DOCTORS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS NEWSLETTER
September 1996 Vol. XIII, No. 5
TEST YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL IQ
Attendees at the Salt Lake City DDP meeting mostly scored ``genius'' (10-13 correct) on this little quiz, prepared by ``Fossil Bill'' Kramer. You may want to try it yourself or to test the local government school teacher of ``environmental education'' or your elected representatives.
Answer ``True'' or ``False'':
1. Science findings should reflect cultural values. Scientists must relate to society or forfeit credibility.
2. Overpopulation is not so much a problem of human numbers as of greedy, ignorant, and vicious governments.
3. Old growth in forests is important to biodiversity, oxygen production, and CO2 absorption.
4. Man has upset nature's balance. Healthy ecosystems require that we let nature alone.
5. Radon is dangerous. Whatever the cost, the EPA should mandate radon-proofing.
6. Capitalism cannot provide environmental protection or sustainable use of natural resources. Only a world socialist state can do so.
7. Pesticides generally are carcinogenic and poisonous and should be prohibited.
8. The Endangered Species Act should be strengthened to protect species before they are endangered.
9. Irradiated foods are dangerous and should be banned.
10. Species should be preserved only within reason. Our total resources cannot halt extinction.
11. Dead trees should be left to rot in forests, providing essential nutrients for future growth.
12. Private property rights must be subordinated to environmental goals.
13. Nuclear power is our main hope for energy independence.
Here are the correct answers, together with the percentage of meeting attendees (largely M.D.s and Ph.D.s) giving that answer:
1. False (96%). (But truesayers have a point; scientists who don't conform don't get funding.)
2. True (88%). (And 98% opposed Green demands that people be licensed to have children.)
3. False (81%). (Old trees produce little oxygen and carry diseases and organisms which emit CO2. Their vast size robs water and nutrients from younger growth, while their dense shade blocks sunlight. Selective logging of mature trees increases biodiversity.)
4. False (93%). (Nature is seldom in balance and always changing.)
5. False (98%). (Low-level radiation, as in the amounts received from radon in homes, may be beneficial, by stimulating human defense mechanisms.)
6. False (100%). (Green groups striving for world domination say it's true.)
7. False (93%). (Most attendees thought that pesticides are ``essentially safe, vital for feeding people.'')
8. False (98%). (Despite fines and jail time for innocent property owners and billions spend to thwart extinction, the Endangered Species Act has scarcely saved any life forms.)
9. False (95%). (While 95% said that irradiated foods should be readily available, 98% said new USDA meat-cleansing procedures can't assure safe meat without irradiation.)
10. True (98%). (Millions of species exist, and thousands have disappeared, most of them before human civilization had any impact at all-see the fossil record.)
11. False (88%). (When trees are harvested, only 10% of their total growth is removed. The rest-root systems, needles, leaves, twigs, and branches-remain behind.)
12. False (95%). (Instead of punishing property owners for running afoul of nonsensical bureaucratic regulations, why not structure a free marketplace to reward environmental stewardship?)
13. True (95%). (Also, 98% disagreed with Green assertions that nuclear power is ``expensive, impractical, and productive of radioactive wastes impossible to dispose of.'')
KEARNY AND JASTROW HONORED AT DDP MEETING
Cresson H. Kearny, nominated for the 1996 Edward Teller Award for the Defense of Freedom by Dr. Teller, has dedicated his outstanding talent and ingenuity to saving lives of both soldiers and civilians. The hazards he has fought include: disease-carrying mosquitoes; drowning for want of simple flotation devices; jammed rifles due to lack of protection from sand; land mines; extreme cold; and of course radiation accidents and nuclear war.
The culmination of his work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the classic Nuclear War Survival Skills. Thousands of copies were distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency before the Bush and Clinton Administrations obliterated the last remnants of nuclear preparedness from the FEMA mission. (The book is still available from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, PO Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523, $12.50 postpaid.)
In the foreward, Edward Teller wrote: ``This book takes a long overdue step in educating the American people.''
The Petr Beckmann Award for ``courage and achievement in defense of scientific truth and freedom'' was conferred on Dr. Robert Jastrow. A renowned scientist and author of many popular books, Dr. Jastrow also provides crucial intellectual ammunition for other scientists and citizens who, like him, are not willing to compromise their integrity for glory or grants.
Dr. Jastrow is president of the George C. Marshall Institute, an indispensable source of excellent materials for those interested in the truth about global warming, ozone depletion, and other issues (write the Institute at 1730 M Street, NW, Suite 502, Washington, D.C. 20036-4505). The author of How to Make Nuclear Weapons Obsolete, Dr. Jastrow is a foremost advocate of strategic anti-missile defense.
In his presentation, Jastrow noted the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including the possibility of downloading a fairly sophisticated nuclear weapons design from the Internet. The Chinese are estimated to have an arsenal of between 500 and 2,000 warheads for arming their state-of-the-art, MIRVed ICBMs, deployed so as to be safe from preemptive attack by the US.
Nevertheless, the current Administration policy is a catastrophic dumbing down of potential defenses. For example, an Aegis-launched system could potentially defend all of Western Europe, given space-based tracking and a 6 km/sec flyout velocity. However, all ``weapons'' including Brilliant Eyes have been banned from space, and flyout velocity is under a crippling limit of 3 km/sec, a provision newly tacked onto the ABM Treaty. The result: a defense footprint about the size of the toe of the Italian boot plus Sicily.
Present policy is attractive to the Russians. Our ``rogue states'' are their ``strategic partners.'' And their own nuclear capability keeps them from being ``treated like Bulgaria.''
There is ``no hope of averting catastrophe,'' Dr. Jastrow said, unless Americans rapidly awaken to the fact that they are being deceived by their own government concerning its policy of keeping the United States utterly undefended.
CONRAD CHESTER, R.I.P.
Americans who are someday saved by civil-defense technology will owe their lives to the work of this quiet engineer, who dedicated his life to defense against weapons of mass destruction. Upon retiring from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Chester boxed up thousands of priceless reports and sent them to a library where they could be saved from loss or destruction by the government. Dr. Chester has advised many who have prepared shelters for their own families. He faithfully attended DDP meetings but was unable to come in 1996 due to poor health. For a broad range of questions, Connie was the man to call. He will be greatly missed.
MEETINGS
: The American Civil Defense Assoc, Oct 11-14, Fairfax, VA, call (904)964-5397.DDP, 1997, San Diego, tentatively June 13-16, call (520)325-2680.
DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. #9, Tucson, AZ 85716, telephone 520-325-2680.