In response to “Utilities request to pay less” (Dec. 27 Business):

Speak out against plan to pay less to green energy providers

Duke Energy proposes paying less for green energy in coming years. This plan to further wreak havoc on small sustainable energy providers will assure an increase in global climate change, with its storms, floods and droughts.

I would appreciate Duke’s acknowledgement that the only way nuclear and fossil fuels can be used is with subsidies – from depletion allowances to direct subsidies from ratepayers.

The tiny savings in renewables are not the point. The issue is to kill sustainable energy. As the now largest utility, this is tragic for our communities.

What is Duke thinking, and why are we silent?

Patricia Moore

Charlotte

In response to “Duke Energy makes exec changes after merger probe” (Dec. 18) and related articles:

I hope higher ethical standards come amid changes at Duke

I applaud the N.C. Utilities Commission for forcing Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers to find a new neighborhood.

Duke’s “bait and switch” of their merger commitment displayed questionable judgment and character. Combined with Duke’s ethics scandal in Indiana and its anti-trust lawsuit in Ohio, it’s definitely time for Mr. Rogers and a few of his executives to be replaced.

We should all hope that the new Duke chairman and board will commit to a higher ethical standard, which Duke Energy and N.C. residents deserve.

Charles Whitlock

Cornelius

---

In response to “Paper’s gun map creates uproar” (Dec. 27):

Make that map of gun owners more useful; add felons to it

Maybe newspapers should publish an interactive map on the Internet of the names and addresses of all criminals convicted of felonies in addition to gun owners.

If newspapers did that, it’s possible those Webster, N.Y., firefighters would have been forewarned that the fire was at the home of a convicted murderer. They would have been able to proceed with a degree of caution or police protection and be alive today.

Andrew Chinigo

Matthews

You wanted those guns for protection, didn’t you?

Hey, gun owners, don’t worry about the bad guys coming and stealing your guns now that they have your address.

See, if they come, you can shoot them!

That’s what you want, isn’t it?

Ted Lucas

Charlotte

---

Time we made our schools

as safe as our airports are

On 9/11 four planes were hijacked by terrorists with guns. Two hit the Twin Towers, one hit the Pentagon, and one crashed in Pennsylvania.

What happened after that? Security was heightened in our airports. Screening, scanning, searching.

So as of today, U.S. airports are the only true “gun-free zones.”

Until we make our schools as safe as our airports, taking guns away from law-abiding citizens will never solve the problem.

How many more children are going to die because no one really wants to ask the hard question: Why are our schools not as safe as our airports?

Richard Maccini

Gastonia

---

Focus should be on spending cuts, not on class warfare

When is someone from the media going to ask the president, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc. what spending cuts are needed to move our country forward?

Questions I see asked by the media center around what income level is going to get hit with a tax increase – never what departments and entitlements should be cut.

Why would anyone defined as rich want to give even more money to a system that has a spending problem without spending cuts clearly defined?

Once defined, it’s a little easier to give up one’s hard-earned money. Since it needs to be defined, ask the question!

Fred Alexander

Charlotte

---

Glad to see City Council doesn’t mind going up against Foxx

Charlotte City Council should not be excoriated when it does not uniformly embrace Mayor Anthony Foxx’s expansionist and budget busting initiatives.

It would be easier for Foxx, and cause the Observer to spill much less ink, if they would just rubber stamp his schemes. But fortunately they do not seem overly concerned to be on his enemies list.

Perhaps they are exemplars of that old saw “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” a reasonable response to Nixonian demagoguery.

P.A. Williams

Matthews

---

Return to Hornets name is about identity, not nostalgia

Charlotte is my hometown, but it’s also a city that would rather bulldoze its past than celebrate it.

My mother was a rabid Hornets fan from the start and raised me as one, too.

Bringing back the nickname Hornets is about more than 80s nostalgia. In Charlotte’s rush to become a national-level metropolis the city has become sterile and soulless. There are banks, true, but that’s not identity.

The past is unchanging and the past is where you look to reinvent your identity.

The NBA is not a local business. Players come and go, coaches and owners, too. There is often little to hold onto.

Bring back the Hornets. They may win no more than the Bobcats do now, but they’ll be ours.

Joshua James

Fayetteville