Bob La Trémouille reports:
On September 27, 2010, The Cambridge Chronicle published a letter on line supporting the world wide distribution of mercury containing light bulbs. I presume it is in the September 30, 2010 hard copy. I have not seen the paper yet.
The responses on line have been about 4 to 1 against splattering mercury around the world, particularly as some sort of way to “improve” the environment.
I submitted the following letter on September 28. The responses have been so broadly and intelligently critical of mercury distribution that I would anticipate the editor will have perfectly good letters to choose from. As a result, I anticipate that the editor will not need to print a letter from a person who has been published as much as I have.
So here is my response. The original may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x552736722/Letter-Column-on-CFLs-filled-with-inaccuracies.
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Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I see an “environmentalist” has written a letter supporting the massive distribution of a mercury containing product, a fancy light bulb. She says there is just a little mercury in each bulb. She neglects to mention the millions of bulbs she wants distributed or the amount and harm of the mercury in those millions of bulbs.
It is interesting watching these activists. I have yet to see a single one concerned about massive environmental destruction in their home city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
There is no concern about plans to destroy the excellent trees of the Alewife reservation for flood storage that belongs under a nearby massive parking lot. There is no concern about the ongoing destruction of perhaps thousands of trees at Fresh Pond. There is no concern about the plans for destruction of hundreds of excellent trees on Memorial Drive.
There is no concern about the ongoing dumping of poisons on Magazine Beach to feed introduced grasses which needs poisons to live. There is no concern about the perfectly healthy grass which survived most of a century without poisons and was destroyed for the sickly stuff. There is no concern that the only thing needed to return this environmentally responsible grass is to stop spending money on poisons and start spending money on responsible grass seed. There is no concern about the major destruction of playing fields to create a drainage system to drain off poisons that should not be dumped on the banks of the Charles.
There is no concern about the introduced wall of bushes walling off the Charles from Magazine Beach by a government which twice a year destroys all other vegetation bordering the Charles, and which has bragged that the introduced vegetation starves the 30 year resident Charles River White Geese. There is no concern that the responsible approach to this introduced wall is to chop it down like the environmentally protective vegetation is regularly chopped down.
There is no concern about the excess environment damage and animal harm in the BU Bridge project or the refusal to remediate because the governments want to destroy all animals living on the first ten miles of the Charles.
But there is loads of support for splattering mercury all over our world in millions of light bulbs which replace perfectly functional light bulbs.
I think these “environmentalists” should change sides.
I think they should start protecting the environment.
