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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10531