LETTERS FROM OUR READERS.

We welcome your letters

Please type letters double-spaced, and include your full name and address and a daytime phone number. Mail to: E Magazine/ Advice and Dissent, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881, or send them to [e-mail], our e-mail address.

ALL POWERED UP

I found "Power for the People" by Sally Deneen (cover story, March/April 2000) to be an intriguing and mind-opening article. I applaud the Clean Energy Now! campaign's focus on renewable energy, which is one of the best things we can do to conserve our fossil fuels and help save the environment at the same time. This is one of the main messages of Earth Day and hopefully it got through to a whole lot of people on April 22.

However, the campaign misses the big picture. What is going to be done about all the pollution that is out there right now? Our over-polluted air and oceans need immediate attention and action. Every year, millions and millions of fish, dolphins and other cetaceans die from the pollution that has been dumped on them. Cleaning up that pollution will benefit humans as well. The overwhelming rates of lung cancer, respiratory problems and allergies will go down dramatically.

Tina Kamely Ellicott City, MD

SULFATE SUSPICIONS

A word of caution regarding Ben Chadwicks tacit endorsement of sulphonated fatty acids (SLS/SLES) and other detergent foaming agents (Ask E, March/April 2000).

About 100 years ago, society began creating new and specialized molecules, often petrochemically derived, and we poured these into the air, water, food supply and onto our bodies. Among these now vastly distributed molecular groups are the detergent family, including SLS.

As a $20 billion yearly business, there is huge vested interest in promoting the safety of these foaming agents, which I believe to be dangerous. I am often appalled at the "everyone is doing it, and the industry spokesperson told me it was safe so it must be OK" attitude. Detergents did not exist 100 years ago. Now we are told they are perfectly safe to clean our dishes, wash our clothes and our food, and to help foam our beer.

Studies by the University of Oslo, Norway clearly indicate gum irritation and retardation of healing with gum disease. An ex-Johnson & Johnson executive spoke to me of tests performed in Italy nearly 40 years ago on infant lab rats. According to this source, 50 percent of the rats had permanent eye damage. According to the American Opthamology Association, 50 percent of us will require assistance to our vision in our lifetimes. Is this because the human eye is still evolving? Or because some basic substance that touches every one of us has long-term side effects hitherto unexplored?

There are all kinds of people. Those who accept the status quo, those who compromise their principles and those who dedicate themselves to creating and supporting sustainable alternatives.

Larry Plesent, President Vermont Soapworks Middlebury, Vermont

OUR AUTO ADDICTION

An acquaintance recently handed me the November/December 1999 issue of E Magazine. "You'll like this one, it's right on and doesn't have car ads" (way to go!).

I eagerly read the article "Bad Air Days." It stated as one solution: "We can buy cleaner cars, and let auto makers know that we care about what's coming out of the tailpipe." That's an environmental solution? What about the environmental destruction caused by the manufacturing of these "clean cars"? What about sprawl and the more than 42,000 Americans killed a year by automobiles? What about noise pollution and all the plants and land continuously being paved over for more roads? What about road rage and road kill?

The U.S. currently has more cars than registered drivers. The E article stated: "Since 1969, the U.S. vehicle population has grown six times faster than the human population ... over the past 30 years, vehicle miles traveled have gone up 116 percent." Even if every one of these cars was "clean," is this environmentally acceptable?

When will environmentalists band together and just say NO to American's automobile addiction? We need to advocate real solutions, such as one car-free day per week and sustainable, healthy transportation like bicycling, mass transit and car sharing.

I agree with Jane Holtz Kay, author of Asphalt Nation, that the environmental movement is too weak; you can't call yourself an environmentalist unless you do something to curb the automobile. The automobile industry, with its multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns, have taken Americans for a ride long enough! It's time to reject the automobile as the dominant mode of transport. And time for environmentalists to lead the way to true environmentally friendly transportation solutions.

Donna Merlina Bellingham, Washington

NO SOY-LUTION

The statement that all non-meat foods, especially, veggie burgers, are "not the health risk of the real thing" ("Where's the Beef?," Consumer News, November/ December 1999) is misleading to people who want to eat healthily. Even our "no-risk health foods" are not safe.

Consumer Reports has found genetically engineered ingredients in several soy burgers, including Boca Burger Chef Max's Favorite, Morningstar Farms Better 'n Burgers, and Green Giant Harvest Burgers (a.k.a. Morningstar Farms Harvest Burgers). The only way we can assure healthy food is to buy only organically grown food from farms we have thoroughly investigated. And most important, tell our government we want to know everything about all foods that are provided for us.

If biotech companies really thought that their products were so safe and life-giving to the entire world, they would be shouting it and labeling everything: "Buy me, I'm genetically engineered. I'm good for you and the environment." Instead, they are lobbying aggressively to keep the public from knowing which foods are engineered. Hmm. Is there a correlation with certain tobacco companies?

A.E. Frank Kirkland, WA

BACK-ISSUE BLUES

After a friend recommended your magazine, I decided to check out your website. I was impressed with much of what I saw, until I read some of the archived articles about population. As a woman, as an environmentalist and as a person who believes in avoiding unhealthy chemicals, I cannot agree with the zero-population-growth agenda of contraceptives for everyone I found there, and was alienated by the none-too-subtle disdain for the Catholic Church.

I am offended by the arrogance and insulting tone taken toward those who reject the contraceptive mentality. I am repelled by the rush (in the articles, and the letters printed in following issues) to demonize principled people of conscience, as "hard right-wingers" out to "rob women of their reproductive rights." And I am heartily disappointed at the absolute lack of objectivity or an attempt at understanding. The idea of preserving the planet, but only for those we deem worthy of life, is one which I find thoroughly repugnant. And the idea of wasteful developed nations pushing disease-causing chemical contraceptives (birth control pills, Norplant, etc.) on developing countries (as if those countries were the source of pollution, global warming and our mounting landfill problem) is sickening to me.

I'd thought about subscribing to E Magazine, but find that I cannot, in good conscience, fund this sort of propagandizing. Ugh.

Jennifer Maloney Farmington, MN

TAKING ACTION

I was doing a research project on endangered species when I came across your article entitled "The Fight for Endangered Species: The Last of Their Kind" (May/June 1999). I never would have thought that there could be so many animals becoming extinct. The article made me angry--these poor animals have just as much right to live on this planet as we do, and I feel that I need to do something to help. Soon I will be leaving to study wild dolphins in Australia and hope only to find good news.

Tiffany A. Reed Roanoke, IN