D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June 2008
No Good Nukes
I would like to respond to the letters written in the May issue of Desert Exposure promoting nuclear energy [in response to Henry Lightcap's Journal, April]. As America gets squeezed with the price of energy today, I watch as it looks everywhere to get out of its own created energy problem. This country has blatantly and arrogantly wasted and overused the world's energy resources for over the last 50 years and now sees itself in a predicament of its own making. Now, alternative energy resources are becoming popular, including solar, wind and nuclear. (By the way, as to solar and wind, these resources were flatly rejected by every US president since Ronal Reagan in 1980 — a lack of foresight has its consequences.) Before writing specifically on nuclear energy, I personally believe that curtailment and conservation are and will be the easiest and most cost-effective ways to a sustainable energy future with solar and wind power being of help. America will have to comes to terms with its gluttonous lifestyle first and foremost.
Nuclear energy is the worst of all possible alternatives. It has been tried over and over again since 1957 and is a proven failure. To repeat these mistakes again now is completely insane. First, nuclear power is not economical in any sense and no nuclear power plant would be built without huge governmental subsidies and taxpayer dollars. Nuclear energy cannot compete with any other sources of energy without these subsidies. This includes France, which public funds all of its nuclear power plants. Another big reason for the public funding of nuclear power is that these plants are uninsurable and no private corporation can build one alone because of it.
Being uninsurable also speaks to its safety, which brings me to the second point. Nuclear power is not safe but very dangerous. If the 9/11 terrorists would have flown those planes into the nuclear reactors only 20 miles north of the Twin Towers, millions of lives would have been endangered and it would have left New York State uninhabitable for centuries. Plus there is no solution to the nuclear waste. If the two local proponents of nuclear power who wrote the letters believe it's so safe, then let's build them right here in Grant County and bury the waste in the Gila River basin, and explain its safety to us.
Third, nuclear power is not clean. If one factors in the production of this energy from the mining of it (which is not safe either), to the building of plants, to the production of the energy, one will find an enormous amount of fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions, not even remotely comparable to solar or wind.
Nuclear power is and has been a boondoggle. To bring this up again because America is scrambling for its energy future is lunacy, especially when solar and wind are far more safe, clean and economical given equal footing.
Don't listen to those who are promoting nuclear energy and do not support any politician doing the same.
William Joseph
Silver City
History Lessons
I very much enjoyed the May issue of Desert Exposure. Jeff Berg and Jerry Eagan played cowboys and Indians in their respective pieces, "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Paths to War." I especially liked Berg's account of the El Paso re-enactment group, Six-Guns and Shady Ladies, which showed how the West was fun. Their skit, "Four Dead in Five Seconds," sounds like a spaghetti Western. You listening, Clint Eastwood?
Paul Hoylen Jr.
Deming
Lost and Found
The "Getting Lost" letter writer in your April issue [in response to "The Seeker," February] saw fit to pass judgment on an intrepid camper, Carolyn Dorn, who was rescued after a harrowing time trapped in the Gila Wilderness a winter ago, when the river rose and she found herself unable to hike out. The sentiments expressed seemed to infer that Dorn was somehow unworthy of search — or rescue — because she made some errors in judgment that the letter writer felt entitled to critique at length.
People get themselves into trouble sometimes, without intending to do any harm. When they drive their vehicles into flash flood waters, rescuers still go and extricate them from sinking pick-ups without asking, "Credit or debit?" When their homes slide down hillsides during torrential rainstorms, they are not abandoned shivering and homeless because they should have known better than to build in such a spot in the first place. When they become trapped in burning buildings, they are never ignored by firefighters because the inferno may have been caused by an electrical short they damned well should have fixed.
Since the letter writer presumes to know so much about Dorn's life and her experience in the wild, he or she must also be aware that one of Carolyn's relatives called our town "a community to cherish."
That's where we might better focus! We can cherish the culture and the diversity and the willingness to accept and embrace and include all types of folks from all orientations and walks of life. We can cherish the gentlepeople who braved gnawing temperatures at holiday time to go out looking for a fellow human being in obvious need of help. We can cherish the brave helicopter crew members who did, indeed, risk their very lives to lift one beleaguered soul out of terrible danger. We can cherish the goodness and altruism of unsung heroes such as Jo Remondini, who will always accomplish more with their humble offerings of genuine love than a host of biting critics ever get done with the cruelest of commentaries.
As but two individuals amidst the scores of Silver City residents who have come to know and love Carolyn Dorn, we give thanks that selfless people still make stupendous efforts to do unto others as they would have someone do unto them, without ever stopping to boast or count the cost. We are glad that this really IS a community worth cherishing, filled with dear citizens worth loving and supporting, in spite of all-too-human foibles.
Carolyn Dorn braved the possibility of predators, faced down threatening elements and dreadful odds to survive for 40 grueling days (half of them without food) in a tiny budget-model tent in one of the fiercest environments on the planet, in the harshest and holiest season of the year. Surely she can survive the April Fool's jokes of your letter writer.
Lew Little and Mary Ellen Corbett
Silver City
Editor's note: For a look at a training exercise by the area's
official search and rescue volunteers, see
the story in this issue.
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