RE: synth vs. the environment (Audi content only insofar as it relates to Audi oil changes!)

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	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Richard Beels [SMTP:beels@technologist.com]
	Sent:	Wednesday, August 12, 1998 3:17 PM
	To:	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
	Subject:	Re: synth vs. the environment (Audi content only
insofar as it relates to Audi oil changes!)

	OK, can't take it anymore....

	>You would probably find the negative publicity about the USA over
the
	>last few days (July was the hottest month _EVER_ globally) hard to
	>believe.  The USA is the world's largest producer of greehouse
gases,
	>and the most intransigent about their control.

	Global warming has to be the most over-hyped environmental disaster
that
	isn't happening.  Ever.  Oh, I forgot the ozone "hole".  Of course,
the
	bloody ozone layer thins over Antarctica in the winter.  It's dark
and
	there's no UV to make ozone.  Any dumb git knows that.  Remember, it
was
	just last year that we were cursing the cold (and I can remember the
Ice
	Age front page newspaper stories from 20 years ago).  The
temperature
	cycles and 'heatsink-ability' of our dear Mother Earth are a bit
larger
	than we can affect; or even comprehend.  If you listen to the
Chicken
	Little's, we've already put enough CFCs into the atmosphere to kill
the
	ozone twice over.  It's too late, nothing we can do now can stop the
	millions of tons of Cl and Fl that are floating their way up in the
	atmosphere, on there way to the final battle in the stratosphere.
But then
	ozone is a greenhouse gas so maybe it's a good thing we're killing
it off?


	>Remember, we have less and less oil in reserves every day.  

	Gee, I though that proven reserves were actually rising.  It's a
silly way
	we track oil reserves anyway; proven by the fact that we've been
20-30
	years from running out of oil for the past, oh, 20-30 years.
Better
	exploration/drilling/recovery techniques have made all manner of
'marginal'
	oil fields into 'productive' fields in the recent past.  

	Besides, wasn't Julian Simon right?  The Ultimate Resource, first
published
	in 1980 and was re-published in 1996 as TUR II, is an excellent book
that
	anyone who wants to debate the natural resources issues should read.
To
	quote an excerpt:  "The statistical history of energy supplies, is a
rise
	in plenty rather than in scarcity... Through the centuries, the
prices of
	energy-coal, oil, and electricity-have been decreasing rather than
	increasing, relative to the cost of labor and even relative to the
price of
	consumer goods, just as with all other natural resources... there is
	nothing meaningfully 'finite' about our world that inevitably will
cause
	energy, or even oil in particular, to grow more scarce and costly."

	The entire book is on the web (along with many other of his
writings):
	http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/BMGT/.Faculty/JSimon/ and
one of
	the few article in Wired that I actually enjoyed is at
	http://www.wired.com/wired/5.02/features/ffsimon.html.


	Now, back to our regularly scheduled rants.....


	Cheers,
		Richard
		88 90Q - <insert pithy witticism here>
		88 Golf GTi - PRO Rally