Growing Greed: You Reap What You Sow

I awoke on Sunday as I have for many mornings worrying about the state of the world. I remembered when the San Fernando Valley was still a place to go horseback riding, when Thousand Oaks still had thousands of oaks, when the beaches didn’t need daily sweeping and when a drive to Palm Springs was a ride through the country. And I haven’t hit 50 yet. I thought about the thousands of acres of forest being cut down daily so that we can have nice lawn furniture, cheap beef and plentiful toilet paper. And then I saw the Nov. 25 article, “Paying Price of Growth in Inland Empire.”

When will we recognize that the use of the word “growth” for pillaging the environment and making the world a far less beautiful place to live for the next 20 generations is simply wrong word usage. The correct word for this is “greed”; hence a more truthful headline for this piece would have been “Paying the Price of Greed in Inland Empire.”

Richard Grossman

Santa Monica