Re: Joule and Carnot are either laughing or turning in their graves

Has Dr Nuno not inadvertently provided us with the answer to which "gene" 
indisposes us to face up to "scientific" facts and more particularly 
warnings of doom.

At 09:55 25/08/1999 +0100, you wrote:

>Suppose the atmosphere becomes nearly unbreathable in the short term
>(Hanson's 10 years). What would happen? Air will simply become a commodity.
>The rich will live in closed systems and will be able to afford the best
>quality air, the Western middle classes will get reasonable quality air,
>the Western excluded classes and the third world will see their life
>expectancy reduced dramatically. This is nothing new! And it definitely
>does not make the world stop, on the contrary, it will probably be good to
>business - a whole, vital, new commodity to exploit. The same will happen
>given dramatic depletion of the ozone layer. The rich will be able to
>afford effective protection against radiation (no problem with that. There
>is a functioning nuclear reactor 10 metres away from where I now sit, and
>no radiation from it reaches this room), the poor will have an increased
>death rate from cancer and other sun exposure-related problems. This does
>not make the world stop, on the contrary - imagine a whole new and vital
>commodity, radiation protection, to exploit.
So give the steward a fiver and there'll always be room on the lifeboat. 
What's more the rights on the story will be worth a fortune. If on the 
other hand you've only got a couple of pence then you know you're doomed, 
whatever happens, and worrying about it won't help. Naturally, most people 
tend to think that they belong to the first category, however wrong they 
may actually be.

Mr Hanson has been recommending that we read all sorts of things. Perhaps 
he should read "Ecology and Capitalist Costs of Production: No Exit" by 
Immanuel Wallerstein.

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwecol.htm

Best regards
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