Not stepping down in a timely manner
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, after long and stellar career, did not retire from the U.S. Supreme Court and died in office at age 87.
The Republican Senate did not allow President Obama to choose a successor.
We now are living through a nightmare of a highly politicized and imbalanced Supreme Court. This situation is the result, in part, of Justice Ginsberg refusal to retire.
We are now faced with an additional nightmare: another fractious presidency under Donald Trump due in part to another geriatric incumbent’s refusal to step back in a timely manner.
Hubris is a bummer.
Stephen Adams
Hilo
Geoengineer could learn from eruption
Interesting article in your newspaper (on Friday). Geoengineer David Keith suggests we might cool Earth and combat climate change by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.
In 2018, here in Puna where I live, the volcanic eruption released much sulfur dioxide. One reason why people in Lava Zone 1 had to evacuate was because of the rise in sulfur dioxide in our air.
In fact, the Department of Health set up monitors for this gas as it can be harmful to health, even though the one monitor in Leilani Estates, site of the eruption, was disrupted by the lava. Oh, well!
At our home, the leaves on all our plants, save the hapu‘u, were gone. It was amazing to see the jungle without any green leaves!
But all the leaves came back, and today I look out my window and see the jungle restored to its green glory. Our metal roof did not fare so well and had to be replaced due to damage from the altered gases in our atmosphere of the time.
Dr. Keith could do well to study the temperature and gas emissions data of our lava eruption of 2018 and probably lean a lot. I wonder if the temperature of Puna dropped for awhile after the 2018 eruption.
I suggest that the gases emitted during our eruption were more than sulfur dioxide — a more “natural” mix, if you will, and that releasing only sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere would be like a human taking a single nutrient supplement rather than a whole natural food diet that contains all essential nutrients, in balance.
Just some thoughts.
A. Rosanoff
Pahoa