HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Rights for Rocks!
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 05:29:27 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.011938.23871@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>
>The second problem is that while intuitively, I agree that nature
>should be considered as having rights, logically I can't think of any way
>to decide what those rights might be. If nature has the same rights as people,
>obviously there is no moral way to live. I have to stand somewhere and eat
>something. So I would like you to clarify your ecocentrism: what exactly are
>the implications of believing rocks to have rights?

The usual answer to this is that ecocentrism does not imply that the
ecosystem must be left absolutely alone.  All participants in the ecosystem,
including humans, may take what they need to live but should consider
the impact _under all circumstances_ and always try to minimize this
impact.  These considerations are not limited to economic impacts on
humans.  Neither self defense nor predation are denied.  You can still
kill viruses and eat meat.While the definition of what is necessary
and what impacts are  excessive is certainly a matter of debate, the 
suggestions
made by Paul Barton-Davis would be a starting place for many ecocentrists.
Specific points about whether heavy metals would be acceptable would not
really be decided until such decisions were needed in the future and in
the context of the available technology of the day.  The more central
question is can people really be happy in a significantly less materialistic
society.
>
>I worry that it might be a recipe for paralysis. For instance, the PC position
>around here is always to oppose any construction, no matter how practical
>or beautiful, since a tree or two might be displaced. While I grant that the
>"no net loss of wetlands" pledge has been misused, and while I grant that
>(in the short run at least) reconstructed ecosystems are not as complex or
>viable as naturally occuring ones, I would point out that you can't make an
>omlet without breaking eggs. Resisting all change is counterproductive.

Equal and opposite reactions.  Many people who see over-development will
respond with calls for no development.  While some people on either side
of this debate will not compromise, more people will move to the middle
ground when it is offered.  
>
>For instance, implementation of much needed plans for
>creating contiguous belts of wilderness will require relocating a lot of folks.
>If you opppose any increase in intensity of land use anywhere, a decrease
>in such large areas becomes totally unsupportable.
>
>mt
>


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
Xref: sparky sci.environment:11783 talk.environment:4115 alt.activism:17264 fl.general:115 sci.engr.civil:471
From: beachen@valinor.mythical.com (Mark Grant)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment,alt.activism,fl.general,sci.engr.civil,alt.hurr
Subject: Re: Hurricane damage to Turkey Point nuclear reactors
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 92 20:36:40 CDT
Distribution: world
Organization: (What? Organized??) - Mythical Computer Systems

> If the American public weren't so damned paranoid about letting
> the national radioactive waste site be built, we wouldn't be so
> stalled on nuclear technology. A plant built and desgined today
> can re-use 90% of its own waste to produce additional energy.
> The eventual waste that does come from these new-generation
> plants is greatly less radioactive than those of yesteryear.


I agree with you.  I think that sensationalism pays the biggest role in 
this issue.  If there were so much negativism in this area, I don't think 
there would be as many nuclear plants as there are today.  Look at West 
Germany.  If they were to shut down their nuclear reactors, you might as 
well close down the country.  I believe that more nuclear plants, and 
some agency to draw up a broad national plan, are needed to support this 
countries energy needs.  

Mark

-----
Mark Grant
Internet:  beachen@valinor.mythical.com     uucp:  uunet!valinor!beachen
-----
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Date: 16 Oct 92 03:24:07 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1bl5h0INNike@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <54781@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>=In article <1bhceqINNc0@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>=>In article <JMC.92Oct13214608@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
>=>>Is "heavy metal" a definite term?  What atomic weight do the banners
>=>>of heavy metals have in mind. 100, 200?
>=>
>=>I've been able to find no definition of it (other than as a type of music). 
>=
>=Speaks volumes as to the quality of your research.  Try
>=    Greenhouse AH: Heavy Metals and the nervous system. Clin Neuropharmacol
>=    1982;5:45
>=
>=    Oheme FW: Mechanism of heavy metal toxicity. J. Clin Toxicol
>=    1972;5:151
>
>So Victor, are you just trying to score points or what?  If you've actually

I'm noting the quality of your research is rather thin. Please recall that
my post came in response to your attack on Paul for using the term "heavy
metals". You appeared to be arguing that the term had no meaning outside
of the music business. If you want to insult people for failing to meet
standards of precision, the least you could do is a little homework.

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Oct9003559@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1992Oct9.135432.894@vexcel.com>
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:28:39

In article <1992Oct9.135432.894@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

   In article <JMC.92Oct9003559@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >Evidently my point about making top soil a commodity wasn't clear.
   >I wasn't referring to selling land, which already is done, but to
   >selling top soil.  In Idaho near Boise, land with good top soil
   >sells for $4,000 per acre and land with poor top soil for $1,000
   >per acre.  Someone who owns an 1,000 acres of $1,000 land should
   >buy top soil from someone whose top soil is deeper than necessary
   >and truck it to improve his land.  This would give the owner of
   >deep top soil an immediate incentive to conserve the top soil,
   >whereas now he can afford to let a fair amount of it erode away.

   Assuming that the topsoil difference is the main cause in the
   difference in price, it would seem that market forces have
   already responded to topsoil issues and that those owning land
   already have an incentive to save it.  If it were cost-effective
   to truck topsoil to the degraded land, it would already be happening.

   Actually, I have read that topsoil preservation has come a long way
   in the US due to educational efforts by the government and that its
   loss has decreased greatly.  Unfortunately, this is not true for
   many less developed countries.  Apparently, some of the Green
   Revolution agricultural methods have been found to contribute to
   this problem.  They increase yield significantly, but not sustainably.
   >--
   >John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305


		   dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)

Dingo says:

     If it were cost-effective to truck topsoil to the degraded
     land, it would already be happening.

Belief in the principle: 

     If it were cost-effective to do X, it would already be
     happening.

is a major reason for the persistence of poverty and
backwardness in the world.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: Tom Gray <tgray@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 10 Oct 92 17:56 PDT
Subject: Re: --UCS Offers New Energy Policies
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1466601783:cdp:1466601794:000:1356
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!tgray    Oct 10 17:56:00 1992


<responding to John McCarthy>

>I'm dubious about wind energy becoming important.  Almost all U.S.
>wind energy comes from two mountain passes in Calfiornia.  What is
>the average wind site going to be like?

The term "average" probably doesn't have much relevance here.  Wind
sites typically are of several different types, passes along the
West Coast and in some other areas, mountain ridges and passes in
the East, plains in the Great Plains.

I think wind energy's principal limitation at the moment is that
the areas of highest potential tend to be sparsely populated.
North Dakota, for instance, has the potential to produce more than
a trillion kWh by itself, according to the definitive potential
study, released in 1991 by Pacific Northwest Laboratories.

So a fair amount of infrastructure development is going to have to
take place in many areas before wind can be used to its full
effectiveness -- transmission lines in particular -- and that is
going to make the economics in those placs marginal for a while.

Still, this is only a limitation in the broadest sense.  I think you are
going to see wind energy spread slowly out of California before long. 
Projects are under serious discussion in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, Washington and several other states, and I am sure some will
be completed over the next five years.

Tom

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: andrewt@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Taylor)
Subject: Re: hurricanes and conservation
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 18:09:38 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <1992Oct7.175332.1553@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>However, the exotics are now introduced, and my question is whether it is
>more appropriate for rangers to tromp around the park plucking seedlings that
>are recently introduced, or whether it is better just to let nature take its
>modified course.

Manual culling of introduced species is usually impractical.  *Carefully*
considered biological control has produced a reasonable number of successes
and no disasters. Complete removal of introduced species has proved very
difficult. The removal of the Coypu from England showed that well-considered
strategy and monitoring may make removal attempts more successful.

There is great promise for the use of biotechnology to remove species.
Hopefully in the next 20 years, rabbits and foxes, will be removed
from Australia using genetically-engineered viruses.

>Feeling that nature is so delicate, which I call the "every precious duck"
>approach, that it needs constant intervention by trained and brilliant
>biologists, is not only contrary to all the evidence, ...

There is clear evidence that some introduced species can have devasting
effects. The extinction list bears witness to this. Personally I think vague
statements such as "nature is delicate/robust" are worthless.

Many conservation areas do indeed constant skilled management. This is usually
a result of small size and/or external stresses. Fire regime is a good
example. Not only do you want to approximate the natural fire regime
which can be difficult because of external factors but you also may
need to maintain parts of the conservation area in differnt phases of
the fire cycle which is difficult in a small conservation area.

Andrew Taylor
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Lot of questions about hemp
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 04:53:10 GMT

Although I am not the expert you are looking for, I believe a large part
of the knowledge about hemp comes from the fact that it was used so
extensively prior to its criminalization.  Many of the original
revolutionary documents are on hemp paper as is the original Betsy Ross
flag.  Hemp was a common crop and the criminalization of marijuana
supposedly caught hemp farmers by surprise.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment
From: SCHLOERER@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Jan Schloerer)
Subject: Re: global warming/global cooling/global climate change
Organization: University of Ulm, Germany
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:50:23 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In    <1992Oct14.184703.19662@colorado.edu>
      GORDON ALLEN R    (gordon@tramp.Colorado.EDU)   wrote :

> A very persuasive paper by Ken Watt of UC Davis was written in '86

  [ arguing for CO2 cooling caused by CO2 warming ... deleted ]


Yup, we had a lot of this stuff recently.  Which doesn't mean you
shouldn't have asked.  And yes, there were already two very nice and
patient responses.  Just a summary for those afraid of details ...

In the first place, as Dave Halliwell and Michael Tobis have pointed
out, this is bad science.  Ken Watt picks a minority of data that fit
his preconception of cooling, and omits the bulk of the evidence.
As John Allen Paulos has put it in his book "Innumeracy":

    A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of
    coincidences is a prime characteristic of innumerates,
    who generally accord great significance to correspondences
    of all sorts while attributing too little significance
    to quite conclusive but less flashy statistical evidence.

Secondly, having been written in 1986, the stuff is just dated.  Since
then, the earth's surface temperature record of the past 100 years has
gone through the mill of evaluation and correction.  To paraphrase Ken
Watt, there isn't a shred of evidence that the world is   -   cooling.
(No, Pinatubo doesn't count, it won't last.)

Thirdly, I don't know what you have already read and how deeply you
are interested, so I'm at a loss what to recommend to you personally
for reading or re-reading.  In case you are interested: email me.


Jan Schloerer          schloerer@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Klinische Dokumentation           Uni Ulm
Postfach 3880     DW-7900 Ulm     Germany
From: jannotj@pell4l25 (Jason Jannot)
Subject: Enviornmental deficit
Organization: Allegheny College
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 04:29:12 GMT

I just returned from a lecture titled "Reducing the environmental  
deficit",given by Herb Bormann here at Allegheny College.  This lecture  
was interesting, but it left me puzzeled.  Dr. Bormann spoke of several  
environmental problems such a build up of greehouse gases, acid rain and  
loss of topsoil and tried to relate this to a global problem he termed the  
environmental deficit.  He then offered solutions to these problems such  
as a global perspective in education, reduction of consumption of  
non-renewable resources ad halting population growth.  This lecture was  
aimed at the general public and as a result, was given in broad terms.  I  
walked away not actually understanding the concept of an "environmental  
deficit".  (This is not to discredit Dr. Bormann as a lecturer, I may have  
missed his point). I had the misconception that Dr. Bormann would be  
talking about conservation of mass and net loss of energy (as heat).  I  
realize this lecture was aimed at the public but I needed an explaination  
in more concrete (read: scientific?)terms. Can anyone out there help me?
	He also mentioned that no data was available for acid rain figures  
in Mexico and India.  Is this because there are no studies going on in  
these areas or is the information "unavailable" due to other  
circumstances?  I'm interested in studying acid rain as a possible topic  
in graduate school, so if anyone is doing studies in these areas I'd like  
to communicate with them on this subject.

		Thanks in advance,
			jannotj@alleg.edu
		"Let your life proceed by it's own design..." Robert 	 
							      Hunter
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 14:43:59 GMT

In article <-1366698201snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:

>In article <JMC.92Oct13215811@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

> > I don't propose any new incentives.  It is merely that once the
> > transportation costs are faced, there will be an incentive to
> > conserve deep topsoil in river valleys, because an excess can be sold
> > to improve nearby uplands.
>
> Until next it rains, and the soil is washed down once again. Perhaps
> the Professor is also promoting the sale of homing pigeons . . .


Or, perhaps the people moving the soil would have thought of that, and
woudl have also used contouring, barriers and covering vegetation to
reduce erosion?  Or did you just assume they'd be stupid so that you
could snipe at Prof. McCarthy?

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Date: 17 Oct 92 01:51:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Oct17.015101.7397
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <1992Oct16.233913.27071@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

> The problem is that most analyses that find a problem with 
> unsustainable throughput are not based on resource scarcity,
> they are based on sink saturation.  Though the CO2/ozone example
> may not be typical of sink saturation, it shows how difficult they
> are to predict.
>
> The need for substitution is also likely to be the need to find a resouce
> that uses a different sink, not a resource with less scarcity.  Just how
> unique are sinks to resources?  Is there a synergistic problem as more
> sinks become, if not saturated, then at least somewhat scarce, in the sense
> that they aren't taken for granted?


Problems with CO2 were predicted long ago, by Arrhenius.  Wasn't
that in the 19th century?

As I said, to first order, the resource problem is an energy problem.
This is true even if we are talking about sinks, not sources -- CO2
and methane accumulation, and acid precipitation, are all
energy-related problems.  To the extent the sinks are a commons,
their management calls for government action, but I don't see
why this should be an insuperable problem.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Rights for Rocks! (battle of the dogmas)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 15:09:39 GMT

In article <1bl7trINNike@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.231139.7026@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>But not among establishment economists.  They are very disconnected
>>from the real world.  did you see how an American won the Nobel Prize
>>for economics by showing that people include economic considerations
>>when making a decision?
>
>That was not the sole basis for awarding him the prize.  Furthermore,
>demonstrating that *IS* important.  It means that at least *SOME* parts of
>economic theory *ARE* related to reality.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the newspaper simplified the reason
for the award.  As I said, it is a shrewd probe into the depths of
the obvious.  If a field of study considers a discovery that is
obvious to most people a significant achievement, then I think it is
pretty disconnected.  That this effort is needed is because 
economics is so disconnected.
>
>>>As opposed to conventional economics? That schisms exist does not
>>>preclude dogma, nor does the fact the opposition is dogmatic
>>>preclude the ecocentrics being dogmatic.
>>
>>True, but it does preclude it from being ossified, as you claimed.
>>Some proponents certainly are dogmatic, but not all, so the
>>philosophy is not dogma.
>
>No, it does not preclude ossification.  It's quite possible to have two
>opposing dogmatic camps in a field, both of them quite thoroughly ossified.

If they are discussing the differences and consider each opinon to
be part of the same philosophy, then it isn't ossified.  If they 
called each other heathens or whatever, then you would be right.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL
>
>Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
>understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
>unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
>organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
>hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sustainable lifestyles
Date: 13 Oct 92 15:41:28
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<1992Oct13.182127.18286@cs.rochester.edu>
	<STEINLY.92Oct13115828@topaz.ucsc.edu>
	<1992Oct13.201026.21814@cs.rochester.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dietz@cs.rochester.edu's message of Tue, 13 Oct 1992 20:10:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.201026.21814@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:

   In article <STEINLY.92Oct13115828@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   ...
   >   capita.  If one assumes the 1000 sq. ft./capita figure could be
   >   extended to other regions, 5% of the Earth's continental area could
   >   feed about 80 billion people.  

   > You don't get 12 month growing season in most of the world. Figure
   > more like 40-50 billion. 20-30 billion if you want a safety margin
   > and some surpluses to keep the markets depressed to avoid people
   > sterting to trade and specialise again.

   Actually, in the tropics you could in principle grow things year round
   (given adequate water), and more than 5% of the world's continental
   area is there.

True, I was too focused on western Europe and Northeast US.
What's the growing season in China? India and south-east Asia
should be managable year round...

	  Even elsewhere, a 1000 square foot greenhouse would
   not be outrageously expensive -- certainly less expensive, amortized
   over its life, than the time Paul already spends working on his
   garden.  There are plastic honeycomb transparent insulating materials
   demonstrated on a pilot scale that achieve a thermal conductivity of
   just .6 W/m^2 K (about R-10) while transmitting 75% of incident
   sunlight.  This insulation value is enough to maintain an 80 deg C
   temperature difference with a transmitted power of just 48 W/m^2.

Hmm, what are the maintenance costs? Greenhouses are notoriously
fragile. Definitely want to factor in redundancy.

   Was I against trading and specialization?  Hardly -- just pointing out
   that Paul's claim seems to imply very large populations could be fed.

Oh, _you_ weren't objecting, I had the vague impression the whole
thrust to the self-sufficiency on 40acres(&a mule ;-) was reduce
the trading and specialization culture, kinda of bringing the
context back in. Of course with local crop failures and natural
disasters we'd probably best be served by retaining substantial
distribution capacity, tough to write off that many people
periodically, especially if you're one of 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: sci.environment