Letter: Obama is right to address climate change

To the editor:
I applaud our president for taking the first stand ever on limiting the carbon footprint for which the power companies are 44 percent responsible.
Our leader has taken a step that begins to address the devastating problem we all share in the climate change. The thinking that has created our environmental problems, more than likely, will not provide the answers required to bring the destruction of our water, air and soils to a standstill. What is absolutely required is a paradigm shift in our values. At the very core, interwoven into our daily lives, are ways of life that are polluting, devastating, exploiting and leading to the extinction of our natural resources — and possibly to our own species, not to forget all living species on earth. What can be done?
President Obama has taken a most essential step. I am hoping our politicians will follow suit, and the ones who do not will be voted out by us, the voters. The prioritizing of Mother Earth over corporate interests must begin to prevail. Laws must be placed that prioritize the needs of Earth. To protect Earth is protecting ourselves and that protection must override any other interests. The creative ingenuity of a different type of science will emerge if our values on a mass level reach this epiphany.
Paula Hill
Santa Cruz