Re “Report warns 70% of California’s sandy beaches to vanish by 2100” (Oct. 8): Thanks for another cogent warning as we backtrack on addressing climate change with determination and renewed denialism. Others are also struggling, but few others deny the need, and progress is being made. Renewable outputs have overtaken coal worldwide.

Here, we aren’t merely subsidizing and promoting fossil fuels, we are actively obstructing renewables. We need permitting reforms to streamline the process, retain standards, and build a grid capable of handling and exchanging all the needed wind and solar/battery energy at hand over distance as demand rises. Some, but not all, environmental groups refuse to support reform, fearing it opens opportunities for fossil fuel projects. That is already happening. The only suppressed energy is the 90% of all permits caught in the decade-long cycle of sequential multiple NEPA lawsuits that are renewables. Renewables win on price alone, and are cheaper to both build and operate than to merely keep operating an existing fossil fuel plant. Write your representatives.

— James Ferguson, San Diego