HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley)
Subject: Re: is newage distinguishable?
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 01:53:27 GMT

bear writes:

>Once again, it's a question of balance.  Some fundies follow _every_
>statement of future intentions with ", the Lord willing" because
>they expect the Second Coming of Christ to occur at literally any
>moment.  On the other hand, some white-lighters are afraid to use
>paper towels to clean their kitchen stove or refrigerator out of fear
>that they are contributing to the destruction of the rain forest[1].

>The answer is clearly somewhere in the middle, and from all indications
>somewhere towards the "global" and/or "long-term" side.

  yeah, the fundies that take as license to do anything because it won't
matter anyway because jesus could come any minute now have contributed
to the myth that christianity is necessarily environmentally-expoitive,
but that's not the case at all.  the solution middle group between
hyper-enviro-nuts [like i used to be] and selfish, inconsiderate people
just so happens to be authentic christianity.

>Bear Giles
>bear@fsl.noaa.gov

>[1]  The best way to upset an eco-freak is to point out, after s/he
>choses environmentally sound paper bags over reprehensible plastic bags,
>that paper bags are _far_ more energy costly than plastic bags
>(due to the incredible amount of energy required to dry paper pulp).
From: dlou@ECE.UCSD.EDU (Dennis Lou)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Carburetors, gasoline, and why I don't recycle
Date: 2 Sep 92 06:31:22 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Sep02.010828.24870@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> ejhupper@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Huppertz) writes:
>You see, carburetors have been the subject of much study for decades.
>And there have been several enterprising groups who have developed
>carburetors and engine systems which are hyper-efficient by 
>comparison to today's standards, but only par for the course where
>scientific development is concerned.  I once read an article which
>stated, as I recall, that one such fuel-injection system promised
>to double the effective power of its engine, while extending gas
>mileage to well over 130 (that's one hundred thirty) miles per
>gallon.  On a news program years ago, I saw a group of college
>students who had developed a carburetor that guaranteed at least
>100 miles per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

Carburetors?!?!  Are you kidding?  Is there a car sold in the U.S.
today that still uses those idiotic things?  Are you trying to tell me
that a tube stuck in a venturi is smarter than an airflow
sensor, computer controlled fuel injector and oxygen
sensor?

Face it, there's no way one of those gizmos is going to do much better
than a good old Bosch L-Jetronic.

You're a computer person.  Go buy a PROM burner and reprogram your
Honda PGM-FI for 130mpg.
--
Dennis Lou             || "But Yossarian, what if everyone thought that way?"
dlou@ucsd.edu          || "Then I'd be crazy to think any other way!"
[backbone]!ucsd!dlou   |+====================================================
dlou@ucsd.BITNET       |Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went to my high school.
Newsgroups: talk.environment,talk.politics.misc
From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Subject: Re: BUSH Administration Hushes Auto Efficiency Studies
Followup-To: talk.environment
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<31AUG199223103328@zeus.tamu.edu> <1992Sep1.114235.3663@ornl.gov>
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 01:57:44 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.114235.3663@ornl.gov> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:

<   But what's wrong with CAFE?  
	
	It kills people. Lighter-weight cars are not as 
	crashworthy; more people are injured and/or killed
	in auto crashes in lighter-weight cars. 

	Don't take my word for it, check with the Department
	of Transportation.

<And why not use *both* CAFE *and* gas taxes to
<   encourage efficiency and discourage driving?

	"No oil for blood"...now, where did I read that again?
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: ages Environmental Show Trials
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 23:26:03 GMT

In article <3643@execu.execu.com> mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.034714.1379@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Myerson) writes:
>>The deaths of millions of people?  How ridiculous.  Please show me something
>>that proves how a leveling of CO2 emissions in the 1st world will kill
>>millions of people.
>
>Many are currently starving to death in Somalia.  Could the 1st world
>have done/do more to save them?  If the GNP of the 1st world were
>seriously reduced, would we find it possible to say "we can't afford it"
>the next time?
>
>But no, I don't want to claim that a "leveling" of CO2 emissions would
>cause a serious reduction in GNP.  We still have 2 discussions: 1) a mere
>leveling as an ineffectual response as opposed to 2) a serious response
>that might have serious economic consequences.

A leveling of emissions will delay any possible impacts.  In a simple
analysis, a leveling of current emissions would mean that additions to
the atmosphere would increase linearly, rather than exponentially,
which would be significant if the levels stayed linear over many years.

I have a report at home which deals quantitatively with a number of
scenarios for dealing with energy supply.  It has a "business as usual"
case, a "market" case, which means choosing those energy sources that 
save the most money _over the long term_, the _environmental_ case,
which is a market case that includes externalization in the cost analysis,
the the global warming case, which attempts to minimize CO2 emissions.
The study (by the UCS) is more about an anergy plan than global warming,
specifically, but it is informative on the costs.  I will post a summary soon.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: ages Environmental Show Trials
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:33:59 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Comshare, Inc. Austin Development Center

In article 
>In article <1992Aug20.125508.12570@ornl.gov> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>]What about the missing option between A and B where modest efforts are taken? 
>]Remember Pareto's Rule--the first 90% of excess greenhouse gas emmisions will
>]likely be cheaper to cut than the final 10%.  Let's at least go after the
>]cheap/easy ones.

Do you really think that a 90/10 "rule" has any significance in this context?

What is 90% of "excess greenhouse gas emissions"?  Do you propose to reduce
US energy consumption by 80%?  What do you propose and what would it cost?

Are there any cheap/easy ones?

How 'bout fleet MPG to 40?  Is that cheap/easy?

Isn't that what Clinton proposes?  Or was it 45MPG?

Why not just raise gasoline prices to $4/gal over a period of time
and let the market take its course?  Seems "easy", is it "cheap"?
Xref: sparky talk.environment:3447 alt.save.the.earth:1094
From: gaia@access.digex.com (gaia enterprises)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.save.the.earth
Subject: Re: Gore's Radical Ecology
Summary: RTFM
Keywords: consequences
Date: 29 Aug 92 15:35:56 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA

The article in question was posted to various newsgroups and to the
entire world.

I urge Harel (Gore's Radical Ecology) to consider the consequences of
her actions before reposting 2450 word political propaganda documents
written by someone else to various newsgroups. Please learn the use
of crossposting, summarizing, and limiting distribution. Perhaps we
should consider net.resources also . . .
From: mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: ages Environmental Show Trials
Date: 27 Aug 92 02:08:58 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Comshare, Inc. Austin Development Center

In article <1992Aug26.232603.23788@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>A leveling of emissions will delay any possible impacts.

Sure, linear versus exponential gets to be significant sooner or later.
Just ask Mr. Malthus.  Will it really be "sooner"?  Does it make sense to
incur "significant" "pain" "now" for the benefit of our children's
children?  Should we try to reduce the deficit?  Should we pay Brazil
not to burn the Amazon Basin?

>I have a report at home...
>I will post a summary soon.

I'm interested.
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: Re: George F. Will on Gore's environmental book
Keywords: Gore, environment, George Will
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 18:57:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep04.055305.16201@truffula.sj.ca.us> cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) writes:
>George Will has become the most reliable spokesperson
>for the Bush Administration in all the mass media.  

Much as I respect Cameron for his work on various things, he's simply
wrong here. 

George Will is one of the most consistently interesting Republican
columnists, mostly because he actually bothers to read the opinions of
those with whom he disagrees, one of the few columnists with whom I
imagine one could actually hold a reasonable intellectual argument,
and a frequent critic of Bush as well as Reagan.

His opinions are obnoxious, but that's a different matter.

-- paul

-- 
"Fun" is a word invented by advertising executives to sell soft drinks.
From: mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: CO2 (was Re: ages Environmental Show Trials)
Date: 27 Aug 92 00:31:26 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Comshare, Inc. Austin Development Center

In article <l9nf2qINNmol@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>If we're fairly certain of the direction we will have to head eventually, isn't
>it wise to at least *not* head in the opposite direction now, given the choice?

It might be wise IF we were fairly certain, but it's certainly against
human nature.  (Humans are, by nature foolish.)  Is it wise to have
$400 billion dollar deficits "as far as the eye can see"?  Is it wise
to add to that deficit in order to head in the direction you want to go?

"Eventually" we're going to have government controls on population growth.
Is it wise to head in that direction now?  Should abortions be freely
available?  Should contraceptives be given away?  Should the tax laws
be changed to contain a tax penalty for having children instead of
a tax advantage?  Should a mother on welfare receive less money when
she brings another fatherless baby into the world, instead of more money?
Should low birth weight babies... (better not complete that question)

Maybe it's better to wait until it's really obvious there's a crisis -
then there would be a consensus that painful action is required.

Why waste any money to accomplish effectively nothing?
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Population Growth and the Bet that Paul Ehrlich Lost
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Aug20232000@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <25113@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 23 Aug 92 11:42:07

James Hammerton posts:

     ...look no further than Susan George's books 'A Fate Worse
     than Debt' & 'The Debt Boomerang'.

I am not likely to take advice beginning "look no further than".
There is a big publicity industry aiming at proving that Third
World poverty is the fault of the developed countries.

A $50 bet would induce me to go to the library promptly, but most likely
I'll get around to doing it anyway.  It is a speculation that reduced
prices of mineral is a consequence of low wages.  This is almost
certainly not true of copper, because domestically produced copper
is competitive with world market copper in the U.S., and domestic
wages haven't reduced, and mine safety costs have increased.
That is why I somewhat lazily proposed a bet about copper.

Oh well, I suppose I can at least accomodate Mr. Hammerton to the
extent of getting the 1991 Statistical Abstract of the United
States off the shelf.

Table 1214. Mining and Primary Metal Production Indexes 1970 to 1989
with 1987 as 100 lists for U.S. domestically produced copper ore

1970	1983	1989
123.2	84.0	118.4

Primary copper production
1979	1983	1989
135.2	85.6	115.5

It gave each year, and 1983 was the low point.

Table 1217. Nonfuel Mineral Commodities - Summary: 1989
gives for copper
production:	3,480,000 metric tons
exports:	  640,000 metric tons
consumption:	2,250,000 metric tons
price (cents per pound):	132.0
number of workers:	13,000

In 1988, U.S. copper production was 17 percent of world
production.  Average weekly earnings of U.S. production workers in
nonmetallic minerals except fuels went from $453 in 1985 to $514 in
1989.  The percent of GNP in metal mining went from 1.5 in 1970
to 3.9 in 1981 to 1.8 in 1985 to 3.0 in 1988, i.e. it fluctuates
a lot.  I suppose it is dominated by iron, but I don't know.

Note that no country can base its economy on exporting copper to the
U.S., when the U.S. exports copper with only 13,000 working in copper
mining.  If every country mined copper as efficiently as the U.S.,
there would only be 76,000 copper miners worldwide.

Mr. Hammerton can speculate on what reduced prices for metals "could
mean" when he could actually find out in the library.  But after all,
Mr. Hammerton is only making a newsgroup posting.  Ehrlich evidently
gives TV interviews and writes books taking no more trouble about his
facts than Mr. Hammerton does for a newsgroup posting.  Certainly,
if Ehrlich had invested $28 for a copy of the _Statistical Abstract
of the United States_ and taken the trouble to look up minerals in
the index and turn to the relevant tables, he would never have
made the bet he did.  Julian Simon evidently did.

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

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: George F. Will on Gore's environmental book
Followup-To: talk.environment
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 3 Sep 92 23:13:35

Thanks for posting Will's review of Gore's book.  But what shall I now
do with the copy of the book I paid $22.95 for?  Oh well, there's a
rather nice picture on the back jacket of the nice Senator in a nice
shirt sitting in front of a nice tree.  Perhaps some nice person
will tell us what I have missed by putting off reading the book
and reading Goldstein's _Classical Mechanics_ instead.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: CO2 (was Re: ages Environmental Show Trials)
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:16:10 GMT
Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, TN
NNTP-Posting-Host: de5.ctd.ornl.gov

In article <1992Aug25.172051.2299@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <l9icl9INNerh@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>>
>>Yes, but an inadequate plan is better than none at all.  If we can't get a full
>>solution, we might have to settle for a partial solution.  While we argue for
>>the full solution we need to be doing *something*.
>
>Ack! The activist's cry, "Don't just stand there, do *something*. Even
>if it's wrong, even if it's harmful, even if just standing there is the
>best choice, *do* something. We must make *progress*, even if we are 
>progressing in the retrograde direction."

That's not what I said, and the dire consequences of action you predict are not
likely in this case.  I propose taking reasonable (e.g., agreeable to a
majority of the experts and officials) measures to reduce emissions.  Such
measures would have relatively little negative impact because they aren't aimed
at reducing emissions drastically.

>If an action promises certain, but perhaps small, negative consequences,
>and promises very uncertain, but perhaps larger, positive consequences,
>it is often wise to refrain from that action until the probabilities
>are better understood.

If we're fairly certain of the direction we will have to head eventually, isn't
it wise to at least *not* head in the opposite direction now, given the choice?

-- 
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)	   For every Bill Joy there is a Kirk McKusick.
Martin Marietta Energy Systems     For every Bill Gates there is a Richard
Workstation Support                Stallman.                     --Paul Graham
From: bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Space Poop
Date: 2 Sep 1992 22:56:51 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu


Since 1957 more than 3,300 launches have produced 7,000 trackable objects
currently in orbit, equalling more than 3,000 tons of man made material.
Of these 7,000 catalogued objects the US and USSR have produced approx
3,300 each.  The rest are from Europe and other countries.
Of these 7000 catalogued objects only 400 are operational satellites.
The rest of this number include abandoned or nonfunctioning satellites,
upper stages, and fragments including lens covers, separation bolts,
and clamp bands.
Further, there are from 30,000 to 70,000 smaller objects larger than 1
cm which have not been catalogued.  Any pieces in this size range can
damage spacecraft.
Through the effect of air drag these objects continue to lose altitude
and eventually rain down to earth.
Objects above the geo stationary orbit of 1000 km will remain there for
about 1000 years during which time they will orbit the earth more than
5 million times, posing a constant risk of collision with functioning
spacecraft.
Interactive collisions in earth orbits will eventually generate sufficient
debris to create a dense Debris Belt and prevent further space launchings.

Some scientists also predict than a sufficient amount of such debris will
begin to significantly reduce solar radiation and affect global climate.
-- 
            Mike Romano     Univ. Calif. Berkeley
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Myerson)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Population Growth and the Bet that Paul Ehrlich Lost
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:28:46 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO

In article <1992Aug25.182712.2784@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.164348.27858@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
>>
>>Commodities will be stably priced because they are produced by cheaper and
>>cheaper labor and because fewer and fewer people will be in the market to
>>buy them.  More poeple will go without.
>
>There's a fallacy here. Just as poor people drop out of the consumer market,
>they also drop out of the labor market when wages drop below subsistence,
>except in slave labor camps. Therefore there is an effective floor to
>labor costs. 

This seems true but I would think that such workers would drop out of the
consumer market prior to dropping out of the labor market.  I think that
as workers struggle to survive and get only subsistence materials (and are
therefore out of the consumer market), they would still be working. 
>
>In the textile industry, the productivity of power looms is such that 
>hand woven cloth is now viewed as a luxury item commanding higher 
>price. So cheap labor is not a multiplier that can force down the price
>of goods indefinitely. Indeed, hand labor can command higher prices
>than mechanized production in some cases. Tomato farmers worked
>with Universities and equipment makers to get tomatos that work with
>mechanical harvesters, and have longer shelf lives. The result has been 
>cheaper tomatos, though with tougher skins and inferior taste. Meanwhile, 
>a different industry of vine ripened, hand picked tomatos that command 
>a premium price has arisen. Since these tomatos have a short shelf life,
>most are produced near their markets and not in the vegetable belt of
>California with it's cheap migrant labor. Mechanization resulted in both 
>lower prices, and more employment at higher wages. Two products where once 
>there was one.
>
The essay applied to commodities.  I'm not sure what the exact defn of a
commodity is but it would seem that the whole idea applies more to raw
commodities that do not require extensive processing.  The more processing
required, the more advantage that can be had from automation and the less
likely that manual labor could ever be cheaper. The concept might apply
to the raw input to textiles, however.

>Gary


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Please write for a nuclear test ban
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1992Aug24.210628.8892@adobe.com> <JMC.92Aug24162032@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<9dni02Qi1f8J01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>
Distribution: usa
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:04:54

I perceive a slant in McPhee's writing.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Gore Calls for a Real Environmental President
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:54:17 GMT
Organization: Comshare, Inc. Austin Development Center

In article <1992Aug25.075350.14473@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bc151@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Fisler) writes:
>
>who should I believe: Bush, Quayle, and Crisp or the
>Sierra Club.

Should you look at a politician's record or trust a lobby organization?