HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Reply-To: mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:56:42 GMT

-: Re: A Simple Way to Save the Economy, and the Planet, Too!
-: 
-: Gentlemen:
-: 
-:      Believe it or not, there is a simple way to save our economy,
-: restore social equity, and save the planet, with one act!
-: 
-:      The answer is simple. We already know that the automobile and
-: its relatives and accoutrements (e.g. roads, CFC-containing air
-: conditioners, used tires, etc.) constitute the world's greatest
-: threat to our environment and quality of life. We also know that
-: the rich own and operate motor vehicles more than the poor. 
-
-	In the discussion of the gas tax, it was noted that it's
-not an equitable tax because the poor- and middle-class are more
-constrained to use their cars than the upper class.   Whereas your
-position is well-reasoned and reducing our reliance on the car is
-a useful goal, I think that your statement that the "rich" own and
-operate motor vehicles more than the poor is in error.  The super-
-wealthy don't even need to commute!

Not if you read the census reports. The poor have fewer cars
available, & use them less. Isn't that obvious?

-	It is currently cheaper (in most urban areas) to commute
-via car than to use other means, and furthermore, most areas are
-underdeveloped with regard to mass transit.  Suburb-to-suburb mass
-transit is woefully undeveloped, and due to the growth of the
-suburban business district and the decay of the central city business
-core (read "Edge City"), suburb-to-suburb commuting is at least on
-the same level as suburb-to-core.  Until this inequities are addressed,
-simple taxing of car usage will only further add to the burden on the
-poor- and middle-classes.
 
I'm not falling for that chicken-&-egg stuff. Making it more expensive
to drive will cause some ex-drivers to begin asking for better 
transit etc. Now, they ignore it because it's "not their problem".
It is cheaper to use transit than to drive. $.39/mile, according to
the latest from the IRS (or the EPA?).

-	Simple answers require complex understanding.

No, I think you are complicating what is very simple.
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Development policies
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 08:45:21 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <JMC.92Dec28111616@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

 > The bill setting pi = 3 was referred to the Committee on Swamps.

They didn't then happen to proceed with the formation of a further
committee to evaluate the recommendations of the Committee on Swamps,
did they?

They did here, believe it or not. Big Swamp, in fact.

Gil

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: CELIA_TONY_BECKER@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Molybdenum in Sewage
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 22:59:37 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: usa

When I had free time, I used to be an amateur mineralogist and
 still have some books on the subject.  According to a couple
 of them, molybdenum was, and probably still is, used to make
 highly durable steel for high speed tools of many kinds.  It
 was also mixed with chrome and other metals for other types
 of steel, including rocket tubes.  Nothing lasts forever.
  Any place that has tools wearing out or metals being recycled
 could potentially leach amounts into the environment.
  Molybdenite also occurs as an ore, close to the surface near
 several rivers--including the Consumnas river in northern
 California, near the old civil war era copper mine.

Cecilia Fabos-Becker, San Jose, CA.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:14074 talk.politics.misc:65736 alt.activism:19914
From: russ@pmafire.inel.gov (Russ Brown)
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 93 05:52:21 GMT
Organization: WINCO
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Organization: WINCO
Keywords: 

In article <louis.725821348@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth) writes:
>jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>
>    [rational, sober, factual discussion of costs of reactors deleted]
>
>I agree that one of the options which has to be taken seriously by the
>environmental community is nuclear fission reators.  And this kind of
>article is a start.  No ranting and raving about GreenNazis (tm), 
>liberal pinkos, etc.  Hey, I'm a member of Greenpeace, Sierra Club,
>National Wildlife Federation (Canada), etc., and I favour increasing
>the rate of installation of reactors, especially if they are Canadian
>built Candu reactors :-)
>
>But how are we to proceed.  A first step here would be to quit calling
>us names, and realizing that there are deepseated fears of reactors
>even among otherwise rational people.  I tried last night to convince
>a couple of friends that Chernobyl could not happen with a Candu type
>reactor, or for that matter with any of the reactors designed outside
>the former Soviet Union.  I failed...  There was nothing that I could 
>point them to for reading.  Where is the non-doctrinaire, non-PR
>type of literature explaining the benefits of nuclear power to the
>general thinking public?
>
>As a start, is there an accessible book on Three Mile Island which 
>examines without prejudice the claims and counter claims of radiation
>damage to the surrounding population?
>--
Without debating its perfection, GPU (I think) published an extremely
detailed booklet describing the issue and related information which, if
nothing else, is better than anything else published.
From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
Subject: Re: Natural Gas? Combo
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 23:37:05 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.233732.24874@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
> In article <ELM.92Dec16182200@terrorism.berkeley.edu> elm@cs.berkeley.edu writes:
>>In article <JMC.92Dec16171509@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
>>=>In contrast to oil, natural gas is in good supply in the U.S.
> 
>>As anyone who's eaten burritos or visited their local landfill or
>>swamp can tell you, methane is very easy to generate.  All you need is
>>bacteria or chemical processes that break down more complex carbon
>>compounds into methane.  You can generate methane from organic waste
>>-- CH4 is a large component of swamp gas and the smelly stuff from
>>landfills (though methane is odorless).
> 
>>In other words, we needn't *ever* run out of it, as long as we can use
>>generated methane rather than mined methane.
> 
> Not true.  I did a paper on this back in highschool.  In order to
> provide a significant percentage of US energy needs you would need
> whole farms devoted to nothing but producing biomass for methane
> productions.  Straight solar is simpler, cheaper, and less polluting.
> 
> Mike
> -- 

Why can't anybody work on ways to integrate the different energy
systems together. Why not have a farm, a methane plant in the area
with some solar energy near by.. Or maybe a way to have solar generator
be in the same area as farms for methane genration? Or maybe solar fields
on top of a methane dump? We don't need in many ways new technology,
we just need to use what we have more efficiently.. Does anyone recycle 
oil?.. It is nice to have new tech, but we must be more efficient..

Or a methane dump with wind mills near by or whatever..
Why must it be straight solar?? Why not use alot of the waste lumber for
methane (maybe a little wierd?). 

Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth NSMCA@acad3.alaska.edu
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Distribution: world
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 93 04:44:10 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <JMC.93Jan2145832@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

 > We are exploiting cheap foreign labor, and if we couldn't do so,
 > there would be a small reduction in living standards.  However,
 > 1.2 billion Chinese have just recently made themselves available
 > for exploitation, this being better than their other alternatives.

Well, this is *partly* true. The Chinese are only making their cheap
labour available within the context of their national endeavours to
keep the worst of the exploiters at arms length, toward positioning
themselves to benefit by exploiting other resources in turn. The
Philippines are also having the Americans leave, while the whole of
the Asia-Pacfic rim keeps an acute weather eye constantly on Japan.

The matter addresses equitable terms of trade within a wider drive
toward political sovereignty and stability, yes?

Gil
From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Japan Bashing, Why?
Date: 29 Dec 92 12:04:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: acad3.1992Dec29.040409.1
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

Japan is just doing what we once tried to.. Japans modern economy is based on
the thoughts and theories of a American (US).. Not sure of his name at the
moment, which is interesting since the same man was/has been ignored in this
country..

Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth NSMCA@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:51:04 GMT

In article <725777050snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> and a previous article, gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
|> 
|>  > >Of course he didn't mention *the environment* because there is no such
|>  > >thing. 
|>  > ... 
|> 
|> The notion of a single objective environment we together must look after
|> better is absolutely untenable, when plainly one's subjective social,
|> built and natural environments are merely a part of the wider context
|> in which one finds oneself. 

Eep. This is another hazard of an education in social science rearing its
ugly head. The worst hazard, in fact.

I think this radical relatiovism is the single most dangerous idea currently
receiving any serious attention. It is inimical to the whole program of science
and also to the prospect of getting our problems under control and reviving
the moribund ideas of optimism and progress.

It's also demonstrably wrong, but only demonstrably to people who have the
patience to examine the demonstration, which is physical science itself.

mt
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: What's Necessary?
Date: 21 Dec 92 16:39:24 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <149180179@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
>
>One final word. It is sometimes asserted that even if we do disrupt a 
>community by removing species from it, since we can't predict exactly
>what will shake out as a result, how do we know that the community will
>not be "improved" by the disruption? This is a bit like hoping to improve
>a delicate mechanical watch by banging it around. 
[deleted]
>
>That's what's necessary.

That's what's necessary if you need a fine mechanical watch, but if what
you need is a steam hammer, it is of little account. On the one hand we
have those who must save every scrap and never rock the boat, throwing
passengers over the side when a ship worm is endangered. On the other
hand, we have those building ocean liners because the little rowboat is
inadequate to the needs of the passengers. The steel hull won't support
ship worms at all. Life is always ultimately fatal, it's how vigorously
you live it that counts.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Reply-To: mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 16:09:22 GMT

---:      The answer is simple. We already know that the automobile and
---: its relatives and accoutrements (e.g. roads, CFC-containing air
---: conditioners, used tires, etc.) constitute the world's greatest
---: threat to our environment and quality of life. We also know that
---: the rich own and operate motor vehicles more than the poor. 
---
---	In the discussion of the gas tax, it was noted that it's
---not an equitable tax because the poor- and middle-class are more
---constrained to use their cars than the upper class.   
-
--Not if you read the census reports. The poor have fewer cars
--available, & use them less. Isn't that obvious?
-
-Not only is it un-obvious, it's untrue.  There are many more poor
-and middle class people than there are rich people, so despite a
-lower per capita car ownership among the poor, the number of cars
-owned and driven by poor people is larger than the number of cars
-owned and driven by rich people.  A tax on cars will take more
-money from the poor, as a class, than from the rich, as a class,
-even if the per capita cost is smaller for poor people.
 
Nonsense. Read the Census. You obviously haven't. A greater
proportion of rich drive than poor. It's obvious.

-Also, note that poor people are more likely to own the sort of
-old, inefficient cars likely to be targeted by environmentally-
-motivated taxes, e.g. carbon tax, pollution tax, tire taxes, etc.
 
So my solution is even better than I thought!

-A similar fallacy is the idea of taxing the rich to balance the
-budget.  Even if you confiscated the entire income of every
-person making over $1 million a year, the Federal budget would
-not be balanced -- there just aren't enough rich people to make
-up for the vast majority of middle-class and poor people.

So I guess you would have to go lower. Of course!
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
Subject: Re: pollution from woodburning fireplace+
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 00:20:05 GMT

In article <1hr11tINNilk@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, ad376@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patricia Dedula) writes:
> 
> 
> My neighbor has a woodburning fireplace which he burns from 
> morning to night.  It is polluting the air around my house to the
> point where I ca
> can hardly breathe when I am outside and it is getting into m
> my house.  Could anyone tell me what could be causing this 
> pollution.  Could he be burning the wrong kind of wood?  What 
> could my neighbor do to eliminate or cut down the strong smell
> that his coming from his fireplace and surrounding my house.
> I noticed even his chimney is getting black.
> 
> -- 
> Pat Dedula 
> May you have Peace, Love, and Happiness forever ...

Real possibles are that he needs to clean his chimney and that he is using wet
or not dried anough or to young of wood.. Are you sure he is not using coal?
What color is the smoke coming out of his chimney? 
Maybe he needs to get some kind of filtration system for his wood burner if
there is such a thing..

Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth NSMCA@acad3.alaska.edu
Crazy Gusik.


Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Reply-To: mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 20:54:57 GMT

-	I confess that I sometimes feel annoyed by Mike Vandeman's
-posts, because he sometimes sounds too much like some howling anti-car
-extremist. And this is despite my agreement with him on several
-essential points.
-
-	I personally would prefer to try to make cars unnecessary for
-a large proportion of urban traveling, and to set up alternatives that
-are as clean, safe, fast, convenient, punctual, and jam-free as
-possible.
-
-	I personally think Mike Vandeman and others like him could do
-a lot better job by pointing to successful public-transit systems
-rather than by doing little other than saying how bad the car is.
-Without presenting good alternatives in appropriately gory detail, the
-car is going to seem the lesser of all the evils.
 
You are forgetting one little fact: your method is FAR TOO SLOW for what
is needed. According to the U.N., we need to reduce traffic by 50% to avoid
the greenhouse effect. Your don't-offend-any-old-ladies method can't begin
to do that.

Besides, the alternatives are already here. People are just too lazy
to use them. The Bay Area has excellent public transit accessible to
90% (by a Chronicle poll) of the population.

-	I must concede that a lot of public-transit systems have a
-host of unpleasant features. It is rare to find a city bus that has a
-pleasant ride, for example. Too many of them seem like some
-car-company conspiracy to make the alternatives seem utterly
-unpalatable.
 
One other itsybitsy fact: people who drive don't want to PAY for good
transit systems. So until they are FORCED out of their cars, there will
be no $ for what you are suggesting (naively).
From: ez026999@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Personal Environmental Impact Software for PC's
Date: 23 Dec 92 03:29:06 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis
Originator: ez026999@hamlet.ucdavis.edu

A new PC software program does environmental impact analysis for
individuals and gives a score ranging from Eco-Titan to Eco-Tyrannosaurus
rex. It covers everything you do "in excruciating detail" (San Jose
Mercury News, Computer Section).  Costs $30. For info - 800-688-9006.
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 09:07:54 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Dec29.000313.714@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@PacBell.COM writes:

 > >to the global problems we have. On the other hand, you might like to
 > >visit Guangzhou during peak-hour; getting stuck in a traffic jam of
 > >*bicycles* clogging up a four lane highway for literally miles, with
 > >whole convoys of trucks and official vehicles just stuck there until
 > >it clears, is no rational idea of progress whatsoever.
 >  
 > Why not? would you prefer all the bicyclists to be in cars? You make
 > no sense.

Well, I have made no effort to make sense here. The entire thread is
nonsense. The matter is rather concerned with what all those people
stuck there on their bicycles want, yes?

They are the ones who will finally make the decisions about it, in a
city in which buses breakdown at every intersection, where underground
railways cannot be built lest the miriad ancient tombs beneath will be
disturbed, and overhead railways cannot be built through the sheer high
density of housing apartments, and a massive economic revival based on
consumerism currently taking place, and with Japan just across the way
on an aggressive auto industry sales drive, I wonder what they will opt
for?

The population of Guangzhou alone is about 42,000,000, some 2.5 times
the entire population of Australia. I guess the problem is just a tad
bigger than you and me, Dr Vandeman.

On the other hand, of course, none of them can drive a car yet.

Gil

Xref: sparky sci.environment:13945 talk.politics.misc:65457 alt.activism:19860
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Date: 28 Dec 1992 23:01:56 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1992Dec28.202218.19800@news.acns.nwu.edu>, dmeier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Douglas Meier) writes:
>>I suppose they're still using exactly the same sort of vats they used 600 years
>>ago?  And exactly the same processes?  I rather doubt it.  I suspect that
>>public health laws have caused significant changes in those breweries.
>>
>Not really.  Most of those older breweries abided by a beer purity act first
>enforced in the early 1200's I believe.  This purity act was more stringent
>then than our industry standards are now.  

I'm sure that M. Pasteur would've found that rather surprising.  After all,
he's the fellow who discovered that heating something to a high enough
temperature kills off the bacteria you don't want there.

Was it common practice in the early 1200s to clean vats with live steam between
batches?

>On another note, what is it about you people (no offense intended) that make
>you believe all was toxic and rat-infested before the age of the social
>architects?  

I never claimed that all was "toxic and rat-infested."  I think that a lot of
so-called "public health laws" are overkill.  That doesn't mean that the advent
of such laws hasn't changed the way things were done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Development policies
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:53:51 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Dec18.212716.11530@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.164247.17939@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>This type of increasing deficit financing would be seen as a red flag
>>by any rational private investor. This kind of government borrowing and 
>>international (government financed) lending is a recipe for disaster as 
>>the above quote shows. The World Bank and the IMF have few success stories 
>>they can claim for their policies which are founded on collectivist and 
>>statist thinking by academic financiers playing with money for whose steward-
>>ship they are not held responsible.
>>
>>The alternative, of course, is for countries to make themselves attractive
>>for private foreign investment and development. This brings new jobs and
>>income to workers, tax revenue to the government, and a climate of prosperity
>>that fosters other investors, domestic and foreign, to start more businesses
>>catering to the new found flows of wealth.
>
>What Gary fails to recognize is that his recommendations are exactly what
>the World Bank was trying to do.  That they continued to enforce this
>policy after it had failed, leading to the deficit spending that he
>criticizes is probably the result of an unwillingness to admit that
>they were wrong.  Also, although describing the World Bank strategy
>as statis may be true but I fail to see how it was collectivist.

The World Bank may have been trying to do what I suggested, but they were
doing a singularly poor job of it. They essentially funnel money from
governments to governments and we've seen countless examples of how
corrupt and inefficient this type of action is. Specifically what I
was suggesting is that countries should establish a legal and political
climate that is favorable to private investment. That doesn't take
massive "loans" from foreign governments. It only takes courage and
integrity by local officials. Of course those are always in short
supply.

The World Bank is fundamentally statist in that it only deals with
states. And it is collectivist in the sense of Karl Marx's taking
from those who can produce and giving to those who cannot, or will
not. Though Robin Hood was more honest than Marx in stating his
intentions.

Gary