From: Paul McDermott (bandwidthboy@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 17:59:07 MDT
On matters environmental, I thought I'd share a bit from my own personal
experience, for whatever it's worth. About two years ago, I strolled through
the Extropy Institute site. One of the things which caught my eye was a
mention somewhere about Julian Simon. I had never heard of the man or his
work at that point, and was a pretty typical person regarding matters of the
environment, ie things are getting worse, etc etc.
Anyway, I later came across an article by Simon in Wired, which I found
interesting as I'd not heard such views before. I remembered my previous
encounter at the EI site, then checked out the Amazon and got a bunch of
diffeent views about his book, Ultimate Resource 2.
Finally I took the plunge and bought it, and considered it as much of a
revelation as Drexler's Engines of Creation. My perspective on the
mainstream doom and gloom view was forever altered, and I found myself
wishing I had been exposed to this book earlier in my career as a teacher.
Not surprisingly, I would tell people about the book and its ideas (just
like I did with Engines) but I didn't sell many bananas. I once even tried
to discuss such matters with a Greenpeace proselytizer, though I had no
measurable success here either.
Still, the work of Simon encouraged me to seek other books, and read even
more widely on matters I had previously shunned, like nuclear energy. Though
my hip-pocket took a hammering, and I became even more of a recluse, I was
thrilled to have been awakened to a whole new world of possibilities and
ideas. And I'm still going back for more, most recently investigating the
libertarian position and the ideas of Hayek. I may not agree with it all,
but it sure is fun and useful to learn of and understand so much more than I
did.
So I can say that in a very real way, my enivronmental position was
influenced by EI! :-)
More recently, I have been fascinated by the bucket job Bjorn Lomborg has
receieved for saying what amounts to more or less the same things as Simon.
Amongst those weilding the hatchets this time are Scientific American. Given
its previous embarrasment over nanotechnology, I wonder whether this
publication has any credibility left.
Presently I am taking my local council to task over their recycling
programme, which they state results in a $25 million boost to local
industry. I am concerned that this is little more than the cost borne by the
taxpayer, as my understanding of the processes involved suggests that it is
unlikely to be a particularly profitable enterprise. As the scheme is run by
one outfit, gifted by the Council with the city's contract, I also can't
help but wonder whether this only adds to the poor use of public funds.
Competition in the telecomunications sector has certainly been a lot more
beneficial to the consumer since the government monopoly ended, and I
suspect that this could likely be so for trash, too.
I wonder what the rest here, who've read Lomborg's work, think about it.
Will it have any discernible influence on the wider community: the media,
the policy-makers, academia, the green movement? Could the extropian pov
benefit from assisting such dissemination?
Paul McDermott
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 2:43 AM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Re: ECO: Saying Nay to the Doomsayers
--- Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote:
>
> On Monday, July 29, 2002, at 03:33 pm, Mike Lorrey
> wrote:
>
> > You are right. Unfortunately, it is Greenpeace
> making
> > the false statements.
>
> This is another fascinating example of how
> conspiracy theorists quote
> evidence that doesn't exist. Mike actually told
> people to go to the
> Greenpeace site to see their support of a whole list
> of socialist
> issues. After it turns out there is nothing there,
> Mike now claims
> Greenpeace is lying.
Uh, you are confusing discussions. Greenpeace is the
most active part of the Green Party movement around
the world.
To counter your assertions and aspersions:
http://www.greenpeace.org/extra/?item_id=4265&forward_source_anchor=Our%20Mi
ssion&forward_destination_anchor=%2faboutus%2f
"Greenpeace organises public campaigns
for:
- The protection of oceans and ancient forests.
- The phase out of fossil fuels and the promotion of
renewable energy to stop climate change.
- The elimination of toxic chemicals .
- The prevention of genetically modified organisms
being released into nature.
- An end to the nuclear threat and nuclear
contamination.
- Safe and sustainable trade. "
What they say about climate change:
http://www.greenpeace.org/campaigns/intro?campaign_id=3937
"It is not too late to slow global warming and avoid
the climate catastrophe that scientists predict. The
solutions already exist. Renewable energy sources such
as wind and solar offer abundant clean energy that is
safe for the environment and good for the economy.
Other green technologies, such as the refrigeration
technology Greenfreeze, offer viable alternatives to
climate-changing chemicals.
Corporations, governments and individuals must begin
now to phase in clean, sustainable energy solutions
and phase out fossil fuels. Major investments must be
made in renewable energy, particularly in developing
economies, replacing current large scale fossil fuel
developments.
At the same time, immediate international action must
be taken to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (the
gases that cause global warming), or the world may
soon face irreversible global climate damage.
Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the climate treaty
finally agreed at Marrakech in November 2001, is a
crucial first step in this process. However, the
greenhouse gas reduction targets agreed at Marrakech
are only a fraction of what is needed to stop
dangerous climate change and the Kyoto Protocol is
under fierce attack.
The US refuses to sign the climate treaty and take
action to reduce emissions. With less than 5 percent
of the world's population, the US is the world's
largest producer of greenhouse gases and is
responsible for 25 percent of global emissions. Also,
governments continue to subsidise the fossil fuel
industries, keeping dirty energy cheap while clean
energy solutions remain under-funded.
Greenpeace is campaigning globally on a variety of
fronts to stop climate change - from the campaign to
pressure the ExxonMobil and George W Bush to work with
the rest of the world to halt climate change, to
researching and promoting clean energy solutions. "
The solutions they propose to climate change are:
"The latest report from the International Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) says that hundreds of
technologies are already available, at very low cost,
to reduce climate damaging emissions and that
government policies need to remove the barriers to
these technologies."
If that's not a demand for socialist intervention in
economies, I don't know what is, especially since
there are no barriers to new technologies that I know
of, outside of a lack of massive government subsidies
for such technologies and taxes on fossil fuels.
Read on these other Greenpeace links which talk about
massive taxation:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/2020/turnaround.html
http://www.greenpeace.org/~ozone/hfcs/6reasons.html
http://archive.greenpeace.org/earthsummit/news_gerdspeech.html
http://www.greenpeace.org/majordomo/index-news-headlines/1997/msg00073.html
And, btw, Harvey, you haven't responded to my prior
assertion about european energy taxes. What proportion
of taxes on energy in europe has actually been used to
fight global warming, and what portion has gone to
welfare state socialism?
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.380 / Virus Database: 213 - Release Date: 7/24/2002
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:47 MST