Water Scarcity, Air Quality

The Times (April 21) carried two more depressing articles on the destruction of the environment and the erosion of our quality of life. Bill Stall’s piece on long-term water shortages in California (Part A) and Cecilia Rodriguez’s piece on mega-air pollution in Mexico City (Opinion) could be linked to show how resource depletion and pollution have become a global affliction on rich and poor alike in this last decade of the 20th Century.

Although both journalists gave due credit to population growth and density as factors, neither used the term “overpopulation” or mentioned population planning as necessary or even desirable means for dealing with the catastrophes so alarmingly described. To be sure, building more aqueducts and using technology to reduce pollution are essential, but unless and until we stabilize or even reduce population on this planet, we will continue to put at risk not only the quality of life, but also the very conditions needed to sustain any life at all. Leadership on this vital issue must come from our elected leaders and from the media; from journalists like Stall and Rodriguez.

JAMES W. VALENTINE, Woodland Hills