Summit Daily’s writing on the Parade of Homes is hard to read knowing that these enormous homes proudly boast energy inefficiencies that are so ubiquitous in the U.S. The emissions from the heating of homes represents a significant chunk of our county’s and state’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The people who build and owns these gargantuan homes either think they deserve to behave as though our shared environment doesn’t matter or they don’t even believe in global warming. So why reward these trophy hunters with adulatory writing in your newspaper?

Small houses can be creatively and efficiently designed and constructed with eco-friendly materials and systems. Please treat your readers to something that feels like they’re reading a piece that is informed by other issues of the day by following builders and their designs that use well-thought-out solutions.

Since graduate school in atmospheric sciences and radiative heating (the physics of global warming) more than 30 years ago, I’ve been sickened by the media’s decadeslong dragging of their feet in acknowledging climate change, while instead promoting the idea that it is just a matter of opinion. Finally, national newspapers have grasped that they had it wrong all along, and they are no longer supporting alternative views to basic physics. I strongly encourage the Summit Daily to also ramp up the urgency with which they write about all issues with climate change implications, as there is likely no county in the U.S. with an economy as closely linked to weather and climate as Summit County.