Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 3 of 5 · from the scan, no model involved
AT the quarterly meeting of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection on March 4, a slide show prepared by the Piedmont Environmental Council on the importance of farming to the Piedmont area — both in terms of its significance to the economy of the area and to the preservation of its natural beauty—was shown.
Accompanying the slides was a tape narrated by Phil Irwin of the RLEP. This presentation is being made available to any citizens group, organization or church whose members may be interested in the preservation of the quality of the environment and the character of the Piedmont.
John Perry, author, naturalist and featured speaker at the meeting, opened his talk with the question: “What would frighten us?” He described the great variety of threats to life with which modern man has learned to live—the threat of nuclear war, poisoning from untested chemicals, changes in climate which may result in serious droughts and possible famines, water pollution, and the energy shortage.
Perry described the extent of these potential threats but focused for his main theme on the last.
He related this to the local area and emphasized that people can do something about this problem. Referring to the slide show, Perry said that American agriculture, while the most productive in the world, in the process of achieving that statue creates a loss of energy balance since that which goes into production exceeds the output.
Because we tend increasingly in this country to confine our agricultural production to eight states, we greatly increase the costs in energy used through shipping products from Coast to coast, Perry said. By preserving farming in this and in similar areas we would achieve some energy gains.
92.2%