6 - Wednesday. July 24, 1991 ~ North Shore News INSIGHTS ry \etoR Tithes Quaver Gs SNUATN HUSSEIN PROVIDES GRAPHIC. CHIDENC TWAT iRAQi HUMAN BMS a BENG VOARD.. NEWS VIEWPOINT Unclear waters F NOTHING else, last week’s tour of the Seymour watershed illustrated that .. the watershed logging issue has gone beyond the stage of comprehension and participation for the average water con- sumer. Led by Greater Vancouver Regional District staff, the tour bus, packed with municipal politicians, media and experts —- lots of experts — visited sites, both clear- cut and unlogged, where slides had occur- red last fall and spring. For most of the four-hour tour, the ex- perts held the stage, prompted occasionally by a few timid questions from perplexcd politicians. The experts seemed unable even to agree on the cause of the excessively turbid drinking water the Lower Mainland expe- rienced last November. On one side were the consultants of a report that claims the slides would have occurred regardless of clearcutting. On the other side was the Western Wilderness Committee forester who met each of the consultants’ poiats with a counterpoint, contradicting reports and data, and then passed out his own dissen- ting report to the busload. Other expert participants included for- esters and members of the water review panel that will issue another report and recommendations in Sepiember. One for- ester confessed that even the panel experts had to divvy up the volumes of submitted material according ‘o specialization of topic. At the tour’s end, the experts left, rein- vigoraied by their technica jousting while the lay participants retreated from the debate, probably no better informed than when they came. LETTER OF THE DAY For proof of over population just look at our dying earth Dear Editor: Are your readers aware of all the flaws in Mr. Gordon Watson’s reasoning in his letter of July 3, in which he accuses Bob Hunter of being wrong about overpopula-~ tion? Did they notice his use of specious arguments and linguistic sleight-of-hand? They should have, because Mr. Watson’s own dissembling was pretty transpar- ent. He and his good friend and unimpeachable authority, Bucky Fuller, soothe us with a hearty chuckle over the very idea that we'd ever have to live in ‘‘average nightclub proximity.’’ Nicely defuses the horrifying image of living cheek-by-jowl doesn’t it? But imagine us one day living as people do in Hong Kong or Mex- ico City. That isn’t nearly so amusing, is it? And he weighs in with that ‘‘old clinker’? about the world’s popu- lation fitting into the Lower Mainland, and clinches his argu- ment with yet another old clinker “simple scientific examination,” as though getting that pat phrase into print makes his argument ir- refutable. What does it matter how much space our bodies occupy? He might as well have said we'd all fit on the corner of Granville and Georgia if stacked 50 deep for all the relevance space occupied has to the problem. The proof of overpopulation is all around us: in dying lakes and oceans, dying forests and air, dead and dying species. The earth can’t survive the poisonous residue of the wealthy few in developed countries; God help it when the material aspira- tions of those in undeveloped countries are realized. If humans can’t control their populations, nature will eventually do it for them; but what a dreac- ful price we'll pay for our sel!- ishness. Mary Stone North Vancouver Fate of Socreds now in hands of Ontario’s reds BOB RAE will have to work overtime if Rita Johnston is to remain premier after September. His Ontario NDP government has become the Socreds’ only slim hope of surviving the fall election. That was the outcome of last weekend's ludicrous multi-million dollar ritual known as the Social Credit Leadership Convention, which chopped the party into two bitterly opposed halves and hand- ed Mike Harcourt the lethal elec- tion weapon he'd been yearning for. Harcourt can now point to proof positive that the Socreds have not changed their spots. In Rita Johnston they picked a Vander Zalm clone who backed her disgraced predecessor to the end and heads a cabinet composed mostly of the same former Vander Zalm puppets. Given the current cynicism and disillusionment of the electorate, the NDP's ‘time for a change”’ call could well prove irresistible. If convention delegates had for once followed their heads instead of their herd instincts, a victorious Grace McCarthy would have laid to rest for good the ghost of Bill Vander Zalm. Alone among the candidates, she had protested his methods back in 1988 by quitting the cabi- net, in which she’d held key port- folios for 13 years. She would almost certainty have cleaned up the present cabinet. And indepen- dent polls found that the public respect she enjoyed made her the only potential Socred leader able to beat Harcourt. But at the last moment Mel Couvelier’s strange brain rejected this obvious solution to the par- ty's image problem. By moving after the first ballot to Johnston — instead of to McCarthy, as ex- pected — he has all but given the NDP the fall election on a silver tray. His surprise switch not only brought Rita her tiny 51.6% edge. It also split Social Credit into two virtually equal camps. Had most of his 331 vetes gone, as originally predicted, to Grace, the party might at least have claimed a more respectable 60% ‘‘uniiy.”’ So Social Credit's fate now de- pends primarily on Premier Rae and his red province-wreckers at Queen’s Park. If summer brings no pause in the NDP's economic rape of Ontario, an outside chance remains that B.C. voters may figure even Vander Zalm- tainted Socreds are better for their health than Harcourt’s socialist horde. uN HITHER AND YON Otherwise, Mel Couvelier will enjoy the reward of his folly — his re-entry into Rita’s cabinet — for only about a couple of months. TAILPIECES: Responding to fast Wednesday’s column on her illegal suites phobia, Ald. Joan Gadsby found she and your scribe agree- ing on at least one point. She wants an area-by-area survey on the issue to sort out which neighbors don’t mind suites on their block and which do. Solomon himself could hardly improve on that proposal ... “Local Colour,”’ a cross-section of West Van art, is on exhibit through next Sunday at the Ambleside Landing Ferry build- ing, featuring 30 paintings and seulpiures by West Van residents ... Living since 1985 in Aldergrove, longtime former North Van residents Koss and Rae Alden joined the ‘‘Golden 50” Club on June 28 — to be feted by 70 friends and family at a Univer- sity Golf Club party in Vancouver hosted by daughters Carell and Jady Alden, and Robbin Phillips of San Diego ... Meanwhile, send birthday greetings today, July 24, to North Van’s Veena Khosla. WRIGHT OR WRONG: The happiest time in most people's lives is to be in red-hot pursuit of a dollar and catching up on it. 986-1337 Bua North Shore Display Advertising 980-0511 Distribution 986-1337 Real Estate Advertising 985.6982 Subscriptions Classified Advertising 9866222 Fax 985-3227 Newsroom 985-2131 Administration 985-2131 MEMBER Peter Speck . Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Publisher... Managing Editor Associate Editor . Advertising Director Linda Stewart Comptrolier Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in (969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Scheauie 111. Patagraph IM! of the Excise Tax Act, 1s published each Wednesday, Friday ana Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid anu distbuted to every door on the North Shere Second Class Mail Regsstration Number 3885 Subscriptions Nortn and West Vancouve:, $25 per year Mauing tates avaiable an request Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility tor urcGicted maierta! includisg manusenpts and oiciures wh.ch snould be accompanied by a siamped addressed envelope TH96 HONCE OF PEOATR AND WEST VeNCOUVIR A a SUNGAY + WEDNESDAS + PMIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, SDA DIVISION North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 24 ph GOLDEN DAY for former North Van residents Ross and Rae Alden, with (back row) daughters Carell, Judy and Robbin. 61,$82 (average creulatan Wedresday Frieay 4 Sunday? Entire contents - 1991 North Snore Free Press Ltd. All nghts rese:ved