Ranking rankings.

• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

In your latest issue ["Nordic Countries Are World's Sustainability Leaders," Environmental Intelligence, May/June] you cite a study by an organization ranking countries by various parameters (not specified). Bolivia and the Central African Republic came out at the top of the list. This is a simply ridiculous conclusion in terms of quality of life, political stability, educational standards, etc. If you regard such assessments as meaningful, when are you going to relocate your headquarters to either of them? As for the Scandinavian countries, which ranked high in another assessment in the same article, things like cost of living [and] crowding into the cities to maintain an empty countryside are ignored. Also, the low population density reflects how many people emigrated from those countries to the U.S. years ago.

While there are many issues on which I agree with you, you do frequently take up a Luddite stance invoking precautionary principles which can never be validated, like your stance on genetically modified crops.

H. LEON BRADLOW

Edgewater, New Jersey, USA

Lisa Mastny responds: I mentioned the second study (The Ecologist and Friends of the Earth, March 2001), in which Bolivia and the Central African Republic rank high, not necessarily to endorse its conclusions but to illustrate precisely your larger point: that rankings according to specific parameters of "sustainability" should be viewed with caution, as the results can...