🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <thumper.78.0011A696@netcom.com> thumper@netcom.com (Thumper!) writes:
>Example: CFCs.  Supposedly, CFC's are ruining the ozone layer, and have to be 
>stopped before the entire human race becomes blackened to a crisp.  So much 
>pressure and eco-doodoo is said that the mighty Congress outlaws CFC's and 
>forces the people to buy expensive, unreliable "no CFC" air conditioned cars, 
>and makes it expensive and difficult to repair older A/C units.
>
>Then what happens?  Mt. Pinutubo explodes in a fiery volcano, and 
>scientists... REAL scientists, not the "we think, therefore it must be" 
>eco-wannabe-scientists, take some measurements, and conclude that just the ONE
>volcanic eruption has put 10 times more CFC's into the atmosphere than mankind
>has in the however many years of existence mankind has.
>

May I say that I am not a "REAL" scientist (thank god, I have enough
biases of my own without wishing their baggage onto myself).  :)

I do not know where the above "fact" comes from, but it
is simply not the case.  Volcanoes DO put out huge amounts of 
chlorine, but this is not at all the same thing as Chlorofluorocarbons.
Good science (as opposed to "real" science) requires that we
go beyond the questions of what and how much.  It is chlorine,
it is one heck of a lot, but this does not speak to the where and
the when.  Lifetimes and fates are particularly significant in
atmospheric processes.  As I understand it, the chlorine put out 
by volcanoes is mostly in the form of HCl, which has a lifetime
of a few weeks.  CFCs, on the other hand, have a lifetime of
a few months.  And they are not even close to being the same,
in their effect.

Third, and more generally, with this old argument about
anthropogenic emissions being a fraction of natural emissions,
I would like to point out two things.  
   a)  most natural emissions are diffused over time and space, 
   while most anthropogenic emissions are highly concentrated on both
   scales.  This matters.  A lot. 

   b) and on a slightly moral (ethical?) note, there is one other
   huge difference between anthropogenic and natural emissions---nature
   takes full responsibility, and takes upon itself all consequences, 
   of its own actions.  We, on the other hand, refuse to.

>
>2) Ever notice how eco-people always seem to enjoy what their aims are?  For 
>S.21, it's "I like the serene desert.  It's one of the things I go to the 
>desert for."  In other words, eco-people are simply trying to have their way.
>
 
But do tell... and how is this different from saying "I like ....(driving,
or hunting, or anything else)?  One really is not, in itself, better
than the other.  Now lets talk.

>"Saving the enviornment is simply their excuse.  If the "greens" like the 
>dense forrests, well, then, they'll find some psuedo-scientists that will help
>make them look good when they say "We must leave the forrests alone."  
>They don't care about the enviornment, nor have they really studided 
>the situation, or else they would have known that 
>leaving the forrest as it was would lead to the biggest fires 
>seen in modern history, doing far more damage than logging 
>or any other activity could have done in one or 2 hundred years.
>

There can be no question that California is a fire ecology.  Not
only are fires inevitable here, but (some) vegetation REQUIRES fire
to propagate.  So any arguments for controlled burns or other
forms of clearing out combustibles to reduce fire risks 
are grounded in concerns for human (and perhaps animal) interest, 
not in any ecological considerations.  

And if "leaving the forest as it was would lead to the 
biggest fires...in two hundred years," then remember, also,
that for those very same two hundred years we have been putting
out fires, clear-cutting and otherwise disrupting these ecologies.
May I suggest reading John McPhee's _The Control of Nature_?

regards.
ashwani.          vasishth@usc.edu        (213) 737-7875
   "coz more of the same
              rarely ever is...."