Letters: Trump must deal with climate change

As I woke to the news that Donald Trump had become the president-elect, my mind went immediately to the Paris agreement on climate change.

South Carolina’s beautiful beaches and million-dollar condos and historic Charleston face peril as a changing climate brings glacial melting and seawater expansion.

The United States remains the second-highest contributor of per capita global carbon emissions, but we’re becoming international leaders in clean-energy technology. Let us also be leaders of climate-change mitigation in the coming years. If we don’t invest in renewable energy for the health of our natural ecosystems, we should do it for global human health. If we don’t do it for human health, we should do it for the sustainability of our national economy, and if not for the U.S. economy, we should do it for future generations.

Let’s not be quitters but leaders in the fight to combat global climate change by encouraging one another, our lawmakers and the president- elect to remain invested in the accord and devoted to environmental stewardship.

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Letters: Trump must deal with climate change."