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<p class="byline-dateline"><time class="dateline" datetime="2017-08-31T00:27:08-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" content="2017-08-31T00:27:08-04:00">AUG. 30, 2017</time>
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="14" data-total-count="14"><strong>To the Editor:</strong></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="95" data-total-count="109">Re “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/us/trump-texas-harvey.html">Trump, in Texas, Says His Goal Is the Best Relief Effort Ever</a>” (news article, Aug. 30):</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="208" data-total-count="317">Visiting Texas in the midst of Hurricane Harvey, President Trump said: “We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it.”</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="471" data-total-count="788">But Mr. Trump is doing his best to create more such disasters, by dismantling every effort of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Power Plan to move us out of the fossil-fuel economy into a renewable-energy world of millions of good jobs. His pro-coal, pro-oil policy intensifies such storms by supercharging the air with carbon dioxide and methane, heating our Earth, and overfilling clouds with water vapor that then falls as unprecedented floods of rain.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="197" data-total-count="985">Doing it better would require him to reverse direction. Otherwise he will be known in five, 10, 50, 100 years as the person most responsible for bringing utter disaster on America and all humanity.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="33" data-total-count="1018">(RABBI) ARTHUR WASKOW<br>PHILADELPHIA</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="15" data-total-count="1033"><strong>To the Editor: </strong></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="356" data-total-count="1389">Our president, after visiting the catastrophic Harvey scene, is on his way to Missouri to push for tax relief for our wealthiest and least needy citizens. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people on the Gulf Coast will need long-term temporary housing, temporary schools, food, clothing, electricity, air-conditioning, medical care, and the list goes on.</p><div id="story-ad-1" class="story-ad ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent ">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="169" data-total-count="1558" id="story-continues-1">It would be wonderful if he could decide to change his priorities, to be a caring president. I could also win the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries in the same week.</p>        <a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="#story-continues-2">Continue reading the main story</a>
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        <p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="25" data-total-count="1583" id="story-continues-3">DAVID A. LOOMAR, NEW YORK</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="14" data-total-count="1597"><strong>To the Editor:</strong></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="200" data-total-count="1797">President Trump seeks to appear presidential amid the incalculable suffering and devastation caused by Harvey, while his budget would cruelly slash funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.</p><div class="newsletter-signup hidden auto-newsletter variant-1-hidden " id="newsletter-promo" data-newsletter-productCode="" data-newsletter-productTitle="" aria-labeledby="newsletter-promo-heading">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="355" data-total-count="2152">His policies, if unchecked, will also destine us to react to increasing cataclysmic weather events rather than being proactive. Proposed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/politics/trump-hurricane-texas-fema.html">cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</a>, including a draconian 32 percent cut to its main ocean, weather and climate research center, tell the sad tale louder than his command center visit to Texas.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="25" data-total-count="2177">MARY O’CONNOR, NEW YORK</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="14" data-total-count="2191"><strong>To the Editor:</strong></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="357" data-total-count="2548">In “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/opinion/harvey-houston-residents-resilience.html">The Devastation in Houston</a>” (editorial, Aug. 29) you aptly describe “how unchecked urban sprawl and paving over of wetlands and prairies have increased the risk posed by floods.” So let’s see if our builder-in-chief president can direct the Texas rebuilding effort with the smartest infrastructure necessary to avoid another flood catastrophe.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="163" data-total-count="2711">That begins with the understanding that conserving our coastal wetlands and creating urban parks are vital when planning housing developments and industrial parks.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="21" data-total-count="2732">STEVE COHEN, NEW YORK</p><footer class="story-footer story-content">
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