X-Message-Number: 10531
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 09:36:03 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #10525 - #10530

Hi Peter Merel!

So I guess we've exchanged countries. About Australia, I will say that
I worked here for 15 years, leaving in 1985 for Silicon Valley. I'll
also say that countries are BIG and the largest thing we can personally
experience is a city. I've liked Canberra, and liked Half Moon Bay. 
Lots of cities I've visited have good points, though I don't know 
whether I'd like to actually live and work there. I've been in NY
briefly and thought it the only city in the US that felt like a city
in an undeveloped country --- say, like Djakarta at about 1972. I grew
up in a Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati, OH, and have warm feelings about
it because I came from there, but would find it difficult to live
there now.

So maybe we've only exchanged cities. In a way. As for the various
crises, I doubt that any of them will destroy us. They may give us
problems, and make life unpleasant for more people that do not deserve
it, but not destroy us. After all, when we burn coal we're really
returning carbon to the air that was once in the air.

As for solar power, sorry, but your statement itself shows exactly 
why solar power isn't yet good enough. You say that you don't feel you
can do this right now because "you don't have the cash to spare". That
is exactly the point. Solar power has been able to produce electricity
for decades now, but it still cannot produce enough at a competitive
enough cost. I'm not against it so much as I think that it just doesn't
yet meet all our requirements for power. And remember that we'd want
not just to run houses, but ALL our power-consuming activities, 
factories included. 

I'll also add an aesthetic point, now that you're in California. I
don't intend this to be decisive in any way, just a point. There was
a period in which windmills became popular, and those windmills, meaning
modern windmills, are still on various California hills. If you drive up
to San Francisco you'll probably encounter some mountains covered with
windmills. I vividly remember driving down to LA (before my brain tumor,
when I could drive safely) and encountering an entire mountain of 
windmills --- it looked like a wall, right before me. If this is what
greens want, then they're quite quite mad. One of the ugliest and least
natural scenes I've ever seen. 

So we'll cover many acres with silicon solar power panels? And that will
conserve lots of animals and plants?

Finally, about the Cato Institute. No, it is not far right, or rightist 
at all. It is Libertarian, of the kind that pays attention to economics.
I'll be dogmatic, just for brevity: there are not just two sides to
politics at all, there are at least 4. Maybe more than that.

			Best and long long life to ALL,

				Thomas Donaldson

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