HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Whether or not it is efficient to turn off a flourescent tube?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 5 Sep 92 12:58:24

In article <1992Sep5.190346.12909@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:

   In article <1992Sep4.133935.25717@gdr.bath.ac.uk>, masgn@gdr.bath.ac.uk (Godfrey Nolan) writes:
   >Can someone tell me whether or not it is energy efficient to turn off a
   >flourescent light.  I seem to remember a teacher telling the class that 
   >it takes far more energy to start a flourescent bulb than to leave it 
   >on.  If that is so, does anybody know what are the calculations for the 
   >initial power surge and for normal energy usage.

     If you don't count the energy cost of manufacturing a
     fluorescent light, it more energy efficient to turn it off
     any time you're not using it.  If you DO count the cost of
     manufacturing the light, then it's only energy effint to
     turn it off if it's going to stay off for at least several
     minutesince the lifetime of the light is affected by how
     often it's started.
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

What about the energy cost of leaving your terminal on while you
inquire about the energy cost of turning of the light bulb and the
energy cost incurred by all the people who read and/or respond to the
inquiry?  What about the energy opportunity cost of the people who do
this when they might be operating bicycle powered electricity
generators?

Consider the following my candidate for one of the various environmentalism
prizes.  All those people who operate stationary bicycles for exercise
could be generating electricity and feeding it into the network.  We
need a law requiring the electric companies to buy this electricity.

Inquire of jmc@cs.stanford.edu about where to send the check.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment
From: William.Brown@bbs.oit.unc.edu (William Brown)
Subject: Pond evaporation?
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 19:06:32 GMT

I'm currently involved in a progect that one asspect of is to try an
detirmine the rate of evaporation of a given pond system per unit of time.
 Intuitively I can think of many varibles to factor in a daily/hourly
analysis. (Humidity, air temp, solar radaition, type of water, alttitude,
surface area, depth that whould factor surface cooling, use etc.) 

Any suggestions on how to integate these (or other) variables whould be
most appriciated.
-Bill
(William.Brown@bbs.oit.unc.edu)

Thanks in advance. 


--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
From: tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: The Human Niche
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:46:58 GMT
Organization: Space Science and Engineering Center, UW Madison

In article <STEINLY.92Sep9111058@topaz.ucsc.edu>, steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep9.083951.10806@kth.se> tpalm@nada.kth.se (Thomas Palm) writes:
|>    To avoid some flames (and probably get some other) I must add that I believe 
|>    that the ethical argument of supporting nature for its own sake is valid. As
|>    our wealth have increased the trend has been to include larger groups in those
|>    with an inherent value, i.e. racism and sexism isn't very popular these days while
|>    slavery is completely out. This is merely a continuation of that trend.
|> 
|> I'm continually mystified by this assertion, if this new guiding moral
|> principle of extended rights is real then why the gradualist approach?
|> Is it not inherently unethical to continue denying these rights to
|> groups identified as potential future rights-groups? Do it all now.
|> Rights for Rocks! Liberate the H-atom! Free the confined quarks ;-)
|> 
|> Personally I feel that with rights must come responsibilities. Most
|> rocks I find are incredibly callous.

A lovely turn of phrase which had me laughing aloud. Unfortunately the
content is not of the same quality as the presentation. The connection
of rights and responsibilities is a valuable thing to say when you are 
handing your car keys to your teenager, but it is not universal. We accord
rights to infants, sleeping people, people in coma, severely handicapped
people, deranged people: none of these can be said to have responsibilities.

Obviously, it is impractical to offer equal rights to any individual
member of any species equivalent to those accorded humans: we would be
outvoted by gnats and roaches, an outcome few would approve. However, if
we decide to accord rights to other species, then so be it. It is a free
choice, and the question of responsibilities is irrelevant.

I think the endagered species act is a clumsy tool, but I think we should
accord every species the right to an environment in which it has some
chance of survival. It doesn't seem reasonable that the survival of the
Spotted Owl should be based on whether it is classified as a species or
a subspecies. On the other hand, it seems ludicrous to allow the
elimination of any habitat capable of supporting it, just to keep a few
hundred people busy for a few more years. If in this legalistic age
assigning rights to the owl is the best way to accomplish this reasonable
goal, then it is perfectly reasonable and consistent to do so, and 
responsibilities of the owl are not relevant.

mt
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: gordon@tramp.Colorado.EDU (GORDON ALLEN R)
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 18:45:25 GMT

rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero) writes:

>I think climate change is worthy of study.  I have been a student of
>paleoclimatology for 20+ years.  Long enough to see some advocates
>switch from global cooling and "the next ice age" to global warming
>and unspecified future calamities.  


It seems that language here is really key.  Folks I spoke with at the recent 
Int. Soc. for the System Sciences, indicated that climate change is what is
being observed and that global warming is some kind of wool being pulled over 
the eyes of the public.  The poles seems to be getting colder and evidenced by
the buildup of ice over the last 25 years, while the tropics seems to be 
getting warmer.  Changes in the temperate zones are indeterminant and net 
global change is ???.  According to ecologist Ken Watt, Gore won't sit at the 
same table with any one who is a climate scientist and has expertise in this 
area.




-- 
Allen Gordon 		         *If the folly of but one of us was changed to*
Research Associate         	 *intelligence, and divided amongst a thousand*
gordon@tramp.colorado.edu   	 *toads, each would be more intelligent than  *
				 *Aristotle				      *
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: steinman@is.morgan.com (Jan Steinman)
Subject: Re: NEWS: Radioactive Sand Proves Nuclear Reprocessing Unlawful
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Company
	<97snfpj.mvp@netcom.com> <53191@dime.cs.umass.edu>
	<1992Sep11.142443.16592@ke4zv.uucp>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 18:14:07 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.142443.16592@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
   In article <53191@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
   >   ... What leads you to believe
   >   that the dangers of dispersed plutunium in the sea and in beach sand
   >   are less than the dangers of eating?

   Perhaps it's the *fact* that more people die each year from choking
   on chicken bones than from radiation poisoning.

Ah, yes. Another "apples and oranges" straw man. Let's not worry about
the problem of steadily increasing radionuclide loads, and let
plutonium stocks increase to the point that it is as ubiquitous as
chicken bones.

  "Waiter! There's a plutonium bone in my chicken salad."

  "Sorry, sir. Before you begin vomiting and losing your hair, please
  leave the name of your next-of-kin at the cash register, so we can
  make arrangements for disposal of the body."

See! I can be just as ridiculous as Gary!
--
: : Jan Steinman	   steinman@is.morgan.com		 Bytesmiths : :
: : 2002 Parkside Court				   West Linn, OR 97068-2767 : :
: : 503/657-7703					       212/956-8722 : :
From: bg055@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stewart Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: environmental recycling
Date: 9 Sep 1992 00:21:03 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Clearly, recycling is aimed at reducing the amount of solid waste
(in most areas, not a severe restraint) and reducing the use of
raw materials (in many instances, important for the future if not
for now).  In many cases, recycling can save energy, for example
the energy cost of recycling aluminum is a small fraction of that
required to make virgin aluminum.
 However, energy savings are not automatic with recycling. There
is the potential for the energy use to exceed that of original
manufacture. One must consider collection from widely dispersed sources,
sorting, cleaning, remelting or re-dissolving or whatever process 
is used; vs. the cost of making virgin material from raw material
which is, say, mined and transported in bulk, perhaps even by
pipeline, at very low cost; and manufacturing processes which have been
optimized over many years of development. Polyethylene film is
one item which, it seems to me, would be far more energy-expensive
to recycle than to make from natural gas components.
  In many cases, for example, paper, the chemical requirements for
recycling depend on the purity of the stock being recycled.
Clippings from milk carton or envelope manufacture can be re-used with
little or no additional chemicals; while inked (printed) stocks may
require considerable work, with attendant waste which has to be
(hopefully) treated and disposed of. I noted a year or two ago that
a newprint recycling plant to be built in up-state NY would cost
$400 MM, take in 300,000 tons of newspapers a year, and produce
250,000 tons of recycled newsprint. Where did the other 50,000 tons
go? That's SLUDGE -- in this case the fine, broken fibers that
cannot be re-used, and all the processing and de-inking chemicals
stuck to them.
 I hope I have conveyed the point of view that your question does
not have a simple answer, and that the situation must be evaluated
for each instance.
 -Stewart Rowe usr2210a@tso.uc.edu  srowe@igc.org
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: smtuttle@cs.uh.edu ( )
Subject: Re: "Paper Or Plastic?"
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:17:34 GMT

In article <53056@dime.cs.umass.edu> kim@.cs.umass.edu () writes:
>An FAQ?
>
>Which is better for the environment, paper grocery bags or plastic ones?
>

Canvas ... 8-)

(Seriously --- several grocery chains here in Texas sell canvas grocery
bags, with handles. We just take 'em along to the store when we go,
and I find them a lot easier to carry, because of the handles.)

--Sharon M. Tuttle
  smtuttle@cs.uh.edu
  University of Houston
  Department of Computer Science


Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: grimmund@edsi.plexus.COM (Grimmund Blackwing)
Subject: Re: "Paper Or Plastic?"
Organization: Enterprise Data Systems Incorporated, Appleton WI
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 05:39:47 GMT

eugene@ksr.com (Eugene Yi-jen Pan) writes:

>In article <53056@dime.cs.umass.edu> kim@.cs.umass.edu writes:
>> An FAQ?
>> 
>> Which is better for the environment, paper grocery bags or plastic ones?
>> 
>> I'm a novice environmentalist.
>>                             
>>    John Kim               Before you slip into unconsciousness 
>>                           I'd like to have another kiss...

>The best would be to bring your own bags to the store.
I can see no arguement here.  Neither is the appropriate answer.  
most grocery stores sell cotton bags for about $3 each.  They have 
a number of advantages: 1) they do not break like paper and 
plastic are so prone to doing  2) they are reusable, so they have 
a one time environmental burden  3) they are made from organic 
renewable resorces  4) You don't throw them out, so no landfill or 
pollution problems thereafter  5) they have dozens of other nifty 
uses other than groceries.

Plastic bags on the other hand use up disappearing oil resources.   
They not only produce pollution in the production, but in 
recycling and 'disposal'.  Though they may produce less pollution 
per bag than paper, you need nearly twice as many per lot of 
groceries than paper or canvas, thus negating that advantage.

Use paper, and your contributing to deforestation.  I have heard 
a number of people say that it contributes to rainforest 
deforestation, which is not the case.  I live in the heart of the 
nation's paper industry, and nearly all pulp material comes from 
managed plots.  In fact, most paper companies in my area have more 
trees than they know what to do with.  This should not detract 
from the fact that you are destroying trees.  Forests can only be 
managed to such an extent before fertilization is needed to 
promote tree growth, causing a whole nother problem.

doctor@edsi.plexus.com

TERRA president * GreenPeace * American Hiking Society
From: SCHLOERER@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Jan Schloerer)
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Organization: University of Ulm, Germany
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 12:12:31 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In    <STEINLY.92Sep12144323@topaz.ucsc.edu>
      steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu   (Steinn Sigurdsson)   wrote :

> The graph was CO2 (estimated) vs time with major galcial epochs
> marked in. Two of them were now and a couple of hundred million years
> ago (don't have article with me) at times of CO2 minima, but one
> about 400 million years ago was smack in the middle of a CO2 peak
> at approx ten times current: solar constant will not have changed 
> significantly on that time scale. I don't think the authors discussed 
> causes, two obvious ones are a unique continental geometry
> favouring large ice caps, and a asteroid/volcanic catastrophe causing
> a prolonged winter and the resultant albedo forcing an ice age until
> some other effect flipped the climate to a warmer state?

Probably it's   Robert A. Berner, Paleo-CO2 and climate, Nature 358
(9 July 1992), 114.   Berner indeed didn't discuss causes, but he also
mentioned that several warm epochs in the last 500+ million years fit
nicely in with the CO2-record.  The glaciation in the late Ordovician,
roughly 450 million years ago, was "the" problem.  In

   Thomas J. Crowley and Gerald R. North,  Paleoclimatology,
   Oxford Univ.Press, New York 1991  (was finished sometime in 1990)

which I haven't handy, I remember having read about the same.  Again,
the warm and cool epochs of the past 500+ million years more or less
fitted in with the CO2 record,  the Ordovician glaciation was "the"
puzzle, and, as far as I recall, no plausible explanation was yet
known for that puzzle.  On the other hand, it seems that the CO2 record
itself is still somewhat controversial, and that, according to Crowley
and North, CO2 alone will not do, for instance, for reconstructing the
Cretaceous warm period around 100 million years ago.  However, I seem
to remember that, again according to C & N,  *without*  invoking CO2
as  *one*  factor,  this and other vagaries of the past climate would
become rather difficult to explain. 


Jan Schloerer          schloerer@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Klinische Dokumentation           Uni Ulm
Postfach 3880     DW-7900 Ulm     Germany
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: ketil@svale.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: Solar Fuel Alcohol (Was Re: Mary Jane has a great Biomass)
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of computer science at the University of Bergen, Norway
	<KETIL.92Sep10164009@due.ii.uib.no> <1992Sep11.150345.16879@ke4zv.uucp>
Date: 12 Sep 92 15:28:08

In article <1992Sep11.150345.16879@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:

   So you're saying that in Indonesia a farmer expends as much energy
   producing food as he gets from eating it. Small multiplier there.
   Energy is cheap, labor is not.

Counting the money, yes.  But from an environmental viewpoint?
Remember that energy production is environmentally a pain in a low
place. 

   The more important consideration is the opportunity cost of labor.
   At today's minimum wage, the labor cost of the old way is about
   $1.66 a bushel. The labor cost the modern way is about 2.3 cents
   a bushel. Quite a remarkable difference. Productive labor is the
   scarcest resource on the planet. Always has been, always will be.

Yeah, sure, and when the earth is a smoking, boiling sulphur inferno
like venus, due to extensive use of fossil fuels, we won't have any
labor at all, just a *lot* of energy.. 

(I don't mean this is going to happen, here's a smiley :-)

--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: andrewt@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Taylor)
Subject: Hunter-gathers at ecological equilibrium?
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 20:00:27 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Alan McGowen writes
> ... Hunter-gatherer societies and many
> swidden horticulturalists are at ecological equilibrium, as
> evidenced by the fact that they have persisted for many centuries
> or even millenia in their ecosystems. ...
> Their environment is not gradually degraded with time
> once they are well established in an area. ...

Is this generally true? It certainly doesn't seem to be in the case
in Australia. Hunter-gathers occupied Australia for at least 40,000 years,
and perhaps much longer. The fossil record does not show an initial transition
followed by ecological equilibrium.

Rather many species, especially large mammals, became extinct around
20,000 years ago.  The causes are contraversial and probably multiple but
most believe the aborigines were a key factor. Extinctions which the aborigines
seem at least partly responsible continue to within the last 2000 years.

At least one prominent ecologist believes that part of Australia's conservation
problems still stem from the effects of the aborigines. He claims that
after 40,000+ years they were still not at equilibrium with their eco-system.

There are complicating factors, there were multiple waves of immigration
into Australia and Aboriginal culture changed considerably over time.
Climate change was also a key factor. But its still clear that in this
case a (basically) hunter-gatherer society did not reach equilibrium with 
their environment  over a long period.

Equilibrium (or catastrophe) may be reached much faster on an island 
but are such examples useful?

Andrew Taylor
From: rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:36:54 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA

Check out the Bulletin of the AMS, V73, #3, March 1992, pgs 297-303,
"3000 years of Sea Level Change", by William F. Tanner of FSU.

He makes a couple of points.....

His records of sea level changes shows alternating high and low sea levels,
with changes of 1-3 meters (METERS, not cm) and rates of change of 1 cm/yr.
Seven such events in the last 3000 years.  The two most recent events were
the sea level drop leading into the so-called Little Ice Age and the
rise (still occuring) coming out of the Little Ice Age.  To  quote point
#10 from the introduction:

10.  There is no absolute sea level through time.  The concept of absolute
position appears to underlie various forecasts that sea level must rise in
significantly in the near future.  These forecasts assume that only
anthropogenic changes are taking place, or are about to take place, and that
without human influence there will be no change.  A recent book (Crowley
and North 1991) emphasizes the importance of using the record, longer than
the instrumental record of the latest century, as a base for making 
projections into the future.  Longer-than-instrument datasets show clearly
that other changes have been taking place, and therefore one cannot know in
advance how the system will react during the interval of increased
anthropomorphic influences; some other factor may be more important.

In his conclusions, Tanner says that since the steady rise in sea level
since 1750 apparently was *not* caused by human activity, and since it
is not clear that this trend is over, that any "global warming"
demonstrated for the last 50-100 years MIGHT very well be a continuation
of this trend.

He also adopts a reasonable prognosis, based on the historical record, of
a 1-3 meter drop in sea level starting in a few centuries.

There are several other articles and exchanges of letters in the AMS 
Bulletin that relate to global climate change.  June and July 1991,
plus V71 (1991), pgs 288-299 and 1291-1304.  Spirited debate, no
consensus.  That's just the way it is.

-- 
Josh Rovero   (rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil) | or Internet 5346p@cc.nps.navy.mil 
Department of Oceanography, Code OC/Rv |      Bitnet 5346p@NAVPGS 
Naval Postgraduate School              |              
Monterey, CA  93943   (408) 646-2084   |
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: userDHAL@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (David Halliwell)
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 01:06:35 GMT

tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:

>A more exact statement, if anyone is interested, goes like this: Well
>established physics shows that a doubling of CO2 without any changes in
>the temperature of earth surface, ocean, or atmosphere, will reduce
>outgoing infrared radiation by some 4 W/m^2. Since incoming radiation is
>unchanged, the excess goes into heating the atmosphere, until a new
>equilibrium is reached, where the infared emissions of the earth, ocean, and
>atmosphere are sufficiently larger for an extra 4 W /m^2 to escape.

>Will that do?

    Yes. The major point of difference in this statement from your earlier
one is that now we have changed the radiative exchange with space. The only
way we can exchange energy with space is through radiation. To return to
equilibrium, you can't do any fiddle-faddle with redistributing those 4W/sq.m
elsewhere in the atmosphere, as Josh Rivero (sp?) had wanted to do with
the sub-grid GCM discussion.

   The question remains for the "non-believers": how will the radiative
equilibrium be restored without warming the surface? To claim that rising
CO2 levels will lead to *no* warming requires some other process that
increases IR losses to space. And if you are assuming no warming, you
obviously can't impose warming-induced feedbacks to adjust things!



Dave Halliwell
Department of Geography
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: environmental recycling
Keywords: recycling
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:03:03 GMT

Correction: that's $.14/pound, not ton.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu