re: "FACTS"

[Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>]

At 9:12 PM -0500 2/9/02, alfa-digest wrote:
>The following points which it makes may be of interest:
>
>1. Air pollution is nothing new and has in fact been getting better rather
>than worse for many years. The air quality in cities like London is back to
>about the level of medieval times.
>
>2. 92% of vehicular air pollution now comes from diesel engines.
>
>3. Deforestation is a myth. Most loss of forests occurred hundreds of years
>ago when land was cleared for agriculture and as timber was used for
>building and shipping. About 1/3 of the land mass is covered by forest and
>this proportion has remained more or less static for the last 50 years or so.
>
>4. We are not in any danger of running out of fossil fuels. There is enough
>coal for 230 years and enough oil (including shale oil) to satisfy our
>total energy requirement for 5000 years (yes, that's 3 zeros).
>
>5. Far from returning to feudal societies to save the planet it is much
>more productive to generate wealth to be able to allocate funds to deal
>with those problems which really do exist.
>
>Greg

Points 1 and 2 refer to particulate air pollution, the stuff that 
makes the air less-breathable.  This has nothing to do with 
carcinogenic toxins or greenhouse gasses.  #3 is roughly 
accurate--deforestation is occurring at a much lower rate than it did 
a couple centuries ago.  Whether or not the current level is 
something to fret about it a matter of opinion, not fact.  Point #4 
is right about the coal number, but there are two too many zeros on 
the petroleum figure.  I don't know where that number might have come 
from, but it's completely false.  At current rates of consumption and 
discovery, we have about 60 years left (Priest, Joseph; Energy: 
Principles, Problems, Alternatives; Addison-Wesley, 2000), which is 
scary to a young person like me--while I have no objections to 
driving thoroughly developed electric or hydrogen-powered cars in the 
future, I'd like to be able to share the joy of gasoline-powered 
sports cars with my grandchildren.  "Fact" #5 is pure opinion, and 
one that most experts would deem a fairly misguided one, but that's 
just my opinion...  ;)

Joe

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