From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Registered Keys - why the need?
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:49:03 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.224328.7052@wixer.cactus.org> fmouse@wixer.cactus.org (Lindsay Haisley) writes:
}Hey, guy, those of us that are "environmentalists" are that way from
}necessity, not choice.

Apparent necessity, which many have chosen to make apparent in contradiction
to scientific method.

Take a look at the Club of Rome study or other
}similar studies of population growth and decline and figure out for
}yourself what happens to a species that overpopulates it's environment,
}be it a puddle, a pond or a planet. They either exhaust their resources,
}die of disease, or choke to death on their own crap.

I'm well aware of this study, especially the fact that the people who
commissioned it admitted its falsehood years ago.  Hong Kong is the most
densely populated area in history, and it doesn't appear to be in danger from
any of these things.

Perhaps humans
}have to option to make some intelligent collective decisions regarding
}these matters, perhaps not.  The problems won't go away on their own.

Actually, as soon as the commons involved are privatized, they will go away
by means of individual decisions, which, while not "on their own," is a far
cry from collectivism.

}Just talk to anyone who's lived in LA or Denver during summer smog
}alerts, or who lives and works in areas where groundwater is
}contaminated with ag chemicals or other polution, or folks who used to
}make their livings fishing on the Medeterranean, which is now nearly a
}dead ocean from a fisherman's point of view.  Fresh air, water and the
}like are the responsibility of the people to protect, whether or not you
}like specific regulations imposed by federal, state or local
}governments.  Your attitude doesn't help at all.

Just read the statements on the public record from former LA Air Quality
Management District officials to the effect that if our emissions regulations
had to be justified on the grounds of public health that we wouldn't have any.
Just talk to the publisher of "The Free Market Environmentalist," who's a
professional groundwater scientist and knows quite a bit about groundwater
cleanup, just one instance of the tragedy of the commons (read Garrett Hardin's
classic study on this).  Just explain to me how your claim of yet another
tragedy of the commons we call the Mediterranean canbe reconciled with the
successful mariculture businesses going on in it right now.

If there truly are dangers to the freshness, cleanliness, or safety of
"air, water, and the like" as you put it, my considerd position is that
this is largely due to the fact that these are presently treated as commons,
and that government regulation won't solve these problems, and that priva-
tization of them will.

}"Everything works if you let it"    |                Lindsay Haisley

This statement above is significant, yet for some reason you don't apply it
to human society sans those acts of aggression you call regulations.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire