Defense of Bush’s Record Contains a Lot of Hot Air

Re “Bush Faces Hostile Environment,” Commentary, Oct. 14: Gregg Easterbrook iterates lengthy accomplishments in water and air quality, pollution control, etc., over recent decades as evidence that President Bush’s environmental policies are not so bad. How, pray tell, does Bush get credit for this? This administration’s policies passed in the last two years have reversed the very laws, supported on both sides of the aisle, by which these gains have been made. This rah-rah justification for Bush’s policy is false advertising.

Jim McKay

Oakland

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So Bush needs to be applauded for bowing to inevitable progress on diesels and other gross polluters -- in case he gets discouraged and becomes even more hostile to environmental progress. And he should get a pass for generally being an environmental menace, because he has succeeded in only slowing down progress instead of throwing it into reverse as he’d like ... and after all, things are getting better generally, so we shouldn’t get too fussed. Easterbrook might as well say we ought to go easy on crime -- and criminals -- because felonies are on the decline. That’s not the message this administration needs to hear.

Denis Slattery

Newbury Park

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Easterbrook repeats many of the same obvious lies that industry has been trying to sell for years. “The forested acreage of the United States has been expanding, not contracting, for more than a decade, and continues to expand under Bush.” This is the sort of statement often offered by the logging industry to try to convince the public that monoculture tree farms are just as good as natural forests. Dreary stands of Douglas fir provide little habitat for native species and, in comparison to the amazing diversity of natural forests, are practically devoid of life. No one wants to take a pleasant walk in a tree farm.

Another false statement is that logging is “one of the few endlessly sustainable industries.” An observant visitor to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula will quickly see that sustainable forestry is a myth. There the tree farms are signed, showing when the trees were planted and how many times they’ve been harvested. The second growth doesn’t look too bad, but the third growth is yellow, scrawny and stunted. It’s hard to believe there can ever be a fourth growth. Tree farms aren’t forests any more than wheat fields are prairies.

Robert W. Chadwick

Hollywood