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Thursday, March 06, 2003 Page: 7A
Just when you think you have read everything, along comes another idiotic
pronouncement from Mr. Calaman in his letter of February 26. Blaming the high
cost of U.S. gas on environmentalists is somewhat akin to blaming the starving
in Somalia with the food shortages in the rest of Africa.
I have a suggestion for Mr. Calaman. Look around you at all the slag heaps
that dot the once beautiful Wyoming Valley. The fault of environmentalists,
right? While we are at it let’s broaden our view a little and blame them for
the Exxon-Valdez spill of 11 million gallons of oil in 1989 or more recently
the 19-plus-million-gallon spill from the Prestige in 2002. Or how about the
fact that we have to watch what we eat from our waterways and oceans because
of PCBs and mercury.
Let’s not forget the air pollution from our manufacturing and power plants
that make temperature inversions so serious the elderly can’t leave their
homes for fear of death. To get a little further from home, how about rape of
the South American rain forests to accommodate big business agriculture only
to find nothing will grow in the soil they so desperately wanted?
Yes sir, Mr. Calaman, you’ve really got to watch out for those people. Why,
before you know it, they may even succeed in saving this fragile entity called
planet Earth.
Natural resources are like money. You can’t save money if you don’t have
any. That’s where our natural resources are heading. The supply is finite. To
tear up this beautiful earth in a futile attempt to satisfy our gluttony is an
exercise in stupidity beyond comprehension.
I remember the 1976 gas crunch all too well. What did we learn from it?
Nothing. We still mass produce big cars, trucks and mountain-sized so-called
campers that devour fuel at an obscene rate, and the likes of Mr. Calaman
blame it all on environmentalists. We have an administration in Washington
that gave the thumbs up to major polluters to do so for another 10 years, that
allows Chrysler to call it’s Cruiser a truck to increase fleet averages for
their trucks. Wow, those damned environmentalists. You can’t trust them to do
anything right.
Wes Eustice
Lakeland, Fla.