If you were on the U.N.S. Unity...

[Adalbertus]

One positive side: It keeps reminding other posters that they could answer the real question.

And we are behaving as if we were already on Unity: Each person advocating the position of their faction. It's not so far off-topic

With a few well-thought arguments, you can support the biggest nonsense.

[wgabrie]

I'm not too picky about which faction I'd go with, Sister Miriam was my choice, but as long as I don't end up with Yang torturing me, or Zak experimenting on me I'm happy.

[Cybergod]

All you anti-greenies, have you forgotten about your polymers? (I am sorry if it was mentioned but I cannot be bothered to reread 5 pages of argument ) They produce so much waste and micro-organisms cannot break them down. But when I think about it, I think it's Switzerland, they recycle above 70% of the plastics by burning them in power plants. So you see there are and must be solutions to combine both energy-producing industries and caring for the world (not thinking of just tommorow or next year but centuries to come - would you like your children to be told fairy tales of this strange place called a forest? Or to have the "last tree" labelled in a museum (like in some bad SF movie)).

Also America has, what 6% or something (sorry if I'm wrong - this is coming from a student who is excercising his freedom of speech ), of the world population but produce over half of the world's polution. HELLO! And then you lot wonder why rest of the world considers you to be selfish cowboys!

So I'd still go with the green Gaians. Plus because they are peaceful people (yeah right - nuking me first!!! grr).

But otherwise I'd go with the University or the Peacekeepers - never Morgan.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ohh I know I'm gonna regret his but...

I'm a chemical engineer by trade and this whole thing with recycling is an optimization problem.

re: polymers

The example given of recycling polymers as a fuel source. Think a second on what you just wrote. Polymers are combusted to yield fuel thus causing pollution in the form of COx. This is supposedly the exact cause of global warming.

The alternative is that the polymer stay inert in the ground and EVENTUALLY biodegrade into long carbon chain materials. Depending on the length of the carbon chain this is oil. Now were talking eons in order to do so. But... Polyethylene and Polypropylenes and Polyesters in of themselves are inert and don't have water leaching out poisonous materials such as heavy metals, Dioxins, Chlorinated and Brominated materials, neither do they have aromatic materials thought to cause cancer. Are they unsightly inlandfills. Well Yes by definition a landfill is unsightly. So the more waste, the more landfills, the more unsightly the environment.

Now I'm not advocating their landfill I'm just saying landfilling of these products is not necessarily a health risk (unless of course nasty additives, stabilizers and inks are used)

(/estimate Note: the below figures are for illustration purpose only and are not to be considered as gospel)

Oh sure if power generation is required the "you may as well burn polymer as any other fuel" answer is made, then there again I strongly disagree. Fuel for power generation is a rather low end refined product. Coal being the dirtiest but least refined. Diesel and oil being a step up from that. Cleaner and better would be Natural Gas. The point is that in order to get say 10 lbs of each of these it requires say 11 lbs of coal b/c of some yield issues, Diesel and Oil require say 30 lbs due to refining yields and split stream generated( Low Molecular weight stuff actually is the fuel to run the distillation collumns) natural Gas say 15 lbs due to transport losses.

Now compare that to 10 pounds of plastic. It would take almost 100 pounds of petrochemical to yield the 10 pounds of plastic. And the answer, the European country has taken to is simply burning it. Wow if only they had recycled it as plastic look at how much petrochemicals they just wasted and caused damage to the environment. Demand hasn't changed so the need for all those replacement plastics still exists.

(/end estimate)

Sorry, but I think it extremely morally condescending to say just because a person disagrees with a (and I hate to use the stereotype as I think that is what causes all the friction in the first place) 'greenie' in the first place that makes them morally bankrupt. I like Adalbertus, think that the answer lies with thinking and researching deeper on the subject and not going with initial gut feels.

The bigger answer lies in curbing demand as ultimately demand drives power generation, need for plastics etc. But if the demand is not curbed then more intelligent choices of fuel sources and feed stocks can be made.

Hopefully within our lifetime we will see 'clean reactors' in the form of affordable reliable fuel cells. Which reminds me, within the world of SMAC why were clean reactors decided to be a means to eliminate support costs of units as opposed to a efficiency booster and eco-damage reducer?

Og

[Sikander]

It looks like Albertus and Ogie have beaten me to the punch, so I'll skip ahead to some general observations.

I agree completely that the cases for making various choices such as what materials / fuels to use, and what / whether to recycle certain waste products are extremely complex, and deserve to be analyzed with great care before we make the decision to expend propoganda capital in convincing others that 'X' is the right choice. This is one of the biggest problems I see in the 'green' movement today (and I am referring to the generalized concern for the planet rather than the political party here).

In many cases they have gotten the cart before the horse. They haven't done the complicated research necessary to be as certain as they should that the problems they point out are of the magnitude that they say they are, and especially that the solutions or compensations for those problems are the best solutions currently available.

The noisiest segment of the green movement seems to have the least understanding of the political, economic, social, environmental and health issues implicit in the policies they advocate. It often seems easier to deny the divinity of Christ to a Bishop than to argue that one of their positions doesn't make any sense scientifically because the science is counter-intuitive. These are the types of people you tend to see protesting at globalization conferences, they tend to be young and educated through political means rather than coming to their viewpoints through a general education in critical thinking and methodology and coming to their own conclusions.

Fortunately the vast majority of people no matter what part of society they come from (and from across the political spectrum) are concerned about the environment. I have a lot of friends who are well-educated in various types of sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry, Biology, Medicine etc. All of them consider themselves environmentalists. It was from these people the true scope of the uncertainty in the scientific community regarding something as complex the environment of the earth became clear to me.

These people are no less committed or caring about the long term viability of the planet, but they are a good deal less noisy and more thoughtful than their more radical and less-educated bretheren. Unfortunately they aren't as photogenic as a bunch of clowns in costumes creating a disturbance, and their message (ie let's do the research and look at all the base assumptions and put them to the test before we expend a lot of energy trying to mitigate what we think is a problem) is not as comprehensible to the average person than simply blaming X corporation or political party for being evil greedy polluting scum. This is unfortunate, because all green policy is sapping society's tolerance for paying the costs associated with making changes. We want to get the most bang from our buck, and neutral or counterproductive policies use up political capital as much as a well-considered and comprehensive one. The entire debate could use a less heat and more light.

[Hydro]

I had to laugh when I was reading through Sik’s comments on wild eyed, poorly informed Green extremists. I was remembering my grad school days and the environmental group I joined. It was led by an avowed Communist (whose father was insanely rich) and his Mao-quoting cadre, sprinkled with a few rabid PETA folks (who wore leather – CLUE meter reading ZERO). When I asked them what in the world quoting Mao had to do with environmental issues they launched into a political diatribe on the evils of capitalism, while being oblivious and impervious to the facts of wanton environmental destruction in Maoist and Stalinist regimes. I would ask a few pointed environmental questions and they would typically assume what I call the ‘glassy eyed stare of non-comprehension’. I quit when they sponsored Hemp Day.

Luckily, most of the environmentalists I’ve met since then are more like those Sik’s described – quiet, professional, well informed, and interested in doing what can be reasonably done.

Now, a few more thoughts on recycling. I work as a hydrogeologist for a large engineering firm on environmental contamination and my clients are both government (such as the US EPA) and industry. I see the sordid results of contamination every day, and the costs to investigate and clean up these messes are huge, not to mention the long-term harm to people and the environment in general. Here is my take:

The costs of recycling are frequently seen as higher than primary production/extraction and manufacturing, but that is generally because secondary costs are not included. For instance, land degradation associated with primary materials extraction is generally excluded, as are after-the-fact cleanup of manufacturing byproducts (e.g. – environmental contamination) and disposal. What does this mean? It means that the costs of either primary extraction vs. recycled materials can be ‘spun’ by advocates based on how they define the process and life cycle. Environmentalists include a cradle-to-grave life span and factor in some intangibles in their costs, while industry and civic leaders may only sees primary costs that they are directly responsible for. This is a Gaian vs. Morganite philosophical difference.

Disposal costs of non-recycled materials - If it isn’t reused then it is either dumped at ground surface (or water) or goes in a landfill. Most people object to living in an open trash heap, so most materials end up in landfills. Landfills are another after-the-fact cost that is not factored into primary production/extraction, and these costs can be significant since the wastes have to be hauled, processed, placed and then monitored for 10s or 100s of years. These landfills are a constant source of soil, air, and groundwater contamination, and the secondary costs of monitoring and cleaning up these concentrated messes are huge. Recycling effectively reduces waste volume, particularly for paper and yard waste, which make up the vast majority of landfill volume – I seem to recall that in my area they used to make up 70% of waste volume! This which reduces long term environmental liability. Many communities where I live in the Chicago area know recycling is a ‘loser’ in terms of costs but do it anyway since they don’t want to permit and authorize the operation of hugely unpopular landfills.

Aesthetics - So, you don’t like living next to a nasty recycling processing center. Well, then you can live by a strip mine, a smelter, and a landfill. Maybe a steel mill is more to your liking? How about a 2000 acre petrochemical facility? Which would you choose? While processing recycling materials is messy, I can guarantee that a landfill (especially the gigantic, mountain-sized landfills in the otherwise flat Chicago area – they could be ski slopes if they didn’t generate so much internal heat and require flares to burn off methane) is much worse. This isn’t exactly an either-or proposition, since even with aggressive recycling there will still need to be extraction, primary manufacturing, and landfilling, but the point is that there will be less – significantly less if well engineered.