Letters

From the August/September 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 6)

Ronald Bailey's glowing account of the improved state of the environment should make everyone feel better. For some reason it doesn't.

I'd like to invite Mr. Bailey to visit Wyoming, still supposedly a pristine state with a population of less than 500,000 people. We could start with an outing to any one of our plains lakes, but the shoreline may be littered with trash. Or how about going into a nearby mountain range, if we could even find a parking place at the trail head parking lot. Of course there will be large groups of hikers trekking up the trail. No visit would be complete without a trip to Jackson Hole, with its bumper-to-bumper traffic and an art gallery or souvenir store on every corner. The once-beautiful hills above town are dotted with houses. (I believe single-family dwellings are currently limited to 10,000 square feet.)

We have too many people and not enough land. And solitude, which is difficult to quantify, gets to be a rarer and rarer commodity. All of Ronald Bailey's numbers are nice. But why do I still have a hollow feeling when I see what is happening to the environment?

Lew Vavra

Laramie, WY

Ronald Bailey's article is highly irresponsible journalism in view of the worsening ecological crises abundantly documented by Worldwatch Institute and most other mainstream environmental organizations, world governments, and independent researchers.

If, as Mr. Bailey seems to suggest at one point, Lester Brown and Worldwatch aren't good sources of environmental data, then why do a host of publishers print their annual State of the World in some 30 languages? And why are its books used as texts in more than 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities? And why have over 1 million copies been sold?

I refer specifically to some of Mr. Bailey's outrageous claims, such as that "there's a broad consensus that exposure to synthetic chemicals, even pesticides, does not seem to be a problem," "documented animal extinctions peaked in the 1930s," "global warming is not a serious problem," "increased wealth, population, and technological development [automatically?] preserve and enrich the environment," etc.

Does he really believe that nuclear weapons research, the nuclear reactors in Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, plutonium, asbestos, PCBs, toxic waste, polluting giant industrial hog farms, and Union Carbide's chemical factory in Bhopal, India, in the 1980s have "enriched the environment"?

If pesticides and other toxic, and largely untested, synthetic chemicals are not a problem, then why in 1995 at a United Nations Environment Program conference in Washington, D.C., did environment ministers from 103 countries sign a high- level declaration calling for a legally binding global treaty to reduce and eventually eliminate Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)? And why in 2000 is the U.N. continuing to sponsor international negotiations to phaseout POPs, especially highly dangerous organochlorines, including pesticides and industrial chemicals and by-products such as PCBs and dioxin?

And why did a 1999 study by the Consumers Union find that domestic fruits and vegetables often exceed the safe exposure limit set by the EPA for young children? And why are increasing numbers of consumers buying, and growing, organic food?

Bailey denies animal extinctions are a growing problem, yet renowned Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson calculates that at least 50,000 species are becoming extinct every year and that the rate is escalating. Paleontologist Peter Ward in The End of Evolution documents "the third mass extinction facing planet Earth." A poll by Louis Harris and the American Museum of Natural History found that "seven out of ten biologists believe the world is now in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of living things in the 4.5 billion-year history of the planet." Nearly 25 percent of the 4,600 species of mammals, especially the primates, are threatened with extinction. Estimates are that at least two out of every three of the 10,000 species of birds are in decline worldwide. Some 20-25 percent of the 10,000 surveyed reptiles and amphibians rank as endangered or vulnerable.

Is the planet's ecological future more promising than ever? There are countless reasons to question this wild claim. If global warming isn't a problem, then why are the vast majority of independent scientists (i.e., those not on industry's payroll) claiming otherwise? And why are world automakers beginning to develop alternatives to fossil-fuel-based engines? And, why are international insurance companies paying out record claims (close to $100 billion a year) in climate-related disasters? And how can any reasonable person claim that severe storms, floods, and droughts aren't getting worse? Has Mr. Bailey forgotten about Hurricane Mitch in the Caribbean 18 months ago? The East Coast devastation from storms and flooding last fall?

Does Mr. Bailey really care about what kind of planet our children and grandchildren inherit, or is his more pressing priority preserving his free market ideology and unrestrained economic growth? He needs to remember that there is a name for unrestrained growth--cancer.

Dan Butts

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