Why didn't this get more coverage in the media?

Global warming is influencing Mars, Triton and Pluto. We need to get
there with a copy of the Kyoto Treaty and get those Plutonian
environmentalists on the ball. Or maybe it's us Earthlings that are
causing devastation across the whole solar system.

In my surfing I came across this discussion. I don't know anything
about the site that hosted it, but the discussion itself provides
references to the points that they're making, so I won't bother to
make the argument, I'll just let you read it first-hand:

http://www.arn.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-12-t-000268.html

Now what drives me nuts is the corruption and deceit in what should
be "pure" endeavors, like environmental concerns and science
journals.

The environmental movement has no intergrity left, in fact it is so
far gone that the Founder of Greenpeace left the organization
because it was taken over by watermelons.

I've argued with environmentalists before on other topics that
aren't pertinent to the topic of this list, but not as prolonged as
the debate with Paul, and these other environmentalist were more
opposed to my arguments, and I keep running into the same mindset as
that described by Dr. Patrick Moore.

http://www.greenspirit.com/about/index.cfm?a=1

(Hit the links on the bottom of the page - there are 8 pages)

"Little did I realize at the time how this would bring me into open
and direct conflict with the movement I had helped bring into the
world. I now find that many environmental groups have drifted into
self-serving cliques with narrow vision and rigid ideology. At the
same time that business and government are embracing public
participation and inclusiveness, many environmentalists are showing
signs of elitism, left-wingism, and downright eco-fascism. The once
politically centrist, science-based vision of environmentalism has
been largely replaced with extremist rhetoric. Science and logic
have been abandoned and the movement is often used to promote other
causes such as class struggle and anti-corporatism."

"For environmentalists, accustomed to the politics of confrontation,
this new era of acceptance posed a challenge as great as any
campaign to save the planet."

I think Moore is onto something here. I think that the love of the
protest is greater than the love of the environment.

"In the name of "deep ecology" many environmentalists have taken a
sharp turn to the ultra-left, ushering in a mood of extremism and
intolerance."

These are the ones I keep running into. You can't use logic or
science with them.

"My name appears in Greenpeace's "Guide to Anti-Environmental
Organizations". Even fellow Greenpeace founder and campaign comrade,
Bob Hunter, refers to me as the "eco-Judas". "

I subscribe to the belief that small minds can't stand dissent. To
be placed on a black-list smells like Eco-Facism to me.

"They rejected the concept of "sustainable development" and took a
strong "anti-development" stance."

No kidding. I wish I could find the critic of the Green economic
platform I read a number of months ago that dealt with their anti-
WTO platform and wanting developing countries to not participate and
just rely on local sustainable economies. This completely ignores
the wealth that is generated from competitive advantage via trade
and dooms them to continuing poverty but at least they'd be living
the greenpeace economic dream of self-sustainability.

"Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental
movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-
Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members
moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-
Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments."

Eureka! I didn't know this. That explains why the environmentalist
sympathies that I had back in the 70/80's have absolutely nothing in
common with the movement of today.

"These factors have contributed to a new variant of the
environmental movement that is so extreme that many people,
including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the
global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of
the features of eco-extremism are:"

Please go to the site to continue reading Dr. Moore's reasons for
abandoning the organization he founded. It makes for very
interesting reading. My only hope is that if the founder of the
movement can become disillusioned then there is hope for the
acolytes.

So, the environmental movement is now characterized by a mindset
that is luddite and anti-human but which the public views with
respect for they think that their motivations are altruisitic.
Afterall, they're just trying to save the environment. No, I've come
to the conclusion that they love to protest, to get into
confrontations, to get media exposure and the donations that follow.
They are a self-sustaining industry. As Dr. Moore pointed out, when
they were invited to the boardroom table to participate in forming
solutions they declined for that would have been the beginning of
the end for the movement.

Look here for an in-depth essay on the environmental movement that
complements Dr. Moores article. Thanks to Ed Minchau for mentioning
this on another group.

http://www.econot.com/page4.html

"Why is it that any touch of Man upon nature is to be regarded as a
violation and desecration? What is the distinctive aspect of human
nature that so offends the environmentalists?"

Yes, why are they so anti-human and anti-technology? How do they
think that all the people of the Earth can survive on stone-age
technology?

"As they make clear in virtually every utterance, it is Man's power
to reason, and everything that flows from it: abstract knowledge,
science, technology, material wealth, industrial society, the
capitalist system."

You know, sometimes I've got to be hit over the head with a 2x4 to
get the message. I try to reason with them by appealing to almost
every point this author raises. It sounds like he travelled this
road well ahead of me. I'm learning from him and others though.

"Why? Because reason is the tool by which Man transforms his
environment for his own benefit. Therefore, to environmentalists,
rationality is the mark of Cain. In the "natural order" they
espouse, we humans are the second-class citizens of the universe--
condemned, by our very nature as rational, creative developers, to
sit at the back of the bus."

"To define environmentalism is to damn it, which is why many
movement spokesmen go to considerable public lengths to cover the
naked implications of their core premises with fig leaves of
respectability and moderation. One way they do it is to clothe their
endless scare campaigns in the ill-fitting garb of science."

"Their tactics always follow a familiar pattern. First, declarations
of some new ecological "crisis," based upon the flimsiest of
evidence and perversions of the scientific method. Next,
mathematical projections of catastrophic consequences stemming from
the new danger, extrapolated from ludicrous worst-case scenarios.
Finally, the claim that "we must do something immediately," because
the predicted consequences--though not provable--are just too
horrible to contemplate."

The evidence abounds. If reason and science were truely important,
the information I began this post with would become a priority for
further investigation. If Pluto, Triton and Mars are currently
experiencing global warming, then surely there is reason to
investigate whether solar irradiation is the common link and also
contributing to Earth's warming trend. But no, there is no call for
that. The environmental lobby is a business. Careers are made on it.
Greenpeace needs donations. So does the Rocky Mountain Institute. No
ground can be lost even if the there is some doubt about the science.

You'd think that the corruption couldn't taint the impartial
purveyors of knowledge, like Scientific American. Well if you think
that, you're wrong. Environmentalism has become an orthodoxy and a
vested interest and Scientific American magazine maintains the
orthodoxy at the expense of truth and debate.

Consider the two cases of Bjorn Lomborg and Eric Drexler.

Bjorn Lomborg is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and
as you would expect his critique of the sacred cows was seen as a
threat. Now I recognize that there are people of good conscience who
disagree with his arguments and I think he would be the first to
say 'bring it on.' Let's debate the issue and see where it leads us.
You'd think Scientific American would be an appropriate venue within
which to have such a debate and you'd be wrong. They gathered
together 4 environmentalists to critique his 'attack on science' and
some of these critics were people he criticized in his book. They
ripped into him for 11 pages and when he asked the editor of
Scientific American for space for a rebuttal, they said they might
give him a page at some future time.

Of course any person with a backbone wouldn't sit still and allow
themselves to be libeled without issuing a response. That's exactly
waht Lomborg did. He *Fisked* the article and posted it his website.
Scientific American threatened him with a lawsuit for doing that.
Eventually other activists with more legal savvy took up his cause
and they posted his rebuttal on their sites and they too were
threatened with lawsuit but they didn't back down. One of those
people was Dr. Moore. I recommend reading the Fisking for it shows
the nature of the environmentalist techniques of defense and the
corruption of the editorial staff of Scientific American for
allowing such a travesty to take place.

Here's the set-up:
http://www.greenspirit.com/lomborg/photos/AnthonyBrowneObserverScient
ificAmerican.htm

Here's the Fisking:
http://www.greenspirit.com/lomborg/

The second case has to do with Scientific American's disbelieve in
nanotechnolgy and the suppression of debate on this issue with
Drexler preceded the Lomborg fracas. You'd think that John Rennie,
the editor of Scientific American, would have learned that primacy
of an idea forged in the heat of debate should take precedence over
a close the gates and protect the orthodoxy appraoch.

Look here for a good history on this debacle. Here too Drexler had
to publish his rebuttal on his own website, and here too he was
threatened by a lawsuit for defending his intellectual idea.

Shame on Scientific American.

http://www.foresight.org/SciAmDebate/SciAmOverview.html

So what are we to do if we want to advocate SPS as a means of
bettering the conditions for humanity?

One would think that with SPS being so beneficial to the environment
that the environmental movement would be a natural ally in
displacing nuclear, coal and oil utility plants.

What I've noticed in my debate with Paul is that there is no
alliance to be found for their goal isn't the bettement of the
environment. All the data that I presented to Paul about the
environmental benefits of manufacturing in orbit and how this will
be friendlier to the Earth had no influence on his thinking. He'd
rather continue mining and polluting the Earth in order to implement
his vision of renewable power.

As I noted in my earlist posts on this topic there is a paganistic
religious tenor to the environmental movement. Consider:

http://www.econot.com/page4.html

"Reading environmentalist literature or listening to the movement's
founders and leaders, one is always struck by the style of the
language: a hybrid of the spiritual, the self-righteous, the
aesthetic, and the apocalyptic. This religiosity is not surprising,
given the movement's historic roots in Greek and Judeo-Christian
mythology, and in the pantheism and transcendentalism of its
nineteenth-century intellectual forerunners."

I marhsalled a lot of facts from disparate sources to make my case
against Paul's position but to no avail, for as I have come to
realize the facts are unimportant compared to the values that Paul
has himself written are important.

"None of these responses is working, of course, because they are all
beside the point. They don't address the fundamental concern raised
by environmentalists. That concern is about values. It's about the
logical incompatibility of the values underlying a modern,
technological, capitalist society, and the values embodied in the
environmentalists' image of Eden."

"Appeals to science, economics, common sense, or compromise will
work only if both sides accept their legitimacy as methods to
resolve conflicts. But how can that happen when one side dismisses
science as Frankensteinian, economics as selfishness, reason as
Man's curse, and compromise as moral weakness?"

"By contrast, environmentalism declares that it's wrong to pursue
one's personal fulfillment by altering natural resources. It
declares--on moral and philosophical grounds--that humans should
limit their personal desires, and instead embrace scarcity. In other
words, environmentalism declares that the entire economic way of
looking at things is immoral."

I'm sorry to say that Paul has advocated the economics of *play* and
the economics system of the Buddhists of Burma. He's favoring
sacrifice and cold showers and a cold home in the winter, he
dismisses the ecological benefits of moving manufacturing to orbit,
and only concedes that SPS could be beneficial after the
environmental program of self-sufficiency has been implemented by
changing the entire housing stock, raping the earth to get scarce
platinum for fuel cells, banning SUVs and curtailing other
consumption. No regard is given to economic concerns and employment
other than it should be restricted to communities.

So what do we do when we take the SPS concept to a larger audience.
I think we cannot remain agnostic about the environmental proposals
for just as they turned on Dr. Moore (eco-Judas) and Dr. Lomborg
(AntiChrist) they'll turn on us and they are a formidible adversary
indeed. This is a movement that advocates the extinction of the
Human Race.

http://www.vhemt.org/

Can there be any better testament to the mindset that we are facing
than this site?

I used to think that we could ally with the environmentalists and
both groups would benefit: we'd develop SPS and orbital
infrastructure and they'd get a cleaner earth with less pollution
and mining.

Now I think that they are in the way and that we should seek allies
within industry and together fight the environmetnal Savonarolas
with their blacklists and anti-human beliefs.

There is no middle ground.

TangoMan

VT -

on CO2 mitigation, and the need for it (far, far beyond what Kyoto
proposed) I'm currently reading the book:

Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization
by Robert G. Watts (Editor)

came out summer of 2002 - it's from a recent Aspen climate change conference;
the scientific case on the CO2 problem in the first chapter
is very well done. We're not in trouble yet, the problem isn't
now, the problem is 20,30, 50 years down the road if
current trends continue or exacerbate (with developing country
development). Those graphs of CO2 vs. time are very disturbing.

One of the chapters (and the cover photo) is on Criswell's lunar
solar power variant of SSP.

Arthur

--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
> VT -
>
> on CO2 mitigation, and the need for it (far, far beyond what
Kyoto
> proposed) I'm currently reading the book:

I'm not anti-Kyoto in the sense of reducing emissions. In fact, I
think Kyoto-like treaties could be the linchpin to orbital power
solutions.

What upsets me is the suppression of knowledge. If there is indeed a
systemic rising of temperatures throughout the Solar System I think
that deserves to be known. I don't like the attitude that research
along that line should be repressed because it may give ammunition
to the anti-Kyoto forces.

The case should be made on good science. Not on the tactics of
zeolotry.

> the scientific case on the CO2 problem in the first chapter
> is very well done. We're not in trouble yet, the problem isn't
> now, the problem is 20,30, 50 years down the road if
> current trends continue or exacerbate (with developing country
> development). Those graphs of CO2 vs. time are very disturbing.

I would be very interested in reading a study on how GW of power
from orbit, that are electrolyzing water to supply the hydrogen for
a shift away from an oil based economy would effect the global
warming issue 30-50 years out. Perhaps such a study could be an
impetus for SPS development. People could still maintain and improve
their lifestyles while bettering the environment. Should that be a
hard sell?

> One of the chapters (and the cover photo) is on Criswell's lunar
> solar power variant of SSP.
>
> Arthur

Criswell is definitely good at promoting his idea.

Perhaps you can answer this question for me: PV cells operate at an
optimum temperature of 25C, and on the moon the temperature range
will vary over 100s of C. Has Criswell taken into account the
diminished effectiveness of the PV cells in a high temperature
envrionment?

TangoMan

>
> Perhaps you can answer this question for me: PV cells operate at an
> optimum temperature of 25C, and on the moon the temperature range
> will vary over 100s of C. Has Criswell taken into account the
> diminished effectiveness of the PV cells in a high temperature
> envrionment?

I believe so; I'm not sure effectiveness would necessarily
be diminished. Some solar modules (for example those from
Entech - www.entechsolar.com) use Fresnel lens concentrators
which focus the suns light significantly, which lead to quite
high operating temperatures; this doesn't seem to be a problem.

Arthur

--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> Why didn't this get more coverage in the media?
>
> Global warming is influencing Mars, Triton and Pluto. We need to
get
> there with a copy of the Kyoto Treaty and get those Plutonian
> environmentalists on the ball. Or maybe it's us Earthlings that are
> causing devastation across the whole solar system.
>
> In my surfing I came across this discussion. I don't know anything
> about the site that hosted it, but the discussion itself provides
> references to the points that they're making, so I won't bother to
> make the argument, I'll just let you read it first-hand:
>
> http://www.arn.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-12-t-000268.html
>
> Now what drives me nuts is the corruption and deceit in what should
> be "pure" endeavors, like environmental concerns and science
> journals.
>
> The environmental movement has no intergrity left, in fact it is so
> far gone that the Founder of Greenpeace left the organization
> because it was taken over by watermelons.
>
> I've argued with environmentalists before on other topics that
> aren't pertinent to the topic of this list, but not as prolonged as
> the debate with Paul, and these other environmentalist were more
> opposed to my arguments, and I keep running into the same mindset
as
> that described by Dr. Patrick Moore.
>
> http://www.greenspirit.com/about/index.cfm?a=1
>
> (Hit the links on the bottom of the page - there are 8 pages)
>
> "Little did I realize at the time how this would bring me into open
> and direct conflict with the movement I had helped bring into the
> world. I now find that many environmental groups have drifted into
> self-serving cliques with narrow vision and rigid ideology. At the
> same time that business and government are embracing public
> participation and inclusiveness, many environmentalists are showing
> signs of elitism, left-wingism, and downright eco-fascism. The once
> politically centrist, science-based vision of environmentalism has
> been largely replaced with extremist rhetoric. Science and logic
> have been abandoned and the movement is often used to promote other
> causes such as class struggle and anti-corporatism."
>
> "For environmentalists, accustomed to the politics of
confrontation,
> this new era of acceptance posed a challenge as great as any
> campaign to save the planet."
>
> I think Moore is onto something here. I think that the love of the
> protest is greater than the love of the environment.
>
> "In the name of "deep ecology" many environmentalists have taken a
> sharp turn to the ultra-left, ushering in a mood of extremism and
> intolerance."
>
> These are the ones I keep running into. You can't use logic or
> science with them.
>
> "My name appears in Greenpeace's "Guide to Anti-Environmental
> Organizations". Even fellow Greenpeace founder and campaign
comrade,
> Bob Hunter, refers to me as the "eco-Judas". "
>
> I subscribe to the belief that small minds can't stand dissent. To
> be placed on a black-list smells like Eco-Facism to me.
>
> "They rejected the concept of "sustainable development" and took a
> strong "anti-development" stance."
>

Think he as right as rain: the ecology movement has stayed in
a "60's" mindset.