That 'decision' was actually a long term widespread and well organized research and advocacy movement. The idea of setting aside ever growing amounts of land to produce 'alternative fuels' came from the 'counter culture' of the 60's. The answer would have been, and still could be, *very* different if anyone then or now where to ask how the environment of independent systems that that would run into (like the milk industry) would respond to a continually growing entirely new land use. The curious thing is that you talk to anyone involved about this and they can only respond in a dazed fashion. I think it's because all our thinking tends to be culture bound, and almost no one is in the habit of asking how the independent systems all around us will independently respond. "Everything runs into something" you could say, and people always seem very surprised when that happens. That's partly because science prefers to represent the world with self-consistent models that have no independently behaving parts, of course. -nature's warning label- Beware, basic conceptual thinking continually required!
Phil From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 11:10 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: [FRIAM] PS Civilizations PS the decision to promote the use of ethanol as a fuel is a fine example of a poor adaptive management strategy that perhaps would not have been taken had complexity/IT tools been used. Paul _____ Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL <http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016> Travel Guides.
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