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Politics : Electoral College 2000 - Ahead of the Curve -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TraderGreg who wrote (2491)	11/17/2000 8:52:35 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 6710

RE: Environmental Issues, Gore's and Huber's Dueling Soft Green-Hard Green Tomes Hi Greg, For the sake of more fully understanding the position of Mr. Gore on the environment and policy, I read his "Earth in the Balance" when it was first published in January, 1992. For the sake of understanding the views of many Republicans aligned with the Bush campaign, I read Peter Huber's "Hard Green" just a couple months ago. I came away from the Gore book feeling that he was taking positions, that if enacted into policy, would inevitably result in a lowered standard of living in this country. Since I felt that he was ahead of the populace by a long margin, and was stating his ideals, rather than his politically expedient spin, I felt that he was a clear and present danger to the dinosaur industries (remember the Sinclair dino?) and clearly in favor of creating a new basis for the American economy. While I feel certain that in the long run, we will need to find substitutes for petroleum based energy, I don't fully agree with Mr. Gore as to how soon we need to move on this. So, on balance, so to speak, Gore stands for more radical change than I do on this issue. For instance, I'm still in the rape & pillage camp, especially as regards the exploitation of the resources of Alaska. I used to live up there and I'm really not at all happy with the Sierra Club/Nature's Conservancy/Clinton Administration position on locking up the resources of that state. On to "Hard Green". I found that it was not an equal in terms of wonkism that the Gore book was. Huber subtitled it a "manifesto", and indeed it was. Though it was light on academic and scientific fact,it did, however, paint an interesting broadbrush picture that was worth reading. An interesting fact that I was previously unaware of, and the reason I write this, is that the potential for biomass to achieve any significant impact on our energy needs is nearly nil. Should we utilize all the urban garbage in the U.S. plus many other by-products of agricultural and industrial processes, the maximum potential contribution of biomass is about 1% of the current energy consumption of the country. Yes, a measly one percent. Now, that could be increased, but only at tremendous cost to the environment. Imagine all the land that is currently going out of ag production in the U.S., and contributing to the growth of new forests and carbon sequestering, being instead put back under the plow. What would result would be a classic conundrum for the ecologist. For the sake of biomass, which will be a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, we will give up forests, praries and other "natural" environments, that are sequestering carbon and devastate repopulating wildlife. Certainly a trade-off no sensible and environmentally sensitive person would presumably make. Ah, but there's more to follow, on a different topic. Stay tuned. <gg> Best, Ray