Subject: Re: ENDANGERED AND EXTINCT SPECIES LISTS
From: Romeo
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 19:36:57 -0500
You little animal lovers are so funny. I hate to say it, but we have not
gotten beyond nature. Everything humankind does conforms to God's will.
Extinction is a natural part of life and the universe, and should be kill
off a species of creature, it is God's will that we do so. Trust me,
there should be only one species protected under US law, the Bald Eagle.
The nation bird. Other than that, whatever happens happens.
God Bless America.
Subject: Re: Ozone hole=storm in a teacup
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 22:00:57 GMT
gerl@Theorie.Physik.UNI-Goettingen.DE (Franz Gerl) wrote:
[edited]
>
>By the way, doesn't this "wrote for all to see" give your
>replies an unnessecary hard edge, especially if the rest is not
>written very friendly?
Me? Not friendly?
Anyway, you may be correct. I will bear that in mind.
Regards, Harold
----
"But I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular, administrative
system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor will breed
more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants
to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than
the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the source of savings, will
stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade,
will benumb human industry and activity"
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir on Pauperism , 1835
Subject: Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 21:56:22 GMT
"Richard W. Tarara" wrote for all to see:
>But the farmer doesn't need the combine to feed himself and his family.
>The 'parasites' in this case are smart enough to supply the host with tools
>necessary to support the parasite--and make the host's life a little more
>pleasant. However, as Dale said, if the host dies, so does the parasite.
>The opposite is not true.
You are making a fallacious comparison in order to promote a
viewpoint.
Sorry I disturbed your fantasy, I can assure you it will not happen
again.
[deleted]
Regards, Harold
----
"I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord,
make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."
--Voltaire, French philosopher, author. Letter, 16 May 1767.
Subject: Re: Radioactive waste disposal in the seabed
From: "H.W. Stockman"
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 19:55:13 -0700
David Prime wrote:
> Bill wrote in article
> > Can anyone help me. I am looking for any information concerned with
> > plans to dispose of radioactive wastes by emplacement in the seabed. I
> > know that the United States and Europe investigated the possibility in
> > the 1980s but little appears to have been done on this issue since. Does
[...]
> Dumping of solid radioactive waste into the sea was limited by the London
> Dumping Convention in 1975. Waste was continued to be dumped in the
> N.Atlantic and Pacific until 1982. The Soviet Block dumped solid waste
> after that time.
[...]
I think the first poster was referring to the
"Sub-Seabed" project, wherein canisters of
waste would be driven deep into the soft muds
in the interplate regions. The idea was to
make the canister very corrosion-resistant,
put a pointy end on it, and either let gravity
or a mechanical device complete the emplacement.
A lot of attention was paid to the heat loading,
so convection would not "Burp" the canister
back to the seabed.
Woods Hole did some work on the scientific aspects
of the problem; the name Charly Langmuir comes
to mind, but it has been a long time, and my
graduate days are a blurry memory. The lead
government agency was Sandia Labs, and much
of the work was started by D.R. Anderson.
I think
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: tim@southfrm.demon.co.uk (Tim Powys-Lybbe)
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 00:48:31 +0100
Is there a chance that sci.agriculture could be omitted from the newsgroups
to receive this erudite discussion?
In message <58dh76$ml7@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com> jw wrote:
> In <58dd1a$on6@news.inforamp.net> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
> writes:
> >
> >On 8 Dec 1996 01:36:48 GMT, jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
> >>
> >>This is more than plausible;
> >>many groups have died off completely.
> >>Nevertheless, Yuri's claim is, in a sense, true:
> >>on the *average*, the human population of the globe only
> >>increased slowly: by the factor of maybe thirty of fifty
> >>in a million years.
> >
>
> >"On the average" everything is a single number somewhere in the
> >middle.
>
> Yes, the average is a single number.
>
> > What you say here is true, but only trivially true.
>
> I wouldn't say so. Average rates of growth differ
> by period. It takes factual data,
> to assert that the average rate for the Paleolithic
> was much smaller than for later times.
> This is a non-trivial fact.
> If Yuri expressed only *it* in saying that the
> population was stable, then he was saying
> something that was both true and non-trivial.
>
> If, however, as you say,
>
> >Yuri's claim was that over the millions of years there has been peace
> >and clam, and only in the last few hundred years has there been any
> >change
>
> then his claim was non-trivial but untrue.
>
> > The average is a technique for lending a spurious
> >pluasibility to this absurdity;
>
> No, this is not what the average
> "is a technique for". It
> has other uses. Nor is this what I used it for.
>
> >the gullibility to fall for it is a
> >sign of serious innumeracy.
>
> Here I quite lose track of who's who in
> this discussion. I introduced the average
> growth rate into it. Who, then, was the gullible
> innumerate victim of this "technique"?
> Yuri, with his alleged claim
> of peace and calm? But he posted before me. I myself?
> No - the description of prehistoric
> demography that I gave (in the now-omitted
> part of my response) was the reverse of peace
> and calm: I compared it to a roller coaster.
> And obviously not you.
>
> Why argue about definitions?
> Let us avoid the apparently contentious word "stable",
> and just say that through the Paleolithic
> the global human population grew very slowly,
> though it had its ups and downs.
> The growth accelerated in the Neolithic;
> even more in the Bronze Age and in the classical
> antiquity; even more in the Middle Ages;
> and it really skyrocketed with the Industrial
> Revolution.
>
> This acceleration resembles an
> exponential curve - not of *population*
> (which grows exponentially when the
> growth rate is *constant*)
> - but of the *rate* itself.
>
> This is a highly significant, non-trivial
> fact. It is a uniquely human characteristic
> which has a quantitative measure! It obviously
> reflects the role of technology in human
> population change.
>
> There is a problem with this technological
> point of view, for lower Paleolithic.
> The so-called Acheulian stone tool
> kit remained amazingly stable through
> some 1.3 million years - through
> the whole existence of Homo Erectus
> and his successors - transitional forms
> to Homo Sapiens. Man changed,
> his brain nearly doubled, yet his
> tools remained the same! It is a puzzle.
> However, since fire was
> tamed in this period, skins came
> to be worn as clothes, and speech apparently
> evolved, one can't say that technology
> remained stable (that word again! - sorry.)
>
>
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
tim@southfrm.demon.co.uk
South Farm:
A logical entity with a physical counterpart but no address bar this.
Subject: Re: Ozone hole=storm in a teacup
From: "Sam McClintock"
Date: 13 Dec 1996 03:52:21 GMT
After much obfuscation and little reference to reality we get down to:
>>>Greig Ebeling wrote:
>>>How do you know that ozone depletion causes harm?
> >Sam McClintock wrote:
> >why don't you come up with a credible reference of why we can
> >do without it. NOT a correlation of current loss to biological
harm,
> > but WHY we can do without the ozone layer.
> While reading your post, the question "WHY?" has been, and still is,
> uppermost in my mind.
If you didn't want to answer the question or defend your positions, all
you had to do was say so. If and when you ever feel like answering the
question, you know where to find me.
My highest regards. :<)
Sam McClintock
scmcclintock@ipass.net
. . . In order to CRITIQUE the research, you must READ the research.
Subject: Re: A case against nuclear energy?
From: tooie@sover.net (Ron Jeremy)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 00:08:38 GMT
TL ADAMS (coltom@west.darkside.com) wrote:
:
: Actually Decommission a couple of plants, and then we will talk about
: cost.
Shippingport, Yanke Rowe, Fort St. Vraine for a few. I posted the
information from the latest NUREG dealing with desomissioning costs for
the reference PWR and BWR a month or so ago. If you equate decommissing
a commercial nulcear plant with DOE remediation of Hanford, you truly
are a mindless troll. Why should it bother what it costs to
decommission? Plants are required by law to set aside funds expressly
for that purpose. How many other industries have polluted and ran. It
looks like the commercial nuclear industry has commendable record. As
usual, you and you friends have no real evidence against the commercial
nuclear industry so you must draw "comparisons" which have basis. In
the case of Yankee Rowe, the "intervenors" attempted to stop the attempt
to return the plant to a "green site". This was after attempting to shut
the plant down. I guess they had a change of heart and decided they like
the plant better ;-)
tooie
Subject: Re: Wind Power
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 05:42:24 GMT
On 13 Dec 1996 01:30:31 GMT, redin@lysator.liu.se (Magnus Redin)
wrote:
>
>It is only a small part of the structure that is radioactive. It would
>be stupid to not recycle all that plastics, copper, concrete, steel,
>etc.
>
>Most of the radioactive parts are only mildly radioactive, bury them
>for a few hundred years then dig them up again and recycle them. (Much
>easier to get to then virgin ore. ) Then reuse the the storage site
>for the remains of a few newly decomissioned reactors.
>
>The realy hot parts are the spent fuel and some deatils from within
>the core like used up control rods. The unused uranium and other heavy
>elements in the spent fuel can be extracted and reused. To do that
>well would be easier with new reactor technology. The fission products
>need to be stored for a few hundred years to perhaps one or two
>thousand years depending on how good the extraction and transmutation
>technology is. When they have decayed there might be uses for the
>buried waste.
>
>Thus we can get a very large ammount of energy from a small ammount of
>fuel and a limited ammount of reusable materials that lasts a very,
>very long time.
Magnus,
You are quite right. My reply was just impatience.
I did not mean the suggestion of filling them up with cement and
abandoning them to be taken seriously. It was one of my patented bits
of personal nastiness, in sort form: sort of "if you're stuipd enough
to be scared, you must be stupid enough to buy the idea that we should
simply throw the whole thing away."
You, Magnus, have a higher threshold of pain in the face of Usenet
postings than I have.
I hope you saw my later post in which I though about the possibility
of building modular plants -- transformer-bot-wise. The zirconium
and stainless have a life cycle of somewhere between five and thirty
years, depending. OK, design the plant so you can truck 1/5th or
1/30th of it away every year, plug in the replacement part, and send
it off to its aqua regia bath.
This all strikes me as pretty obvious, (now, after I've been savouring
it for half a day) but there's just an outside chance that it's an
original idea -- in which case I hereby claim patent, copyright, and
design registration rights to the whole thing. :-) Smiley number one
smiles at the outrageous thought of such a possibility being true.
:-) Smiley number two assures everyone in the industry that if I am
indeed being original, I shall sue puce anyone who tries to rip it off
from me, my estates, heirs, assigns, et alii.
Best wishes,
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Life and Death of Cities.
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 05:42:27 GMT
, Dale Wagner wrote:
>David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>>
>> You cannot grow your own food until you have identified seed. This
>> requires an accumulation of gathered plant surplus which is most
>> unlikely without prior division of labour, at minimum between hunters
>> and gatherers, plus the profitable trade between them. Then you have
>> to identify which seeds work where at what time of year -- a Research
>> and Development project which can only have major effects if it
>> spreads by word of mouth from those who discover to those who follow.
>>
>> Translation:
>> The information revolution comes first.
>> The commercial revolution comes second.
>> The agricultural revolution, which is still going on, comes last.
>>
>> .Where ever you got your info from had his head up his ass. The ag
>revolution can about the first time man took a bite and has been going on
>faster and faster ever sence. Why don't you go to school and learn
>something about ag? Start with kindergarden and the visit to the farm
>then progress up from there. If you study hard, you might begin to
>understand how it works.
>Dale Wagner
Who the Hell says "On the Internet nobody knows if you're a dog"?
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Brashears on Hanson
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 05:42:29 GMT
On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:31:26 EDT, Toby Reiter
wrote:
l
>You don't seem to know your statistics too well. About half of most
>landfills is recyclable or compostable paper and paper products.
I see no statistic in that sentence. I have no idea where you get
your "about half" thing from. If it's compostable, it will be
composted. have no fear. Land fills are full of good healthy
bacteria who are specialists on the subject.
Recyclable? Hell you've been in a classroom, seen all the dust coming
off the blackboard, all those little recycled sea shells. Why then do
you natter on?
If it doesn't turn up as slag this it will turn up as igneous that.
> Another
>20% glass, plastic, and metals, about 25% food and yard waste, and then
>about 5% toxic substances. In other words, about 95% of the material that
>goes into a landfill is recyclable. Any plastics or toxins that cannot be
>recycled probably shouldn't have been created in the first place.
Green Avenger,
I am very puzzled. (What are you avenging? And what colour was _it_?
Against whom are you doing your hyperthyroid avenging?) I am
perfectly prepared to concede the truth, plus or minus a few percent,
of everything you say here.
So?
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: mohn@are._delete_this_.berkeley.edu (Craig Mohn)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 01:04:27 GMT
dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On 12 Dec 1996 19:00:33 GMT, sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
>
>>>This just isn't true. This may seem like a small point: our
>>>destructive potential was far greater ten years ago than it is today.
>>Prove it.
>>>In that decade the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world has
>>>declined by perhaps as much as 40%. All the major powers, including
>>>France and China, have ratified and come under the aegis of the
>>>nuclear test ban treaty. The Union of South Africa has given up its
>>>nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons programs of Iraq, Egypt and
>>>North Korea have been halted.
>There is your proof.
David is only looking at one set of trends here. While it is true
that the most important nuclear threats of the past are receding, new
ones are emerging which are perhaps more frightening. The loss of
rigid centralized control in the former Soviet Union has resulted in
several detected (thus failed) attempted black market transactions in
nuclear material. We don't know if there were any successful
transactions. It seems reasonably likely that there will be some
detonation of a nuclear device in an urban area within the next
decade, given the number of angry groups and the difficulty of dealing
with all of them.
The emerging nuclear threats are from terrorism. I personally
wouldn't feel a whole lot safer with fewer nuclear weapons in the
hands of people who are probably less rational and certainly more
desperate than the nations which had them before. Nor would I be
happy with the (perhaps inevitable) British/Northern Ireland-style
police state which could emerge to try to contain such decentralized
threats.
Your proof has a hole.
Craig
Note that my email address in this message header is incorrect,
to foil email spammers. If replying to me use my real email address:
mohn@are.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: Toby Reiter
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:25:18 EDT
On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> On 12 Dec 1996 19:00:33 GMT, sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
> >>In that decade the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world has
> >>declined by perhaps as much as 40%. All the major powers, including
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >>France and China, have ratified and come under the aegis of the
> >>nuclear test ban treaty. The Union of South Africa has given up its
> >>nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons programs of Iraq, Egypt and
> >>North Korea have been halted.
>
> There is your proof.
This is no proof that there is no problem with nuclear weapons. Remember
those laws of thermodynamics, buddy? Matter can be neither created nor
destroyed? There are just as many nuclear weapons today as there were
before. Some of them may just be buried somewhere in a desert next to an
Indian reservation or simply not pointing at anyone in particular. As
long as anyone continues to belittle the universal problems of nuclear
power, whether as weapons or fuel, then this world will not be safe.
Subject: Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)
From: Toby Reiter
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:19:07 EDT
On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> On 12 Dec 1996 19:50:06 GMT, "Richard W. Tarara"
> wrote:
>
> >My point made to counter DLJ's stand, is that the cities can't survive
> >without the rural support system, while the rural areas CAN survive without
> >the cities (not at current Western living standard, but survive.)
>
> Rick,
>
> You're chasing your own tail: that "rural support system" is entirely
> located in cities. Fertilizer plants, trucking, research, tax
> subsidies, education _everything that makes farming possible_ takes
> place in cities. The only thing that happens out in the country is a
> tiny number of people drive tractors around a few days a year -- and
> this will be done by robots guided by satellites quite soon.
>
> Take away the Chicago mercantile Exchange, and tens of millions die
> the next year. Tens of thousands of farmers go out of business in the
> same time. They stop farming. Their farms go back to the buffalo or
> the squackgrass.
>
You have a very good point. Wait....no you don't.
Here's why: all of your assumptions about the necessity of cities is
based upon a consumer-based view of agriculture. Fertilizer, trucks,
research, subsidies, and even bureaucratic education (the kind that comes
from cities) is required to produce healthy, productive harvests. Using
old-fashioned organic methods, solar-powered tractors (you know, the ones
that have babies), and intimate knowledge of the land and seasons it is
possible to create just as bountiful a harvest as using sick land with
artificial fertilizers, artificial seeds, and oil based tractors. The
idea that agriculture needs the stock exchange in order to survive is
inherently inaccurate (what happened before there was a Chicago, for
instance).
I'd like to see a city try and survive without any rural inputs. The
truth is that it can't. Cities, because they are inhabited, cannot
provide their own raw materials, even if people are willing to conserve
every single waste product and turn it into something useful (which they
aren't.) Even if this did occur, it would be impossible to insure clean
water and fuel supply unless rural resources were imported.
Toby Reiter
Subject: Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)
From: Toby Reiter
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:51:40 EDT
On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Toby Reiter wrote:
>
>
> On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
> > On 12 Dec 1996 19:50:06 GMT, "Richard W. Tarara"
> > wrote:
> >
> > >My point made to counter DLJ's stand, is that the cities can't survive
> > >without the rural support system, while the rural areas CAN survive without
> > >the cities (not at current Western living standard, but survive.)
> >
> > Rick,
> >
> > You're chasing your own tail: that "rural support system" is entirely
> > located in cities. Fertilizer plants, trucking, research, tax
> > subsidies, education _everything that makes farming possible_ takes
> > place in cities. The only thing that happens out in the country is a
> > tiny number of people drive tractors around a few days a year -- and
> > this will be done by robots guided by satellites quite soon.
> >
> > Take away the Chicago mercantile Exchange, and tens of millions die
> > the next year. Tens of thousands of farmers go out of business in the
> > same time. They stop farming. Their farms go back to the buffalo or
> > the squackgrass.
> >
> You have a very good point. Wait....no you don't.
>
> Here's why: all of your assumptions about the necessity of cities is
> based upon a consumer-based view of agriculture. Fertilizer, trucks,
> research, subsidies, and even bureaucratic education (the kind that comes
> from cities) is required to produce healthy, productive harvests. Using
^^^ Oops...:) A "not" should have been there. Oh well. :)
> old-fashioned organic methods, solar-powered tractors (you know, the ones
> that have babies), and intimate knowledge of the land and seasons it is
> possible to create just as bountiful a harvest as using sick land with
> artificial fertilizers, artificial seeds, and oil based tractors. The
> idea that agriculture needs the stock exchange in order to survive is
> inherently inaccurate (what happened before there was a Chicago, for
> instance).
Subject: Re: Life and Death of Cities.
From: Dale Wagner
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:02:28 -0800
David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
> On 11 Dec 1996 15:50:58 GMT, "Richard W. Tarara"
> wrote:
>
> > . Cities
> >didn't form originally until agricultural technology had produced food
> >surpluses. Up until then, you either grew you OWN food, or hunted for it.
>
> This is false, except for "large" cities.
>
> You cannot grow your own food until you have identified seed. This
> requires an accumulation of gathered plant surplus which is most
> unlikely without prior division of labour, at minimum between hunters
> and gatherers, plus the profitable trade between them. Then you have
> to identify which seeds work where at what time of year -- a Research
> and Development project which can only have major effects if it
> spreads by word of mouth from those who discover to those who follow.
>
> Translation:
>
> The information revolution comes first.
>
> The commercial revolution comes second.
>
> The agricultural revolution, which is still going on, comes last.
>
> .Where ever you got your info from had his head up his ass. The ag
revolution can about the first time man took a bite and has been going on
faster and faster ever sence. Why don't you go to school and learn
something about ag? Start with kindergarden and the visit to the farm
then progress up from there. If you study hard, you might begin to
understand how it works.
Dale Wagner
Subject: Re: Wind Power
From: redin@lysator.liu.se (Magnus Redin)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 01:30:31 GMT
dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) writes:
>On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 15:29:09 +0100, Neil-Cordwell@Netinfo.fr (Neil
>Cordwell) wrote:
>> It might be interesting to think what will happen when the present
>> day nuclear power stations need decommisioning. What are we going
>> to do with all the nice hot waste?
> Assuming you are not a lobbyist for the construction industry -- all
> the very political Bechtels and Brown & Roots of this world --
> what's the matter with simply filling them up with cement and
> leaving them there?
It is only a small part of the structure that is radioactive. It would
be stupid to not recycle all that plastics, copper, concrete, steel,
etc.
Most of the radioactive parts are only mildly radioactive, bury them
for a few hundred years then dig them up again and recycle them. (Much
easier to get to then virgin ore. ) Then reuse the the storage site
for the remains of a few newly decomissioned reactors.
The realy hot parts are the spent fuel and some deatils from within
the core like used up control rods. The unused uranium and other heavy
elements in the spent fuel can be extracted and reused. To do that
well would be easier with new reactor technology. The fission products
need to be stored for a few hundred years to perhaps one or two
thousand years depending on how good the extraction and transmutation
technology is. When they have decayed there might be uses for the
buried waste.
Thus we can get a very large ammount of energy from a small ammount of
fuel and a limited ammount of reusable materials that lasts a very,
very long time.
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
Subject: Ecological Economics
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 02:24:31 GMT
On Tue, 10 Dec 1996 00:44:38 +0100, tim@southfrm.demon.co.uk (Tim
Powys-Lybbe) wrote:
>Is there any chance that sci.agriculture could be left off the groups to
>receive this valuable posting?
>In message <58ato3$fdj@news.inforamp.net> David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>> On 6 Dec 1996 02:10:20 GMT, "Rick & Bea Tarara"
>> wrote:
Tim,
What's your problem? I'm a farm boy, Yuri's a hayseed, and Rick's
posts are turkeys.
My family farmed 680 acres until recently. Yuri is an expert with the
shovel, and Rick is clearly an expert on fertilizer.
I would have thought sci.agriculture would find us a fine trio!
Now then, stop complaining and drop me a note saying what this South
Virtual is all about.
Cheers,
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Wind Power
From: Martin Taylor
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 10:24:32 -0800
george p swanton wrote:
>
> >In article <58n6tm$6d2@news.iastate.edu>, kvancil@iastate.edu (Katherine A Vancil) writes:
> >|> I think that people should stop thinking so much about the economic
> >|> aspects of wind power and start thinking more about the environment. The
> >|> costs for both will remain high, but in the long run the degredation done
> >|> to the environment will cost us more and future generations more. Wind,
> >|> solar, fossil, nuclear...whatever the source, do it!
Do what?
Quit contemplating,
> >|> using present examples as a source.
>
> In article <58p09u$2gu@lm1.oryx.com>,
> william d dickerson wrote:
> >Interesting concept. But are YOU willing to build a
> >wind farm if you will not make money on it?
> >The only way renewable energy sources are going to
> >gain wide acceptance is if they can be made economic.
> >For this reason, I support partial government funding
> >for research into alternative energy sources, but not
> >subsidies or government mandates.
>
> Renewables are generally capital intensive relative to
> traditional sources. Government can help by providing or
> stimulating access to development capital without actually
> funding projects or mandating technology.
> Government providing access to capital will only be attractive if it is
at a significantly reduced rate of interest (otherwise the banks would do
it). This is unreasonable interference in what should be a free market.
It also diverts government capital from its other, perhaps more
pressing, tasks such as protecting the basic rights of its citizens.
> Another point which needs to be addressed at a government
> level is to establish a direct connection between the
> the environmental impact of an energy source and the cost
> of exploiting it, both in terms of pollution and of
> depletion of non-renewable resources. Traditional energy
> sources enjoy very real subsidies under current policies
> by deferring costs of resource depletion and environmental
> damage to future generations. Such policy would foster the
> development of clean, renewable sources without direct
> subsidies or mandating technology.
>
> gps
Where you can identify costs that are inequitably distributed among the
beneficiaries, some cost adjustment is justifiable. In this state
(Western Australia) this is done through a system of community service
obligations (CSOs) paid by what were initially government monopolies in
energy and water utilities. Now that these monopolies are being split up
and corporatised, the CSOs are creating their own distortions unrelated
to the distribution of costs and benefits. They are more related to
rural support mechanisms.
Our electricity utility, Western Power, is at the forefront of wind and
solar power research, driven by the market force of high diesel fuel
cost. These forces would be reduced, not enhanced, by government
interest subsidies of the type proposed above.
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 02:35:09 GMT
On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:25:18 EDT, Toby Reiter
wrote:
>
>
>On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
>> On 12 Dec 1996 19:00:33 GMT, sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
>> >>In that decade the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world has
>> >>declined by perhaps as much as 40%. All the major powers, including
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >>France and China, have ratified and come under the aegis of the
>> >>nuclear test ban treaty. The Union of South Africa has given up its
>> >>nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons programs of Iraq, Egypt and
>> >>North Korea have been halted.
>>
>> There is your proof.
>
>This is no proof that there is no problem with nuclear weapons.
Who's claiming there is no problem? You're rebutting a claim that has
never been made by anyone. Mazeltov!
> Remember
>those laws of thermodynamics, buddy? Matter can be neither created nor
>destroyed?
It's a three-way race between you, Jay Hanson, and Alan McGowen for
the most bogus appeal to thermodynamics. Feh!
> There are just as many nuclear weapons today as there were
>before.
This is false. You are making this up. The weapons that have been
taken out of service have been dismanteled, defused, the tritium
allowed to run down, the batteries thrown away. They are the genuine
ex-parrots of weaponry. In the American case the plutonium is now
reduced to generic metal form, and is ready to be buried or burned,
and some of it has been burned already. In the Russian case the
uranium denaturing program is at least in the tens and probably in the
hundreds of tons by now.
In other words your sentence above is a pure lie. Fortunately you
have the twin defences of ignorance and incapacity to prevent anyone
suggesting that this makes you a liar.
>Some of them may just be buried somewhere in a desert next to an
>Indian reservation or simply not pointing at anyone in particular. As
>long as anyone continues to belittle the universal problems of nuclear
>power, whether as weapons or fuel, then this world will not be safe.
This is false. Your Indian reservation is a fine piece of artistic
verisimilitude. Perhaps you are a liar after all.
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Brashears on Hanson
From: jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 07:08:46 GMT
In article Toby Reiter writes:
>
> On 13 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:31:26 EDT, Toby Reiter
> > wrote:
> > l
> > >You don't seem to know your statistics too well. About half of most
> > >landfills is recyclable or compostable paper and paper products.
> >
> > I see no statistic in that sentence. I have no idea where you get
> > your "about half" thing from. If it's compostable, it will be
> > composted. have no fear. Land fills are full of good healthy
> > bacteria who are specialists on the subject.
>
> The statistic, dummy, is the fact that 95% of our waste could be
> immediately reentered into the economy instead of sent to a landfill.
> Because this takes some degree of clue to figure out, people without a
> clue tend not to get it. The concept is waste equals food. In other
> words, and one thing which is the effluent of a process becomes the
> influent of another.
> The reason that dumping compostable materials in landfills is a problem is
> twofold. First, landfills, because of the way they are designed, do not
> tend to decompose items very quickly. I.e. there are 20-40 year old
> newspapers in landfills which are still readable, as well as intact
> ancient banana peels. The second reason this is a problem is because we
> spend money and resources to create fertilizer when an even better
> source-- food, yard, and paper scraps, are left to languish in a
> landfill. They serve no use there and any nutrients that may be found
> there are counteracted by the presence of toxic chemicals and metals.
>
> >
> > Recyclable? Hell you've been in a classroom, seen all the dust coming
> > off the blackboard, all those little recycled sea shells. Why then do
> > you natter on?
>
> That's not recycling that's using. In other words, sure oil used to be
> living plants and animals, so you are using elements that were previously
> used for something else, but most people, even ardent
> anti-environmentalists, would have to concede that oil is a virgin
> resource.
>
> > If it doesn't turn up as slag this it will turn up as igneous that.
>
> True, on a universal scale, the amount of matter and energy will always
> remain constant, but the problem is that once a piece of metal is buried
> in a landfill, it has become de-concentrated to the point that we will
> prefer to use virgin resources. The problem with your argument is that
> it ignores the practical limitations of resource recovery after dumping
> because of geographic entropy.
>
> > > Another
> > >20% glass, plastic, and metals, about 25% food and yard waste, and then
> > >about 5% toxic substances. In other words, about 95% of the material that
> > >goes into a landfill is recyclable. Any plastics or toxins that cannot be
> > >recycled probably shouldn't have been created in the first place.
> >
> > Green Avenger,
> >
> > I am very puzzled. (What are you avenging? And what colour was _it_?
> > Against whom are you doing your hyperthyroid avenging?) I am
> > perfectly prepared to concede the truth, plus or minus a few percent,
> > of everything you say here.
> >
> > So?
> My point is that your argument that humans do not throw away useful
> materials is just blatantly untrue. Even if people never threw away
> perfectly good but simply outdated appliances (which they do), they still
> could be categorized as wasteful for throwing away items which could be
> used as inputs in other aspects of production. Look at an ecosystem. In
> it, all waste which is created becomes the food for some other organism.
> Your arguments are about as nonsensical as a physics teacher who
> attempted to prove the lack of intelligence of animals by stating "Have
> you ever seen a squirrel play golf?" In the current light of this
> conversation, who do you feel has more intelligence an ecosystem which
> insists it be responsible for its inputs and outputs, or a random guy who
> insists he's doing the world a favor when he throws away his styrofoam cup.
> The green avenger part is just my way of saying that I accept my
> responsibility for being vigilant and caring for the earth. Anyone who
> refuses to see himself or herself as part of nature is not truly living,
> so David? Go get a life!
>
> Toby Reiter
I see Mr. Reiter has learned quite a few slogans in his freshman
environmental studies class. Do you suppose they chant them in
unison? My son's 5th grade class was made to chant environmental
slogans.
Let's see we have
1. "Anyone who refuses to see himself or herself as
part of nature is not truly living".
2. "Get a life".
3. "Green avenger".
4. the concept of an ecosystem with intelligence
5. "... people without a clue tend not to get it.", i.e. people who
disagree with Reiter's teacher disagree with Reiter's teacher.
The main error of this post is that Reiter's teacher (Could he tell us
the name, so we could argue with the ventriloquist rather than with
the dummy?) is to neglect labor costs. Labor costs dominate any kind
of recycling. People will do a certain amount of separating trash for
a while when pumped up by a cause, but they will slack off when the
next excitement comes along.
A sufficiently coercive regime can make people waste their time for
ideological reasons, but then an ideological police force is required.
I see Reiter as an ideological drill sergeant. "Pick up all the
styrofoam in this landfill. Bend down there! All I want to see are
elbows and assholes!"
--
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.
Subject: Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)
From: sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 03:12:01 GMT
dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
>On 12 Dec 1996 19:50:06 GMT, "Richard W. Tarara"
> wrote:
>
>>My point made to counter DLJ's stand, is that the cities can't survive
>>without the rural support system, while the rural areas CAN survive without
>>the cities (not at current Western living standard, but survive.)
>
>Rick,
>
>You're chasing your own tail: that "rural support system" is entirely
>located in cities. Fertilizer plants, trucking, research, tax
>subsidies, education _everything that makes farming possible_ takes
>place in cities. The only thing that happens out in the country is a
>tiny number of people drive tractors around a few days a year -- and
>this will be done by robots guided by satellites quite soon.
As I read more of the crap you write, you prove yourself to be more
and more ignorant. The most important resources needed to produce food
are: topsoil, water and sunlight. In fact these are the _only_
resources needed, so Rick's point that rural areas can survive without
the cities is quite true. The opposite is not true because there are
not sufficient quantities of these resources in cities to grow the
necessary food.
Monoculture agriculture works on the premise that if you reduce an
entire ecosystem to it's simplest form, you are left with a single
crop which is easy to harvest (i.e. satellites controlling robots) and
no pests or threats to that crop. This allows the crop to be designed
to produce high yields instead of protective traits, (you can't have
both).
This requires the use of pesticides and insecticides to kill pretty
much everything, and fertilizer to sustain the nutrients which would
be there naturally if there was any real ecosystem left. Basically
energy, pollution, and more energy.
People are discovering around the world that this is not a desirable
way to produce food. India was having serious problems with their
crops after the introduction of pesticides, so they eventually
discontinued the use of them altogether.
What they did instead was take the development to the land, helping
the farmers learn about the natural ecosystem and to understand it
well enough to use it to their advantage. Simply walking the fields
and understanding the ecosystem gave them better yields than ever,
solved their environmental problems, and saved them millions.
Sounds like a big FU to those urban resources which you feel are so
important. There is a collective of land-owners working this way in
California called California Clean, and another in Saskatchewan which
I forget the name of; they're growing fast. There is nothing negative
that can be said about this, except maybe that it takes real people
who understand and care for their land. And that it costs the cities
in pesticide sales.
Jason McGinnis
Subject: Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)
From: atanu@are.Berkeley.EDU (Atanu Dey)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 07:49:12 GMT
Sounds like Toby has put a fairly reasonable thought-experiment
challenge for dlj. Appears to me that the urban technologist
does not have much of a shot at growing anything close to what
a rural 'dolt' can do.
Atanu
Toby Reiter (str4552@OBERLIN.EDU) wrote:
: On 13 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
: >
: > People in cities can always get food. If they had not had a lot of
: > resouces at their fingertips they would not have built the city in
: > their spare time. People in the countryside, by contast, are usually
: > dolts hired to pick rocks out of the horses' way, and suchlike.
: >
: > The plants will grow with sunlight and water, with or without the
: > human race. Putting them to human use, however, is altogether the
: > result of urbane intellectual activity.
: You are some kind of freak! Who do you suppose has better knowledge of
: how to grow a tomato: your average Joe farmer or a theoretical
: biologist? People learn to do things well from experience, and a person
: who is living completely detached from the natural world in you urbane
: little sanctuary wouldn't know a cucumber plant from his mom. I'll give
: you a challenge: You take the most current chemical and mechanical
: agricultural technology and grow as much food as you can in the average
: living space of a city dweller. Then, have a farmer, using as much square
: footage as you, armed with his practical knowledge of integrated organic
: pest management, a solar powered tractor in the form of an ox or horse,
: healthy soil,and natural fertilizers see if he can beat you. I bet you
: 10:1 he or she will. Why? Because even with the best technology in the
: world you can't compete with nature innate drive to create life. The
: farmer will allow nature to take its path, whereas you will be trying to
: force a watery tomato out of pulverized rock and nitrogen. Good luck!
: Oh yeah, I forgot to add. Final output will be measured on final quality
: as well as quantity. See if you crappy produce could compete with his!
: Toby Reiter
Subject: Re: Uranium oxide & pollution control?
From: Dennis & Denise Nelson
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:18:01 -0800
> >John McCarthy wrote:
> >
> >Charles Packer is confused. Depleted uranium doesn't come from
> >nuclear reactors. Before uranium is used in water moderated reactors
> >it must be enriched, i.e. instead of the natural 0.7 percent U-235 in
> >the uranium, the reactors need 2.5 percent to 4.0 percent U-235. This
> >is done in a plant that separates natural uranium, as mined, into
> >enriched uranium and depleted uranium. The separation plants are not
> >nuclear reactors.
> >
> >The uranium used as a catalyst could be either natural uranium or
> >depleted uranium. (There would be no point in using the more valuable
> >enriched uranium although it would also work.)
> >--
> > tmazza wrote
>
> Actually, CANDU reactors use natural uranium dioxide as fuel, and they
> are heavy water moderated reactors. Both types of uranium oxide can be
> used, depending on the moderator, etc....
>
So what happens to the 80 to 90% remaining uranium in the spent fuel? Is it
simply discarded along with the remaining fission products and transuranics,
or is it recovered along with plutonium in the waste separation and recovery
process?
Dennis Nelson
Subject: Re: Yuri's crude religious bigotry.
From: jayne@mmalt.guild.org (Jayne Kulikauskas)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 19:47:43 EST
yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
> David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
> : On 9 Dec 1996 18:43:06 GMT, yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
>
> : I take
> : it you are conceding the truth of what I say about Roman Catholic
> : Doctrine.
>
> Dave,
>
> You sound like a complete idiot in search of an argument now. You don't
> believe a single thing about this doctrine, and yet you spout about its
> "truth"??? The "argument room" is down the hall, you know?
In this context, it is irrelevant whether David or anybody else
believes the doctrines. You claim that they say something that they
don't say. David is pointing this out.
> I find it highly ironic that only the atheists would defend the Pope in
> our day and age. You and Brian...
I am a Roman Catholic (a well-educated one, btw) who is prepared to
defend the Pope from the things that you have been saying because they
are not true.
...
>
> : >Get informed, Dave. Have you heard about the Cairo population conference
> : >and how the Vatican did so much to undermine it? Are you aware of the fact
> : >that the Nixon and Ford administrations were going to spend BIG MONEY for
> : >family planning aid -- until all that was derailed by Vatican scheming?
> : >The relevannt _long_ and _detailed_ article is available on my webpage.
>
> : No, Yuri, your argument is the one that is irrelevant -- until you
> : demonstrate some connection between expenditure on government
> : contraception programs and drops in birth rate. There is no such
> : connection.
>
> Bullocks. Check out the recent birth rate in China.
If by contraception program we mean a program which supplies
contraceptive information and devices, then David's comment is
correct. If by contraceptive program we mean a program of forced
contraception and abortion, then you are correct. David, no doubt,
assumed that you would not be suggesting anything so horrific.
> : Birth rates drop when women decide to have or feel like having fewer
> : children. That's it. Government money has nothing to do with it,
> : anywhere, any time.
>
> Your inanities get tiresome after a while. Women of China, then,
> obviously "feel like having fewer children" recently. The next question
> is how to extend this great achievement elsewhere.
Women of China are forced to have abortions against their will. This
is equally abhorrent to people who are pro-life and pro-choice. The
measures that China takes to enforce its one child policy form a part
of its well-known pattern of violating human rights. It is scarcely a
model for anyone.
Jayne
Subject: Re: Sweet and Nice -- and Very Dictatorial.
From: Martin Taylor
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 16:01:10 -0800
Toby Reiter wrote:
> (snip)
> Before the turn of the century, the elderly were often perceived as the
> wise and seasoned members of society. However, at some point in this
> century, we have ceased to respect and utilize the knowledge base which
> the elderly possess. I do not believe elderly choose to live a life of
> golf and shuffleboard, but that they are socially forced into this
> position. The primary reason for this is the severing of the sacred bonds
> which existed between generations for the passing down of knowledge from
> the old to the young. If senior citizens in this country once again
> resumed their rightful positions as sages, instead of being simply
> classified as dottering old geezers, than this country would profit
> tremendously.
Let's look at a paradigm for guiding our actions:
data > information > knowledge > wisdom > action
As one who has a 93 year old, much-loved grandma, and a variety of relations over
60, I value their input at each of the above steps. However, I do not always find
their input any more valuable than those of my own age (40's) or younger. The
reason - the data is often highly selective, and the wisdom relates to a
model of society which no longer exists for me and my family. e.g. one bases his
life almost entirely on his World War 2 experiences in UK bomber maintenance. The
one area of undatable wisdom is human relationships.
(snip)
> Regards, Martin
Subject: Re: Re 1200MW wind generators
From: Kevin Jones
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 21:09:18 -0800
Dan Evens wrote:
>
> Kjones@interlynx.net wrote:
> > That's what this discussion is about. All forms of generation we use now
> > have had decades or centuries of research and experimentation to bring
> > them to the level of technology they are at today. Wind, solar, wave, etc
> > are in their infancy in comparison.
>
> Ahem. Wind in its infancy? DOH! Ever heard of a sailboat? A
> windmill?
> Wind as an energy source is millenia old.
As far a generating MW of power, and connecting it to some sort of a
power grid, etc....yes, infancy.
Subject: World Food Summit - disrespectful view
From: jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 08:59:27 GMT
-upi-
Farm Bureau head pans Food Summit
The head of the American Farm Bureau Federation says last month's
World Food Summit in Rome was an elitist waste of time. Farm Bureau
President Dean Kleckner, who attended the meeting, says he could have
done more to alleviate world hunger by staying home and harvesting his
corn.
Kleckner, in a ``Farm Bureau News'' editorial, said the UN-sponsored
meeting was filled with ``anti-technology, anti-trade, anti-chemical,
anti-business, anti-big, anti-people, anti-everything baloney.''
Added Kleckner: ``People who run and run to meetings such as World
Whatever Summits are truly frightening. Their personal agendas appall us
Farm Bureau types who value the worth of the individual and see and
seize opportunity rather than failure.''
He said the technology that many delegates to the Summit reject,
including genetically altered seeds, will help farmers meet the food
needs of the future.
Kleckner said he refuses the summit's goal of cutting world hunger by
half because ``American farmers, adopting the most modern technological
advances available, can and will do better.''
Kleckner currently is in Singapore for a Ministerial meeting of the
World Trade Organization.
--
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.
Subject: Erlich on Environment
From: Jim
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 21:35:41 -0700
Harold Brashears wrote:
>
> "D. Braun" wrote for all to see:
>
> >On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Harold Brashears wrote:
> >
> >> joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) wrote for all to see:
> >>
> >> [edited]
> >> >
> >> >Yup, she also won the Pulitzer for it :).
> >>
> >> So, a Puliter is a good guide to scientific accuracy? I had been
> >> unaware of that, thanks.
> >>
> >> >She's also been cited as an
> >> >excellent journalist when it comes to science writing. Paul Erlich seems
> >> >to think pretty highly about her - at least that's what he wrote.
> >>
> >> Sorry, in my opinion Erlich has got to be one of the primary examples
> >> of someone who has made more scientific errors than is generally
> >> allowed and entire science department. If he likes her, it is
> >> certainly a reason to suspect her credibility.
> >
> >Harold's Theory of the Scientific Method: If someone I dislike makes a
> >prediction, complete with null and alternative hypothesis(es), and the
> >alternative hypothesis(es) is(are) not supported, then this dispicable
> >person has made a "scientific error".
>
> Sorry, thanks for the effort, but I don't know how I could possibly
> claim credit for your construct. I do want you to know, hoever, that
> I am properly grateful for your efforts, and encourage you to continue
> your posting to usenet in your clearly abundant spare time.
>
> >Scientific error is undefined, but
> >that allows me to fill in the blank with all manners of allegations of
> >bias, prejudice, stupidity, etc to explain why this person with whom I
> >disagree even posed such a( ) hypothesis(es).
>
> We have discussed this before, an I am grievously injured that you
> failed to remember. Contact Deja News, do a search, and read what I
> had noted concerning Erlich's accuracy.
>
> I realize that Erlich's veracity and accuracy are an element of faith
> in your enmotional well being, but I still think that a restructuring
> of your patterns would be benefical to your happiness in the long run.
>
If you dislike or disbelieve Erlich, there are plenty of other
scientists to attempt to discredit. I believe about 1500 of them put
their name to a document in 92' that basically paraphrased what Erlich
has been saying. It was called the "World Scientist's Warning to
Humanity."
Subject: Re: Ozone hole=storm in a teacup
From: khorsell@ee.latrobe.edu.au (Kym Horsell)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 16:01:41 +1100
In article <58d2ic$7t5@alpine.psnw.com>,
Doug Bashford wrote:
>
> Yep, eggsoft@sydney.DIALix.oz.au (Greig Ebeling) wrote on 26 Nov
>1996 07:37:43 +1100 about:
> Ozone hole=storm in a teacup
>
>>Once more it is springtime, and the Antarctic ozone hole begins to
>>expand. And yet again the same old ignorant clap-trap is rolled
>>out through the media.
>
>Well, it's gatta be better than the tired old bullshit
>you are laying out.
I'm afraid it was a bad week for Ebeling. Not only was Molina
visiting Aus, and there was an Environmental Rad convention
"down here" at LaTrobe Uni, but there was a small article
published in a local medical rag that found the chances
of a child contracting some forms of cancer were up to 60%
higher, and the chance of dying from some forms of cancer were
up to 250% higher, if they lived in Sydney suburbs associated
with television transmission towers.
But I'm sure Greig was somewhat mollified by some "official"
explanations along the classic lines
(a)"there is no evidence [that I know of] that UHF can cause cancer" and
(b) "UFH radiation emitted by the towers has been measured and
is found to be below the international safe limits [apart from
hot spots in a children's playground and in some office buildings]", etc.
--
R. Kym Horsell
KHorsell@EE.Latrobe.EDU.AU kym@CS.Binghamton.EDU
http://WWW.EE.LaTrobe.EDU.AU/~khorsell http://CS.Binghamton.EDU/~kym
Subject: Re: Brashears on Hanson
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 09:26:10 GMT
On 13 Dec 1996 07:27:08 GMT, jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
>In that case, however, the human *clade*, if not
>human *species*, will have survived.
>New and improved editions of mankind will
>then exist. I see this as an optimistic scenario.
I fear jw has just read a new book. :-)
Look, fella, the biologists have not yet got this figgered out, not
even the smart ones.
If you start lecturing us on the cladistics vs. species stuff in the
near future, you go straight into the "I know how to spell
thermodynamics" nutso file.
-dlj.
