HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 92 04:10:24 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov3.205726.5358@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP writes:

 > This isn't really true. Some politicians do ban autos because they *want*
 > to reduce the pollution levels, but must is too strong a word, implying
 > that there is no choice. In fact, twenty years ago autos emitted 10 times
 > as much pollution as today and they were *not* banned from cities. So
 > the politicians are making a conscious political choice to damage their 
 > tranportation systems for marginally cleaner city air. That political
 > choice *may* also be a good economic choice, but without proper assignment
 > of costs to beneficiaries, and giving them a market choice of paying those
 > costs or foregoing the benefit, we don't know.

Let me suggest that politicians make such decisions on the basis of
advice from medical practitioners who are now able to present data
positively correlating pollution with pathology not available twenty
years ago.

Perhaps the politicians are now balancing their budgets against the
cost of medical treatment of their constituents; that is, so-called
beneficiaries have already been overburdened with costs and the effort
is now toward alleviating them somewhat that the benefits can actually
be realised.

 > Obviously you've never been prohibited from making best use of your land
 > by government fiat. The implication is that you are not willing to pay 
 > the costs for the benefits you derive from depriving others of the use
 > of their property. Rather you think government decrees can somehow get
 > those benefits for you for free. There is no free lunch. Somebody always
 > pays. What Brian is saying is that the costs should be borne by those
 > who stand to benefit, not by those who lose the value of their land.

Would someone like to post something on US Constitutional Law, or
does Gary represent alien landholding within US territory? If your
Constitution does support such a thing as absolute privilege of land
tenure, I suggest you are heading into a major Constitutional crisis
to compare with Canada's. If it does not, whose barrow is he trying
to push here?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
From: powell@ab.wvnet.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Electromagnetic Radiation
Date: 6 Nov 92 05:48:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: ab.1992Nov6.104849.648
Organization: Alderson-Broaddus College

I have a question that is open to anyone who can direct me to any 
studies that have linked electromagnetic radiation, or specifically
radio frequency radiation to damage to the environment in general or
to an individual's health.

RAP  powell@ab.wvnet.edu  Alderson-Broaddu College Philippi WV
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Rights for Rocks
Date: 7 Nov 92 18:26:35 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

(From a flyer I found attached to the door of the building in which I work)

                          STOP THE CUTTING OF ROCKS
                        *Just say NO to Lithosection*

Lithosection is widespread at UCLA where it is practiced by a group of largely
government-funded  geologists.   This  group  of pseudo-scientific researchers
regularly *slice*, *grind*, *polish*, and *sputter* lithologic materials  that
have  been  forceably  removed  (sometimes  violently) from the familiarity of
their natural habitats and stored in crowded, small, dark cabinets where  they
may  reside for poly-annic periods while serving a quest of interest to only a
small group of rock-bashing pseudo-intellectual candidates for lithodomoys.

            *End the Production of Instruments that Destroy Rocks*

The following descriptions of lithosectionist techniques were  extracted  from
literature  accounts contained in journals of lithosectionists:  "Fluorination
was proceded by partial  digestion  in  boiling  sulphuric  acid  followed  by
rinsing  with  fluorboric  acid.  The material was then subjected to a heat of
1090 degrees F at 2  lbs.   pressure  of  ClF3.   Extracted  matter  was  then
converted  to  CO2  in  a  platinum  furnace." What practical purpose can this
subjection of lithologic materials to these grievous stresses yeild?

The anti-Lithosectionist movement is one of the fastest growing  movements  in
the USA.  Support the effort to liberate lithologic materials!  We urge you to
write your NSF reviewers and demand that they refuse to continue to  fund  the
perpetration   of   these   atrocities   against  rocks  by  pseudo-scientific
geochemists and geophysicists.

                               Don't you think
                         YOU'LL SLEEP BETTER TONIGHT
                      knowing that you've taken a stand.

    Join the League for the Liberation of Laboratory Lithologic Specimens
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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)
Subject: Re: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 00:55:50 GMT

In article <1992Nov4.153341.29645@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>In article <1992Nov3.203220.5129@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>
>>Everything we do incurs a cost, *and* everything we don't do incurs an
>>opportunity cost. Nothing is free. The market tries to fairly distribute 
>>the costs among those deriving benefits. We ultimately, as individuals, 
>>make the cost evaluations, and sometimes we are wrong. The environmental 
>>movement is right that we should be cautious in assigning values. But the 
>>rest of us are also right in that we can't let caution paralyse us today 
>>into foregoing all proven benefits for a possible increased benefit tommorrow.
>>The environmentalist claims of "free" services are incorrect and distort
>>the decision making process.
>
>As I said, many services are still free in that the opportunity cost
>is essentially nil.  In cases where the opportunity cost is not
>trivial, it is due to changing or new uses for this resource of the
>land it is on.  Many services are taken for granted.  Gary's 
>suggested method for dealing with the no-longer free services
>could add tremendous costs to a wide variety of economic activity
>and this cost _could_ have enormous economic repercussions, 
>conceivably larger than the costs that todays environmental
>regulations have.  As a society we need to examine whether we would
>rather limit our scale so that these resources and services continue
>to be free.

No services are free, though as you note, some of the costs are so
low that they are often ignored. My contention is that if the costs
are assigned fairly to the beneficiaries, we will gain a better 
understanding of just what environmental regulations cost us directly
as well as indirectly. Assuming equally effective results, the cost
of regulation and of market evaluation should be the same. There are
enormous economic reprercussions in either case, only the parties
that those repercussions fall upon are different. Many of the higher
costs of goods we pay today are a result of environmental regulation,
but those costs are not spread equally among beneficiaries of clean
air.

Gary
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Theodore Roszak article on "Ecopsychology"
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 06:06:26 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov7.050358.27919@gnosys.svle.ma.us> gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us writes:

 > As I read Prof. Roszak's essay, he appears to be asking whether genuine
 > psychological health can be achieved if we refuse to acknowledge the
 > very real and pervasive sickness of the world in which we live.  I
 > feel that we miss his point if we insist on a literal interpretation
 > of Roszak's words, and read them to mean that we should spawn a new
 > specialty.  I am sure he would prefer that the art and science of
 > psychiatry incorporate into itself a recognition of the importance
 > of acknowledging the environmental nightmare we have created, and
 > understand that certain psychological manifestations may in fact be a
 > healthy response to those conditions, rather than some sickness that
 > needs to be "cured" without reference to its cause if that cause lies
 > in external circumstances.  What's the use of seeking "adjustment" to
 > an unhealthful reality?  The irritation is real and important to
 > acknowledge, IMHO, and can serve as a powerful incentive to perform
 > the thinking and feeling and planning and doing that can put us on
 > the road to collective recovery - in both our outer and inner world.

Well, Gary, that "Psychiatry" with its specific focus as a fundamentally
bourgeois discipline developed to serve bourgeois interests has failed
to achieve is not terribly relevant to the way we regard, or fail to
regard our environment.

The entire spectrum of human responses to their environment has been
explored over and over throughout the military, political, medical
(of which Psychiatry is a sub-discipline) and social sciences for
over 100 hundred years and more, without some professor coming along
wanting to build himself a new career merely going over and rephrasing
all the work which has already been done.

I have no problem with somebody's thesis which has been published and
is available for criticism, but it does appear far more appropriate that
students do their homework and come to grips with the full corpus of
knowledge already available instead of just going around and around
in circles playing word games with it.

There is far more of a problem with "genuine psychological health"
deteriorating through confusion, with people milling around unable to
make up their minds what to do next, than any traditional lack in
Psychiatry.

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price)
Subject: Re: Ecocentric Criterion and the Population Question
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:49:11 GMT


I understand that the Club of Rome has revised its book _The Limits To
Growth_. Has anyone here read it and can they briefly identify 
some specific constraints which human activity is facing right now?

thanks,

Tom

******************************************************************************
         Tom Price  |  tp0x@cs.cmu.edu  |  Simplicity, simplicity
******************************************************************************
 plutoniumsurveillanceterroristCIAassassinationIranContrawirefraudcryptology
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 15:59:32 GMT

In article <Bx9Ltt.3EH@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>There is no free lunch, in human economics, or in nature. There is only
>>a balancing of costs and benefits in every action and *inaction*. This
>>should be kept firmly in mind by environmentalists. Opportunity costs
>>are just as real as any other cost, and must not be ignored in developing
>>optimum use strategies.
>
> think it is important to point out that the most important issue in all of
>this is that the environmentalists want to impose POLITICAL strategies on
>the use of these resources, while the rest of us want to see individual
>freedom to trade and contract to do so.  That's why you see little Hitlers
>like Al Gore pushing this idea so much...he wants to rule over everyone's
>private lives, and environmentalism is the perfect vehicle for this.
>
And you fail to see that when an individuals freedom to trade and make
contracts negatively affects society, that society has the right to
limit that individuals freedom.  Or do you agree with Gary that society
must _pay_ such a person to prevent the harm?

>
>
>--Brian


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Ecocentric Criterion and the Population Question
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:14:46 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO

In article <1dmi8pINNha9@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.174031.3072@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>Your point was that human action is more the result of capabilities
>>than values.  In what ways has the capability to own other human
>>decreased?
>
>The more relevent question is, in what way has the capability to accomplish
>with machinery the things that used to be done by slaves changed?
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People are still needed to run the machines.  There is plenty of
unautomated labor around.
>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.


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 00:26:09 GMT
Subject: Re: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
From: Douglas C. Seale <dseale@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 08 Nov 92 15:56 PST
Subject: Computers and Environment
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1466601887:000:951
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dseale    Nov  8 15:56:00 1992


A group dedicated to exploring the use of computer technologies and their 
application to environmental problems is being formed within the Boston 
Computer Society.  The new group will investigate and present developments in 
the following environmental areas:  networking, information resources, 
databases, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), educational tools, and 
computer games with environmental themes.  The group welcomes and encourages 
the participation of environmental industries, environmental groups, government 
agencies, educational and research institutions, computer industries, and all 
others who have an interest in computers and the environment.  The group is 
interested in making contact with others who are engaged in similar activities 
or have an interest in this area.  For more information, contact 
dseale@igc.apc.org, or call or write to Doug Seale (617) 782-2347, 97 
Nottinghill Road, Apt. 2, Brighton, MA  02135.
From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Ecocentric Criterion and the Population Question
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:21:42 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

Dr. Donald Johnson, a professor here and current president of the
American Meteorological Society gave a talk here today in which he
gave a pitch for more meteorological attention to the hydrological
cycle and its impact on society. I mention it in this thread because
a very simple calculation of the supportable human population was given
based on the limitation of available fresh water.

The total rainfall over the land area of the earth is very close to
10000 km^3/yr or 10^14 m^3/yr. Optimistically, 20% of this can be used 
for agricultural purposes (the rest going to runoff or evaporation from
non-agricultural lands). Optimistically, the amount of water needed 
for each person's annual food needs is 1000 m^3 yr. Thus, the total 
supportable population of the earth is about 20 billion barring radical
changes in food production. Indeed, fresh water does appear to be limiting
population in many arid subtropical areas already, notably in India and
Africa. This calculation shows that a global constraint is not too far
in the future.

I should note that the talk was entirely anthropocentric. No biodiversity
constraints were even mentioned in it. If we take biodiversity as a useful
goal, then plausibly the sustainable population falls below 20 billion
(at current levels of agricultural technology). But how much below is
not clear. I would like to see a similar back-of-the envelope calculation
justifying the half billion or two billion numbers that Alan has mentioned.

Please understand, I do not disagree with the numbers. My intuition has
always been that 1,000,000,000 is a nice target population. But I can't
really justify it. To come up with a number that people will take
seriously, it is necessary to consider all candidate limiting processes
and do some arithmetic with each of them. 

For now, I offer a fresh water based limit of 20 billion, completely
exclusive of any biodiversity constraint. Can anyone do "better" (offer a 
more severe constraint) using numbers, not intuition? 

To fix the problem, assume current levels of technology and indefinite 
sustainability, and feel free to use an end to the extinction crisis
as a constraint. (Of course, if the whole world is reduced to humans,
corn, cattle and lawn grass, there will also be an end to the extinction
crisis, but let's assume that we manage to retain most of the remaining
biodiversity, too!)

Technophiles please note: the specification of current technology levels
does not constitute a prediction. It is merely a simplification of the
problem. I do not ask what population the earth might or probably will
support. I ask what population we NOW are able to support. The probable
trajectory of technology can be addressed much more rationally once we
determine what the current limiting process is and what other limiting
processes are in prospect.

mt
From: fast@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (L. Fast)
Subject: UN Enviro Program?
Keywords: UNEP, Cleaner Production Programme
Organization: UTCS Public Access
Distribution: sci.environment
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:23:37 GMT

Can anyone tell me how to access the United Nations Environment Programme's
computer system in Paris France?
Another name for the computer system is ICPIC
or International Cleaner Production Information Clearinghouse.

There may also exist a mirror of the data on a computer system within
the North American network structure.

The system has a SPRINTNET address of 311076200604, but I don't know if
there is a telnet equivalnet or if the system is directly accessable at all.

Any help is appreciated.
Larry Fast    fast@nimios.eng.mcmaster.ca
Many environmental problems will remain unsolvable
until we address the population problem.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: pld@fc.hp.com (Paul_Dineen)
Subject: Re: Articles on companies that pollute?
Organization: HP CLO/CoLL, Fort Collins, CO
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.4 PL6]
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:43:47 GMT

John McCarthy (jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: Another research project starting with its conclusions.

  Excuse me?  Please explain.  They're looking to see if there's a
  connection between two things.  If there is an interesting connection,
  they will publish.  My note just said that they would publish, without
  adding a clause saying that they would publish only if what they found
  was meaningful, thinking that was obvious.  Was that what you objected
  to?

  The fact that the subject is an emotionally charged one, the
  environment, does not necessarily mean that these particular
  researchers are going to wildly publish anything they can that might
  smear members of boards of directors.  Do you believe this connection
  is too potentially emotion laden, and should not be studied?

  I don't understand what information in the (short) original posting you
  use to come your conclusion.
Organization: Masters student, Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:19:28 -0500 
From: Stephen Sorensen <ss9o+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
	<-1364517927snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au>


Gil Hardwick writes:

>There is no "communistic" system here and nowhere have I suggested
>such a thing. Australia has always had a mixed economy which strives
>to balance enterprise with planning and infrastructure development;
>in our view just being sensible about it.
> 
>In this context I have done no more than offer a very preliminary
>comparison between one system and another, and you can always make
>further comparison with any number of other patently non-communist
>economies not too dissimilar to ours.

I used the word "communistic" to avoid just this type of confusion. The
Soviet Union was a "communist" country; Australia, if its notion of
property is the one Gil suggests, is communistic, by which I mean a
system that gives precedence to the will of the "community" over the
will of the individual. 
> 
>If on the other hand you insist on adhering to some sort of paranoid
>"reds under the bed" mentality in responding to anything anyone ever
>says to you, I doubt whether anyone will be much interested in you
>any more. We have had enough of that mindless crap bringing with it
>the bloody deaths of so very many millions of people this century,
>and hopefully it is over now.

Who's paranoid here ? Nobody called anybody a red or a communist. I
thought we were talking about ideas, and was pointing out that your
notion of contingent property rights flies in the face of the American
notion of individual rights. Moreover, history has shown that societies
without well-defined property rights have been at least as brutal and
less successful than societies that have them.  

> 
>Think of something new, eh?

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Steve Sorensen