1) Ten years ago, this writer published Eco-Hysterics and the Technophobes (now out of print), in which he pointed to the class character of the "environmental" movement; no wonder, then, that he is delighted by Progress and Privilege (Doubleday, $17.95), in which William Tucker shows how environmentalists, behind their advocacy of a clean and beautiful environment (opposed by nobody), are a privileged minority, an upper-middle class stratum allied with "old" (inherited) wealth, immensely skilled at setting up legal and bureaucratic road blocks, essentially opposed to science, to technology, to a free market, and at heart a movement that favors the affluent over the poor, entrenching their own well-being while denying upward mobility to others. "So what else is new?" readers of this newsletter may ask. Plenty. Did you think environmentalism is a phenomenon of the 70's?
Read about the struggle between "conservationists" and "preservationists" under Theodore Roosevelt. Did you think "endangered species" meant "species" like tigers, bears or bald eagles? They are not species, but families or generi. Species are something that can be conjured up virtually at will to delay or kill any project
¾as explained in this book. If you are a friend of science and an enemy of hypocrisy, you should not miss it.2) Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions (342pp., $9.95, Prometheus Books, 700 E.Amherst St., Buffalo, NY 14215) is an excellent book on pseudo-science by James Randi, whom we have met before [AtE Oct 78]. He exposed Uri Geller and showed that an adroit swindler can easily take in scientists, but not a fellow-magician. Randi is a magician who entertains, not one who dupes the gullible with "science."
3) "Those Soviet missiles, ships, and lies are being armed in all the more deadly fashion by our own decay." So says Midge Decter in a short, but brilliant speech that we most earnestly urge you to write for: Is the West in Danger? Free from Rockford Institute, 934 N. Main St., Rockford, IL 61103.
4) In the flood of articles on energy, only a few stand out; one of these is "Rosette stones for energy problems," The Physics Teacher, Sept. 1981. Assumes some physics, but contains such simple truths as ½ cord of wood per acre per year = 0.12 W/M^2. [So much for biomass].
5) Definitely worth a trip to the library: "Why not in the ocean?"
IAEA Bulletin, vol.4, no.2 (1982), pp.30-34, and "Waves of the Future," Cornell Executive, Spring 1982, pp.3538, both by Dr C.L. Osterberg, oceanographer with the DoE and former Director of the Monaco Marine Lab, who presents the case for waste disposal (including nuclear) in the oceans with highly interesting new findings and total persuasiveness.
6) "Alternative energy futures: the case for electricity" by U. 1982.
Colombo, Science, 20 August. 1982. (Do the Science scribblers never read the pages beyond their own scribblings?)
7) El non-problema de los residues nucleares, translation by the Chilean power company in Santiago
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Vol. 10, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 10, No. 2 Date: November 23, 2004 02:23 PM Title: The Foy Principle
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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