Contents Environmentalists and the new millennium by Tom Randall Managing Editor Pundits, publications, and people on the street have all been, in one way or another, reviewing the last millennium. What a stunning reversal of the grand age of exploration that lasted nearly a thousand years and took man to anywhere in the world his curiosity called him. Then there is the reversal of progress desired by those who would like to deny us any practical means of getting anywhere in the first place. At the beginning of the last millennium, most folks traveled at a speed of about 3 miles per hour, a little faster if you ran well, owned a horse, or had a strong wind in your sails. Today, the automobile, at 70 miles per hour, routinely whisks whole families cross-country in hours on trips that less than 200 years ago would have taken days, weeks, or months, often at great hardship.
Jets take mere hours to span a world few believed existed a thousand years ago.
By attaining a speed of 25,000 miles an hour, man has gone to the moon. Anti-progress environmentalists would have us return to walking. We might be permitted a few horses, if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals doesn't object. That no longer happens in places where people have access to modern medicine. Polio was virtually eradicated shortly after the middle of the twentieth century, and we have made giant strides in the battle against cancer.