The Ozone Crisis by Sallie Baliunas from the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, NW, Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036-4505 and also Preprints No. 3857 and 3890 by W. H. Soon, S. L. Baliunas, and Q. Zhang on the estimation of radiation variation of the sun and solar-type stars available from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
In addition to an excellent presentation of the scientific facts that show the ozone scare and CFC ban to be unjustified, The Ozone Crisis discusses the anti-science "Precautionary Principle,'' the claim that no human action should be allowed unless it is certain that it will cause no harm. This "principle'' is now dominating public policy. The two preprints report research which strengthens understanding of global temperature variation as a function of normal solar variation.
The entire issue of Invention Technology 10, Fall 1994 available from American Heritage, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. The only flaw in this issue is its discussion of "Henry Ford's Big Flaw,'' but even that article gives an interesting account of Ford's accomplishments. Included are great articles on button technology, bridge engineering, the bicycle army, and the invention of video recording, but the best is "The Coney Island Baby Laboratory'' by Gary R. Brown. This chronicles the forty-year project by Dr. Martin A. Couney during which he operated the world's most successful premature infant nursery as a public display at Coney Island funded entirely by 25 cent admission fees - a project that was ultimately largely responsible for the creation of premature infant nurseries in American hospitals. Imagine this today with the FDA and socialized medicine.
Renewable Energy from the Ocean by W. H. Avery and C. Wu, Oxford University Press (1994) as reviewed in Science265, pp 419-420 (1994) by Philip H. Abelson. Use of the ocean as a solar energy collector may well be economically impractical, but it would be fascinating to see a few of these plants built.
"The Breakdown of Government'' by Harry Browne available from Harry Browne's Special Reports, Box 5586, Austin, Texas 78763. This is an excellent analysis of a serious problem we all face.
