To the Editor:

Dear Ronda Gerlt,

Thank you so much for your recent Letter to the Editor opposing the cutting of healthy (grand old) trees on Church St./Hwy 240 by Central Methodist University (CMU) to provide parking for the University. I hope you get a constructive response.

As a decades long environmentalist, and an Arbor Day supporter, I have run into a brick wall many times in promoting environmentally friendly approaches to progress. The core problem is a cultural resistance to replacing lifestyles that destroy the environment with life styles that sustain the environment. This resistance to finding a sustainable way to save the planet is ingrained in individuals, clubs, schools, businesses, agriculture, cities, county, state and federal government. Our institutions of the past have usually been obstructive to environmental considerations when making decisions unless the environmental option surfaces as the economically better option. That giant ship is too slowly turning around.

I know the architectural consultant (an environmentalist) that designed the most recent building on the CMU campus, that saved the University tens of thousands of dollars through his innovative environmentally sensitive approach to building large buildings. But evidently the environmentalist bug did not enter the core approach to all projects with the University.

Several years ago, I was literally driven out of a Howard Electric Coop annual meeting for proposing that the Coop look into generating electricity locally with solar panels on/at every residence and placing small wind generators in communities around the county. We here in Howard County are almost totally dependent on coal for our electricity with no local plans accepted for surviving the elimination of burning coal in the U.S. to save the planet.

The recent bond issue proposed by the Fayette RIII School District said nothing about a proposed erection of solar panels on the roofs of the buildings in need of repair to power the new HVAC systems. There is even grant money from the State of Missouri for such a project. Instead, the District dismissed the project and it never saw the public light of day.

This institutional and cultural blindness to what we can do as our part to ward off the extinction of human beings still has a death grip hold on this community.

Rhonda, I hope you will inspire support from that enlightened part of Fayette and Howard County that is present but mostly dormant.

Sincerely,

Paul Lehmann,

165 CoRd 425, Fayette, MO 65248

Telephone: 660-248-1134

Email: lehmannpault49@gmail.com