From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 17:29:00 GMT
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu

In article <1992Sep10.145918.14933@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) writes:

>You mean ignoring any possible consequences of ozone loss and maybe even
>global warming? Let's even completely ignore increasing risks of nuclear
>war (from non-NATO develpment) or from nuclear disaster.  We can also ignore
>steady expansionism of the populace.

Hey, and I bet you were kvetching about the Evil Stockpiles of Nuclear War
between the United States and the Soviet Union a couple of years ago. 
It's gone, so there's something else to blow up, er, INFLATE as a "threat" 
to civilization as we know it.

It's also laughable to look at "global warming" when a single volcanic eruption
kicks enough enough ash to DROP temperatures despite our many years of
unregulated environmental engineering, hmm? 

We also don't have enough of a dataset on our world to show what the "real" 
temperature should be. I kid you not. Would you like to average in the ice ages
and the time before the DinosaurKiller impacted? 

>Even if you ignore all the globe-threatening issues, *population* growth,
>which you can *count on*, will still be one of our greatest challenges.  It
>will keep growing until it simply *can't* and that only happens when world
>resources, particularly in food stuffs, become steadily taxed. Don't
>kid yourselves, this is *going* to happen whether you like it or agree with
>it.

I didn't know we had gone to world goverment. Now, who in the third world is
going to come and tax US, hmm? 

Besides, population growth is self-correcting. People who have nothing better
to do start little piss-ant wars and end up killing themselves off. 

>Even after you look at the population curve and make some simple extrapolations,
>keeping in mind things like fossil fuel depletion in the next 50 years,
>shifting agricultural zones, you do not see this?

Another Club of Rome member. <yawn>

We've been running out of fossil fuels for 100 years. Before that, there was a
fear of a great shortage of whale oil, due to overhunting. 

Could you tell me what the current demand for whale oil is? 

Furthermore, the Club of Ignorance also ignores little things like A)
Technological Innovation is not static, B) Free-market economies stimulate the
development of more efficient use of resources and substitutes. 

>You do not know there is no life on Mars or anywhere else other than Earth.
>I don't see the relevance of arguing over the label of 'back yard'.  I don't
>think as a society, or even a planet, we have yet learned how to manage our
>*own* planet, not even a *little*.  Because of this I don't think we are
>qualified to begin applying our ignorance to anther planet.
>
>Luckily, this will not be an issue for many years.

Naw, you'd better line up now to put Saturn's rings off-limits to Szabo's Ice
Mining, Inc. And then prepare to go out there and enforce your law, hm?

                 Support U.N. military force against Serbia

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