‘Evil incarnate’
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has deep roots, and the worst situation was the infamous Holodomor in 1932 and 1933 when Stalin had ordered a forced starvation of the Ukrainian population, leading to the deaths of millions of people.
More recently, the Russians occupied, against all international laws, the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, but the West was not able or not willing to oppose that military invasion.
As we all know, right now, the Ukrainians are fighting against another Russian attack, and it is already clear to see that these heroic warriors are the true winners, whereas the Russians will go down in history as monstrous and evil, attacking a neighboring democratic country without any justification and against the protest of virtually the entire world.
Of course, there are still some holdouts in the U.S. who support Vladimir Putin and attempt to blame the Ukrainians for God knows what (Trump, Fox News, etc., all apparently salaried by Putin).
It seems unlikely that the Ukrainians can score a victory in this bloody confrontation, but it is also not very likely that they will easily give in, abandon their homeland, and submit under the Russians. In fact, we have already witnessed the emergence of a truly heroic leader there, the rightfully elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (since 2019).
There is no parallel to him right now in the entire western world, and his soldiers, brave men and women, demonstrate what true patriotism means — at least not blocking the traffic in D.C. to protest against a health measure!
Whatever the outcome will be, Ukraine carries the true victory, and Russia will always be remembered as a pariah state, with Putin being evil incarnate.
Albrecht Classen
Hilo
Pass carbon bill
Russia’s war on Ukraine is spiking gas prices here, as the world attempts to starve Putin of his fossil fuel income.
This might spur a quicker transition to alternative energy sources, and it will certainly spur some level of conservation as people go broke at the gas pump.
The pandemic, in its own way, led to a massive downturn in energy usage, for a moment.
Both of these current events have given us a window into a world where we are taking some climate action, if only coincidentally. But we need to be taking these actions consistently, and ramping them up every year to forestall twin threats: (1) climate change and (2) war from oil-rich autocrats such as Putin.
The “Carbon Cashback Bill,” HB 2278, will wean us gently off fossil fuels while giving us the time to invest in alternatives. With the money collected going back into the hands of each household in Hawaii, most people, especially those that take smart climate actions, will actually come out with more money in their hands.
I implore the state Senate to take up this bill and pass it as the House did.
As a human population we need to start paying the true cost of fossil fuels so that we can begin reaping the true benefits of clean energy. Let’s do this in a kind and orderly fashion with the Carbon Cashback Bill, rather than letting world disasters and autocrats run the agenda.
Joanna Norton
Hilo