Readers React: The planet will survive Scott Pruitt’s EPA tenure. Humanity has less of a chance

To the editor: Your editorial that highlights how U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s policies are likely to accelerate global warming at a huge economic and human cost is well taken. (“The EPA’s Scott Pruitt has to go,” editorial, March 30)

I must question the statement that these policies “imperil the Earth.” The Earth in its billions of years of existence has experienced cataclysms such as mass extinctions, meteor hits and ice ages that dwarf the rise in sea level and more ferocious storms predicted by the current models of global warming.

What is imperiled is not the Earth but humanity’s habitat, which, if destroyed, will be filled by other species, as has occurred countless times in the past. Humanity is likely the only species that is capable of both destroying its own existence and taking steps to prolong its stay on the planet.

Ultimately, the laws of nature will supervene; it is up to humanity to understand its place in nature in order to survive.

Jonathan Kaunitz, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Pruitt rolling back fuel economy standards is long overdue, as the numbers are bogus. Vendors hired by the auto companies use every trick in the book to get the highest mileage numbers so as to get more business.

Most of the bestselling cars today are trucks and sport utility vehicles. How many customers would buy smaller if the actual in-town fuel economy of, say, 8 miles per gallon was on the window?

Bob Munson, Newbury Park

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To the editor: The Times Editorial Board is right about Pruitt. He is dismantling regulations and policies on the environment that protect all of us — Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and liberals alike.

Corporations may benefit in the short term, but even they will be losers as their employees’ health and customers’ happiness decline as a result of the greater pollution that rolling back environmental protections will allow. Most of the regulations and policies protect all Americans.

Jere H. Lipps, Calexico, Calif.

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