HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Date: 12 Dec 1992 01:40:20 GMT
Organization: lbl
Distribution: world
Reply-To: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.154

On supply/demand of materials, last I knew, the American Paper
Institute does project a substantial increase in the _amount_
of paper made with recycled fiber, but they project an even
larger increase in the total amount of paper used, so that more
virgin paper will be needed than at present and more paper will
go to landfills than at present.  Note that the recycling rate
does go up in their scenario, but recyclers rarely pay attention
to the underlying amounts and only look at rates.  Of course,
the API projections may well turn out to be wrong.

Bruce Nordman
B_Nordman@lbl.gov
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions)
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina @ Wilmington
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 03:49:43 GMT

jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>If we do nothing special for 100 years, we will use up 1/10,000 th of
>the country.  100 years from now our descendants will be as much more
>technologically capable than we are, as we are compared to the people
>of 100 years ago.

You math adds up OK, but it makes one crucial assumption, that the garbage
will be EVENLY DISTRIBUTED over the ENTIRE COUNTRY. Unfortunately, in
the real world that is not true. We live in dense population centers
which product a lion's share of the garbage. So, are those people 
supposed to pay extra to truck their garbage to a landfill 100-1000
miles away? And, how am I supposed to feel about all of the out of
state garbage which is filling up our landfill?

Recycling can make a difference, as they have shown us in Europe, where
they recycle three to four times as much as we do here.

-- 
Zack Sessions
sessions@seq.uncwil.edu
University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Alumnus)
"Good health is merely the slowest form of dying."
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: ds@scammell.ecos.tne.oz.au (Dale Smithyman)
Subject: Re: Ticket America-- Negative Nonsense
Keywords: Ticket America,S Enviro-Link
Organization: Telecom Australia, Information Technology Development
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:08:42 GMT

In article <Bz5nC6.E2D@world.std.com> rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker) writes:
>The Ticket America campaign is symptomatic of the negative nabobs of
>public morality. These nether ends of the alimentary canal would rather
>lay blame then promote a better alternative. 
>
>They see the driving of gas-guzzlers as a moral matter rather than a
>pragmatic econic choice. If gas inefficient buggies included the
>consequential eco/social damage they caused as part of their price, then
>truly cheaper transportation alternatives would become available on the
>market.
>
>The long and the short of this critique is don't blame -- provide
>alternatives instead. The eco/phreaks are a singularly uncreative bunch.

What they are trying to do is to make driving a gas guzzler socially    
unacceptable and educate the public about what cars do to the environment. If
enough people stop buying gas guzzlers and start asking for smaller, enviro
friendly cars then a market is created and the manufacturers will rush to fill
it. It is an providing an alternative by hopefully providing a market. If people
don't know the damage they do then they wont change. Education is just as 
important as research into alternatives. I agree with the idea as longas drivers
aren't outrageously hassled. The fur campaign has worked. Fur IS dead fashion.
Maybe we can do it with the gas guzzlers.

>They attack the capitalist system (for they are socialists and Luddites)
>instead of promoting the incentives for the *only* successful economic
>system to provide a) what is neeeded and b) what is congruent with
>environmental sustainability.
>
>When are these bumpkins going to realize that technology is not the enemy,
>rather it is our chosen means of survival.
>
>Conan the Libertarian
>
Certainly or technology is magnificent and I agree with using it wholeheartedly
but saving our planet will not come from technology alone. Education and 
changing social attitudes are just as important. Lets see that we use our 
technology in the right way (maybe less 'stealth' bombers etc :-))


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale Smithyman		ds@scammell.ecos.tne.oz.au
The views expressed here are not necessarily the same as those of my employer
(bless his unbleached cotton socks).
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Greenpeace, Countries' Alleged Non-Violence, Ramming of Boats
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 22:32:27 GMT

In article <STEINLY.92Dec15132140@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.211208.18586@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
>
>   In article <Bz55Bq.4y2@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>   >In article <Jym.9Dec1992.1257@naughty-peahen> jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:
>   >
>   >>=\= "The above logic?"  Are you perhaps unaware that the French
>   >>secret service actually did blow up the Rainbow Warrior?  That,
>   >>my friend, is the well-documented reality.
>   >
>   >Indeed, it is true, and they were quite deserving of that kind of treatment
>   >by the French government.  If Greenpeace really wants to declare war on
>   >industrial civilization (and that is what they are up to) then they ought to
>   >expect some resistance.
>
>   Since Greenpeace has never killed or injured anyone, one could rightly
>
>But of course not, any individual or organization that might
>kill or injure anyone can be made carefully distinct from
>Greenpeace - a lot can be learned from "plausible deniability"
>and the dorks in the "Committee to re-elect the President"
>who had no more to do with Bush than Sea Shepard has to do
>with Greenpeace - right?

Is this paragraph supposed to mean that you think the split
between Greenpeace and the Sea Shepard is phony?  The committee
to reelect whoever obviously supports whoever but the Sea Shepard
people openly criticize Greenpeace and I have seen plenty of
criticism of Sea Shepard within the environmental community.  I
forget the name of its leader, but he is seen by many as a loose
cannon.  Unless you can present some evidence that this is a 
phony split, it sounds like a clear case of guilt by association - 
a case that, without such evidence, could never be disproven.
>
>*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
>*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
>*  Some people think they're really clever			*
>*  Smash your head against the wall            Specials, 1979	* 
>
>


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: bg055@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stewart Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Date: 17 Dec 1992 00:38:36 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


[A discussion of recycling glass soft drink bottles]
 
One issue not mentioned but quite influential in the changeover
to one trip bottles and cans: for soft drinks and beer, this made
national brands feasible for those who did not have the highly-
developed local bottling system of Coke and Pepsi.
Particularly in beer, it permitted a few breweries to cover the
whole country, and with the power of national advertising to
make most local breweries irrelevant.
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Date: 16 Dec 92 23:58:03 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: duanej@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM's message of Tue, 15 Dec 1992 04:03:29 GMT

In article <15900005@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> duanej@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Duane Jacobson) writes:


   My observation is that packaging is designed strictly from a short-term
   cost and marketing viewpoint.  Thoughts of making packaging recyclable or
   reusable are strictly secondary, if they are considered at all.  We used to
   buy soda and beer in scratched bottles that had been reused many times. Not
   anymore.  Why?  I suspect that marketing folks think that pop won't sell if
   it's in an old bottle with nicks and scratches in it.

There is more to it than that. To take the specific example
of glass bottle recycling, first you must remember that bottles
break, they also will never have a 100% return rate as people
actually use a fraction of them. Now, health concerns require 
reused bottles be washed and sterilised, that can be expensive,
partiuclarly if it is done locally (as it must) - eg California
would probably not want massive bottle washing to take place.
Obviously bottles must also be sorted - Pepsi isn't going to use
Coke bottles, unless you force them to standardise. 

Now, what it boils down to is that bottles are worth reusing
(assuming water is not scarce) if each bottle can be reused
a little over seven times before being lost from the system
 - this is from a coke study about 10-15 years ago. The most 
efficient way to maximise reuse is to put a large deposit on
the bottle - unfortunately even with deposits of 30% of the cost
of the contents return rates in the best areas were only 80-85%,
(that's including natural breakage and loss during washing)
and consumers shifted to cans and plastic bottles - it was too
expensive (increasing deposits shift consumers further to other
containers which cannot be reused, although they can be recycled).

Now undoubtedly marketing was a factor, but a friend of mine who
researched this for an environmental group in 1984 concluded that
the low return rate was the major cause.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness			*
*  Take the A-road, the ok road, that's the best!		*
*  Go motoring on The A13!	- BB 1983			*
From: co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: 'Nukes' was Re:JAPAN what's all the plutonium for...
Date: 17 Dec 1992 17:45:28 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Fellow readers,
Like it or not nuclear fuel is going to be playing a larger
and larger part in the role of world energy production.
while the U.S. is not opening  many new plants this year (any..)
 
It is happening everywhere else.
as fossile fuel runs out and air pollution gets worse, we will
have to make more electricity (so folks like us can talk on
internet for example...)
 
Nukes offer the advantage of being able to produce huge amounts
of electricity almost anywhere (near some water) without having
to haul coal or oil, and burn it.
 
Problem: The Nuclear industry in the U.S. grew too quickly,
we built too many plants based on 1950's technology instead
of waiting for the technology to catch up, and now we have
all of these shakey behemouths lying around ready to cause
problems.
 
I think if the U.S. had spent 1/4th as much money on Solar
power as on Nuclear power, solar power would really be happening
right now, and probably would be producing more total energy
than our nuclear system (that's including in-home based
solar systems, solar calculators, the whole ball of wax.
I don
t think it's too late to start.
 
we are now close to perfecting the technology for much safer
"melt-down proof" reactors and these bad boys will require Pu
fuel pellets to operate. the Japanese are already in the process
of building prototypes of these plants that is probably 
"what all that plutinium is for" not to mention fuel for
their existing plants.
they already have enough plutonium to make a pretty frightening
arsenal of weapons.
 
I think we should stop building these 'old-fashioned' nuke plants
and wait until the new technology is ready. let's not forget that
while SHORT term disposal of nuclear waste is not a problem
(it is basically mothballed in existing facilities and watched
 to make sure it doesn't go anywhere) I think we should have a
reasonable long term disposal facility ready before we build
any more plants.
 
okay, that was a pretty long-winded essay, i doubt many of you
had the wherewithall to stay to the end, i'm sorry i got carried 
away...
 
hey, that's my opinion, what's yours?
fell free to reply or 'Flame' anything i've said here, i'm always
open to suggestions.
 
ned.
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker)
Subject: Who hates who?
Summary: Charge that Libertarians hate environmentalism unfounded
Keywords: Environment, Libertarians
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 21:08:18 GMT

This posting is a response to the "Why they hate us thread" that has been
going on for some time.  I am a libertarian, and I associate with
libertarians (among others). I have yet to hear a libertarian attack the
principle of environmental soundness. There are sound reasons for this:

	1. Libertarians oppose the initiation of force on the irresponsible
	   imposition of hazard which is a kind of aggression. Clearly the
	   dumping of hazardous waste with the effect of poisoning a neighbors
	   water supply, or befouling his air is agression and must be 
	   sanctioned.

	2. The oppositon to the environmentalist extremists is based on
	   perception that said extremists are Luddites and oppose technology
	   as such. Also such extremeist are perceived as putting the inter-
	   ests of non-human species above those of humans.

	3. The environmental extremists are perceived as advocating the inter-
	   vention of regulatotry burocracies in the minute details of day to
	   day business operations.

	4. Many liberians believe that environmentally unsound practices are
	   the result of business firms getting access to air and water as
	   free sewers whose cost is not correctly reflected in the books of
	   such firms. As a result the goods are priced without regards to the
	   cost of the side effects of environmentally unsound production 
	   methods.  

	5. Consequently, some libertarians would like to see the social costs
	   of production appear on the books of said firms, forcing the price
	   of the goods to the end user to reflect the actually social
	   costs.  If this were done, environmentally sound production
	   would have a competitive advantage over pollution and market forces
	   would enforce environmentally sounds techniques.


	This nonsense the libertarians favor the tyranny of the strong
	over the weak is just that: nonsense.  Libertarians are strongly
	opposed to the initiating of force and fraud as sociopathic behaviour
	which must be sanctioned.

	Rember libertians live here too.  Earth is our common home.

Conan the Libertarian


-- 
"If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"
From: Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Why do they hate us? (Greenpeace and Research)
Date: 19 Dec 1992 22:38:00 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

John "Doomed to Talk Nonsense" McCarthy asks:

> Dingo says Greenpeace does some good research.  I'm curious
> about that.  Do they do any research?  Is there a Greenpeace
> laboratory somewhere, and are there Greenpeace employees who
> do scientific research?

=+= There are Greenpeace laboratories all over the world, and
Greenpeace is involved in research with governments and with
businesses all over the world.  Greenpeace ships are floating
laboratories, and are basically used to make measurments and
analyses wherever they go.

=+= I've heard it said that one Greenpeace boat has enough
research equipment to make even the EPA envious.
    <_Jym_>
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: light reading
Date: 15 Dec 92 00:09:08 GMT
Distribution: talk
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO

In article <1992Dec14.4341.8874@dosgate> "ronald hands" <ronald.hands@canrem.com> writes:
>
>  For those who are a little weary of Greenpeace bashing and the other
>non-productive aspects of this newsgroup, I'd like to suggest a book I
>found at the library the other day: Energy Unbound, by L. Hunter
>Lovins, Amory B. Lovins and Seth Zuckerman.
>   Although it's characterized as a "fable for America's future," its
>simplistic approach actually masks quite a fascinating state of the art
>(circa 1986) energy primer on how the U.S. -- and by extension, Canada
>-- can maintain ample supplies of energy while lowering costs.  In
>other words, it considers both economic and ecological aspects.
>   The authors are well-known, I gather, as alternative energy
>proponents.  Needless to say, the nuclear option gets short shrift,
>deservedly so if the book's comments are accurate.
>  I was particularly impressed by the reports of energy savings
>possible in existing houses, using relatively simple techniques.  Where
>did I put that caulking gun....?
>
>-- Ron                  | "...the self-confidence of learned people is
>ronald.hands@canrem.com | the comic tragedy of [our] civilization."
>                        |                    -- Alfred North Whitehead

Ron - I assume you realize that many of the same people will bash
Lovins, who is well known as an efficiency advocate.  I've seen a 
lot of bashing of Lovins but I have never seen a rebuttal to his
claims. This might be difficult since EPRI, a utility think tank,
supports him.  Those who might like some other reading on Lovins
efficieny numbers (and EPRI's) should check out the 9-90 issue of
Scientific American.  EPRI researchers and Lovins cowrote the article
and they describe how major savings are available.  Such savings
would be paid for with money that would otherwise be used to build
new power plants.
>
> * DeLuxe2 1.21 #10218 * 
>--
>Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
>World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 00:13:36 GMT
Subject: The Outer Limits
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Newsgroups: talk.environment

/ hpindda:sci.environment / jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) / 12:23 am  Dec 11, 1992 /
>To a technologically advanced society, not much more advanced
>technologically and not at all more advanced scientifically than our
>own, there is no such thing as permanent and continual accumulation of
>pollution.  All the transformations of matter that humanity causes
>both in manufacture and disposal conserve matter.  Except for the
>production of radioactivity, they even preserve the amounts of the
>various isotopes.  Therefore, if any substance, compound or
>elementary, rises to troublesome proportions in any environment, it
>can be transformed again to useful or at least innocuous forms, or
>moved elsewhere.

This is a protestation of faith, not the statement of a scientist. E.g. just 
how do you remove bioconcentrating fat-soluable toxic substances for which 
there are no metabolic pathways from food webs once they are introduced?
McCarthy may *believe* that for every such substance, an artificial metabolic
pathway could be genetically engineered into organisms, reworking the chemical
functioning of whole ecosystems -- but this is just a sci-fi fantasy. We
don't even know how many such substances there are nor what they are doing. 

>This is my opinion, and I think it would be the majority opinion
>of scientists and engineers if they contemplated the precise
>question.

Of scientists and engineers who are totally ignorant of biology and are
unwilling to listen to what biologists say, perhaps -- but is it a good 
idea to pay any attention to pronouncements about the living world from
such people? People would do much better to listen to biological scientists,
such as Paul Ehrlich, Edward Wilson, and Micheal Soule on such matters.

McCarthy reasons as if the biosphere and all its biological processes were
completely irrelevant to the question -- just do enough *work* (preferably
generated by nuclear power) and any Humpty-Dumpty can be put back together
again no matter how small the pieces he's been smashed into. 

We don't have anything like that much power over the world, and won't have it
anytime soon, if ever. McCarthy always assumes that the only "limits" we need
to think about are the outer limits of basic physical law, never those imposed
by the fabric of the biosphere itself. This crazy notion, if it could be 
pursued far enough, would destroy the very biosphere it deems irrelevant. But
far more likely, pursuing it would destroy *us* first. 

------------
Alan McGowen
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino)
Subject: Re: Why do they hate us?
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 16:25:39 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.135059@aifh.ed.ac.uk> jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton) writes:
># From a scientific standpoint, many environmental groups (GP included) are
># a "frightening laughingstock". Their methods rely on fear, guilt, and 
># emotion.  Admit it (they themselves do), scaring the shit out of
># people is a lot more effective than showing them figures and tables.
>
>Yes, but when their claims have strong evidence to support them, ie figures
>and tables
>and reports (which Greenpeace can produce), then I see no reason why
>Greenpeace should
>not attract the publicity to these issues that they believe in and have
>evidence to 
>substantiate with.

They were dressed up as control rods and reactor vessels at the last 
International Symposium on Nuclear Energy, not presenting papers...

># Though they might not want to admit it, our standard of living is based on
># our technology.  It sounds romantic, but solar cookers aren't going to 
># replace a big power plant anytime soon, nor is the world going to become a 
># seething pot of fire and brimstone.
>
>Funnily enough solar power is becoming more and more attractive each year and
>expected to be competitive within the decade.

Competitive to nuclear power in baseload electricity generation? Surely
you jest. Back this one up

># I hate it when a law is passed that is completely without scientific basis
># due to public fear. For example, are "nuclear-free" cities allowed to have
># hospitals in them? Not according to the law...
>
>By nuclear free I think they mean nuclear power free or nuclear weapons free.
>And funnily enough there is a scientific basis for the anti-nuclear position
>of many environmentalists...

Lets see it...I hope those cities don't pull any "nuclear generated" power
from their grid...


Tino
-- 
     "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky talk.environment:5081 sci.environment:13625 sci.chem:5467
From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment,sci.chem
Subject: Re: Concern For Ozone Depletion Clear, Knowledge of CFCs Mostly
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 19:17:40 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <1992Nov27.123134.24383@news.acns.nwu.edu> <BypIw1.6sz@news.cso.uiuc.edu>

A refrigerator typically has welded or brazed seals all the way
around.  An automotive air conditioner is driven by a belt off the engine,
hence there is at least one rotating joint which must be sealed.  The rest
of the system also has places where leaks can occur.  Because of vibration
the system cannot be welded or brazed together.

So a home refrigerator is really not very comparable to an automotive air
conditioner.  The latter leaks and needs to be refilled every few years.
Newsgroups: talk.environment