Audubon: Letters

(letters)

Heat Is On

Michael Crichton [“Pulp Fiction,” May-June] should discuss global warming with scientists who research national-security issues. I was a journalist covering Los Alamos National Laboratory for 10 years. The view was that humankind should take prudent steps to reduce carbon emissions. Conversely, they viewed inaction as a dangerous gamble—this before scientists reached consensus that global warming was happening, the question being to what extent it was human-caused.

While environmentalists are spectacularly inept at simplifying their message for popular consumption, the true culprit is the media. Always shameful advocates of the economy and growth, they have morphed into that which their corporate owners demand: bald-faced advocates of a narrow neoconservative view. Witness the nearly universal focus on a runaway bride to New Mexico while a Los Angeles Times story, “Scientists Find Climate-Change ‘Smoking Gun' ”—proof of the human cause of global warming—was mostly ignored. The media refuse to allow climate change onto the public agenda. We must focus our actions—and outrage—accordingly and not fall into yet another episode of unproductive self-blame.

Kathleene Parker
Rio Rancho, NM

Daniel Glick points out many of the scientific inaccuracies in Michael Crichton's State of Fear that Crichton “quoted” to make his point about the fallacy of global warming. However, I noticed an error Glick overlooked. One Crichton character matter-of-factly states, “Depending on the database, either [sea levels are] flat or they've increased by forty millimeters. . . . Half an inch in thirty years. Almost nothing.” In actuality, 40 millimeters is one and a half inches—a significant rise in sea level. Apparently, Crichton has no problem skewing data to support his end—a bit of deception he heaves upon scientists portending the negative impact of global warming.

Gary Noel Ross, Ph.D.
Baton Rouge, LA

Bigger Picture

In “Something's Fishy” [Incite, May-June], Ted Williams points out that some blame hatcheries for the decline of salmon runs. That's as sensible as blaming rising obesity on dieting; there's a germ of truth to both claims, but neither is more than a side issue.

Just as obesity would not be a problem if we all changed our lifestyles, so it is with salmon. Big changes are needed. The forces arrayed against either set of changes are huge; with salmon they include you and me, not just the “bad guys.” Salmon runs face damage to their freshwater existence by dams, channelization, irrigation, lumbering, and pollution. In saltwater they face estuary destruction, overfishing (of themselves and their prey), dredging and trawling effects, fish farms, and pollution.

All of these are responses to human desires. If by some miracle we all, even our politicians and businessmen, turned “green” and joined Audubon, we'd still have a problem. No matter how light our individual “footprints” become, they still are there. A “green” car is still a car, and vegetables do not grow in virgin forests.

In my lifetime we have added 160 million people to the United States and tripled Oregon's population. Add legal and illegal immigration to our “natural” growth and we add 4 million—another Oregon—to our collective footprint each year. If we won't stop that growth, anything else is a delaying action at best, and not just for salmon.

Harold Ettelt
Scottsburg, OR

Starting Over

It was edifying to read about the GreenHouse Program that cultivates prisoners into nature stewards [“2nd Chances,” May-June]. Even some of the hardened criminals were transformed into wildlife advocates. The program recognizes people's goodness manifests itself when they are in communion with nature, experiencing the interconnectedness of all species.

Brien Comerford
Glenview, IL

Re “2nd chances”: Other than the Martha Stewarts of the world, we hear little of what goes on behind concertina-topped fences. We get our stereotypes from television and the movies. Nature is a form of redemption, and we can comfortably say that, in some small way, these people aren't really too different from us.

Doug Renfro
via e-mail

Corrections

The March-April Migrations (“Red Alert”) reported that the Apalachicola National Forest is the largest national forest east of the Mississippi River. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests are bigger. In the May-June Migrations (“Rocky Redoubt”) the Channel Islands song sparrow and the San Clemente spotted towhee were identified as species. They are actually subspecies.

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