OT: Environmentalists

Tom Kunich

"Paul M. Hobson" <fobson@gatech.edu> wrote in message
news:g2ndfs$8kc$1@news-int2.gatech.edu...
> Tom Kunich wrote:
>> I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst, yourself
>> and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.
>>
>
> Whoa whoa. I'm no where near the same class as those guys. I move to
> Portland in two weeks and start my first real/non-internship engineering
> job there.
>
> After I've got about five years of experience under me, then we can start
> talking about my skills being worth anything at all*.
> *Academically, I think they are -- real world, not so much.

Paul, what makes you think that you have to be top of the heap to be very
valuable to a company?

Paul M. Hobson

Tom Kunich wrote:
> I would really have liked to have worked with people like Jobst,
> yourself and Hobson. It would have been interesting to say the least.
>

Whoa whoa. I'm no where near the same class as those guys. I move to
Portland in two weeks and start my first real/non-internship engineering
job there.

After I've got about five years of experience under me, then we can
start talking about my skills being worth anything at all*.


*Academically, I think they are -- real world, not so much.

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

Michael Press

In article <54589$484b146a$1873@news.teranews.com>,
A Muzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

> >> Tom Kunich wrote:
> >>> Well, a report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency is
> >>> saying that all we need to combat global warming is for every
> >>> American family to be taxed $600,000 and that will be enough. For now.
>
> > "Bill Sornson" <askme@ask.me> wrote
> >>> Hopefully EVERY American environmentalist will gladly step up to the
> >>> plate and pay his share starting right now.
> >> If not too busy doing this:
> >> http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#flourescent
>
> Tom Kunich wrote:
> > I wonder what these idiots think about when someone tells them that we
> > used mercurochrome as an antiseptic for half a century.
>
> How about a couple million grammar-school-age boys (like me) who had a
> small container of liquid mercury and played around with it often?
> Metallic mercury is relatively inert - it's the active compounds which
> are dangerous.

Agree that the horribly toxic stuff are the Hg compounds.

Hg has a high vapor pressure, it enters the organism
through inhalation, and build up of Hg is harmful.
Best to keep away. No cause for panic. Hg spills
in an enclosed space _must_ be attended to. Hg can
settle between floor boards and become a long term
source of Hg vapor.

> no common sense any more.

Any toxicologist will tell you the poison is in the dose.
Problem with heavy metals is the we do not have natural
mechanisms to excrete them or denature them. They remain
and continuously do damage.

--
Michael Press

Paul M. Hobson

Tom Kunich wrote:
> Paul, what makes you think that you have to be top of the heap to be
> very valuable to a company?

I just don't have much practical experience yet; that's all. So even
though I made good grades as an undergrad and manage to scrape by with
mostly B's in grad school (heavy teaching + research load), it remains
to be seen if I can put any of this stuff to use yet.

\\paul
--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

Luke

In article <fjgt44dojmkj81liasc05lul2km9upmmgf@4ax.com>, !Jones
<hi@there.org> wrote:

> My position in the debate is that our energy costs to the consumer are
> way too low. We tend to build infrastructure with general revenue,
> mostly income tax. If we drove the consumer price up by loading the
> actual cost of the infrastructure into a consumption tax, then, at
> some point, consumption will drop. So, what about parents freezing to
> death? My dad had a Hummer and my mom had a Cadillac, both of which
> drank gasoline at an astounding rate. My point is that the price of
> any commodity is only capped (in a free market) at the point where a
> subsequent increase will produce unsold inventory.
>
> In the US, we need to go on a diet, not find other ways to consume.
>
> Jones

Well put. Disassociating and isolating costs and consequences from
activities, e.g., subsidizing driving and energy costs with revenue
from the general tax base, leads to irrational use patterns. Look no
further than America's agricultural policy.

Tom Kunich

"Luke" <lucasiragusa@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:110620081726051769%lucasiragusa@rogers.com...
>
> Well put. Disassociating and isolating costs and consequences from
> activities, e.g., subsidizing driving and energy costs with revenue
> from the general tax base, leads to irrational use patterns. Look no
> further than America's agricultural policy.

BANG! Right between the eyes. Large companies that are now farming are
making great money for not farming in many cases. While it was probably
understandable that we were trying to support small time farmers with tax
relief and that sort of thing, it isn't nearly so excusable that we're
funding large agricultural concerns that are very profitable with taxpayers
dollars.