Fat kids? Send them out to play

To the editor:

The recent coverage of childhood obesity highlights a serious problem that seems like it has a simple solution. We need to let kids be kids.

In days past, kids played outside. Today, they’re locked up indoors. Kids would be outside playing tag, baseball, digging in the dirt, collecting insects — the list goes on, just as kids’ fascination with the world does.

Here in Southern Nevada, we are blessed to have so much public land surrounding the city, where kids can truly be themselves and become familiar with the natural world. The Corn Creek trail in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge just north of Las Vegas is a child’s natural playground. The trees offer shade, the ponds are full of interesting life, and it is a safe and peaceful area for families to enjoy.

Childhood obesity is a real problem that we all should be concerned with. The remedy is to get kids out of the house, away from video games. That would benefit our children as well as our families.

Pauline Orendain

LAS VEGAS

Green game

To the editor:

I can’t believe all of the attention being paid to those areas where they are still planting grass lawns and to businesses not getting their “green” tax credits. They mandate fuel efficiency standards for automobiles but have to give special tax consideration to builders and developers? Are we facing a continued drought and water shortage, or not? All of the proven utility conservation measures should be mandatory in all new construction, commercial and residential — including those that conserve electricity and natural gas.

Bill L. Wilson

HENDERSON

Great gusts

To the editor:

Your Sunday editorial taking issue with Sen. Harry Reid’s opposition to construction of three new coal-fired power plants near Ely and Mesquite couldn’t be any further off the mark. Sen. Reid is using the best kind of common sense by instead calling on America’s can-do-spirit to develop clean energy technologies and spur hundreds of thousands of new jobs while also protecting the environment.

Besides, Nevada is rich in renewable energy potential but has few fossil fuel resources, says the U.S. Department of Energy.

Sen. Reid is — and has been for years — a leader in the U.S. Senate on clean energy issues crucial to growing our nation’s use of wind power and other forms of renewable energy.

He has led the full Senate three times in efforts to gain a national renewable energy requirement and has recently called for an even higher goal of 15 percent renewables by the year 2020. Most recently, he was blocked in this effort by a small group of senators who opposed his common-sense call for developing America’s — and Nevada’s — clean, domestic, renewable energy sources.

When it comes to clean energy and new jobs for all Americans, the 100-member U.S. Senate could use 99 more leaders just like Sen. Harry Reid.

Jaime Steve

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE WRITER IS LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION.

Bus ride

To the editor:

In his Monday letter, Gary Olszewski states that most of the buses he sees are empty, and have no real reason to exist. What a selfish statement.

I ride the buses regularly at all different routes and hours and have never seen them empty. In fact, many times they are standing-room only.

Many people in the valley rely on the buses to get to work and school on a daily basis. They would be lost without them.

Yes, sometimes they run late, especially to accommodate passengers with wheelchairs. This is unavoidable, and the drivers do their best to stay on schedule.

I appreciate the job that the CAT bus system does, and wish them well. I wonder if Mr. Olszewski has ever been in a position to be forced to depend on riding a bus? I doubt he would think it’s a waste of taxpayer money then.

Maureen Scranton

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Meaty issue

To the editor:

In his Monday letter to the editor, Martin Gordon rambles about the senseless slaughter of innocent animals. The rational person would hardly think that the killing of animals for human consumption is senseless.

As for the nonsense of us subsidizing animal cruelty by nourishing our families with dairy and meat products: Many of the things we enjoy in life — from the infrastructure of utility systems, to the construction workers who built our homes and places of work, to the men and women who assembled our cars — are the result of meat-and-potatoes kind of people.

Where do you think the leather that’s on your Birkenstocks came from?

RUBEN ROWE

CALIENTE