Limiting Growth in the Southland

It’s always shocking to see evil unmasked, as it was in Richard L. Weiss’ article (“No-Growth Overreaction Can Sink the Southland,” Op-Ed Page, Nov. 18) in which he argued against growth limitations. He wrote, “Unlike gold or some other fungible commodities, land has no intrinsic value.” Even after looking up “fungible” in the dictionary I was still disturbed by that sinister and revealing sentence.

Weiss has it backward. It is gold that has only the value man arbitrarily assigns. Land, also known as the earth, is the wellspring of life. Weiss is a spokesman for hungry developers who see the earth as something “with no intrinsic value” to be exploited and disposed of, not as something to be treated kindly, like a friend we depend on. He tries to frighten us with the specter of unemployed construction workers, just as the right wing tries to frighten us with the image of communist hordes roving northward toward our borders like killer bees. Baloney!

It is ironic that the same edition of The Times carried a story reporting that 220 species of animals and 600 plant species in California are threatened with extinction. Overdevelopment poses a greater threat to life on earth than nuclear war.

PETER COONRADT

Redlands