Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 10, 1993 TAG: 9309110273
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
President Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps planted more than 2 billion trees in seven years. Government had to do it because lumbermen were decimating our forests. Today, lumbermen are complaining about environmental restrictions.
Tobacco is killing thousands, yet the tobacco people complain about restrictions. Guns proliferate, yet gun people complain about restrictions.
The Supreme Court, in the `60s, decided, in effect, that certain pornography was OK if it ``had a redeeming social value.'' This opened the floodgates to the sex and violence we see today in art, books, television and movies. Teen-age pregnancy, diseases and crime now proliferate.
Simple arithmetic shows that with a rapidly expanding population and finite resources, we are, indeed, ``painting ourselves into a corner.'' A current example of how things will be without restrictions is Haiti, where people risk drowning to leave. Eighty percent of its land is now unusable. The water supply is polluted and dangerously low. Trees are disappearing because the people need wood for cooking in order to survive.
The Catch-22 in all this is that if we expand our economy, our resources will eventually disappear. If we use restrictions to save the resources, prevent ozone depletion, etc., we'll hinder economic expansion. And, of course, the population will continue to increase.
If any of your readers can find a way out of this dilemma, let them speak.
JACK E. BYRD
HARDY
by CNB