Letters to the Editor

Puppy Love

I want to clarify any confusion the “Lutah” article may have generated by confirming that my dear border collie siblings, Alamo, Creek and Ranch, who were named after the ranch I own, no longer live with me.

It is true that I have been denied all access to the babies that I raised for many years. We were a true “pack” and it was a great joy spending our days on Butterfly Beach, Elings Park and Douglas Preserve. But those days are gone and it is a heartbreak.

I urge anyone with a pet you love and cherish, to support Social Compassion in Legislation, in order to help prevent this devastating loss from happening to you.

Our pets are voiceless and don’t understand why the people they love go away. I fear when this happens their pain and sense of loss may be worse than ours.

If that’s possible.

Gretchen Lieff
Montecito

Carbon Concern

Here’s hoping the new CEO (and to whom, a grateful welcome), accomplished and estimable, will encourage a broader editorial lens at the Journal.

And here’s an article I’d like to see: How will the onset of carbon-fueled climate change affect the built landscape in Montecito? [See https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/california-climate-change-fires-floods-and-a-fight-over-free-parking/2019/12/05/5b9219f8-fb5f-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html: “The coastal curve that bends south from Santa Barbara through the Los Angeles metroplex to the arroyos along the Mexican border is warming at double the rate of the continental United States, according to a Washington Post analysis of more than a century of temperature data.“]

The great estates had when constructed, and their descendants direct and lateral now depend on, plentiful water, which will become scarce as the temperature rises. There are only so many wells that can be drilled, only so many tolerable tanker loads.

What adaptations will result in the most beautiful necessarily new landscape in Montecito? Who is thinking usefully about this existential (if only to Montecito) question? Who has a vision for it?

The denial really has to stop. Ask Australia. Ask Paradise.

Cotty Chubb
Montecito

Hello from Bali

Hi MJ, I presented the Montecito Journal to Ling Ling at the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay in Bali. She was quite interested to read our local news. The resort is a spiritual property on 35 oceanfront acres with a temple and many shrines.

C Scott McCosker
Santa Barbara