DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: 100 Earth-Saving Letters ...

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: 100 Earth-Saving Letters by Mark Davenport (Citadel: $12.95). As fewer and fewer people write letters in this era of instantaneous electronic communications, Davenport has prepared a volume of prewritten letters, perforated and ready to mail to government officials and corporate officers, urging them to act on a variety of ecological issues. Letter-writing may be a dying art, but Davenport’s well-intentioned samples do little to revive it. He wastes far too many words explaining to people who already know that the ozone layer is being depleted, that too many pesticides are being dumped into the environment and that American cars are inefficient. More effective letters would stress that the recipients stand to lose votes and/or business if these wasteful practices aren’t curtailed.