Over 99% of the posts in this and other fora which I monitor concerns the effects of Y2K on the human population. A rather anthropocentric viewpoint. But what should I expect. That's the way it is in the world in general even without Y2K.

I've ranted before about the irony of the selective mutual denial of the environmentalists and the Y2klan, even as they accuse everyone else of being in denial. Awareness is a funny thing. Non? I, among few others, have been trying to think about how Y2K might have an impact on the environment. Here's my latest take.

The opposing issues as I see them are the salubrious effects of economic curtailment vs the dangers of unmonitored nuclear materials and toxicants.

Caused by the oil embargo, the depression of the early 70s (recession if you had a job) reduced production, energy use and material consumption in general. According to ice-core evidence, it diminished pollution. It probably also attenuated population growth (though I'm too lazy to document this right now). In any case, it reduced the "A" (affluence) factor of Paul Ehlich's I=PAT equation. A major Y2K economic disruption will likely lead to an even more severe depression, even if social order is maintained. Remember, the rest of the world is further behind than we are both in remediation and preparation.

My parents, children of the 1929 depression, have been frugal all their lives. It's in their subconscious, part of their "story." It is conceivable to me that Y2K can reduce consumption enough to shift the Meadows' Curve to the right by a couple of decades, (see www.dieoff.org) a generation. Having survived a major economic dislocation, we may pass that "conservative" (literally) attitude on to our children. Remember it was a war that drove our economy back to the "consumption equals happiness" mentality. Y2K might have some effect in reducing population as well.

On the other hand, as Infomagic points out and I concur, reducing the societal mechanism below a certain minimum bodes ill for society, and by extension, the environment in a number of ways. Im not too concerned about a desperate population deforesting the planet. Were doing a fine job of that already; but it requires the use of machines and fuel to do it. Im not convinced that we can do a more complete job by hand. As for fouling waterways, most of the unprocessed waste we generate is of an organic nature. Environmental processes are in place to handle a surprisingly large amount. Should that become a problem, it wont remain one for long. Im more concerned with the amount of anthopogenic chemical and petroleum effluent. Natures self-cleaning apparatus are less efficient handling artificial pollutants, let alone nuclear.

Im not going to address the possibilities of nuclear holocaust in this thread, although it would make a fine thread of its own. Unlike radio-active leakage, should massive amounts of radionucleides be released into the atmosphere, all bets are off.

Jim Lord of Westergaard seems to be the only tech guy to weigh in on this issue. His column is at: http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Tip/Lord/lord9836.htm But he doesnt "get it" environmentally speaking. From comments Ive read here, and judging from the feelings of some of the Yourdon-list respondents, I think many of you do. Id really like to hear what youve got to say about Y2K and the environment. Thanks for your input.

Hallyx

"If you can't even manage to to force your own presumably democratic governments to allow you to do good things for yourselves, then you probably deserve to become extinct." ---Ishmael (My Ishmael, Daniel Quinn)

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), November 04, 1998

Answers

Have you ever seen pictures from the villages around Chernobyl? People with giant sores, rotting limbs, blindness, only to mention a few. Many of our nuke plants are within shouting distance of large populations. My biggest fear is nuclear meltdowns, or even nasty emissions from them. There is no end to the catastrophic events that could unfold from Y2K.

-- Anti-Chainsaw (Tree@hugger.com), November 04, 1998.

Nature is very resiliant. There is no such thing as "progress." Humanity, like other animals, blooms and dies off periodically, radically transforming the environment in the process. Life adapts to this changed environment. This change of environments, each stage effected by a different dominant organism, is called "seral succession." (e.g., pond to swamp, swamp to bog, bog to meadow, meadow to forest...) In our case we are not transforming a single biome, but an entire biosphere. We don't plan anything. The central value driving our activity is that of unrestrained growth, unplanned growth. We "develop" (destroy) and we "consume" (waste). Lots of species do this. There has been some effort to advance to a different, more efficient and more sustainable mode of being, but this can be classified as a mutation. There is only one question if you are one of these mutants: will you dominate next? that is, will you survive the radical changes being made to the environment? Will you be able to successfully "infect" the rest of the species with your mutation of sustainability? Is your sustainability viable in an environment that produces species like the corporate lawyer? Your ideals must not only be just and responsible, they must prevail. That is what nature requires.

Genetic damage from radiation is comparable to genetic damage from the artificial prolongation of life that would otherwise be unviable in nature. We are a lot weaker than our forebears. The sickness and suffering of Chernobyl is different from the sickness and suffering of the slums of Calcutta and Mexico city only in that it is harder to ignore, and won't last as long.

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), November 04, 1998.

Excellent thread Hallyx.

This is certainly one of my biggest worries regarding y2k. It's also where some of my brightest hopes are placed.

I worry because of "accidents" at chemical plants and fossil fuel refineries or tankers run aground by faulty navigational systems and huge firestorms brought on by lack of emergency response, etc. But I think E. has a great take on how well the earth rebounds after such events. The real problem with regard to the rebound is how we humans deal with it and the length of time this process might take. What consequences might we need to suffer through as a result of them? There isn't a way we can push along the remediation of the earth to fit our time table.

So, along with y2k may come a new found respect for the planet and how we exist with it. Maybe we don't need all this concrete and asphault to live our lives. Maybe trees will gain the respect they deserve and people will actually begin to realize that if it weren't for those little green things we wouldn't have air to breath. Maybe...

Just think about the immediate drop in the global temp if there are power outages. And, the immediate effect in green house gases and air pollution overall. I'm sure we'll get people who'll ask if we've hugged a tree today. My question in return would be "have you ever even noticed the color green?" Have you ever noticed how dull green is within a crowded city? But, once you're out in the wilderness, the intensity of the green around you is amazing. So, there is a huge philosophical question to how we live our lives and where our values are placed.

I see y2k as part of a huge wake up call for humanity. I also think that our destiny is made by our decisions and how we and others react to situations. So, this should be a very interesting time to be alive!

Thanks Hallyx.

Mike ===============================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), November 04, 1998.

I don't think mother earth recovers well at all and I think she is getting even with us for raping the rain forests and polluting her waters. She has given us cancer as a reward for all this pollution. The earth will never recover from the destruction we have caused, and many of us will die early and painful deaths caused by pesticides and other forms of garbage. Why would Y2k be a wake-up call when there have been so many other unanswered calls?

-- Anit-chainsaw (Tree@hugger.com), November 04, 1998.

You make so many false-to-fact assumptions in your post that it would take more time than I have to analyze them all. Here are a few

1. Oil has been leaking up from the ground since the earth was formed. It is not rotten dinosaurs - that theory was disposed of in the 80's. It seems to be the organic glue that stuck the earth together when first forming. Bacteria found all over the planet will dispose of crude quite handily - but have trouble with more refined products.

2. The recession of the 70's was a blip on the screen. Not a small blip, but examining the curve of US growth shows only a flattening, not a dip or drop.

3. Paul Ehrlich has been wrong in everything he has claimed for years. In the 70's he made a bet with an engineer that the prices for raw materials were all going up. Ehrlich got to pick 10 basic materials and the day the bet would start. They waited 10 years. The engineer was $100.00 richer as a result - all ten prices declined.

4. Frugality is learned as a child, not as an adult. You will not educate yuppies to become frugal - they will die first.

5. Ringing in Chernoybl during a discussion of US power plants is silly. The only thing Chernoybl had in common with reactors in the free world was the name. Russian reactors were not designed for the single purpose of power output, but to perform other functions as well. This makes them less thermodynamically stable - a US reactor can melt down the core if you have a whole series of highly unlikely incidents - that is about it. Chernoybl blew up because of an operator error during a test.

There are other mistaken underlying assumptions - but I'm too busy to pick at them.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), November 05, 1998.

E., as I've come to expect, has his facts straight and presents them wih an unbiased perspective.

Michael's perspective is valid as well, although directed in a different direction than the one I perceive Hallyx to have intended.

Paul, you're doing the garbage trick again!

Your first point is simply a restatement of Hallyx's. ("Natures self-cleaning apparatus are less efficient handling artificial pollutants, let alone nuclear.") You two are in violent agreement.

Your second point is a non sequitor. Hallyx didn't say "US growth" fell, he said, "According to ice-core evidence, it diminished pollution."

You are right in what you said about Erhlich, but Hallyx mentioned him more or less in passing and Hallyx's post remains essentially the same with the reference to Erhlich removed.

Your fourth point is somewhat of a contradictory agreement! I tend to agree with you that yuppies will die first, I think that's just what a lot of them will do, but Hallyx says, ". . .we may pass that "conservative" (literally) attitude on to our children." Those who DO learn, will teach their offspring whatever it is that they learned.

Finally, how you could perceive Hallyx's post as, ". . .a discussion of US power plants", eludes me.

And to "Anti-Chainsaw", I have this answer. I don't dispute your citation of damages done or evils perpetrated, but I have a somewhat more remote prespective in answering your question, "Why would Y2k be a wake-up call when there have been so many other unanswered calls?"

Nature is not issuing any "wake-up" calls nor has She punished us with cancer nor is she "getting even", for anything.

Man is a single, bi-pedal species who inhabits a miniscule rock in a remote spiral arm of a galaxy that is largely indistinguishable from (as Carl Sagan used to say) billions and billions of others, in a universe that he only dimly understands.

In the Grand Scheme of things, Man is no more elevated than any other. He is simply a creature who has refined the "simian urge to manipulate" to a high enough degree that he can construct devices which are capable of destroying him and his environment. (IOW, he's monkeyin' around with explosives and playin' with fire!)

If our sun were to suddenly expand in size to include the orbit of Mars, and then contract again, the rest of the universe would likely perceive it as a minor event.

If, as a species, our achievements matched our arrogance, we would indeed be something to behold.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), November 05, 1998.

If our sun were to suddenly expand in size to include the orbit of Mars, and then contract again, the rest of the universe would likely perceive it as a minor event.

Assuming there is someone watching. Why doesn't someone start a UFO/Y2k thread, any volunteers? No names no packdrill!

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 06, 1998.

Hardliner--- As we say up here in the north country-- Why don't you get that corncob out of your ass? You sound like you are writing a term paper. You treat people like crap. What a condescending gomperhoter.

-- Believer (OYe@littlefaith.com), November 06, 1998.

"Believer",

If the shoe fits, wear it.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), November 06, 1998.