Date:         Sat, 3 Apr 1999 17:53:14 EST
From: "Barbara J. Harris" <BarbHare@AOL.COM>
Subject:      [WRITERS] SUB: Contest: EDEssay/Stuck in the Middle

Here's the first contest sub for the Earth Day Essay category!  If you want
to send crits, please send to BarbHare@aol.com, and I will forward to the
author... thanks!

Stuck in the Middle

The Earth is a fragile thing. Sure, it's been here for billions of years. it
may very well be here long into the future, but will we? Will mankind survive
the nuclear age only to destroy ourselves in an environmental catastrophe?

It is a possibility, but there is hope.

Someday soon there will be hydrogen-powered cars and earth-friendly air
conditioning and refrigerators. America's rivers and streams are downright
immaculate compared to the dismal state they were in just twenty or thirty
years ago. There are signs people have finally woken up and read the large
bold Geneva text on the electronic wall.

Of course we have a lot more to do, but at least we're trying. All but the
radical right admit there's a problem. You may still be thinking, what if our
response is too little, too late? Well, if it is, we should just give up. Why
should we even try, if that's the case?

I prefer to assume it isn't too late. There's no other option if we want to
stay sane. What good does it do to worry about the worst case scenario when
nothing could be done to stop it? On the other hand, we must keep working on
the world's ecological problems in case we haven't reached that point of no
return.

The sky is not falling. The greenhouse effect and pollution are not a myth
made up by communists, environmentalists, or the democratic party. We need to
find the sensible middle ground in the environmental debate if we are to
prevail as a civilization.