LETTERS: ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

To the editor:

The right wing me-firsters of the Dole/Kemp/Gingrich campaign need some lessons to help them remedy the economic naivete that they profess, and are using to try to suck in what they hope is a gullible electorate. They are forgetting several economic realities that will control our destiny:* Our economic wealth is based on the natural systems and natural resources that we use, mine, and harvest. These resources produce the goods upon which our material wealth is based and provide us with the water, air, food and fiber that we need to survive. If we destroy these resources by mismanaging and overexploiting them for short-term exonomic gain (as the current Republican Congress has sought to do), we will destroy any hope for a sustainable future and continued economic well-being. Only if we manage these resources wisely, prudently and with real conservatism can the rich natural resources and natural systems of the planet sustain human health, environmental health and the economic wealth that we have grown to enjoy.* Without appropriate regulations defending human and environmental health, our current economic system demands that businesses over-exploit resources and use our precious air and water resources as depositories for their waste. Just as the airline industry (pressed by economic constraints to reduce safety programs) needs regulations that require it to maintain passenger safety and level the playing field at a safe plateau for responsible and ruthless companies alike, so all industries, pressed by the economic system to overexploit and pollute, need regulations to maintain equivalent environmentally safe behavior among competing companies. * If the Dole/Kemp/Gingrich crowd manages to convince the electorate that a focus on immediate gain, tax cuts, mindless deregulation and short-term profits at the expense of the future is preferable to sanity in this election, naive economics will have won, and future generations will have lost.

Unfortunately in permitting much of the Republican War on the Environment to pass without using his veto often enough, President Clinton has failed to live up to the promise that surrounded his election and the early weeks of his administration. For that reason, many of those who defend human and environmental health are not overly enthusiastic about the Clinton record and candidacy.

However, the atrocious track record of Senator Dole and the Republican Congress has made what used to be non-partisan issues clearly partisan in this election year. The Perot approach of "rape, pillage and plunder" is clearly as bad or worse. For voters wishing to see the next four years produce sane policies protecting human and environmental health, the current crop of greedy and exploiter-controlled Republicans must be turned out of office. The Republican nominee, the candidate who isn't sure that tobacco is a drug in need of strong regulation, the candidate who led the war on the environment in the Senate, should not be allowed to gain the White House. The case for the re-election of the Clinton/Gore ticket has been well-made by opponents with appalling records and attitudes.

ALAN JOURNET

Cape Girardeau