Targeting China pollution ‘hypocritical’

The cartoon that appeared in yesterday’s Opinions section made a mockery of the rapidly developing China on its pollution. The author is either ignorant, hypocritical or simply just wants to jump on the bandwagon of bashing China or India and lay the blame for environmental pollution at his/her door. On environmental issues, the United States simply cannot attempt to take the moral high ground. Before you raise your fingers, remember the United States contains 3 percent of the global population, but consumes almost 25 percent of the planet’s resources. When it comes to contributing to the environmental problems, the U.S. and Europe have “”been there and done that.”” China, and India in this regard, are simply undergoing a similar technological transformation experienced by western countries during the Industrial Revolution. One should not ignore the efforts made by these countries for environmental improvement. As a note to such efforts, China is planning a $200-billion project over the next three years for environmental clean-up (Source: Chemical and Engineering News by The American Chemical Society, Dec. 3, issue 2007).

Crying foul and making these developing countries the scapegoats is simply unfair and hypocritical, and the subconscious Western arrogance is just disturbing. There is a Chinese saying, “”The officials may set fires, but the civilians must not light their lanterns.”” This saying is fitting for the trendy attitude held by some Westerners against the rising countries. But the world is not the same as it used to be. Face it!

Zhiping Zheng
Associate Professor of Chemistry

RIAA did not “”drop”” music download cases

A recent story appearing in the Arizona Daily Star (“”RIAA drops music copyright claims”” 4/20), picked up by the Associated Press and several television stations, along with the Daily Wildcat (“”Boneheaded Battle,”” 4/21) merits proper clarification.

The story indicated that the Recording Industry Association of America copyright infringement lawsuits against 10 UA network users were “”dropped”” without further explanation. To clarify, the RIAA did not “”drop”” any of these cases, merely dismissed them as part of the normal legal process ð- either to re-file the lawsuits in the users’ names or because the case were settled.

The RIAA, on behalf of the major music companies, files copyright infringement lawsuits against university and commercial ISP network users for engaging in music theft online.

A RIAA online investigations team monitors illegal peer-to-peer sites hosting illicit music files for instances of music theft and logs particular pieces of evidence when this theft occurs.

One piece of that evidence is called an Internet Protocol address – a unique tool used by the university or commercial ISP to identify the Internet account holder – which subsequently serves as the basis for a “”John Doe”” lawsuit.

“”John Doe”” lawsuits are filed as a placeholder in order to subpoena the university to obtain the identifying information of the individual users (or “”John Does””).

Once the university responds to the subpoena by providing the RIAA with the identifying information of the John Does, the RIAA – as a matter of legal process – dismisses the John Doe lawsuits and re-files the lawsuits against the identified individuals using their names.

In the case against the UA network users, the university responded to the RIAA subpoena by providing identifying information of the network users, thus the cases were dismissed and will be re-filed in the individuals’ names unless a settlement is reached.

As of today, of the lawsuits filed against UA users mentioned in the Star story, three have settled, seven are pending and two are awaiting a Court ruling on a motion to quash the RIAA subpoena.

Liz Kennedy
RIAA communications

Happy Earth Day, UA!

UA students should be applauded for their Earth Day efforts promoting environmental stewardship and farm animal welfare (“”Club to hold free, meat-free lunch,”” 4/22).

Animals raised for meat, eggs and dairy suffer immensely on intensive confinement operations. Factory farms cram egg-laying hens together in cages so small they cannot spread their wings, while female pigs and calves raised for veal spend their lives in crates where they can hardly move.

Students across the country are right to object to these forms of animal cruelty. Wildcat readers can visit humanesociety.org to learn more about making humane food choices.

Alyson Bodai
Outreach Manager, Factory Farming Campaign,
The Humane Society of the United States