<x-charset ISO-8859-1>Hello Bob >How about we refer to this subject as "the risk of global climate >change" . This blunts the arguments of many of the naysayers.
Um, actually it naysays it. It's not a risk, it's happening. An embarrassment of riches (of a sort), but, again, see what the insurers say: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/27311/1 http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/28055/ http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/30866/1 >The physical principles which drive changes in the net energy in the >atmosphere are clear and simple. The principles might be simple, but the interactions are not so simple. And as you say the results are not simple at all, but the consequences are proving all too simple and palpable. >The results of the added energy to the >global climate systems are not. What is clear is the anthropogenic >impacts are likely to destabilize the climate in a number of ways , Why do you talk as if it's something that may happen in the future Bob? It's history already. >some >obvious and intuitive, other not. Application of chaos theory only adds >to the uncertainty. > >below a couple of tangentially related quotes: > > >›žwherein it is set forth that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, >that the Earth moves around the Sun and that the Sun is stationary in >the center of the world and does not move from east to west, is contrary >to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held. In >witness whereof we have written and subscribed these presents with our >hand this >twenty-sixth day of May, 1616. >--Robertro Cardinal Bellarmino > >There are no...limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are >likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn't a risk of >an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we >should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound >error and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have >staggering social costs. >--World Bank chief economist, Lawrence H. Summers, >Nov., 10, 1991 Summers. Well. I'd like to say he's not to be taken seriously, but have a look at this and judge for yourself (it's a pulltogether). Lawrence Summers, chief economist at the World Bank , gained notoriety in December 1991 when an internal memo he wrote - advocating migration of polluting industries to the Third World and referring to a nonpolluted environment as "pretty air" - was leaked to the press. The infamous Summers memo, which was widely reprinted in newspapers around the world, contained inflammatory statements such as "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable," and "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted ... Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradeable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste." THE MEMO EXCERPT: DATE: December 12, 1991 FR: Lawrence H. Summers Subject: GEP 'Dirty' Industries: ....Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons: 1. The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. 2. The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste. 3. The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable. The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.... [ends excerpt] After the memo became public in February 1992, Brazil's then-Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenburger wrote back to Summers: "Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane... Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. To me it would confirm what I often said... the best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear." Mr. Lutzenburger was fired shortly after writing this letter. Mr. Summers remained in the World Bank before joining the Clinton administration and continuing his rise toward the Cabinet. Mr. Pritchett continues to work for the World Bank. Jim Vallette, of the International Trade Information Service, has been circulating the memo since Mr. Summers' nomination was announced. He comments: "Meanwhile, world trade has burgeoned with imbalanced cargoes: banned pesticides, leaded gasoline, CFCs, asbestos, and other products restricted in the North are sold to the South; tropical timber, oil, coal, and other natural resources flow from South to North with little or no benefit to the host communities; and while regulations tighten around dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power plants in the North, they are proliferating in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America, where they are owned and operated by Northern corporations. "This trade has been facilitated through tens of billions of dollars of financing by the World Bank, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Export-Import Bank, government institutions....Mr. Summers' 1991 memo can be considered a working thesis behind this decade's dominant global economic policies." [ends pulltogether] The other thing to say about Mr Summers' opinion on unlimited growth is that unlimited growth is the creed of cancer. Whatever, even as a global-warming naysayer he lacks a certain something. Best Keith The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. -- Alex Carey, Australian social scientist >Bob Allen,http://ozarker.org/bob >------------------------------------------------------------------ >----------------------------------------------------------------- >The modern conservative is engaged in one of Man's oldest exercises >in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral >justification for selfishness JKG >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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