From: Patrick Townson <ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: misc.misc
Subject: Re: Marching to Zion
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:20:00 GMT
Reply-To: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu
Organization: The World

Nigel Allen sent a response to me which should be shared in part:

 From Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Mon Sep 28 03:12:14 1992

> Without any consciousness of the environmental or occupational health
> concerns associated with coal-fired generating stations, my initial
> reaction was simply that it was silly to burn fossil fuels to generate
> electricity.

[He then discusses the use of water pressure from dams to accomplish
the job of creating electricity]  

(and concludes) ...

> I realize now that nothing is free, that the massive flooding caused
> by building hydro dams kills wildlife and vegetation and can destroy
> the economy of aboriginal peoples who used to hunt on the flooded 
> lands.  But it still seems better than nuclear power and fossil-fuel
> generating plants.

> Nigel

You are right about water being another good alternative to nuclear,
and certainly coal furnaces are out of the question entirely now. Two
curious uses of water as power come to mind; this is a bit off the
beaten path here but I'll relate them then go on.

In the last half of the nineteenth century before electricity had
become commonplace, cities with water mains delivering water to
people's houses still had to pressurize the water to force it down the
mains. In Chicago around 1860-1880 water itself was used to pressurize
the water supply:

Where the intake pipe came from Lake Michigan into the city water
works, a small diversion creek had also been dug. At the water works,
the diversion creek ran along the side of the building through a water
wheel. The stream caused the water wheel to spin around; as it spun
around it in turn connected to some hydrolic gears in the water works.
These in turn forced air into the water mains, and that air caused
sufficient pressure in the mains to force the water to travel several
miles over the distance of the city to the taps in people's homes. A
pretty sophisticated technique for more than a century ago.

In the second instance which comes to mind, also in the Chicago of the
middle to late nineteenth century, the original Chicago Temple was
located on the banks of the Chicago River (the one the bottom fell out
of several months ago as you may recall!). A diversion creek from the
river ran along the side of the building and a water wheel was used to
create air pressure which operated the pipe organ! This was the same
technique (diverted water to spin a water wheel to make air pressure)
used in the original 1850's pipe organ at the Mormon Tabernacle in
Salt Lake City, Utah.  

Enough digression ... 

I briefly quoted Milton Friedman in my prior article. Friedman spoke
at a conference dealing with 'pollution' in the 1960's at the Chicago
Temple Auditorium. I do not have a transcript from that far back, but
I remember well some of his comments, which have relevance even now a
quarter-century later.

He pointed out that the extent to which we must endure and deal with
pollution is in direct proportion to the lifestyle we wish to live. 
He noted that we insist on using air-conditioning even in very mild
summer weather. We insist on riding in elevators up one floor or down
two floors when we could just as easily walk such a short distance. He
pointed out that we leave electric lights, televisions and radios
turned on whether we are using them, or in the case of lights, need
them or not. 

He said these things in the middle 1960's when for the most part we
did NOT have McDonald's, Burger King, and an infinite supply of take
out restaurants using mountains of paper supplies every day. We did
have newspapers, of course, and the Sunday {Chicago Tribune} then as
now weighed in at five pounds and almost five hundred pages. 

Friedman noted his amazement at the folks (this was in the sixties)
who went to 'Save Our Earth' rallies in the park; big demonstrations
by the populace to protest the pollution of the Great Lakes only to
have a hot dog at the rally then throw the wrapper on the ground on
their way back home. 

Friedman said the way to have zero pollution is to die. After all, we
exhale a poisonous gas from our lungs for every breath of fresh air we
take in. He said you have to begin at that point and work forward,
each person deciding when to draw a line for himself, with community
pressure to help in the decision-making. He commented that we often
forget WHY electric companies are called 'utilities'. The word itself
is synonymous with 'user service'. If there is no profit or payback in
sight for an electric company to generate massive amounts of
electricity then they won't do it.  If people quit consuming so much
electricity then there is no profit in nuclear plants. Remember,  
Milton Friedman was saying these things in the 1960's, when nuclear
plants were first starting to be constructed and people's fears of the
consequences were at their highest.

Friedman suggested that if we really don't want pollution; if we
really don't want to have to make hard choices between death due to
the garbage in the air from burned fossil fuels or death from a
nuclear accident then we had to eliminate the lifestyle which calls
for more and more use of energy. 

    "Make it (electricity) a product that people use sparingly. Use
    about half of what we consume now ... it is only because Edison
    can see an immense profit once the nuclear plants are amortized
    that they are so anxious to build them ..."

In the 1960's ... and he suggested:

    "Try eating more often in restaurants which use LINEN napkins,
    and condiments in glass containers." 

Even thirty years ago without McDonald's, et al there were lots of
take out places with paper napkins and plates; salt, pepper and
mustard in little tin-foil containers, etc. And now, 1992 with a
McDonald's on every block in Chicago it seems; paper coffee cups,
paper soft drink cups, etc.

    "Walk up one floor in buildings, and down two floors. Only use
    the elevators when you are making a trip further than that."

And now, security precautions require that stairwells be kept locked
from the inside, so people can exit to the stairs in an emergency but
cannot enter a floor via the stairs. We MUST take the elevator one
floor, like it or not.

    "Don't use air conditioners if you can avoid it. Try opening the
    windows instead on days which have mild conditions."

But the steel and glass buildings of the 1990's do not have windows
which open!  If it were not for the air in the (electrically operated)
circulation systems in most new buildings, we would suffocate.

    (Freidman again) "I do not advocate going back to life in the
    1920's - 30's, but there are positive things we can say about
    food in recyclable glass containers." (He was responding to a
    question about milk and other dairy products in glass containers 
    rather than wax/paper throw-away cartons.)

    "There was a time not that long ago when meals were served in
    ceramic dishes, glassware and metal eating utensils. Linen 
    napkins and tableclothes were provided. Butter was served in a 
    glass bowl placed on the table instead of in little squares placed
    on cardboard containers. Plastic spoons and forks lay around in
    dumps for years before disentigrating ..."

And Friedman said this in his speech before most people in the
audience (a large number of college and high school students) had even
*heard* of McDonald's, let alone been in one of the few which were
around in the 1960's ... 

    "We walked where we were going, or we took streecars or busses.
    We did not see a reason to drive our car one or two blocks with
    the resulting pollution and gasoline usage."

But walking anywhere in a large city late at night is now like taking
your life in your own hands.  Many places have little or no public
transportation. To get almost anywhere these days, we must own an
automobile ... especially in smaller towns or in the suburban areas of
larger cities. 

     "In the winter, do you keep your furnace set as low as possible
     and wear a sweater, or do you keep the furnace running all the time
     even when you are gone so the house will be as warm as you like
     the instant you get home?"

And once again, who among the readers here actually has any real
control over the heat if they live in an older apartment in a large
city? The radiators come on whenever they do ... I get no choice of
how to heat my apartment.

Friedman went on with several more examples quite pertinent in the
1960's, placing the blame for 'pollution' squarely on the shoulders of
the people whose lifestyle required fast take out meals, very short
elevator and automobile rides and constant air conditioning. 

      "Don't blame Edison ... they produce enough electricity to meet
      the well-defined needs of the users and make a legitimate profit
      for their stockholders in the process. Don't blame large 
      corporations ... if you don't buy their products they won't be
      large corporations any longer.  If you want to throw out tons
      tons of paper every day, so ahead. If you insist on the use of
      synthetic products instead of their natural equivilents, then
      don't be angry with the managers of the city dump ... all they
      do is take what you give them to dispose of; they can't work
      miracles with it."

Friedman seemed to imply, as my memory serves me, that if we take the
profit out of throw-away products, the manufacturers will quit making
them. If we quit pushing Edison for more and more electricity for the
most frivolous of reasons, Edison will find it unprofitable to use
nuclear power to produce it. If we want to SLOW DOWN in our lives and
go back to some of the old ways things used to be done, then the
amount of pollution we must contend with and the disasters we have to
deal with (nuke disasters, etc) will of consequence be reduced.


        "Factories discharge filthy, noxious pollutants in the water
        and the air because they make products you have shown you are
        willing and desirous of buying. Quit buying! Newspapers put
        out five pound, five hundred page Sunday editions because you
        have indicated you will purchase it, even if half or more of
        it goes in the garbage unread. Modern mothers no longer have
        time to wash the baby's diapers so they use the throw-away
        kind. Do you think the makers of that product are stupid
        people?  

Friedman stressed we could not and should not return to the past carte
blanche. The 'good old days' were not nearly as good as your
grandparents say they were.

       "But it seems to me we reach a point where we say enough is
       enough, or do we eventually reach the point in history where
       every last thing we use is a 'use it once and throw it away'
       object; where factories and steel mills and oil refineries work
       overtime to produce what they know we will purchase; where the
       only way they can do so feasibly is through a massive amount of
       filth in our water, our air and on our land?"

And I stress again, Friedman said all this in the middle 1960's,
*long* before a time when most meals we eat away from home are
prepared and served on paper; in a time when we had a real choice
about environmental conditions in our workplaces, etc; long before
Three Mile Island, Chernoble, the Exxon Valdez; long before the
serious problem of waste dumps getting filled to capacity was
something anyone thought about; long before there were holes in the
Ozone layer because we insist on using deodorants, shaving cream,
whipped cream and bug spray in containers which emit flourocarbons
into the atomosphere; long before the term 'brown out' in reference
to electrical shortages had been coined; long before plastic throw-
away cigarette lighters were invented which will live in the dump for
a few hundred years before they disentigrate, etc.

When I was up at Zion the other day and talking to the demonstrator
(see earlier message) he was talking to a fellow there with him to
protest and said something about how hot it was and how great it would
feel to get home ... 'since the new air conditioner in my apartment
will have everything cooled off when I get there'.  Had Friedman been
along and heard the comment, I think he would have just smiled and
shrugged his shoulders. Until about 1950 or so, people got along
without air conditioning. How did they survive?  My mother said "we
were miserable in the summer, that's how we survived."

I'm not trying to single out McDonald's and Burger King ... they're
out there to make a buck also; but you must understand that there is a
lot higher price to be paid than just $2 for two Egg McMuffins ... 


Patrick Townson

Newsgroups: misc.misc