HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.environment

John McCarthy writes:

>I am glad to hear that Clinton says that everything depends on a change
>in values.  Since the American people are basically sensible, and will
>evaluate Government programs according to their experience with them,
>then their values will depend on how they like these experiences, and
>no politician will be able to lead them far astray for very long.

Here is a way to test McCarthy's theory:

1) Look at poll data today on public attitudes about gays in the military.

2) At two year intervals over the next eight years, look at similar polls.

3) Keep track of the statements which will be made during the coming year
of the disruption, difficulty, pain, loss of morale, and general impossibiliy
which the Clinton policy entails. 

4) Look at the frequency of such statements in eight years.

If McCarthy is right, a high frequency in 3) means that the data in 2) will
not change over eight years and that the data in 4) will not change in eight
years. People will not allow themselves to be "led astray" down such a
value shift, as they will be deterred from doing so by the discomfort of
adjustment.

If McCarthy is wrong, values probably have some dynamic other than the 
one he imagines they have. I.e. the "experiences" people "like" (or fear)
are not nailed down at every point for all eternity.

I'm surprised he doesn't know that already, as his whole dream of replacing
the living world with an artificial one depends on it. In that case however
there may be some real nails in our nature that keep us emotionally fastened
to the biosphere that produced us: an adaptive complex for what E.O. Wilson
has called *biophilia*, the love of life.

The greatest question before humanity is this: which fasteners of our 
nature will prove stronger -- those of fear and greed, or the bonds of 
love and justice? The intertwined fate of our species and the biosphere 
depends on our final answer.

Clinton is beginning the first trial of that question with the issue 
mentioned above.

------------
Alan McGowen

"By the faces we show each other and the world... we force the spring."
-- Bill Clinton.
From: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cars and suburbs
Date: 27 Jan 1993 23:51:13 GMT
Organization: lbl
Distribution: na
Reply-To: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.154

strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:(regarding many bike paths in Germany)
> In addition, many bike paths are former sidewalks, so one
> has to pay attention to slow pedestrians, which makes it
> quite impossible to ride at a decent speed. 

Hmmmm.  I wonder how car drivers would react if they had to
share roads with pedestrians too!  This seems to be an international
problem as there are number of important places in the SF Bay Area
with bike paths that have either no pedestrian path next to them,
or a substandard one (such that the peds all walk on the bike path).
I suspect that the designers of such paths don't ride bikes, and
think that all bike riders are small children and/or that they don't
go fast.

Bruce Nordman
B_Nordman@lbl.gov
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: Quake Public Access
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 09:58:48 GMT

In article <72137@cup.portal.com> gb@cup.portal.com (Greg A Buechler) writes:
>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.

Ahhhh, so you are in favor of laissez faire capitalism then?  

>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.  

That is what free market economics does when it is no crushed by an
activist government.  So, are you in favor of steengthening property
rights, eliminating government regulation, and lowering/eliminating 
corporate taxes?  How about privatizing government-managed natural resources?

>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?)

But all of those costs are already factored in (to the extent that the
government doesn't distort the market to prevent it).  According to what
standard do you judge that nails should be more expensive?  More expensive
than what?  Why?

Besides, who the hell do you think you are telling me how much I may or
may not pay for my nails?  Who died and left you dictator?

>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.

But your premise that the "planet" is being "destroyed" is false.  The "planet"
is doing just fine.

--Brian

Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.usa
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Another ozone question
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1993Jan26.175921.1@cubldr.colorado.edu>
	<1993Jan27.015316.13546@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:13:04

I think the non-chemists may need it pointed out that molecular oxygen
O2 and ozone O3 are always being converted back and forth.  How much
ozone there is relative to molecular oxygen depends on the rates of
these processes, and these are affected by substances present in small
quantities.

What else is involved?

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Constructive Posts and Bells of Hope
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 05:34:15 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1993Jan20.222126.19053@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> 471-1@sleet.atmo.arizona.edu writes:

 > Actions and ideas of peace and peacful means are ALWAYS meet with
 > hostility and/or violence.

Yes, isn't it a pity.

Perhaps fewer might choose active confrontation in the name of peace
that there might be less confusion between an abstract ideal of peace,
and peacefully doing things, as time goes by.

Gil

From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 01:36:40 GMT
Subject: Re: Temperate zone habitat loss
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Newsgroups: sci.environment

/ hpindda:sci.environment / alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) /  1:18 pm  Jan 25, 1993 /

>Sticking pretty much to the mainstream view, the selection factors during
>speciation are: local biotic selection factors and local climatic selection
>factors. The genetic factors are the founder effect (a small sample effect
>which means that a founder population need not be "typical" of the parent
>population), and also the adaptive potential of the founder population --
>i.e. its polymorphism.

I should mention that there are quite a few speciation mechanisms which have
been discussed in the literature. I did not mean to imply by the above that
I was endorsing Ernest Mayr's notions about peripatric speciation in toto.

The disagreements are over the relative importance of the different mechanisms.
The key point I wanted to make is that *all* mechanisms for speciation depend
importantly on biological diversity at the various levels, and that by 
reducing diversity, we are potentially disrupting the microevolutionary 
basis (or bases) of cladogenesis -- reducing the speciation rate. 

Do introduced species make up for this? No more than a future radiation of
new groups after the anthropogenic mass extinction is over would make up 
for it. Some introduced species might do very well in the future -- there 
is no way to know how well. But it is no accident that one prominent (albeit
maverick) paleontologist, Robert Bakker, maintains that introductions over
land bridges finished off the dinosaurs. On the scale of normal evolutionary
processes -- not recovery from a mass extinction -- introductions that do not
fail to become established (and many do fail) often are quite disruptive,
and elevate the extinction rate. In this way they too help to disrupt 
microevolutionary processes and probably contribute to a lower speciation 
rate.  

Incidently it is possible that speciation in the wake of a major mass
extinction is a somewhat different process than speciation during more 
normal times.  When a large percentage of the species inventory has been 
removed, competition is lowered (or equivalently resources are not being 
used as efficiently by the entire ecosystem) -- there is more "ecological 
room" in such a world. That may elevate the speciation rate and the rate 
of formation of new higher taxa. But this is not normal evolution: it is
the potential for *that* which is threatened as "the biosphere retreats in
the face of physically superior forces", as Michael Soule put it.

------------
Alan McGowen

"Models are tools for thinkers, not crutches for the thoughtless".
-- Michael Soule.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Forcing the Spring
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 22 Jan 93 18:23:53

I am glad to hear that Clinton says that everything depends on a change
in values.  Since the American people are basically sensible, and will
evaluate Government programs according to their experience with them,
then their values will depend on how they like these experiences, and
no politician will be able to lead them far astray for very long.

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

Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.usa
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Markets Only? What Nonsense!
Date: 24 Jan 93 02:14:43 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <2936738949.0.p00004@psilink.com> p00004@psilink.com writes:

 > No, no; a suitable term of imprisonment would probably do the job.
 >  
 > But seriously: that's why we have laws -- to keep people from doing 
 > things of which the society disapproves. And if people break them, they 
 > get punished. Is the critique here, in effect, an anarchist one -- that 
 > laws are per se illegitimate? Just asking.

I thought someone might have suggested sending them to school first,
that when subsequently commiting a crime (if something nobody knows is
an offence, or *why* it might be so offensive, can be called a crime)
ignorance can be no defence.

On the other hand, there is ample evidence that like other norms and
standards of society teaching people rather than punishing them is
*remarkably* efficacious.

Yes?

Gil
Xref: sparky sci.environment:14814 talk.environment:5729 alt.sources.wanted:2106
From: zaigi@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment,alt.sources.wanted
Subject: Asia Pacific and the Environment
Date: 25 Jan 93 09:50:08 -0400
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


Dear Netters,

In one article title "The Asian economic miracle : faces the environment" 
written by Martin Wright published in Tomorrow 1992 no. 3, Martin mentioned
that the report prepared by DuPong. The title of the report is "Asia Pacific
and the Environment" which is 375 pages documentation. The documentation is
available at EIU incorporating Business International in New York. But the
price is US$595.00!!! Anybody knows is there any ftp site the documentation
is residing?

Thanks a lot in advance.

From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:38:11 GMT
Subject: Re: A Conversation with Conan
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
From: andrewt@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Taylor)
Subject: Re: Climatic Change and Mussel shells
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:20:11 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <JMC.93Jan25212745@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>Alas, collecting freshwater mussels from around the world is
>an extremely bad idea.  In fact it is illegal.  We just had
>a major infestation of European freshwater mussels into the
>great lakes, clogging power plant cooling intakes, etc.

The request is I'm sure for shells, not live mussels, they even specified
non-endangered.  "Had" is not the correct tense for zebra mussel
infestation is still expanding. Its has now spread down the Hudson almost as
far as NY city and will likely soon be transferred into NY's reservoir system
where it will no doubt cause further expensive problems.

The zebra mussel infestation is a good example of why I think that economic
considerations alone justify much more effort to prevent species introductions.
For example, measures should be taken to stop organisms being transferred in
ship's ballast water such as sterilisation or perhaps complete flushing
mid-ocean would be adequate (if possible).

Andrew Taylor
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: McCarthy's Requested Challange
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 21 Jan 93 08:53:10

In article <149180272@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:

   From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
   Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 17:46:39 GMT
   Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Path: CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!stanford.edu!ames!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!hpscit.sc.hp.com!hplextra!hpcss01!hpindda!alanm
   Newsgroups: sci.environment
   References: <JMC.93Jan14221701@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
   Lines: 15

   John McCarthy writes:

   >Numbers, please Alan.

   Sorry. *You* made the claim that you could prove that *any two resources* 
   enjoyed by the developed world could be enjoyed by 5+ billion. You must have 
   access to all the numbers you need, right? Else the claim was bogus.

   Do you now admit that there are factors of the developed world's standards
   of living, which millions of people find highly important to their quality
   of life, which cannot after all be extended using any known or foreseeable
   technology? 

   ------------
   Alan McGowen

Humanity had to find a substitute for whale oil.  It will also need a
substitute for petroleum.  Fortunately, we know more today about how
to substitute for petroleum than our ancestors knew about how to
substitute for whale oil.  Further substitutions are required, but,
as I recall, the examples given by McGowen were peripheral to the
standard of living.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Another ozone question
Date: 27 Jan 93 01:53:16 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

In article <1993Jan26.175921.1@cubldr.colorado.edu> parson_r@cubldr.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) writes:

> Whoa - that's a peculiar image there, oxygen diffusing upwards on a
> billion-year time scale? I meant that the concentration of oxygen in
> the atmosphere increased very slowly. 

But is this true?  The characteristic time for the oxygen in the
atmosphere to be regenerated (by burial of organic matter in seafloor
sediments) is currently a few million years.  After the dissolved
reduced metals in the ocean had been oxidized, why couldn't the oxygen
content of the atmosphere increase on a similar timescale?

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Objective Environment, again - reluctantly (was Re: Temperate ...)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:48:47 GMT

In article <727850240snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>Indeed! Now, what would explain such elusiveness? Insufficient data?
>Or after 120 years of biologists working all over the world as *yet*
>unable to supply proof, simply a fundamental flaw in the whole theory
>of universality?
>
To me, this whole issue of an objective environment is understood by
recognizing how little of this environment science has actually been
able to describe.  That which we can describe, such as in the basic
laws of physics, apply everywhere we can test them.  But if the
definition of an objective environment includes the relationships
between the various elements of the environment, as I think it must,
then I would suggest that the extent of our current knowledge, for
all of its gains, really is just nibbling at the edges of a true
and thorough understanding.  I think an objective scientific
definition of cultural relationships is about as fantastical to us
as is the technology of the most outlandish science fiction - and we
humans are, after all, a part of this environment, are we not?

A good scientist is cautious about the
application of existing knowledge to areas where it has not been tested
and I think most scientists in the hard sciences are.  I think that
many other scientists (researchers?) are not and it is the _arrogance
of their application_ that annoys people so much.  A good example of
this is in the "dismal science" of economics where economists insist
on divorcing the study of economics from the related fields of
politics, sociology, etc.  That they study this is fine.  They can study
whatever they want.  That they think that their results are applicable
in the real world is not.  If real people cannot divorce these fields
in their societal relationships, then no study that does can lay claim
to a good understanding.  The problem of indigenous development is
not much informed by successes in particle physics or atmospheric
chemistry and people deeply involved in this field are not likely to
accord as much value in such advances as those intimately involved in
them.

Policies in the real world need to recognize the ignorance of humanity
as much as the knowledge of humanity.  Some people suggest that this 
ignorance be recognized as an ethic, those others believe that this
would impede further knowledge.  Yet others prefer
an intellectual understanding of our limits of knowledge, but it seems
to me that an intellectual understanding of ignorance is problematic
at least.  To deny the objective environment altogether may serve a
pragmatic purpose in a world where its mis-application causes so many
problems.
> 
>Gil
>


-- 
==============================================================================
	Dean Myerson     (aka dingo in boulder)     dean@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: burris@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Jim Burris)
Subject: Re: Constructive Posts and Bells of Hope
Organization: TI Semiconductor Process and Design Center
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 08:45:05 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.062158.16993@pmafire.inel.gov> russ@pmafire.inel.gov (Russ Brown) writes:
>In article <1993Jan20.222126.19053@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> 471-1@sleet.atmo.arizona.edu (E. Shane Jimerfield) writes:
>>Actions and ideas of peace and peacful means are ALWAYS meet with
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>
>>hostility and/or violence.    
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>This reflects a unique level of certainty, perhaps inclined to dogmatic.
>What is the source of this wisdom?  Holy writ, perhaps?
>
>Please remember the thoughts of George Santayana, who said, "Skepticism
>is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too
>soon or to the first comer..."
>
>Perhaps the _inferred_ hostility (or violence...on Usenet?) is a
>visceral reaction to the incondite. 
>
>
List of favorite words on the net: always; never; you guys; everybody.

To reduce noise level, add these words to your kill file.

Jim Burris (insert 0.5 smiley here)

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Climatic Change and Mussel shells
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 25 Jan 93 21:27:45

In article <1466602060@igc.apc.org> wilsonms@igc.apc.org (Wilson Middle School) writes:
Path: CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!stanford.edu!agate!spool.mu.edu!olivea!sgigate!sgi!cdp!wilsonms
   From: wilsonms@igc.apc.org (Wilson Middle School)
   Newsgroups: sci.environment
   Date: 25 Jan 93 18:18:00 GMT
   Sender: Notesfile to Usenet Gateway <notes@igc.apc.org>
   Lines: 23
   Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1466602060:000:1081
   Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!wilsonms    Jan 25 10:18:00 1993


   Paleoclimate Research With Freshwater Mussels.

   My name is Keith Olive from Yakima, Washington 902 S.44th
   Yakima, Wa. 98908.  509-454-5848

   My 8th grade class is doing a major research project using freshwater
   mussels (Margaritifera falcata).  We are comparing the growth rates
   of modern specimens to prehistoric specimens so we can reproduce 
   climate conditions of long ago.  We have access to specimens that are
   7,000 years old.  We would like to obtain specimens from other regions
   around the world to compare to our region.  They are found holarctically
   so they should be in a variety of places.  If you know of an area with 
   these mussels please contact us, our E MAil address is"wilsonms".  If
   you would like more info about the project send us a note.  We'd love
   to work with other areas in our study of paleoclimate and climatic
   change.  

   We would also like to add to our collection of freshwater mussels
   from the world.  If you have shells from non-endangered species, we'd
   love to recieve/trade shells.             Thanks,  Keith.

   In case it matters respond on EcoNet.

Alas, collecting freshwater mussels from around the world is
an extremely bad idea.  In fact it is illegal.  We just had
a major infestation of European freshwater mussels into the
great lakes, clogging power plant cooling intakes, etc.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: shenry@cs.rice.edu (Sam Henry)
Subject: Re: Oppose Signal Synchronization Projects!
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 20:04:39 GMT

In article <6094@bacon.IMSI.COM> jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes:

>... and there's just no excuse for seeing bikes on a street not
>designed for it.  


Name a street not designed for bicycles.  They all are, you know.
Bicycles are in a class of slow moving vehicles, and have the
advantage of **not** damaging the air or destroying the streets
they ride on.


-- 
sam henry <shenry@rice.edu>
Wanna ride?
Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.usa
From: shenry@cs.rice.edu (Sam Henry)
Subject: Re: Cars and suburbs
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 20:53:47 GMT

In article <kraas.727971827@gmd.de> strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
hits the nail on the head:

>... Judging from German traffic statistics, most cars
>are used under conditions which seem to be ideal for bicycle use,
>most of the time. This may be different in the US.

Actually, it is not.  Over half of workers in the USA live within 6
miles/10 km of their jobs.  A very easy bicycle commute.
Your German statistics also probably includes info on avg dist/trip.
-- 
sam henry <shenry@rice.edu>
Wanna ride?
From: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 22:19:34 GMT
Subject: Re: Temperate zone habitat loss
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA