toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio

Your recent editorial, "Aging out of foster care," illuminated a real problem. Each year in Lucas County, approximately 40 young men and women turn 18 in foster care, and for them the world can be a scary place.

Lucas County Children Services was one of the first public agencies in the state to offer a post-emancipation program to the adolescents we serve. They can come back to LCCS for any assistance they need, including housing, job training, or counseling.

But we try to prepare our kids for their 18th birthday years earlier. Every foster child over the age of 15 participates in our Independent Living Program. This program focuses on life skills, how to find and maintain a living arrangement, meal preparation, job finding and keeping, finance management, and counseling for interpersonal problems or other life problems. We try to have each young person connected to an adult who can help them through the transition to young adulthood.

Nationwide, most kids aging out of foster care do not complete high school, and the same is true here. For the past two years LCCS has worked hard on a new educational initiative, working within our community and in cooperation with the school systems, to assess the particular needs of each of our kids, to assist them to succeed with their education, and to move on to higher education or vocational training. Many 18-year-olds remain in foster care to complete high school. Much more needs to be done.

All this is possible because of the financial support of Lucas County taxpayers. The federal government and the State of Ohio do little to fund these services. As a society, we need to invest much more to assist these young people or, as you noted, the cost to society will be far greater.

GORDON R. BARRY

Chairman
Lucas County
Children Services Board

Documentary shifted debate on warming

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary about global warming, won two Academy Awards, a fitting tribute for a film that has singlehandedly shifted the national debate by educating millions of Americans about the science and dangers of global warming. But as the former vice president said in accepting the award, "We need to solve the climate crisis. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur should take the lead and co-sponsor the Safe Climate Act, legislation that will get the U.S. back on track to prevent the worst effects of global warming.

Meredith Beardmore

Columbus

Global warming issue a lot of hot air

The truth is that there is little truth in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

The fact of the matter is the Earth has been warming and cooling since the big bang due to solar flares and, contrary to what the political pseudo-scientists say, there is nothing man can do about it.

Global warming had its beginnings in 1970 at the first Earth Day, where organizers latched on to the theory of Arrhenius, which said doubling of the world's carbon dioxide would increase temperatures by 6 degrees. Had they put a moment of thought into this they would also have deduced that this also gives the world its own thermostat, because the higher the world temperature the more plant life; the more plant life the less carbon dioxide and thus lower temperatures.

To understand what is behind global warming issues, consider this. At the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the secretary general of the United Nations, Maurice Strong, said, "the first world's wealth must be transferred to the third world."

Today there is not only talk of a world gas tax but, along with massive government grants and subsidies, Congress will soon vote for a renewable energy tax that will start slowly and then accelerate.

The global warming issue is simply a lot of hot air.

JIM BOEHM

Drummond Road

An agenda attached to warming study?

I have experienced a slow burning sensation since reading your Feb. 14 editorial on global warming. It concerned the study conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which falls under the oversight of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization.

The fact that the words "governmental" and "United Nations" appear in the report are enough to make me wonder if there is an agenda attached to the results of this study. But let's assume that the study presents incontrovertible evidence, even though the editorial clearly stated evidence is lacking, that the warming is permanent and not cyclical, that the Earth is warming rapidly, and that we must act now to avoid a global catastrophe.

If we are to act, it is not going to be businesses that suffer as a result of rising production and energy costs. The suffering will come to consumers and employees of those businesses. Unemployment will increase as businesses transfer manufacturing jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor sources to help reduce costs.

At best, the jobs will stay in the U.S. and inflationary pressures will hamper economic growth. I believe stiff action on the part of the U.S. government would actually worsen the problem, as the offending parties would simply resume operations in areas of the world where governments are willing to look the other way. Any action taken must be slow and measured to minimize the impact on our economy.

I would much rather see concrete proof that the current weather phenomenon is man- made before spending countless billions of dollars and jeopardizing our economy and therefore our country on a theory put forth by an organization with unclear, though seemingly altruistic, motives.

Jeff Alspaugh

Sheila Drive

No U.S. response to Darfur tragedy?

The ongoing vicious cycle of extermination in Darfur brings to memory the horrendous scenes of senseless genocide and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and Bosnia. The consequences of indecision exercised then are preserved in the pages of history to goad us forever.

According to United Nations estimates, more than 400,000 girls and women have been raped, maimed, and killed while 2 million are rendered homeless in the Darfur region. And now the carnage seems to have spilled over to Chad, a supposedly safe haven for those who came to seek refuge from the self-styled "genetically" superior Janjaweeds who, in cahoots with the Sudanese government, are using rape as a weapon of war to ethnically cleanse Darfur and eastern Chad of blacks.

Apparently, in Darfur, the line between black and black runs very thick. We thought that the stark reign of "colored" terror wreaked by South Africa's apartheid-era was over. No way. Sudan's President Basheer is the new P.W. Botha incarnate. His government is playing a dangerously conniving game of deception.

Every time a new peace deal is brokered by the U.N., Sudan elects to dishonor it. The magnitude of the Darfur tragedy is compounded by the collusion of silence by the corrupt leaders of other African nations.

The United States has always been the first responder to every conceivable human tragedy across the globe, be it a tsunami in the Indian Ocean or an earthquake in Pakistan. Don't we have any responsibility in Darfur?

We need to be there now, equipped not only with food, medicine, and shelter, but also with a will to twist or even break the vicious arm of Sudanese arrogance. We owe it to the Darfurians; we owe it the sanctity of life and honor.

Abdul-Majeed Azad

Perrysburg

Tell smokers THEY should stay home

Will smokers ever stop using the angst-ridden expression, "if you don't like smoke, stay home"? That doesn't sound much different than a drunk saying, "if you don't want to get hurt when I'm driving, stay off the road." Smoking is no more a right than drunken driving, and it's more dangerous.

Those who smoke represent a quarter of the population. When they smoke, everyone around them, including the 75 percent of nonsmokers, must partake in their crude habit. I've got a better idea. Since they are in the minority, if they can't control their habit, they should stay home and smoke.

GARY SAHADI
Lambertville

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