Jul 27, 2007

Letters

Family planning needed

Dear Editor: The danger posed by environmental degradation is in the forefront of many people's minds. Thankfully, many of these same people are quickly finding ways to combat the problems. Most advocate for conservation and improved technology. I certainly agree that these are promising steps toward environmental sustainability. However, without addressing an essential component of the environmental crisis - population sustainability - the Earth will continue to be overstressed, which threatens our collective flourishing.

Each of us can personally combat rapid population growth and the consequent environmental degradation by making educated, informed choices about the number and spacing of one's children. When people receive adequate family planning education and have the ability to choose and implement their decisions, they tend to have fewer children. This leads to a reduction in environmental degradation, which raises the quality of each child's life.

Comprehensive sex education and international family planning services provide a useful education on the environmental consequences of one's reproductive choices. Please ask your representatives to do two things to further this cause: 1.) Vote for The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, which would require federal funding for domestic comprehensive sex education, and 2.) Secure more funding for international family planning.

Georgia Gann,

Population Connection,

Berkeley



Save branch library

Dear Editor: There has been much talk lately about the importance of preserving "the commons" - public treasures common to us all that seem continually to be chipped away at. The piece of it dearest to me is Berkeley's South Branch Library. Unfortunately, in this instance, it is the library trustees doing the chipping. They are proposing to move our Russell Street South Branch Library to a development on the east parking lot of the Ashby BART Station, the Ed Roberts Center. I urge those who use and love South Branch to attend the trustees meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Downtown Central Library (2090 Kittredge Street at Shattuck Avenue) in the third-floor community room. And I urge the trustees to consider what's been lovingly created at South Branch over the years - an open, airy, welcoming space that supports and builds community - and to consider the possibility that these are the things that a branch library is supposed to do.

One of the marketing pieces for moving South Branch next to the BART station says that the move "offers the possibility of a unique service to commuters. Imagine submitting a book request at a kiosk on your way to BART, then picking up the book from the same kiosk on your way home." I ask you to imagine another scenario: imagine low-income South Berkeley children, and mothers pushing strollers, trying to get across Adeline Street, where multiple traffic streams converge; imagine children (and those of us who like them) surviving the traffic and the BART station only to find a cold, museum-like setting where they are not wanted.

I urge those who love this branch library to speak out on behalf of its preservation and improvement at the upcoming trustees meeting.

Pamela Satterwhite,

Berkeley