Re: “It’s heaven that’s in the details at Filoli” (Outdoors magazine Page 36, March 5)

As a garden aficionado, I enjoyed your article in the Sunday March 3, 2023 magazine OUTDOORS about Filoli. You captured its beauty and its historical significance well.

The article mentioned “Five Other Noteworthy Bay Area Gardens.” I believe you missed one. I would have loved to have seen Elizabeth Gamble Historic House and Garden in Palo Alto as the sixth garden on the list.

Gamble Garden is an historic house and garden maintained as a community resource for horticultural education, inspiration, and enjoyment. It is open 365 days a year and always free to the public.

I would love the public to get to know our garden better. Please check our website for information about the garden, our events and classes.

Joan ZwiepPresident-Elect, Gamble Garden Board of DirectorsPalo Alto

Expand public transitto help middle class

Re: “‘Exactly what I needed’ — affordable housing” (Page A1, March 7).

While the creation of affordable housing is a step in the right direction, it’s not a permanent solution to our cost-of-living crisis. To truly solve this issue, we need to shift our focus to the valley’s most pressing issue: transportation.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone from the “missing middle” who does not own a car. It’s practically impossible to get around in Silicon Valley without driving. And the cost of owning a car is outrageous – between insurance gas prices, and car payments, the costs add up to be extremely high. We need to move away from cars, and instead build a more robust public transit system.

Not only would this be good for the environment, but it would also free up huge amounts of land. What was once a parking lot could soon become a community: one with affordable rent prices, and much more greenery.

Bruce HolleySan Jose

Silencing Adamsis the wrong tack

Re: “‘Dilbert’ dropped after creator’s racist rant” (Page A1, Feb. 28)

The creator of “Dilbert,” Scott Adams, expressed an opinion based on a “Rasmussen Reports” survey in which 47% of Black respondents would not say that it is: “OK to be White.” If accurate, this implies that close to 50% of Black people don’t like White people. He quoted this statistic to comment on the plight of race relations in current-day America. He blames the media for this distortion.

Canceling Scott Adams for expressing his opinion on the present state of race relations in America calls for more speech, not cancelation.

Bredette ThomasFoster City

Carbon capture tooexpensive to aid climate

In Letters (“Carbon dioxide removal needed to reach goals,” Page A6, March 7), Tina Baumgartner wrote on the removal of carbon from the atmosphere, an essential task to regain a sustainable climate.

There are now about 420 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the air. Lawrence Berkeley Lab tells us that each ppm weighs 7.82 billion tons. Today it costs about $600 a ton to remove CO2 from the air. (Scientists hope for $100 a ton in the future.) This means it would cost over $4 trillion to remove just one ppm of CO2. There were 280 ppm of CO2 in pre-industrial sustainable-climate times, so to restore that level of sustainability we need to remove 140 ppm (growing by another 2.5 ppm per year). Even at the aspirational $100 a ton, this would cost over $100 trillion, four times the entire U.S. economy.

Yes, we must work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but it will not be a major part of the solution.

Doug McKenzieBerkeley

Black community mustsupport one another

I wanted to bring attention to the speech Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade gave Feb. 25 at the NAACP Awards.

Union brought up the topic of the intersection of fighting for the rights of Black people. She said, “Will we fight for some or will we fight for all of our people?” Union addressed the lack of support the Black community gives to Black LGBTQ+ people and Black women, which is a huge issue.

The constant disrespect and disgusting remarks that have been said about our Black women and LGBTQ+ people are unacceptable. We have had most of the world against us for centuries, and the last thing we need to be is divided.

The Black community must stick together and help each other out because, in the end, we are the only ones who understand our struggles.

Kaiya MurraySan Jose