Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Atheist "philosophy"
From: kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 22 Nov 92 11:47:18 EST
 <1992Nov22.001159.25576@nmsu.edu> <1992Nov22.030248.22702@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
Distribution: world, public
Organization: Wesleyan University

   I know this doesn't belong here, but...

In article <1992Nov22.030248.22702@doug.cae.wisc.edu>, mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough) writes:
> [lots of crap on enviornmentalism]
> 
> Some people who seem so intelligent in most ways, accept blindly what
> a small number of people who frequently are not accepted as reputable
> claim.  First of all, yes, CO_2 is a pollutant that traps heat, and
> yes CFC chains do have the property of breaking down O_3 (ozone) which
> also happens to be a pollutant.  Did ya know that?  A few interesting
> facts that enviornmentalists frequently don't tell you.

   They don't?  Last time I checked ozone was rated as the major
component of smog.  It's something you want 30,000 feet up, not at 
the surface.  Are you suggesting we release CFC's to reduce smog?

> Using the breeder reactor design, nuclear power is the most efficient, and
> least dangerous source of energy per kilowatt hour. 

   How can you tell?  Like coal, the most dangerous effects aren't
known for thirty years or more.  There is already well-documented 
evidence of much higher cancer rates around nuclear plants, though
this is mostly due to illegal disposal of waste because it is so 
poorly regulated.

> Solar is the least efficient method of gathering energy
> known.  There is a method of determining the _optimum_ amount of
> energy available from a source of power.  The optimum (which we are nowhere
> near) is less than the efficiency we have on most power sources.

   So far.  It is possible to improve efficiency with solar power,
just as it is with other forms of power.

> Solar is a way over estimated source of power simply because it doesn't
> produce enough power to do anything large scale.  Old stat (about 10
> years old): It takes about 2.5 square miles of solar cells generating
> electricity to produce sufficient electricity to power the average home
> in America.  Nice stat huh?  (Can't remember the title, it was a book
> I read in prepping for a debate in middle school on sources of power.)

   I believe the efficiency of solar power has about doubled in the
last ten years.  Even if not that much, it has improved greatly.

> shielding, an outdated design.  What happened there is that the
> graphite became radioactive and caught fire, the US reactors use heavy
> water as a shielding and a coolant.  So, if the coolant leaks, the
> reaction stops as their is no moderator to facilitate the reaction.

   Except that if that happens you loose water pressure, it boils,
and radioactive steam is released.  And while the reaction stops,
the core still melts due to the heat, and there is a small risk
of a continued reaction.  Witness Three Mile Island.

> The biggest problem with nuclear reactors is not the technology for
> safety.  The technology exists, I have seen many a report on it, the
> problem is that the Atomic Energy Commision doesn't approve most improvements
> on waste storage, etc. 

   The problem is that most of the safety regulations aren't put in
place.  The NRC (the AEC was disbanded about 20 years ago) conducted
a survey in a number of nuclear plants and found an incredible number
of safety violations.

> Another fact, more radiation is absorbed by a person
> watching two hours of TV each day, than is absorbed by living 1 mile from
> a modern reactor. 

   There's more than one type of radiation, you know.

> Non power: Ozone.  How long has the ozone hole existed?  Noone can answer
> because noone knows!  It could have existed for centuries. 

   Maybe.  Except that just in the last few years it's gotten much
bigger.  When it was first noticed it was only over Antarctica; now
it extends well over South America.  There's also one over the North
Pole that definitely was not there before.

> How do you
> create ozone?  Shine UV light on O_2.  What does ozone shield against?
> UV light!  Nice isn't it? 

   That's also how you destroy ozone.  Which is how the ozone layer
stays at a relatively constant level, without getting too thick or
thin.

> Yea, CFCs need to be more controlled, but
> the enviornmentalists aren't telling us everything.  Am I suppossed
> to reject religion and then turn around and accept everything the
> enviornmentalist claims without question?  Sounds like I am to reject
> one religion for another.

   No, you're supposed to *think*.  Hadn't that occured to you?

> That covers most of the biggies.  The enviornment is a touchy issue because
> the opposing side has been so effectively oppressed. 

   Maybe vocally.  But in terms of who actually makes the decisions
it's the other way around.

> I heard of one
> show that presented the opposite side.  Everyone who saw the show agreed
> that they did a very good job of refuting the basic tenants of the
> enviornmental panic claims.

   Last year a vice-president of Citibank came here to speak.  Of
course I doubt he's really familiar with the scientific arguments
on either side, but it astounded me that someone could be so amazingly
ignorant.  He said that recycling should be entirely avoided because
it costs more than producing new things; when someone asked his what
we would do when we started running out of wood and metals, he said
"well, we just move to plastics."

   Neither side is going to give you the whole story, not because
they're lying but because of what they leave out.  You have to 
think for yourself and find out what's going on on both sides to
really get a good picture of what is going on.  To give a couple
of examples: people are frequently harping on electric cars to
alleviate the pollution problem.  But they ignore the problem of
where the electricity is going to come from; either a power plant
or a polluting battery.  Also, my father had been working on cleaning
up the waste at an Air Force base, which the local people had claimed
was causing the high rates of cancer in the area.  But it hadn't
been there long enough; everyone had ignored the fact that the local
farmers had been dumping pesticides into the water for the past forty
years.

   Well, I think that's enough for a post in the wrong newsgroup :-)

Karl

> 
-- 
------
"Find a great ideal, a great purpose, marry it, and raise a family."
					 --Negativland, "U2"
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc