Surprise, the construction costs to widen the Burrard Bridge are over $60 million [“Early critic of Burrard Bridge costs was right”, May 1-8]. In fact, the true costs are significantly more when the heritage impacts are included.

At first glance, it would seem that Gwynne Dyer’s logic makes sense: “So I predict that the price of oil will soon fall—a bit” [“Slowing economy will bring down oil prices”, May 1-8]. But we no longer live in times of logic. Nothing in life is linear anymore, including the commodity markets. People here are hoarding rice at the first mention of shortages elsewhere. Oil has been far undervalued far too long in North America relative to elsewhere.

Thank you for your informative article on the problem of cellphone towers in our neighbourhoods [“Resident objects to cell towers”, Straight Talk, May 1-8]. The government insists there are no radiation dangers from these installations. Yet, as children, we used to go into Eaton’s and X-ray our feet for fun. (These devices were used to make sure the shoes fit.) I have a friend who is on a pension because, as a child, she played in storage piles of asbestos.

I was deeply disappointed that discussions about early childhood education in the article “Should three-year-olds be in school all day?” [April 24–May 1] still circle aimlessly around questions about play versus teaching the alphabet and early learning versus childcare. It is time to change the discourse and to acknowledge and accept the educational rights of young children.

Is it possible that the article titled “Global warming hits home” [April 17-24] was meant to be tongue-in-cheek? The peak of this warming cycle was in 1998. The last warming episode was the 1920–1940 period, and 1934 beat out 1998 as the warmest 20th-century year by a few tenths of a degree.

In her letter regarding China, Tibet, and the Olympics, Clare Marie Belanger exposes her ignorance of religion and her lack of compassion for the Chinese and Tibetan people [Letters, April 24–May 1].

Re: “Harper government has no love of science”, April 17-24

I have never read anything so ridiculous as Ben Griffin’s letter [April 24–May 1]. He says we have “useless leafy trees that grow no fruit”. These trees give us beauty, oxygen, and other wonderful uses in nature for the animals. Yes, go ahead, plant more fruit trees, but leave the other trees alone. There are lots of useless, ill-mannered people wasting space and causing pollution, but it would be against the law to get rid of them. Interesting, isn’t it?

Re: “Olympic records go missing”, April 17-24

I read the article “Beijing gets nowhere demonizing Dalai Lama” [April 10-17] by Frank Ching and especially noted: “While he [the Dalai Lama] is still alive, there is a window of opportunity that China should grasp.”

Re: “Anxiety over EcoDensity”, April 10-17

Re: “Preparing for peak oil”, April 17-24

Thank you, Rebecca Haskell, for putting into words what I have often wanted to say but couldn’t, because my rage would get in the way of making a nonemotional, articulate rejoinder [Letters, April 3-10]. I, too, am sick of being expected to fit into a certain set of beliefs and go along with some really racist views just because I happen to be white or one of “you”, whoever the hell “you” think you are.

Craig Takeuchi’s article has Tannis MacBeth noting that research into violent media has focused mostly on TV because “people choose which films to go see whereas TV comes directly into people’s homes” [“Turning on violence”, April 10-17]. This statement at once assumes that all homes have TV and that all people are doomed to suffer through whatever programming the networks produce.

Re: “City looks at capping events”, April 10-17