'The Only Proven Way' 

Editor:

Bravo North Coast Journal for consistent public-interest reporting revealing the stories behind the mugshots, providing in-depth coverage of local issues, asking questions, questioning the answers and even taking the public's right-to-know to court.

Collaborative NCJ efforts focusing on violence against LGBTQ individuals provided readers with a rare reminder of our county's abysmal human health statistics, among the worst in the state in every category measured, ("A Culture War's Collateral Damage," Sept. 21).

If rightwing politicians, pundits, media and their adherents are truly concerned about sexuality, they should join environmentalists in demanding bans on hormone-altering chemicals, herbicides, pesticides and plastics, and support the sciences in public schools. Harvard graduate Dr. Tyrone Hayes summarized years of research in one hour at Cal Poly Humboldt, documenting the persistence of sex-changing herbicides like Atrazine being permitted in local forests.

Instead, deepening economic insecurity is fueling public susceptibility to opportunists, ideologues and despots promising immediate emotional relief by shifting blame onto minority communities, refugees, LGBTQ, liberals or women seeking abortions. This misdirects attention from human civilization's recurring cause of economic collapse, in effect, small numbers of privileged elites dominating public policies, wasting resources on hopelessly unprogressive social structures and ideologies, combining to prevent any considerable improvements desperately needed by the broader community.

Despite multiple, unprecedented crises converging in our economy, environment and society amid threats of nuclear brinkmanship, today's vested interests show no sign of altering their self-destructive behavior.

While it may be "too little too late," nevertheless, the only proven way of reforming society begins in individual communities with vociferous, widespread public demands to identify and oppose local policies and industries contributing to the crises.

George Clark, Eureka