Everyman's Issue
Sir: The environment is not just "Nixon's New Issue" [Feb. 2]; surely it is the issue for us all.
WILLIAM J. PARR Columbus
Sir: As a member of an age group that can reasonably expect to be alive in the year 2000 (if anyone is still around), I was excited by the President's emphasis on cleaning up the environment in the State of the Union address. It contains, however, one glaring flaw: his acceptance as inevitable of a growth in the U.S. population of more than 100 million people in the next 30 years.
To quote Population Biologist Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich: "Too many cars, too many factories, too much detergent, too much pesticide, multiplying contrails, inadequate sewage-treatment plants, too little water, too much carbon dioxide—all can be traced easily to too many people." The Government must initiate stringent birth control measures through education about contraception methods, through liberal abortion laws and through high luxury taxes on any more than two children.
JOHN C. HOOPER Lieutenant, U.S.A. A.P.O. N.Y.
Sir: Projecting your world-population curve to the year 2600 gives a density of one person for every 2 sq. ft. of usable land. The inescapable result for mankind will be standing room only. Well, if all else fails, this should solve the problem.
EDWARD C. LOWELL Tarzana, Calif.
Sir: If the goal of the '60s was to put man on the moon, then the goal of the '70s must be to keep man on the earth.
DAVID MCCAULEY College Park, Md.
Sir: You suggest that the 150 whales that nosed onto the beach at Fort Pierce, Fla., seemed to be trying to tell us something [Jan. 26]. Of course. Our environment has run so amuck that it is at least possible that the crazed herds of whales might have found the seas too foul to endure any longer and beached themselves as a dramatic way of showing mankind what the ocean's creatures think of his detergent and pesticide-filled rivers, his raw or half-processed sewage, and his oil slicks.
BOB WOODSIDE Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics East Carolina University Greenville, N.C.
Sir: The German chemical plant may be a cause for concern to Hilton Head Island [Jan. 26], but it's a nightmare to Bluffton, only two miles from the plant site. As I see this village about to be engulfed by a huge industrial complex, I must register my protest against this giant leap backward.
(MRS.) FLORENCE HARRY Bluff ton, S.C.
Sir: How the naivete—both real and pretended—of our public officials must make the Germans laugh! Has there ever been a petrochemical plant anywhere that didn't introduce pollution to the air and water? However, the incredible part is not that we are going to get the same pollution that every petrochemical complex generates, but that we are spending so many tax dollars to bring it here.
But we cannot blame B.A.S.F. for this entirely. They have the blessings of our state's leaders, and the pollution they create will be within the limits permissible under our archaic and inadequate laws dealing with the subject. No, the onus belongs chiefly to the local politicians—in this case, Democrats all—who are so anxious to jump in bed with the Germans.
JON L. MALLARD Hilton Head Island, S.C.