Air Date: Week of October 23, 1998

We check in with recent responses on our inquiry into some of the motivating forces behind war, plastics plant placement, and uranium extraction.

Transcript

CURWOOD: And now it's time to year from you, our listeners.

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Our point-counterpoint discussion of the idea that a high proportion of young men steers a society toward war drew a response from Norma Roche, who hears us on WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts. Ms. Roche suggested that our guest arguments weren't so far apart as they might seem. She writes, "Aren't our biology, our culture, and our conscious modern understanding all contributing factors to what we do? It seems to me that whichever of your guests is right, the solution is the same. To prevent war, we needed fairer distribution of land and resources."

Stephen Gilmore, who listens to us on WNSC out of Rock Hill, South Carolina, wrote in about our story on the plastics plant that decided not to locate in a largely poor and African-American community in Louisiana. Mr. Gilmore says that for lower-income neighborhoods the bottom line is jobs. He writes, "Now, you've got politicians who have convinced residents of these neighborhoods that they have a right not to have these facilities in their neighborhoods. These facilities won't disappear. The only losers will be the residents of the areas where the facilities don't locate."

Finally, our recent stories on uranium mining in Arizona and nuclear waste disposal in Texas prompted Richard Hill to ask, "What about coal?" Mr. Hill, who hears us on Maine Public Radio, bemoans what he calls press indifference to the use of coal, and its harm to our health and the environment. He writes, "The projected annual coal consumption for electric power generation in the next decade exceeds a billion tons. Yet you get all choked up over the possibility of some nuclear workers' discarded gloves in an uninhabited Texas desert. The result," he writes, "is that we will phase out the nukes, squander the natural gas, and shift to coal. And we will regret it."

We're always interested in what you have to say. Call our listener line any time at 800-218-9988. That's 800-218-9988. Or write us at 8 Story Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Our e-mail address is LOE@NPR.ORG. Once again, LOE@NPR.ORG. And check out our Web page at www.livingonearth.org. Tapes and transcripts are $15.