HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ehouse@Apple.COM (Eric House)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Oppose Signal Synchronization Projects!
Date: 21 Jan 93 23:49:17 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <6094@bacon.IMSI.COM> jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes:
>
> But, even with well-designed bike routes, you
>*still* see lots of ("too damn many") bicycles on College Avenue in
>Berkeley during rush hour for instance.  There's a great bike route
>system in the East Bay (particularly Berkeley-Oakland) and there's just
>no excuse for seeing bikes on a street not designed for it.

Excuses?  How about They're in just as much of a hurry as you are? or
Their time is just as valuable as yours?  or They're paying for the roads
too, whether or not they're "designed" for them?

I wasn't aware that there were "bike routes" parallel to College Ave in
Berkeley (though I haven't lived there in ten years).  But if there are
roads "designed" for bikes, does that mean they're as free of stop signs
and lights and other obstructions to speedy transit as is College Ave.?
Most bike routes I've seen are designed more to allow cars to race to the
next stop sign unhindered than to facilitate transportation by bicycle.

It would be nice if I needed an "excuse" to use the College Avenues and
Alma Streets of this world, but for now there seems to be precious little
in the way of alternatives for serious transportation (weekend pleasure
riding is another matter, of course.)
-- 
****************************************************************************
Eric House			"My employer doesn't share its opinions with
RAAM in '93?		   	 me, so I can share only mine with you"
From: gellmore@pearl.tufts.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: HELP identify this quote
Date: 28 Jan 93 22:42:16 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA

Colleagues:

I am using a widely-spoken quote, and would like to CREDIT its originator if
possible. The quote is going into a manuscript.

Can any netters provide the author (or tribe, or nation, or anon.) for the
following:
     "We have not inherited the earth from our fathers, we are
      borrowing it from our children"


I'll dial up the newsgroup, but would be happy to get replies to my less labile
e-mail account.
                     Many thanks, 
                                   George S. Ellmore
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Greenpeace press releases -- fact or fiction?
Keywords: not in MY septic tank...
Date: 25 Jan 93 05:06:29 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <C1Dvpn.92G@world.std.com> moroney@world.std.com (Michael Moroney) writes:
>constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
>
>>In article <1993Jan24.202500.2302@truffula.sj.ca.us> cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) writes:
>>>The scandal is that plutonium was released at all, not in what
>>>concentration it was released.  It shows the plant is not being
>>>operated responsibly.
>
>>Every time a neutron hits a U-238 atom (occurs naturally, from a few ppm in 
>>seawater to many percent in ore) and is absorbed, a U-239 atom results, which
>>kicks off a beta to get to Np-239, and another one to become Pu-239, the
>>Great Satan (tm).
>
>Also, there were several tons of plutonium released into the environment
>over the course of atmospheric atomic weapons testing by the US, USSR and
>the others.  This is still in the environment.  So, while Greenpeace
>can rightly be upset that this plutonium got into the environment,
>they can't say that finding a tiny trace of plutonium is proof of
>Sellafield's lax operation.

Since Sellafield is acknowledged to be pumping Pu into the Irish sea,
on purpose, and since the British government has had to actually move
some beaches near Sellafield, and since there was a major fire at
Sellafield in the 1950's, we know that "tiny trace" quantities are not
as issue here.

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: john.holmgren@spacebbs.com (John Holmgren)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Another Ozone Question
Date: 23 Jan 93 16:57:00 GMT
Reply-To: john.holmgren@spacebbs.com (John Holmgren)
Organization: SPACE BBS - Menlo Park, CA - 10 Lines + 4gB - 415-323-4193

T >     "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.

    Holy Mackerel, Tino! Can you (please) either get a new tagline, and/or 
explain the origin of this one and it's author?

    At this point I'd rather see NO tagline than the same repititious one!



---
 . WinQwk 2.0 a#0 . Unregistered Evaluation Copy
                                                     
----
SPACE BBS - Menlo Park, CA - 10 Lines - BoardWatch Top Ten BBS
415-323-4193 (v.32bis) - 4gB (50,000 files) + Wx, UPI News, etc.
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Constructive Posts and Bells of Hope
Date: 23 Jan 1993 02:03:02 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1993Jan20.202711.22349@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>, tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>In article <1993Jan19.195019.21459@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>|> It seems that debates in many usenet groups tend to move towards the
>|> opposite extremes and I think this is what Alan wants to move away from.
>|> If those who favor stronger or quicker action spend _all_ of their
>|> time debating libertarians and technophiles, they lose the opportunity
>|> to refine their ideas by spending all of their time defending the
>|> coarser issues.

What Alan seems to want is to talk with a bunch of people who'll believe, just
because Alan waves his arms about and asserts that it's a "good thing," that it
will be easy to reduce the human population of the planet by a factor of 10 in
150 years.  He doesn't want to hear from anybody who dares ask just HOW Alan
proposes to achieve the reduction.  After all, the means of accomplishing his
great population reduction program are mere technicalities, surely beneath his
notice, as long as he remains an ideologically pure misanthrope and technophobe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:45:55 GMT
Subject: Re: Forcing the Spring
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Newsgroups: sci.environment

>Yes -- this does mean "putting people first". Not first before *life* 
>(an insane idea anyway), but first before greed and fear and immediacy. 
>
>That is *how* we shall force the spring.

PS. Haven't I been arguing for two years that everything depends on a shift
in values? It seems we have a president who understands that perfectly. He
has made it the metaphor for his administration. 

------------
Alan McGowen
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Blazing Tattles, V.2, Issues 1-5
Date: 23 Jan 1993 01:56:42 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1466602037@igc.apc.org>, cgilbert@igc.apc.org (Claire Gilbert) writes:
=THE ARTICLE IN THE JULY, 1991 issue by Joe Vialls on "the biggest
=bomb" was scary to Wanda Ballentine of Eugene, Oregon.  She sent
=copies to selected politicians and received a reply from William
=Harper, Director of Energy Research, Science and Technology Advisor
=to the Secretary of Energy (U.S.).  Harper was caustically critical
=of Vialls' thesis that gasses from the billions of gallons of oil
=in lakes in Kuwait (and Iraq?) could explode.
=     An Internet reader, Paul Houle, came to the defense of Vialls
=thesis.  Paul explains that the gasses from the constantly spewing
=remaining wild oil wells, particularly in Rumaila (Iraq and Kuwait)
=could have exploded under certain conditions.

Gee, Claire, all the air in the room in which I'm sitting could suddenly rush
into one corner of the room UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.  Without an appraisal of
the probablity of those conditions (and I note that you don't even trouble
yourself to tell us just what those "certain conditions" might be;  is that
really how a sociologist of science looks at science?  As long as someone is
waves his arms about "certain conditions," you take his word (as long, of
course, as he gave you the answer you wanted to hear) as TRUTH, to the point
where it's not even necessary to report what the person actually said, merely
that he seemed (in your opinion) to be in agreement with you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.usa
From: rlucas@bvsd.Co.EDU (Richard Lucas)
Subject: Re: Greenpeace press releases -- fact or fiction?
Organization: Boulder Valley School District
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 22:33:13 GMT

In article <JMC.93Jan24215137@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>I'm sure that plutonium is considered valuable at Sellafield, so the
>quantities release are as "trace" as they can make it.

     I've lived north of Rocky Flats for almost 20 years now. I'm sure
that they consider plutonium valuable, too, but that sure hasn't
prevented a number of releases. Estimates of plutonium in the ventilation
ducts have resulted in figures in excess of 60 pounds. It would appear
that value of the material alone isn't enough to guarantee proper handling.

Rick Lucas (rlucas@bvsd.co.edu)
Debate Coach, Fairview HS, Boulder, CO
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 05:46:54 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <149180307@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com writes:

 > My view is that the *environment* and our *impact* on it is the topic here,
 > and the sci.* appellation of the group is a challenge to us to bring to bear
 > whatever scientific knowledge we have on all questions which pertain to that
 > topic, to the best of our ability -- it is not primarily a limitation of 
 > scope. 

This is an interesting point, Alan. Would you like to expand on it a
little to suggest a framework by which the results of studies of your
impact on your environment might be applied to work we are doing on how
we impact on our environment here in Western Australia.

Any sort of international cooperation along these lines would be very
greatly appreciated indeed.

 > Again, I'd like to point out that the de novo construction of frameworks 
 > for discussion about the environment is a complete waste of time when the
 > planet has already adopted one. That framework is Agenda-21, and if we
 > want our cogitations to impinge on the implementable at any point, that
 > should be our basic initial framework for discussion here.

Oh yes, Agenda 21. Are you suggesting here that the Green Bible has
now been written? Is it too forward of me to now ask how any of its
recommendations are to be implemented for every different place on
the planet?

 > And, yes, I'm afraid the bad news is that this *does* mean that all of us 
 > ought to read it, or at least *aspire* to read it among everything else on 
 > the reading list.... [No, I haven't read all of it. About half.]
 >  
 > A much less ambitious but still very worthy goal would be to pick just 
 > *one* chapter -- your favorite subject -- and read only that one. 
 >  
 > If you can't *find* a favorite subject anywhere in Agenda-21, the three
 > UNCED treaties (climate, biodiversity, deforestation) or in the NGO 
 > treaties (the documents from the broader participation of the Earth Summit,
 > outside the UN delegations), I'd think there was a serious question as
 > to why you are here in sci.environment, or even *.environment.

Is it possible, Alan, that we here in Western Australia might simply
comply with our own environmental standards, from which among many
others Agenda 21 was compiled? Or do we have to abandon all of our
field data and do it all over again under UN supervision?

While you get a job there doing the supervising, I expect?

Gil
From: constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Another Ozone Question
Date: 24 Jan 93 22:39:22 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <11655.1023.uupcb@spacebbs.com> john.holmgren@spacebbs.com (John Holmgren)  writes:
>T >     "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
>
>    Holy Mackerel, Tino! Can you (please) either get a new tagline, and/or 
>explain the origin of this one and it's author?

Joy Division. Decades.

Here are the young men,
a weight on their shoulders
Here are the young men,
well where have they been?
We knocked on doors
of hell's darker chambers
Pushed to the limits,
we dragged ourselves in
Watched from the wings as
the scenes were replaying
We saw ourselves now as
we never had seen
Portrayal of the traumas and degeneration
The sorrows we suffered
and never were freed
Where have they been

Weary inside, now our hearts
lost forever
Can't replace the fear
or the thrill of the chase
These rituals showed up the door
for our wanderings
Opened and shut, then slammed
in our face
Where have they been

>    At this point I'd rather see NO tagline than the same repititious one!

Sorry. I like it.

>---
> . WinQwk 2.0 a#0 . Unregistered Evaluation Copy
>                                                     
>----

Ditto.

Tino
-- 
     "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker)
Subject: Re: The Real "Right to Life"
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 13:19:20 GMT

Annent Justice to Future Generations.

Mr. McGovern, are you aware the future does not exist, there is only the
past and present.  Future generation worship is right up there with
ancestor worship with regard to its rational content.

Conan the Libertarian

-- 
"If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: Re:  The Nature Conservancy
Organization: Save the Humans!
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 08:23:57 GMT

In article <8fLT96u00WB68KYGwZ@andrew.cmu.edu> "John B. Randolph" <jr4h+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>... the Conservancy will either sell or lease land
>to private individuals as long as they adhere to strict environmental
>standards[?]

The Nature Conservancy buys conservation easements instead of outright
title sometimes.  They invent complex trades where they will accept random
raw land from a donor so they can trade it for easements or title elsewhere
they want to preserve.  I've been reading their little newsletters for
years and they've never mentioned selling or leasing a preserve.

>One could get a 10,000 acre backyard paid for...

With one exception, the preserves aren't that big.  Most are too small
to warrant a full-time on-site caretaker.

>What guarantee is there that this land will never be sold to some corporation? 

Most of the preserves are eventually donated or leased to the county or state
government.  I understand the delightful 9000 acre Forest of Nicene Marks
State Park an hour or so south of me was a TNC project, way back when.

>It seems to me that if all this land is purchased that it could be
>donated to the US Park Service under the condition that it is a designated
>wilderness - no roads, logging, mining etc.  Yet the Conservancy doesn't.

Untrue!  The deed restrictions on FNMSP are so strict that no buildings
(except pit-toilets) or horses are allowed.  TNC's pretty careful about
stuff like that.

The hardest slam against TNC I've heard is that their efforts can never
save enough habitat to matter much, while they divert attention and funds
from other nonprofits whose activities save much more habitat for the
money.  They share their mailing list with other mainstream environmental
nonprofits.  (From memory, officers of Maxxam and Waste Management are on
TNC's board of directors.  This may have changed.)


--
Cameron, north of Loma Prieta
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: len@schur.math.nwu.edu (Len Evens)
Subject: Re: Ozone ADDITION, not depletion?
Organization: Dept of Math, Northwestern Univ
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 16:49:09 GMT

In article <1993Jan20.205928.1@cubldr.colorado.edu> parson_r@cubldr.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) writes:
and elsewherei, Robert Parson gives interesting and informative explanations
which I hope clarify why atmospheric chemists believe the current consensus
about ozone depletion.

Let me try again to make an important point about all this.   In my
field, mathematics, in principle, any person can master the basic concepts
and present arguments justifying some contention or other.  However,
we regularly get `proofs' from amateurs who think they have solved some
famous problem or done some construction known to be impossible.   The
reason is that these people have not immersed themselves in the general
consensus of the discipline (which goes back to Euclid or earlier),
so they don't understand what is relevant what is not.   If this is so
in mathematics where falsity is relatively easy to recognize, it must
be much more so in sciences like atmospheric chemistry which are
complex amalgams of theory, observation, and experiment.   In such an
area, not every possible inconsistency in reported data will be
accounted for.   If you don't work regularly in the discipline, you
just won't be able to understand what a valid argument is and what
is relevant.  It is easy to misunderstand a subject by going in and
picking out a `fact' here and a theory `there' and trying to draw a
conclusion.   

It is also useful to remember that scientific theories are attacked
from `the outside' for ideological reasons.   The theory of relativity
was attacked because it was felt to challenge established morality
by making everything `relative', (which of course it did not).  We
all know about `creation science'.   The theory of ozone depletion
is not in the same category as these examples, but there are people
who have difficulty with this theory precisely because it has led
governments (including our former conservative government) to take
action based on it.  Of course, there are also people whose acceptance
of the theory is based more on some other ideological bias than on
understanding.   However, if this matter, it would be best to leave
the science to the scientists who understand it.

Leonard Evens      len@math.nwu.edu      708-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Greenpeace press releases -- fact or fiction?
Date: 25 Jan 93 15:54:44 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <JMC.93Jan24215137@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>I'm sure that plutonium is considered valuable at Sellafield, so the
>quantities release are as "trace" as they can make it.

Your intuition is incorrect. I've posted references to articles
on Sellafield before. If you'd like, I'll post them again. Or if you
visit the library, you could check the index of Nature or New Scientist.
It is an established fact that  Sellafield routinely releases plutonium
into the Irish sea as a waste disposal method. Not all plutonium isotopes
are "valuable", although this is not something you can learn from
arithmetic.





-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

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 20:16:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.181151.6670@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
rcanders@nyx.cs.du.edu (Rod Anderson) writes: 

>... [get to work by bicycle] ONLY if you live were it is warm year
>round. 

Not true.  It is not that diffcult to stay warm and ride.  You are
generating a considerable amount of heat with the exercise.  Just trap
it next to your body.

>If the streets are snow packed and slippery it is difficult to ride.

It is also difficult and dangerous to drive a car.  And cold doesn't
necessarily mean snow and ice.

>And what about those who are over 60. Not all of them are
>comfortable rideing bicycles. 

I promise, if you start now, you will be comfortable doing it well
past 60, and have the health and stamina to enjoy a lot of things past
age 60 that you wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Where do you get this blather about age 60?

>Bicyclig is a option only for those who are healthy and active.  

Healthy and active is an option of those who bicycle.

>Bicycling on ice is only for the young and foolish.

And for whom is autoing on ice?

>Just because bicycling works for you does not mean that it is the solution
>for all of the country.

It is a viable solution for more of the country than many want to
admit because we have such an auto-addicted society.  Mass transit and
rail are more salubrious solutions than most want to take up because
somewhere in the Bill of Rights the free use of autos is protected as
a natural right.



-- 
sam henry <shenry@rice.edu>
Wanna ride?
Newsgroups: sci.environment,alt.save.the.earth