A Long-Term View on World Ecology

On reading of the Bush administration’s plan for the commercial gutting of the Giant Sequoia National Monument, I once again despaired of political decisions based on anything other than short-term economic gain (“The Administration Can’t See the Forest for the Sequoias,” Commentary, Dec. 30). Then I read Merle Rubin’s review of Michael Boulter’s book, “Extinction -- Evolution and the End of Man” (“Looks like we’ve bitten the hand that feeds us,” Calendar, Dec. 30).

If, as Boulter posits, “the effect [of humans’ becoming extinct] would be that the abuse would stop being inflicted and peace and quiet would return,” then maybe I haven’t been giving the Bush administration enough credit for forward thinking. Could it be that President Bush’s disastrous environmental policies are not as ignorant as they appear? That they are actually intentional and calculated to hasten the extinction of selfish and aggressive man so that “freed of this disruptive element, other species will eventually bounce back and flourish nicely”? Intentional or not, he appears to be succeeding.

Elizabeth Murray

La Habra

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Next spring, when gasoline is $4 a gallon and most of the SUVs have therefore disappeared, we’ll have to give credit to George W., who is engineering the whole air-quality matter ... along with getting rid of the excess forest areas.

Herb Wallerstein

Beverly Hills