WMD’s found
To the editor:
I found ’em. They’re everywhere. Just look around. You’ll see them too. They bump into each other like bumbling idiots. In the process they kill thousands of people (43,443 in the U.S. alone in 2005) and maim millions (2,699,000) more every year. The carcasses of small animals they leave in their wake are heartbreaking.
How many trees have been axed, how much arable land has been rendered useless except for their fleeting rights of passage? They leak toxic substances onto roads, driveways and parking lots that accounts for 70 percent of our water pollution from runoff. They poison our air so badly that by the afternoon whole skylines magically disappear; 8,000 pounds of carbon and 700 pounds of air pollution were generated to make each one. They create wars over oil. From Arctic ice core samples, National Geographic has discovered that in 1850, prior to our insatiable appetite for burning fossil fuels, the Earth’s oxygen content was 30 percent. It’s now down to 19 percent. At 12 percent the human mind can no longer rationalize and we won’t be able to figure our way out of this mess.
But we love them, or so we’re told by Madison Avenue. They throw daggers of fear into our hearts if our children get anywhere near one that’s moving. Think of all the places our naturally provided means (legs) of freedom of movement has been restricted just to allow these death machines to roam freely. They have more rights than people do and have turned millions of square miles of our land into ‘don’t walk there or you may get killed’ zones.
They pile up in junkyards by the billions-what to do with all that waste? The old tires, batteries, filters, used oil, the list is endless. When they get stuck, the operators get so angry they gun down other operators.
We live in a society designed for and around these WMDs – not for ‘we the people’.
I hope that one day we Americans will learn from the more advanced (certainly more forward-thinking) people like the Europeans that non-polluting, efficient, and safe means of mass public transportation is what we need to work toward for a sustainable future for our children and theirs.
I for one will continue to walk, bike and bus it around. I hope you’ll think about it too.
Frank Gubasta
S. Fort Myers, FL