HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II)
Subject: Re: Population (was Re: Greens vs. Property Rights)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:42:55 GMT

In article <Jym.7Jan1993.1713@naughty-peahen>,
 jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:
>=+= Please remember that there are both sci.environment and
>talk.environment newsgroups for discussion of environmental
>issues such as population, and several forums in which to
>discuss the credibility of the Heritage Foundation and other
>right-wing "think tanks."
>
>=+= This newsgroup was created to discuss Green movements,
>not to serve as yet another talk.environment.
>    <_Jym_>

Hi, Jym,

	I agree with you that I don't want this to become another "talk"
forum.  However, population is an unresolved issue in the platform of the
Green Party of California (and, presumably, elsewhere in the Green move-
ment).  If we were debating an issue on which the Green Party had a firm
position, then I would simply state that position and not pursue the debate
in this forum.

-- 
== John J. Ladasky II ("ii") ========================= ladasky@netcom.COM ==
"Great composers do not borrow -	     "Talking about music is like
 they steal."  - John Ladasky	      ~ -     dancing about architecture."
(quote stolen from Stravinsky, who    o o     - Elvis Costello?  Laurie
 stole it from a statement made by     >        Anderson?  Frank Zappa?
 Pablo Picasso about painting, who    \_/    -------------------------------
 stole it from...)			     "Property is theft." - Groucho
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A man w/o charity in his heart - what has he to do with music?" - Confucius
============================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU (Brad Porter)
Subject: Re: A new outlook on activism.
Organization: Syracuse University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 15:58:06 EST

In article <1993Jan5.230553.12066@vexcel.com>
dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
 
>
>In article <16B4DED0F.DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU> DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU (Brad Porter) writes:
>>
>>If you were to call a large newspaper and say:  There's going to be an
>>illegal timer cut at this place at this time, what are the chances they
>>aren't going to respond.  The media loves this kind of stuff.  Physical
>>blockading won't be nearly as effective as reporters and maybe cameras
>>taping everything.  There are easier ways and more effective ways of
>>accomplishing the same goals.  It seems, however, that some people need
>>to get their own name in the paper though these actions.  It looks
>>bad in this rather environmentally aware society.  Which is more important -
>>stopping the timber cut, or proving how dedicated one is to the cause?
>>All to often the answer is the latter.
>>                                  -Brad Porter
>
>Newspapers in small lumber towns won't care about the cut, most likely.
>If there is a protest, they will most likely cover it, but not without
>the protest.  Of course, this isn't true of the LA Times, but there
>aren't too many illegal cuts in Los Angeles.  Many of such protests
>actually serve the purpose of saving the trees since the cut will be
>stopped whenever the glacial legal processes can be brought to fore.
>If the blockade succeeds in stopping the timber cut, then how can
>one tell whether proving dedication is the main cause?
>
>I think
>your main point is that its better to work with people rather than
>against them, and I agree with this.  But it only works when there
>is some form of consensus about the general goals and the debate
>is about facts or methods that can be analysed.  If I value
>biodiversity highly and someone else thinks keeping their job for
>a few more years is worth more than the existence of a species,
>finding common ground can be difficult.
I agree, it can be, but the image of activists is that they don't really try
to find a common ground.  Publicity-wise you're going to lose this battle.
If the reporters who give the on-scene report are the same ones who care
more about the industry than the illegal timber cut then the fact that
it was illegal may never be published.  Activisim loses the publicity
battle.  I'll admit, the scenario you've painted is one of the less radical.
The activists that need to be stopped are the ones who "save the animals",
even domesticated ones, at all cost.  The blockade is not THE MOST effective
action available.  As a last resort, well maybe it's tolerable.
                                       -Brad Porter
DRPORTER@SUVM
>==============================================================================
From: rajesh@ivy (Rajesh Raman)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Help required
Date: 7 Jan 1993 09:28:51 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: ivy.wpi.edu
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

A friend of mine is very interested in environmental issues and has
taken up a correspondence course in environmental science. He lives in
India and has no access to the internet. As a student in India he doesn't
have much money too. He has taken up a course in environmental science
and as a part of the course he has to do a project of sorts.

I thought that there might be students and professors or other concerned
folks out there who could suggest things to do. Please bear in mind that
an Indian student has little money. An Indian rupee is one-thirtieth of
a dollar. He is very much interested in forest conservation and the
effect of large-scale projects like dams on the lives of the people. Of
course, environmental issues of any kind in general have always been near 
to his heart.

Could you please send me suggestions as to what he could do ? 'Cos I don't
really know what would be feasible and what wouldn't be.

My e-mail address is rajesh@cs.wpi.edu. 

--

Rajesh Raman

--
From: russ@pmafire.inel.gov (Russ Brown)
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 23:28:41 GMT
Organization: WINCO
Subject: Re: TMI Releases & Population Dose
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Organization: WINCO
Keywords: 

In article <Jym.8Jan1993.0930@naughty-peahen> Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu> writes:
>Tino alleges:
>
>> The _total population_ dose from TMI was about 10 person-rems.

The central estimate of population dose was about 2000 person-rem for
the 541,000 persons living within 50 miles.  This is an average dose of
4 mrem.
>
>=\= Pray tell, how do you know that?  It is well-documented
>that MetEd does not have measurements of the radiation released,
>in part because much more was released than their equipment
>was calibrated to detect.

There is, of course, a difference between "radiation released" and
"dose".  That distinction seems to have eluded Mr. Dyer.

The average dose commitment is about 10% of the annual increment that
residents of the mountain west receive from cosmic radiation (higher
altitude).  The cancer rates in the intermountain region are among the
lowest in the nation for the last 40 years.  Note that the three lowest
rates have been found in Utah, Idaho, and Colorado......yes, Utah!

The obsession with TMI "health effects" is symptomatic of the pathetic
orientation toward PR rather than science. 






Xref: sparky talk.environment:5333 sci.environment:14265 sci.med:23423 sci.research:1389 soc.culture.jewish:24547 soc.rights.human:4722
From: ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II)
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:00:36 GMT

In article <7134@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> bane@vtx.ma.man.ac.uk writes:
>Tino - what is wrong with shorter lives? And what`s wrong with a lower standard
>of living? Will either of these, really, decrease your happiness or feelings as
>a human?
>
>Michael

	Let me cast my vote - I want to live about 90 years, and enjoy the
last of my days living in a comfortable enough environment to allow me to
continue with my hobby - composing electronic music.  Enough said.

-- 
== John J. Ladasky II ("ii") ========================= ladasky@netcom.COM ==
"Great composers do not borrow -	     "Talking about music is like
 they steal."  - John Ladasky	      ~ -     dancing about architecture."
(quote stolen from Stravinsky, who    o o     - Elvis Costello?  Laurie
 stole it from a statement made by     >        Anderson?  Frank Zappa?
 Pablo Picasso about painting, who    \_/    -------------------------------
 stole it from...)			     "Property is theft." - Groucho
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A man w/o charity in his heart - what has he to do with music?" - Confucius
============================================================================
Organization: University of Maine System
Date: Tuesday, 5 Jan 1993 18:41:22 EST
From: <SHALEE@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: A new outlook on activism.
 <1992Dec31.184447.23405@vexcel.com> <168CE12C5C.DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU>
 <1993Jan4.165029.5007@vexcel.com> <16B4DED0F.DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU>

A bigger negative image problem is trying to stop timber cuts that are
not illegal.  The attitude that all timber harvesting is wrong is simplistic.
Remember in the 70's when using wood instead of oil or plastics was good
because they are renewable.
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 10:58:33 GMT

In article <7134@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> bane@vtx.ma.man.ac.uk writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.014843.1852@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>, constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
>|> In article <C0GDKx.IDu@news.iastate.edu> sartre@iastate.edu (Michael J. Wendling (515) 294-6186) writes:

>|> >My rally cry:
	
>|> >	I like the earth as it was before the industrial revolution.

You obviously know nothing about what things were like back then.  The
dark ages weren't do bad if you like like ignorance, pain, disease,
death, poverty, and filth.
 
>|> No, make it:
>|> I like the earth as it was before the industrial revolution, when people
>|> lived 20-30 years shorter and had a much lower standard of living.

>Tino - what is wrong with shorter lives? And what`s wrong with a lower standard
>of living? Will either of these, really, decrease your happiness or feelings as
>a human?

Well, I think that poverty and death really don't much help in making one
happy or successful.  I find it interesting that after 100 years of 
claiming that statism would lead to life and wealth, the socialists (etc.)
have decided that statism leads to death and poverty and that we ought to 
pursue that instead.

--Brian

Xref: sparky talk.environment:5375 alt.politics.greens:210
From: bane@vtx.ma.man.ac.uk (Michael!)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Date: 7 Jan 93 18:13:14 GMT
Reply-To: bane@vtx.ma.man.ac.uk
Followup-To: talk.environment
Organization: Magic Michael's Mushroom Factory.

In article <1993Jan7.014843.1852@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>, constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
|> In article <C0GDKx.IDu@news.iastate.edu> sartre@iastate.edu (Michael J. Wendling (515) 294-6186) writes:
|> >
|> >My rally cry:
|> >	
|> >	I like the earth as it was before the industrial revolution.
|> >
|> 
|> No, make it:
|> I like the earth as it was before the industrial revolution, when people
|> lived 20-30 years shorter and had a much lower standard of living.
|> 
|> Tino
|> -- 
|>      "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
|> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|>              Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
|> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Tino - what is wrong with shorter lives? And what`s wrong with a lower standard
of living? Will either of these, really, decrease your happiness or feelings as
a human?

Michael
From: Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: TMI Releases & Population Dose
Date: 8 Jan 1993 17:30:17 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
	<1992Dec31.034210.16668@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

Tino alleges:

> The _total population_ dose from TMI was about 10 person-rems.

=\= Pray tell, how do you know that?  It is well-documented
that MetEd does not have measurements of the radiation released,
in part because much more was released than their equipment
was calibrated to detect.

=/= MetEd made a number of claims about the amount released in
those first two days, each contradicting the other.  Eventually
they announced that their records of the radiation releases
during those first two days had been "lost."
    <_Jym_>
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.politics.greens
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 6 Jan 93 15:03:04

I assume that Michael Wendling, as someone in a physics and astronomy
department, is capable of the arithmetic required to show that the
amount of oxygen (20 percent) in the atmosphere cannot be
significantly reduced by burning fuels.  There is too much oxygen
and not enough carbon in burnable form.  However, I doubt that
mere facts can relieve an anxiety based on the mood of the times.

He offers us the slogan:

     I like the earth as it was before the industrial revolution.

What is the origin of the name "Wendling", and does it indicate what
role Michael J. Wendling's ancestor, who first acquired this family
name, played in society before the industrial revloution.  Was he a
peasant or a lord?

Does liking the earth as it was before the industrial revolution
involve preferring the social role of this ancestor to Michael J.
Wendling's present role.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Nukes as Stop-Gap (Power Plant Lifetimes)
Date: 9 Jan 1993 07:27:19 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
	<STEINLY.92Dec23105843@topaz.ucsc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

> Fossil plants have finite lifetimes - typically a little
> shorter than fission plant (design) lifetimes.

=+= Just to put this into perspective:  In the United States,
Fossil power plants are licensed for 40 years, which is their
expected lifetimes.  At the end of that time, it is typically
affordable to do some work on the equipment and put it back
to use.

=+= When it came time to license nuclear power plants, the same
figure was employed:  40 years.  This had nothing to do with the
expected useful life of the plant (30 years), but was a good way
for the owners of these plants to take advantage of existing tax
breaks based on a 40-year depreciation lifetime.

=+= Of course, once these plants got going, it turned out that
most were going to last longer than 40 years.  And for one
reason:  unreliability.  Nuclear power plants spend a tremendous
amount of time down.

=+= When their lifetimes are up, it is far from affordable to
put them back to work.  The cost of decommissiong is stagger-
ingly high, so basically they get mothballed:  barbed wire
fences go up, security guards are hired, and the problem is
passed on to future generations (grateful to add this to the
many problems they have to solve, of course).
    <_Jym_>
From: Richard Clapp <rclapp@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Date: 06 Jan 93 07:05 PST
Subject: Report on the Biped Nations
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1483100140:000:2763
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!rclapp    Jan  6 07:05:00 1993


Report on the Biped Nations

The flavor of power is about to change in the most powerful nation
on the blue planet.  I am honored to have the opportunity of
reporting to the Council on the eve of that change, yet I hesitate
at the brink of prediction.  I want to build in your minds a
bridge to peace and beauty, but I remember past surprises, when
the obvious was not, after all, the inevitable, and the new order
was neither new nor quite in order.

I pray every cycle that the coming change will be more than
another grey pebble in the rugged path of their history, that this
change will be a full step to the bridge where we wait with open
hearts to hear a human music and add it to the symphony of the
spheres.

I beg to remind you that the subjects of our vigil are a young
people.  They still mistake a weapon for a tool.  They fight the
wrong wars.  When will the war on drugs become a war on ignorance
-- the war on cancer, a war on carcinogens?  Whence will come
their war on greed?

They are paragons of paradox:  Farmers despise the soil community.
Merchants devour their capital.  Technophiles discard a world and
expect to be entrusted with the moon and the stars.  They give
their children all that is novel and disposable, but deny them the
mental furnishings which alone can make them citizens of the
universe.  Those with the greatest appetites have the most
garbage.

I abhor Dharlo's racist theory that they were doomed to a narrow
vision from the moment their ancestors crept out of the mother
sea.  I prefer a moist substrate myself but, as many species have
demonstrated, one need not have wet feet to realize that
everything is connected.

My friend Xarfoo's guilt in knowing what-they-know-not is wasted.
Their numeracy may be primordial, but it is sufficient for basic
operations.  They know, but they do not acknowledge.  They are
prodigious creators of secrets, and the secrets of the universe
are not so deadly as the secrets of their institutions.

Genius is born to them in every generation, and in every
generation withers.  Their new Socrates died on the Trail of
Tears; the new Leonardo is a skeleton in Somalia.  Wisdom bubbles
up from the rich brews of their wombs and is parched in the ovens
of poverty and war.

Perhaps we see too much.  The crew is in a constant roil of grief.
None of our species has a ritual adequate to the task.  Yet if we
do not grieve for these brief lights, I fear that we may become
what we study.

To Gilitas my teacher, condolences:  Your hunter-gathers have
spawned mall rats.  They will not sit in Council in your
lifetime.

---- Mossflower

---- in orbit above the blue planet

---- (translated by Mary Firestone)

---- Copyright 1992 Mary A. Firestone

---- Copy freely for non-commercial use

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: abennett@athena.mit.edu (Andrew A. Bennett)
Subject: Hydro Quebec & the Cree reach Agreement
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 22:10:57 GMT

I have just heard that Hydro-Quebec and the Cree Tribe have reached a major 
agreement on Phase II of the La Grande hydroelectric complex in the James Bay 
area of northern Quebec.  Three documents were signed in Montreal on
January 8, 1993: 

1 La Grande (1992) Agreement
2 Complementary agreement #11 to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement
3 A letter of agreement concerning financing of sewer reconstruction i
  northern Quebec.

The La Grande 1992 Agreement provides that some $50 million (in 1992 Canadian 
dollars to be indexed over 50 years) will be paid for the benefit of the people
affected by the projects and for certain other "mitigated" works.

The Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees, Matthew Coon-Come, signed
the  agreement.  He said that the agreement is "evidence of the fact that the
Cree  people are not against all development.  When called upon the Cree and
Hydro-Quebec can sometimes find ways to ressolve practical problems.  We need
to find new ways beyond this present Agreement in which the resources on the
Cree territory can be co-managed so as to create a more productive basis for
the long-term relationship between the Cree people and the people of Quebec."

Has anyone else heard anything about the agreement?

-Drew

--
Andrew Bennett                 MIT AUV Lab                     abennett@mit.edu
MIT Room E38-312                              abennett%athena@mitvma.bitnet
77 Massachusetts Ave.                                     Phone: (617) 258-6301
Cambridge, MA  02139                               <Standard disclaimers apply>


Xref: sparky talk.environment:5398 alt.save.the.earth:1459
From: Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.save.the.earth
Subject: Re: make your own paper
Date: 9 Jan 1993 07:08:09 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

> I was just in a store called "Natural Wonders" and they sold
> a paper-making kit for about $25.  The box said that you can
> use old magazines, newspapers and junk mail and within 1/2
> hour recycle it into usable paper.  The process involves using
> your own blender but the writing on the box doesn't get very
> detailed into how the kit works.

=\= This sounds like something I bought, but I paid about $20.
The instructions are indeed a bit too sparse.  I'm not wild
about the blender part -- if you've got a shredder at work or
something, I suspect that's much more energy-efficient.  (The
bicycle- or foot-treadle-powered food-processor of my dreams
has not been built yet. :-))

> I'm very curious to hear if anyone has tried this product
> before.  If it works, great!  But I'm very skeptical.

=/= It works.  White office paper, newsprint, or brown paper
bags turns out stuff you can actually write or draw on.  You
can make some nifty hand-crafted paper things with it, and
I've got vague plans to use such to make lamps for my compact
fluorescent bulbs.

=\= Glossy magazines and junkmail are a different story:  you
can make a colorful paper out of it that might serve as some
kinda giftwrap, but only if you're giving the gift to a friend
who likes the industrial collage look.  Presonally, I think
it's pretty ugly.

=/= I've got even vaguer plans to make ugly envelopes out of
junk mail to send back to junk mailers.
    <_Jym_>
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: A new outlook on activism.
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:05:53 GMT

In article <16B4DED0F.DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU> DRPORTER@SUVM.SYR.EDU (Brad Porter) writes:
> 
>If you were to call a large newspaper and say:  There's going to be an
>illegal timer cut at this place at this time, what are the chances they
>aren't going to respond.  The media loves this kind of stuff.  Physical
>blockading won't be nearly as effective as reporters and maybe cameras
>taping everything.  There are easier ways and more effective ways of
>accomplishing the same goals.  It seems, however, that some people need
>to get their own name in the paper though these actions.  It looks
>bad in this rather environmentally aware society.  Which is more important -
>stopping the timber cut, or proving how dedicated one is to the cause?
>All to often the answer is the latter.
>                                  -Brad Porter

Newspapers in small lumber towns won't care about the cut, most likely.
If there is a protest, they will most likely cover it, but not without
the protest.  Of course, this isn't true of the LA Times, but there
aren't too many illegal cuts in Los Angeles.  Many of such protests
actually serve the purpose of saving the trees since the cut will be
stopped whenever the glacial legal processes can be brought to fore.
If the blockade succeeds in stopping the timber cut, then how can
one tell whether proving dedication is the main cause?  

I think
your main point is that its better to work with people rather than
against them, and I agree with this.  But it only works when there
is some form of consensus about the general goals and the debate
is about facts or methods that can be analysed.  If I value
biodiversity highly and someone else thinks keeping their job for
a few more years is worth more than the existence of a species,
finding common ground can be difficult.
-- 
==============================================================================
	Dean Myerson			dean@vexcel.com
==============================================================================