 decent working conditions. Human spirit, resilient, alive, like a torch from one person to another, from one generation to another, from one nation to another. The human spirit would be extinguished. You've just discovered American 1492, that's only half of the issue. You've got to look at it from a very broad point of view. Really, what is going on? And if you look at it from the broad point of view, you can see that if you were a Native American at that time, it was not a good day for you. It was a very, very bad day for you. Give me another example of two different ways. Okay, let me throw it out here. In 1776, there was an American Revolution, right? In this country, you became quote-unquote a free country, right? Was it a free country for everybody? Raise your hand. Ben? Right. That's right. So if you're a black person and you're reading the history and you say, okay, boy, 1776, we became a free country. What did it mean to you? It didn't mean anything to you. On the contrary, what it meant is that you might have at one point been free in Africa, and you were transported in chains to the United States. You were not free, okay? What you was the ordinary citizen, even in the United States, white person, able to vote when this country first began having elections. Yes? Good. Excellent, okay? So then to say, well, it was a free country? No, it wasn't. Only white people voted, only men voted, and not even all men voted. Basically, it was wealthy people who owned land voted. So if you were poor and white, you didn't vote either, okay? So it is important not to get taken in by labels called freedom, but to understand really what these things mean, okay? That's what history is about, and it's very, very exciting. Depends on who you're looking at when you discuss the subject. Who wants to chat more about that? Am I right? Am I wrong? What are we talking about? Anyone have thoughts on that? Yep? Well, I think you're right in the point of view that you're looking at it, because a lot of Americans do take it from the American point of view, the American rich point of view. And they don't, I mean, they oversee the other people's point of view. Okay, not oversee, but I think undersea. For example, I saw President Reagan on television the other night, and he's, as you know, a very important meeting is going to be taking place with the head of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev. And I think that that's a good thing, for a lot of reasons, and I'll tell you why later. But Mr. Reagan was talking about Mr. Gorbachev, and he was saying that Mr. Gorbachev really didn't understand a whole lot about human freedom in terms of what was going on in the Soviet Union. And there's some truth to that, I think. There's a lot of truth to that, because there are a lot of very serious problems in the Soviet Union in terms of whether or not the people there can give out their point of view, whether if they wanted to write an article in a newspaper, could they get that out? Whether can they get the truth out on their television? Okay, and the answer is no in many instances. But Mr. Reagan makes certain assumptions about his own country, which he does not look at, which the rest of the world looks at. Okay? What am I talking about? What about freedom in the United States? Is everybody free? Are we a really free country? Some ways. Some ways we are. Talk about some of the ways that we are. Well, now people can vote. I mean, back then they couldn't, but now women can vote, and men can vote, and if you're poor, it doesn't matter, you can vote. Okay, the answer is that now everything being equal, people can vote. Now, when I was your age, about 200 years ago, did you know that many black people in the southern part of this country were unable to vote? And we're not talking about the 1848 year, we're talking about the 1950s. But most of you know that, but not so long ago, that there were large numbers of black people who were prohibited from voting in the south, because the people who controlled the southern part of the country did not want them to participate. That has changed, but it wasn't so long ago. But let me ask you a question about voting. Okay, in this country now, by and large, everybody over the age of 18 has the right to vote. How many people actually do vote? Let me get more discussion. Young lady back there. Not even half? Good point. Sometimes it will depend on the election, and in some cases it's 50%, 53%, and then for statewide elections, 50%, for local elections, mayors, city council, very often around the country, it will be very, very less, much less than that. In some instances, even in Vermont, you'll have elections where 5%, 10% of the people will come out to vote. So your point is, people do have the right to vote, but yet many people don't exercise that right. Now my question is why? Why don't people come out and vote? Let me get more discussion. I'd like to hear from people who haven't yet. Sometimes they're undecided or they just don't really care. Your point is they're undecided, they don't want to be involved. They might think that someone as small as themselves in a huge country wouldn't make much difference. Very good point. I think that that is what some people think. Other thoughts though? Sometimes they can take it for granted that they just have this right and they don't basically make use of it. I think that that's right, but there's another point too that's a little bit deeper than that. Everything that you said is right on the money. It's right, but there's another point too. Sometimes people don't get the chance to come out to the voting places and get to vote. That is a very good point. I want to touch on that one too, because that's an excellent point. But I think there's another point that's even deeper. People might say, well gee, I'm only one out of 200 million people. Does my vote matter? Or maybe I don't have time at the work to come out and vote? All of that is true, but there's a deeper truth. They never get around to it. That's kind of the point that she indicated, but it's another one. Maybe they didn't take enough time to find out about the people who they would be voting for. Okay, all of your answers are excellent answers. And everything that you've said is true, but there's another answer that I think is a little bit deeper. Ben, do you want to take a shot at it? Maybe they were sort of scared they didn't want to vote for the right people. I think that's part of it. That's part of it too. And ultimately, though, the deepest answer is that people don't really feel, or many people don't really feel that voting makes a difference. That if they vote for candidate A or if they vote for candidate B, it's going to improve their lives. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, you vote for somebody, it's different than buying a package of cereal. And you may choose between two packages of cereal and you like one better than the other one. The two types of candy or soap detergents. And when you vote for a public official, it becomes different. You're voting for somebody, presumably, who reflects your interests. Okay? And I think that many people say it doesn't really make a difference. This is the way my life is. And it doesn't matter who's going to win because my life is not going to be changed terribly much. What do you think? Is that a possibility? Well, it depends really how you look at it or how involved you are with the city. Okay? Okay? Let me throw back a question to you while we're on the subject. What are the issues? Now there's a presidential election that's coming up, right? Some of you, I hope, have been reading some of the things in the paper. And by the way, I want to tell you that it is very hard to really know how candidates feel because the media in this country, both the television and the radio and the newspapers, do a pretty bad job, to a pretty bad job in covering what candidates stand for. They're much more interested in getting gossip and silly business about candidates rather than where candidates stand on issues. So it is pretty hard to, in fact, cover where candidates come from. But I want to ask you, if you were running for president of the United States today, what are the issues? If you got up before the American people and had a chance to speak for two hours on primetime television, what are the issues that you would think would be important and what are you going to do about them? Yep? Well, I don't know exactly what I can do about it. Would you like to say anything about nuclear war? For me, nuclear war is a big thing. Very good. Think of it as a conflict between the library of nuclear war, the transit building, and mark cavity. Why? It's hard to concentrate with that coming up. Okay, young lady here said something and I think that that's a very important point and maybe the most important point. That is the issue of nuclear war and in fact I would carry it for the war in general. Okay? A question I'm going to ask you is pretty obvious, but I'd like you to talk about it a moment. Why is that perhaps the most important issue? Raise your hand and tell me why. Yep, right here. Okay, because if it was a nuclear war it would wipe out everyone on it. Precisely. I mean, if there's a nuclear war then we're not going to have to worry about anything else, right? We're not going to have to worry about the quality of education or whether we're polluting the environment or whether our sewer system is working well because we're not going to have a world in which we live. So the issue of war and nuclear war is perhaps right off there as the most important issue. Now I want people to talk about this issue from a broad point of view. Okay? If we have identified that issue as perhaps the most important issue, approach it. How do you approach it? What's it about, what's going on, how do you solve the problem? Well, I think that we have a big problem with competing on who's going to get most nuclear weapons and arms and stuff. I was listening to Reagan-Meslin on TV and he was saying how they almost reached an agreement when Gorbachev wanted to give up Star Wars or something. And it seems like you can never win. They always want something else and they're always going to try to catch you in a loophole. Okay. Okay. You're touching on something that's important and I think you hit it, went a little bit astute, but I think you hit the issue. What is going on? And let's look at the United States and the Soviet Union are now enemies, right? Presumably, okay? Tell me about that whole business about having enemies. Is this a new thing? Tell me about the enemies that the United States has had, the enemies that the Soviet Union has had. Have the United States and the Soviet Union always been enemies, by the way? No. Who could tell me when they were not enemies? Young men right here. World War II. They were allies. That's right. And you all understand that without the help of both countries, that probably Hitler and the Nazis would have won. That the Soviet Union lost tremendous losses. I think it was something like 20 million people in World War II alone fighting that war and the United States fought on one side and they fought on the other side and they were successful in defeating Nazism. But the point that I want to get, it's kind of a hard one now. I'm going to throw this out to you. I'm not sure you're used to thinking about it this way. If you look back in history, well I want you to tell me the different enemies, and I use that word quote unquote enemies, that the United States has had. Raise your hand and tell me, let me hear about all the enemies that we have had. Young men right here. England? England was an enemy. Is England an enemy today? No. Okay. Who else was an enemy? Japan. Japan was an enemy. Japan an enemy today. No. Okay. Who else was an enemy? Vietnamese. Vietnamese were enemies. Vietnamese were enemies today. Probably some degree, huh? Yup. Mexicans. Mexicans were enemies. Mexico an enemy today? No. Okay. Who else was an enemy? Right here. Libya. Pardon me? Libya. Libya was an enemy. That's right. Point is, what would be an interesting assignment someday is that you should get a book, a history book, and you would find that there have been literally dozens and dozens and dozens of enemies. In fact, there is a list here in the beginning of this book which tells the number of times that the United States sent troops to various parts of the world to protect the American interests. 1852 was Argentina and 1853 was Nicaragua. In 1854 was Japan. In 1855 it was Uruguay. In 1859 it was China. In 1860 it was Angola. In 1893 it was Hawaii. And on and on and on it goes. Okay? Point being, and now that's the United States. If you look at England, they have had a list of enemies that were a mile long. Soviet Union has had a list of enemies that were a mile long and people have been fighting wars for several, several thousand years. And in that process many millions of people have gotten killed. What does that tell you? What does it tell you? Yup? It doesn't prove anything. If all these people have died, it doesn't come to it, and then a certain answer can come to it. That's one thing that tells you. And if you read the history books, and better yet, you know what one of the most fun things to do, and I don't know if you have that resource in this building, certainly you'll have it at the Fletcher Free Library. One of the most fun things to do in academics is to put down the history book that you're reading, go to the library, go to the microfilm section, and read The New York Times or any other national publication and go back to the time in which you're studying. Okay, instead of just reading about the Spanish-American War from the history book point of view, go back to The New York Times 1900 and find out what they're saying. Go back to World War I, 1914, 1917, find out what they're saying. What do you think you will see at those times? And what keeps coming up over and over again? Yup? People dying. People are dying, but what about getting into the war? What are the presidents of all countries? Just the United States. Bazaars of Russia. The leaders of Russia. Japan. What are they always saying before a war? Yup? We're trying to come to an agreement, but we can't. Yeah? And what else did they say? Yup? I'm not sure, but when some girls often, Reagan, were talking about a peace agreement a while ago, they were like, oh, I hope it works out. They said, I hope, and nothing's ever going to happen if it just goes wrong. What you will find, if you go back in history, is you'll always find that almost every war that was ever fought on those sides was fought for what? What are presidents and leaders of countries always tell their people that they're fighting a war for? Yeah? Peace. They're fighting it for peace? Yeah? Right, to preserve the peace? Then? For protection. For protection of their own national interests? Yeah? Freedom. Freedom. Everybody always fights for freedom. No country in the world that doesn't fight for freedom. I'll tell you a funny story. It's not a funny story. In fact, it's a great tragic story. What war was fought in 1917? Who remembers what it was? World War I. World War I was really a brutal, brutal war. I mean, all these wars were really terrible. And at that time, it was just the advance of new technologies so they know how to kill each other that much better. And they had all these tremendous trenches there where these guys dug, weather was miserable, and these guys used to run over these things and used to... I mean, you literally had, on given days, tens and tens of thousands of French soldiers and Germans, Russians, dying. I mean, literally, on one day. Can you imagine a scene with tens of thousands of rotting human bodies? Okay? And there was once a photograph taken. I think it was having to do with French soldiers and Germans. They were killing each other right and left. In fact, they almost wiped out a whole generation of young men in both countries. And they stabbed each other, right? They weren't there using bayonets at that time, so they went against each other. They stabbed each other. Now, both of these guys are lying there on the ground dead. Their helmets fall off their heads, okay? And inside of each one of their helmets, you know what they said? They said, for God and country. That was both guys killing each other for God and for country. Okay? The point that I'm trying to make is that any time you go to war, it is hard for the government to get people involved in war unless they give them a good reason. Freedom is usually a good reason. For the interests of your country is usually a good reason. For God is usually a good reason. And they all do it. Well, the Japanese were fighting. Do you remember? Have any of you studied a little bit about World War II? A little bit. Okay. And you'll remember, Japanese are unusual people, very brave people in that war. And do you remember what the Kamikaze-type attacks? Well, who knows what that is? Yeah, right there. Well, it's like taking your plane and crashing into a... Precisely. Exactly what it is. What they did, Kamikaze, I don't know what that means in Japan, but I think it means basically a suicidal type of attack where a guy, a pilot is in a plane and his goal is to, say, destroy an aircraft carrier or a large ship. Takes the plane, doesn't use a missile. He directs the plane directly into the ship, which means certain and absolute death for himself, the goal being to wipe out that ship and serve his empire. Now, to be motivated, in fact, many Japanese during that war, it was, if I'm not mistaken, I may be wrong, history is a little bit rusty here, but I think Japanese did not believe that surrender was honorable. They felt it was supposed to fight for the death. The point that I'm making about all of this stuff is you had people who were highly motivated, who believed very strongly that they were fighting for God and for the emperor. They believed that their emperor was a descendant from God, and that's how they could do these things. They could die for their country. On the other side, you had people also believing they were fighting for their God and their country. What is this tell you? For example, there are 100 examples throughout history of people killing each other, and both sides believing they're fighting for freedom, they're fighting for their country's interests, they're fighting for God. What does that tell you about the whole process of war? Yup? I mean, it's kind of useless if we're both fighting for the same thing, then why do we have to fight at all? I think what it tells you is that for some reason, which we have some understanding about, in some areas we don't, it makes you take a look at war in a much broader point of view. In other words, if I were to say to you, okay guys, let's get up and kill those people, they're back. Let's go! All right? Should you just simply get up and follow me and go out and kill somebody? No. You might want to think about why I am asking you to get up, give up everything you have, give up your families, and risk your life, not only your life, to kill somebody else. So before you get up and go, you should be like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. Why do you want me to get up and get killed or kill somebody else? What is it? What is it that we're fighting about? Okay? Now, I happen not to be a pacifist, there's a group of people who are pacifists, historically, the Quaker religion, for example. Okay? And they have certain beliefs. But the point that I'm trying to make here is that when wars come, that's essentially what happens. Okay, now if I want you to go to war, what am I going to do? How do I get you involved? How do I get you ready to give up your families, give up your jobs, your wives, your husbands, and get yourself killed and kill other people? How do I do that? Yeah? I've told people that if they don't go, other people are going to come to them and kill their wives. That's right. One of the things that you're going to be telling your people, this goes on all over the world, is that the other guy, what about the other guy? Steve Neistag? No. What does he want to do to you? Kill you. He wants to kill you and he wants to take over your country and he wants to enslave you, right? So if you go throughout history, you'll always find that's what goes on in all the countries. Okay? That the other guy is an awful, terrible guy and you'll have stories on the newspapers and on television just about how bad and how terrible the other guy is. Correct? Yeah. Okay, what else do you think you'll go? Yup? Well, you would like tell your people about the honorable point. Right. That's right. It's a very good point. In other words, you'll glorify war and you'll say to people, you'll say, don't you, aren't you courageous people? Don't you want to protect your families and your country and the world and the land that you grew up in? Are you afraid? Are you cowards? No. Are you cowards that go out and get killed? And that touches on something very, very deep. And the world spends billions of dollars, not only in the United States, but in Russia, they do exactly the same thing. In South Africa, they do the same thing. They appeal to people's emotions. The end result is, the end result is that today, throughout the world, we're spending as a world close to one trillion dollars for military weaponry. Now, one trillion dollars is such a large sum of money that nobody in this room can even understand what that is about. But what I can tell you it's about is that if that money was spent for agriculture, if it was spent for industry, if it was spent for education, there would not be one person in this world hungry today. And that everybody, including the people in Africa and Asia, who today are starving to death, would have as good a standard of living as we have. That's what a trillion dollars is about. And yet it continues on and on to go that that does not happen. Instead of spending money for food production, for education, for all the things that human beings need, healthcare, we spend it for weaponry. And that is, and I'm glad you, you started this discussion off by saying, what would you deal with if you were running for president? I think probably in my own mind that's the most important issue. How after thousands and thousands of years of business, every country feels that they're right and they're going to kill everybody else. How do you finally say, calm down, let's talk about it, let's understand that killing people is not the most important thing. All right, having defined the problem, where do you go from there? How are you going to solve the problem? But what's one mechanism? We're a couple of mechanisms. How do you finally stop the stupidity of people, generation after generation, killing each other all? Yeah. Do any other people that believe in your opinion the fact that they're wrong? Okay. Yeah. But what's the process? I think probably as important as anything else is a process. How do we stop wars? Yes. Like having all the head of the government from like all the countries combined into one. Very good. All right, what you're talking about, I think, is at least beginning to get people from different countries to sit down and talk. Okay? How many of you, for example, one of the things that concerns me, and we're seeing some breakthroughs now, we're seeing some breakthroughs, how many people in this room have ever met a Russian in their lives? Aha. That's good. You know how you have through project comedy, right? No. There's one in our class. Is there a kid here from the Soviet Union? Yeah, right now, right. Is she now living in the United States? Yeah. Great. Okay. All right. That was... Exploiting her how many kids have ever seen somebody from the Soviet Union. The point is that it seems to me that one way you ease international tensions and one way you can break down a pattern that leaders will tell you that everybody over there is evil, horrible, terrible people is by getting to know the people. Right? In other words, if instead of just having one kid here from the Soviet Union, let's say we had a program by which there were a dozen kids here from the Soviet Union and a dozen of you were studying in the Soviet Union for six months for a year. Okay? What do you think would happen in that process? And if let's say this went on all over the United States, what would happen? What would be the result of that? It would have been necessarily true that you would end up liking those people. But what would happen in the process? Yup? You would learn about their cultures and kind of understand them. Precise. Precise. That's an excellent answer and that's about what it's about. And once you get to one of the reasons that people can make war is you develop a process by which you make your enemy the enemy. They're faceless human beings. They're not really like you. They're much worse than you. They're a different color. They speak a funny language. They have strange customs. They're not like us. Therefore, we can kind of kill them. Right? But then what happens when you sit down and you get to know people and one of the nice things that's going on in our state right now and I'm very proud that this is taking place in Vermont is there is a project called Project Harmony. How many of you know about Project Harmony? Okay. A Project Harmony is about, was started by three people in Vermont. And what it's about is getting kids from Vermont to go to the Soviet Union and bring it to visit and bringing kids from the Soviet Union to Vermont. And last summer there was a beautiful concert at Memorial Auditorium. We had kids at one of those from Leningrad, young people from Leningrad, youth choir, beautiful singers, girls and they got up there and they ended up singing with kids from Burlington High School and kids from another high school in Vermont. Very, very lovely. Point being, and now some of you have just come back from the Soviet Union. Did you know that? Do you even know that? Okay. In fact, that group is going to come through the border wall on Monday. So they went out and they had a chance to see the people in the Soviet Union. And I'm not sure, I don't know exactly how they felt about it. I'm sure they didn't like everything that they saw. But what they did get an opportunity to do is have dinner with real live Russians and talk to kids their own age. And in that process they began to find out that the people in the Soviet Union and just like you, they have mothers and fathers and just like you, they have too much homework that they don't want to do. And just like you, they'd rather watch TV than have to study than all these things, okay? They're human beings. And when you begin to understand that somebody is a human being, the likelihood of you going out and killing them or getting killed by them is that much less. You understand what I'm saying? Does that make sense to people or people disagree with me? Well, what can we do? Yeah. Well, I think it was the same problem with these mortals that they didn't look at this, the black people, as human beings, they looked at them as black people that had no feelings and had no cares and all they knew was to work. What you're getting at is a word that I will use, stereotype. What does the word stereotype mean in the context that you're talking about? Let me get some more hands because some kids will have not participated yet. Come on, let's go. Okay, yeah. Stereotype just means that you classify a bunch of people together and they're all the same. Excellent. That's a perfect definition. Give me some examples of stereotypes in terms of nationality. Nationality. Yeah. Like the Polish? Good. Excellent. All right. Here's the example and you guys are very sharp and very proud that you are aware of these things as you are. If you want to deal with a group of people what you essentially do when you want to do bad things to them you do what I call dehumanize them. You make them less than human beings. They're not like you. They're something else. And what you do therefore is you develop a stereotypical image of them. A stereotype. Poll. Now they're Polish jokes. All Polish people are stupid. Essentially is what it is at the heart of that joke. Okay? What about black people? What's the stereotype that we know about black people? Yeah? I can explain that they are. Okay, well let me let me even go further. When I was a kid and that's the thing that's gone it's interesting to see how fast the world changes. Okay? When I was a young person what we learned is that black people smelled. They had a special odor. Okay? That was what went all around that black people smelled and they were pretty stupid. But that was before Bill Cosby had a best at that time black people were not allowed. Television would not allow black people to host national programs. In fact there was a singer who basically could not be on a national television program hosted because the south didn't like it at that time. Okay? So black people smelled. They practically smelled my god. Why should they have equal rights? All right, what about Jewish people? What's their thing? How are they different than other people? Yup? Yeah, but that's not I would say that's not the stereotype. But what makes them? Now your Jewish people lost many, many millions of people under Hitler in World War II. And they were killed because they were also not quite human beings. What are some of the stereotypes regarding them so that they could be wiped out? What made them different from other people? Yup? Right, their religious police were different but also they were greedy and selfish people. Also had strange sexual habits and so forth and so on. That's what the Jews were. What about the Irish? What do we all know about the Irish? Yup? They're like What do they always know? What does everybody know about the Irish? They get in fights get in fights because they drunk. All the Irish people do is drink. That's the Irish. What about the Italians? The Italians are all what do we know about the Italians? Look, raise your hand and tell me what the parents are. They're all greasers and they are also like Rocky. Yeah, the Rocky but they're also mafia people. They're all gangsters. Right, all the Irish are drunk and Jews are greedy and black people smell. Okay? And then the people in the Middle East who have those funny hats there must be something weird because the women wear these things around their heads so they're different than our women they must be why I hate them for that reason. Point being that if you spend a few hours thinking about it you can come up with good reasons to show how people deep down are different from each other and by the way this goes on we don't think about us. Yep? We're all rich and we live in wins. Precisely. That would be the first one. A, that Americans are all rich everybody in this room millionaires we're all like you don't see the program Dallas and hey we're all JRU in here no problem that's what they think about us yeah? All the kids are punks also yeah? That's right we're the ugly American okay that means that when our people go aboard to Europe everybody else or else if they want to put our country down what might be some of the stereotypes other things probably that everybody lives out on the street anybody here live in a house? Well there's some people in the world would be shocked to know that you live in a house they're saving all Americans that are sleeping out on the streets or that everybody in America is a racist and hates black people in other words in other words each country in the world develops their own stereotypes about other people every country does that and when you do that then you don't have to deal with Irish people or Jewish people or black people or Russians as human beings hey we know they are all they fill in the label greedy, smelly, dirty you know they like killing people whatever it is the main point out of all of this is that it seems to me that war is not going to be stopped to all over the world people begin to sit down and look at people as human beings which is not to say that everybody in the world is nice not everybody in Burlington or Vermont or America or Russia is nice and you have a right to dislike people that's natural but you have to know why you dislike people and what are the reasons if there's somebody who goes around killing people you shouldn't like them cheating people but you have to know what in fact is going on okay well we spent a long time my goodness I think we're almost running out of time are we we'll do if you want I'm not sure that I do actually okay but let's what are some of the other subjects we spent a while on one subject and that was an excellent one on war which I think is perhaps the most important what is another subject that is also of enormous consequence nuclear waste good that's part of a larger problem what do you call that problem acid rain pardon me acid rain those are then the environment the environment okay environmental problems in general we talked about a little while ago that if there's a nuclear war and the whole world blows up we don't have to worry about much and that's true but there's another problem that also not quite tomorrow not is dramatically I think but also over a period of not so many years could also have devastating impact on everybody in this room and everybody on this earth and that is the whole question of the environment who wants to start off by saying what do we mean when we're talking about that and we've got a few examples of particular problems acid rain being one how you deal with nuclear waste being another give me the broad view what are we talking about when we talk about a concern for the environment yeah you're giving me examples but yeah so what pollution big deal no problem acid rain so what no problem nuclear waste no problem what are we talking about yeah the destruction of the environment all right the goal is a little bit deeper I don't know what you mean by that yes that's what we are talking about but what so what the environment has destroyed big deal is that a problem yes why is it a problem it's got to be behind it yeah I'm sorry I was I had something because if pollution kills off a certain species that will kill off another species too needs that one and then the whole all of us the whole system excellent why because we all depend on excellent that is an excellent explanation in other words I would say that if we're going to talk about it in one paragraph what you're saying is you look at the entire world as an eco system ecosystem and that basically means what you said is that everything is related to everything else for example some of you may have seen there were some articles in the newspaper recently about the destruction of the ozone layer and the fact that the climate the temperature on earth may rise a few degrees is that significant is that just to mean that the summer will be a little bit warm we could go swimming another day or two well it's not it doesn't seem significant but if it gets like hardly any warmer the polar ice caps could melt and like flood that way precisely flood us the point being that if you don't think that raising temperature a few degrees is enormous consequences get very wrong because it has it doesn't mean just that oh boy we're swimming a few more days it means that the type of rays that come down from the sun will make us vulnerable to disease it will have an impact on the polar caps in melting them and it gets back to the point that she made which is that everything relates to everything else okay when that loudspeak get interrupted us it relates to us it relates to the conversation that we have everything relates to everything else the environment is a very very fragile system of interrelationships and if one thing is disrupted it'll have an effect on everything else for example if climate if the raising of the temperature has an effect on drought and I don't know that it will but it might and on the growing of food on the growing of wheat what does that mean in terms of the way we live yeah well if if the wheat is destroyed then we're going to lose a lot of wheat to wheat right exactly and if if pollution has an effect on water what does it obviously mean yep that we're going to dehydrate well obviously you can't live without fresh water and as you know in many areas of the country now now we live right here on the lake and we have a problem I'll talk about in a second but in many areas of the country now water you know we take water for granted it's not a big deal but in many areas of the country the availability of fresh drinking water is a major major problem and it is getting worse okay so just as we understand that a nuclear war makes every other discussion irrelevant so I think we have got to pay very strong take strong attention to the environment now what is happening why in the last 20 years has there been much more consciousness regarding the environment has there always been a concern would you say as serious a concern 500 years ago as it is today can we get some new okay yeah well technology has gone up so much and there's more waste being dumped all over the place excellent and you can start to seed in some of the plants very good that's pretty much the right answer in other words 500 years ago Indians lived in this country without the settlers coming were there major environmental problems I would say probably not for a couple of reasons first of all there were much fewer people okay and second of all the level of technology the ability to alter the environment was much less okay so for example the question of how you deal with nuclear waste was not exactly a problem that we had to worry about 300 years ago correct there was no nuclear the atom had not been there was no nuclear power so what ends up happening is that as technology advances and as technology does good things for human beings on the other side of the coin there are also negative impacts and what you have to weigh as we go forward is is the new advance are the new advances working for example it's a lot of fun to get into an automobile right and in 45 minutes you could be down that's great but what are you doing when you drive the car what's the negative of that let me get some more hands not everybody is like this today this young lady here some most of the pollution is coming out of the car sorry and obviously the concern is not one car but it's millions of cars right in other words if one of you made a sound and went like this would not be a problem everybody does it together you got a real noise millions of people do it you have very loud noise and it happens in areas like Los Angeles right now you can tell me that let me get some more hands you all know the answer yep well big fogs of pollution come in sure so in Los Angeles if I'm not mistaken every day they say the temperature is 83 degrees the smog is whatever it is the air quality is by now the air is in such bad shape they tell people who have heart problems but they can't go out and so forth so that becomes a very very interesting question for example if you take things like pesticides pesticides by which insects can be killed are helpful to farmers who are growing crops kills the pests kills the insects they can have good crops what's the negative side of that let me get some new hands yep that's right and what else yep that's right that's right it's great that the insects can't eat the orange what happens last in fact there's a film that was put out recently about grapes in California and the work is there the farm workers will have to gather the grapes are very nervous that their people are getting sick because that insecticide is getting into their system and also it could well be on the grapes that we eat so here's an example where they're growing beautiful grapes the grapes look very nice they look nice but they may not be quite so good for us or for people who do the work in harvesting those grapes the point being that it ain't an easy there are no easy answers to that one but they don't think anyone thinks that we should ban all automobiles tomorrow etc but the question is if you want to maintain a decent standard of living for people okay what you do that's certainly a goal of civilization how do you do it in a way which doesn't make people sick or cause the destruction of the environment and there are some good people who are working on that problem not enough people not enough people and it's complicated by very often that the people who own the technology are really primarily interested in making money so the people in California are manufacturing the grapes really don't care all that much about the workers when necessarily about us who eat the grapes their goal is to get a good product that they can make money on very often they'll lie about the dangers of what's going on for example cigarette smoking perfect example okay I trust that everybody in this room understands that cigarettes are very bad things they really are not only do they cause cancer over a period of years they cause a number of other diseases and yet I think the full truth about what cigarettes are about has not even yet come out although it's we're much more aware of it than we were in the past because some people make a whole lot of money tobacco companies doing very very well in selling cigarettes okay I think I'm going to have to get going soon I've got to get back to the city hall but I think we've touched upon two issues and I really really really want to tell you that I'm very proud of the level of discussion that we've had I think you guys are thinking on your feet and that's good the solutions are not easy and it is important sometimes people you know when we talk about issues that we're talking about now people say this is depressing you know let me turn on the television and watch Miami Vice that's a much nicer thing than having to worry about these problems and I think a lot of that goes on in our own country because the problems are so serious and it's easy to run away from those problems much easier to sit in front of the tube for $8 a night than I think about but that's not what intelligent people should do and you're intelligent people so I don't know that there are easy answers but I think one thing that we have going for us is that humanity has a certain spirit a desire to persevere to maintain a life to maintain it it's that so I think we can solve the problems I think in some ways in terms of both the war and peace issue the facts of Gorbachev will be in Washington next week meeting with Reagan is a significant step forward in bringing two superpowers together the fact that there are now articles and at the growing consciousness about the environment suggests that people are more and more concerned about it and we've got to do more about these things and ultimately what it means is if you're going to be a good citizen in the deeper sense of the word you're going to have to think about these issues you're going to have to study these issues you're going to have to discuss the issues you're going to argue about the issues you're going to have to be involved in politics because that's ultimately what this thing is about too okay so I'm going to go now but I do want to say that I'm very delighted at the level of your consciousness on these issues and your ability to discuss it and sometime if you'd like to drop into city hall and find out more about what's going on in the city because we really did not get into some of the issues that affect our own city which I would like to at some other point talk to you about I enjoyed the opportunity of being here I look forward to seeing you again thank you