Newsgroup sci.environment 109084

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In a previous article, dmills@inseine.ifmt.nf.ca (Jennifer Mills) says:
>I am doing a project on the condition of the St. John's Harbour in
>Newfoundland where I live.  Our harbour which is history known for
>it's stratigic location is in major trouble.  Approximatly 120 million
>litres of raw sewage and stormwater run off is dumped into our harbour
>everyday.
>
>I am reasearching different methods of wastewater treatment and I am
>very interested in "Solar Aquatic Wastewater treatment".  The idea of
>using plants, fish, snails and bacteria to break down the sewage is
>very interesting.
>
>I would like to know more about this and other methods of treatment.
>If anyone has a thought on this or can point me in the right direction
>for more information it would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jennifer  
>
>
Raw sewage, you say? Then the first step in any wastewater treatment 
must be to remove settleable solids. (Or maybe, if you have 
essentially unregulated discharges at many points, the first steps mst 
be to build an interceptor sewer and a primary treatment works. 
Primary treatment in settling out the sludge, digesting it 
to reduce the volume, and usually disposing of it in a landfill.
After primary, there are many processes which try to remove dissolved 
pollutants.  I would be surprised if a process depending on solar 
energy would be very effective that far north.
	Stewart Rowe srowe@tso.cin.ix.net

af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) writes:
>(Magnus Redin) wrote:
>: That 200 000 reactor figures is meant to demonstrate that it is
>: possible to provide our culture with plenty of power indefinately.
>: Its not a building program to replace all power production with
>: nuclear power immediately even if that would be desirable.
> Well, lets see. If we must reduce fossil fuel consumption to 1/6th
> its current level, and world energy consumption is projected to grow
> by a factor of 2 to 4 by 2100, either we must reduce per capita
> energy consumption to a factor of 1/12th to 1/24th its current level
> - which McCarthie and other luddites, appears to oppose, or we must
> rely on some mixture of renewable/nuclear power.
Very true, that is a very good reason to find nuclear power promising.
> You would be wise  to ask Mr. McCarthy what  fraction of  the worlds
> energy he sees being generated by solar,  and what fraction he would
> like to see generated by nuclear. McCarthy is on record as rejecting
> any large scale plan to capture solar energy.
I am sure he will comment this himself if he wants to.
>Magnus Redin wrote:
>: To get the steam to turn the turbines one needs more constructioning
>: when building a nuclear powerplant then a coal or oil powerplant. But
>: you need less equipment and energy for handling the fuel.
> This is totally unclear. Can you provide any factual information to
> back up this claim? On first consideration it would appear very
> incorrect.
What is unclear?
Nuclear powerplants often use steel reactor vessels that are harder
to manufacture then boilers and they need a containment vessel and
most designs also need redundant pumps, control systems and emergency
generators for the nuclear safety. 
The uranium mines are smaller then the coal mines and the mass of coal
is _much_ larger so there is need for special ships, railways and
dedicated harbours. And the ash from coal powerplants ought to be
treated with the same respect as nuclear waste but that is not
important for this rough comparision.
>Magnus Redin wrote:
>: It takes
>: five years to build a BWR 1100 MW nuclear powerplant like Forsmark 3
>: in Sweden, it would have taken slightly less to build a 1100 MW coal
>: powerplant.
> Construction time is really insignificant. Operational lifetime is
> more important to our analysis of how fast reactors would have to be
> built in order to reach 200,000. We know that 4,000 new reactors
> would have to be constructed each year to maintain the number at
> 200,000. This would mean that at any moment - given your 5 year
> figure - 20,000 reactors would be under construction worldwide.
> This is a rate of reactor construction that is about 2,000 times
> faster than we have seen before.
Good point. The Swedish reactors were designed for 40 years life
lenght and are doing well and I have heard that the last generation
could work for 60 years but I am not sure about that. I find it
reasonable that straightforward refinemnet of the building methods
could give designs that are easy to refurbish so that we could have
lifelenghts of something like 60 + 40 + 40 years before the basic
structures are worn out.
> Magnus Redin wrote:
>: I find it reasonable to assume that a nuclear infrastructure would
>: cost about twise as much and definately less then four times as much
>: as a corresponding fossil infrastructure for generating electrical
>: power.
> And what is the cost of improving efficiency so that less energy is
> required in the first place?
Look again at your example at the top of this post. We need _both_
improved efficiency and lots of enviromentally friendly power.
> Magnus Redin wrote:
>: Btw, it would take about 500 nuclear reactors to supply all the
>: electricity USA currently needs. USA has 1/20 of the world population.
>: To supply the same ammount of electricity to everybody with nuclear
>: power would mean 10,000 nuclear reactors.
> Thank you Magnus, but we have already gone over the numbers.  By the
> time you finish constructing a fraction of those reactors, the world's
> population will have doubled and energy consumption per person (world
> average) will have increased by a factor of 2 to 4.
Nuclear power can help a lot but not solve all problems. Should we
reject all solutions that cant solve all problems at the same time?
> More importantly, non-electrical power generation must also find
> substitutes for carbon based fuels over this interval if we are to
> avoid significant changes in climate.
Yes, more work. At least we can avoid using coal, oil and gas to
generate electricity or heat. Its better to reserve the fossil fuels
for cars, trucks, ships and aeroplanes.
> McCarthy has stated in his promotion of nuclear power that it can
> supply  of mans energy needs for billions of years.
He is trying and doing well with showing that our culture can survive
and prosper for a very long time if we work at it. Isent that good and
a better vision then the doomsayers?
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Björnkärrsgatan 11 B 20, 584 36 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600

In article <562oe1$11f6@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de>,
	bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) writes:
>: My Web pages
>: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ deal at length with the
>: sustainability of progress.  It discusses 15 billion people at
>: American standards.
>
>What happens when (not if) we get 30?
If you look at population growth in developed, technologically advanced
countries, you will find that it slows down in direct proportion to increases
in standards of living.  Humans reproduce less when they are comfortable, and
have access to birth control.

In article <560m12$9qb@service3.uky.edu>, coltom@west.darkside.com says...
>
>B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
>
>> However, the agricultural use of insecticides was increasing dramatically,
>> and the absence of malaria meant that immunity wasn't developing in the
>> populations. Mosquito exposure to increasing agricultural use of the
>> pesticides meant that resistance was developing... The recipe for a
>> return of malaria was in place.
>
>Plus the basic nature of thirdworld agriculture, ditch irrigaion,
>poor run-off control, endemic use of pesticide.  You not only set up
>alot of places to breed the vectors, but you deliver the material to
>them to become resistant to.
>
Pretty much what seems to have happened in India.  The great resurgence
of malaria paralleled the expansion of the irrigation network from 
30 million [M] ha ca. 1960 to 60 M ha in the 1980s with ongoing plans
to nearly double it again by 2010 or so.  The irrigation net is concentrated
in the upper-mid Gangetic plain where the greatest incidence of malaria
is also found.

Mike Asher wrote:
> As an aside, I will note that the majority of agricultural land in the
> world is farmed with low-tech inefficient methods.  Expantion of the use of
> modern agriculture, new species, and good infrastructure, can more than
> double world food production.  All without an additional acre being farmed,
> though, in the US at least, agricultural land usage has been on the decline
> for many years.   Perhaps you have some statistics here?
Modern agriculture is not sustainable.
=========================================================================
       THERMODYNAMICS AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD PRODUCTION
       by Jay Hanson  — revised 11/04/96
All matter and energy in the universe are subject to the Laws of
Thermodynamics. In the discipline of Ecological Economics, systems are
delimited so that they are meaningful to our economy. What does
thermodynamics have to do with the sustainability of food production?
The two essential forms of stored thermodynamic potential are "energy"
(e.g., a barrel of oil) and "order" (e.g., clean drinking water and deep
topsoil). "Entropy" is a measure of the unavailability of energy: the
entropy of oil increases as it burns, and the entropy of a water table
increases as it falls because more energy will be required to pump it to
the surface.
Entropy can also be thought of as a measure of disorder in a system:
polluted water that requires purification has higher entropy than the
same
water unpolluted, and the entropy of topsoil increases when it erodes or
is
polluted by salt from evaporating irrigation water.[1]
Sustainable systems are "circular" (outputs become inputs)—all linear
physical systems must eventually end. Modern agriculture is increasing
entropy in both its sources (e.g., energy, soil, and ground water) and
its
sinks (e.g., water and soil). Thus, modern agriculture is not
circular—it
can not be sustained.
Consider the most important limiting variable—energy.[2]
There is NO substitute for energy. Although the economy treats energy
just
like any other resource, it is NOT like any other resource. Energy is
the
precondition for ALL other resources and oil is the most important form
of
energy we use, making up about 38 percent of the world energy supply.
40 years ago, geologist M. King Hubbert developed a method for
projecting
future oil production and predicted that oil production in the lower-48
states would peak about 1970. These predictions have proved to be
remarkably accurate. Both total and peak yields have risen slightly
compared to Hubbert's original estimate, but the timing of the peak and
the
general downward trend of production were correct.[3]
In March of this year, World Resources Institute published a report that
stated:
     "Two important conclusions emerge from this discussion. First, if
     growth in world demand continues at a modest 2 percent per year,
     production could begin declining as soon as the year 2000. Second,
     even enormous (and unlikely) increases in [estimated ultimately
     recoverable] oil buy the world little more than another decade
(from
     2007 to 2018). In short, unless growth in world oil demand is
sharply
     lower than generally projected, world oil production will probably
     begin its long-term decline soon—and certainly within the next two
     decades."[4]
Well, so much for oil! Should we be alarmed? YES! Modern
agriculture—indeed, all of modern civilization—requires massive,
uninterrupted flows of oil-based energy.
To really understand the underlying causes and implications of oil
depletion, one must stop thinking of the "dollar cost" of oil, and take
a
look at the "energy cost" of oil. We note that the energy cost of
domestic
oil has risen dramatically since 1975.[5] As oil becomes harder and
harder
to find and get out of the ground, more and more energy is required to
recover each barrel. In other words, the increasing energy cost of
energy
is due to increasing entropy (disorder) in our biosphere.
Optimists tend to assume that the "type" of energy we use is not
significant (e.g., liquid vs. solid), that an infinite amount of social
capital is available to search for and produce energy, and that an
infinite
amount of solar energy is available for human use. Realists know that
none
of these assumptions is true.
In fact, all alternative methods of energy production require oil-based
energy inputs and are subject to the same inevitable increases in
entropy.
Thus, there is NO solution to the energy (entropy or disorder) problem,
and
the worldwide energy-food crisis is inevitable.
When we can no longer subsidize modern agriculture with massive fossil
energy inputs (oil-based pesticides and fertilizers, machine fuel,
packaging, distribution, etc.), yields will drop to what they were
before
the Green Revolution![6] Moreover, billions of people could die this
coming
century when the U.S. is no longer able to export food[7] and mass
starvation sweeps the Earth.
Is there nothing we can do?
We could lessen human suffering if all the people of Earth cooperated
for
the common good. But as long as political systems serve only as
corporate
errand boys, we're dead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many entropy references are archived at: :
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page17.htm
  1. p.p. 42-43, ENERGY AND THE ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS OF SUSTAINABILITY,
     John Peet; Island Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55963-160-0. Phone:
800-828-1302
     or 707-983-6432; FAX: 707-983-6164 http://www.islandpress.com
  2. http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/g2000r/fig13.html
  3. p. 55, BEYOND OIL, Gever et al.; Univ. Press Colorado, 1991.
     303-530-5337 See also:
     http://www.wri.org/wri/energy/jm_oil/gifs/oil_f4-5.html
  4. http://www.wri.org/wri/energy/jm_oil/index.html
  5. http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page20.htm
  6. p. 27, Gever et al., 1991.
  7. Estimated in 1994 to be about 2025 by Pimentel. See:
     http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page40.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                   SELECTED EXAMPLES OF SOIL DEGRADATION
  Country    Extent of Degradation
             Erosion affects more than a third of China's territory some
             3.67 million square kilometers. In Guangxi province, more
             than a fifth of irrigation systems are destroyed or
  China      completely silted up by eroded soils. Salination has
             lowered crop yields on 7 million hectares, use of untreated
             urban sewage has seriously damaged some 2.5 million
             hectares, and nearly 7 million hectares are polluted by
             industrial wastes.
             Eroded area increases by 400,000-500,000 hectares each
  Russia     year, and now affects two-thirds of Russia's arable land.
             Water erosion has created some 400,000 gullies covering
             more than 500,000 hectares.
             Nearly all—94 percent—of Iran's agricultural land is
             estimated to be degraded, the bulk of it to a moderate or
  Iran       strong degree. Salination affects some 16 million hectares
             of farmland, and has forced at least 8 million hectares
             from production.
             Gullies occupy some 60 percent of the 1.8 million hectare
  Pakistan   Pothwar Plateau. More than 16 percent of agricultural land
             suffers from salination. In all, more than 61 percent of
             agricultural land is degraded.
             Degradation affects one-quarter of India's agricultural
             land. Erosion associated with shifting cultivation has
  India      denuded approximately 27,000 square kilometers of land east
             of Bihar. At least 2 million hectares of salinized land
             have been abandoned.
             32 percent of land is suitable for farming, but 61 percent
  Haiti      is farmed. Severe erosion eliminated 6,000 hectares of
             cropland per year in the mid-1980s.
             More than 4.5 million hectares of drylands—10 percent of
  Australia  all cropland—and more than 8 percent of irrigated area are
             affected by salting. Area affected by dryland salting
             doubled in size between 1975 and 1989.
Worldwatch Institute, Paper #131, Gary Gardner, July 1996, p.p. 28-29.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       GROUNDWATER DEPLETION IN MAJOR REGIONS OF THE WORLD, c. 1990
  Region/Aquifer      Estimates of Depletion
                      Net depletion to date of this large aquifer, which
                      underlies nearly 20% of all U.S. irrigated land,
                      totals some 325 billion cubic meters, roughly 15
  High Plains         times the average annual flow of the Colorado
  Aquifer System,     River. More than two-thirds of this depletion has
  United States       occurred in the Texas High Plains, where irrigated
                      area dropped by 26% between 1979 and 1989. Current
                      depletion is estimated at 12 billion cubic meters
                      per year.
                      Groundwater overdraft averages 1.6 billion cubic
                      meters per year, amounting to 15% of the state's
  California,         annual net groundwater use. Two-thirds of the
  United States       depletion occurs in the Central Valley, the
                      country's (and to some extent the world's) fruit
                      and vegetable basket.
                      Overpumping in Arizona alone totals more than 1.2
                      billion cubic meters per year. East of Phoenix,
  Southwest, United   water tables have dropped more than 120 meters.
  States              Projections for Albuquerque, N.M., show that if
                      groundwater withdrawals continue at current rates,
                      water tables will drop an additional 20 meters on
                      average by 2020.
                      Pumping exceeds natural recharge by 50-80%, which
  Mexico City and     has led to falling water tables, aquifer
  Valley of Mexico    compaction, land subsidence, and damage to surface
                      structures.
                      Groundwater use is nearly three times greater than
                      recharge. Saudi Arabia depends on nonrenewable
                      groundwater for roughly 75% of its water, which
  Arabian Peninsula   includes irrigation of 2-4 million tons of wheat
                      per year. At the depletion rates projected for the
                      1990s, exploitable groundwater reserves would be
                      exhausted within about 50 years.
                      Net depletion in Libya totals nearly 3.8 billion
  North Africa        cubic meters per year. For the whole of North
                      Africa, current depletion is estimated at 10
                      billion cubic meters per year.
                      Pumping from the coastal plain aquifer bordering
  Israel and Gaza     the Mediterranean Sea exceeds recharge by some
60%;
                      salt water has invaded the aquifer.
  Spain               One-fifth of total groundwater use, or 1 billion
                      cubic meters per year, is unsustainable.
                      Water tables in the Punjab, India's breadbasket,
                      are falling 20 centimeters annually across
  India               two-thirds of the state. In Gularat, groundwater
                      levels declined in 90% of observation wells
                      monitored during the 1980s. Large drops have also
                      occurred in Tamil Nadu.
                      The water table beneath portions of Beijing has
  North China         dropped 37 meters over the last four decades.
                      Overdrafting is widespread in the north China
                      plain, an important grain-producing region.
                      Significant overdraft has occurred in and around
  Southeast Asia      Bangkok, Manila, and Jakarta. Overpumping has
                      caused land to subside beneath Bangkok at a rate
of
                      5-10 centimeters a year for the past two decades.
Worldwatch Institute, Paper #132, Sandra Postel, September 1996, p.p.
20-21.

Jay Hanson (jhanson@ilhawaii.net) wrote:
: George Antony Ph 93818 wrote:
: > "the supply of food is fixed relative to the supply of land"
: > 
: > In other words, no allowance for higher yields: the whole world's
: > agricultural productivity is frozen at the level prevailing when the
: > paper was written (late 1960s, early 1970s perhaps).
: > 
: > This has been proven a very stupid assumption.  Indeed, it was then.
: > For sources you could start with the FAO Statistical Yearbooks.
: (Since the supply of land suitable for agriculture is
:  decreasing, perhaps their assumption of fixed yield is
:   wasn't such a bad one.)
Actually, US food production is steadily increasing (as is
the world's), even on a per capita basis.  If we're doing
this despite farming less land, as Jay claims, then the 
Limits to Growth assumption is doubly wrong.
: In any event, they updated and reran the model 20 years
:  after the first run and came up with more-or-less the
:   same results.
[deletions]
: "The global population in Scenario 1 rises from 1.6 billion in
:  the simulated year 1900 to over 5 billion in the simulated
:  year 1990 and over 6 billion in the year 2000.  Total
:  industrial output expands by a factor of 20 between 1900 and
:  1990.  Between 1900 and 1990 only 20% of the earth's total
:  stock of nonrenewable resources is used;  80% of these
:  resources remain in 1990.  Pollution in that simulated year has
:  just begun to rise noticeably.  Average consumer goods per
:  capita in 1990 is at a value of 1968-$260 per person per year
:  -- a useful number to remember for comparison in future runs.
Why is a 1968 number being used in a book published in the 1990s?  Among
the many problems with using old figures is the fact that there have
been important advances in measuring the production of consumer goods
per capita over the last few decades.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Scott Susin                                   "Time makes more converts than   
Department of Economics                        Reason"                      
U.C. Berkeley                                  Thomas Paine, _Common_Sense_

In article <3285212E.2912B584@math.nwu.edu>,
	Leonard Evens  writes:
>Actually both the major newspapers I read, the N. Y. Times and the
>Chicago Tribune also got the story right.  I didn't check what the
>typical local TV news sations said, but I wouldn't be surprised if they
>exaggerated.   If Mr. Lermenko insists on getting his news from shoddy
>sources, he is going to continue to get shoddy news.
Speaking of local news.. a few years ago a local news station broke a story on
a toxic waste spill.  Hundreds of pounds of Sodium Chloride had been spilled on
the highway!  Toxic Sodium Chloride!!!
BTW, My last name starts with an I not an L

For example, its discussion of nuclear energy includes a link.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
and labels it.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Nuclear Energy
A good reference point for
people who want to
understand how nuclear
energy works. Theses pages
have been created by a
scientist who defends
temperate positions, but
who is more "for" Nuclear
Power than "against".
There are other links - including links to the Uranium Council (pro) and
Public Citizen (against).
I haven't found references to the newer pessimistic simulations
discussed by Jay Hanson, but I'll look further.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article ,
	Steinn Sigurdsson  writes:
>> - Terminal cancer (what happens when cells try to *grow* forever).
>> This is often stereotyped as an "anti-human" analogy, but intelligent
>> people understand its proper context. 
>
>Sure they do. It is sloppy anti-human argument by metaphor.
>Or do you recommend putting down teenagers when they
>enter their awkward growth spurts?
It's actually a logical fallacy called "dropping the context of a concept," or
in laymans terms "a sloppy analogy."  Humans are not cells; the Earth is not
a body.  Therefore, to take a concept from multicellular organisms and apply
it to human society is invalid.  That would be like saying that both cats and
cigars have coverings, and therefore concluding that you can smoke a cat.

Is the die off prediction for 2030 from the _Limits to Growth_ group?
I'm surprised to see them stick their necks out yet again.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article <3287BAD2.5A43@ilhawaii.net> Jay Hanson  writes:
 > 
 > John McCarthy wrote:
 > 
 > -> Hanson includes:
 > -> 
 > -> While the dollar price of extracting minerals may have
 > ->  been falling, the energy cost of extracting minerals
 > ->   is steadily climbing -- as the laws of thermodynamics
 > ->    predict that it will.
 > -> 
 > -> The laws of thermodynamics make no such prediction about the present
 > -> situation.  If the main energy costs of minerals were those imposed
 > by
 > -> the second law of thermodynamics, and if we were going to lower and
 > -> lower grade ores, Hanson's contention would be right.
 > 
 > You are wrong again McCarthy. See the graphs:  
 >  http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page20.htm
 >  http://www.aloha.net/~jhanson/metal.gif
I looked at both references.  The first concerns oil, which is not
among the minerals we were talking about.  The second claims that the
kilocalories required per unit of mineral extracted has gone up.  It
is not asserted that this relates to the second law of thermodyamics.
Unfortunately, the ordinate of the graph is an index rather than a
number.  Therefore, one cannot tell whether the increase ought to
increase the price of minerals.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article <3287B796.29F5@ilhawaii.net>,
   Jay Hanson  wrote:
>Mike Asher wrote:
> 
>> As an aside, I will note that the majority of 
agricultural land in the
>> world is farmed with low-tech inefficient methods.  
Expantion of the use of
>> modern agriculture, new species, and good infrastructure, 
can more than
>> double world food production.  All without an additional 
acre being farmed,
>> though, in the US at least, agricultural land usage has 
been on the decline
>> for many years.   Perhaps you have some statistics here?
>
>Modern agriculture is not sustainable.
>
>===========================================================
==============
>
>       THERMODYNAMICS AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD 
PRODUCTION
>       by Jay Hanson  — revised 
11/04/96
>
>All matter and energy in the universe are subject to the 
Laws of
>Thermodynamics. In the discipline of Ecological Economics, 
systems are
>delimited so that they are meaningful to our economy. What 
does
>thermodynamics have to do with the sustainability of food 
production?
>
(BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG CUT)
Jay,
you're taking up a lot of bandwidth with this crap.  We've 
all had ample opportunity to learn of your opinion about the 
connection between entropy and food production.  Many of us 
are not convinced, no matter how many times you post your 
same senseless, extremely long document.

In article <55uj82$7q6@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>,
	af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) writes:
>(Adam Ierymenko) wrote:
>: This trend towards ideologically biasing everything in society is one of the
>: more alarming social trends of today.  Reality doesn't exist anymore.  Reality
>: depends on who you listen to.. Earth First or Rush Limbaugh.
>  Adam Ierymenko is  correct.  What we see posted here, and the
>extreme denialist views that are being expressed all across society are
>not rational and are disconnected from reality.
My point was that both Rush Limbaugh and Greenpeace, EF, etc. are primarily
ideologically motivated, with science only being brought in when it serves
their ideological interests (and in a highly distorted format).
>  There is not a day that goes by when I see someone here expressing
>their views of why  is limitless, or making reference to the
>origins of the universe, or speaking of man's future billions of years
>from now.
Some things are for all practical purposes limitless, others are not.  Fossil
fuels aren't limitless, for instance.. but Aluminum is for all practical
purposes limitless since we're not actually using it up but just moving it
around.
>  Those who employ such hyperbole are here for the purpose of
>expressing, and promoting their extremist political ideologies.
>: I am not a climatologist and I admittedly have not heavily researched either
>: ozone depletion or global warming.  However, given the extreme amount of
>: ideological bias on both sides, I don't really trust anyone in this field
>: to be objective.
>  Then you are playing into the hands of those who seek to obscure the
>science of global warming because it does not mesh with their extremist
>ideology.
>  You seem to be sensible and aware enough to recognize that much of
>what appears here is dishonest propaganda.  You may even be aware that
>much of the stranger statements made here come from paid members of
>conservative think tanks and with their legions of washington lobbyists.
What about leftist shills?  There are certainly as many of them.  My point
was that there is a lot of bias on both sides.
>  If you are smart enough to recognize these things, then you are smart
>enough to visit your local library - an institution I have seen referred
>to a socialist drop in center for state sponsored and organized theft -
>to research the subject and judge for yourself who is spreading
>disinformation.
I am currently reading the "ozone FAQ."
>  You will find, once you look at peer review literature, that the vast
>bulk of disinformation that appears here comes from the extreme right of
>the political spectrum.
Probably.
> [rest deleted]

In article <01bbceb2$a032b980$381ef6cd@spence.zinsser.com>,
	"Steve Spence"  writes:
>where does science get its funding? Government & Industry.
In the case of government.. government is where most of the special interests
come in.  Government is a battleground of different ideological special
interests, and that filters into science.

In article <3287C1C8.278A@ilhawaii.net>, jhanson@ilhawaii.net says...
>
>For Immediate Release
>
>          Contact: Lisa Magnino at press@islandpress.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------
[hard-sell spiel deleted]
>Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric
>Threatens Our Future
>By Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
>Shearwater Books/Island Press
>Publication Date: October 21, 1996
>320 pages, Appendices, index
>Hardcover: $24.95 ISBN: 1-55963-483-9
>
>Members of the press: please send two tearsheets of any mention of this
>title to our Washington address: Island Press 1718 Connecticut Ave., NW,
>Suite 300. Washington, DC 20009. When providing ordering information,
>please use the following: Island Press, Box 7, Dept. 2PR, Covelo, CA
>95428;
>800/828-1302.
Surely, this is commercial advertising that is supposed to be a no-no
in discussion groups.  Besides, it has no relevance for sci.econ, so it
constitutes a double violation of netiquette.
George Antony

B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote for all to see:
>"Mike Asher"  wrote:
>
>>Sorry to disturb your rhetoric with some facts, but below is a fairly
>>comprehensive list of study results on the human effects of DDT.  
>>A summary of the 19 research studies below is:
>
>Strange, I thought I had commented on these - perhaps my
>followup didn't make it out of NZ - if so I apologise for the
>following intolerance....
As you note, it is a frequent occupance that postings do not get to
all servers, or even most of them.  This is a phenomenon having to do
with space available, among other things.  It is not unknown for
servers to be full, and if they are commercial, not even telling you,
simply dropping further posts.  Thus you post can get lost even at
your own server, or at any of the servers in whatever link is between
your server and the person addressed.
Your note did not get to my server, by the way.  I did find it on Deja
News, incidently.
>Mike, You wouldn't be so intellectually dishonest as
>to keep splattering your "science" without addressing
>followup concerns - would you?.
>
>In fact, several people have said we should reserve judgement
>on your posturing - to provide the opportunity for you to
>respond. I apologise if I've missed your detailed responses,
>but I couldn't find them on Alta Vista either.
>
>I'm particularly intrigued by the relevance of ...
>...
>>Three case studies ... of alveolar-cell carcinoma were performed among
>>men occupationally engaged in 2,4-D handling/manufacture ... mortality
>>rates were within control limits.   (HAYES, WAYLAND, PESTICIDES 
>>STUDIED IN MAN. BALTIMORE/LONDON: WILLIAMS AND WILKINS, 1982) 
>
>Now, it could be that Mike can't tell the difference between
>DDt and 2,4-D, but in that case his credibility is stuffed anyway.
Regards, Harold
-------
"Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus."
                           -----Aneurin Bevan (1962).

In article <55tbnc$c8b@news-2.csn.net>,
	cpollard@csn.net (Chris Pollard) writes:
>Then please explain how if everybody achieved "our" lifestyle that it
>would be sustainable.  I'll listen.
E=mc^2 maybe?
BTW, in the debate on sustainability.. we have to differentiate between what
resources are being used up and what resources are just being moved around.
For example, the aluminum in a pop can is not used up.. it is just moved
from it's original location in the ground to a new location in a landfill.
It could be recovered if there were ever an aluminum shortage.  Coal on the
other hand is used up.

carrowong@internetnorth.com.au wrote:
> 
> CAIRNS, NORTH QUEENSLAND. Tuesday, November 5, 1996
> 
> A Sad Event for Cairns
> 
> The horrible death of what is believed to be the Mt. Whitfield area's
> last surviving cassowary is a sad event for Cairns.
> 
> For more than 30 years a small, solated clutch of the beautiful big
> birds had managed to live relatively peacefully on what was then the
> fringes of the Cairns urban area but now is an isolated island in the
> middle of suburbia.
> 
> They delighted local residents and visitors alike and provided a unique
> addition to the experience that is Cairns.
> 
> Encroaching civilisation has worn their numbers down until, by the
> beginning of this year, only two were believed to be still alive in the
> Mt Whitfield area. One, believed to be the male, died around the middle
> of the year, leaving just the female that was torn apart by dogs on
> Saturday.
> 
> And therein lies the tragedy. It was not so much development and any
> subsequent loss of habitat that finally put paid to the cassowaries but
> sheer human peversity.
> 
> The growing and spreading of Cairns cannot be stopped without the sort
> of draconian laws  on  movement  more appropriate to a police state than
> modern-day Australia.
> 
> Nevertheless, the authorities have done their best to temper growth and
> development with management of the environment. No one can deny that
> Cairns is not supremely well-endowed with green space and green bands in
> and around the city. Certainly, the 300ha Mt. Whitfield reserve and
> adjoining, non-reserve bushland would have been sufficient space to
> allow for two to four cassowaries to continue surviving right on the
> city's doorstep.
> 
> It was not growth and urbanisation that put paid to the cassowaries but
> sheer human thoughtlessness - and even downright, premeditated cruelty.
> Someone's unrestrained, dogs killed the last of the cassowaries - and
> that person is perfectly aware of the local laws governing the
> restraining and fencing in of such animals. They simply chose to
> disregard them. The dogs, acting on instinct, cannot really be blamed.
> Their thoughtless owner can.
> 
> Days numbered
> 
> Yet, even if the dogs had not done their vicious work, the last
> cassowary's days were numbered, as would have been those of her fellows,
> were any still alive simply because of sheer human perversity. The
> discovery of a .22 calibre projectile embedded in the dead bird's flesh
> shows just how perverse some humans can be.
> 
> To most Cairns residents, the cassowaries were a thing of beauty and
> delight. But to some ignorant and despicable cur, they were just a
> target. If the dogs of a thoughless owner had not put paid to the
> cassowary, some other twisted individual would have done so by bullet,
> trap, poison, or other means. Just for the sheer hell of it.
> 
> lt's a depressing thought that such people will continue to be with us
> for a very long time to come. Controls on land use and other
> environmental regulations are easy to enact and only a little harder to
> police. But simple decent behaviour is far harder to foster.
> 
> The death of the last cassowary shows just how far we still have to go.
> 
> Editorial: The Cairns Post Newspaper, (Tuesday November 5, 1996, page 8)
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> We have posted this article in the hope that enough people will care to
> respond by posting comments which can be forwarded to the relevant
> authorities in the hope of preventing this tragedy from reoccurring.
> 
> The southern cassowary is critically endangered, and its numbers
> continue to dwindle rapidly. Please send your comments, either to your
> own newsgroup, or by email to myself:
> 
> Rob Mortimer: carrowong@internetnorth.com.au
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------

carrowong@internetnorth.com.au wrote:
> 
> Letter to the Cairns Post Newspaper (Saturday, November 9, 1996)
> 
> "Dear Sir,
> 
> Your Editorial (Nov 5) headed “A Sad Day for Cairns” was only my echo
> from the past, and doesn’t say anything new! For the past 10 years we’ve
> been trying fruitlessly to protect what’s left of our wildlife
> especially the cassowaries, only to be ridiculed, ignored and laughed at
> at each and every turn. Quite simply, I cannot find anyone who cares.
> The buckpassing between the Department’s of Environment and Natural
> Resources, the Wet Tropics Management Authority, and our esteemed local
> Councils results only in a bottomless quagmire of bureaucratic bungling
> and ineptitude. Just look back on the other recent dog attacks on
> cassowaries at Mission Beach - other than some quick sidestepping and a
> patheticly transparent attempt at damage control in the local media,
> nothing was done!
> 
> According to Section 15 of the Nature Conservation (Wildlife)
> Regulation, 1994 “endangered wildlife are a significant component of
> Queensland’s biodiversity and a vital feature of the national and global
> ecosystem...”, and furthermore Section 16(b) states that the Dept. of
> Environment’s management intent is to “as a priority, ... put into
> effect recovery plans or conservation plans for the wildlife and its
> habitat.”, and Section 16(d) states that the Dept. will also “...take
> action to ensure viable populations of the wildlife in the wild are
> preserved or re-established”. Clearly this hasn’t happened in the case
> of the Mt. Whitfield cassowary population, which the complacency of
> the Dept. of Environment has permitted to be coldly and brutally
> decimated by uncontrolled, illegally introduced hunting dogs. There is
> still no recovery or conservation plan in place, and nothing has been
> done to ensure the viability of the population on Mt. Whitfield. Token
> words about territorial conflict mean nothing. If the authorities cannot
> guarantee the safety of one lonely cassowary confined to an isolated
> pocket of rainforest, what hope does the remainder of the cassowary
> population in northern Queensland have for long term survival? Surely
> protecting one cassowary can’t have been that hard!
> 
> The inability of the Cairns City Council to effectively enforce the
> council bylaws regarding dog control on Mt. Whitfield Environmental Park
> is equally laughable! Calling for public assistance in identifying the
> owner of the killer dogs after the damage is done won’t help the poor
> cassowary that was literally torn to pieces on the weekend. Ridiculous
> claims of insufficient manpower and resources are nothing much short of
> hypocritical - I am sick to death of hearing Council bleat about
> these sorts of shortcomings, when all though the City they are paying
> staff to lean on shovels, sleep at desks and treat coffee machines as
> personal religious shrines! There should have been animal control
> officers patrolling Mt. Whitfield on a day and night basis, now it’s all
> too late.
> 
> This knee-jerk reaction by the bureaucrats, in my opinion is only just
> another pathetic attempt at good public relations. The fate of the Mt.
> Whitfield cassowaries has been predicted for years - but as usual we
> were classified as radical greenies and dismissed as being among a
> loathsome minority group of do-gooders and whingers. Well, on behalf of
> the destroyed cassowaries I would like to say to the Powers That Be
> “See...I told you so - what do you have to say for yourselves now?”
> 
> Incidentally, try for just a second to imagine this. If we are so bloody
> good at extincting the “King of the Rainforest” - what do you think is
> happening to the smaller and less significant species? Think about it.
> I’d also like to correct Mr Collins (another bureaucrat who has ignored
> our pleas for help) statement by suggesting that the greatest threat to
> our wildlife is habitat loss. Obviously he’s living in the past and
> hasn’t had a Sunday afternoon drive in the parks lately. Illegal hunting
> in “protected areas” is the main cause of wildlife destruction, closely
> followed by dog and cat attacks.
> 
> Disgusting and grossly inappropriate recreational use of “protected
> areas” by screaming motorbikes, bushbashing 4WD’s and thunderous low
> flying aircraft are the main cause of habitat destruction. Now can we do
> something serious about this abhorrent nonsense before it’s absolutely
> too late?
> 
> We must have full-time Ranger Patrols and strict policing of regulations
> in important area - starting tomorrow!
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> 
> Rob Mortimer
> Carrowong Fauna Sanctuary.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Please read the earlier posting on this subject. Your comments and
> thoughts would be most helpful to preventing a reoccurence of this
> outright tragedy.
> 
> Post replies to the newsgroups, or email me:
> carrowong@internetnorth.com.au
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

In <32851B86.812@ilhawaii.net> Jay Hanson 
writes: 
> "Filling the dump truck with dead babies faster",
A malthusian's wet dream...
> [...]  See:
>http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/zaire_goma_dead_30.mov
>
>Do we get some sort of prize if we fill the truck faster?
From a ZPG organization, you do.

Carbon tetrachloride . . . just kidding.
Need to specify the kind of wax.
Years ago Grandma used a weak solution of ammonia with plenty of elbow
grease applied by her grandkids.
Not the best thing for the people doing the cleaning of course but anything
that can strip wax easily probably isn't good for the respiratory tract.
-- 
http://home.sprynet.com/spry/herdsman/hazwaste.htm
asulczynski@candescent.com wrote in article
<847748332.19113@dejanews.com>...
| I am looking for environmentally friendly cleaning solutions.
| In particular, floor wax without glycol ethers.  Would appreciate 
| any information.
| 
| Thanks
| Agata Sulczynski
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
| This article was posted to Usenet via the Posting Service at Deja News:
| http://www.dejanews.com/           [Search, Post, and Read Usenet News]
| 

Leonard Evens wrote:
> 
> Bob Scaringe wrote:
> >
> > On 8 Nov 1996 14:58:19 GMT, bbruhns@newshost.li.net (Bob Bruhns)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >Dave (wingnut@sprintmail.com) wrote:
> > >: Leonard -
> > >:      Quite simply the whole Montreal Protocol on CFC's is a sham.
> > >
> > >: 4. The new stuff has 2 atoms of chlorine, which through a process
> > >:    changes O3 (ozone) to O2, free oxygen.
> > >:    The old stuff had 3 atoms.  WOW, a 33% drop.
> > >
> > >  Dave, a small change in chemical structure can make a large change
> > >in chemical action.  In this case, the small change causes HCFC to
> > >break down BEFORE it reaches the ozone layer, so its chlorine is not
> > >released where it will damage it.  CFC delivered the chlorine directly
> > >to the ozone layer, because it is so resiliant that it basically does
> > >not break down into its constituent elements until it encounters the
> > >unfiltered sunlight near the top of our much-needed ozone layer.
> > >
> > >  In an even more critical chemical system, DNA, it is only a tiny
> > >(less than 1%, I believe) difference that distinguishes human DNA
> > >from chimpanzee DNA.  A small difference can produce a big effect.
> > >Please study the issue more thoroughly.
> > >
> > >  As for the increase in price - well, maybe if the chemical companies
> > >had begun their sliding two-year research program back in the mid-70's
> > >when they should have, we would not be paying the big bucks now.
> > >
> > >  Bob Bruhns, WA3WDR, bbruhns@li.net
> >
> > The real truth about the depletion of the ozone by chlorides and
> > bromides is that it is just a theory by two professors from Calif.
> > (Rowland-Molina theory).  Acutally one volcano dumps more Cl and Br
> > into the atmoshphere that all the CFC's ever made.    To make it
> > worse, the  HFC's (zero Ozone Depletion) provide lower performance so
> > you use  more energy and make more emmisions (Nox, CO,...) producing
> > the energy.
> > >
> 
> This particular posting seems to be a dragon with many heads.  It
> appeared last week when Paul Dietz and others completely demolished
> the basic argument.   Volcanic halides do not make it to the
> stratosphere because they are two reactive.  CFCs do because they
> are very stable.  In the stratosphere they are decomposed by ultraviolet
> radiation.   As to the alleged increased pollution from using HFCs,
> could you give a reference in the peer reviewed scientific or
> engineering literature?   I happen to own a 1994 car with CFC
Correction:  It is an HFC refrigerant.
> refrigerant and it works just fine.   I have no evidence that there is
> any significant increase in pollution.
> 
> The issue of volcanic sources of Chlorine is thoroughly explored in
> Robert Parson's FAQ.  Mr. Bruhns ought to read that and stop repeating
> non-scientific propaganda he has been fed.
> 
> --
> Leonard Evens       len@math.nwu.edu      491-5537
> Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
> Evanston Illinois
-- 
Leonard Evens       len@math.nwu.edu      491-5537
Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
Evanston Illinois

In article <562d9l$pr5@news1.io.org>,
	yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>: Actuallly, the assesment of Christianity stating that man is the
>: center of the universe is wrong. GOD is the center of the universe in
>: traditional Christian thought.
>
>You may be right in a narrow sense. But the idea of man being the center
>of the earthly realm is the same as saying "man is the center of the
>Unviverse". This is anthropocentrism, and this is what is driving the
>global ecological and social crisis. 
>
>Only by seeing ourselves as a part of Nature, of the intricate Web of
>Life, can we overcome the dangers of looming global catastrophes. 
>
>Let us be respectful of BOTH people and Nature.
What about when repect for people and nature conflict?
This happens a lot.. like in the case of the malaria mosquito.

ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) wrote:
>Maybe things will get better in the future, as you say.  But things
>will have to get _much_ better before the price of fish falls to, say,
>its 1935 level.  Back then, fish was two and a half times cheaper than
>it is today, relative to the CPI.  Even since 1970, the price of fish
>has gone up 40% faster than overall inflation.  "We're running out
>of fish" doesn't seem like such a bad summary to me.
Farmed fish is expanding like crazy.  Salmon, which was a luxury in my
childhood, is now available at the local supermarket.  It is cheaper
than meat, and comes in several different breeds, with correspondingly
different flavours.
Surimi, ground fish paste engineered into mock crabs legs, imitation
lobster, and so forth, is now a major product in North America, as it
has always been in Japan.  It costs about a penny a gram, roughly the
same as cheese.
Cod is in crisis this decade, but the price has not changed
appreciably.  It is still cheaper than haddock or sole, more expensive
than perch.  I don't know where Scott gets his numbers on price rises;
here in Toronto the _retail_ prices of sole, haddock, cod and perch
have been flat for at least the last seven years, i.e. they have
gotten cheaper in terms of income.  The prices of dogfish ("Boston
Blue"), and salmon have dropped.  Pollack, formerly thought inedible,
has come on the market at half the price of cod, around two dollars a
pound.  Mackerel contines to be cheap, but smoked mackerel fillets
(including Mexican and Louisiana themes) have come on the market at
$11 to $15 a kilo, a fantastic marketing coup!  Catfish, similarly, is
an expensive luxury good in Canada!  The price of lox has gone through
the roof, but I attribute this to the mass marketing of bagels, not to
any shortage of salmon.
As I interpret it the overall situation is comparable to that with
wheat over the last 18 months: 1.) there are fluctuations in price
which depend upon production conditions; 2.) supply  is increasing and
can be increased much further through the extension of farming; 3.)
prices may be pushed up greatly by the demand of the very large number
of people who are coming to have the income to demand more than beans
and mealie.  East Africans and Chinese, e.g., are becoming rich enough
to want white bread and wheat buns, respectively.  
Since goiter is a major problem in China we can guess that there are
hundreds of millions of people who have never _seen_ a fish.  In the
coming generation they are going to be coming into the consumer market
and pushing up the prices.
On the other hand we have vast amounts of corn and soybeans which at
the moment are being fed to fat, unhealthy, cattle.  One of the neat
things about fish farming is that you can stack the fish vertically.
You shovel the food over the side, and what the top ones don't eat,
the ones lower down will get.
For the coming hundred years I see no problem with the production of
adequate, and improved, food for human beings.  Cattle ranching and
lot-feeding, however, will probably be in relative decline.
                                 -dlj.

I plan to review the Ehrlich's new book in due time.  I heard him
lecture on it a month ago.  He is not as bad as Scott Nudds.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article <564mo9$llv@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>,
	af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) writes:
>  Corporations control what their employees say, what they do, what they
>wear, and with growing frequency, what they can and can not do outside
>the workplace.
>
>  Further corporations have a ridged pecking order, within any given
>class, all employees are treated equally.  Advancement in this pecking
>order comes from performing political favors to the upper management.
>
>  This does sound very much like the old Soviet state.  In fact, it
>sounds significantly more restrictive of personal freedom.
You can just walk away from a corporation.  You couldn't walk away from the
old Soviet state; they shot you.
BTW, I do have doubts as to whether a corporation would be the best system
of business organization in a true free-enterprise system.  Our current
system more or less mandates that businesses of certain sizes be corporations.
You can't really have a business of any other structure.  Free enterprise means
just what it says; you could have a workers' commune, a single proprietorship,
a corporation, a democratic corporation, and just about anything else.. with
no limitations on relative sizes.  Free enterprise means the freedom to
form any type of human interaction system you wish to.

In article <01bbce72$619b9380$89d0d6cc@masher>,
	"Mike Asher"  writes:
>Agreed.  Of course, there are _real_ environmental problems out there, but
>the past few years have largely seen attention to them drowned in false
>claims and desires for social engineering.
Absolutely!  If 1/2 of the money spent so far on pushing political agendas,
doing fraudulent "public-health" research, and elevating power-hungry so-
called environmentalists to power were actually used for conservation,
environmental groups could own all the remaining rain forests in South
America and Africa.

In article <01bbcff0$9ed85920$89d0d6cc@masher>,
	"Mike Asher"  writes:
>You want quotes?  I'll start with a couple from this group:
>
>"..one American consumes as much energy as 531 Ethiopians. Why not start
>with
>reduction? "
>     - Adam Lerymenko.    Sounds like a call to lower our standard of
>living.
That wasn't a quote from me.. it was a quote I was replying to.  Those >
characters mean something.
BTW, My last name starts with an I not an L
I love Usenet.  It's a nice debate, but it's very impersonal.. like a bunch of
people in a meeting hall shouting real loud and when you hear something you
forget who said it.

af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
>(John Moore) wrote:
>: Furthermore, if a powerful corporation can create a corrupt
>: government, then the CITIZENS are sleeping at the switch.
>  I read that in this weeks federal election in the U.S. voter turnout
>was the smallest in recorded history.
this one has an easy solution a mandatory voting act
>  Perhaps the public is sleeping..
>-- 
><---->

In <563lcu$e17@news-2.csn.net> cpollard@csn.net (Chris Pollard) writes:
>
>Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
>: Good guess, but quite wrong.  Consumption of nearly all of these
>: commodities has risen since the book was written.
>Probably one reason why we have nearly run out of fish.  
We have not: consumption of fish continues to grow,
year after year. There is no limit in sight, because
the potential of aquaculture and mariculture is huge.
>I can't see how
>anybody can justify supporting any more growth and people either way.
That is simple: they know something you do not.
Also, they like people and consequently want more of them.

In <563e8s$7qh@lex.zippo.com> dietz@interaccess.com (Paul F. Dietz)
writes: 
>
>jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
>
>
>> _Limits to Growth_  predicted, in 1972, that the 
>>world would run 
>>      --out of gold by 1981.
>>      --out of mercury by 1985. 
>>      --out of tin by 1987. 
>>      --out of zinc by 1990. 
>>      --out of oil by 1992. 
>>      --out of copper by 1993.
>>      --out of lead by 1993.
>>      --out of natural gas by 1993.
>
>Even better, I understand someone noticed that the model in LtG
>was time reversible, so they ran it backwards.  Did you know
>that according to the model, the world population in the recent
>past (I think the mid 1800s) was infinite?  
Wonderful. No, I did not know that.
>Not a big confidence builder in the reliability of the model.
>
>Sorry, I don't recall where this was published.
>
>	Paul
If you run across this again, please do post it. 
It looks like an elegant and powerful test.

The hope is only a click away:
http://www.isd.net/anowicki/

Scott Susin (ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
: If we were running out of oil, then the price of oil would be rising.
: The price of oil is falling, so we're not running out of oil.
This isn't true, as a little contretemps between Iraq and Kuqait
a few years ago shows. One of the many places that standard economic
models ignore the actual reality of the world is the situation
with petroleum and natural gas. This is not because they are energy
resources, but because they are fluids!
That is, if you own property with oil or gas under it, you'd better
pump it out as quickly as you can, because the stuff doesn't care
about property lines. So if your neighbor can tap a well into the
same field, he'll get your share of the stuff as well as his own.
I don't want to be mistaken as friendly to Saddam, but it is nevertheless
true that he had good reason to resent the Kuwaitis draining the
oil field they held in common before the Iraqis could develop it
effectively. The same occurs on a less spectacular scale with
private property delimitations within a country.
As with many more obvious commons type resources, oil appears to be
quite plentiful until very near the time where it's all used up, 
because you get no private benefit from refraining from using your
share - quite the contrary, your restraint is a huge competitive
disadvantage. You don't own your inventory until you pump it up, and
then it's quite costly and risky to hold on to it. So everyone who
has any resources that aren't known to be confined to their property
(a rare circumstance, I'd guess) is going to be motivated to pump
and sell as much as possible, thus holding the price to near the
extraction cost and failing to account for declining supplies. Thus
steady or declining oil prices say very little about supplies one
way or the other.
I noticed this myself without reading about it anywhere, but I suspect
it's well-known within the energy extraction industries. Can anyone
who has some experience in that field comment?
mt

>The point is, we are alone on this planet -
>and in this Solar system, at least.
>An insect species may disappear or not - *it* does
>not care. Only we can care.
>Whatever matters, only matters because it matters 
>to *us*. It is our world, it exists only for us.
>
>
>
Not to address the long preamble to this statement, isn't it possible
the lion, killer whale, eagle, earthworm and protozoa are all
thinking in their own way that it is their world, it exists only for
them.  Species don't care whether they disappear or not, witness the
pell mell rush to Malthusian oblivion of this one.  But individuals
can care and individuals of many species exhibit consiousness.  
Isn't it possible that we are the first species to recognise
that this world does *not* exist only for us?
Jim

I'm pretty sure the Coralville dam at least is operating.

In article <3287C22A.7732@ilhawaii.net>, jhanson@ilhawaii.net says...
>George Antony Ph 93818 wrote:
>> [in Limits to Growth]
>> "the supply of food is fixed relative to the supply of land"
>> 
>> In other words, no allowance for higher yields: the whole world's
>> agricultural productivity is frozen at the level prevailing when the
>> paper was written (late 1960s, early 1970s perhaps).
>> 
>> This has been proven a very stupid assumption.  Indeed, it was then.
>> For sources you could start with the FAO Statistical Yearbooks.
>(Since the supply of land suitable for agriculture is
> decreasing, perhaps their assumption of fixed yield is
>  wasn't such a bad one.)
This is a whale of a non sequitur.  It does not address the fact that
per-hectare yields have been increasing. Anybody constructing a model
and using such gross "simplifications" deserve all the ridicule that
they will get from critical minds.
>In any event, they updated and reran the model 20 years
> after the first run and came up with more-or-less the
>  same results.
But if they used the same flawed assumption, the result of the rerun
is equally rubbish from the start.
In general, instead of thinly disguised commercial plugs for some 
authors by quoting reams of stuff not relevant for discussion, do try
to use your own brains and address the issues that have been raised in
these discussions.
George Antony

"Mike Asher"  wrote:
>Scott Nudds  wrote:
>>   Corporations control what their employees say, what they do, what they
>> wear, and with growing frequency, what they can and can not do outside
>> the workplace....
>> 
>>   This does sound very much like the old Soviet state.  In fact, it
>> sounds significantly more restrictive of personal freedom.
>> 
>Mike Asher wrote:
>Socialist rhetoric.  An employer makes conditions of employment.  If you
>don't like them, work elsewhere. 

Gee, it *still* sounds like the Soviet state. :-)
>
>
>

In article <568mfc$832@news.one.net>,
   api@axiom.access.one.net (Adam Ierymenko) wrote:
>In article <55uj82$7q6@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>,
>	af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) 
writes:
(big cut)
>>  You will find, once you look at peer review literature, 
that the vast
>>bulk of disinformation that appears here comes from the 
extreme right of
>>the political spectrum.
>
>Probably.
>
>> [rest deleted]
>
You will find that Nudds identifies the extreme right as 
anyone who doesn't agree with him.  No wonder he is paranoid 
and pessimistic!

Responding to McCarthy's request:
The effective temperature of an ecosystem is actually the easy concept 
in a number of ways.  The average IR luminance is one temperature that 
may be general enough to be useful, although there are others and in 
some systems it may be sufficient to simply measure the number or 
density of some form existing in it, e.g. the number of deer/acre.  
From and elementary standpoint temperature is useful for comparing 
systems and determining at what point a change-of state occurs in a 
given system.  Developed as a thermodynamic principle it carries a 
more general meaning which is why I prefer starting with an IR 
luminance measure.
The eco-potentials zi are much more interesting and difficult to get a 
handle on, but by doing so they would make it fairly easy to assign 
meaning to other state variables.  It is attractive to define entropy 
through Boltzmann's definition S = klogW + constant so that the 
difference  - zi where  is the averaged equilibrium potential 
is defined by its contribution to the entropy production rather than 
attempting to do it the other way around.
The constant R I'm not particulary worried about yet.  Should the 
general analogy between and eco-system and a 
thermostatic/thermodynamic system work out nicely, R will have an 
appropriate interpretation, although it may tern out more convenient 
to approach development by first defining the constants.  We'll see.

In <5623hp$erg@news.inforamp.net> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
writes: 
>>On another possibility -- does a black hole ultimately change energy
to mass in an 
>>isentropic or possibly even a dis-entropic (is there such  a word?)
process?
> 
>The only black holes I know anything about are in education and in
>economics, so I can't help you here.  There is however no reason that
>I know of to suppose that this should be so.  
There actually existed a problem of this kind,
but it was solved... A black hole is a very simple
object with few properties: mass, rate of rotation,
but no statistical order or disorder; so the stuff that falls
into the hole would seem to lose *its* entropy. If
this were all, it would then be a way for the outside world to
dump *its* entropy and violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Yet there must be something wrong with this
assumption, because the process is *irreversible*;
and this resembles the workings of the 2nd law, 
after all. The problem would be how to
express this mathematically. 
It turns out that the *area* of the black hole (of its
"event horizon") plays exactly the same role as *entropy*
in normal matter. Entropy of a black hole can be
defined as its area times an appropriate coefficient:
S = k*A, where S is entropy, A is area, and k
is about 10**41 calories per degree per square centimeter.
With this definition, the 2nd law is saved: entropy
always increases, whether black holes are present
or not. 
Now, this would be merely a mathematical 
trick with little physical content *if* there
were no thermodynamic exchange and no thermodynamic
equilibrium between black holes and the outside 
world. And how *could* there be if no radiation
can escape from inside? But there is.
Stephen Hawking discovered  that a black
hole is a *black body*: it *emits radiation*,
due to quantum effects (to vacuum fluctuations)
near its surface. It has *temperature*, measurable
by its radiation spectrum (the smaller the black
hole is, the hotter it is).
There is therefore a meaningful thermodynamics
of black holes, with the usual laws
of thermodynamics, supplemented by the
S=k*A formula quoted above.