POLLUTION CAUSE vs. SOURCE
by Peter Moss

Thank you for printing John McClaughry's pro-polluter advocacy (7 Days, Letters, 7-17-02). Let us keep a small distinction in mind: the cause of global warming and environmental degradation is Mr. McLaughry and his Kyoto-resistant strain of profit-mad conservative lobbyists and thinktankers. The source of the pollution is of course the fossil and nuke plants, but not the cause. The cause is Mr. McClaughry and his conservative ilk. Big bucks are made by continuing environmental degradation by polluters and it strains credulity that the Kyoto-resistant strain does not benefit financially from advocating pollution. As for the "lack of scientific evidence" to support man-made global warming, I have not heard that bull since before Big Tobacco settled with the attorneys general. Yet in an odd way, Mr. McClaughry is right: the scientific evidence fingers the McClaughrys for causing global warming; the fossil and nuke plants are merely the source, not the cause. Small difference. But it qualifies Mr. Bush as polluter-in-chief. I will try to make that official if elected in 2004. At times it appears to me that the increasingly privatized schools inhibit thinking ability.