...The last chance for a future that makes ecological sense...We thought that the one-month deadline for the writing [of this Manifesto] was impossible, that we could easily spend a year on it. But a year is about one-fifth of the time that we have left if we are going to preserve any kind of quality in our world.

The Environmental Handbook, Earth Day celebration, 1970.
Quoted 22 years later by Gary Benoit, editor of The New American, June 1, 1992.

Background and Summary

Linear No Threshold Hypothesis
 
U.S. Senator Pete Domenici has asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to update a 1994 study on radiation protection in the United States, pointing out that the agency should examine the validity of standards on which current policies are based.

The latest news, as reported by UPI and carried in the NewsMax.com wires, has not underestimated the seriousness of the infection caused by the West Nile virus. Indeed, in Louisiana, which has already reported five deaths so far, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who doubles as the head of the state's tourism agency, announced on Aug. 6 that cans of insect repellent will be made available free of charge at visitor centers located near the state's borders.

Although it is not yet mid-autumn (and we are already experiencing record low temperatures in certain areas of the country), presidential candidate Al Gore, you can be sure, will continue to preach about the perils of global warming, ozone depletion, and the burning of fossil fuels.

As we pointed out in Part I of this article, in Cuba all natural resources are at the disposal of the Revolution ­ i.e., Fidel Castro and his ruling elites. Cuban ecologists who speak out are quickly silenced, and so national treasures like the tropical forests of the Ciénaga de Zapata, the marshland areas adjacent to the Bay of Pigs, are being destroyed, and with them, their exotic flora and fauna.

While the Cuban lobby in Congress, led by the Progressive Caucus and the Democratic Socialists of America and even some misguided Republicans, like Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in an ungodly alliance with the well-financed captains of agricultural industries and mega-corporations (e.g., Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and confreres in the agribusiness industry) (1-3) continue to clamor for opening Cuba to economic exploitation in collusion with Cuba's communist regime ­ a silent degradation and destruction befalls Cuba's once beautiful flora and bountiful fauna.