Air Date: Week of October 22, 1993

Steve reads the mail.

Transcript

CURWOOD: And now, some of your letters and comments.

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Many of you responded to our recent features on grassroots environmental efforts. Stanley Berg, of Springfield, Oregon wrote in after hearing about the solar oven projects in Kenya. "Their usefulness in less industrialized countries is particularly apparent," Mr. Berg writes. "But solar box cookers offer a number of advantages here too. In addition to saving energy and thereby preserving our environment, they keep the house cooler, retain moisture in food, and can be arranged so the food will be cooked when one arrives home in the evening." Mr. Berg adds, "I've cooked literally thousands of meals in these devices. In fact, as I listened to this evening's broadcast I consumed a delicious solar cooked potato."

A listener in Prescott, Arizona was less pleased by a report about the proposed hike in grazing fees on public land. "As if public land grazing is quite a bargain compared to private land grazing," she says. "Not so! On public land ranchers bear all the expense of repairs to water supplies, fences, wages, veterinary and medicine costs, etc. There is good reason for the difference in the cost of grazing on public and private land."

Stefan Combs, of Minneapolis, called about our story on a clean air lawsuit against a copper smelter that is the leading private employer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Combs says he's not surprised that local residents who depend on the smelter for jobs feel threatened. "When you shut down a plant, when you're no longer concerned about the everyday needs of working people, when you continually disaffect these people from the left, all you do is throw them into the arms of the reactionaries like Pat Buchanan. And maybe they're just giving business an opportunity to do what they intended to do already, but nevertheless it's happening, and they are being blamed. This is something that the greens have to think about."

CURWOOD: And finally, Peggy Sullivan called from Chicago to tell us that David Catlin's commentary about watching the fall hawk migration in Missouri reminded her of a hawkwatching trip she recently took with her family.

SULLIVAN: It was a wonderful experience for us. Our father was someone who had been always interested in all kinds of birds, and watching deer from the car and anything that we spotted - a rabbit along the road. And when we did that, it was probably 20 or 30 years after he died but I remember thinking, we've never been so close to him any other way as that day. And it's wonderful what a bond that makes. It made it for us and it made it between me and David Catlin this morning, so thank you for that.

CURWOOD: Your calls and letters help keep us going. Our listener line number is 617-868-7454. Or you can write to us at Living on Earth, Box 639, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238. Transcripts and tapes are also available for ten dollars.