A realistic economy. (Letters to the editor).

I read Lester Brown's article "An Economy for the Earth" in the May/June 2002 issue with interest--and with some disappointment.

Of course, he's right that a "deteriorating environment will eventually hurt the economy." But his use of eventually underscores the problem that, so long as the argument over transforming away from fossil fuels reduces to concern about climate change in the future against traditional economists' claims of immediate damage to the economy, there will be little movement. As evidence in the United States, the energy bills in conference committee give new meaning to the phrase "garbage in, garbage out."

The costs--not in the future but right now--are staggering yet all but ignored. There is the enormous, if not easily quantifiable, cost of death, disease, and personal days of restricted activity and work loss. There is the cost of billions of dollars spent each year on government subsidies for support of health-threatening (and planet-threatening) fuels, and billions more on policing the Persian Gulf. Brown need not worry so much about "transforming an economy shaped largely by market forces into one shaped by the principles of ecology." Market forces might be extremely effective if the cost analysis is done honestly, scientifically, and humanely.

Albert Huebner Canoga Park, CA