Coming together to help environment

Ms. Elizabeth Pearson's letter to the editor (Dec. 29, 2007) in which she raised concerns about global warming and the role of government in its alleviation, got me thinking how magnificently people have come together, often taking action through their governments, in order to correct damage we have caused the environment.

In the more recent past, the USA, in conjunction with other nations, eliminated the use of CFC's in the use of refrigerants and as manufacturing cleaning agents in order to remove the threat these CFC's posed to the ozone layer. In the decades of the 60s and 70s, government action through the Environmental Protection Agency cleaned the air and waters of America from the pollution caused by private companies depositing their chemical and metal wastes directly into the air, lakes and rivers.

Many decades ago, the New Deal government of Franklin D. Roosevelt planted millions of trees from Wisconsin to Georgia where private interests had denuded the landscape, allowing massive erosion of farmland.

In addition to saving the environment from destruction, government educates our children and provides for the retirement income of ourselves and our parents.

God willing, Ms. Pearson, the USA will within a year or two join with other nations of the world to reduce the release of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide gases which are warming the planet to dangerous and destructive levels. Most of this work will be accomplished through the auspices of the United Nations, the one world body which has brought people together from all countries to suppress and counter our worse tendencies of selfishness and destructiveness.

Man has always had control over the earth's demise, and fortunately its advancement.

Tom Teune

Wheaton