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Readers write: a new home for refugees; unite Americans on climate

Letters to the editor for the March 14, 2016, weekly magazine

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Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor
The grandstand at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg, Germany, an area more than three football fields long where Adolf Hitler rallied Nazi supporters in the 1930s, is slowly disintegrating.

Make a new home for refugees
It occurred to me, as I read the Feb. 29 cover story, “Remnants of the Reich,” on what Nuremberg is trying to decide to do with Zeppelin Field and the crumbling structures from Nazi gatherings, that a truly meaningful solution would be to use the space to build housing for some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and North Africa. I am sure that a creative architect and a group of planners could come up with an idea for a village that would provide homes as well as places of worship, work, play, and study for individuals and families who are stuck at the various European borders. And I believe that such an idea could inspire the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States to help. Maybe companies that need skilled employees could train and recruit from this place, a viable investment for all.  
Mary McMahon
Walpole, N.H.

How to unite Americans on climate
Regarding the Feb. 23 online article “Do you believe in climate change? It may depend on your politics” (CSMonitor.com): As a climate activist and liberal, I’ve been mystified by the number of people who don’t accept the reality of human-induced climate change despite the overwhelming scientific evidence. However, Prof. Brendan Nyhan’s interpretation quoted in the article helps clear this up. “We can’t possibly read all the evidence, so we rely on trusted sources,” he says. “When those sources have differing points of view, we tend to believe those that share our ideology/political views.”

We need bipartisan support to take meaningful action on climate change. To this end, I favor a national carbon fee on fossil fuel producers with 100 percent of the fee revenue returned to American households. This would slash carbon emissions without growing government or restricting consumer choice. Americans could unite behind this approach and make a real difference in slowing climate change.
Jarett Zuboy
Golden, Colo.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

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