Keep Corvallis’ unique character vibrant

As you enter the city of Corvallis, you encounter signs promoting Corvallis as “Tree City USA,” and “Green Energy City, USA.”

In national environmental magazines, Corvallis receives top marks as a top bicycle-friendly green city. Oregon State University recently was recognized as one of America’s top “green” campuses. Yet all of these designations mean nothing (with an emphasis on nothing) if there is a sustainability lapse in city planning, judgment and vision.

Those white bike lanes on the road mean much, much more than 5-foot-wide parallels that might be a minor inconvenience to cars. To newcomers, those white-striped bicycle lanes suggest the values of the city. When someone decides that those white-striped bike lanes are not regulation and seek their change, Corvallis becomes just another small city in generic two-car USA.

When city workers decide that beautiful older trees are too expensive to be maintained, must be removed and replaced by ubiquitous nursery stock, Corvallis becomes just another American city. It is these small things, backed up with a huge sustainability movement, that make Corvallis ... Corvallis.

Corvallis is an odd, quirky community, but with its environmental heart and values in the right place. Generic, streamlined, approaches to city planning are for the rest of the country but not this city! Keep Corvallis as the place the rest of the America should emulate and not vice-versa. Think what would have happened if Dorothy didn’t have a “yellow-brick” road to follow?

John Klock, Corvallis

Link between violence, media an old myth

Hannah Wilson has fallen into the common logical pitfall of making comments about something she never bothered to learn about (Letters, Aug. 8, “Images of cruelty are making us violent”).

Forget the fact that youth crime has been steady for the past 20 years, while violence in media has gone up. Nevermind that the surgeon general has found almost no link between the two, stating that is was the 10th factor on his list.

No one remembers how much more violent crime there was 50, 100, or more years ago. Lynchings and witch-burning were around before “Pulp Fiction” (showed up in theaters), so why aren’t Americans still committing those crimes, given that we are even more violent today? The answer is that there is no link between media and violence.

Ms. Wilson would do better to get her facts straight next time. People such as Jack Thompson have been pursuing this unwarranted agenda for years, and it’s finally coming back to bite them. Thompson is currently being sued by the Florida bar and has been banned from practicing in the states. People can’t blame the press for what poor/abusive parenting has wrought.

Ben Lykins, Corvallis

Polar bear population up? Not by any credible measure

Although Jonathan Hayes provides no citations, he would have you believe that the population of polar bears has increased since 1960 (Letters, Aug 4.).

No adequate census exists to estimate a worldwide polar bear (Ursus maritimus) population. However, Canada’s Western Hudson Bay population has dropped 22 percent since the early 1980s. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Polar Bear Specialist Group reclassified the polar bear as a vulnerable species on the IUCN’s “red list of endangered species” at its most recent meeting. They reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, five are declining, five are stable, two are increasing and seven have insufficient data (See www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts).

In May, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Geological Survey predicts two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be gone by 2050, based on projections of shrinking sea ice.

Mr. Hayes says he is student of history. I studied biology and have a degree in zoology. Mr. Hayes is wrong to say that the population of polar bears has increased since 1960, if he means worldwide.

Any localized increases in numbers are due to limits on “harvest” (killings by humans). Overall population declines are due to loss of habitat (melting sea ice). Bear this in mind: the loss of Ursus maritimus indicates an ecosystem under stress.

Scott Burress, Corvallis

Back the string of insulting opinions with hard facts

Bill Clinton was the most obscenely corrupt, dishonest, deceptive, partisan, secretive, militaristic, freedom-choking, dysfunctional, anti-environmental and law-breaking president in U.S. history. Lyndon Johnson comes next, followed closely by Jimmy Carter. Obama will be worse than any of them.

What proof or documentation, you ask, do I provide to back up these statements that these men were the worst offenders in 10 distinct categories?

Why, absolutely none — exactly as Chris Foulke did in his Aug. 8 letter. Well then, you query, why should we give any credence whatsoever to what I state? Good point, you shouldn’t — any more than you would give credence to what Chris wrote.

I think you should question other statements in his letter as well. He refers to “countless invasions” by the “shameful USA.” Recognizing that the 250 word limit on letters to the editor might create an insurmountable obstacle to listing them all, you might want to ask for detailed information on the top 10 of them. Ditto the democracies we have overthrown; list 10, please.

Finally, I, for one, would really like a detailed explanation of precisely how George Bush and Dick Cheney have profited from Iraq. Prove to me that either man put so much as one dime in his pocket, and I’ll join you in your cries to throw the bums out. Absent proof, however, it is no more proper to assert that they have profited from Iraq than it would be to claim that Clinton cashed in on Kosovo.

John Brenan, Corvallis

Scientific consensus on climate change persuasive

There have been at least four letters in recent weeks expressing strong opinions that human-caused global warming is a “hoax”; a left-wing “power grab,” or not established.

Scientific hypotheses are advanced or rejected on the basis of objective, repeatable, peer-reviewed research, not on the basis of political agendas.

At least 95 percent of the published, peer-reviewed studies in the last decade support the conclusions of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that there is a large human-caused component of global warming.

In a report requested by President Bush, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science endorsed the IPCC report.

The American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and many other prestigious scientific organizations have issued policy statements endorsing the IPCC report.

Does science know everything about global warming? Of course not. Long-term climate research is indeed complicated and one can always poke around and find someone to disagree with the consensus. (For example there are still Ph.D. geologists who don’t believe in Plate Tectonics!)

There is a finite chance that the consensus is wrong. However, believing that tens of thousands of the most qualified research scientists in this country (and hundreds of thousands worldwide) have concocted a hoax is not credible. Pay attention to the science, not the hype from blogs.

Gerry Connard, Corvallis