Page 26 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • December 7, 2011 to the oil companies, the other party sells out to the teachers and public sector unions, and both parties sell out to the cigarette industry. Imagine what the response would be to some foreign dictator who, each year, wanted to torture 100,000 Americans to death because it paid so well. That is what the cigarette makers are doing. Both parties take their contributions. Politicians above the local level are utterly useless to deal with real problems. It’s up to the real people to cope. Do not invite a polar bear to dinner. Polar bears may look adorable, but on a bad day, you could be dinner. Do think what you could do about the global warming that is reducing the ice the polar bears need to hunt. Consider driving less, buying a smaller car or a hybrid next time, or walk when you have the time. All these options work better than whining. Another good idea would be to gather up some mums and plant them on any available space not used for active sports. Most people buy the mums because they see other people do it, and then leave them on the curb, because they see other people do it. The trend away from huge expanses of mowed lawns and toward reforestation or large-scale plantings can contribute to benign climate control just as less driving can help. The easiest thing in the world – and the deadliest – is to roll over and say it’s all inevitable and nothing can be done. Forty years ago, the Hudson River was filthy and, in large part, “dead.” Environmental activists focused people’s attention on the problem, people agitated for legislation and enforcement, and today the Hudson River is “alive” again. Perhaps even more emblematic is the return of the American eagle. When Europeans first set foot on the North American continent, there were an estimated 500,000 bald eagles living in what is now the continental United States. In those days, it is said, a squirrel could have traveled from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River without ever coming down from the trees, and the air quality, along with more abundant food, made Americans some of the healthiest people the world had ever seen. The eagles were healthy too. In 1776, Congress asked John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to propose a national emblem, and these men debated the question. Jefferson, according to James Bradley, proposed Hengest and Horsa, the first Saxon leaders to set foot in England. Franklin proposed the wild turkey. However, the eagle was chosen. This bird’s initial win was followed by a huge loss of habitat. Rampant deforestation – sometimes for agriculture, sometimes just to turn the trees into potash for fertilizer – reduced the eagles’ woodland and destroyed the trees the birds needed for nesting. As raptor specialist Rob Anderson recently said on PBS, birds of prey were considered vermin. People shot eagles for target practice, or because they threatened livestock. The eagles were drastically reduced in the lower 48 states, and as late as 1917, the territory of Alaska actually posted a bounty for eagles. Some 120,000 eagles were shot for pocket money. The final cut seemed to be coming with the introduction of DDT, an agricultural pesticide that permeated the food supply and caused wild birds to lay eggs with such thin shells that the eggs broke prematurely. Rachel Carson and other environmentalists denounced DDT, but many people though it was too late to save the wild birds in general and the eagles in particular. By the 1960s, there were said to be only about 400 pairs of nesting eagles. The eagle was declared endangered in the 1970s, but DDT was banned in the United States in 1973. The bald eagle rebounded as the pesticides and the bounty hunting stopped, and by 2007 it was possible to take the bald eagle off the endangered species list. The situation is anything but hopeless – unless it’s too much to hope that people will take their minds off shopping madness and spectator sports long enough to protect the environment. This could be a lot to hope for. Recent statistics indicate that one American family in seven runs out of food before the end of each month and that one American child in five experiences periodic bouts of prolonged hunger serious enough to lead to reduced intelligence. That is a more serious problem than birds and bears, but birds and bears are a more serious problem than providing college tuition for kids who don’t belong in college or want to be there when we already have a glut of college graduates who can’t find college-graduate jobs and don’t know trades. Recruiters say there are now 100 applicants for every college-graduate job. Dare we train more of them at the taxpayers’ expense? Everybody may hope to be the lucky one. Everybody may hope that Prince Charming shows up with a glass slipper. You don’t play 100-to-1 odds in gambling casinos or ask taxpayers to subsidize gambling excursions. Feed the kids, then plant the mums and abolish lawns and Astroturf, and then deal with the question of how many college graduates the nation needs and how we can educate them without going bankrupt. If we take care of the mums and the lawns, the polar bears may be able to take care of themselves. In any case, we can at least have a reasonable hope that they won’t show up in New Jersey looking for dinner. Every silver cloud has its dark lining. While some people are basking in the balmy weather, others are tracing a link to the murdered mums of Northwest Bergen County and the prowling polar bears of Hudson Bay. We have all taught ourselves not to look at the murdered mums. Every autumn, many people go out and buy a pot of mums to decorate the front of the house. Later that autumn, most of these people leave the mums on the curb atop the stacks of dead leaves. Not only is this a waste of money, but it is related to prowling polar bears who could gradually head south. Mums are tough. If you stick them in any kind of soil, the mums will generally grow back, year after year, and in so doing they may ever expand their presence and cover part of the grassy sward or mowed lawn that contributes to flooding problems, and will continue to do so as rain gradually replaces snow as the official winter precipitation of northern New Jersey. This is not an imaginary problem. Hurricane Irene showed us that the problem with the flooding of Ho-HoKus Brook and of people’s basements in the same region was not an once-in-a-lifetime event. It is more like a biennial event. If the present climate patterns persist, brook and basement flooding could occur a couple of times a year before the end of the decade. That leads to the prowling polar bears. The word is in from Hudson Bay that the polar bears are coming down earlier and staying longer in Churchill, the Polar Bear Capital of the World, than they ever have before because the freezing of Hudson Bay is coming down later and later every year. There are said to be 20,000 polar bears around the polar cap, and reputable projections indicate that if the climate change doesn’t arrest and reverse itself, there will be no ice at all on Hudson Bay by 2080. A lot of us won’t be around by then, but if the projection holds true, New York City won’t be around either. When the polar cap melts down, the sea level will rise to such an extent that the Hudson River will cover the five boroughs up to the fifth floor of the skyscrapers. Response to the polar bears evoked e-mail laughter from a lot of he-man wannabes, none of them apparently sending e-mail from Iraq or Afghanistan. Ha, ha, ha, bearskin rugs, ha, ha, ha. My hope would be for some of these would-be mighty huntsmen to encounter a bear of any breed that isn’t afraid of humans some night when they’re without a gun. Their mirth would swiftly change. People who live in the remote north know that polar bears are no joke. Polar bears are not afraid of humans and, according to Geoff York of the World Wildlife Fund, “The window without food is growing at both ends.” What is the federal government doing about this? The feds are studying it to death. They are talking about it. They are funding research by think tanks whose lobbyists have access to the right people. That is what the federal government always does about problems that cannot be solved by a boots-on-the-ground invasion. The bears prowl, the basements flood, and while one party sells out Of polar prowlers and murdered mums Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: When I moved to Franklin Lakes in the early ‘70s I had few neighbors. My more urban friends used to kid that I lived in “the woods.” As more homes were built, the local wildlife did not move out; they adjusted. Some adjusted so well that they became a problem. The problem with wild animals is always food. My earliest encounter was with the hungry woodchucks that ravaged my first vegetable garden. I built a fence. They tunneled under it. I trapped them alive and relocated them. Somehow, I have always had woodchucks and have learned to live with them. I gave up vegetable gardening. The next “eaters” were the deer. As more and more of their natural food sources became occupied by houses, swimming pools, driveways, and patios, they found a new source of nourishment: shrubbery. I learned to plant things they wouldn’t eat, no matter how ugly. The state never helped me with my gardening problems, nor with replacing shrubbery. Instead, they came up with the thoughtless introduction of coyotes to control deer population, and in doing so, have created a problem that puts deer in the category of petty annoyances. We now have a new “eating” problem: coyotes. They, too, have adjusted. In fact, they have learned to hunt in broad daylight, in backyards where residents are sure that their small children and pets are safe. They are not. Recently, I put a circular in my neighbors’ mailboxes. It does not ask them to complain or take any action. The town, the police department, animal control, and the fish and game commission are helpless because the state, in another thoughtless action, has declared coyotes protected. Dave Lagé Franklin Lakes Concerned about coyotes Dear Editor: Thanksgiving has passed, and our thoughts now turn to Christmas and all the preparations and excitement of the season. Unfortunately, for some of our Midland Park neighbors, this is a season of anxiety and stress, as they wonder how they will fulfill even the smallest Christmas wish for their children. The Midland Park Children’s Love Fund, Inc. collects wishes from our families and displays them on our Giving Trees. This year, the Children’s Love Fund has displayed the Giving Trees in the children’s room at the Midland Park Library, at Starbucks, and at Family Hair Care. A Love Fund volunteer will bring your gift to the child’s family before Christmas morning. Your generosity will make a huge difference in how a child from a struggling Midland Park family remembers this Christmas. If your routine doesn’t take you to one of our Giving Tree locations, but you still feel the spirit of giving, please send a donation of any amount to: The Midland Park Children’s Love Fund, P.O. Box 327, Midland Park, NJ 07432. Earmark your check “Giving Tree” and a Love Fund volunteer will purchase and wrap a gift for you! There are even opportunities to “adopt” a Love Fund family this holiday season. If you have any questions about the Midland Park Children’s Love Fund, or want to “adopt” a family, please call Michelle Nejmeh at (201) 670-7292 or Laurie Kamp at (201) 670-1062. Thank you for your continued kindness and generosity. Noreen Desbiens The Midland Park Children’s Love Fund Letters to the Editor may be sent to editorial@villadom. com. Deadline is Wednesday at noon. Love Fund requests Christmas gifts