X-Message-Number: 10527
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1998 13:21:20 -0700
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Weather or not

Goodness, my foot appears well and truly lodged in my back molars. Oh
well, in for a penny ...

Thomas Donaldson writes,

>HI! You may not know it but I am in Australia now. 

Heya Thomas, we've swapped continents - I've been living in San Diego for
about 18 months. I think I got the better end of the deal :-)

>As for ecological problems caused by loss of species, fundamentally
>they come from competition from human beings. I regret these losses, too,
>but the best strategy would probably be to preserve cells from as many
>of these lost species as possible so that they can be ultimately 
>recovered. I do not believe these losses have gotten to a level at
>which our own survival is in question. If so, we'll simply have an
>ignored fact rubbed in our faces: we must manage the whole Earth right
>now for our survival, and no place on Earth can truly be said to be
>"natural". If you want natural areas, now, you have to go to Mars
>or Europa. :)

I subscribe to the Heinlein definition of natural - men are natural 
creatures, so whatever they do is natural too. I'm more interested in what's 
viable than what's natural.

>As for the CO2 problem, that's a particularly interesting one because
>it HAS begun to cause changes. It's one reason for interest in electric
>cars, for instance. Since many organizations claiming to be in favor of
>nature have argued strenuously against nuclear power for years, and
>nuclear power presently provides the main source which won't produce
>CO2 (presently solar power just can't provide enough power for everything
>we need) we have an interesting spectacle of groups claiming to promote
>a more ecological Earth doing everything they can to make the Earth 
>unlivable. (I'd say this of the Australian Greens, too). If you don't
>like nuclear power, then shut up and work to improve solar power so it
>can compete. Free of government subsidies, of course --- by which I
>mean subsidies for the power stations, not subsidies for research.

Actually, solar has made astounding strides in the last decade. I started
looking around a couple of months ago because of my anxiety about y2k, and
was amazed to discover that you can get a 1500 watt PV system for under
$5K US. For $10-20K you can take a pretty fair sized home off the grid 
for good. If I had the cash to spare I'd be doing this right now. As it
is, I'm saving up for a deposit on a home in what I think will remain an
orderly place even if worse comes to worst.

>Do these issues relate to cryonics? Well, I hope not only to be
>suspended but even to wake up some day. And it's interesting to think
>about the world in which I will wake up --- world being taken in its
>general sense (if I wake up on Mars or a planet of alpha Centauri,
>I'll still wake up, after all).

Well I'm not the cryonet cop. If folk want to discuss something, I can
either participate or ignore it. But still I felt a call for focus wouldn't
be out of order - again, apologies to any folk I've offended.

Charles Platt writes,

>Sigh. Peter, ANY special interest group (including our own!) has an 
>agenda to pursue. Most such groups (excluding our own) stay in business 
>by scaring people. That's how you get contributions. The typical fund 
>raising letter, whether it's from the World Wildlife Fund or the 
>Christian Coalition, will state a Dire Warning, usually based on recent 
>actions by some enemy group (industrial polluters, moral relativists, 
>whatever) and will then beg for money to fight these enemies of correct 
>thought. 

All environmentalism is lies? Or just particular bits? How should we assess 
the state of the environment? Environmental failures have wiped out large 
human civilizations in the past - it would be nice to know just which
environmental studies are authoritative now. How can you tell?

>As I'm sure you are aware, almost all resources are cheaper today in real 
>terms, and even in dollar terms in many cases (despite inflation), than 
>they were 30 years ago. This is how Julian Simon won his famous bet 
>against Paul Ehrlich. Moreover, known oil reserves have actually 
>INCREASED over this period.

Oil reserves, according to a series of what seem to be authoritative 
articles in the March 1998 Scientific American, are indeed drying up. But 
of course Erhlich has a dreadful history of predicting disasters that 
never occurred, and anyway there are plenty of alternative sources of 
energy - and plenty of time available in which to develop them before the 
oil really gets too expensive to serve us. No, it's the lost biodiversity,
arable land, and fish stocks that we don't seem to have a Simon substitute for.

>Incidentally, recent temperature measurements via satellite indicate that 
>global warming is still a controversial concept at best. If the 
>phenomenon is real, however, I have a fairly careful study from the CATO 
>Institute showing that it will benefit almost everyone, worldwide (within 
>reasonable limits, of course).

I think it's fair to say that far right think-tanks like Cato are *at least* 
as suspect as the World Wildlife Fund. But I agree that the greenhouse
case is very far from proved. Long-term climatology based on arctic ice cores 
suggests that the warming we've seen, even if the most extreme descriptions
are to be believed, is far from unusual in relatively recent history.
Life on earth deals with these quick changes all right; it's human
civilization, not life on earth, that's at risk if the extreme
predictions are on the mark.

Thomas Nord writes,

>Most of us will be alive over "Y2K" to attend that matter, the dewars 
>will be in no harm of an outage.

That is very far from proved. Could any org keep its dewars cooled without
a regular supply of liquid nitrogen? Do the orgs at least have dry-ice making
facilities powered by PV cells in case of a prolonged y2k power shortage,
say, 3 months around July 2000 as predicted by Dick Mills, making liquid
nitrogen unavailable? If there is profound social disruption in the 
major cities caused by widespread utility failures, which orgs will remain
unaffected? These questions have not been addressed on cryonet so far.
   
>These are well known facts and nothing to debate on an eco-net, as we have
>everywhere. We know its getting warmer, good up here, not so good in
>Texas it seems. Az next? Michigan may get better in the winter, or 
>much colder, nobody knows yet.

Weather being chaotic, if human machinations push weather systems far from
equilibrium we get more extremes - both colder and warmer. But any attribution
of extreme weather to human activity is not a "well known fact". Just a 
hundred years ago, humanity experienced a much worse global climate
perturbation - the Victorian "little ice age" - that was certainly not 
caused by the effects of human industry. For all we know, human industry 
is mitigating a similar cold snap even as we speak. Or not. There is 
no conclusive evidence one way or another.

With far more severe and more pressing policy issues already being ignored 
by the powers that be, not to mention the real possibility that current
cryonics technology is not truly viable, the greenhouse effect seems
to bear only the smallest relevance to the subject of this list.

>If the future world are more unsecure, perhaps less will pay for a place 
>in a dewar.

So few are signed now, it seems unlikely that this risk can make much of
a difference to rates of subscription.
 
>This is hard to gain votes on since it includes stop burning gasoline oil 
>gas and coal. We are on the track, but people must be more aware what 
>they risk with wrong burning. Very simple hard and true.

None of the climate issues are simple or true. But they are demonstrably
hard; there is great room for debate and much nonsense spoken on all sides. 
A fair case can be made that, even if greenhouse were proven, it's better 
to burn oil now so we can keep an orderly civilization while alternatives 
are developed. Who knows?
    

>    A letter to politicians home-addresses are good, if you can get it, to 
avoid the secretarial-filter. Best if they get it on a Friday to reed >over the 
weekend. I've done it here successfully in decades.

Let's see. I can write a letter to a politician. Or I can spend the same
time doing some productive engineering. Which is better for humanity? I
think I have a fair idea. If your letter-writing pleases you, good luck with
it, but me, I think you would be doing something a lot better with your
time if you gave up your letters and worked on building technological
alternatives.

John B. Krug writes,

>      I recycle more than I throw away, both at home and at work.  This
>is one small part of a lifestyle that I hope will help build the long
>future I hope to live in. 

Good for you too John. Now if only you could figure a way to alter the
consumption and excretion habits of all the millions of others whose activities
make your home and work lifestyles possible, you might really have something
there. Eating fish and beef, using paper and plastic, all the while happily
trumpeting "virtuous" lifestyles, is too often the way of environmentalists.

Me, I make no bones about it - I know the way I live will not long remain
viable unless there is dramatic technological improvement. So that's what
I'm working on. I see the two processes - technological development and
environmental degradation - as a kind of race. I have no idea which will
win out, I don't know if I'll be there to find out, but I know which one
I'm rooting for.

Heh, just goes to prove, again, that you can't raise the signal to noise 
ratio by asking for it. Silly me.

Peter Merel.

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