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Readers write: Attention for climate change data; Take care of immigrants who already made the journey; Support for veterans

Letters to the editor for the April 18, 2016 weekly magazine.

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Jianan Yu/Reuters
Workers unload coal at a storage site along a railway station in Hefei, Anhui province.

Attention to climate change data

Regarding the April 4 Monitor’s View “A sign of progress on climate change”: The piece lauds progress on reversing one metric on fossil fuel consumption. From this limited perspective, I feel momentarily lulled into the comfort of this progress. I do support the Monitor highlighting progress. But I believe it is critical to frame reporting in the context of broader global data. For example, NASA’s measurements show the increase of atmospheric carbon climbing at an ever-steady, threatening pace. In the case of climate change, our planet can afford no complacency.

Mike Cook

Manzanita, Ore.

Take care of immigrants who already made the journey

Regarding the April 4 Monitor’s View “Lifting the stigma on US Muslims”: Let’s not repeat the mistakes of Europeans. We need a pause button on all immigration and to make certain that those who are already in the United States are integrating and having a successful experience. It’s beyond idiotic to continue to bring in more immigrants in order to prove that we’re an open and generous society. We are open and generous. America has nothing more to prove on that score. Now let’s also be wise and thoughtful. 

Jonette Christian

Holden, Maine

Support for veterans

Thanks to the Monitor for running the March 31 online article “At once-stodgy VFW, a new portrait of America’s changing military” (CSMonitor.com), which discussed the effort of a number of veteran service organizations to welcome vets from recent wars – all vets. They deserve all the support we can give them. They’re our neighbors, ones who have sacrificed much by serving in the armed forces.

Jerry Mcintire

Viroqua, Wis.

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Mark Sappenfield
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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”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

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.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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