European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 15, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday april 15, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 Tom Wicker to i j Bush administration the Central proposition of the new National Academy of sciences report on global warming is that its time to get a move on. Something has to be done and the sooner the better. So tactfully is the report worded however and so moderate and affordable Are its specific recommendations that even the Bush administration managed to find words of Welcome or. D. Allen Bromley the White House science adviser said he was a delighted with the report As Are All my a prospective buyer for the Brooklyn Bridge might take that at face value a if he could Overlook some flagrant and obvious divergences Between White House policies and the Academy report a the administration does not support an increase from 27.$ to 32.5 Miles per gallon As recommended in the fuel efficiency of new autos. A the White House has not advocated a or provided More Federal support for mass transit As the report urges. A population growth is the a biggest single Driver of atmospheric pollution a said Daniel Evans the former Republican governor and senator from Washington who headed the Academy panel that prepared the report. But president Bush opposes abortion and refuses to permit . Support for some population control programs in other countries. A the report urged a Sharp increase in emphasis on fuel efficiency and conservation in Federal Energy research and greater Effort to develop alternative Energy sources. But the Reagan and Bush administrations have systematically dismantled the conservation and alternative source programs of presidents Nixon and Carter and in the so called a Energy policy Quot Bush announced in february be asked for no conservation at All and Little real reduction in consumption of either Domestic or foreign Oil but instead urged opening the Arctic National wildlife Refuge to Oil drilling and production. A the Academy panel clearly said that prompt action should be taken to reduce the threat of global warming but its no secret that the most powerful voice in Bush sear that of his chief of staff John Sununu has been saying that the threat is not conclusively established and More study is needed before taking stronger action. The report tacitly gives that attitude the Back of its hand citing a 25 percent increase in the atmospheric concentration of Carbon dioxide in the last Century and a continuing increase of about 0.5 percent a year a figure bound to go up As a result of the huge and intense Oil Well conflagration that was a Price of the liberation of Kuwait. Global average temperatures were reported to have risen by 0.5 to 1.1 degrees fahrenheit in the last Century and if nothing is done to reduce emissions of a a greenhouse gases like Carbon dioxide average global temperatures were projected to go up at least another 1.8 and As much As 9 degrees. Environmentalists too expressed themselves As pleased with the Academy of sciences report but probably few of them really welcomed its Call for development of a new generation of nuclear Power reactors. The panellists did offer the important reservations that these reactors should be Safe to operate and that their waste should be safely disposable in order for nuclear Power to regain Public acceptability. That a a tall order especially nuclear waste disposal. That a been shown to be less a technical than a political problem since few if any states or localities want to accept storage of this dangerous stuff under any conditions of regulation or safety. Publicly acceptable nuclear Power moreover can hardly be achieved by leaving its development again to the largely discredited supervision of the private utilities nor do Many of them want to take on the financial and regulatory burdens that would be required. Countries with thriving nuclear Power programs have attained them under strict government development and management. But in the United states the Bush administration the utilities Industry and the Public a free Market theology May oppose that. But the essential value of the National Academy of sciences report is not in its sometimes debatable details but Quot in its Clear Overall meaning. The hour is late and the need is urgent As even Sununu now will find it harder to deny. C the now York times William f. Buckley hounds out to Bury the West the prime minister of Pakistan has announced to the legislature Over which he rules supreme that it is his intention to make the Koran the supreme Law of the land subjecting All aspects of life from social behaviour to civil liberties to islamic tenets. If any of the gang at Stanford University who a year ago marched Down the Campus with Jesse Jackson shouting a they hey hoho a Western cultures got to go a wants to pull up roots and move to an Eastern culture i herewith undertake to raise the plane fare. Dinesh do Souza the talented Young critic whose Book a illiberal education is causing Campus watchers to Stop look and listen has written an illuminating essay for policy review the quarterly of the heritage foundation. It is called a multiculturalism 101,�?� and its purpose is to try to help the Multi culture hounds out a Little bit in their anxiety to reach beyond Western culture for True learning. He concludes his essay by recommending a dozen non Western texts that Are faithful to indigenous foreign cultures and helpful to westerners who Are anxious to cosmopolitan ize their knowledge. Take for instance the Koran which is proposed to be elevated to pakistanis equivalent of our Constitution. The Koran stipulates that a men have authority Over women because Allah has made the one Superior to the do the boys and girls at Stanford a and at Michigan and Brown and Yale a really wish that the Koran be studied while of British common Law be slighted do sol a quotes a renowned islamic scholar Ibn Tami Yea who advises a when a husband beats his wife for Misbehaviour he should not exceed 10 ten lashes is about what some of us had in mind As appropriate for those at Stanford who succeeded in abolishing the theretofore compulsory courses in Western culture that Are deemed too it has yielded to a required course called cultures ideas and values. Having dealt with islamic codes on women the pilgrims in search of better ideas than those of our own culture can study the attitudes of others toward homosexuality since a a homophobia is one of the Central targets of the Multi centrists. A it would not be Wise to study the cultural role of homosexuality in marxist Cuba where practitioners Are jailed and sometimes executed in Mao Schina the problem of homosexuality is summarily dealt with by a firing squad. What the protesters against Western values really have in mind do Souza confirms is to induce a dislike for our own culture. To this end different cultures Are More or less assumed to be Superior but it is very hard to use the term a a Superior unless one has a scale of values. For instance if socialist practice is a a Superior to liberalism then it becomes Sale to adduce marxism As a Superior Means of social organization. Do Souza himself an Indian american explains a multicultural curricula at Stanford and elsewhere generally reflect Little interest in the most enduring influential or aesthetically powerful products of non Westem cultures. A the protesters Here weren to interested in building up the anthropology department or immersing themselves in foreign languages a comments Stanford philosophy instructor Walter Lammi. Alejan Dro Sweet Cordero spokesman for a Chicano group on Campus told the chronicle of higher education a we re not saying we need to study tibetan philosophy. We re arguing that we need to understand what made our society what it Black activist William King says a forget confucius. We arc trying to prepare ourselves for the multicultural Challenge we will face in the future. I done to want to study China. I want to study William King 101? a broadly used textbook by the Hute Western ideas Folk is called a multicultural literacy a a Book that a devotes virtually no space to the philosophical religious and literary classics of China Japan Indonesia India Persia the Arab world Africa or latin America. Instead the Book includes 13 protest essays including Michele Wallace a autobiographical a invisibility blues and Paula Gunn Allens a who is your Mother the red roots of White a it is a pity the whole Messy thing among other reasons because we could All learn from Reading classics of other cultures of which do Souza mentions a few beginning with the upanishads written in sanskrit which include the Bhagavat Gita the Katha Chando Gya and Sveta Spatara the Burden of which is that god must not be sought As a being separate from us but rather As a Sublime Force within us enabling us to Rise above our Mortl limitations. There Are Many such works in the Arcana of multiculturalism but unless they condemn everything irom . Tests to reaganomics they will not satisfy those whose principal aim is to rage rage against the longevity of the West. Or. Or p Xcvi so j
