For openers, I very much appreciate the opinions of Joseph Webb, Joseph Stevenson, Roger Dorband and Ted Messing that were recently published in the opinion page of The Astorian. Thank you.

The subject is near and dear to all our hearts, and maintaining civil discourse will be a challenge. We are talking gloom and doom here.

Outdated forest practices and business as usual are what brought us here. We have all been sniffing way too much diesel. The noise and the fumes are symptomatic of a gathering climate catastrophe.

How about we do something, anything? Pass cap and trade. Like always, the noble yeoman farmers and sons of the soil will pass on their rising fuel costs to the timber companies and pulp mills who employ them. As long as I get a free handful of paper napkins with my happy meal, I won’t notice the minuscule jump in the price of toilet tissue.

And, as an aside, perhaps we should reexamine the value of a standing tree versus one that is lying down.

GARY DURHEIM

Seaside