Trees, Jobs and the Environment

After reading your article (April 1) I was reminded of Thoreau’s famous remark: “If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen” (“Life Without Principle”). It is always a questionable propaganda ploy to pit the interests of human beings against those of nature, as if the two were not identical!

Both jobs and the environment are important, but they are not necessarily antagonistic or mutually opposed, for there are other ways men can be employed than in trashing the lasts remaining bits of untainted wilderness areas in America. Homes can be constructed without wood, and paper can be made from hemp instead of wood pulp. Making a significant investment in solar energy, mass transportation systems and low-cost, alternative housing (such as prefabricated homes) can create more than enough jobs to employ displaced loggers. We can have our forests, our spotted owls and our jobs too if we care enough to preserve them all.

CHARLES B. EDELMAN

Los Angeles