Letters to the Editor
To the editor,
Every day, millions of children are getting more than just calcium with their glass of milk. Recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH, is an artificial chemical injected into cows to make them produce more milk. Unfortunately, it is linked to cancer in humans and causes antibiotic resistance to important medicines. Recently, Yoplait announced that it would no longer use milk with rBGH as it joins the growing list of businesses that have spoken out against this drug. But we need to protect our schools. The Child Nutrition Act will be reauthorized this year, and we must call upon U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to add language that clearly gives schools the right to buy rBGH-free milk. For more information, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.
Dear Editor,
I just picked up a copy of EarthWatch Ohio in the building I work in (200 Public Square, Cleveland, OH) outside the Critics food stand. It’s the first time I’ve seen this publication and am both excited and impressed! I did not know something like this existed in our area. I think the content is excellent, very informative and the suggestions for living a ‘greener’ life are practical. I was thrilled to see area businesses taking our environment seriously and to see local stores and websites where I can shop ‘green’. I look forward to the next issue. Thanks for doing your part to make the world a better place!
Sincerely,
Dear Editor,
I am dismayed at so called “environmentalists” who blatantly ignore the connection between eating animals and the environment. Factory farm waste is a major pollution issue. Each year in the U.S., confined farm animals produce almost 500 million tons of manure which is known to contaminate water supplies and harm air quality. Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified that one cause of recent increases in greenhouse gas emissions is due to the increased number of chickens raised for meat and egg production. Really want to help the environment? Reduce your consumption of meat and help bridge the gap between environmental concern and your dinner plate.
Best,
Dear Editor,
I would like to share some thoughts/information that you may feel worthy of passing along to your readers. We need to eliminate landfills because they harm the environment. They are the largest human contribution to methane emissions.
We could be producing energy from our solid waste and there is enough energy in solid waste to replace 25 percent of our gasoline usage.
There is a technology that can take any type of waste (except nuclear) and convert the non-organic materials to glassy, obsidian type stone that can be re-usable. It can take the organic portion and convert it into carbon, hydrogen rich synthetic gases that can be processed to make steam, electricity, ethanol, methanol and/or hydrogen.
Furthermore, this technology is environmentally friendly, and processing plants can be sized and located near the waste sources, which results in time and energy savings by not having to haul the waste far distances.
I should also mention that these plants would create good paying jobs, improve the environment, capture energy, reduce energy use from hauling waste far distances and extend the life of existing landfills.
Dear Stefanie,
Thank you very much for doing your newspaper targeted on protection of nature. I want to make sure your readers know about free paper junk mail opt-out services.
The first website offers free opt-out for credit cards applications and insurance at www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi. The second is the website of Direct Mail Association. It allows you to opt-out from most mail catalogs and other direct mailings at www.dmachoice.org/MPS/proto1.php.
Hello Stefanie and Readers,
I want to recommend the writings of David Helvarg, author of Blue Frontier: Savings America’s Living Seas, The War Against the Greens, and 50 Ways to Save the Oceans, with a foreward by Phillipe Cousteau. David is also the founder of the Blue Frontier Campaign which can be found at www.bluefront.org.
One suggestion from the 50 Ways to Save the Oceans book is to create wilderness parks under the sea. These areas are sometimes called marine protected areas. “As wilderness parks, these mo-take zones would exclude fishing, harvesting of sand and kelp, drilling for oil and gas, and other consumptive uses of the sea.” I think the Great Lakes should have a park area like this. They would be like our national
park system, where wilderness is fully protected.
50 Ways to Save the Oceans is described as the best book available on saving the oceans, and Blue Frontier is now in a Sierra Club edition. For more information, visit www.oceanrevolution.com.
Thanks,
Dear Editor,
EarthWatch’s reporting is doing a good job in intesifying our water consciousness, however, on the sensory level its logic cannot describe the gut wrenching filth humans recycle as fresh drinking water. A recent televsion program showed funeral morticians pumping formaldehyde into corpses and disposing of contaminated blood down the drain to the sewer system. The chronic diseases and unfilterable viruses of the dead are shared by all of us whether it come from a plastic bottle or a drinking glass.
We all worry about remaining healthy, but we all contribure to our own pollution and possible demise. We invariably realize that just consuming vitamins and exercising will not keep our children or us from cancer, heart disease, and mental and physical disorders since we have polluted our elixir of life. As it is, every kind of loathsome chemical and sewage is ingested daily.
Enjoying the rarity of fresh water from the Great Lakes, North Coast communities keep expanding their business, industrial and residential developments paying little heed to the quality and quantity of water supply and its delivery system. Therefore, it is imperative that we demand personal, local and federal accountability since water, not oil, is our most precious resouce. Let us take some meaningful preventative action before it is too late.
Dear Stefanie,
Never taking “no” for an answer, the mad drillers of Ohio’s gas and oil industry are once more prospecting in our state parks, and they are receiving encouragement from Democratic House Speaker Armond Budish of Beachwood. This is all being done under the excuse of bringing in revenue for Ohio’s bare coffers.
Such assaults on the integrity of Ohio’s public lands are a perennial noxious weed that sprouts every year on the state house lawn that has been rejected time after time. However, at a time when the economy and fiscal health of the public sector in Ohio are screaming, the attempt this year to throw our state parks under the bus may succeed.
That is why I am writing you to say that it time to pull weeds, starting with this proposal to allow drilling for natural gas and/or oil in our state parks. I encourage your readers to call, e-mail or write your house representative and speaker Budish. If you don’t know who you rep is go to:
www.house.state.oh.us. Copy any communications you make and send them to Rep. Budish at: district08@ohr.state.oh.us or
77 S. High St., 14th Floor, Columbus OH 43215 or call him at 614-466-5441. You may want to stress the following points:
• The integrity of our state parks, forests and nature preserves should be sacrosanct. If we are going to allow drilling in our state parks, then what is the use of even having state parks?
• The state parks and other public lands in Ohio are owned by the people of Ohio. How would the representative or Budish feel if we set up a drilling rig on their property?
A strong and forceful response to this outrage is required. Please act today and say to Budish and those who would degrade our public lands a very simple message: “Don’t even think about it!”
Thank you,