Hi Keith et al, Thanks for noting your background, I was unaware. At 02:54 AM 7/16/2001 Monday , you wrote: >Hi Dennis, > >At 21:05 15/07/01 -0700, you wrote: >Let me nip right down to the point on which I need to comment: > >(KH) >>> . . . wrong inputs. The slightest errors in basic premises can have >exponential >>>effects. >(DP) >>All the more reason not to cause further upsets into the climate equation. > >All right, let's discuss Realpolitik. Bush won't accept the Kyoto proposals >because he knows he will meet point-blank resistance from Congress. (This >is known as democracy.) Congress won't accept the need for the Kyoto >proposals because it knows that it will meet point-blank resistance from >the American electorate. (This is also known as democracy.) The American >electorate will refuse to contemplate the need for the Kyoto proposals >while there are still eminent climatologists who say that we have >insufficient evidence of the man-made causes of recent climate changes -- >indeed, that the recent climate changes are nothing extraordinary in the >history of the earth. (This is also known as democracy.) > I fail to understand your position that democracy implies that everyone will take the most conservative positions on any given issue. You must be assuming that the electorate is ignorant of the issues and that no one is educating them. Perhaps things are different in Britian than in California where I live. We are having an energy crisis here because of some terribly bad decisions made in 1995. We deregulated the electric and gas utilities and set up new rules as provided by those same folks. The promise was that rates would fall by 10%. Instead, for the last year, the power generating companies have been using these new rules to up the cost of electricity by factors of x5, to x100. Finally, the State government stepped in and said, enough is enough. At least one of our major utilities has declared bankruptcy and another is threatening to. This after the utilities parent company siphoned off billions to pay their executives and shareholders. I don't think that the urge to deregulate will continue. The electorate is getting shafted and they are learning quickly. The State government is now led by a conservative Democrat rather than the Republican we had back in '95, although it was a Democratic legislature that approved the deregulation plan. In all, democracy is working now that the papers are filled with daily reports of what is happening, and why, and who is responsible. Californians now conserve energy better than most of the other states. We also recycle much of what can be done economically. We are not up to the standards of many EU countries and we need to improve, but we are way ahead of where we were a decade ago. So I say that democracy, coupled with media that are willing to educate the electorate, will produce results. California, with a population of over 30 million, and the fifth biggest economy in the world, is a big test bed for trying new concepts, both technically and politically. I think that progress can and will be made. BTW, California voted overwhelming against Bush last November. >(DP) >>There is simply nothing that can be done that will change the oil >>industry's mind, and by extension, yours. > >Oh dear, oh dear! Some of the older members of this List know my >credentials. Let me restate them briefly. In 1969 I founded one of the >first environmental magazines in the world, "Towards Survival", and the >second in England. Among its many other aims, it vociferously opposed the >nuclear power industry, the oil companies and the construction of motorways >in England. Nobel prizewinners wrote for me (for free) as well as other >eminent people. It folded up after three years for financial reasons (due >to high mailing and paper costs incurred by the oil crisis of '72) but it >had circulated in 14 countries and influenced thousands of young people. >(Undoubtedly some of the older members of the IPCC will have read Towards >Survival.) In 1972, as private individuals, Noel Newsome and I brought >about the first piece of environmental legislation for a century in the UK >(and, I believe, in the whole of Europe) -- The Deposit of Poisonous Wastes >Act 1972. > >The eccentric views of myself and relatively few others in the 60s and 70s >are now conventional wisdom among the more thoughtful members of the >population. My environmental views have not changed. My sincerity and track >record are the equal of any individual member of the Intergovernmental >Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) you may care to name. My ability to be >rational and proportionate in my views is, however, probably greater than >most of its members who are now being carried along to make excessive >statements by peer pressure. > >So I would request that you and one or two other FW subscribers do not put >me in the same camp as the oil companies. I would just request that we use >rational arguments, not emotional rhetoric. > >----- > >Now then, let me shift to a possibly hopeful sign. The cost of solar power >cells is decreasing from year to year. However, one of the big problems >with solar-powered electricity generation is the cost of transmission from >the hot places of the world to the places that use electricity. Very >recently, and for the first time, super-conducting cables are being tested. >Even if this particular test is not successful it is a reasonable bet that >suitable super-conducting materials will be developed in the >not-too-distant future. A totally new energy industry is just around the >corner. > Agreed. Solar power / renewable energy is already here, although not yet in the quantity that makes a big dent in the oil monopolies. The final result, I hope, will be that energy will be generated on- site wherever possible, eliminating the transmission problems that you note. There is abundant solar influx in most inhabitted area to supply our residential needs. Coupled with passive solar home design as well as solar hot water, we can get along just fine with a drastically reduced need for oil. Other technologies, such as hydrogen fueled fuel cells, may well transform the transportation industry. It takes long range thinking and political education to make it happen and that is just what is happening in California as well as many other places. It may be democracy that will force Bush to reinstate the Kyoto accords. The Bush administration is not faring well here. Many filks are skeptical of his plans and know full well his connections to the oil industry. We will have to wait and see. >And who will invest in this new industry when it comes along? Without >doubt, the oil companies will be prominent. Some of them are even doing >research into solar power themselves. When they start investing, will they >still be your enemies? > There are signs that the oil companies see the handwriting on the wall. They will be enemies only as long as they continue to do stupid things that hurt the public. Will they change? They haven't yet! >Keith Hudson > >___________________________________________________________________ > >Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> >6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England >Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; >mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >________________________________________________________________________ dennis paull Los Altos, CA
