HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Greenpeace: Don't Believe the Hype
Date: 13 Dec 1992 20:37:12 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I have similar feelings regarding Greenpeace, I was a $50/yr.
member for about 5 years but i dropped out because i felt there
were a number of problems with their approach.
 
Ex: There is a large Chemical Incinerator being built in E.        
Liverpool, Ohio about 50 miles from where i live. I was bombarded
with requests for donations to stop the facility.
 
Problem: ohio has 40+ years of chemical waste lying around in
several superfund sights, leaking into the soil and groundwater.
what do we do with all of this stuff
?
True: the plant will dump an inexusable amount of emmissons into
the air, but why not address the emmissions issue? (i.e. lets      
build a cleaner plant)
 
Before you rush out trying to stop every chemical incinerator
from being built, let's figure out another solution to get rid
of the waste first.

this is just an example, but i think greenpeace should try to work
with industry and government instead of relying on reactionary
shock tactics to stir up the public frenzy, lets spend a little     
more Greenpeace bucks on research, or send some greenpeacers out
to do a little of the grunt work themselves.
 
lets spend a little less on Junk mail (i haven't given to green-
peace in 3 years, yet they are still probably my number2 junkmail
problem.
(here's a topic for another post...)
any ideas?
ned.
(not that greenpeaces don't work hard, but i'd rather pay to have
them cleaning up things directly then pressuring other groups to
get the work done, -just an idea, maybe they Do do a lot of that
if so they should include more of that stuff in their donations
ads.)
 

Newsgroups: talk.environment
Newsgroups: talk.environment

>What are the facts?  North Americans are the most wasteful group of 
>people *IN THE WORLD*. Granted this is partly because we are also the
>most affluent, but it is also because we are the most inconsiderate.

Agreed, I think that this is a big part of the problem.

>The real problem with landfills is that nearly EVERYTHING we throw into them
>could be used or put somewhere else. The question simply becomes, how much
>money are you willing to spend to protect or environment? Obviously not much..

My observation is that packaging is designed strictly from a short-term
cost and marketing viewpoint.  Thoughts of making packaging recyclable or
reusable are strictly secondary, if they are considered at all.  We used to
buy soda and beer in scratched bottles that had been reused many times. Not
anymore.  Why?  I suspect that marketing folks think that pop won't sell if
it's in an old bottle with nicks and scratches in it.

If a company puts their product in a package that is not cost effective
to reuse or recycle, I don't think I should have to pay someone to recycle it.
The best thing I can do is not buy that product, which I do whenever it is
feasible.

>What will change your mind? Consider your landfill site closing and having 
>to pay extremely high haulage and tipping fees to take it out of your local 
>area. Now, it's going to hit you right in the wallet. Do we have your
>attention now?

I wish the garbage company would only charge me for what I put in the
landfill.  I probably create half a bag of garbage each week, but still pay
the same as the person down the block who has 5 or 10 bags.  Charge people
for the resources that they use, and maybe they'll start to wake up.  In
my city, there is no incentive for people to generate less garbage.

I think that using less and being smarter about what we do use is the answer.
Unfortunately, I don't see that hapening any time soon.  Recycling, IMO,
is a way of easing the consciouses of consumers.  They are willing to pay
for this, hence the recycling industry was born.

>Oh yes, in closing I will admit that I am one of those nasty people who
>(tries) to make a living in this business, but I'm not one of the real
>villains (the waste management companies or the haulers). I just try to
>look after the safety and quality of the landfill sites.

I'm sure it's not an easy job these days.

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Dec13151356@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<1992Dec14.205744.18370@vexcel.com>
Date: 14 Dec 92 16:27:58

In article <1992Dec14.205744.18370@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
   References: <15900004@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> <Bz7EDH.1EC@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <JMC.92Dec13151356@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

   In article <JMC.92Dec13151356@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >Calculations of how much waste the U.S. generates per year show that
   >there is plenty of room for landfills for many thousands of years.
   >Picking through the trash costs labor - in almost every case more
   >labor than the value generated by the separation.  Where the separation
   >paid off, it was already done before politics and self-righteousness
   >entered the scene.  Forcing people to do uneconomical recycling
   >impoverishes the country - not very much perhaps but some.

   And what land area is used for this calculation?  Lands that you
   consider worthless?  Your backyard?  Mine?  Are we to _force_ people
   to have landfills  near their homes so that other people have the
   _freedom_ to be wasteful?
   >
   >--
   >John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
to talk nonsense.


		   dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)

Let's do the arithmetic.  500 million tons of waste per year in the
U.S. assuming a density of 1.0 comes to 500 million cubic meters.
Suppose it is piled 25  meters high.  This comes to 20 million
square meters per year, or 20 square kilometers.  The area of the
U.S. is 3 million square miles or 23 million square kilometers.
It will take a million years to cover the country with trash.

If we do nothing special for 100 years, we will use up 1/10,000 th of
the country.  100 years from now our descendants will be as much more
technologically capable than we are, as we are compared to the people
of 100 years ago.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker)
Subject: Ticket America-- Negative Nonsense
Keywords: Ticket America,S Enviro-Link
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 16:33:42 GMT

The Ticket America campaign is symptomatic of the negative nabobs of
public morality. These nether ends of the alimentary canal would rather
lay blame then promote a better alternative. 

They see the driving of gas-guzzlers as a moral matter rather than a
pragmatic econic choice. If gas inefficient buggies included the
consequential eco/social damage they caused as part of their price, then
truly cheaper transportation alternatives would become available on the
market.

The long and the short of this critique is don't blame -- provide
alternatives instead. The eco/phreaks are a singularly uncreative bunch.
They attack the capitalist system (for they are socialists and Luddites)
instead of promoting the incentives for the *only* successful economic
system to provide a) what is neeeded and b) what is congruent with
environmental sustainability.

When are these bumpkins going to realize that technology is not the enemy,
rather it is our chosen means of survival.

Conan the Libertarian

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

Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: The Recycling Myth
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:17:32 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.022616.5995@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.210019.18473@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>Do you believe that waste incinerators meet the four-9's 
>>(99.99% incineration) requirement?  If so, why?
>
>Coal plants don't. 

Coal plants don't burn trash.
>
>I'm suggesting incinerators could reduce the amount of waste that needs
>to be buried while providing nominal electrical output.

Is it better to put the trash in the sky than in the ground?
>
>Tino
>-- 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>              Pay off the national debt -- Tax the Church
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Plutinium poisoning: Was Re: Greenpeace: they're not just for...
Date: 18 Dec 1992 05:52:20 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Dear Steinn siggurdson,
 
I always welcome 'flames' of anything i post, after all we learn      
not only from study, but from criticism.
 
Your so smart, I challenge you to post not just the LD50, but
also the TLV/TWA, TLV/STEL, TLV/C and PEL of Plutonium, cigarette
smoke, and any other organic compound you choose, I personally
have never studied Polonium, it's up there with Pu, maybe it is
worse, post that too. while your at it post the avg. Po conc.
in cigarette smoke and the TLV/TWA of Po.
 
remember i DID say "perhaps the most toxic substance known"
I'm not always right, but if i choose to criticize someone i
make sure i have the numbers in front of me.
 
later, 
        ned.
From: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Greenpeace: Don't Believe the Hype
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:36:20 GMT
Reply-To: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Dec13.113253.25579@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>,
constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
# In article <1992Dec12.230854.15703@news.nd.edu> gsmith@aldarion.next.nd.edu
(george smith) writes:
# >Greenpeace says some things that may stretch the bounds of factualism, but 
# >I put more belief in what they say than what the coporations or  
# >governments say.  There's first the matter of self interest (not that GP  
# >has no interest in keeping a good name for themselves) and greed and  
# >there's the record of who has a longer history of lying.
# 
# Okay, the corporations and government can't always be trusted. I'll buy
that.
# 
# The BIG problem that I have with all of Greenpeace's press releases are
# the GROTESQUE errors in scientific fact. If it's Greenpeace versus a 
# laboratory's results, you know who most rational people are going to 
# believe.

Please give some examples of these errors in scientific fact. I have read some
of 
Greenpeace's literature(e.g. The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear age and The
Greenpeace
Global warming report) and have found it to be full of references to
scientific papers
to support their case. The press releases and leaflets admittedly don't
usually contain
any such evidence, but that is due to them trying to get a clear message
across, and
lack of space/time to put these in.

Many people have posted their views about Greenpeace on this group and have
assumed that when they say a particular claim is wrong(say about nuclear
power) that
Greenpeace just say this bluntly, without any evidence. It is my experience
that they 
usually have very strong evidence on these issues, if you read their
literature.

I don't always agree with what Greenpeace say, and their tactics can be
questionable
during demonstations, but they do have a strong case on most of the issues
thet campaign
on and will often have the necessary information to back it up.


# As I said in an earlier post, I haven't seen Greenpeace doing a lot of
# reasearch or attempting to find viable solutions to many environmental
# problems. Banning everything in existence just ain't gonna work...

Please tell me what literature of theirs you have read- if any.

James


-- 
*  James Hammerton               *  If Pascal is equivalent to the     *
*  Email: jamesh@uk.ac.ed.aisb   *  mini-metro,then ML is the concept  *
*                                *  car where steering is done         *
*                                *  recursively using the gearstick.   *
From: duanej@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Duane Jacobson)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 04:44:37 GMT
Subject: Re: He who talks arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: talk.environment

Regarding all this talk about landfills ...

Where I live, garbage collection is cheaper than the BASE RATE for any
other service:  water, sewer, electricity, phone, gas, or cable TV.  As
of today, landfills are an acceptable solution at a reasonable cost to
the vast majority of Americans.  If it costs so damn much to haul trash
to the landfill, why aren't garbage rates sky high?  Charge people what it
REALLY costs, and may the best solution win.

It's sad to see people being brainwashed into Captain Planet robots.  One
day I drove by a LONG line of cars that weren't moving.  Later I found out
that the dump was having a drop off your toxic waste day.  "Let's see, I
can wait in line for an hour, engine running, to drop off my quart of
paint thinner and save the world."  Some people need to GET A CLUE.

Now, what you've all been waiting for, the perfect solution to the
"Not in My Backyard" syndrome.  Put the landfill just past the edge of
town, far enough out so that it will be filled up when the urban sprawl
approaches it.  Then put a golf course on top of it.  People will be
lobbying to have the landfill near their property, since they will be
able to make a killing selling 1/2 acre estates to fat cat executives
who want to live on the golf course.  We'll even have Jack Nicolas
designing landfills!!
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: gsmith@aldarion.next.nd.edu (george smith)
Subject: Re: IGNORANCE is BLISS - But EDUCATION is SEXIST
Organization: University of Notre Dame
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 23:33:03 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.150647.21351@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>  
dyrda@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Richard Dyrda) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec11.112049.11697@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>  
constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:

> >3. Greenpeace and its eco-cohorts have invented global warming as an
> >impending disaster about to happen. What are their solutions? If they 
> >were scientifically educated instead of brainwashed, they could find
> >out (research--gasp!) how much CO2 a fossil plant coughs up every day.
> 
>  Well.....since this has been a COLD winter they're now saying a new ice
> age is coming upon us! Seems to me eco-scientists don't really know much
> about either.
> 

"Invented" global warming?  Have you done any reading on the subject at  
all?  I have only done a little and what I've seen is that there has been  
an enormous amount of research done on the subject. A lot of it suggests  
that we may be undergoing a long term climate change due to the increased  
emissions of anthropogenically produced "greenhouse gases."  Of course,  
not all researchers agree (researchers hardly ever do).  
	As far as nuke plants v. fossil fuel plants go, neither of them is  
ideal.  With fossil fuels you have to worry about all sorts of air  
pollution, where to mine it, what you'll do when it runs out, etc.  With  
nuclear plants, you have to worry about them blowing up and where you're  
going to put the radioactive waste.  Personally I would choose neither and  
spend more money (that Reagan removed from the budget) on renewable energy  
technologies.  Not only is it clean, but it has the potential of being  
marketable and exportable, if the Germans and the Japanese don't beat us  
to it. If I had to choose a lesser evil for the short term, I would choose  
nuclear power for its reductions in air pollution.
	
peace and trees,

george
From: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: The Recycling (and Landfill) Myth(s)
Date: 17 Dec 1992 02:55:51 GMT
Organization: lbl
Distribution: world
Reply-To: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.154

In article <1992Dec15.034943.20652@seq.uncwil.edu>, session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack
C. Sessions) writes:
|> <<text deleted>>
|>
|> Recycling can make a difference, as they have shown us in Europe, where
|> they recycle three to four times as much as we do here.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Zack Sessions
|> sessions@seq.uncwil.edu
|> University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Alumnus)
|> "Good health is merely the slowest form of dying."

This is a rather misleading statement often put forth by
recycling advocates.  It might be true if one only considered
the percentage of material recycled, but it is not percentages
that fill up landfills (and cost us in other ways), but
real, absolute tons.

I don't have #s handy (and international comparisons in this area
are notoriously murky), but my estimate would be that we recycle
about as much (per capita) as Europeans.  Of course, we produce
lots more waste (MSW) per person than they do, so in percentage
terms it comes out to less.  And further, the absolute amount
left to burn/landfill is thus even more different than the recycling
statistics would suggest.  And the difference in waste production
rates is far more important in economic and environmental
impact than the landfills anyways so much of this is rather distracting.

One might make the argument to a cigarette smoker that "if you keep
smoking 2 packs/day for 10,000 years, you'll get buried in old filters".
Of course, people don't live that long, but more importantly it is
the smoke, not the littered filters that is the real problem.

I think this all came up because materials going into landfills
is _associated with_ larger environmental problems of consumption.
Somewhere along the line this got changed to the landfill _being_
the problem of consumption.  And as far as source reduction goes,
I've concluded that the single-largest impediment to source reduction
today is in fact recycling and the mindset that generates.
We might think of recycling as like the earth being flat.
In very local terms it holds true, and it is difficult to see
otherwise.  Once you get to the big picture, of course, you see that
the earth is indeed not flat.  I'm confident that we'll all
recognize that one day, but currently the recycler's aren't helping.

Bruce Nordman
B_Nordman@lbl.gov
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Plutinium poisoning: Was Re: Greenpeace: they're not just for...
Date: 21 Dec 92 05:07:57 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu's message of 18 Dec 1992 05:52:20 GMT

In article <1groukINNdk@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato) writes:


   Dear Steinn siggurdson,

   I always welcome 'flames' of anything i post, after all we learn      
   not only from study, but from criticism.

   Your so smart, I challenge you to post not just the LD50, but
   also the TLV/TWA, TLV/STEL, TLV/C and PEL of Plutonium, cigarette
   smoke, and any other organic compound you choose, I personally
   have never studied Polonium, it's up there with Pu, maybe it is
   worse, post that too. while your at it post the avg. Po conc.
   in cigarette smoke and the TLV/TWA of Po.

Sorry, but I don't play by those rules. Why don't _you_ give us
a number for plutonium, using you favourite measure of toxicity,
referenced please. Then maybe I'll track down a substance that
by that measure of toxicity is more toxic. 
If you're in a good mood, specify delivery, as necessary,
(eg injected, ingested, inhaled) and if it needs to be
compounded. Extra bonus for defining your toxicity measure
and what the mechanism of harm is.

Just to be nice, here's Maximum Permissible Body Burden:

 Pu (ingested as soluble ion) about 1 microgram

 Po (ingested) 6.8 picograms.

Ref; CRC B-29

   remember i DID say "perhaps the most toxic substance known"
   I'm not always right, but if i choose to criticize someone i
   make sure i have the numbers in front of me.

Ok, let's hear them!

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Just because there's a reason          			*
*  Doesn't mean it's understood              Specials, 1979	* 
Newsgroups: talk.environment
From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: Re: Carrying capacity and [in]sanity
Organization: Precipitating Pendulums Postal Party Poopers
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 18:34:11 GMT

In article <om9NVB1w165w@momad.li.ny.us> siphon@Momad.LI.NY.US (Stimpson J. Katz) writes:
>Alan McGowen Writes:

 [ wherein Stimpson asks a few good questions, and repeats a few
   assertions, but generally offers a conventional 
   net.i.am.not.an.eco. nazi response to deep ecology ]

Stimpson then posts something he cites as:

>The follwing excerpt is from "The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution"
>by Ayn Rand (editted slightly to bring it up to date and shorten it):

Anyone who believes that this text describes anything other than a
simple continuation of current practice is blind - patriarchy,
transportation stupidities, corporate inertia, consumerism,
distastrous urban planning, commuter living, bedroom communities -
these are what is described here, mixed in with the legitimate fear of
fascism and state capitalism.

They're more than blind if they believe it embodies any of the agenda,
intended or accidental, of "The New Left", let alone the environmental
movement, deep ecology, or whatever - willfully ignorant.

The wife getting up at 6 to feed the kids - nothing but a load of
Randian claptrap embodying everyone's fears and no-one's hopes.

-- paul

-- 
hybrid rather than pure; compromising rather than clean;    | Militant Agnostic
distorted rather than straightforward; ambiguous rather than| I Don't Know
articulated; both-and rather than either-or; the difficult  |   and You Don't
unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion. |   Know Either
From: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Why do they hate us?
Date: 16 Dec 92 14:07:35 GMT
Reply-To: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <JMC.92Dec15105733@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John
McCarthy) writes:
# Dingo says Greenpeace does some good research.  I'm curious about
# that.  Do they do any research?  Is there a Greenpeace laboratory
# somewhere, and are there Greenpeace employees who do scientific
# research?  I'm sure they do legal research, i.e. looking for
# information and people tending to support their positions.

I refer you to the Greenpeace Global Warming Report, which at least draws
together
lots of different reasearch areas and scientific reports to back up the cases
they make
in it. This report is a collection of essays and reports by top scientists
from the
fields of climate research, renewable energy, energy efficiency and many other
areas.
It is edited by Jeremy Legget who is the Scientific director of Greenpeace, 
the fact that they have such a position in their organization does suggest
that they
have some interest in the science involved, as does the publishing of this
report.


James

-- 
*  James Hammerton               *  If Pascal is equivalent to the     *
*  Email: jamesh@uk.ac.ed.aisb   *  mini-metro,then ML is the concept  *
*                                *  car where steering is done         *
*                                *  recursively using the gearstick.   *
From: giovanni@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Giovanni S Capriglione)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Antarctica
Date: 17 Dec 1992 09:41:24 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu

Hello! A group of us here at WPI want to do our IQP project in Antarctica, 
to study the environment etc..

We need sponsors however:
any ideas where to ask..
Thanx
  giovanni@wpi.wpi.edu