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Tuesday, June 18,1991
The Battalion
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It has now been confirmed that tropical
rainforests are disappearing at the rate of
not one, but one and a half acres per
second. An incomprehensibly bad thing
[ officially just got worse.
Everyone knows by now why
rainforests are important, but not enough
about solutions to stop deforestation. The
S good news is there are many things you
[can do to save the rainforests. Here are
I some of the ways you can help.
O In the U.S. — A ridiculous, illegal
and U.S. taxpayer-subsidized geothermal
energy project in Hawaii is threatening a
| large expanse of rainforest with many
endangered species. Write to Governor
;; John Waihee, State Capitol, Honolulu,
| Hawaii 96813. Tell him rainforest
I protection begins at home.
□ In Texas (sort of) — Texas Crude
Inc. wants to explore for oil in the Pacaya-
iSamiria National Reserve of the Peruvian
Amazon. This violates Peru's recently
enacted Environmental Code, and
threatens the nearly extinct Amazon
manatee. Contact Charles Weiner, CEO,
Texas Crude, Inc., 801 Travis St., Suite
2100, Houston, Texas 77002.
University of Texas President Bill
Cunningham is a board member and
stockholder in Freeport McMoRan. FM
was the EPA's number one polluter in
1988, has an exclusive 10-year mineral
exploration contract in the Irian Jaya,
Indonesia rainforests, and is sponsoring
the UT geological study in Irian Jaya.
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You can also make a
difference. Remember, we
are all connected to the
earth and to each other.
Ira Gen: —
ie "Funr The administration of Indonesia's
Cay!" k brutal dictator. General Suharto, has
'Mayfaii Ivowed that Irian Jaya's indigenous
Mayfair people "will, in the long run, disappear."
t Lad' Write to William Cunningham,
et Lilli President, University of Texas at Austin,
P.O. BoxT, Austin, Texas 78713.
Texas A&M could enhance the global
environmental movement to halt
deforestation by ending its annual
bonfire. The bonfire violates Texas air
pollution law, and reportedly does not
always get trees from land already
designated to be cleared, according to
informaton uncovered by Aggies Against
Bonfire. Texas A&M should also dismiss
the State Forester, Bruce Miles, who
advocates clearcutting and wears a "Save
A Logger, Eat An Owl" T-shirt.
Bryan resident Patrick Childers (846-
1891) is working to create a natural
habitat preserve for Jamaican parrots in
Jamaica.
[31 In your home — Use domestic
instead of tropical woods. Do not use
mahogany, teak (sales support the brutal
Burmese dictatorship), rosewood, ebony
or luan for paneling, flooring or
furniture. Choose oak, pine, birch, maple
or cherry instead.
Don't even think about buying a
tropical bird, which are often endangered
or die during transport. Don't use
disposable wood chopsticks.
□ Support the Rainforests Action
Network — RAN is the premiere
rainforest watchdog and action group.
RAN consistently puts rainforest
protection first, and its own image last.
Please support this organization and
take part in tneir monthly action alerts:
Rainforest Action Network, 301
Broadway, Suite A, San Francisco, Calif.
94133, phone: 415-398-4404.
□ Boycott — Mitsubishi (cars, trucks,
TVs, stereos, VCRs, Kirin Beer, Nikon
cameras), Georgia-Pacific (timber, Mr.
Big, Coronet and Delta paper products)
and Weyerhauser (timber and 70 percent
of the disposable diaper market) are all
major players in the international tropical
timber trade.
This industry accounts for at least 25
percent of rainforest destruction
worldwide-about 12.5 million acres
annually. There are currently no provable
examples of truly sustainable timber
extraction.
□ Conserve Oil — Exxon, Chevron,
Mobil, CONOCO, Texaco and Shell now
control more than 400,000 square miles of
Sumatra, a beautiful Indonesian island
with hundreds of unique species found
nowhere else. CONOCO is assaulting
the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.
Drive less, carpool, recycle plastics and
consume less in general.
□ Fight International Lending Policies
—The World Bank is forever loaning U.S.
taxpayer's money for the most
destructive development projects
imaginable, including huge hydroelectric
dams and roads in the Amazon. Write to
Lewis T. Preseon, President, World
Bank, 1818 H St., N. W„ Washington,
D.C. 20433.
□ Buy for the rainforest — Brazil nuts,
sustainably harvested cashew nuts and
fruit are available from Cultural Survival,
Rainforest Products, 11 Divinity Ave.,
Cambridge, Mass., 53704, phone: 617-
494-2562.
□ Use recycled paper— Each year the
U.S. imports over 800 million pounds of
paper pulp from the Amazon alone. One
good source is Earth Care Paper
Company, P.O. Box 3335, Madison,
Wis., 53704, phone: 608-256-5522.
0 Don't eat fast food hamburgers —
Or any burgers for that matter. One
quarter pound hamburger equals 55
square met of cleared rainforest. The U.S.
imports over 120 million pounds of fresh
and frozen beef yearly from Central
America. All low grades of canned beef.
some pet foods and frozen beef are also
suspect. Rainforest beef is a particularly
obscene way to eat away our future.
0 Work for peace — Agent Orange
destroyed rainforests in Vietnam. U.S.
military aid to El Salvador, Nicaragua and
Guatemala has destroyed much
rainforest. The U.S. military itself
destroyed Costa Rican rainforest
constructing a so-called "Road For
Peace," and may return to continue
building it.
During Bush's invasion of Iraq, 5,000
acres of coastal Atlantic rainforest
disappeared when higher gasoline and
cooking oil prices forced rural Brazilians
to return to the use of wood for cooking.
0 Don't use drugs — Cocaine is grown
on cleared rainforest, aids political
corruption and brutal military regimes,
finances the CIA and pollutes during its
processing. The "war on drugs" was
used by the U.S. as a pretext for giving
military aid to Columbia.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is
using paraquat, 2, 4-D and 2,4,5-T in
Guatemala to destroy marijuana and
opium fields. The June 1991 International
Press Review reports the presence of U.S.
forces in Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia
ostensibly to find alternative crops to
cocoa leaves in anti-drug campaigns,
have drawn protests because of frequent
U.S. involvement in counter-insurgency
wars.
0 Break the "Circle of Poison" — U.S.
companies legally export cancer-causing
pesticides banned from use in the U.S. to
rainforest countries for agricultural
exports, which then end up back in the
U.S. on imported food. A bill preventing
this is being introduced in Congress.
Write your members of the U.S.
Congress.
0 Get active — Read books and watch
rainforest videos. Educate yourself and
others about tropical rainforests. Help
locally through the Texas Environmental
Action Coalition.
Get your city and state governments to
ban rainforest woods in public buildings.
Write letters. Donate money to RAN.
Pass this column around to others.
PROTEST!
Taking action does work. Faber-Castell
Corp. recently announced it will stop
using rainforest wood in its products.
This is the result of pressure from school
children and activists. You can also make
a difference. Remember, we are all
connected to the earth and to each other.
This connection makes it both possible
and mandatory for us to initiate positive
changes. The extensive human rights
abuses of indigenous peoples who live in
the rainforests is yet another compelling
reason to take action for rainforests now.
Make saving rainforests a priority of
yours, starting today and every day.
Future generations of countless human
and non-human species will thank you.
Michael Worsham is a graduate student
in environmental engineering.
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I would like to take comment with John
C. McCoy's column! titled "Veteran de
fends Operation Desert Storm." While
McCoy asserts that Michael Worsham did
not do his homework, it is clear that Mi
chael did research his article and McCoy
did not research his rebuttal.
First, McCoy states that he was in
Saudi Arabia from October 1990 until
April 1991.
Since he was disputing Michael's de
scription of the U.S. government assault
on mainstream media during this time,
how could he comment on the U.S. me
dia when he was in Saudi Arabia? Did he
have all of the mainstream newspapers
delivered to him in Saudi Arabia? Did he
watch ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC news
casts every night?
He stated tnat Michael "implied" that
the U.S. started the oil fires, when Mi
chael was reiterating a positin advanced
by J. Vialls, an international oil consul
tant in the The Guardian (Australia).
While Saddam Hussein did the issue a
threat to set the Kuwaiti oil wells on fire,
he also issued a threat to use chemical
weapons, but no Iraqi chemical weapons
were found in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
I would not put it past the U.S. to capital
ize on this Iraqi threat.
McCoy states that "very few (oil wells),
if any, were hit by our bombs." The U.S.
admits to hitting 30 percent of the oil
wells. (Earth Island Journal, Spring 1991,
p. 50).
McCoy comments that no bomb craters
were found near the oil wells. This is
probably true because high explosives
tend to deplete the oxygen in the vicinity
of the explosion, thus greatly decreasing
the chance of igniting the oil.
Oil well fire fighting companies use
high explosives to extinguisn oil well
fires. Napalm, phosphorous, and ther
mite incendiary bombs do not contain
high explosives and do not produce crat
ers. On Feb. 16 American Marine AV8B
Harrier gound attack aircraft started fly
ing missions which lasted one week into
Kuwait with napalm. (The Guardian, op.
cit.) On Feb. 22 President Bush accused
Iraqi forces of igniting more than 140 oil
wells in Kuwait. It is questionable how
the Iraqi's troops were confined to bunk
ers.
McCoy states that anti-personnel
mines were buried around the oil wells,
despite the fact that OGE Drilling, Inc. an
American company, "refuted previous
U.S. military reports that all the well
heads were surrounded by minefields
and therefore inaccessible." (The Guard
ian, op. cit.) More important, both OGE
and Boots and Coots, a Houston oil serv
ice company, stated that 90 percent of the
buring oil wells in the Rumaila oil field lie
within Iraqi territory.
If Iraq had ignited the oil wells, why
would they have ignited their own wells?
The evidence points that the U.S. and al
lies probably ignited the oil wells.
Other information also suggests U.S.
involvement in igniting the oil wells. The
White House has continued to limit the
debate on the effects of the oil well fires
by placing a gag order on the war's envi
ronmental impact.
Patrick Dixon
Reader’s Opinion
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) researchers
were ordered to withhold satellite images
and other information on the gulf after
the war ended. (Scientific American, May
1991, p.24) A NOAA spokesperson be
lieves the restriction "was related to de
mands for reparations expected to result
from the war."
McCoy states that most of the world's
oil field fire fighting equipment is already
in the gulf and tells Micnael to read the
papers. It is McCoy who should read the
papers to get his story straight.
Red Adair, the foremost authority on
oil well fire fighting, recently stated "bu
reaucratic bungling in the emirate (Ku
wait) has slowed the flow of heavy equip
ment to his crews" and "much of the
equipment that has arrived is second ra
te." (Houston Chronicle, 6/12/91, IB)
The satellite photograph published in
the St. Petersburg Times (1/6/91, 9A) was
independently analyzed by two experts,
one a former employee of the Defense In
telligence Agency, and the other a nu
clear physicist at George Washington
University. Both of them concluded that
no Iraqi positions were visible, while in
Saudi Arabia, the entrenched allied
forces near the Kuwaiti border were
clearly visible.
The St. Petersburg Times tried to get
UPI and AP to carry the article, but both
news agencies said it was not "news
worthy". A photo which shows that one
of the main reasons for this war was false
is not news worthy? The Times ques
tioned the Pentagon about the photo, but
it had not comment. McCoy said that the
satellite images were enough to convince
King Fahd (sic) to ask U.S. help. Did it oc
cur to McCoy that our intelligence agen
cies are experts in photo altering or per
haps the U.S.'s $7 billion debt
forgiveness to Saudi Arabia might have
convinced King Fahd.
McCoy questions Michael's informa
tion on the effectiveness of "smart"
bombs; however, according to military
analysts and congressional sources, va
rious factors caused smart bombs to miss
their targets about 40 percent of the time.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/11/91, 12A) A
U.S. Air Force general said conventional
bombs missed their targets 70 percent of
the time. (Earth Island Journal, op. cit.)
McCoy sums up his reply by "it is ob
vious to me that you have a lot to learn
about the world we live in." I think it is
McCoy who must learn about the world
instead of believing just what our govern
ment wants him and us to believe. I en
courage McCoy and others to critically
analyze information presented by gov
ernments, because as the war historian
Clauswitz said, "Truth is the first cas
ualty of war."
Mark A. Fletcher,Graduate Student
Mobley fan shows support
EDITOR:
I wanted you to know there are those of us who
strongly disagree with your bias viewpoint about how
wrong President Mobley's decisions was regarding the dis
crimination handbook. I admire President Mobley and am
saddened when I see articles and cartoons condemning
him.
More power to ya' President Mobley. Continue to do
what is right. Contrary to popular and Battalion belief,
there are many who support you. God bless you and God
bless Texas A&M.
Sally C. Brown
Woman pleads guilty to PMS
EDITOR:
I just finished reading in the Bryan-College Station Ea
gle that in Fairfax, Virginia, General District Court Judge
Robert Smith ruled "not guilty" to a DWI case. Reason:
PMS. For those of you who haven't heard the story, here it
is.
Dr. Geraldine Richter was pulled over because her car
was weaving back and forth, causing other cars to move
out of her way. After the trooper pulled her over, he saw
that she had her three children in the car and said that they
might have to be put in protective custody.
She then reacted violently, using vulgar language and
kicking the trooper. When given the Breathalizer test, she
registered a 0.13% blood aclcohol level. She even openly
admitted later that she had four glasses of wine at a party
earlier that evening. But conveniently enough, the defense
was able to come up with a $1,000 to pay a gynecologist,
"an expert witness", to testify that her behavior was simi
lar to that exhibited by a woman suffering from PMS. So
the judge ruled "not guilty" of drunken driving. What a
crock!
Women's Lib sure has come a long way. PMS is defined
as a group of physical and emotional symptoms such as fa
tigue, depression and irritability, that can occur before
menstruation. So whats the big deal. Sounds just like a
hangover or the feeling you have after you pull an "all-
nighter" and still do bad on your test.
I guess they should enact a new law that forbids driving
while under the influence of PMS. So it's not really women
drivers that make me so mad, it's their PMS. Maybe they
can really drive and the ones I've encountered were
"under the influence."
This lady could have killed somone, as well as herself
and her kids, and she blames it on PMS. I can just hear it
now; "Gee officer, I didn't mean to shoot him, it's just that
I'm having a really bad day." Well, if it's that bad, then
don't drive. As a matter of fact, even if it's not that bad,
don't drive.
Steve Conrad '92