Scientific Fire

It occurred to me on Dec. 12 we were squandering 500 acres of precious national forest that the tragi-comedy of man’s inhumanity to himself never seems to lose its momentum.

The purpose of the fire at Los Angeles National Forest was to analyze the apocalyptic theory of nuclear winter. Who honestly cares what will be the precise degree of destruction to our planet if we decide to incinerate it with nuclear weapons? Is it not sufficient to know that the resulting damage from a nuclear war, limited or not, will destroy all life as we know it?

It is ironic that the security measures we take to protect ourselves from our communist foe never take into account the effects of those measures on our one true ally--Mother Nature. How much more of our moronic masochistic mauling can she handle? On top of our meddling with nuclear weapons we strip our forests, we rape our land of its top soils, we pump our atmosphere and water full of chemicals, and all of the effects of this carnage is the legacy we leave behind for our children.

And what are we doing about all this? We are spending vast amounts of our resources, time, and energy fretting about the loss of our system of free enterprise with a possible invasion of the communist bogyman, the health of the stock market, and how to keep our cholesterol levels down . . . to name but a few of our pet preoccupations.

The sad truth is, we have but one real enemy, and “it” is “us.”

MAGGIE MURPHY

Santa Monica