HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment
Subject: Re: NYT article on Japanese breeder
Date: 23 Dec 92 04:19:13 GMT
Organization: Private Computer, Totowa, NJ

In article <JMC.92Dec20234103@SAIL.Stanford.EDU: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
:Perhaps this represents _The New York Times_ joining the Greenpeace
:campaign to bully the Japanese into abandoning their breeder project,
:or perhaps it is just a one shot aimed at soothing the businessmen
:worried about Japanese competition.

The New York Times has taken money from various anti-nuke groups to run
various anti Japan nuke program ads that look a lot like the paper itself.
Its full of the standard anti-nuke balony, things that I thought were
settled long ago, like the fallacy of plutonium being the most dangerous
substance.  Its a cheap shot I know, but nothing unlike similar anti-nuke
tactics.

-- 
Kenneth Ng
Please reply to ken@eies2.njit.edu for now.
Apple and AT&T lawsuits: Just say NO!
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: Re: pollution from woodburning fireplace
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:17:03 GMT

 (mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM) wrote:
: >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.
: 
: Wood burning is naturally polluting. Modern stoves are cleaner,
: but wood smoke is still one of the most toxic air pollutants.
: The only thing you can do is not use it!

	He's right on that point.  Wood smoke is highly polluting.

	Judging from the problem, I would guess that your neighbor
has poor ventilation, is burning unseasoned (green) wood or wood
with a high sap content, like pine.

	He may be solving your problem.  If he keeps it up, he'll
have a creosote fire in the chimney and burn his house down.

	Is there any legal recourse to get someone to improve their
fireplace/stove?  In my area, the townhouse association would come
down hard on the miscreant.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Dec24180245@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<1992Dec25.074739.19527@meteor.wisc.edu>
Distribution: na
Date: 25 Dec 92 23:51:57

In article <1992Dec25.074739.19527@meteor.wisc.edu> stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu (Stephen Jascourt) writes:

   In article <JMC.92Dec24180245@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >In article <58002@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
   >
   >   In article <JMC.92Dec23184831@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >   >is unfortunate that so much land in the West is in the hands of the
   >   >Federal Government.  The Federal Government should auction off 3/4
   >   >of its land in the Western states including Alaska.
   >
   >   To what end? Instead the government should start acting to preserve the
   >   property of the general public, instead of allowing it to be degraded for
   >   the profit of a few well connected welfare ranchers, miners,
   >   loggers, and tourist concessionaires.
   >
   >   Statist? Your logical deductions are not truth preserving.
   >
   >Well, Yodaiken wants to keep the land in Government hands, and he
   >regards people who might buy the land as "a few well connected welfare
   >ranchers, miners, loggers, and tourist concessionaires."  That's
   >pretty statist.  Also his posting is as close to a howl as we commonly
   >get on Usenet.
   >--
   >John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305

   In a land as rich in natural resources and poor in infrastructure as Alaska,
   Yodaiken is probably correct in anticipating what the results of private land
   ownership will be -- massive environmental destruction to exploit natural
   resources. There certainly is a good deal of precedent for this. Perhaps
   McCarthy thinks such an outcome would be a desirable result.

   Note: I will be out of town until Jan 6; I might or might not get to read
   news while I am gone, so please e-mail followups as well as posting (so I can
   respond).
   Stephen Jascourt   stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu

I suspect that a fair amount of what I would call use of the land,
Stephen Jascourt would probably call destructive exploitation.

Consider the line from a Jefferson campaign song:

     Where once dark pathless forests spread,
     Bright fields and lofty cities shine.

I consider that the Jeffersonian attitude is still appropriate for most
of the territory of the U.S.

Consider that the public lands of the U.S. indeed belong to the public,
and the public should benefit from them.  My position is that the public
will get the greatest benefit if the ratio between publically owned
land in the West to privately owned land reaches a ratio more like
that of the East.

The Government need not dispose of all that land at once.  To do it
over 50 years might be the correct policy.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Externalities (ws Re: Save the Planet and the Economy...)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:11:18 GMT

In article <JMC.92Dec21193551@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>Who gets to say what the true costs of a certain activity are?  It
>allows enormous room for arbitrariness and political manipulation.

This is true of anything that government does, so unless one is an
anarchist, it must be dealt with.  I would suggest three things if
such a plan gets implemented.  First, a well-defined process with
input from the NSF and other similar organizations.  Second, up or
down congressional approval, similar to the fast-track trade process,
to limit congressional meddling, and third, dont' let any money
collected go into the general fund.  Spend it ameliorating the
costs that have been identified.  There are many cases where more
accurate pricing can be obtained with market input, which should
be used where possible.  
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>


-- 
==============================================================================
A though for the holidays:
   "Wine is living proof that God loves us and likes to see us happy"
	- Benjamin Franklin			dean@vexcel.com
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Date: 25 Dec 92 13:43:21 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <JMC.92Dec24180245@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>

>   Statist? Your logical deductions are not truth preserving.
>
>Well, Yodaiken wants to keep the land in Government hands, and he
>regards people who might buy the land as "a few well connected welfare
>ranchers, miners, loggers, and tourist concessionaires."  That's
>pretty statist.  Also his posting is as close to a howl as we commonly
>get on Usenet.

Get a dictionary, Prof. McCarthy.
Neither support of federal ownership of national
parks, nor opposition to misuse of public land constitutes "statism". 
And, as for humor value, I'm afraid that your opening line is the real
howler. Here it is again for anyone who missed it the first time.

>   >Victor Yodaiken's Massachusetts is in much better shape than Alaska in
>   >that almost all of the land in Massachusetts is in private hands.  It

Well, gotta go out and look at that Primeval forest off of route 63
again. 


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
Xref: sparky sci.environment:14111 sci.energy:6517
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: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:33:16 GMT

A fine example of McCarthy's law:

In article <5916@bacon.IMSI.COM>, jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes:
|> James L Wilson <jlwilson@bellahs.com> writes:
|> 
|> 	the real dilemma:  too many people putting too great a stress
|> 	on a planet with a finite amount of resources.  When we can
|> 	come up with a real solution for curbing the current population
|> 	growth ...
|> 
|> Except that it's not really a population problem; as it is, a 2-kid
|> family in the US puts something like 37 times the amount of strain on
|> resources as a 15-kid family in Burma.

I suppose it depends on the resource in question, but I'd certainly like
to see where you got this 7.5 x 37 = 277.5 factor. Out of a hat?

In any case, with a long-term growth rate of 0 in the US case and 750%
per generation in the Burma case, in 2.79 generations (assuming all children
grow up and have families similar to the one they grew up in) the impact
of the Burmese family will have caught up to that of the American family,
and thereafter rapidly surpasses them.

Also one notes that the most severe loss of wilderness areas is now
occuring in poorer and more heavily populated countries.

The belief that a low-tech existence would allow the world's population
to grow indefinitely is surprisingly common among people who think
of themselves as committed to environmental protection. Unfortunately
it is completely incorrect.

Indeed, if you make the rough but plausible approximation that family size is 
inherited, simple calculation of any particular environmental impact shows
that limiting family size to replacement rate is BY FAR the most significant
contribution any individual can make to sustainability.

mt
From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Foresty Service.
Date: 25 Dec 92 00:05:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: acad3.1992Dec24.160535.1
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <BzEwBz.Bxs@acsu.buffalo.edu>, v151luy2@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott D McGinnis) writes:
> Hello:
> 	I am interested in getting information about applying tp
> the U.S. Forestry Service for a job. I would like to ask if any
> one out there has the address I would need to write for info
> and an application. Thanks in advance.
> 
> 							Scott

Stop by the local Federal Building and fine the Personnel Office..
I believe it is Office of Personnel Management.. They should be able to help.
for Any Federal Job..


Michael Adams
Alias: Morgoth/Ghost Wheel 
nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Sacrifice (was Re: Save the Planet ...)
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 07:00:39 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Dec30.004747.13379@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@PacBell.COM writes:

 > One teensy-weensy problem, Gil: wildlife have no say in the process.

Well they do in fact. It is just that if people don't want to listen
we are all in the shit, are we not?

 > Satisfying people is not enough.

What do you find satisfying, Mike? Or Mr McGowen et al? I think you
are making artificial distinctions here, unless you are actually a
pair of Western Speckled Drongos or some such creature which has
learned to peck at a computer keyboard for fear of becoming extinct.
Both being male you would have fun breeding, however.

In the meantime, unless human communities are set up and managed much
better than they are now for sustainable prosperity, that real people
feel they have a better chance in life, the environment is not going
to have a snowflake's chance in hell.

It is starving people who would kill the last creature left on earth,
not wealthy people with full bellies, yes?

Gil

Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
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
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:45:59 GMT

-If we were to charge the full economic cost to ALL items used, mined,
-manufactured, etc. we wouldn't be in the present condition at all.
-
-Not just autos, everything is to some degree paid for at costs far 
-below their tru economic cost if you factor in the environmental cost/
-damage.  
-
-Let's use another example, lets say homes.
-
-The cost of lumber should include the full cost of extraction, reforest-
-ation, the polution by the trucks moving the lumber, the waste from the
-mills, etc.  Nails should cost far more.  Wallboard, wiring, (do you get
-the point yet?)
 
Good point, & good idea.

-Bottom line here..... If we want to curb the destruction of this planet
-                      caused by us, we have to incur the true cost of an
-		      item, including the full environmental cost.
-
-ps  If you really want to clean up the place, then show me how I can make
-    a profit doing so and I will run over all the environmentalists 
-    because they won't be able to get out of my way fast enough.

Simple: have the government charge the polluters, & pay you to do the
cleanup.
From: afong@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Krell Kraver)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Date: 1 Jan 93 18:35:32 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Dec23.163445.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes:
>In article <57990@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec22.194319.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes:
>>>I have lived in Alaska for the last 22+ years and I don't appreciate anyone
>>>telling me or my friends what to do or what we can do with our land..
>> 
>> It's *our* land, bud. Belongs to the people of the USA, not to you. If you
>> want a handout, go to the welfare office. 
>> 
>Wrong bud, the lands of Alaska belong to the citizens of Alaska, which I just
>happen to be a member.. Only reason why you all the FED own any land here is

This is childish and selfish.  Whatever the current laws are, the US
government PURCHASED Alaska with the TAXPAYERS money.  Thus it
belongs to all Americans.
 
The reason the government has to control the use of the land is
because there are enough idiots in America to do considerable
damage.  There are those who don't see a need for trees.  There are
those who do environmentally conscious things only because they are
_forced_ to.  If there was no control, your prestine Alaska would be
nothing more than an oil field for Exxon.

Xref: sparky sci.environment:13839 sci.systems:200
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.systems
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Date: 23 Dec 92 21:32:23 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Dec22.194319.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes:
>I have lived in Alaska for the last 22+ years and I don't appreciate anyone
>telling me or my friends what to do or what we can do with our land..

It's *our* land, bud. Belongs to the people of the USA, not to you. If you
want a handout, go to the welfare office. 



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: Tom Gray <tgray@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 21 Dec 92 12:48 PST
Subject: --New York Looks at Green Pricing
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1466602014:000:2073
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!tgray    Dec 21 12:48:00 1992


/* Written 12:45 pm  Dec 21, 1992 by tgray@igc.apc.org in igc:en.energy */

NEW YORK LOOKS AT
'GREEN PRICING'
 
The New York Public Service Commission is working on a "green
pricing" plan that would allow consumers to choose whether to pay
higher electricity bills for power from clean, renewable energy
sources, according to The Energy Daily.
 
Several other states, the article said, are considering the
concept, which was developed in detail by David Moscovitz of the
Regulatory Assistance Project in a study commissioned by the World
Resources Institute.
 
A number of polls and studies have shown that many consumers --
perhaps as many as 40 percent or 50 percent -- are willing to pay
more for power from sources that do not damage the environment,
according to Moscovitz.
 
New York is looking at a trial implementation of the concept in
connection with its state energy plan, which calls for the state's
utilities to install 300 MW of renewable energy generating capacity
by the year 1998, the article said.
 
===============================

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has authorized me to offer
an electronic edition of its newsletter, _Wind Energy Weekly_, from
which the above article is excerpted, at no cost.

For those of you who have not previously seen excerpts from back issues
on Usenet or Bitnet, the _Weekly_ reports on the outlook for renewable
energy, energy-related environmental issues, and renewable energy
legislation in addition to wind industry trade news.  The electronic
edition normally runs about 10kb in length.

If you would like a free electronic subscription, send me an e-mail
request.  Please include information on your position, organization,
and reason for interest in the publication.

If the _Weekly_ is not quite for you, please pass this message on to
someone else you think might be interested.  Thanks.

*******************************************************************
Tom Gray                                 EcoNet/PeaceNet: tgray@igc
Internet/Bitnet: tgray@igc.apc.org            UUCP: uunet!cdp!tgray

Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
From: tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:57:49 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.182038.26674@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec30.174327.10706@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
|> >In article <1992Dec30.161607.25113@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> >
|> >I fail to see why efficiency improvements and shifts to non-fossil energy
|> >sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is 
|> >necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
|> >"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
|> >
|> >The argument you make above seems empty to me. It's as if you were advocating
|> >against unleaded gasoline on the grounds that you could always use your 
|> >bicycle. (note for the unsubtle: I advocate bicycles, but am glad of
|> >unleaded gas for use in those instances where the bicycle is inappropriate.)
|> 
|> While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
|> money and such money does not grow on trees.  

Hmm, I thought the idea of an "investment" was a long term return for a short
term cost. It seems to have worked so far. Both new energy production and
new energy efficiency are investments in that sense. Both have large costs
in the immediate term but negative costs (i.e., benefits) in the long run.
Economics is NOT a zero-sum game. You are applying short term budgetary
thinking to long term policy questions where it doesn't really apply.

|>Further, you ignore 
|> the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
|> investing in nuclear power.  It is an inefficient use of money if
|> the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions.

Even in the rosiest of scenarios, power plants age and some of them must
be replaced. Assuming the storage problems of solar and wind energy 
remain unsolved, would you replace a fossil fuel plant with another, or
with a nuclear plant? I believe this is a difficult issue, but it's obvious 
that considering impact on CO2 alone (or acid rain alone) the choice
is clearly for nuclear power over fossil fuels, and no amount of 
handwaving will change that.

Your argument that it is better to reduce consumption than to build 
production is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far in arguing
against nuclear power once new production capacity becomes necessary.

mt
From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: "User Friendly" Transit
Date: 3 Jan 1993 06:32:08 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
NNTP-Posting-Host: zion.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan3.032950.13351@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
>Re: Service Improvement Ideas
>
>     While riding the bus, it is often impossible to tell where we
>are, especially after dark (e.g. on College Ave. between Webster
>and Alcatraz). I could ask the driver to tell me when I get to my
>stop, but I hate to bother them, and they might forget. 

Dude: buy one of these handheld, Global-Positioning-System
receivers that will pinpoint yoor location within 3 meters,
and pre-program it to beep when you get near your destination
bus stop.

>I ride the
>bus partly because I can read while travelling (which I can't do
>while bicycling or driving!). In order to read effectively, I have
>to concentrate on what I am reading, and not be constantly thinking
>about where the bus is and where my stop is. Or I might want to
>sleep! These are just a few of the advantages of transit over
>driving. I would like to see you take advantage of, and advertize,
>all of these advantages.

Quite a few A.C. transit customers take advantage of the
"you can sleep on the bus" amenity ...

In fact, if you tell the driver you want a certain stop,
and then fall asleep, it would be quite rude of the driver
to wake you up just because you reached your stop.  Much
more polite to let you catch some sleep.

Steve
(public-transit-dependent...)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: andrewt@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Taylor)
Subject: Prey and predator biomass
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 20:04:13 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

[this is a re-post of articles which appear not to have propagated from here]

In article <JMC.92Dec16193832@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>I found _Population, Resources and Environment_ flakey in a number of places.
> For example, it says that the second law of thermodynamics requires that
>the biomass of a prey species exceed that of a predator.  The conclusion
>is usually true though not always and has nothing to do with the second
>law of thermodynamics, Ehrlich's venture into physics.  To the
>extent that humans are a predator on chickens, it isn't true for us.

The quoted statement will often be false when a predator preys on multiple
species (as in the case of humans).  However the combined biomass of the prey
species will usually exceed that of the predator.  This seems a very unlikely
mistake for an ecologist to make. Are you sure you are not misquoting Ehrlich?  If not perhaps a typo made "prey species" plural into "a prey species"
singular.

In a later article jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>the second law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with it and is added as
>an incantation to science.  Mere conservation of mass is all that is
>actually required.

No, conservation of mass limits productivity but not standing biomass.  You
have not considered that the predator's average lifetime may exceed that
of its prey or that the predator's life-cycle may differ from its prey.  In
both these cases the predator's biomass may exceed its prey without violating
conservation of mass.

The energy flow is the important consideration. I don't know if the laws of
thermodynamics are relevant and it wouldn't surprise me if Erhlich, a
biologist, was applying them incorrectly.

Andrew Taylor
Xref: sparky sci.environment:14170 talk.politics.misc:65894 alt.activism:19945