Spaw; of course risking rape and murder is not acceptable; although in most cases the brightness of lights can be dimmed considerably and still be effective for safety purposes; and in fact, probably safer, for the reasons I gave above. But I see your point that people may not be willing to take what they deem to be unnecessary risks.

We SHOULD indeed be worried about the mating habits of frogs and the ability of migratory birds to get where they're going. As well as pilot whales beaching themselves and mantees choking on algae and coyotes eating garbage from cans. We are all in this together. We ARE having an effect on the eco-system and it IS harming us. Does anyone doubt that higher rates of certain cancers in urban areas or those within close distances of toxic waste sites are some strange coincidence? (If so, try telling it to the guys who went to my high school from 1980 onwards who have been diagnosed with testicular cancer at *25 TIMES the national rate*)

Animals are more sensitive to this stuff than we are; we would do well to observe what is happening to them so we can save ourselves. Rape and murder is scary, but physiological degradation of a species followed by wholesale extinction is a whole lot scarier.

Pesticides are a good example of this logic: they kill bugs instantly. They kill US, too, but it just takes a lot longer, because we're bigger. But pesticide residue has been linked to all sorts of carcinogenic and other pathological problems in humans: because they're everywhere. On our food, in our water, in the air, in the soil. Insects grow resistant to them within a couple of generations (for bugs that's a couple of years; think about it) and so manufacturers make stronger ones. And so on.

I'm not trying to sound alarmist here but these hazards are among the worst which face the human race and all other forms of life on this planet, and we seem to think of it as a small or individualized set of problems. People don't see the connection between the McDonald's wrappers they threw out of their car on the highway yesterday and the insidious destruction of our environment. It's happening cumulatively, one thoughtless action at a time. Multiplied by billions of people. I truly believe that the problems of bigotry and intolerance and greed and corruption are intimately connected to people's inability to grasp the idea that all living things share a common bond. Someone who can't pick up his own trash isn't going to be someone who jumps at the chance to help his neighbor, either.


"We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it...and what we do to the web, we do to ourselves."

Chief Seattle