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ECODOOM

                                       Originally an outake 
                                       from letters to Ed   
                                       Brenner              
                                       (4/20/92 or 5/31/92) 



     Now, as for eco-doom... which of "the environmentalist predictions of
     the 60's" is it that you think "do indeed seem to be coming true"?  I
     mean, the ones that I'd worry about the most are things like the
     Rain Forests; maybe the Ozone hole; maybe global warming... but these
     warnings aren't so obviously coming true, and even if they are true, I
     have my doubts that they're really global crash we're-all-gonna-die
     problems.          
                        
     Maybe you're getting too much of your info from the newspapers/TV?  I
     see that stuff, but I also see a lot of things in the Libertarian
     press (magazines like Reason and Liberty) that make it clear that much
     of the environmental warnings you hear are more religious than
     scientific.  Which isn't to say that I think you can use Reason &
     Liberty as sole sources of scientific information on environmental
     problems... sometime I'd like to sit down and research this a bit, to
     see what the real problems are... 
                        
     Anyway, to take an example where I'm convinced the libs have it right:
     There was a scientist working for the EPA investigating acid rain.  He
     came to the conclusion that acid rain wasn't really a problem at all. 
     There was an outcry from environmetalist types about this: obvious
     government propaganda, right?  Except that the EPA didn't like it much
     either: bureaucracies don't like it much when you undercut one of
     their reasons for existance.  Krug refused to recant, however and has
     been fired and essentially black-listed, despite the lack of any
     scientific attack on his work.  (I'll try to send you some copies of
     the articles about this, to see what you think of them.)
                        
     Another impession I get from the same sources (without any insistance
     that it's correct, you understand):  The global warming problem isn't
     at all an established fact, despite the line delivered by the popular
     press (even some of the more technicaly respectible branches of it
     like _Science_ and _Scientific American_.  It's alleged that both of
     these have a habit of rejecting articles that might lead people to the
     "wrong" conclusion on politicized issues, e.g. "Star Wars", global
     warming, etc.  I was reading an article in _Science_ about the missing
     Carbon -- thus far the increased production of CO2 by human beings is
     being absorbed by something out there, the best guess being that
     plants are using it -- but the spin control on the article was
     definitely oriented in the direction of preventing the reader from
     thinking "Huh, so maybe this CO2 thing isn't such a big deal."). 
                        
     So, I don't know entirely what to make of all this, except that my gut
     level impression is that whenever you hear people raving about some
     environmental problem, it's usually really exagerated.  The way the
     debate over nuclear power was conducted is more the rule rather than
     the exception.  
               
     Which isn't to say that these things should be shrugged off... loss of
     bio-diversity probably bothers me the most of the various problems
     I've heard about.  
               
     I'm not convinced that the ozone hole over the Antarctic is a really
     on the expansion, but I really would like to see a non-alarmist
     examination of what the stakes really are.  For example, let's say
     you've got an increase in the UV in the southern hemisphere.  Does
     that do anything more catastrophic than up the skin cancer rates of
     some species?  (At a guess, a break down in the ocean ecology is the
     thing we should be watching out for). 
     
     So what is it that makes you so certain of the doom of the earth
     (outside of wishful thinking?).  
     
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