Global warming on the front burner
Re “Forget the whales -- save the Earth,” Opinion, April 21
Hal Clifford anticipates that efforts to address global warming will make environmentalism irrelevant. This is like welcoming quadruple-bypass surgery because it will distract your doctor from reminding you to eat less and exercise more. For decades, environmentalists have presented us with a unified message: Life on this planet depends on the delicate balance of our ecosystem. Had we fully embraced their efforts to protect the habitats of individual endangered species, perhaps the knowledge gained could be helping us save our own now.
Instead, decades of trivializing environmentalists (does the term “tree-hugger” sound funny anymore?) by people who think as Clifford does have left us unprepared for this looming crisis.
TIM BRADLEY
Pasadena
*
Clifford’s thesis that the specter of global warming makes all other environmental issues irrelevant is suspect. Imagine a world in which we have successfully reduced greenhouse gases but neglected to conserve endangered species, clean up toxic waste, preserve open space, promote sustainable growth or protect wilderness.
The new environmentalism will not be defined by a single issue but by our growing awareness of the complexity of all natural systems, and by the need to address numerous problems. Instead of making past environmental issues moot, as Clifford argues, global warming makes them more compelling.
SETH SHTEIR
Sherman Oaks
*
To the contrary, rampant human population growth still trumps all other environmental issues, including global climate change. Put simply, the ravages of overpopulation will continue to devastate vital ecosystems and lead to the fall of modern civilization long before global climate change has a chance to warm up.
As for whales, they make good sushi.
J.W. MILLER
McKinleyville, Calif.
*
If whatever created the universe is sentient, it must have watched with wry amusement as hominids evolved into primitive humans who personalized atmospheric events and created gods to ameliorate their direr consequences. So, too, its amusement must continue as it observes the desperate campaign to halt global warming.
But we should not be hopeless about the fate of our species. Evolution will lead it toward those variants that will be best adapted to survive the direr consequences of global warming. And if our species produces no such variants, then the extinction that follows will, in its turn, be followed by the evolution of whatever does survive into species of greater adaptability to the Earth. Or not. Evolution goes on forever.
DONALD SCHWARTZ
Los Angeles
