Letter to the editor

May 2,2008

Editor's note: the following condensed letter is in response to David Shorr's "Speaking Out" column, which ran in the April 19 CBT.

Dear Editor:
With all due respect to you and your opinion, I feel compelled to reply to your comments concerning the environment. I find your smug humor to be condescending to all living things on our fine planet.

Guilt, I agree, is not the way to motivate people, and shaming them is even less effective. The important thing to stress here is that our environment, whether you choose to blame on it global warming or the Easter bunny, is in dire straits. We as a nation—and people of all nations throughout the world—simply cannot sustain the current levels of pollution or abuse and wastefulness of natural resources infinitely. At some point, the inevitability of total depletion and degradation will happen.

Why wouldn't we, as rational, intelligent human beings, support the notion of conscious and voluntary reductions in consumption? Why shouldn't we be more aware of our carbon footprints? Of course people aren't going to stop vacationing, but … limiting ourselves to fewer costly leisure activities is not a terrible price to pay. How many people in developing nations do you think complain about not being able to fly to their favorite vacation spots? For many people, finding water and food for daily sustenance is a challenge, and the realty is that many of those same people are forced to face those issues because of environmental degradation.

What lesson are you imparting to us? Are we to scoff at conventional wisdom by guilting the ocean? Unfortunately, you fail to accept that the ocean is simply following the natural processes which make our world livable. It's the addition of man-made pollutants that have sacrificed the integrity of a sustainably livable planet. That seems obvious enough to me, as it would to any average elementary school student. Why, then, would a lawyer who practices environmental law find it laughably unrealistic?

Finally, the simple fact that the Columbia Business Times would publish such nonsense as your commentary is offensive. We only have one planet, and your hiding behind your conservatism and lack of respect for so-called "tree-huggers" by using crafty and coy sentences does not change the fact that you are denying that there are any problems that need to be addressed. Just a little pragmatism and common sense should tell you it's not a partisan issue.

Brian P. Davis