Letter writer's points refuted

To the editor:

Regarding Jennifer St.Clair's letter: This country, being the industrial and military superpower that we are, has some of the cleanest emissions in the world. The Kyoto Protocol was designed to hamstring our economy while exempting Third World countries like China.

Timber is a renewable resource. There are more trees growing today than at the turn of the century, thanks to "greedy" timber companies. Remember the wildfires out West a couple of years ago? Due to environmental policies like those advocated by St.Clair, the forest could not be thinned. Even Democrat Tom Daschle got legislation passed to prevent forest fires in South Dakota.

Regarding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, it's a frozen wasteland. The same argument was used in the 1970s to stop drilling on the North Slope: The poor caribou might become extinct. They thrived in the heat produced by the Alaska pipeline. Thank God for the "evil" oil companies for helping the caribou procreate more so the Alaska natives would have more to eat. The area that would be drilled is the equivalent of a newspaper on a football field -- less than 1 percent.

St.Clair should educate herself and read more than Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee's talking points.

WILLIAM TWAIN, Jackson