Air Date: Week of December 4, 1992

Letters and comment from listeners.

Transcript

CURWOOD: And now, comments from you, our listeners.

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Our chat with Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson about his new book, The Diversity of Life, prompted several reactions, especially to Wilson's view that all lifeforms should be preserved because they may prove useful to human beings. Phil Round, of Wilson, Wyoming, gave us a call.

ROUND: I heard with interest the interview with Edward O. Wilson. But I think it is a little overly scientific and anthropocentric. It would be nice to broaden up the viewpoints to include the notion, I would sum it up to say that the Native American or indigenous peoples' notions of the spirit that moves in all things and tie those into some of the reasons for environmental preservation. Thanks, `bye.

(Phone click, beep)

MORRIS: Hi, this is Lindsay Morris from Cincinnati, Ohio. I just listened to the article on saving paper in California's legal system, and I thought it was praiseworthy, but remarkably short-sighted. There was no suggestion that the courts be allowed to accept documents electronically. That of course would save tons of paper over double-sided or recycled paper.

CURWOOD: And after we aired an interview with music composer and environmentalist Paul Winter, Deanna Moss, who teaches at the Summit School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sent us a note: "While working late in my classroom and listening, as usual, to my local NPR station," Moss wrote, " I slipped into a mode of increasing attentiveness as Paul Winter's familiar music was overlaid by his less familiar speaking voice. In moments, the impact of his words arrested my puttering motion and I sank into a chair, nodding in agreement with the simple yet profound truths he was expressing.

As our school has tried to focus this year on environmentally sound practices, the monster Winter called 'unnecessary consumption' repeatedly rears its head as one of the most virulent diseases of our time."