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Editor- Mr Pierson may be right about certain non-contributions by Native Americans---their civilization didn’t come up with cell phones or pet rocks or leaders like George Bush. However, they did show us one useful idea that we have purposefully chosen to ignore. That idea is to live within one’s means. Their lifestyle was carried on in a way that was sustainable. Ours is not. This October we passed 300 million Americans. It will have only taken 40 years to get there from 200 million. Does anyone who is not a real-estate agent, a politician or a madman believe that we can go on this way? Our current lifestyle is a roadmap to disaster. Everything many of us hold dear, in fact consider essential, to what has been the most enviable lifestyle in world history is going to be buried or lost in our headlong rush to become more like India or China, the only two more populous nations on earth. Look about you Mr Pierson: the loss of open space and resources, the increasingly crowded, claustrophobic lives we live are the result of not learning the one lesson we should have learned from the original inhabitants we displaced when we got here. You have, unlike almost all the other publications I read, addressed the biggest problem facing this country and the world. Of course, I’m talking about the impending 300 millionth American. Kathleen Parker’s article should be required reading for everyone, but especially "smart growth", politicians and the public that have bought into this con game. It exposes everyone, from head in the sand enviros, to lying politicians who tell us "we need all these unskilled, uneducated immigrants to make our economy run" for the frauds they are. While we are distracted by celebrity news and pressing issues like flag burning and gay marriage, the changes wrought by our exploding population continue to erode our lifestyle in ways that become more difficult to reverse, the longer we pretend there is no problem Al Trease Twin Falls, Idaho
Native Americans did show us one useful idea that we have purposefully chosen to ignore. That idea is to live within one’s means. Their lifestyle was carried on in a way that was sustainable. Ours is not. This October we passed 300 million Americans.
TRYING TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION... Dear Zephyr, Several years ago, I saw us creep up on the 300 million mark. I saw thefront-country, and to a certain extent, the back-country overrun by illegal use of 4-wheelers, hunters, and other assorted white trash amusements. I asked myself, "What can one person do?" File lawsuits? No, those are for personal grudges. (Ya hear that, Rocky?) Join SUWA or Sierra? No, thoseguys contribute nothing. Zip. Zilch. I started teaching Leave No Trace (Google it to see more) and Hunter Education, mostly to Scout-age boys. The two are so closely integrated in some areas that their topics cross, and you know if you want to educate someone teach them while they’re young. The Boy Scouts of America, while rejecting the political baggage that comes along with environmental issues, has thoroughly supported and endorsed the principles of Leave No Trace since the early 1990s. They are now in the Scout Manual, and are expected to be taught to and used by all Scouts. This, along with the Hunter Education class warnings about off-highway vehicles, littering, private property, and conservation, make a powerful impression on the boys and have contributed to individual decisions about Eagle projects. So what have you done recently? I mean stuff that counts. John Mount Highland, Utah TOLL BOOTHS FOR NEXT EASTER? Dear Editor, I, along with many other locals, are annoyed about the destructive nature of Moab’s infamous "Easter Jeep Safari." These jeepers come to Moab for one week and rip it to pieces like my dog and a stuffed animal. I’m sick of going out after Jeep safari and finding trash strewn across the desert for months after. If they cannot pick up their mess, they shouldn’t come to our mecca of beauty to play. I value the beauty of the canyon country, and I don’t want it to be destroyed. I want my children to be able to enjoy it as much as I have. I know that the jeepers are a major factor in keeping this town alive, and I know that Moab is just a place of play for all the tourists that come here. But for me it’s more than that; it’s my home. It may not always be, but for now it is and I’m going to protect it. This is why I suggest that for that one week of absolute havoc and mayhem, we set up toll booths to get within the Moab City limits. I don’t think the jeepers will mind an extra ten dollars, for a week of fun, happiness, and extreme jeeping, and carnage. This money can go to rehabilitate the land they destroy, help fund public schools, and buy all of you alcohol loving adults a drink after the stressful week from hell and all the hard working kids a root beer after having to put up with all the stupid tourists asking for shirt after shirt at the T-Shirt Shop. I know it’s asking a lot but I think a lot of people will agree with me that this is a good idea. I think that if they don’t have the manners to pack out what they packed in, they should either have to give us money every time they come to town or have to sit through a two hour, extremely boring movie, where we will try to cram some moral decency into their little heads. Sincerely. Wesley M. Williams Moab, UT
MORE THOUGHTS ON 300 MILLION I couldn’t possibly disagree more with Gregg Easterbrook’s comments that Earth’s exploding human population is no big deal. Humans are encroaching upon the habitats of other species worldwide, and soon many will go extinct. Easterbrook doesn’t think it’s fair to ask someone not to build on a hillside - is it fair that we breed so profusely that other animals, such as tigers, cannot live? Deaths and disease from crowding and pollution already lower the quality of life to misery for most of the world. Easterbrook is lucky to be living in the U.S. Let him move to Beijing and inhale the pollution, in traffic that moves slower than a walk. If I could wave a magic wand, every human female, no exceptions, would be sterilized after giving birth to her first child, until worldwide population drops to about 2 billion. I did it for that very reason. The contraction would be painful economically, but there will be more of everything for everyone, when the population is lower. Chances are, if we don’t do it voluntarily, a pandemic will take care of it for us. Crista Worthy Pacific Palisades, CA |
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