Opinion: With a climate denier in the White House, California must lead the way on global warming

To the editor: Global warming, caused by mankind’s continued reliance on fossil fuels, threatens the stability and habitability of our fragile planet, yet we now have a president-elect described in your editorial as “the only world leader who questions whether climate change is real.” (“With Trump’s election, science — and the global environment — will lose,” editorial, Nov. 11)

This is embarrassing and appalling. Ideally, it should be possible to raise this issue above the melee and make it one which politicians of all parties can work together to solve; carbon dioxide molecules are agnostic and do not distinguish red states from blue.

We have an opportunity here in California to demonstrate real progress, after recent legislative action calling for cutting state emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. In addition, the law mandates that power plants derive 50% of their power from renewable sources by 2030. Let us work together to surpass these goals and to demonstrate by example that the world’s sixth-largest economy can make significant progress toward reducing the root cause of global warming.

Michael Werner, Pasadena

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