The Global Green Deal
Thank you for Mark Hertzgaard's excellent, inspiring, and visionary article (Summer 2000). As Hertzgaard shows, the conventional wisdom (which says that we must cook the planet in order to have economic development) is utterly false.
Using government as a "rudder" to change the direction of business by redirecting subsidies away from disastrous fossil fuel dependency and toward sustainable, employment-creating alternatives is wonderfully similar to the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the "New Deal" to revive the world economy and put people back to work. It is time to revive that model to avert what portends to be the largest environmental disaster in history -- global climate change.
We need a global campaign to make the Global Green Deal a reality. Where do I sign up?
James Handley
Washington, DC
The Global Green Deal is thoughtful but ultimately nothing very radical. One might fairly say that it is an interim step towards something truly appropriate. My main concerns with it are as follows:
- It's Top-Down. Enlightened Government regulates Big Business. Sorry, the reality is the opposite.
- Human population growth, the single biggest problem, is glossed-over. If this is not handled, then everything else is pointless.
- It is still globalization in another guise: There is no mention of bio-regionalism or acknowledgment of community.
- It talks about "heal(ing) humanity's relationship with the earth" but sees the earth from an economic perspective rather than the spiritual one that is needed.
- In fact, in all terms and vocabulary (including the title), it is stuck firmly in the paradigm which has created this mess. Can you really see this scenario healing W2K [extreme weather in the Year 2000]? Neither can I.
Steve Friedman,
Genesis II Cloudforest Preserve
Costa Rica
Inside the Mind of an SUV Owner
I see now how I'm guilty of being politically incorrect. This is because I consciously choose to drive a large vehicle to protect myself and my family from irresponsible and unsafe drivers. In my 28 years of driving, I have never been at fault in any accident. For me, the safety provided by an SUV far outweighs the operating costs. [Speaking of "outweighing," the government has warned that top-heavy SUVs are more prone to rollovers than pick-ups or passenger cars. -- Ed.]
When "socially responsible" people argue that SUVs "endanger other motorists," I hear them saying that since they choose to drive small, lightweight economy cars, they want to force me to jeopardize my safety to satisfy their agenda.
If people carried 10-foot sticks for protection, I would be a fool to carry only an 8-foot stick. Finally, I think it is just as wrong to judge people by their vehicles. You do not know me. I am not evil simply because I drive an SUV.
Stephen V.
South San Francisco, California
[This letter originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.]
Signifying Something
The article "Sound and Fury" by Chris Clarke (Summer 2000) was excellent. It is extremely informative and highly readable.
I have read other papers on the Navy's use of Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) and its negative effects on whales and other sea life, but until this article, I never quite understood the US Navy's hidden intent and the degree to which the Navy is jeopardizing all ocean life.
These kinds of nuts-and-bolts facts must be widely distributed and, moreover, understood by Congress, which has the power to stop this global catastrophe. When we realize that all of life is intimately connected, we realize that the death of one of our fellow creatures is our own death.
Mahalia Pugatch,
Fairfax, California
Bolt the Doors Against "Greedy Breeders"
I was appalled by your article on immigration ("The Rise of Rightwing Environmentalism," Summer 2000). You turned a legitimate ecological concern into the pettiness of racism, ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism.
Of the vast number of immigrants I have met, everyone of them consumed and consumed indiscriminately, far more then I do. And I am a far cry from being an ecological paragon of virtue. Moreso, they had children or intended to have them. (Greedy breeders.) In our society, even the poor are likely to consume more ecologically destructive products and services than the average person in a poor country.
Those who have refused to oppose the mass migration of people to the industrial world are in large part responsible for this impending doom.
People who took a stand against injustices of the past were branded fascists, communists, radicals, and liberals. I would hope that most people would rise above such petty evils in the last days of our Holy Mother, the Earth.
J. C. Krieg
Pueblo, Colorado
Fluorides and the Environment
I have just received a copy of your special 16-page report, "Fluorides and the Environment." This was an excellent work, covering the many different aspects of fluoride and the damage it causes.
I am interested in all the help and information I can get, as the state of Oregon has before it a bill to mandate water fluoridation for all water systems serving 10,000 people or more.
Is it still possible to obtain additional copies?
Marilyn Beattie
Corvallis, OR
[Reprints of this report (now in its second printing) are available from Earth Island Journal for 50 cents each, including shipping and postage. Discounts are available for bulk orders.]
The Defense Budget is Indefensible
Just think what $40 billion could accomplish to improve the world's resources [and] conserve our forests and oceans. Many retired admirals, generals and senior-level military advisors from the nonprofit Center for Defense Information and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities agree that we can cut the Pentagon's $300 billion (and rising) budget and still remain the world's strongest military force.
Here are some Pentagon costs: $17 billion to maintain 10,000 nuclear weapons; $11 billion for 2.5 Seawolf submarines to fight Russian ships that won't be built. Ask the political candidates running this year what they will do about the Pentagon. Tell them how you want your money spent.
Richard Schuckman
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Green Screen Scammed?
The Matrix as a GREEN film? I'm afraid its hackneyed, NRA-inspired style of conflict resolution had so much lead in the air, the green message was rendered all but subliminal.
Mark M. Giese
Racine, WI
Corrections
The Universe may be curved, spherical, hyperbolic or (as the most recent research from NASA suggests) flat, but it is generally accepted that the age of the Universe is in the vicinity of 10-20 billion years. An Ebb & Flow item in the Summer 2000 issue identified the Cambrian Explosion as having taken place "some 500 billion years ago." That figure should have read "500 million years ago." Our apologies to the Universe.
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