HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.environment

/ hpindda:sci.environment / jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) /  3:40 pm  Apr  8, 1992 /
>My own confidence that humanity will survive and progress is not based
>on the development of entirely new species, although this may become
>possible.  The present species will suffice, well enough managed.
>Note I wrote "well enough" and not "optimally".

The number of "present species" (and their population diversities -- i.e. 
total biodiversity) is decreasing at an increasing rate -- possibly an 
exponentially increasing rate. It's pretty hard to believe that that is 
"well enough" let alone "optimal" management. It's also pretty hard to 
believe that it can continue for very long.

--------
Alan McGowe


Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Re: Malthus was just ahead of his time (for an alarmist, that is... :)
Date: 11 Apr 92 15:58:32 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <40911803@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:

> Dietz believes the FAO implicitly but there are many reasons to have
> doubts.  For a different view, last year the British magazine _The
> Ecologist_ devoted one issue (I forget which, but I read it around the
> beginning of July) to the FAO, which the editor dubbed "the famine
> machine". The FAO has been a force for the substitution of cash crops
> for native food crops, for example. They have a generally poor record
> of considering ecological impacts.


I saw that issue.  Frankly, it struck me as strident and misleading.
One can always come up with examples of bad impacts of policies, if
one is selective.  No policy or organization is perfect.

There is good independent evidence supporting the claim that per
capita food production has increased, overall: world food prices have,
with occasional temporary upward blips, declined, even as world per
capita income has increased.  If food had been becoming more scarce
overall, one would have expected prices to increase.  If the FAO is
a famine machine, it doesn't work very well.

I also suggest that domestic policies in LDCs matter far more to their
agricultural sectors that does FAO action.  As an example: food price
controls in some south Saharan African countries, which would do far
more to cause farmers to substitute exportable cash crops for food
than any UN bureaucrat's exhortations.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: AIDS in Africa (was: environment and animals)
Date: 10 Apr 92 11:47:35 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <17938@oasys.dt.navy.mil> tdsmith@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Timothy Smith) writes:
>In sci.environment, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>AIDS victims are now spreading non-treatable TB through urban areas in the
>>US. While TB is more infectious for those with weakened immune systems,it
>>is quite happy living in people without AIDS.
>
>    I wouldn't put the blame on AIDS victims.  The non-treatable strains
>are being breed in homeless/street people and/or addicts.  They get
>medicine for treatment and stop taking it when they "feel better." Three
>months later they are back for treatment. Since they tend to go to clinics
>or emergency rooms few places have the resources to follow up on progress.  
>It is not an AIDS problem, it's a mental competance problem.

Addicts usually have other things on their minds than protecting the public
health. But since the public seems to have other things on its mind, the
locus of the mental incompetance is not clear.

>    Now that this has reached national awareness expect some action.
>

Oh sure. Just like on homelessness itself. Don't hold your breath, even
though breathing itself may be dangerous. 


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: Eco Systems Inc. <ecosystems@igc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 07 Apr 92 06:22 PDT
Subject: Re: Short Population Facts
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1466601304:cdp:1466601312:000:192
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!ecosystems    Apr  7 06:22:00 1992


What we need less of is closed minds. I don't see how listing of 
facts can be construed as pontification.

I say less machines and less meat. More with less!

Ron Swenson, ecosystems@igc.org

Xref: sparky sci.environment:5952 soc.culture.esperanto:636
From: kevin@drogges.tti.com (Kevin Carothers)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.esperanto
Subject: Re: [consumption] Global warming and the ozone
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:52:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: ttidca.34333
Organization: Transaction Technology Inc.

In article <1992Apr1.215705.3634@urbana.mcd.mot.com> pbrewer@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Philip Brewer) writes:
>dchung@efi.com (Daniel Chung) writes:
>
 [---]
>
%The idea that one must use air		La idea, ke oni devas uzi
%conditioning in hot areas is, of	klimatizilon en varmegaj lokoj
%course, silly.  People lived in		estas, kompreneble, stulta.  Homoj
%Arizona for 10,000 years before the	lo^gis en Arizona dum 10,000 jaroj
%invention of air conditioning.  I	anta^u la invento de klimatizado.
%have personally lived in Ft.		Mi mem lo^gis en Ft. Lauderdale,
%Lauderdale, Salt Lake City, and Los	Salt Lake City, kaj Los Angelos kaj
%Angelos without needing to use air	neniam devas uzi klimatizilon.
%conditioning.
>
%This is not to say that air		Kompreneble, klimatizado estas tre
%conditioning isn't very useful		uzinda, speciale en ejoj kiel
%especially in places like hospitals.	malsanulejoj.

 [---]

 I am pretty new to the cause of global warming, so please forgive ignorance,
 but I must interject.

 Isn't the environmental damage caused by just the *leaking* of the freon
 out of the condenser?   It seems to me that AC companies could pursue this
 as an engineering problem of containment of leaking gas, rather than 
 going off and saying it's the chemical producers (ie; DuPont, Dow, et. al)
 problem.

 I too lived in Ft. Lauderdale (for over 19 years) without Air conditioning,
 but HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!! I would much rather see an engineering 
 solution or a way of limiting the danger to the atmosphere by some sort
 of chemical "bonding" of the escaping freon to some substance that makes it
 inert to Oxygen/UV interactions.


 BTW-
 I would be tickled if anyone can cite any references on current work being 
 done at the major  corporate level to reduce the threat of ozone depletion.

--
Kevin Carothers   {psivax,philabs,retix,quad1}!ttidca!kevin
From: tdsmith@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Timothy Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Worse case scenario
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:09:16 GMT
Reply-To: tdsmith@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Timothy Smith)
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In sci.environment,  Brett Kottmann  writes:

>        I think that as long as we have the building blocks (amino acids,etc.)
>technology will find a way to (re)create and extend biodiversity.  Not that it
>would be easy, or that would let us destroy what we have.  Merely that I see
>the building blocks of life as a parallel to the DNA building blocks.  We can
>resequence those to bring about new combinations.  It is only a matter of time
>before that ability grows/matures into the ability to bring back extinct forms
>of life using the present day cousins.

    Your analysis is based on three eroneous assumptions:

1) That the complexity of genetic information is tractable.  It is not.
Just mapping human genomes is a mega man-year task using crays and special
purpose genome cracking machines.

2) That we know what is being destroyed. We do not. Funding for even
the small number of collecting expeditions is being cut as we speak.
There simply are not enough biologists, zoos and natural history museums
in the world to record what is being lost.

3) That the information we do have is sufficient to "bring back extinct
life forms."  A pencil sketch of a plant does not convey any information
on it's pharmacutical properties.  A box of bones and skins cannot
record the inate social behavior of an animal species.

Alan McGowen writes:

>> The idea that whole species and ecosystems could be cooked up ex nihilo to
>> replace what we annihilate is staggeringly foolish.

    Amen to everything Alan says. Let me also add that there is a domino
effect when even one tropical species is lost.  Unlike temperate ecosystems,
where non-specialized organisms are the norm, in the tropics the ecosystems
are incredibly intertwined and specialized.

>        That depends on what you mean by lost (and what is lost).  If essential
>building blocks have been lost (I don't think this is the case) then you are
>right.  But if we are only talking about species and certain combinations of
>those building blocks, then I think we can solve that problem.

    Yeah, how?  
    From what little I know about combinatorics, conservation and ecosystems 
I'd say the tropics are already close to gone.  Unless you think that 
((10^n)!)!, where n is large, is a tractable search space.
    Just understanding what is already there requires unimaginable information
proccessing capability.  Re-creating something that complex from scratch, 
without even knowing what the end result is supposed to look like, is
impossible.  
    Perhaps with a few million years and no humans the earth will again 
appear as diverse as it was a few hunderd years ago.  It will certainly
not look as it did.  Those species, and ecosystems, are gone.

Tim Smith
From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Solar Power?
Date: 6 Apr 92 14:48:30 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO

In article <14559@vela.acs.oakland.edu> awesley@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Tony Wesley) writes:
>chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) writes:
>> awesley@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Tony Wesley) writes:
>><jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
>
>><:Do the proposals for local solar power require anything of the householder
>><:other than paying a bill?
>
>><When solar power becomes economically viable, it will gain more
>><users.
>
>>	And untill there is some compelling reason to adopt solar power,
>>it will be as he said, only hobbyists and gung ho environmentalists, ( John
>>may consider the two groups to be the same ) will have tham.  
>
>And what is more compelling than being economically viable?  Let's put
>it very simply:  When solar power is cheaper than the grid.
>
>>A decade or
>>so ago there were strong tax incentives for installing solar heating and
>>hot water.  Very few did.
>
>Even with the tax incentives, I doubt they were economically viable.
>I've seen some solar installations.  One friend had a large solar
>panel on his roof that heated his swimming pool water.  Nice concept,
>but he claimed that it took $200 bucks a month to run his pumps (which
>also did the filtering).  Even with tax incentives, there was real
>money to lay out and with $200/month extra costs plus maintenance (I
>guess it had leak problems quite often), it was eventually abandoned.
>
>The point is, when it is >cheaper< to run solar (or wind or XXX), it
>will get used.  Leaves on the roof are a trivial problem.
>
>I've been under the crawlspace of my house a bit this winter.  Adding
>insulation.  Not because I'm an eco-freak or a heating hobbyist.  But
>because I want to save money on my heating bill.  I can assure you that
>going under my house is much harder than cleaning leaves off the roof.
>
>Is it only hobbyists and eco-freaks that add insulation?  
>
>>								Irv
>-- 
> Tony Wesley					 awesley@vela.acs.oakland.edu
>
>   The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone.
>							-- Louis Brandeis

Economic viability will be the primary issue.  For those not on the grid,
it may already be viable.  The question is how far from a grid connection
you need to be for photovoltaics to be cheaper.  A study by Pacific Gas &
Electric pegged that distance at a third of a mile.  Another utility in
the midwest chose said half a mile.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: Patricia Daye <pdaye@igc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 05 Apr 92 20:25 PDT
Subject: re: faith, speciation
Nf-ID: #R:1992Feb27.181354.21091@icmv:-472443575:cdp:1466601310:000:420
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!pdaye    Apr  5 20:25:00 1992


This is for John McCarthy of DStanford CA

You mention territoriality, human ownership of land , and
population conrtro,.l.  Just what is your correlation.  
In this country the landed have less children than the
unlanded.  Seems that other factors are ate work in 
this question.  While we must shate shate , oh boy, share
some biological imperatives with the tribla culture, 
I'm noy, not sure, this metaphor is pure.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: nassar@INSL.McGill.CA (Carl R. Nassar)
Subject: IS There An Environmental Project For Me, the Electrical Engineer???
Organization: INSL, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 22:06:57 GMT

Keywords: 

I'm back to school, and this time for the long haul: a Ph. D.

I have no clue as to what I'm going to research and develop, but I'd like it 
to be a project which helps create a better environment.

I'm an electrical engineer, working in the area of communication systems.

What suggestions do you have? What magazines should I read to find out about the
research currently ongoing in my feild (on the environment)?

If you have ANY ideas, please e-mail them to me, because I really do NOT know
where to start.  

Thank you all in advance,

Carl.
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: ECO CENTRAL 11
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 13:48:49 GMT

   I thought you said one a week?  By the Eco Central callender, 
it's June :-).

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
From: shipman@zippy.gso.uri.edu (Scott Lindstrom)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: NOT Vegitariansim was: Short Popula
Date: 15 Apr 92 21:03:13 GMT
Reply-To: shipman@zippy.gso.uri.edu (Scott Lindstrom)
Organization: U of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography

--
In article <1992Apr13.163404.12168@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
writes:
$>In article <1466601318@igc.org> alanm@igc.org (Alan McGowen) writes:
$>>
$>>But if there are going to be 10 billion of us, we had better develop
$>>a taste for algae... (or maybe humans?)
$>
$>The best food for Man is Man. Let's all breed like rabbits so we'll 
$>have enough to eat. :-)
$>
$>Gary
$>

Just make sure you don't eat someone with a parasitic problem.

"The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the
polls you produce intelligence"  Philo Vance, _The Benson Murder Case_.

shipman@zippy.gso.uri.edu 4017926509 URI GSO NBC Narragansett RI 02882
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment,alt.activism.d
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: UNCED draft declaration
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1992Apr15.203510.25057@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
	<1992Apr16.004226.29030@ctr.columbia.edu>
Distribution: sci
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:12:22

Let me explain why I said that I hoped President Bush would stay away
from Rio de Janeiro.  The meeting is set up as a propaganda fest, and
its draft declaration is based on the false contention that the
advanced countries are responsible for the poverty and the
environmental problems of the poor countries.  I don't think Bush
has the political will power to confront all these lies head on.
If Bush had the courage of Margaret Thatcher, I would advocate that
he go.  Since he hasn't, he had better stay away.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: bkottmann@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil (Brett Kottmann)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Worse case scenario
Date: 13 Apr 92 12:05:09 EST
Organization: Logicon Technical Services, Inc.

In article <1992Apr11.203153.19125@cco.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
> In article <1992Apr8.113910.1188@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil>, bkottmann@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil (Brett Kottmann) writes:
>>In article <40911729@hpindda.cup.hp.com>, alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
>>> I was speaking of the difficulty of *replacing* this
>>> infrastructure if we were to lose it: the point was that it would be
>>> much harder to replace than it was to build in the first place, because
>>> the easy, high-quality resources have been used up or degraded. 
>>
>>	Well, there is the rest of the solar system...and other solar systems.
>>(Once again, not that this would be easy or desirable to *have* to do this,
>>merely that it is a possibility.)
> 
> Er, just HOW do we get to the "rest of the solar system" if we don't have the
> infrastructure necessary for a space program?  Alan was talking about a
> bootstrapping process.  You're implicitly assuming that we never lose the
> infrastructure that we're trying to rebuild.

	By getting there before a collapse, of course.

Brett---------------------------------------------------------------------------
____________The best thing about morning________________________________________
__________________________________is that it's over by noon.____________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: lsonko@pearl.tufts.edu (THE COLORS. THE COLORS.)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: EMI from radio towers, health risks?
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:10:00 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <4570003@hp-vcd.vcd.hp.com>, seb@hp-vcd.vcd.hp.com (Steve Bauer) writes...

[local broadcaster wants to put a 25 Kwatt antenna in his backyard]

>      Is there anyone out there in "net land" who knows of such things
>as what short-term and/or long-term effects does the EMI exposure may 
>pose on health.   Any studies?   Anyone know of people you lived near
>an EMI source like this one?   Have they had any problems?  
>We have a 3-month-old baby and there are a lot of small children in 
>the neighborhood, so we are concerned.

there are a few books about the effects of  EMI on people.  One sticks in my
head... I can't remember the name..  Something like "Electricity Will kill your
Ancestors"  no, seriously, there is one book that, when it came out made a big
stink because it was so anti-EMI.  Unfortunatly, the author was deemed a
crackpot because of his non-scientific approach.  It came out 2 or 3 years
ago..... Dang I can't remember the name.

effects:  I know of one story.  In Russia, the high voltage wires going across
the great wide open spaces is EXTREMELY high voltage.  They found that cows
grazing under the wires would loose their hair for unexplainable reasons. 
In any case, it doesn't sound very healthy.

However, if EMI were as dangerous as some would lead us to believe, then
Computer operators, HAM radio operators, and those who used electric blankets
would start dropping off like flies.... as this is not the case.......

Still,the whole thing leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Some ways you can try to keep them from putting the antenna in exactly that
place:

-It would be an eyesore for the comunity. Put it on the other side of the hill.
-It desroys a historical neighborhood's look (a powerful argument. it worked in
    the nearby town of Winchester, Ma vs a cellular phone co.)



>   What about FCC rules for this kind of thing.  Is there suppose to
>be an environment impact study done?

Environmental impact study... I don't think radio signals are considered
dangerous in any quantity..   HAM radio operators sit only a few inches from
their transmitters..

I'd guess that using that as an argument won't get you anywhere. Unfortunatly



good luck

lee
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Appalachian Forest Remineralizatn
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:29:02 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester


In article <JMC.92Apr13033510@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

> I can't know whether he's right, but at least Robert Bruck is trying to
> fix the problems rather than denounce people.


One somewhat puzzling aspect of that article was that Bruck says labor
costs for spreading materials are 10 to 100 times the material cost,
yet he discusses using natural materials like diabase or basalt dust.

Given the high cost of dispersal, wouldn't it make more sense to try
to optimize the materials being dispersed?  For example, get rid of
the common elements that make up most of rock, like silicon, aluminum
or iron, and instead include concentrated trace elements as oxides or
other salts.  Also, if limestone or dolomite is to be spread to raise
pH, enriching the dolomite with relatively small amounts of trace
elements shouldn't increase the cost much.

I understand, by the way, that elements like manganese can act
to immobilize toxic metals.  Gamma-manganese oxide can apparently
immobilize considerable cadmium, even in acid soils.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: rqd@cypress.com (Rick Donnelly/VDSP)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ba.transportation
Subject: Re: Removing Parking Provision Requirements from the Zoning Ordinance
Date: 9 Apr 92 00:56:37 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor, San Jose, CA
Originator: rqd@kahuna

In article <1992Apr5.062555.21492@pbhye.PacBell.COM>,
mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:

> Berkeley Transportation Commission
> Proposed Resolution
> 5/7/92

<stuff deleted>

> 2. Whereas the automobile and its relatives constitute the greatest
> current threat to life on the Earth, ...

<stuff deleted>

Where do you come up with this stuff?  I can think of many _far_ more
serious threats to "life on the Earth" than the automobile "and its relatives"
(presumably trucks, buses, etc.?).

Believe me, I'm not a particular fan of the automobile.  I'd gladly trade in
my car for a decent public transit system (NOT the 27-agency hodgepodge that
we currently have in the SF Bay Area :-( ), but this stuff is LUDICROUS!

Zealots do a disservice to their own causes when they spout stuff like this.

Folks, if you want people to take you seriously, back up your opinions and
proposals with FACTS, and cite references from reliable, unbiased sources where appropriate.  Don't crank out unsubstantiated drivel like this!

Rick Donnelly
rqd@cypress.com
My opinions, not Cypress's...
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: mmwang@adobe.com (Michael Wang)
Subject: Re: Soybean Oil Inks
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 17:25:30 GMT

In article <1992Apr11.204454.15248@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
bg055@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stewart Rowe) writes:
>I produce a local Sierra Club newsletter, and some of our members
>have been bugging me to get the printer to use Soybean oil-based
>printing ink. Some eniro pubs I get also carry a note that they
>use soybean oil ink.  This seems to be a well-established
>"accepted wisdom" in some eco circles, but somehow I missed it.
>  They say that soybean oil ink is "better for the environment".
>Can someone explain? Better than what? And why?

Soybean inks are inks where some of the petroleum oil is replaced
with soybean oil. Some of the advantages of soybean inks are:

    * Fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released into
      the air during the printing process. This leads to a cleaner
      and safer evironment for the printers themselves.

    * Less petroleum is used, and fewer hydrocarbons are released
      into the atmosphere.

    * Many (most?) printers believe that soybean inks actually give
      a better print quality than standard petroleum inks.

The only real disadvantage (besides possibly cost) is that soybean
inks take longer to dry. Also because of the longer drying time,
inks that have a high percentage of soybean oil work best on
uncoated paper. Finally, soybean inks do not necessarily address
the possible problem of heavy metals being used in the pigments and
drying compounds in these inks.

-- 
Michael Wang
mmwang@adobe.com
Newsgroups: sci.environment