A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1993 (Vol. 21, no. 3) Box 1279, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
The Euthanasia Act of 1994
Government planners are now inundating us with tears about the
large proportion (variously estimated at 10-14%) of American re-
sources that are used for medical care. Actually much of this expendi-
ture is not for medical care at all.
Medical care in America is burdened by enormous waste in the
form of financial transfers to hundreds of thousands of regulators, bu-
reaucrats, lawyers, and other non-providers of medicine who have
been attached to the medical care system by government edicts. It is
also burdened by high direct taxes paid by all individuals, institutions,
and businesses within the system productive or not.
Techniques of medical care have also been distorted by govern-
ment meddling through tens of billions of dollars in medical research
expenditures directed by bureaucrats with little interest in the ultimate
value and efficiency of the products of these programs.
Regardless of these punitive value-subtracted payments, however,
Americans have been buying as much medical care as they can afford.
Free enterprise, even after taxes, has made American medical care by
far the best in the world.
Older Americans, who require the greatest amount of care, have
had universal access to this high quality medicine through the welfare
subsidies of Medicare and related programs. Medical welfare could be
handled largely through direct taxpayer subsidies in much the same
way that food stamps now feed 25 million Americans.
Now Mr. and Ms. Clinton are telling us that government medical
welfare payments have left too many people out that many citizens
are still without care. Moreover, they say that the government wants
to buy care for these additional people, but it doesnt want to pay the
market price a price that has been doubled (at least) by government
programs which they are unwilling to dismantle.
Their solution is to destroy the system that they wish to feed upon.
Instead of a program like food stamps, they propose the equivalent of
price controls on grocery stores and farmers and a card for every
American giving free access to everything on the grocery shelves. We
shall pay for the card if we are able. If not, they will give one to us.
This debate should be about the rights to life, liberty, and property.
The tax payers have a right to their property. The physicians have a
right to their liberty. Each American has a right to the best life and
medical care that he or she can obtain. These rights would be best
served by getting the government out of medical care entirely not by
getting the government further into it.
The debate should be about freedom, but in America today that is
not going to happen. The Clintons are busy promoting the politics of
envy and greed the promise of something for nothing at someone
elses expense, and the people are buying these dishonorable lies.
The people will pay for this gullibility, of course, as they always
pay with higher taxes, lower living standards, less freedom, and more
powerful and numerous bureaucrats and politicians. This time, how-
ever, they will pay more. They will pay with their lives.
Bruce A. Kimball in the September 1993 issue of Global Biogeo-
NOBEL TREES
In a series of elegant experiments coupled with remarkable theo-
Research in environmental science is edging ever closer to work
deserving of a Nobel Prize, but work of this quality is not being done
by scientists intent on saving the global environment. It is being fects of the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. They have shown
done by scientists whose work suggests a method of enhancement of
the global environment far above the highest level of quality that has
existed at any time during recorded human history.
Exemplary of this work is the paper by Sherwood B. Idso and
Copyright 1993 by Access to Energy
The July and October issues of Access to Energy included the
standard figure illustrating supply and demand. For reasons clearly il-
lustrated in that figure, price controls always lead to shortages. At arti-
ficially lower prices, demand is increased and supply is diminished.
The Clintons will put us all on a national medical credit card. We
are to pay a fraction of the bill each month, but our individual pay-
ment is the same whether we use it or not. Moreover, to control over-
all cost, they will put price controls on the medical care providers at
price levels below the free market. This will simultaneously cause in-
creased demand and decreased supply of medical care.
The Clintons understand this. That is why their plan comes with all
the bureaucratic baggage of a rationing system. That is why they have
been organizing forums in counties throughout the United States
in which citizen participants are shown videos of actors playing pa-
tients with various illnesses and requiring various treatments. After
viewing these videos, the participants are required to decide which
patients will be treated and which will not by ranking them in order of
priority. Those who rank the patients equally and refuse to suggest
who should live and who should die are ostracized as uncooperative.
Forum participants are chosen from lists of people who have expe-
rienced unusually extensive medical problems. They are told the ses-
sions are being held to help the government set rules for medical
treatment.
Price controls lead to shortages. Shortages lead to rationing. Ra-
tioning medical care will give the Clintons and their friends like Joy-
celyn Elders the power of life and death over all Americans
especially older Americans. Older Americans will obviously receive
the lower priorities. Older Americans also happen to be a voting
block that generally opposes Clinton and a group to whom the gov-
ernment owes a huge debt in Social Security that it cannot pay.
Petr Beckmann died August 3, 1993. Under the Clinton medical
plan, he would have died many years earlier. In a true free market
without government interference, he might still be alive.
Why hasnt this been tried before?
It has not been tried before, because America has never before had
a President so entirely devoid of moral character that he was willing
to tell this particular lie to the American people.
This is being called by the name of health care reform. The de-
tails are being debated. It will probably be enacted in a less onerous
form than proposed. Once in place, the system will grow in direct pro-
portion to its failures, and it will destroy the free enterprise that has
made our medical system the best in the world. Then also will come
the higher taxes and the rationing and the inevitable scapegoating for
the systems failures. In time, the life expectancies of Americans will
measurably decrease.
Government bureaucrats already have taken too much of our lib-
erty and our property. Why must we give them our lives too?
America does not need a program of mandatory euthanasia.
chemical Cycles, 7, No. 3, pp 537-555.
retical work, Idso, Kimball, and their colleagues in Arizona and other
laboratories are gaining an understanding of the environmental ef-
that a large part of the carbon released from these below-ground
sources is rapidly incorporated into the tissues of plants and animals.
So efficient is the use of this carbon, especially by trees, that it is
reasonable to suggest that the total mass of plants and animals in the
global environment may be increased substantially through carbon re- Press, Tempe, AZ, p. 8 (1989). In 1993 the atmospheric CO2 level is
lease into the atmosphere. Moreover, it now appears likely that the about 360 ppm.
release of carbon through the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas dur- How are the earths plants responding to this increase? Apparently
ing the past century has already increased the total mass of plants and they love it. As atmospheric CO2 has increased, the vegetation-caused
animals on the earth and contributed positively to the lush environ- seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 has increased in amplitude. Dur-
ment that we now enjoy. ing the summer, plant photosynthesis utilizes more CO2 than in win-
The two figures below are adapted from the Idso and Kimball pa- ter. This difference can be used to calculate the amount of plant mass.
per. The first shows the volume of wood plus fruit rinds of young sour Therefore, average increase in seasonal variation over time can be
orange trees grown at about 660 parts per million carbon dioxide as used to estimate the increase in plant volume for the entire earth. This
calculation shows an increase of 8.6% in the earths vegetation during
the 20 year period between 1958 and 1978. See Pearman, G. I. and
Hyson, P., J. Geophys. Res., 86, pp. 9839-9843 (1981).
How does this compare with laboratory measurements on plants?
Perfectly. Using the increase in the annual global atmospheric CO2
between 1958 and 1978 of 19.7 ppm, laboratory measurements on
trees and other plants, and an estimate that 67% of the earths photo-
synthesis is carried out by trees (this is 75% of the 90% estimated as
terrestrial), Idso and Kimball have calculated the expected increase in
global plant growth. Their calculated value is 8.6% in complete
agreement with the Pearman and Hyson value which depends upon
entirely independent facts and measurements.
Some additional subtleties in reconciling these values with the
complete literature on plant growth and CO2 are thoroughly covered
by Idso and Kimball in their paper as referenced above.
There is a direct proportion between the amount of plant mass and
compared with ordinary, ambient air which has about 360 ppm CO2. animal mass in a large area of land. Therefore, there also must have
After a year and a half the CO2 enriched trees maintained over-all been a concomitant increase in animal life of about 8% between 1958
volumes about 2.8 times greater than the ambient trees. and 1978. Moreover, it is now 1993. There has been another 25 ppm
This increase was not localized in any one above-ground part of increase in CO2 since 1978. That would bring the expected increase
the trees during the first three years. It was proportional in all parts. in the earths trees, in accordance with two calculation methods, to
Moreover, by measuring roots in core samples taken in the soil sur- about 24% since 1958 as follows:
rounding the trees, they determined that fine root volume was also 2.8 Using the values given in the September Access to Energy of 60
times larger. As the trees matured in years four and five, wood pro- tons per person of standing timber in the United States which is in-
duction dropped toward a ratio of 2.0, but increased fruit production creasing at 600 lbs. per person per year, we calculate an increased vol-
brought the ratio back to 2.8. As of the fifth year, the ratio of numbers ume of trees since 1958 of [(600)(35)/((60)(2000)-(35)(600))][100%]
of oranges was also approaching 2.8. = 21%. From the Idso-Kimball data we get (180%)(45)/(300) = 27%.
The second figure shows normalized measurements of photosyn- Actual forest inventories show a U. S. increase of 23% since 1958.
thesis and respiration carried out on tree leaves during a four year pe- Can this continue? Idso has estimated that, at current rates of CO2
riod. The unnormalized ambient values at about 360 ppm are 1.50 release, increased use by the increasing biomass will cause atmos-
mole per square meter second of CO2 produced during respiration pheric CO2 to level off about 170 ppm higher than the present value.
Thus the increase in trees after 1993 is (180%)(170)/(300) = 102%.
at night and 4.40 mol m-2 s-1 net CO2 utilized during the day. Net
day values include day time photosynthetic utilization minus daytime
respiratory production. These values and those in the figure allow in-
dependent calculation from leaf measurements alone of relative tree
growth rates, since carbon flow through the leaves determines the to-
tal carbon content of the trees. The leaf calculation gives a value of
2.8 which agrees with the measurements on whole trees.
Therefore, leaf measurements allow rapid extension of these tree
experiments to other CO2 levels and other species. Idso and Kimball
extended the measurements in this way to include three Australian
species of trees. Overall net growth calculated from leaf metabolism
rates of these three species was about the same as for sour orange
trees.
Predictions of growth at other CO2 levels can also be obtained
from these leaf measurements. Tripling the current ambient CO2
level, for example, leads to 6.6 times faster growth.
Plants other than trees also increase in growth rate at higher CO2
concentrations, but the effect is smaller. Average increase of plants
other than trees in response to a 300 ppm CO2 increase is about 33%
as compared with 180% for trees. Tree leaf pores remain approxi-
mately the same size at higher CO2 levels, whereas the pores of other
plants tend to become smaller at higher CO2 which probably accounts
for this difference.
Global atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing substantially
during the past century as shown in the third figure. In 1650 the level
was 273 parts per million; in 1750 it was 277 ppm; in 1850 it was 286
ppm; in 1950 it was 311 ppm; and in 1975 it was 331 ppm. See Idso,
S.B., Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition, IBR
 from even as few as 50% of Americans. 63% thought that the major-
ity of Americans would say that nuclear energy should not play an
important role.
Keeping this misunderstanding in place is the most important pri-
ority of the anti-nuclear lobby. If you wonder why the voices of the
anti-nukes are so shrill and their tactics and logic so irrational, the an-
swer lies partly in these polls. If this issue is ever allowed to settle into
a reasoned debate, not only the facts about nuclear power but also the
facts about public preferences will dominate the outcome.

109 REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

According to International Atomic Energy Agency Bulletin, 35,
No. 3 (1993) p. 52, the United States now has 109 operating nuclear
power units which is 26% of the world total. These American power
plants generate 30% of the electricity produced by nuclear energy on
earth. This is the good news. The bad news is in the percentages and
in the trends. Only 6% of the nuclear power generating capacity now
under construction is American. The January 1, 1993 national per-
centages of electricity generated from nuclear power according to
IAEA (Lithuania and Ukraine are estimates) are:
Increase in other plants is (33%)(170)/(300) = 19%. Total plants in-
crease by (0.67)(102%) + (0.33)(19%) = 75%. With projected in-
Lithuania 80% Ukraine 25%
creases in the use of coal, oil, and gas, this percentage is higher.
France 72.9% United Kingdom 23.2%
The amount of plants and animals on the earth is going to double.
Belgium 59.9% United States 22.3%
This incredible environmental gift is being accidentally given to
Slovak Republic 49.5% Czech Republic 20.7%
mankind by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas during the indus-
Hungary 46.4% Canada 15.2%
trial age. The only problem is that it is happening too slowly. Most of
Korea 43.2% Argentina 14.4%
us will not live to enjoy full effects of the lush environment that is
Sweden 43.2% Russia 11.8%
being produced. There is, however, an environmentally correct an-
Switzerland 39.6% South Africa 6%
swer: Burn the coal fields!
Spain 36.4% Netherlands 4.9%
We dont need the coal anyway, since nuclear power is a safer,
China-Taiwan 35.4% India 3.3%
more cost-effective way to generate electricity. Lets get that CO2 into
Slovenia 34.6% Mexico 3.2%
the atmosphere as quickly as possible, so we can all enjoy the effects.
Finland 33.2% Pakistan 1.2%
Wait! What about the detrimental effects of this global green-
Bulgaria 32.5% Brazil 0.7%
ing? This is a plant and animal population bomb beyond former
Germany 30.1% Kazakhstan 0.6%
scientist Ehrlichs wildest nightmares. The non-ethics of Gores New
Japan 27.7% China-Mainland 0.1%
Age is, however, ready with an answer:
Non-human population bombs are OK.
Global temperature depends primarily on solar activity and not LOSING TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
CO2 (another subject), but, even if all this new plant and animal life
cooks the planet, it does not matter. Everything natural is good as Recently I had the unusual experience, for a biochemist, of serving
long as natural is defined as non-human. on the thesis committee of a student in nuclear engineering at the Uni-
The plants and animals, those who cannot speak for themselves versity of Utah and thereby visiting the laboratory of the chairman of
and require pseudoenvironmentalist spokespersons, are voting with that committee. Just inside a second room that opens from a normal
their leaves. They say, Burn the coal fields. Our people have been university hallway, the visitor looks straight down into the heart of a
imprisoned underground for too long already. water-shielded nuclear reactor. This reactor was physically built by
the professor and his students with sturdy, low cost materials and cast-
WISER THAN THEY REALIZE off technology from larger reactors elsewhere.
This is exactly the sort of facility that should be available to stu-
In the so far losing but good cause of American civil defense, there dents in universities throughout the United States. There are presently
has always been a strange dichotomy. Polls have shown for decades only 37 research and training reactors at 33 such universities.
that more than 80% of the American public favors civil defense (50% Motivated by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990
erroneously believe that the United States has a civil defense), and and a recent court decision, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
Congress continues, even today, to spend about $400 million annu- decided to assess a $62,100 annual fee for each of these reactors in the
ally on civil defense for themselves and other bureaucrats and politi- form of an immediate bill for $124,200 for 1993 and 1994. This will
cians. Yet most politicians consider civil defense to be a dead issue, cause many research reactors to close.
because they believe that the public doesnt want it. Elsewhere, Clinton plans the closure of Americas last fast breeder
This dichotomy apparently exists for nuclear power, too. The reactor, the experimental Integral Fast Breeder in Idaho.
Atom, July / August 1993, 429, pp 25-27 reports a survey of Ameri- No doubt the closure of research and experimental reactors is what
can opinion about nuclear power by the US Council for Energy Clinton meant when he promised to stimulate Americas technologi-
Awareness. In answer to the question, Practically speaking, how im- cal competitiveness.
portant a role do you think nuclear energy should play in meeting To facilitate more such hands-on technological direction, Clinton
Americas future energy needs?, 73% of ordinary Americans an- is creating a new National Science and Technology Council to over-
swered quite important or very important. 72% of US opinion see all U. S. science and technology. This way central planning can
leaders, from legislators to the media, answered quite important or assure that innovation doesnt slip through the cracks and reach the
very important to the same question. market anyway regardless of government policy.
Yet, in guessing the response of ordinary Americans, only 25% of Perhaps, when the smoke clears in Moscow, retainer Gore can ar-
these same opinion leaders expected an important role response range to buy nuclear technology from the Third World.

area of the contiguous 48 states! All dams, power lines, and other
OZONE PROPORTIONALITY
ously being proposed by, for example, Dave Forman of Earth First
Shown above is the global average ozone concentration from sat-
ellite data taken between latitudes 69 north and 69 south during the
past decade. The ripple is caused by seasonal variations in solar radia-
tion. Overall drift through the solar minimum in 1986 is also evident.
The difference between this graph and most others you may have
seen is that the data has been replotted by Zachary Robinson, so that
the ozone axis goes all the way to zero.
While it is acceptable to show part of an axis in order to enhance
the fine structure of data when that structure is of interest, it is remark-
able how often the antitechnologists leave off the bottom part of
graphs for psychological impact.
Would this graph, which places ozone variations in their proper
perspective, induce the average American to pay a large financial
penalty to replace his refrigerator, freezer, and air conditioner?
l Larry Abraham and Franklin Sanders, The Greening, Sound-
TOO GOOD TO FILE
While it will not be politically effective to fight the pseudoenviron-
l An article by Robert Shields, Nature, September 23, 365 pp
297-298 which begins with the sentence: It is a sobering thought
that the size of the human genome is the same as that of maize and lies
midway between that of potato and pea. This one observation may
explain many of our difficulties.
l Hugh W. Ellsaesser in 21st Century, Summer 1993, pp 12-13
shows that the Russian H-bomb tests in 1961 and 1962 did not notice-
ably reduce atmospheric ozone. An ozone minimum occurred in the
mid-1960s probably as a result of a corresponding minimum in the
11 year solar cycle.
Ignoring the solar cycle and in order to claim that the 1986 mini-
mum is unusual, the Chicken Littles of ozone politics have been add-
ing non-existent ozone to the experimental values from the 1960s.
They justify this data inflation by claiming that Russian nuclear in Water is Hard to Swallow, these articles offer entertainment and
tests artificially reduced the values. In serious science this sort of non-
sense is called by its real name, and those who practice it find other
employment.
l B. Wuethrich, Science News, 144, p 134 gives the estimate that
one-half the methane released into the atmosphere is from wetlands.
This reminds me of the Wall Street Journal report last year that, in
a study of squirrels that are deemed more important than an Arizona
Observatory, squirrel observers had watched in horror as one of their
special squirrels was eaten by a spotted owl.
l The Stockowners News, 17, September 1993 available from
PO Box 65563, Washington, D.C. 20053 documents their calculation
that total taxes on major U.S. corporations in 1992 equaled 280% of
common stockowners earnings.
STARK RAVING MAD
l A ban on the bovine growth hormone, rbGH, was enacted as
part of the Clinton economic package. See Nature 364, 12 August
1993, p. 565. Even the FDA has said, since 1985, that this hormone is
safe for human consumption. The ban was included, because this hor-
mone increases milk yields by 5 to 25%. This would cause milk
prices to drop thereby increasing federal subsidy expenditures and
probably eliminating marginal milk producers.
These are not inferred reasons; these are the actual reasons given
by our government for this ban. They are deliberately banning less
expensive milk and thereby reducing milk consumption by American
children in order to protect jobs in agriculture and in the U. S. Ag-
riculture Department. Do we really want these same people to control
our medical care?
l The new goal of the pseudoenvironmentalists and, in the spirit
of their call for a total ban on chlorine, is the establishment of core
reserves off limits to all people and stripped of all human artifacts as
reported in Conservations Ecocentrics by E. Pennisi, Science
News, 144, September 11, 1993, pp 168-170.
These core ecosystems are to consist of at least half of the land
human structures would be removed from these areas. This is seri-
and Mark Shaffer of The Wilderness Society. One Reed Noss,
billed as an Oregon conservation biologist, has already turned a
profit from this proposal. He is receiving $150,000 from the Pew
Charitable Trusts for a three year effort to promote this proposal.
GOOD READING
l Sallie Baliunas and Robert Jastrow, to appear in Energy: The
International Journal, preprint No. 3671 available from Harvard
Smithsonian Center for Astro Physics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge,
MA 02138 entitled Evidence on the Climate Impact of Solar Vari-
ations. This is further research to the effect that it is probably the
variable sun that keeps our planet variably warm rather than fluctua-
tions in donations to the Sierra Club.
view Publications, Atlanta Georgia (1993) ISBN 0-9626646-2-6.
mentalists with conspiracy theories, this 296 page book contains
enough interesting facts to make it well worth reading.
l Bruce N. Ames, Science and the Environment, The Free-
man, 43, September 1993, pp 343-344. A brief summary of the non-
problem of man-made pesticides. Highlights of this report are the
increase in natural pesticides in organic agriculture and the esti-
mate of relative risk (absolute risk is very low). Natural pesticides are
estimated to pose a 10,000 times greater risk than synthetic pesticides.
l Read these three together: P. H. Abelson, Science, 261, p 407;
D. E. Koshland, Jr., Science, 261, p 531; and R. Stone, Science, 261,
pp 1514-1516. Entitled respectively: Toxic Terror; Phantom
Risks, Making Wolves Lovable, and EPA Analysis of Radon
information about growth limits that apply even to green prophets.
The information is that the nonscience of pseudoenvironmentalism
is beginning to seriously rankle even the politically correct bastions of
the AAAS. Now how about an article critical of the millions in tax
dollars for research their readers have been receiving in exchange
for playing along with enviropropagandists?
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double,
US tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1993 (Vol. 21, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Dollars and Nonsense
Today the nonsense of pseudoenvironmentalism is controlling the
American national agenda. Our logging industry is being shut down;
our nuclear power industry is stagnating; our hydrocarbon fueled en-
ergy system is under serious attack; our chemical industry is in dan-
ger; and our entire technological infrastructure is being seriously
weakened by the mythology of the enviroagitators.
The seriousness of this crisis can be seen in the audacious nature of
new programs that are being initiated by some of the large enviro-
opportunists. These include proposals to confiscate over half of the
land mass of the United States for wilderness areas, to ban all use of
chlorine in the chemical industry, and to abrogate most real estate
property rights in the United States in the name of national biological
survey and control. This latter effort by Clinton and Babbitt is meet-
ing opposition in Congress, but how long will the opposition hold?
Al Gore has now hitched his entire political career to this enviro-
mania. Sure, he lacks principles. So do many American politicians. In
his world of power politics, they ask only has this brought him
power. So far it has made him Vice-President of the United States.
Considerable attention is focused on the multitude of so-called
public interest groups in this movement. From the big players like the
Sierra Club and Green Peace to the small local organizations, thou-
sands of envirogroups are participants in this feeding frenzy at the
public trough a trough that is rapidly being filled with the decapi-
tated remains of an industrial capability built by several generations of
hard-working Americans.
What is this generation of Americans doing while their future liv-
ing standards and freedom are being consumed at this feast? Part of
them are applauding and most of the rest are standing by in embar-
rassed silence. Only a few too few yet to be politically effective
are saying stop.
It is popular among those few to focus on the significant financial
resources of the envirogroups. Estimates vary in the range of $500
million to $1 billion annually. After junk mail expenses and operating
costs, however, it is unlikely that these groups have much more than
$300 million annually with which to influence public opinion. More-
over, they are selling lies. Lies sell, but advertising costs are higher.
How can a budget of $300 million (probably less) convince 250
million people in a $5 trillion economy to act against their own self-
interests on the basis of largely false information? It cannot.
Of course, these groups do more than advertise. They stage contin-
ual media events to attract news coverage; they file endless lawsuits
against productive enterprises; and they misuse regulatory agencies
through the filing of numerous petitions. These actions all require
complicity, however, from other organizations in our society the
press, the judiciary, and the regulatory bureaucracy. These organiza-
tions are also in the business of remaining in business, and they are
composed of people who must live with their fellow citizens.
peace keeping may be tomorrows terrorist, and he may be equipped
PEACEFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSIVES FOR ENERGY
Recently Sam Cohen sent me a brief account of a new sort of nu-
Sam Cohen is best known as the inventor of the neutron bomb
an accomplishment that has brought him the admiration of many
Americans and the enmity of a few. He is also known for his advo-
cacy of a libertarian foreign policy. The interventionist games Ameri-
can politicians like to play with the affairs of other countries are often
fundamentally wrong. Sam Cohen points out that, with the great ad-
vances in mass destruction technology, foreign intervention has also
become very dangerous. Todays unfortunate victim of American
Copyright 1993 by Access to Energy
In order for envirogroup tactics to work and receive attention, their
programs must have tacit public support. How are they generating
that support with such a small budget? They are not. In fact, they are
not even coordinating the effort. Public misconceptions about the en-
vironment are being created primarily by businesses that make up
our $5 trillion economy. These businesses do so for the purpose of
making money now. They have little interest in the past or the future.
Paper recycling is a prime example. All across America businesses
are clamoring to inform the public that their containers, advertising,
and products contain recycled paper. If the product has no paper, they
say that it can be pulverized and recycled anyway. Costs, they assure
us, are secondary their concern about the environment is paramount.
While ordering unrecycled paper for Access to Energy (which will
become increasingly difficult to do), I noticed a can of 3-M Corpora-
tion Spray Mount Artists Adhesive. How could I fail to notice? The
print was in red and yellow and was as large as the Access to Energy
masthead: 100% FREE Of Ozone Depleting Chemicals. Isobu-
tane, pentane, heptane, propane, acetone and presumably adhesive
were in the can. This true ad is false by omission and false in its
implications about the environment and about competing products.
Even some of the most effective fighters against the enviroradicals
lose their heads when they start advertising. The summer 1993 issue
of Evergreen, an excellent lumber industry magazine, crows that
wood use produces less carbon dioxide than the equivalent aluminum
and steel in building framing and wastes less energy during manufac-
turing. The September 1993 issue of Nuclear Energy Info from the
pro-nuclear U.S. Council for Energy Awareness trumpets Nuclear
Energys Role in Cutting U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions.
Lets call this PROFTPL, profiting from the perceived lie. With
the ad departments of tens of thousands of American enterprises
spending billions of dollars to cut each others throats by advertising
claimed advantages relative to the latest envirolies, the envirogroups
themselves need only to sit back, snicker, boost their personal salaries
another notch, and dream up the next lie. In fact, they dont even need
to invent the lies. Somewhere there is yet another failing scientist
ready to distort the implications of his work to stay in business.
The next time a business telephone puts you on hold and then
plays a recording about their recycling campaign hang up. The next
time an employee suggests a marketing strategy that depends upon a
perceived falsehood, fire him.
The children wont let me shop at Walmart any more, because the
density of enviroadvertising there is much higher than in other local
stores. The kids are right. They are too unsophisticated to understand
about keeping our principles in one pocket and our money in another.
When American business advertising stops promoting the lies of
pseudoenvironmentalism, only then will the truth about our environ-
ment be able to set us and our plants and animals free.
with very dangerous technology.
clear power plant that he thinks is now possible. You may wish to
compare this idea with the new nuclear power idea described by Ed-
ward Teller in the October Access to Energy. Both men propose un-
derground nuclear power plants. Which idea is more politically
correct?
Sam Cohen writes:
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signed in 1968 was
well intended. However, like many accords formulated to check
weapons of mass destruction, it did not fully take technical progress
into account as it related to monitoring such agreements.
In the nuclear explosives area, programs had been established in
the 1950s in the US and USSR aimed toward developing pure-fu-
sion devices that unlike other devices used no fissile materials (ura-
nium-235 and plutonium). Instead, they banked on being able to
ignite very small amounts of heavy hydrogen, deuterium and tritium
(which must be produced in nuclear reactors through the absorption
of neutrons in lithium). Such explosives held the potential for being
extremely cheap, the tritium cost being orders of magnitude less than
the plutonium (also produced by neutron absorption in reactors) used
in a fission weapon. In addition, such explosives, known as clean
devices, would release levels of radioactivity essentially insignificant
compared with that from fission explosives.
By the time the NPT was consummated, the U.S. pure-fusion
program had been unsuccessful and expectations were it would re-
main so, which has been the case so far. (That is, at least in the U.S.;
on the Russian side they stopped reporting more than 30 years ago,
and we simply dont know what they have accomplished.)
As a consequence, the monitoring constraints contained in the
NPT concerned only fissionable materials. No mention was made of
tritium and insofar as using it in peaceful explosives, in no way was
this forbidden. In fact, such application was considered an inalien-
able right.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. maintained a peaceful ex-
plosives program, entitled PLOWSHARE. One particular effort, Pro-
ject Pacer, explored by the Los Alamos laboratory, envisaged the
underground bursts, several times a day, of explosive devices having
a yield of about 20 kilotons, where a relatively small fraction of the
yield came from a fission trigger which ignited thermonuclear fuel
which in turn very substantially reduced the overall radioactive con-
tamination problem. Such devices would be burst in large steam-
filled underground chambers. The superheated steam would then be
piped to the surface and used to generate electricity in a conventional
manner. Preliminary calculations indicated this approach held consid-
erable economic potential. However, so great was the political resis-
tance to bursts of such large yield and the accompanying production
of such huge amounts of long-lived radioactivity that the project came
to an inglorious ending.
As for the pure-fusion devices the US and USSR had explored,
yields on the order of 10 tons (0.0l KT) were of interest; namely,
thousands-fold less than the Los Alamos scheme. Aside from the po-
tentially low cost and lack of serious radioactivity, such explosives
readily could be adapted to small inexpensive containment vessels
and in a different fashion their energy release could be harnessed not
only for electrical power production, but efficient heat production as
well, plus having the same function of a nuclear breeder reactor where
the explosive could produce as much tritium as it uses making the
nuclear cost essentially a function of the process used to recover the
tritium produced; intrinsically simpler and cheaper than processing
plutonium in breeder reactors.
In recent years a new class of chemical explosives, which do not
behave like normal explosives, have been under development. These
promise to provide much higher concentrations of energy in small
volumes than regular high explosives. This process, based on so-
called ballotechnic technology, involves subjecting certain materials
to high pressure shock compression, resulting in chemical reactions
which give rise to those high energy concentrations. Based on state-
ments coming from Russia, which unlike the U.S. has been quite
open about their nuclear development program (ours effectively has
ceased), there are reasons to believe this technology can be used to
ignite very small quantities of deuterium and tritium to produce, in
effect, a mini neutron bomb. As for the size and weight of the explo-
sive, the potential exists for far smaller and lighter devices than nu-
clear explosives developed to date. For such a device, the energy
partition is practically the converse of what happens in a fission ex-
plosive. Instead of most of the energy going into physical effects, as
was the case for the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and for the Pacer explosives, the great bulk, about 85%, is released in
the form of very high energy neutrons. For a burst of such a device in
a relatively low density medium and for a 10 ton TNT equivalent
yield, the blast component of such an explosion would be only about
1 ton (0.001 KT). To contain such an explosion underground would
require a reinforced sphere approximately 10 meters in diameter and
some tens of meters deep. In between bursts, the explosives, which
might weigh on the order of pounds, would be lowered into the center
of the cavity. Getting into qualitative specifics (and keep in mind that
this discussion is not based on detailed calculations, for all the obvi-
ous reasons, but rather to present the general nature of the system), the
chamber would be filled with carbon dioxide gas at very high pres-
sure. Also in the chamber at the time of burst would be a vapor of an
appropriate lithium (specifically lithium-6) compound say lithium
nitrate, which vaporizes at low temperatures.
The purpose of the carbon dioxide is to slow down and absorb
the energy of the neutrons emitted by the burst, but not to absorb the
neutrons. The absorption of the reduced energy neutrons will be prin-
cipally in the lithium, which has a very high propensity for such ab-
sorption and which will result in the production of helium and tritium.
In effect, this scheme is analogous to how tritium normally is made,
through neutron absorption in a fission reactor, except that it
can be more cheap and efficient.
At a much greater frequency than Pacer, the pure-fusion device
would be lowered into the chamber and detonated. The hot gas would
be piped out of the chamber and through a heat exchanger to produce
steam, which in turn would drive a turbogenerator to produce electric-
ity. Or the gas could be used to heat up large volumes of water, which
could be dispatched to residential or industrial areas for heating pur-
poses as a substitute for natural gas, oil and electricity. (With respect
to the explosive yield, there is nothing specific about the 10 tons TNT
equivalent used here as an example. It readily could be tens of tons,
the limitation on yield being a function of the cost of the containment
problem, plus the political tolerance of explosions, however safe they
may be, that take place in the vicinity of the areas where the energy is
to be used. But for now this is a matter of conjecture, since we are
discussing a scheme which has never received public and political
scrutiny.)
For technically unsupportable reasons, but reasons that cannot be
dismissed in the real world where nuclear fission power has been re-
jected by millions of Americans, producing power with fission reac-
tors hardly has been an economic bonanza. To be sure, nuclear power
generation has proved to be cheaper than coal and natural gas, but not
all that much on the order of 30 to 50 percent. (However, this has to
be tempered when we consider the number of facilities that have been
closed down or not even opened after construction has been com-
pleted.) Now this difference between nuclear and chemical power
production still is quite significant when one calculates relative costs
over long periods of time i.e., decades where the cost differential
can amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, to say nothing of the
difference in atmospheric pollution. This is a huge sum of money,
comparable to the taxpayers money wasted by the S&L bailout.
On the other hand, who can predict how many nuclear power
plant closings will occur to erode or even reverse this difference?
How many additional reactor closings will take place as the politics of
radioactive waste disposal become more and more restrictive? There
are no hard answers to these questions, but our experience so far,
aided and abetted by environmentalist pressures on politicians, does
not bode well for the future of fission power regardless of reactor de-
sign improvements which promise large improvements in safety and
efficiency. Adding to this the utter impossibility of making accurate
long-term economic predictions, there should be an increasing incen-
tive to explore and promote new and different nuclear energy
schemes. One such scheme should be the use of low-yield pure-fusion
explosives.
Is the U.S. seriously investigating this prospective? Of course
not! Despite all the prospective advantages of this scheme, in terms of
U.S. nuclear policy a nuclear explosive, regardless of its application,
is still a nuclear explosive and can be used for peaceful and military This work has demonstrated that the ongoing increase in global
applications. As Gertrude Stein might have put it, A bomb is a bomb plant and animal life has been caused by increases in carbon dioxide
is a bomb. Even though pure-fusion explosives may not be covered from industrial activity. The three figures on this page show effects
by the NPT, there still would be an outcry by nuclear arms control that carbon dioxide increases have had on trees in the United States.
advocates that such a development, as peaceful and harmless as it
may be, still is a threat to mankind. Despite the NPT avowal that
peaceful applications of the Atom are an inalienable right, this right
will be challenged, in the name of peace. But then the same thing
might have been said when Alfred Nobel, of the Nobel Peace Prize,
invented dynamite, which has been used to dig canals, mine ores, etc.
and blow people and cities to smithereens. Even though these de-
vices used as mini neutron bombs in wars would allow a far more
moral prosecution (by both sides) of war than high explosive weap-
ons, U.S. policy still regards all battlefield nuclear weapons as basi-
cally immoral and to a degree where our stockpile of these weapons,
including neutron bombs, is being demolished. So, to repeat, dont
expect the U.S. government to take this scheme seriously, at least for
the time being.
On the other hand, although we do not take nuclear weapon de-
velopment seriously any more, we do have a right to conduct research
and even testing of the device discussed here. So does any other na-
tion, and it is quite possible that any other number of nations may be The first figure gives total growing hardwood and softwood timber
working on pure-fusion explosives whose testing cannot be detected in the United States according to Forest Statistics of the United States,
and identified from outside the country. Nor would the preparation of U.S. Forest Service (1987) U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 319 S.W. Pine
a test site be observable by any technical intelligence, since the re- Street, P.O. Box 3890, Portland, OR 97208, compiled by K.L. Wad-
quired facilities are so modest in size and preparation. But apart from dell, D.D. Oswald, & D.S. Powell. The values are 610243, 659343,
what other nations may be up to, we should at least give thought to 693976, 725054, and 755996 million cubic feet for the years 1952,
such a scheme and its economic promise. Not to do so would be neg- 1962, 1970, 1977, and 1987 respectively. I have drawn the figure and
ligent and even foolhardy, considering our mounting energy prob- least squares line which gives a 1958 to 1993 increase of 23%.
lems.
A few years ago when claims were made by two respected scien-
tists that a cold fusion experiment had been successful, the world
went into a frenzy of excitement. But that turned out to be inaccurate,
and the world felt terribly let down that the Promised Land of cheap
and safe nuclear energy hadnt been reached. For decades before that,
and still going on, there had been a massive (and massively expen-
sive) program going on at various laboratories to develop techniques
for hot fusion energy produced without nuclear explosions. So obvi-
ously what seems to bother our government and millions of Ameri-
cans is that theres nothing really wrong with cheap, clean nuclear
energy provided it doesnt come from a bang, no matter how small.
Are there any rational answers to this irrational dilemma? Perhaps,
but they havent emerged so far and theyre not very likely to; for that
would call for irrational people becoming rational.
Correspondence with Sam Cohen can be addressed to him at
13241 Riviera Ranch Rd., Los Angeles, CA 90049.

MORE TREES
provide long baselines with which to compare recent tree growth.
The November 1993 Access to Energy discussed laboratory work
on increased growth of plants as a function of increasing atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.
Long-lived pine trees are especially useful indicators, since they
Therefore, Donald A. Graybill and Sherwood B. Idso, Global Bio-
geochemical Cycles, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp 81-95 (1993) have measured
tree-ring growth in long-lived pine trees at 14 locations in California,
Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. From 15 to 30 trees at each location
were cored with 4.5 mm diameter bores about 4 feet from the ground.
Widths of tree-rings in these cores were measured to 0.01 mm. Stand-
ard corrections and population normalization were applied to these
measurements. The second figure shows smoothed 20-year averages
of these normalized widths beginning in 150 AD; the third shows nor-
malized measurements of Bristlecone Pine beginning in 1680.
The greatly increased growth rates of these pine trees which ex-
actly parallel the industrial production of carbon dioxide during the
past century is obvious. Moreover, it is known that animal popula-
tions increase in direct proportion to plant populations.
The industrial age has caused an explosive increase in the earths
plants and animals by means of increasing atmospheric CO2.
Babbitt, Clinton, Gore, and their pseudoenvironmentalist retainers
want to stop these trends. They favor only politically correct plants
and animals those not produced by productive human activity.
 prise Institute, Wall Street Journal, November 10, 1993.
VITAMIN R ?
Endangered Species Act and complied with threatening letters from
A human vitamin is an organic substance that is required for life
(usually in small quantities) and yet not manufactured by human bio-
chemistry. Essential minerals are in a separate category as are sub-
stances of value to health but not essential. Many of these substances
are under governmental regulatory attack.
It may be time to generalize this nomenclature and make it politi-
cally correct. We propose that vitamins henceforth include those sub-
stances that are beneficial to health in small amounts and that are
under attack by federal bureaucrats. Under this definition, radon may
soon be listed as a vitamin. The EPA now warns that all homes should
have radon levels under 4 pCi per L and that all homes with higher
levels should be modified to achieve lower radon levels.
Bernard L. Cohen, Health Physics, Vol. 65, No. 5, pp 529-531
(1993) and elsewhere as quoted by T. D. Luckey, Health Physics So-
ciety Newsletter, Vol 21, No 11, pp 6-7 (1993) has compiled cancer
data on 1,729 U.S. counties as a function of average radon levels in
the homes. He finds a correlation between lung cancer and radon that
is independent of smoking and is almost as strong as the correlation
between lung cancer and smoking. These correlations are, however,
in opposite directions! Lung cancer decreases with increase in radon.
Correlation does not prove causality. This data does not prove re-
duction in radon will increase lung cancer (although it probably will).
Virtually the entire EPA regulatory monstrosity is built, however, on
correlational arguments. By their rules, their own radon recommenda-
tions, if used by most Americans, would cause (3)(10-4)(250)(106)=
75,000 American deaths per year from lung cancer.
Luckey is only partly right when he asks, Is the EPA a carcino-
gen? As future issues of Access to Energy will discuss, the EPA has
become one of the greatest dangers to human life in America today
tributions by M.S. Baxter, IAEA Bulletin, 2, pp 33-38 (1993). This
STARK RAVING MAD
ground and major industries. This information should be in every
l Not satisfied with their policy of letting our national parks burn
(visit Yellowstone for a look at the effects of this enlightened policy),
the ecocrats now promote the burning of residential housing as well.
Numerous reports from homeowners, fire departments, and forestry
officials in California confirm that the California gnatcatcher and the
Stephens kangaroo rat were protected by the U.S Fish and Wild- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
life Service whose bureaucrats threatened fines and imprisonment for
anyone clearing brush or weeds in many of the areas recently burned
by wildfires. See, for example, I. C. Sugg of the Competitive Enter-
Many of those who obeyed the current bureaucratic rules of the
USFWS saw their homes burned to the ground, while those who
cleared brush and weeds regardless of those threats still have their
homes. Fire officials had warned for more than a year that the areas
around these homes needed clearing, but USFWS prevented action.
Now that $1 billion worth of homes and the protected rats and
gnatcatchers have all been incinerated, a new enviroargument has
erupted. California officials and property owners want to seed the
burned areas with grass to prevent winter erosion and mud slides. The
enviros are fighting this, because it might slow regrowth of the brush
and weeds that fed the fires.
In a preview, however, of the wisdom the Administration will
bring to socialized medicine, Interior Secretary Babbitt called the car-
nage in California a model of ecosystem management and
stated that The lesson of these fires is that weve got to keep the
people away from the fire hazard.
l The Boston Herald, Sept. 30, 1993, p 35 by Don Feder reports a
speech by Clintons new appointee as goodwill ambassador to the
United Nations Population Fund, Jane Fonda. Hanoi Janes remarks
were consistent with her reputation as an enemy of human freedom.
ECHOES AND UPDATES
l The atmospheric ozone figure on page 4 of the November 1993
Access to Energy was redrawn from the paper by J. R. Herman, et al.,
J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 96, (1991) the same source used for the
ozone figure on page 3 of the December 1991 Access to Energy.
l An anomaly in the annual increase in carbon dioxide of about
1.5% per year has been observed in Hawaii during 1993 by D. Keel-
ing. See summary by J. L. Sarmiento, Nature, Vol. 65, No. 6448, p.
697 (1993). This anomaly essentially canceled the expected annual
increase, at least in Hawaii. This is being attributed to the eruption of
Mount Pinatubo possibly through its fertilization of oceanic plants.
GOOD READING
l Radiant Science, Dark Politics by Martin D. Kamen, University
of California Press, ISBN 0-520-04929-2. This book is a fascinating
account of the beginnings of the nuclear age by the discoverer of
carbon 14, who experienced both the excitement and the political hor-
ror. That horror resulted in the injustice that Martin Kamen is the only
living nuclear scientist with such an important discovery who has not
received the Nobel Prize. Professor Kamen is also known for his
many contributions to tracer methods and to photosynthesis research.
l Reclaiming the American Right, The Lost Legacy of the Con-
servative Movement by Justin Raimondo, Center for Libertarian Stud-
ies, PO Box 4091, Burlingame, CA 94011, ISBN 1-883959-00-4.
l Time to Draw the Line by Jane Orient, MD, AAPS News,
November 1993, available from Association of American Physicians
and Surgeons, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. #9, Tucson, AZ 85716. If the
Clinton drive toward socialized medicine fails, much credit will be
due to AAPS, which has provided the most principled and effective
opposition from the medical community.
l Environmental Radioactivity: A perspective on industrial con-
is a review of radioactivity levels and sources from natural back-
grade school science book in America.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
Cumul. Index Sept. 1973 to Aug. 1992, $20.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Cargo Cult Science
Many years ago Richard Feynman gave a Caltech commencement
address entitled, Cargo Cult Science. The ideas Feynman articu-
lated in that address are even more relevant today than they were
when he expressed them to a class of graduating Caltech students.
One statement that Feynman made the one that I have remem-
bered most often over the years is that a scientists highest obliga-
tion is to prove himself wrong.
The Cargo Cults were formed by primitive natives who wished to
encourage the return to their villages of many good and wonderful
things that had come when airplanes had flown to and from makeshift
airstrips near them. The airplanes indeed seemed miraculous, since
they arrived from a culture so far advanced technologically that the
natives were unable to comprehend it. Moreover, the airplanes
brought various remarkable items that could make native life easier
and more enjoyable.
These natives had limited data about the natural phenomenon they
wished to encourage the return of the gift-laden airplanes. They fo-
cused upon that part of their data which suggested the results they
wished to obtain. This selected part they then analyzed by correla-
tional arguments. The result has been a source of amusement for
many intellectuals in our advanced culture.
The natives noticed that the airplanes were correlated with airstrips
which had various distinguishing features. They therefore attempted
to bring back the airplanes by reproducing the appearance of the air-
strips from indigenous building materials including mock buildings
and even mock radio transmitters constructed from local vegetation.
They rejected all evidence contrary to their hypothesis. Eventually,
native leaders were given visits to modern civilization. Even then,
they rejected overwhelming evidence contrary to their original hy-
pothesis and the cult they had created surrounding it. Contrary evi-
dence was not beneficial to the self-interests of Cult leaders.
As a young scientist, I found it unthinkable to ignore data because
it was inconvenient or to argue that mere correlation between two pa-
rameters proved a causal link between them. I didnt learn these and
related principles from lectures or books. I learned them as most
higher principles are taught by example. During my undergraduate
years at Caltech (1959-1963) and later graduate studies I was sur-
rounded by people of high intellectual integrity. When I read Feyn-
mans lecture in the late 1960s, I found it interesting but not very
relevant to my world the world of basic research in physical and
biological chemistry. Feynman, however, knew about another world.
As a result of several unusual opportunities, adequate ability, and
hard work, I was given a faculty position at the age of 25 at the Uni-
versity of California at San Diego immediately after completing my
PhD work at that University and with no postdoctoral work. Later,
Linus Pauling and I cofounded a research institute which became the
Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. At age 32, I became that
Institutes President and Research Director.
hoped for by the referees who approved this publication. That it con-
OZONE AND ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT
paper. To illustrate, I will discuss below this and two other recent
The ozone crisis has lurched sideways another few paces with
the publication by J. B. Kerr and C. T. McElroy, Science, Vol. 262,
pp 1032-1034 (1993) entitled Evidence for Large Upward Trends
of Ultraviolet-B Radiation Linked to Ozone Depletion. This article
from Toronto is preceded in the issue of Science by two summary
articles heralding the new discovery. Most readers will ingest the
summaries and skim the full article an outcome that must be dearly
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
It was then, in medical research, that I learned why Feynman had
given his lecture about the Cargo Cults.
Medical research is generally difficult. The human is the worst,
most uncooperative, and most complicated experimental animal one
can choose. The primitive nature of medical knowledge limits most
experiments to simple, time-consuming, and expensive procedures.
Medical research has, however, a moral purpose the optimization of
the quality and quantity of human life. It was this moral purpose that
attracted an idealistic and inexperienced young scientist.
In basic research I hoped to learn facts sooner than my competi-
tors, while in medical research I hoped that my competitors would
make discoveries faster than did I. Any time thus saved could be
measured in human lives. Also, there were many areas of medical
knowledge in which we could obviously make substantial progress.
Idealism, however, is not sufficient protection from the brutality of
human nature. I learned that the closer science moves to research that
is immediately applicable to human affairs, the less attention is paid
to fundamental principles such as intellectual honesty. Politics,
power, notoriety, money especially in this political era of rampag-
ing government power become far more important than truth.
I had entered a world in which I saw young careers crushed in or-
der to prevent publication of politically embarrassing data, laboratory
results falsified with the direct complicity of the highest National In-
stitute of Health officials, and huge research programs driven by
everything except the search for truth. And science, the science that
remained, often descended to the level of the Cargo Cults.
The science and engineering of energy production is suffering this
same debilitating human element of intellectual dishonesty today.
The phenomenon of pseudoenvironmentalism has been virtually cre-
ated to take advantage of intellectual dishonesty in science. Repeat-
edly, we see techniques of the Cargo Cults on all sides of the issues.
Some people are addicted to the truth. They often make mistakes,
but they want to know of those mistakes, so they can be corrected.
Petr Beckmann started Access to Energy, because he wanted more
people to share this addiction. It is, however, an addiction that can be
very hazardous to ones professional health.
Our American national policy in 1993 is not being driven by truth.
It is being driven by power, money, prestige, and politics. More often
than not, Cargo Cult Science is called upon to justify policies that are
inconsistent with the truth. This is not new. It is a fundamental prob-
lem that always arises when science gets close to human affairs.
Many members of the Access to Energy family share an addiction
to the truth even though our own human natures keep tugging us
away from it. Many first-rate scientists solve this problem by with-
drawing from human affairs back into basic research.
I believe that truth can triumph in human affairs. This is a belief. If
I claim that it is also a reasonable expectation, I too am engaging in
Cargo Cult Science. The world is awash in data contrary to this belief.
tains errors, however, does not permit us to ignore everything in the
publications by authors strongly predisposed toward the prevailing
dogmas of ozone depletion.
In order to converge on the truth, we must come to terms with each
research paper that we read regardless of whether or not its authors
have made errors. Even if we ultimately decide to ignore even the raw
data itself as falsified or unreliable (not justified in the papers below),
this decision must be carefully rational and not visceral.
 J. W. Waters, Engineering and Science (Caltech), pp 3-13 (sum-
mer 1993) entitled The Chlorine Threat to Stratospheric Ozone
gives a beautiful four-color history of the saga of ozone vs. man. the additional chlorine from man-made sources is causing additional
Initiated by M. J. Molina & F. S. Rowland, Nature Vol. 249, pp 810-
812 (1974), this hypothesis has grown to the following state:
1. Carbon compounds of chlorine and fluorine, CFCs, are released
by industrial activity and ascend into the stratosphere where they min-
gle with the ozone layer about 10 miles above the earths surface.
This ozone (O3) layer is produced by the absorption by oxygen (O2)
of UV light in the wavelengths between 1600 and 2400 . This
produced ozone then absorbs longer wavelength UV and thereby re-
duces UV radiation in wavelengths up to about 3200 . Ozone thus
broadens the energy range of absorbed UV radiation. Radiation in
these wavelengths is not eliminated by ozone and oxygen it is re-
duced. Plants and animals are designed to live under this oxygen and
ozone shield and would be adversely affected if it were to disappear.
2. CFCs also absorb UV light to make chlorine atoms which react
with ozone to produce chlorine monoxide and oxygen. Chlorine mon-
oxide reacts with atomic oxygen to release reactive chlorine atoms
which then destroy more ozone in a cycle that repeats until the chlo-
rine is eliminated by other atmospheric reactions. This happens to a
small extent throughout the ozone layer, but it is markedly accelerated
on the surfaces of ice clouds which form during part of the year over
the antarctic and occasionally over the arctic regions. Predicted CFC
caused thinning of the world averaged ozone layer is about 5% , while
thinning in ice cloud regions is about 50%.
3. Any thinning of ozone permits additional UV light to reach the
earth where it may be harmful to plants and animals. It is estimated
that a 5% decrease in ozone would lead to 100,000 additional skin
cancer cases per year in the United States. Therefore, industrial use of
CFCs should be prohibited regardless of the fact that this prohibition
will probably cost several hundred billion dollars.
Scientific support for this hypothesis is as follows:
1. There is a strong correlation between regions of high chlorine
monoxide concentration and low ozone concentration in the strato-
sphere. (See the J.W. Waters article for several pages of remarkable
satellite measurements of this in living color.)
2. CFCs are found in the stratosphere along with chlorine com-
pounds from natural sources. Although only a very small part of at-
mospheric chlorine is from CFCs, measurements indicate that
disproportionately large amounts of CFCs reach the stratosphere.
3. The chemical reactions upon which these hypotheses depend
are well known and do occur under the conditions of interest.
4. Measurements in Antarctica have recorded a progressive deple-
tion of ozone in ice cloud regions during the past decade. This deple-
tion, allowing for fluctuations, is approximately 50%. All such large
depletions have been observed only over unpopulated regions, but
these depletions are potential evidence for the overall hypothesis.
5. Skin cancer, especially non-fatal types, is caused by UV light.
(In nutrition and cancer experiments for example, my coworkers and I
induced this cancer in thousands of hairless mice by means of quanti-
tative radiation with UV light.) UV light is a primary factor in the
induction of this cancer in humans. Deaths from UV-induced skin
cancer are very rare. (False claims from the EPA of 100,000 cancer
deaths are not, however, the fault of scientists on either side of this
issue. They are from unethical attempts to gain political power.)
Evidence and arguments contrary to this hypothesis are:
1. Correlation does not prove causality. It has not been shown that
destruction of ozone. Ozone is highly reactive. It is both being pro-
duced and destroyed at high rates naturally. It is unproved that CFCs
have shifted the steady state concentration of ozone, although it is rea-
sonable to postulate that this might happen. There is unfortunately no
historical record with which to compare recent ozone fluctuations.
2. The 50% reduction of ozone during some months over Antarc-
tica may not be caused by CFCs. G. Dobson (for whom the standard
unit of ozone concentration is named) wrote (Applied Optics, March
1968), ....the values for September and October 1956 were about
150 units lower than we expected. We naturally thought that Evans
had made some large mistake or that, in spite of checking just before
leaving England, the instrument had developed some fault. In No-
vember, the ozone values suddenly jumped up to those expected from
the Spitzbergen results. It was not until a year later, when the same
type of annual variations was repeated, that we realized that the early
results were indeed correct and that Halley Bay showed most interest-
ing difference from other parts of the world. It was clear that the win-
ter vortex over the South Pole was maintained late into the spring and
that this kept the ozone values low. This reduction of ozone by 150
Dobson units is about 50% observed by Dobson in the 1950s and
before any significant industrial release of CFCs into the atmosphere.
3. It is not established that reductions in ozone must be correlated
with increases in UV light at the earths surface. For example, ozone
concentration fluctuates with solar intensity (see, for example, No-
vember Access to Energy), because ozone is produced by solar UV
radiation. J. Scotto, G. Cotton, F. Urbach, D. Berger, and T. Fears,
Science, Vol. 239, p. 762 (1988) found that UV radiation at test sta-
tions in the United States decreased as ozone decreased. As solar ra-
diation decreased toward the solar minimum in 1986, stratospheric
ozone decreased about 0.5% per year, while UV light decreased about
1.5% per year. Apparently the trend in ozone in the early 1980s was
caused by fluctuations in solar activity or other factors that work in a
direction opposite to the postulated CFC effect.
4. The estimates of increased cancer risk (see, for example, S. Ma-
dronich and F. R. de Gruijl, Nature, Vol. 366, p. 23 (1993)) assume
that human behavior is constant regardless of sun intensity and that
humans are now receiving more UV radiation than is compatible with
optimum health. There is, however, a literature on the possible bio-
logical benefits of UV radiation. Although it is likely that over-expo-
sure to the sun resulting in deep tans and burns is not healthful due to
skin cancer and other potential harmful effects, it is quite possible that
under-exposure to UV light as a result of modern customs of indoor
work and recreation is also harmful and that people are currently un-
der-exposed. Our home at 42N, for example, has UV transmitting
plastic skylights and UV electric lights to make up for indoor losses.
The optimum healthful human exposure to UV light is unknown.
Therefore, it is erroneous to assume that even people in colder cli-
mates are already receiving UV light greater than optimum and will
be harmed by any additional amount. UV-induced skin cancer, for ex-
ample, is seldom fatal, whereas other diseases which might increase
as UV light decreases could be fatal. Moreover, humans can adapt.
Wearing a hat, spending a little more time indoors, or living a little
closer to the equator cancels the hypothetical effect.

Politicians like Al Gore, enviroagitators, industrialists who control
expensive substitutes for CFCs, and other opportunists lost no time in
turning the CFC vs. ozone hypothesis into warnings of global catas-
trophe and 100,000 cancer deaths per year. They say we can only es-
cape these horrors by giving them some of our remaining freedom
and money. International bureaucrats have even seized upon the
ozone crisis as a new reason for world government.
Scientists, especially those hopeful for new or continued govern-
ment funds, are scrambling to adjust their research programs and re-
search papers to this crisis.
Advertising departments are churning out ads stating that their
products, unlike those of their competitors, are ozone friendly.
Suddenly a whole new anti-CFC industry has been born and nour-
ished by EPA regulations. Government regulations will soon force
Americans to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of products from that
industry products that are valueless if CFCs are, in fact, safe.
Dr. William Happer, Jr., top scientist at the Department of Energy,
was fired (Gored might be a better term) in part, because he sup-
ported additional UV radiation measurements to test the hypothesis.
It is no longer politically correct to test the hypothesis. Too much
has been invested on the assumption that it is right. So.....
Cargo Cult Science has started to replace the real thing:

This brings us back to the Kerr and McElroy paper with its up-
ward trend of UV-B radiation linked to ozone depletion at Toronto
which the authors clearly imply is further linked to CFCs.
The most remarkable thing about this paper is that, although the
entire point is supposedly the discovery of a correlation between de-
creased ozone and increased UV light at 3000 , nowhere in the pa-
per is there a graph of ozone vs. UV light. There are also no numbers
enabling the reader to construct such a graph. All that is given are the
plots shown here of measured values of UV light and ozone for 1989
to 1993 and slopes of the calculated trend lines for summer and
winter (heavy and light lines respectively).
Inspection of these plots (easier in the colored original in Science)
shows why the trend graph was omitted. There is no trend. By enlarg-
ing the plots I have estimated the approximate summer median values
for these five years. These values are 336, 331, 333, 327, and 312 for
ozone and 0.056, 0.051, 0.063, 0.052, and 0.071 for 3000 UV light
for the years 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 respectively.
During the first four years, ozone and UV light rise and fall to-
gether in confirmation of the earlier American studies and opposite to
the trend claimed by the authors. They could not show an appro-
priate graph, because this would negate their conclusion.
In the fifth year of measurement, however, they finally hit pay dirt.
Ozone levels fell worldwide during 1993 as shown on the third figure
adapted from the J. W. Waters illustration of work by J. Gleason and
co-workers from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.
Waters also gives extraordinary satellite spectrometer maps show-
ing the enormous plumes of sulfur dioxide emitted by the eruption of
Mount Pinatubo in June 1991. Notice that ozone begins its decrease
below the usual range in late 1991 and reaches extraordinarily low
levels in 1993. Waters attributes this decrease in ozone to aerosols
formed from sulfur dioxide which provided a world-wide strato-
spheric enhancement of decomposition of ozone by a mechanism
usually restricted to the polar ice clouds. He believes, but has not
proven, that this was exacerbated by chlorine from CFCs.
Since this ozone decrease was, unlike those in previous years, not
caused by solar fluctuations, UV light intensity increased with de-
crease in ozone as would be expected, and the spectrometers in
Toronto registered not a trend but an unusual change caused by a
volcanic eruption. By averaging this data with that of previous years
and reporting only slopes of lines, the authors manufactured a trend.
And what about those slopes? Kerr and McElroy report - 4.1% and
-1.8% per year for ozone and 35% and 6.7% per year for UV light for
winter and summer respectively. These are inverse changes of 8.5 to 1
and 3.7 to 1! Yet the expected inverse ratio for simple absorption of
UV light by ozone at 44N latitude (Toronto) is approximately 1 to 1.
(See S. Madronich and F. R. de Gruijl, Nature, Vol. 366, p. 23 (1993).
Kerr and McElroy give these slopes to two significant figures with
no error analysis and with no reference to expected ratios. The reasons
are obvious. Their data scatter barely justifies one significant figure,
and their calculated ratios differ from expectation by 4 to 8 fold.
They obtained their entire trend from one event, ignored the
correlations in previous years, and wrote their paper in such a way as
to obscure the politically incorrect items they wished to ignore. Select
the data you want to see and create a correlation that satisfies your
need. Look at their line and their data in the second, 300 nm (3000 )
plot. There is no upward trend at all in the data for the first four years.
Yet they are certainly not alone. The Madronich and de Gruijl pa-
per from which I obtained the expected ozone to UV light ratio goes
on to calculate expected increases in skin cancer to in, some cases,
three significant figures! This is done theoretically and assumes incor-
rectly that the Mount Pinatubo reductions in ozone are permanent.
Does any of this prove that CFCs are harmless or helpful? No.
Will we be better off with a little less UV light or a little more? Do
CFCs actually have much effect on ozone levels or on UV light lev-
els? The answers to these questions are, as yet, unknown.
We do know that observed fluctuations of ozone and UV light are
relatively minor and well within the envelope of natural variations in
which we live (as are the changes predicted by the CFC hypothesis).
In the course of time, research will resolve these interesting atmos-
pheric questions which, in any case, clearly do not portend a crisis.
Meanwhile, Americans are going to spend several hundred billion
dollars eliminating CFCs. That money would buy a lot of airplanes
and wonderful cargoes for our imaginary runways.
 am an animal! Then, tilting back his head and lifting his hands to his
PINATUBO STRIKES AGAIN
I think it was a woodchuck with his bare hands and devour it.
The CO2 reduction in Hawaii caused by the eruption of Mount Pi-
natubo is shown from J. L. Sarmiento, Nature, Vol. 65, p 697 (1993).
The values are normalized to remove the usual upward trend of about
1.5% per year. See also December 1993 Access to Energy.
peace is also trying to close the chemical industry with a total ban on
PLEASE DONT DO IT
target industrial chemical plants instead.
One reader has cautioned me against enthusiasm for CO2, because
global warming is so useful in promoting nuclear power. Increas-
ing amounts of advertising by the nuclear industry asserts that nuclear
power produces no greenhouse gases and no CO2 pollution. office for the endangered species list. The stuffed fish apparently
It is a terrible mistake for an industry which produces the safest,
cleanest, most efficient power available with current technology and
which, with likely future improvements, can revolutionize human
progress by decreasing energy costs by orders of magnitude to base
its progress on a lie even a popular lie.
Global warming is a scam worthy of Clinton, Gore, Fonda, and
fellow travelers. It will pass. It is not worthy of mention by the Nu-
clear Industry. Global warming will eventually be flushed into the
sewer of forgotten manias along with some of those who promote it.
NUCLEAR SECRETS
The Department of Energy recently stated that the United States
has conducted 204 secret underground nuclear explosions since the
1940s. To which we say there should have been lots more. Now if we
could just get them to build 204 secret nuclear power plants.
A better kept secret, judging by news media, is that nuclear power
has now replaced almost all oil-fired power in the generation of elec-
trical power in the United States. Since 1973, oil has dropped from
17% to 3%, while nuclear has risen from 4% to 22%. See Nuclear
Energy Info, October 1993 from USCEA, 1776 I Street, N.W., Wash-
ington, DC 20006 and the November 1993 Access to Energy.
Meanwhile, Nuclear Issues, Vol. 15, No. 11 (1993) from APG, 8
Ruvugny Mansions, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LE re-
ports a British project to generate electricity from burning wood pro-
duced on fast-growing tree farms. This alternative is also receiving
favorable reviews in the American press.
Nuclear Issues calculates that the satisfaction of current electric
power demand in England by wood-fired plants would require a tree
farm covering about one-half of the land area of England.
112 pages of excellently presented economic data about the United
STARK RAVING MAD
l Your (Our? Their? How do I say this politely?) Goodwill Am-
bassador to the United Nations Population Fund, Jane Fonda, in-
formed the United Nations during her September United Nations
speech that Our species alone co-opts, consumes, or eliminates 40
percent of the earths photosynthetic energy. If only it were true.
l Western Living in the November 1993 article by Sharon Butala
reports proceedings of the big enviro gathering at Salina Kansas, the
15th annual Prairie Festival. The conference opened with an address
by George Foreman, cofounder of Earth First. Butala reports:
As Foreman reached the climax of his talk, he raised his voice to
ask, What do we do with this love of life? With this love of earth?
Growing more passionate by the second, he shouted, But dammit! I
face, he roared that sometimes he wanted to tear apart a woodchuck
Before Id recovered, he took a deep breath and, not too realisti-
cally I thought, howled like a wolf. He wound up his speech by urg-
ing the audience to join him in a big wolf howl. Enthusiastically, they
all did their best, howling from soprano to bass, more or less in uni-
son. Butala reports that she sat stunned as Forman left the stage,
while everybody around us rose to their feet, clapping wildly.
Dont think about Foreman. Think about the enormous political
power that Babbitt, Clinton, and Gore are giving to that audience.
l Greenpeace is opposing a proposal to target American and So-
viet nuclear weapons on the oceans rather than cities in order to di-
minish the risks from accidental launch. Although I have doubts
about the merits of this unverifiable procedure, can it really be that
Greenpeace prefers to lose a city rather than some fish? Since Green-
chlorine compounds, perhaps Clinton will compromise by agreeing to
l The Unspotted Sturgeon, Wall Street Journal, November 22,
1993, p. A14 reports that a stuffed fish in the Alabama Museum of
Natural History has been nominated by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife
looks a little different than those that are abundant in Alabama rivers,
but no corresponding live fish can be found. Under a federal law
already drafted, the [stuffed] sturgeon would be awarded some of the
nations busiest commercial waterways as critical habitat... in
hopes that somewhere a living specimen can be found.
Not to worry, however, Bruce Babbitt has agreed to appoint an in-
dependent scientific panel to study this matter. The panel members
are being picked by Jim Stewart the USFW bureaucrat who pro-
posed the listing and began this pseudoenvironmentalist debacle.
GOOD READING
l Life During a Golden Age of Peptide Chemistry by R. Bruce
Merrifield, American Chemical Society, ISBN 0-8412-1842-0. This
is an account of the invention of solid phase organic synthesis and the
first synthesis of an enzyme for which Bruce Merrifield received the
Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1984. This is a remarkable story of the
efforts of one man working with very meager resources who invented
a technique that has been essential for the current explosion in knowl-
edge about molecular biology.
l Health Care and a Free Society by Matthew J. Glavin, Impri-
mis, Vol. 22, November 1993 available from Hillsdale College,
Hillsdale, MI 49242. An excellent account of socialism in medicine.
Did you know that in Canada for heart surgery, you have a better
chance of dying on the waiting list than you do of dying on the oper-
ating table? See also, on the same subject, Pillars by John F. Perry,
November 1993, How Government Caused High Health Care Costs,
available from Pillars, P.O. Box 263, Mill Hall, PA 17751.
l Notes 1992 to 1993 by H. F. Langenberg available from Smith,
Moore & Company, 400 Locust Street, St. Louis, MO 63102. This is
States and our government. Read it and weep.
l Washington Legal Foundation Legal Studies Division Publica-
tions Catalog available from Washington Legal Foundation, 2009
Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20036. The summaries
in these 51 pages are enlightening and provide valuable sources. WLF
is a pro-free enterprise public interest law and policy center.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
FEBRUARY 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 6) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Wild Cards
The death of Dixy Lee Ray on January 2, 1994 has caused me to
think again about a talk I gave in 1986 entitled wild cards.
During the past few hundred years mankind has passed into sev-
eral new ages. Economically these ages have expanded our re-
sources from the agrarian age, to the industrial age, and into several
scientific ages including the present nuclear and computer age. We
have passed into these ages not through them or out of them.
The experiment with human freedom that has been carried out in
America during the past two hundred years has amplified those ages,
because free people are more innovative and productive. Freedom
also produces a fertile atmosphere in which unusual people can take
effective action as single individuals on behalf of their ideas. This
fertilizes our civilization with a great diversity of ideas and provides
a way in which those ideas can be implemented. The fundamental
reason to support freedom is that it is that it is morally right. It is
good, however, that it increases productivity and innovation, too.
There are now those who speak of a post-industrial society.
They claim that we have passed beyond the industrial age. They sug-
gest that, to the extent we need farm and industrial products, these
needs will be supplied by people in other countries that are anxious
to provide us with living standards much higher than their own in
return for our giving the world an unlimited supply of paper-shuf-
flers, decision-makers, and information gatherers.
Previous generations of Americans built dams, bridges, steel
mills, chemical plants, aircraft factories, and a remarkable infrastruc-
ture of human productivity. This tradition has been extended by, for
example, our computer industry. To an alarming extent, however,
the most recent generation has primarily built large office buildings
which house people who produce very little.
The new generation that is just now coming to power has taken
this one step further. Deliberate destruction of productivity is being
emphasized and promoted as a virtue. Pseudoenvironmentalism and
the pseudoscience with which it is promoted advocates the destruc-
tion of human accomplishments and a return to nature. Since this
movement must co-exist with the past accomplishments of science
and industry which have widespread respect, it simply claims that it,
too, is a product of science. Truth and honesty have been discarded,
but the word science has been kept for political reasons . Our nu-
clear industry has been an early victim of this new anti-productivity
movement.
With the new paradigm must also come the means for its per-
petuation. With freedom, a bad idea does not last long. In free com-
petition with better ideas, it is soon obsolete. Without freedom, a bad
idea can become entrenched. Socialism provides the totalitarian con-
text for that entrenchment. In America we now have socialism in
education, socialism in basic research, socialism in retirement care
and charity, and growing socialism in medicine. Can this drift away
from freedom be stopped before it halts and reverses the progress of
our civilization? I believe that the answer to this question is yes!
Expenditures. Principled opposition to the confiscation of the earn-
THINKING WITH THE HEART
taxation, regulation, or other governmental intrusion is often coun-
Of the crocodile tears of todays liberalism, it has been said that,
just as it is impossible to pump blood with the brain, it is impossible to
think with the heart. Few better examples of this are available than
that addressed in the paper by R. L. Keeney, Risk Analysis, Vol. 10
(1990) pp 147-159 entitled Mortality Risks Induced by Economic
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
First, there is great diversity in the world. If American progress is
destroyed, then other countries who adopt more sensible attitudes
will grow and prosper. Their success will eventually serve as an ex-
ample for our recovery. This diversity can only be destroyed by
world government with world-wide deprivation of physical, eco-
nomic, and intellectual freedom. Although this world socialism is
being widely promoted and attempted, it will fail. Nearly every
newspaper brings further evidence of its failures.
Second, technology is providing new tools which make it in-
creasingly difficult to control dissemination of the truth. The com-
puter Internet, for example, is revolutionizing the flow of truth
throughout the world and feeding an explosion in intellectual free-
dom. Although Algore and company are promoting an information
highway in hopes of bringing this technology under government
control, they will fail. New technology will replace the old faster
than they can get their statist controls in place.
Third, people do not like to be deprived of the comforts to which
they have become accustomed. Free enterprise provides those com-
forts, while socialism removes them. A substantial grass-roots back-
lash against socialism and its inferior fruits is growing in America.
Fourth, and most importantly, American freedom produces and
will be protected by her wild cards. These are free, self-reliant
individuals who have stepped forth upon our national stage each
time that their country has needed them. America now, once again,
needs her wild cards. She needed them in the 1770s, and in the
1860s, and in the 1940s. Each time she needed them they were
there. Dixy Lee Ray has shown us that they are still here today.
Dixy Lee Ray saw that she was needed; she drew upon a lifetime
of experience in determining the most effective actions to take; she
mobilized a few special allies such as her co-author Lou Guzzo; and
she drove a stake through the heart of pseudoenvironmentalism from
which it will not recover. If you are in the game of trading truth for
social power, just one Dixy Lee Ray can ruin your whole year.
This is not to say the beast is dead, but neither are our wildcards.
Across America they are waking up one by one. It doesnt take too
many, and we will have enough. Our wildcards are mortal. Dixy Lee
Ray and Petr Beckmann are with us now only in spirit and in the
legacy of their recorded words and remembered example, but they
were not alone.
American freedom and the freedom of the human spirit produce
our wildcards. They are the inventors and risk takers whose hard
work and example moves us forward, and they are the conscience
that realizes when we have taken a wrong path and calls us back.
Our safety does not lie in our technology or in the weaknesses of
our enemies. It lies primarily in the mobilization of the best qualities
of the American people through the intelligence, work, and sacri-
fices of her wildcards. Each of us owes a debt to Dixy Lee Ray. The
best way for us to pay that debt is for each of us, in our own way, to
be a Wild Card for America.
ings, property, and freedom of men, women, and children through
tered with the objection that these principles have no heart. How, it is
said, can we place a principle or a sum of money above a human life?
The problem is that the diversion of resources from private indi-
viduals often has a price not just in money, but also in human lives.
We understand this intuitively. If a family has less money to spend,
they may diminish the quality of their food with a concomitant dimi-
nution of their health. Alternatively, they may put off a car repair, so
that they are at greater risk of accident. When millions of people are
deprived of resources, the consequences may be fatal for some. This
is true, but how do we put numbers with it?
Keeney makes an effort to do this by fitting risk functions to the
known data for mortality vs. income and then calculating mortality as
a function of loss of income. Although this work is elegant and care-
fully quantitative, it is impossible to rid the calculations of assump-
tions that introduce systematic errors in the results.
Nevertheless, the order of magnitude of Kenneys results is prob-
ably right. These calculations provide, therefore, guidelines for
thoughtful estimates of the cost in human lives of governmental regu-
lations and other takings.
For example, he calculates the induced fatalities in the United
States from a federal government borrowing that increases interest
payments on the national debt by $1 billion to be about 200 dead.
Similarly, his calculations show about 1 additional fatality for each $5
million in increased expenditures caused by government regulations.
Transfer of resources from one group of people to another is not a
zero sum game, because the marginal utility of money for each indi-
vidual depends upon his total assets. Kenney estimates that a $100
loss for a household with a $20,000 income causes about 5 deaths per
million per year, whereas a $100 loss for a household with a $40,000
income causes about 0.5 deaths per million per year.
Regardless of so-called progressive taxation schedules, most gov-
ernment expenditures result in greater losses at the low income levels,
while transfers tend to move assets from lower income households to
higher income households.
Kenneys calculations do not even try to estimate losses from eco-
nomic distortions caused by government misallocation of resources.
Also, in relying upon death statistics, he is calculating postponement
of death rather than years of life lost.
Nevertheless, the overall value is about one full human lifetime
lost per $100 million in good hearted government regulations or chemical and radiation damage to living systems at high doses (where
expenditures. Even if this is high by an order of magnitude (It is more
likely to be low.), the carnage is great indeed.
Proponents of the linear model overlook the fact that living cells
TEACHING ABOUT PROFITS
sponds to both external effects like ionizing radiation and also internal
The winter 1993-1994 issue of 21st Century p 21 reports that
French electricity exports have now reached 54 billion kilowatt hours
per year. Yearly sale of this electricity provides enough capital to
build one or two new nuclear power plants. There are 56 now operat-
ing in France with 5 under construction. The same issue has a short
piece on the evolution of the math problem which we reproduce death rate from cancer than the national average, and a similar study
here as a tribute to socialism in education and in place of a cartoon.
In 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost
of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?
In 1970 (traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber
for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price; in other words,
$80. What is his profit?
In 1970 (new math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set
M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is
worth $1. Make one hundred dots representing the elements of the set
M. The set C of the costs of production contains 20 fewer points than
set M. Represent the set C as a subset of M, and answer the following
question: What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?
In 1980: A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of
production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline
the number 20.
In 1990 (Outcome Based Education): By cutting down beautiful
forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of
making a living? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest
birds and squirrels feel?)
Unfortunately this cartoon lacks humor, because it is too close to
the truth. It also has a lot to do with the difficulty of teaching Ameri-
can kids the advantages of nuclear power policies and profits.
MARK TWAIN EFFECT
Mark Twain told a story about a seriously ill man who consulted
his doctor. The doctor advised him to stop drinking, stop smoking,
and stop philandering. The man followed this advice and recovered
his health. Later a woman acquaintance fell ill, so he told her about
this wonderful doctor. She consulted the doctor and received the same
advice. The woman, however, neither drank, smoked, or philandered,
and was unable, therefore, to follow the doctors advice. So, she died.
Mark Twain pointed out that she had neglected her vices.
As one moves from mathematics to physics to chemistry to biol-
ogy to medicine (human biology), the detail with which observations
can be currently understood decreases. The rigor of understanding re-
mains high if one is willing to carefully ask less detailed questions.
A reasonable working hypothesis, even a simple one, is helpful in
many ways. In this framework, it may be that Mark Twains humor
can help us to understand Vitamin R (radon in the January 1994
AtE) and an increasing family including vitamins Cs (cesium 137),
Co (cobalt 60), T (tritium or hydrogen 3), and X (x-rays).
S. Okada and N. Momoshima, Health Physics, vol. 65 (1993)
p.605 give references to several research papers dealing with the
adaptive response to 3H, 14C, 60Co, 32P, and x-rays. It has been
found that pretreatment of human cells with these sources of ionizing
radiation makes the cells more resistant to chromosome damage by
ionizing radiation. T. Lazo, Health Physics Society Newsletter, vol.
22 (1994) p 6 gives additional references related to the tendency for
tritium to be immunizing against radiation damage.
A particle of ionizing radiation and the reactive substances it pro-
duces are often very damaging to the structure of any biological mac-
romolecule that is unfortunate enough to encounter them. This fact
has made the so-called linear, non-threshold model of radiation dam-
age popular. For the same reason, an identical model has also become
popular for toxic chemical damage to chromosomes. With this model,
such damage is easily measured) is extrapolated linearly to zero
doses. This extrapolation is then used to calculate damage estimates at
low doses (incorrectly).
have very active defense and repair machinery. This machinery re-
processes that are an inseparable part of the chemical activity of life
itself. Moreover, this molecular machinery is turned on and off by liv-
ing cells in accordance with the need for its services.
Nuclear Issues, vol. 15, no. 12 (1993) pp 2-3 reports that a 1985
study of UK Atomic Energy Authority workers showed a 22% lower
of 10,000 Atomic Energy of Canada Limited workers and of several
thousand Ontario Hydro nuclear power station workers showed a
similar 33% lower mortality. The similar results from nationwide ra-
don surveys in the United States (AtE January 1994) show that this
effect is not restricted to selected populations. Radon at high enough
doses probably does increase cancer incidence, but at low levels it ac-
tually decreases cancer incidence. So, the linear model is wrong.
A simple hypothetical explanation is that chronic exposure to low
doses of ionizing radiation keeps cellular damage levels high enough
that defense and repair machinery is healthfully activated and main-
tained. This machinery then is available to prevent damage from
many sources including ionizing radiation, ingested toxic chemicals,
and toxic chemicals arising from living metabolism itself. This pro-
tection from damage from other sources amplifies the effect of ioniz-
ing radiation and converts this damaging phenomenon into one with a
net beneficial effect on health.
Life without fear of low radiation doses and without the costs of
government radiation edicts would be much more enjoyable and pro-
ductive. I doubt Mark Twain would equate this enjoyment with his
derived from cigars and whiskey, but I am sure he would agree that,
even in the instance of radiation damage and cellular defense and re-
pair, we must be certain not to neglect our vices.

LIFE EXTENSION

It has long been established that optimization of the quality and

quantity of human life is a desirable goal. Regardless of the recent fad
of new age animal and earth worship, sensible people still agree that
this goal is of great importance. Therefore, most reasoned debates
about the value of science and technology revolve around the effects
upon human well-being and longevity.
We have become idiomatically accustomed to speaking of pre-
venting fatalities as, for example, in the article about fatalities from
misappropriation of resources on pages 1 and 2 above. We cannot, of
course, actually prevent fatalities. We can only postpone them. Death
is, so far, an unavoidable consequence of life. For this reason, I con-
verted the fatality estimates at the end of that article into a measure of
cumulative years of human life. An action that reduces the lifespan of
100 people by ten years is much worse than one that reduces the
lifespans of 1000 people by one day. The latter action causes 10-fold justments in intrinsic lifespan of about one-third may be possible by
more fatalities, but the former costs 365-fold more days of life. systematic changes in living conditions. This possibility is being ex-
The three figures on this page illustrate human mortality and its amined by empirical experiments on such factors as diet. One exam-
change by beneficial human activities. These figures are reproduced ple of this is work on diet restriction during the second half of life
from A. B. Robinson & L. R. Robinson, Mechanisms of Ageing and along the lines pioneered in rats by C. M. Mckay. See J. Nutrition,
Development, vol. 59 (1991) pp 47-67 which discusses the quantita- vol. 10 (1935) pp 67-79 and vol. 18 (1939) pp 1-13. The potential of
tive measurement of human physiological age with reference to an these efforts, which do not require that the biology of aging be under-
experiment on American men. stood on a molecular basis, is illustrated in the third figure.
The arrow in the second figure points up to illustrate beneficial in-
fluences in preventing early deaths. It could also point down to illus-
trate negative influences. The direction of this arrow lies at the heart
of debates over the impact of technology upon human well being.
It is definitively known that economic freedom and free enterprise,
the entire electric power industry including nuclear power, the chemi-
cal industry, and most other aspects of technological progress dimin-
ish the risk of early death and contribute to the positive direction
indicated in the second figure. There are always risks that technology
may cause harm by accident, terrorism, or war, but these risks can be
reduced to acceptable levels by technological safeguards. Unfortu-
nately these safeguards, such as the provision of a realistic American
civil defense system, are sometimes not implemented.
It is also well known that economic slavery by socialism, fascism,
or their various mutations and the diminution of technological pro-
gress has a negative influence on human lifespan. Ignorance or refusal
The first figure shows the aging curve for a population comprised to heed the discoveries of science such as is endemic in government
of American males as calculated from life expectancy compilations of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency also has a
the U.S. Public Health Service. This population has an intrinsic very negative influence.
lifespan of about 90 years. The molecular mechanism by which this These curves are not just sterile representations of academic inter-
lifespan (and the lifespans of other living things) is determined is un- est. They represent hundreds of millions of shortened lives and early
known and is one of the great unsolved problems of biology. It may deaths. Each is an individual human tragedy somewhere in the world.
be that one of the many current hypotheses about this is correct. So far, technological progress has kept this arrow pointing steadily
Notice, however, that most men do not reach their intrinsic upward. Pseudoenvironmentalism and political opportunism have
lifespan. If we could remove the factors that lead to these earlier blunted that progress and may soon reverse it. This can be prevented
deaths, then the aging curve would be changed as is indicated in the by a principled defense of human freedom and of scientific truth.
second figure. Most of the industrial, medical, environmental, and
personal factors that are discussed with respect to human fatalities re-
late to the postponement of death, so that each person can reach ap-
proximately this intrinsic lifespan. The goal is for each person to live
a full, healthful and vibrant life of maximum length and, when death
is no longer avoidable, to die with a minimum of suffering.
With regard especially to degenerative diseases, early deaths are
not just associated with a loss of life. In effect, life is compressed into
a shorter time. Smoking, for example, causes a compression of life so
that smokers tend to age faster by about 10% per pack of cigarettes
smoked per day. It is not just the later years of life that are lost. Parts
of the earlier periods of life are lost as well.
Depending upon the nature of the molecular process that deter-
mines intrinsic lifespan, it may be possible to markedly increase the
limit of 90 years. It is hoped that molecular biology will eventually
discover this process and that it will turn out to be easily adjustable.
In the meantime, experiments on animals suggest that modest ad-
 Richard D. Lamm, former governor of Colorado who once an-
HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION nounced that older people have a duty to die. Lamms letter ridi-
cules Michael DeBakey for saying that the most effective way to
The Clinton administration is now desperately trying to turn pub- improve health is to gain new medical knowledge.
lic attention away from its many scandals and shortcomings by point- Remember the Weekly Reader? This newspaper, distributed to
ing its finger at an imaginary group of evil American nuclear young public school children, warns (vol. 72, November 1993, p3)
scientists. (If you tire of Whitewatergate, read D. Brock, The Ameri- the kids to wear sunscreen on all exposed areas of their skin all year
can Spectator, January 1994, pp 18-30, Living With the Clintons, around, so that they will be protected from cataracts, premature skin
but dont show it to your children.) The Department of Energy under aging, and immune breakdown caused by UV penetration through
Hazel OLeary has been releasing a string of frightful revelations holes that CFCs have punched through the ozone layer. What protects
about horrible tests conducted in the 1940s and 1950s. Never mind them from the holes these people are punching in their brains?
that much of this was reported in the open scientific literature decades Science, vol 262, 19 November 1993, pp 1252-1255 is a paper
ago and that most of the radiation levels were so low as to be quite with thirty (30) authors about the computer models on which the
safe and also well within safety standards of that time. The primary global warming madness is based. These 30 authors are actually
transgression is that some of these tests were apparently done without trying to calculate the atmospheric temperature 100 years in the future
informed consent of the participants a serious transgression that by calculating means and standard deviations of the predictions of 15
should not be repeated. different computer models not one of which correctly predicts atmos-
If, however, the administration is really interested in human ex- pheric temperature during the past 10 years. I am not kidding you.
perimentation, it should read the article by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. in This paper is really there.
Conservative Review, vol. 4, December 1993, pp 10-20 available
from 1307 Dolley Madison Blvd., Suite 4A, McLean, VA 22101 en-
GOOD READING
titled Malfeasance in the Search for American POW/MIAs. This
article documents the diversion of as many as 1,000 American POWs Patient Power by John C. Goodman & Gerald L. Musgrave and
in Vietnam (and a similar number in Korea) into the Russian program The Holocaust Museum: Lessons for American Medicine by Anna &
of human experimentation with chemical, biological, and nuclear Joseph Scherzer available for a single $5 payment including postage
warfare materials. Apparently these human specimens were needed to from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, 1601 N.
check racial and cultural variations in studies carried out on Russian Tucson Blvd. Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716. If you or your family may
political prisoners. Perhaps comrade Yeltsin can provide us with cop- ever need the life-saving procedures of modern medicine, failure to
ies of informed consent forms signed by these American GIs before stop the Clinton plan for socialism in medical care could be fatal.
they willingly died as sacrifices for Mother Russia. The June/October 1993 issue of the newsletter of The Asbestos
Institute available from 1002 Sherbrooke Street West Suite 1750,
MINIATURIZED FUSION Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 3L6 which chronicles the ongoing
saga of linear extrapolation and the wonders of scientific notation in
The Dove of War written by Sam T. Cohen (inventor of the crushing another industry. They are now descending below a safety
neutron bomb) in National Review, December 27, 1993, pp 56-76 requirment of 10-15 grams per cubic centimeter.
discusses the advent of miniature neutron bombs as a result of bal- Environment Betrayed A Newsletter of Science, Philosophy,
lotechnic detonators. This is the same technology that Sam Cohen and Uncommon Sense is a publication started in December 1993 by
discussed as a power generating method in his article in Access to En- Edward C. Krug, PhD. The first issue is excellent and is available
ergy, December 1993. He suggests that it is now possible to build a from P.O. Box 1161, Winona, MN 55978.
tritium fusion explosive device small enough to be concealed in a We were Soldiers Once and Young by Harold G. Moore and
lunch sack and with a yield of about 1 ton of TNT explosive equiva- Joseph L. Galloway, Harper Perennial paperback (1993) and So-
lent and 9 ton equivalents of radiation. This could be fatal to people malias Needless Deaths by Charlie A. Beckwith, Wall Street Jour-
out to several hundred yards. nal editorial page, November 1, 1993. I did not enjoy either of these
The small size and low cost (almost no nuclear industry is re- works, but they should be required reading for every American.
quired) of these devices would allow virtually any country to develop Femtosecond Pulses Help Physicists Go to Extremes by
them without detection. Once again the secrecy that Edward Teller James Glanz, Science, vol. 262 p 1379. Martin Kamen suggested that
has warned against for decades prevents most American scientists each scientist usually works in a range of only a few orders of magni-
from knowing whether or not this danger actually exists and pre- tude, because it is difficult to make ones intuition span a very wide
vents the truth about this from affecting realistic public policy. range. Glanz summarizes work wherein bench top lasers are produc-
ing pulses 10-13 seconds long which focus on a 3 micron spot at an
TOO GOOD TO FILE intensity of 1018 watts per square centimeter. Amazing. This sort of
thing makes one want to bury himself in a basic research laboratory
Halon fire extinguishers have now disappeared into the ozone and turn off the newspapers for a few years.
hole. Air travel is still safe, however, because the airlines have been The Journalists Guide to Nuclear Energy, Third Edition, U. S.
given permission to use their CFC-based wing and cabin fire extin- Council for Energy Awareness, 1776 I Street, N.W. Suite 400, Wash-
guishers until they use up their current CFC supply. Remember the ington, DC 20006. This is 44 pages of clearly explained information
Challenger Shuttle O-rings that were modified for the asbestos ban? about nuclear power for the layman. Page 20 estimates that about half
Public backlash is so severe, however, that the EPA has asked Du- of the average exposure to radiation for Americans comes from ra-
pont to continue CFC production for another year through 1995. don. Therefore, the average person is probably protected from cancer
Science, vol. 262, p 1953 and 1958-1959 has selected molecule by many low level radiation sources in his environment. Exposure to
p53 as Molecule of the Year. This substance has enormous poten- doses far greater than average is, of course, potentially dangerous.
tial for the control of cancer. That is the good news. Bad news is that
AAAS picked, as part of one of the runner-up discoveries of the year, ACCESS TO ENERGY
the Toronto UV trend paper that we dissected in AtE last month.
The AAAS is scrambling for a place at the Clinton medical plan Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
table. So far, they are being ignored. (See D.E. Koshland, Jr., Science, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
vol. 262, p1495.) Science is doing, however, its politically correct monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
best to qualify. They even published a letter (vol. 262, p1497) by Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MARCH 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 7) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Death of a Messenger
For more than four decades, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests have
brought Americans quantitative news about the mathematical and
verbal abilities of American pre-college students. For the past two
decades, they have brought bad news. Therefore the educational es-
tablishment, dominated by the National Education Association, has
taken the obvious action. They have killed the messenger.
As of this month, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests no longer exist.
In their place are Scholastic Assessment Tests I & II. USA Today
reported on September 15, 1993 that the name of the test was
changed to eliminate the idea that it is an intelligence test. A lot
more was also eliminated. Gender bias, the tendency for boys to
score, on average, 8 points higher on the verbal test was also elimi-
nated. The tendency for boys to score 45 points higher on the math
test was reduced by half.
The reading test has been
revised to ask students the
unstated implications of the
passage and to reduce the
importance of what an
author says. The math now
de-emphasizes the correct an-
swers in favor of the approved
method of working a problem
- after all, everything is rela-
tive and outcome based,
not absolute. Calculators have
been added to eliminate the
need for students to have any
ability in mental arithmetic,
and an essay has been added
to the SAT II as a further trap
for students whose thoughts
are politically incorrect.
Although it was predict-
able that the tests would be eviscerated when todays educators
decided to revise them, the real reason for revision can be seen in
this figure adapted from the June 1993 Forbes Magazine article enti-
tled The National Extortion Association?
The National Education Association, NEA, is essentially a union
that has arisen to protect its membership from the consequences of
the mediocrity that has been the inevitable result of socialism in edu-
cation. Public school system is no more than a euphemism for
socialized education, and, like socialism in general, it degener-
ates into poor quality and worse. Socialism is morally and ethically
wrong and, moreover, it doesnt work.
The Scholastic Aptitude Tests have been bringing word, year af-
ter year, that, regardless of the increase of per pupil spending in con-
stant dollars by five-fold since 1948 and a similar 2.4-fold increase
in teachers salaries (the bureaucrats took the rest), American stu-
dents are developing less and less knowledge and ability.
behavior or cognitive function. The sweetener industry, which par-
SWEET AND PROFITABLE
parents have been limiting their childrens sweetener intake, because
The Wall Street Journal was quick to give front page coverage and
an inside page puff piece on February 3 to a paper authored by M. L.
Wolraich, et al., New England Journal of Medicine 330, p 301 (1994)
which claims to have proved that Even when intake exceeds typical
dietary levels, neither dietary sucrose nor aspartame affects childrens
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
The NEA is the largest American labor union, with, according to
Forbes, 2.1 million members and a direct income of $750 million
per year. It has had the largest single block of delegates to the Demo-
cratic National Convention in every year since 1976 (about 1/8 of
total delegates) and functions as a vast political organization for the
Democratic party. In 1991 Bill Clinton told the NEA candidate
screening panel, If I become President, youll be my partners. I
wont forget who brought me to the White House. Yet the NEA is
a federally chartered corporation exempt from property taxes and
exempt from the legal prohibitions on political activities of govern-
mental employees.
It is, as Forbes put it, the near monopoly supplier to a govern-
ment enforced monopoly consumer. It controls not only the cost of
American socialized educa-
tion but also the curriculum.
Usually socialism is con-
trolled primarily by govern-
ment bureaucrats. In this case,
a single political party has
found it expedient to control
an aspect of socialism from
outside of the government, so
that it can function as a pow-
erful instrument of partisan
politics on behalf of that party.
Some people believe the
answer to this is school
choice. I do not. Taxpayer
financing means political con-
trol. We must not continue to
allow politicians and labor
leaders to to control the edu-
cation of American children.
Fortunately, technology
may soon come to the rescue of this aspect of free enterprise. Home
schooling is experiencing explosive growth and is limited primarily
by family circumstances that prevent many parents from bringing
quality education into their homes. This limitation is rapidly being
removed by the communications and data storage revolution.
As I write this, my six home-schooled children (ages 6 to 17) are
working at their desks in this same room. Their performance is al-
ready far superior to that typical in government schools even 30
years ago. (The 17 year old scored 1480 on the PSAT and 1440 on
the SAT and uses entirely university level texts.) With the educa-
tional tools that are now becoming available, that potential perform-
ance will be far greater.
Public schools are an irreversibly dying institution. They have
killed the messenger, but the message is still true. Soon technology
will bring the best American teachers into the homes of American
children. The other 2 million will find different occupations.
tially funded these experiments, was delighted. Increasing numbers of
they observe deleterious mental effects. These observations, we are
told, have now been swept away by science.
Do not believe it. The actual results of these experiments do not
support the claims of the publicity campaign. Forty-eight children
were fed diets rich in either saccharin, aspartame, or sucrose (ordinary
table sugar) for randomized, three-week intervals over a period of This is honest science as starkly opposed to the offering by S. H.
nine weeks. Transient mental effects were not measured, although 43 Schneider, Science 263 p341 (1994). He claims that increases in at-
tests of mental function were tabulated. mospheric temperature of + 0.5 C per century, as has occurred in the
Wolraich, et al. make the claim that the parents and children did 20th century, have only happened about once or twice per thousand
not know the identities of the diets. When asked to identify which of years. He estimates, therefore, that there is an 80 to 90 percent prob-
the three diets were being eaten, Only one parent correctly identified ability that this increase was man-caused by carbon dioxide.
the sequence of diets. Even if we ignore the fact that these sweeten- He conceals, however, the fact that the 20th century increase oc-
ers have markedly different tastes and we assume that only one parent
per child was asked to guess, the random chance that only one or
fewer of 48 parents would guess correctly a sequence of three vari-
ables is only 1 in 600.
The Wall Street Journal describes this study of 48 children for
three weeks on each diet by crooning, The results were resound-
ingly definitive. Exemplary were scores the authors report for con-
duct of 8.1 + 6.7, 8.6 + 5.8, and 6.9 + 6.1 and attention deficit of
10.2 + 7.0, 8.6 + 6.2, and 9.0 + 6.1 for sucrose, aspartame, and sac-
charin (their control) respectively in school age children. The
higher score is worse, so in these two cases sucrose is worse. This
is described as resoundingly definitive in proving no effect from
sucrose, because no statistically significant difference was observed.
Yet, look at the errors (which represent one standard deviation and
thereby the range with a two-thirds probability of containing the ac-
tual values). Too few subjects and a very brief study have given them
data so scattered that almost nothing can be proved.
Moreover, even this meager result is opposite to their conclusions.
There are 20 unequivocal behavioral parameters for school age chil-
dren (the experiment involved 25 preschool children and 23 school
age children which further reduced its statistical significance) re-
ported in the paper. Of these, 14 were worse with sucrose and 6 were
worse with saccharin. This worse behavior in the sucrose group is
significant at the p = 0.06 level. (We calculate the probability of get-
ting 6 or fewer heads when flipping a coin 20 times.)
In short, this is a poor study of too few children for too short a
time. It proves nothing, definitive or otherwise, and, if anything, it
gives indication that sweeteners actually did affect the childrens be-
havior.
S. A. Glantz, Circulation 61 p 1 (1980) estimated that approxi-
mately half the articles published in medical journals that use statisti-
cal methods use them incorrectly.
Why did the New England Journal of Medicine publish this? Why curred before most of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
not? This journal has published articles claiming that civil defense This reduces his probability to zero.
doesnt work, because everyone in the World War II firestorm areas In looking only at the period between 1979 and 1993, Christy and
of Hamburg and Dresden was allegedly killed regardless of whether McNider at least chose a time interval that could be affected by CO2.
or not he was in a shelter. When it was pointed out that, in fact, virtu-
ally everyone in the better quality shelters survived, they refused to HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS
publish this. A publication of diminishing credibility as a result of its
control by such groups as Physicians for Social Responsibility, the C. C. Mann, Science 263 p 470 (1994) gives a balanced and mod-
New England Journal of Medicine apparently doesnt bother with se- erately detailed discussion of human experiments with radioactive
rious referees, but The Wall Street Journal should know better. substances that have appalled, shocked, and saddened Department
of Energy Secretary Hazel OLeary and have also given the Clinton
VOLCANOES HAPPEN administration some press distraction that it desperately needs.
Five of the 31 experiments were done by researchers on them-
J. R. Christy and R. T. McNider, Nature 367 p325 (1994) have selves. Exposure of 18 terminal patients (already near death) to pluto-
made a credible try to rescue a significant greenhouse signal from nium without informed consent was the worst infraction, but research
the past 15 years of lower troposphere (lowest 3 miles of the earths was needed to assess health affects of plutonium on thousands of war-
atmosphere) temperature measurements by satellite microwave time workers. Informed consent could not be obtained, because gov-
sounding units. The effort fails, but this figure from their paper use- ernment secrecy then required that Plutonium couldnt even be
fully illustrates effects that we often hear of only in rhetorical form. named it had to be called product. All doctors could tell them was
Graph a shows the actual temperature with a trend of - 0.04 C per that they were going to get a product in a small dose. The only other
decade. Their estimate from sea temperature measurements of the ef- people potentially harmed were 6 patients injected with uranium salts
fects of four El Nio events is given in b and subtracted from a to and 131 prison inmates who received testicular doses of x-rays. These
give c. Their estimate of the effects of volcanic eruptions by El prisoners not only volunteered but also agreed to have vasectomies.
Chichn and Mount Pinatubo is given in d and then subtracted from c Six other studies used informed consent procedures less rigorous
to give a final corrected curve in e. This corrected curve has an up- than required today and 17 used currently acceptable consent proce-
ward trend of + 0.09 C per decade. dures. For research in an era (1945-1963) when many scientists over-
Not only is this + 0.09 C value five-fold less than that predicted exposed themselves to radiation, the record is remarkably good.
by the global warming gurus, it is still affected by such mundane Martin Kamen gave us C14 while absorbing very large amounts of
matters as the variable intensity of the sun as the authors note. radiation and is now 80 years old. Other scientists, however, died.


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE EXTENSION
freedom. Sometimes the titles alone describe the craziness. Science
Until recently our government issued radiation maps calculated
from efforts to predict geographical dependence of radioactive fallout
deposition during a nuclear war. This still useful information is now
politically incorrect. Fear, however, as a means to scare uninformed
citizens into giving up more of their money and freedom in exchange
for claims of government protection never goes out of style. The
above map of EPA estimated radon zones is reprinted from The
Health Physics Newsletter, p 9, February (1994).
Better and more detailed maps constructed from a compilation of
data from the University of Pittsburgh, eleven independent state stud-
ies, and the EPA data are available in the paper by B.L. Cohen, C.A.
Stone, and C.A. Schilken, Health Physics 66 p 201 (1994).
On the EPA map, Zone 1 counties have a predicted average indoor
radon level of greater than 4 pCi/L, Zone 2 counties have between 2
and 4 pCi/L, and Zone 3 counties have less than 2 pCi/L.
These maps can be useful, but not in the way that EPA intended.
Cohen and coworkers (see December 1993 and February 1994 Ac-
cess to Energy) have shown that lung cancer risk decreases as radon
increases in the range between 0.5 pCi/L and 5 pCi/L. At some higher
and, as yet, undetermined level the curve of cancer risk changes direc-
tion and correlates positively with radon level.
The pie chart is from USCEA publication The Journalists Guide
to Nuclear Energy, 3rd edition p 20 available from USCEA, 17761 I
Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20006. It shows that Americans get
about half of their radiation exposure from radon. Radon deficiency
in the environment in the EPA Zone 3 areas can be made up by living
at high altitude (cold) or more medical treatments (expensive and not
constant). It cannot, however, be helped by moving next door to a
nuclear power plant. Perhaps the nuclear waste disposal issue could
be mitigated by storing measured quantities of waste in the homes of
Americans who live in radiation deficient regions. Surely we all have
a right to our fair share of radiation.
In any case, life in Zone 2 counties is safer (as is that in many Zone
1 counties) as compared with Zone 3. Other factors need, however, to
be taken into account. As an aid we print below a map adapted from
the January 17, 1994 issue of U.S. News and World Report p 8 giving
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms data on the density of gun
dealers by state. Note that Florida which has Americas highest rate
of violent crime has only 8.6 dealers per 10,000 people, whereas
North Dakota with the lowest violent crime rate has 25.8. As shown
for the other states on this map and in accordance with numerous
other studies, there is a strong positive correlation between guns in the
hands of private citizens and public safety.
The Dakotas look great on both maps and have the additional fea-
ture of cold weather which discourages many types of parasites. On
the other hand, maybe we should look again at those fallout maps.
ELEMENTAL POLITICS
There seems to be no end to the paper blitzkrieg against American
News 145 p 59 (1994) has an article by J. A. Raloff entitled The
Role of Chlorine and Its Future. This article quotes such authori-
ties as Theo Colborn of the World Wildlife Fund and Joe Thornton of
Greenpeace USA. Thornton calls for a phase out of chlorine. He
says No further organochlorine pollution should be permitted.
Just how difficult it is going to be for Americans to implement
Greenpeaces world-wide totalitarian agenda is indicated in the chap-
ter by W. Fenical entitled Natural Halogenated Organics, Marine
Organic Chemistry, Elsevier p 375 (1981). He reports that there were,
in 1981, about 400 known organohalogenated compounds (primarily
bromine and chlorine) produced by marine organisms. These are ex-
creted into the sea and are also stored at levels of approximately 5 to
6% of the dry weight of marine plants and animals.
Moreover, as cited by Environment Betrayed, PO Box 1161, Wi-
nona, MN 55987, J. S. Pallister et al. EOS supplement for Fall 1983
meeting pp 667-668 and T. M. Gerlach pp 105-106 of the same EOS
supplement report that Mount Pinatubo injected 2 million tons of
chlorine into the stratosphere in one day. See also Z. Jaworowski,
21st Century Research Communications p 6 Spring issue (1993).
The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1994 p B5 reports that Rick
Hind, legislative director of the Greenpeace toxics campaign said,
This is the first time weve been able to give unqualified praise to
the administration since they took office while commenting on a
new EPA anti-chlorine offensive which includes a new task force to
study and then restrict or prohibit chlorine and chlorine compounds as
appropriate. CFCs were just a beginning skirmish. With Clinton-
Gore support, the chlorine witchhunt will soon become a major as-
sault against American industry.
 83711. (25 cents per copy order one if you have never read this.)
GREEN LIES
Fish and Wildlife Service wants to use as a surrogate to shut down
Greenpeace Global Warming and Energy Coordinator Steve
Kretzmann circulated two slick booklets to members of Congress en-
titled Fiscal Fission: The Economic Failure of Nuclear Power and
Energy for Employment: How to Heat Up the Economy. The first
(printed on 100% recycled paper) claims that U.S. nuclear power
costs in 1990 were 10.15 cents per kilowatt hour. The second (printed
on 100% recycled paper Quest cover and Conservatree premium
opaque text with soy ink and union labor) calls for a $15 billion
taxpayer financed program devoted to windmills and solar power.
The actual costs for U.S. nuclear power are shown in the figure
below drawn from Utility Data Institute data by the U.S. Council for
Energy Awareness, The Journalists Guide to Nuclear Energy, 3rd
edition p 15. This gives a 1990 cost per kilowatt hour of about one-
fourth that claimed by Greenpeace to Congress.
The second Greenpeace report also disparages hydrocarbon
based energy generation. Remarkably, American industry has contin-
ued to reduce the real costs of energy even though regulatory costs
placed upon energy production by politicians and stimulated by
pseudoenvironmentalist lobbyists like Greenpeace have increased.
ance Company to Milton Friedman concerning that companys expe-
STARK RAVING MAD
employee medical costs have been reduced by 60% and employees
lPanel To Decide What is Cause of Peptic Ulcers reports The
Wall Street Journal, February 7 p B1. The panel of 15 medical ex-
perts is being convened here this morning by the National Institutes
of Health in a procedure called a Consensus Development Confer-
ence. The experts are chosen because they havent been involved in
research on the bacterium and havent taken sides on some of the
more controversial issues. For a day and a half theyll listen to presen-
tations by researchers and then reach a consensus.
Why not just let both sides make a TV media blitz for a couple of
months and then take a public opinion poll? Truth is independent of
opinion and, very often, is opposite to majority opinion. Pseudoenvi-
ronmentalism seeks to establish perceived truths by self-serving
propaganda and then substitute them for the real thing. It is not sur-
prising that the socialized medical research community is now going
down the same road to nonscience. Socialism just doesnt work.
l Earthquakes and Collective Action by D. E. Koshland and
B. Hanson, Science 263 p 451 (1994) is written in support of Clin-
tons donation of about $10 billion of tax money to participants in the
recent California earthquake. Not Yours to Give from The Life of
David Crockett by Edward S. Ellis gives Crocketts timeless answer
to Koshlands socialist immorality. This has been reprinted from
Freeman by Grapevine Publications, PO Box 45057, Boise, ID
l Remember the Unspotted Sturgeon, the stuffed fish the U. S.
Alabama rivers? Well the USFWS spotted one and managed to catch
it, according to The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 1994 p A14.
USFWS says it looked like the stuffed fish. Past tense because, in
their tender care, the fish died. So far USFWS has stonewalled all at-
tempts by biologists, particularly those from the U. S. Army Corps of
Engineers (which is trying to preserve human use of the rivers), to
obtain samples from the fish. Genetic analysis from such samples is
needed to determine whether or not the fish is a distinct species as
compared with ordinary sturgeon that are abundant in the rivers.
USFWS plans to preserve the fish in formaldehyde which may de-
stroy the possibility of genetic analysis. Anyway, says James Stewart
who is leading the spotted fish parade for USFWS, genetics doesnt
matter if the fish looks different.
Last year, here in Cave Junction, Oregon, we stopped an attempt
to use the winter Steelhead fish in our streams as a surrogate to shut
down our lumber and farming industries. That success was primarily
due to genetic analysis of our Steelhead which showed that they were
not a distinct species as compared with those in nearby rivers.
USFWS is learning pose as scientists, but oppose real science.
l Department of Environmental Quality Waste Management Pro-
posed Rules, Article 14 require that medical waste be stored in 40 psi
safe containers. This is roughly equivalent to the Swiss national civil
defense requirement for 50 psi blast shelters. Americans have no such
protection except for politicians and bureaucrats who are provided
protection under the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Continuity of Government program. In case of war, Americans
will have no food, water, or shelters, but they will have available a
plentiful supply of politicians, bureaucrats, and medical waste.
GOOD READING
l The Gathering Storm by Tom Bethell, American Spectator
p 16 January 1994 is an optimistic summary of the ongoing collapse
of world socialism.
l There Is No Health Care Crisis by Irwin M. Stelzer, The
Wall Street Journal p A14 January 25, 1994 summaries the non-prob-
lem Clinton proposes to fix with socialized medicine. This extraordi-
nary political issue directly affects the probable number of years of
personal life remaining for each and every American.
l Letter from J. Patrick Rooney, Chairman of Golden Rule Insur-
rience with medical savings accounts. Company expenditures for
prefer these accounts. Letter available from Brian McManus, Golden
Rule, 712 Eleventh Street, Lawrenceville, IL 62439.
l Exaggerated danger by Aaron Wildavsky, Nature 367 p 227
(1994) is a review of two books, Phantom Risk: Scientific Inference
and the Law By K. R. Foster, D. E. Bernsten & P. W. Huber and
Element of Risk: The Politics of Radon by L. A. Cole. The death of
Aaron Wildavsky in September 1993 was a very substantial loss.
Several readers have suggested that Access to Energy should be
read by U.S. Senators and Congressmen. Therefore, as an experi-
ment, we agree to count the offices of politicians as individuals
rather than as tax subsidized organizations. We will send 12 is-
sues of Access to Energy to political offices for $ 25 each. Specify
the politicians when you order these. We have the addresses.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
APRIL 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 8) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Economic Freedom
Economic freedom is difficult to preserve in the presence of so-
cialist tyranny. In America today, we have about 50% of each.
About half of all expenditures in our economy are made by federal,
state, and local government using money taken by threat of force
from the American people. Americans are partially free to spend the
remaining half of their earnings as they wish, although government
regulations increasingly diminish this partial freedom as well. Fas-
cism, socialisms twin which is promoted by many unproductive
American executives, extends oppression by government regulation.
This erosion of economic freedom is the primary reason that, re-
gardless of the enormous advances made by science and industry, it
is increasingly difficult for American families to maintain accept-
able standards of living. In the 1950s, one working family member
supported each family. Now, two or more working family members
are required for essentially the same support. Politicians, who con-
tinue to make this necessary, hypocritically regale us with crocodile
tears about the diminished quality and stability of American family
life.
As this enormous socialist disincentive has grown, tens of mil-
lions of Americans have given up and joined the welfare roles. A
remarkable 10% are no longer even willing to earn enough to pro-
vide for their own food. They accept food stamps. In large part, their
lives have been ruined by socialism.
Still, our country is partly free and contains many productive
people who manage to move forward even with the current socialist
burden. Paradoxically, this is the reason that American socialism is
able to continue to advance. It is carried on the backs of those it has
not yet managed to enslave.
Each of us should do our part to oppose this economic tyranny.
We hope that, when the end of American socialism finally comes, it
will be peaceful rather than violent, although the historical record
suggests violence as more probable. That end, however, may well be
many decades in the future. We must, therefore, maximize the eco-
nomic freedom of our families and ourselves within the partially free
world in which we live. There are still many opportunities to do this.
Many people equate this objective with accumulation of very
large amounts of money. There is a difference, however, between
potential freedom and actual freedom. Some people evaluate their
own progress primarily by keeping score with money. While this
mindset is often well suited to the accumulation of money, it is not
sufficient for the accumulation of economic freedom.
Alexander M. Poniatoff, founder of AMPEX corporation and the
inventor of video tape recording, once told me that a rich man has
three problems: (1) obtaining money that is easy. (2) keeping
money that is more difficult. (3) spending money wisely a prob-
lem that very few are ever able to solve. The mind set and habits
best adapted to solving problems 1 and 2 often actually prevent the
solution of problem 3.
There are many very wealthy individuals who are entirely en-
slaved to the accumulation of additional wealth even though the
was written for the layman. Those who want more should read, in the
BRUCE AMES Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Ames, B.N.
and Gold. L.S., PNAS 87, pp 7772-7776 (1990); Ames, B.N., Profet,
Every Access to Energy reader should obtain a copy of the recent
34 page monograph entitled Does Current Cancer Risk Assessment
Harm Health? by Bruce N. Ames. It is available for $5.00 from The
George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, N.W., Suite 502, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20036-4505 telephone (202) 296-9655. This article
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
with the worthwhile objectives, if any, that they have established.
These people are almost entirely without economic freedom.
Conversely, there are people of very modest wealth who have ar-
ranged their lives so that they have almost full time to devote to
worthwhile objectives. More money would markedly improve their
progress toward those objectives, but at least they are personally free
to make such progress. These people have economic freedom.
Some people are given the assets necessary for economic free-
dom. More often these assets must be earned with a particular objec-
tive in mind. Always, through teaching or experience, the individual
must gain the wisdom to use assets to gain freedom.
There is no set formula, but some general rules often apply and
may serve as examples:
First, have no debt whatever on a home or place of residence.
Many Americans are enslaved to their mortgages and thereby to
their jobs and the opinions of their employers. After 30 years of in-
dentured servitude they hope to be free. Even if they achieve this,
much of their life has elapsed before they do.
Two, accumulate a modest real income from indestructible as-
sets. Debt-free, non-irrigated and high-quality farmland is an exam-
ple. Each year this can provide a real rental income from an asset
that will still be there next year. This asset cannot burn down, be-
come bankrupt, be depreciated by inflation, or otherwise easily lost.
Three, keep a modest sum of assets in a mixture of liquid forms
for personal emergencies. Insure risks that one cannot afford to self-
insure such as catastrophic medical expenses.
Four, restrict potential losses from money-making schemes to
fixed sums that will not cause a loss of freedom if they fail. Many
Americans are enslaved to their stock, commodity, or bond portfo-
lios which they call investments. In a perfect world, these are in-
vestments. As a result of socialism, they are speculations.
Five, learn to live modestly and self-sufficiently.
In general, it is wise to arrange ones life so that freedom and
family obligations can be met regardless of employment or specula-
tive income. Then, it is sensible to reach as high as possible even
where the risk of failure is great as an economically free wild-
card. Few of us gain great wealth, but most of us can gain personal
economic freedom. We still, however, have the rich mans third
problem. We must learn how to spend our personal freedom wisely.
I have had the good fortune to know many fine American wild-
cards. Some have succeeded, while others have failed. Most shared
the attitude that they would rather fail in an attempt to achieve a truly
important goal rather than succeed in a lesser effort. Some had for-
mal education, some did not. Some were rich, most were not.
Money was to them a tool, not a scorecard, and they tended to wear
out all available tools in their endeavors.
Watch for these people. Help them when you can. Join them if
you wish. In this uncertain world, our country and our civilization
must keep reaching higher in order to survive. It is our economically
free wildcards who have the longest reach.
M., and Gold, L.S., PNAS 87 pp 7777-7781 (1990); Ames, B.N., Pro-
fet, M., and Gold, L.N. PNAS 87, pp 7782-7786 (1990); and Ames,
B.N., Shigenaga, M.K., and Hagen, T.M., PNAS 90 pp 7915-7922
(1993). These papers provide an additional 400 references.
When writing about the degenerative processes of aging such as
cancer, a conflict arises between a scientists professional obligation
to proceed cautiously and objectively and his moral obligation to ex-
trapolate known facts to an unknown outcome in order to help people
who are currently living, suffering, and perhaps dying without essen-
tial health knowledge.
Very often this latter obligation, the moral obligation to guess, mu-
tates under the influence of money, notoriety, and power to such an
extent that the former obligation is entirely lost. I have seen many ex-
amples from the best to the worst balances between these obligations.
Bruce Ames is among the very best. Part of the discussion below is
summarized from his recent publications.
is trained to recognize cells that are not identical to those of ordinary
CANCER
mutation of ordinary tissue as compared with invading cells such as
Cancer, as the curve adapted here from the Ames publications sug-
gests, is an ordinary mechanism for the end of human life. As can be
seen from this curve, more than 20% of those who live to be 80 years
old die from cancer. It is possible that cancer cannot be eliminated
with current technology. It is
likely, however, that it can be
postponed, so that death usually
results from other causes.
To the average person, can-
cer seems to strike suddenly,
horribly, and tragically without
warning. Although each person
knows that his life will end, the
onset of cancer moves that end
closer and gives it a reality that
removes human mental de-
fenses against the fact of mor-
tality. Fear, especially fear of
cancer, is a powerful force for
the manipulation of human be-
ings. For this reason, many
groups use fear of cancer in an
effort to further their agendas.
Pseudoenvironmentalists
have been especially unscrupu-
lous in the promotion of fear of
cancer as has the Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA), a vast regulatory bureaucracy that
has been essentially built by manipulating public fear.
Recent issues of Access to Energy have focused on new develop-
ments in radon research which show that the fear that low doses of
radiation increase the risk of cancer is not only wrong, but is opposite
to the truth. These radiation fears are, however, at the heart of the vast
and successful pseudoenvironmentalist effort to prevent the proper
development of nuclear power in the United States.
Bruce Ames and his colleagues and coworkers have focused on
another cancer fear the fear that trace levels of industrial chemicals
increase the risk of cancer. As in the case of radiation, harmful effects
of chemicals at very high doses have been extrapolated to low dose
ranges where harmful effects have not been actually observed.
As in the radiation case, it turns out that the sum of government
actions taken in response to claimed dangers of trace chemical expo-
sure have actually increased rather than decreased cancer risk.
Although not yet completely understood, the development of can-
cer is apparently a several stage process.
First, damage is done to the nucleic acid molecular library in a liv-
ing cell, so that the cell forgets information essential to doing its job
without disruption of the work of other cells. This damage also gives
the cell a competitive advantage over undamaged cells. Single in-
stances of damage are usually of little importance, however. Cellular
mechanisms repair or eliminate such damage very efficiently. This is
necessary, because great amounts of chemical damage occur in the
course of ordinary biochemical life. Ames and coworkers found, for
example, that the average number of ordinary biochemical instances
of oxidative nucleic acid damage in the rat is about 100,000 per cell
per day. Nevertheless, if carcinogens substantially increase the
amount of nucleic acid damage, this presumably increases the number
of potentially precancerous events that require repair.
Second, if the damaged cell manages to reproduce before it is
either repaired or killed by intercellular or extracellular defenses, it
may establish itself as a growing tissue of similarly damaged cells.
Therefore, factors that substantially increase the rate of cell turnover
in a living tissue would be expected to increase the chance that a dam-
aged cell could establish itself as a mutated tissue.
Third, mutated cells must evade the bodys immune system, which
tissue. Although this is more difficult in the case of cells arising from
bacteria, it is thought that the immune system does successfully rec-
ognize and eliminate many mutated cells. Anything that decreases the
health of the immune system would be expected, therefore, to weaken
this defense against cancer.
Fourth, growing mutated tis-
sue often releases cells that es-
tablish themselves as growing
cancer tissues in other parts of
the body. These metastasized
tissues multiply the number of
locations in which the initial
cancer can do harm.
Fifth, the primary cancer tis-
sue or one of its metastases
grows large enough to fatally
disrupt an essential bodily func-
tion. Most cancer therapy fo-
cuses on surgical removal of
cancer tissue or on slowing or
reversing its growth.
A very long time can elapse
between the establishment of a
cancerous tissue and its disrup-
tion of bodily functions great
enough to allow detection. This
lag time can be as much as 20
years or more. Thus, a cancer
victim can be ill for many years before symptoms appear. Both the
primary tumor and many metastases are often well developed before
illness is discovered.
Cancer research focuses on 1) reduction of production of cancer
cells through mutation and cell turnover, 2) increase in systemic resis-
tance to the establishment of initial cancer cells as growing tissues, 3)
reduction of rate of growth of cancer tissues once they have been es-
tablished, and 4) techniques for selective destruction of cancer tissues.
Smoking and chronic infections are known to markedly increase
cancer risk. It is believed that they do this by increasing the amount of
intracellular nucleic acid damage and thereby increasing the prob-
ability that a cell will divide at a time when it has unrepaired, poten-
tially cancerous genetic damage. Although chronic infections are
largely a risk factor in underdeveloped countries, smoking is the
greatest American risk factor.
Lung cancer is by far the most prevalent cause of death from can-
cer. Most lung cancer is caused by smoking. Smoking also increases
the risk of other fatal diseases. On average, each pack of cigarettes
smoked per day reduces life expectancy about 8 years. This reduction
is a compression of life, not a loss of only the later years. Smokers age
and die at an overall accelerated average rate. Although this effect is
reduced for cigars and pipes, it is still substantial.
Diet is also an important cancer risk factor. Epidemiological stud-
ies show generally that cancer risk is increased for diets rich in fats
and low in fruits and vegetables. For example, Ames quotes Block,
Patterson, and Subar, Nutr. Canc. 18, pp 1-29 (1992) who summa-
rized this effect from 172 published studies. The averaged result of
these studies is that the relative risk of cancer was reduced by about a
factor of 2 by diets higher in fruits and vegetables.
There is a hypothesis that fruits and vegetables reduce cancer risk
because they contain substances which react with other molecules that
might otherwise damage cellular nucleic acids. This has led to a wide-
spread practice of food supplementation, especially with vitamins A,
E, and C. While these substances may well improve health when
taken in reasonable amounts, they are probably not a complete substi-
tute for dietary fruits and vegetables. Regardless of how they work,
however, it is well established that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables
and low in fats decreases cancer risk.
This provides an example of Americas wildcard phenomenon.
Last month a fire in Boston claimed the life of an 85 year-old lady
named Ann Wigmore. Although knowledge about the health benefits
of fruits and vegetables can be traced to the beginnings of medical
literature and then further back into the medical folk lore of many cul-
tures, it was Ann Wigmore who raised American awareness of these
facts to the critical point where scientists began to study them.
As a child in Germany and Hungary during World War I, Ann
Wigmore was treated by her village doctor grandmother, who empha-
sized the value of fruits, vegetables, and grasses in medicine. Ann
came to America at the age of 16 and, after experiencing the health
effects of the ordinary American diet, devoted the rest of her life to the
advocacy of raw fruit and vegetable diets especially in the prevention
and treatment of cancer. She was not a scientist and had many odd
interests, but her gradual impact upon the American health food sub-
culture and, through it, upon American science was substantial.
I remember well the day in 1976 when Edie Mae and Arnold
Hunsberger (founder of U.S. elevator corporation and inventor of the
glass elevator) came to see me at the suggestion of a Caltech student.
They stated that Mrs. Hunsbergers life had been saved by Ann Wig-
more, and they wanted to tell me about cancer and raw fruits and
vegetables. Edie Mae Hunsberger had decided to devote the rest of
her life to the advocacy with which Ann Wigmore had helped her.
Part of my laboratory at the time consisted of a colony of 1000
mice in which we were studying dose response of several vitamins as
a function incidence and severity of skin cancer in UV irradiated hair-
less mice. The Hunsbergers convinced me to add fruits and vegetables
to these studies. During the next year and a half, we found and con-
firmed by repetition a 4-fold reduction of cancer in these mice as a
result of a raw fruit and vegetable diet alone.
Through her tireless work, Ann Wigmore created tens of thou-
sands of American advocates of the value of fruits and vegetables in
the reduction of cancer. These advocates gradually raised awareness
high enough that many laboratories were influenced as was ours, and
science took over. Ann Wigmore will probably not be remembered.
She will not even be referenced in the scientific literature, because she
wrote nothing that would pass peer review. It is, however, wildcards
such as Ann Wigmore and Arn and Edie Mae Hunsberger that
pointed cancer research in this valuable direction.
Cancer risk is also increased in individuals with very high occupa-
tional exposures to carcinogenic agents. This risk is cumulative, so
workers who smoke have a lower tolerance for carcinogens and are,
therefore, at greater risk.
Ames states that hormone levels increase cancer risk. Breast can-
cer is correlated to human hormone levels, especially in women who
do not bear children. It is thought that this may be due to increased
cell turnover that is stimulated by hormones. This turnover increases
the chance that a mutated cell will establish itself as a tissue before the
mutation is corrected.
Bruce Ames has estimated, based on his knowledge of the current
scientific literature, the approximate relative contributions of the vari-
ous factors as causes of cancer. His estimates are given in the table.
But where is the radiation? Where are the pesticides, herbicides,
and trace industrial chemicals? Where is that element from pseudoen-
vironmentalist hell chlorine? They are exactly where they belong.
They are not of sufficient importance to be in the list.
The Causes of Cancer
Smoking ................................................................................ 30%
Unbalanced Diets (high fat, low fruits and vegetables) ..... 35%
Chronic Infections (Mostly in poor countries) ................... 30%
Hormones (Breast, Endometrial, etc.) ................................. 25%
Occupation (Mostly Asbestos in Smokers) .......................... 2%
Pollution (Mostly Heavy Air Pollution) ............................. <1%
Total (Because of multiple causes) ................................... 122%
Ah, but the EPA and its enviro friends will say, these are Ames
estimates. We dont really know for certain that pesticides are safe, so
lets just ban them anyway, so that no one will be harmed. Well, it
happens that Ames is one of the worlds foremost experts in the test-
ing of chemical substances for cancer causing potential. His answer to
the pesticide question is as follows:
PESTICIDES
First, it is not yet possible to directly measure the carcinogenic ef-
fects of pesticide residues in food, because the risks, if any, are so
small that they have not been observed. Current estimates are made in
the same way that they are erroneously made for radiation risks at
very high levels of exposure are extrapolated to low levels. There are
several reasons to think that these extrapolations are incorrect. Ames
gives these reasons, but does not depend upon them. (It is even possi-
ble that low level exposure is beneficial a sort of biochemical hor-
mesis but Ames does not suggest this.)
Assuming, for argument, that the methods used to estimate cancer
risks of pesticides are correct (Ames, himself, invented one of the bet-
ter ones), he simply lists the risks for all measured synthetic and natu-
rally occurring chemicals as opposed to the EPA-enviro game of
listing only the synthetic ones. The result is remarkable.
About half of all chemicals tested by these criteria are classified as
carcinogenic. This is true of both the natural and synthetic groups. If
all of these substances are listed as dangerous, then almost all of the
dangerous chemicals that humans eat are naturally occurring sub-
stances in food. Extensive lists are given in the publications refer-
enced above.
Limiting the argument to pesticides, 99.99% of all pesticides that
humans eat are produced by plants in their own biochemical defense.
These natural pesticides represent such a broad class of compounds
that they are just as dangerous on average as are synthetic pesticides,
so 99.99% of the pesticide risk comes from food itself.
Ames estimates that the average American eats about 0.1 mg per
day of synthetic pesticides and about 1,500 mg per day of natural pes-
ticides. About half of these substances would be classified by EPA
tests as carcinogenic. Each cup of coffee alone provides 10 mg of
known carcinogens and many more not yet known.
If pesticides were a significant cause of cancer, most of us would
have the disease already. We could reduce this exposure by eating
synthetic diets or using more synthetic pesticides on food crops. This
would enable us to grow strains of crops that have less natural pesti-
cide protection, so overall consumption of these substances would be
reduced. Fortunately, the risk is so low that this is unnecessary.
Moreover, there is a very high cancer risk hazard associated with
the EPA banning of pesticides. The banning of pesticides raises the
costs of fruits of vegetables (as do Department of Agriculture price
controls) and therefore reduces the consumption of these important
foods, which are known to be a major benefit in cancer prevention.
Even in the absence of government action, the fear tactics by
which the enviro industry and the EPA promote themselves have al-
ready led to many unnecessary cancer deaths. They have frightened
many Americans into the consumption solely of fruits and vegetables
that have been organically grown without the use of pesticides,
herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. These are generally more expen-
sive, so the result has been to reduce fruit and vegetable consumption.
 Not in the Ames list of causes of cancer but well deserving of rec-
ognition are the EPA and other merchants of radiation and chemical
fear. Their accomplishments are not at all limited to the field of can-
cer, but I think that they deserve an estimate on the Ames list of can-
cer causes of at least 5%.
The EPA was launched to power with the ban of DDT. This pesti-
cide saved tens of millions of lives before it was banned. Since then
many people have died unnecessarily as a result of the DDT ban,
which was never supported by credible research.

MORE RADON

J. S. Neuberger, et al, Health Physics 66 pp 263-269 (1994) report

lung cancer rates for women in Iowa. The EPA 4 pCi per liter
safety standard is exceeded in 71% of Iowa homes. Grouping Iowa
counties as <8 pCi, 8-10 pCi, and >10 pCi per liter and smoking as
low (<25%), medium (25-33%), and high (>33%), they find a nega-
tive correlation with lung cancer except in the high smoking group.
The high radon counties have 33% less, 14% less, and 11% more lung
cancer in low, medium, and high smoking counties respectively vs.
the low radon counties. benefit from CO2 emissions (see Access to Energy November and
Although (we should say because) Iowa has the highest state- December 1993). Unfortunately, they are in error.
wide mean radon level in the United States and the highest percentage Why do these people refuse to consider the data? (See Cargo Cult
of homes exceeding EPA radon safety levels, it has one of the lowest Science in Access to Energy January 1994.) The above figure is from
womens lung cancer rates. Two Environmental Issues published by the George C. Marshall
At some radon exposure level, the protective effect of radon Institute in 1991 (same publisher as the Ames article on page 1).
against lung cancer is overcome by the damaging effects of radon. The calculated curve is proportional to CO2 release. Since the tem-
These Iowa results indicate that, in non-smokers, this level is greater perature increase (which correlates excellently with increased solar
than 10 pCi per liter. For those who are already damaging their lungs activity) precedes the CO2 release, it cannot be caused by it.
by smoking, the optimum radon level is evidently lower. Cohens re- For example, CO2 values were 293, 294, 307, and 339 parts per
sults (see December 1993 Access to Energy) show that, even for million in 1890, 1900, 1940, and 1980 respectively. (Values from
smokers, the optimum radon level is greater than 4 pCi per liter. S.B. Idso, Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition
The linear hypothesis, upon which virtually the entire radiation ISBN 0-9623489-1-0 IBR Press, 631 E. Laguna Drive, Tempe, AZ
scare industry is based, is scientifically dead. 85282.) During this 90 year period, 70% of the CO2 increase occurred
between 1940 and 1980 with no atmospheric temperature increase.
The temperature increase occurred before 1940, so it cannot have
REVOLUTION
been caused by the later CO2 increase.
I have in my hand a $20 magnetic tape (4mm x 120 m) the size of
two matchboxes that can contain more written material than I will GOOD READING
read during my entire life. Its contents can be read into my personal
l Resolution 93-48 (and 26-page supporting legal document)
computer in two hours (8 Gbyte at 60 Mbyte/minute). Commercially
available now, this technology will probably soon be obsolete. adopted by the Nye County Board of Commissioners, PO Box 153,
Group schools for children below the age of 18 are among the Tonopah, NV 89049 asserting that, within the borders of the State of
walking dead, and, if they dont clean up their moral and intellectual Nevada, Nevada owns all public lands. This is representative of a rap-
act, most universities will die in this revolution as well. idly growing movement in the western United States to establish state
and county authority against growing federal irresponsibility.
l Doll, R., Evans, H.J., and Darby, S.C., Nature 367 pp 678-680
STARK RAVING MAD
(1994) show that the hypothesis that childhood leukemia near the Sel-
l Challenger II? Ko, M.K.W., Sze, N., and Prather, M.J., Nature lafield nuclear reprocessing plant was caused by paternal exposure to
367 pp 505-508 (1994) want international bureaucratic regulators to ionizing radiation is wrong. Noteworthy are both the result and the
fiddle with space shuttle rocket engines, because they estimate that prominent publication of the result.
space shuttle exhaust adds chlorine to the stratosphere in an amount of l Profile of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar by John Horgan in the
about 1/1000th that of CFCs. They also want to add bromine com- March 1994 Scientific American. Chandrasekhar, who is now com-
pounds to the atmospheric witchhunt. Meanwhile the ozone depletion pleting a book about Isaac Newton, is quoted as saying, He is one of
hypothesis itself struggles along without credible data and against the two or three greatest intellects, ever, in any subject. If you want to
growing scientific and public scepticism. compare Newton to anybody, you have to go outside science.
l Long-term atmospheric computer models are still so primitive l Telecosm, Life After Television Updated by George Gilder
that their temperature predictions are more fluid than the oceans of air in Forbes ASAP (1st quarter 1994). The personal computer is already
and water that they fail to understand. Undeterred, Stouffer, R.J., in 30% of American homes and the river of information pouring into
Manabe, S., and Vinnikov, Nature 367 pp 634-636 (1994) have used these computers will soon become an ocean. Defining quality in that
the fluctuations in their computer model to claim that the 0.5 C in- ocean will be the next frontier.
crease in global temperature during the past century was an abnormal
fluctuation and therefore probably caused by CO2 emissions. Access
ACCESS TO ENERGY
to Energy March 1994 reported an effort by S.H. Schneider to misuse
the laws of probability with the same objective. Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
I actually wish these people were right, since a little warmer tem- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
perature would be a great bonus to go along with the doubling of the monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
earths plant and animal population that we can already expect as a Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
Cumul. Index Sept. 1973 to Aug. 1992, $20.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MAY 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 9) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Tax Financed Research
America has tens of thousands of the worlds finest scientists and
engineers. Many of these people hold tenured positions in first-rate
research universities such as Caltech and MIT or in hundreds of
other universities and research institutions with excellent science
programs. They are supposed to be free to publish their thoughts and
work without fear of loss of their positions.
While it is true that American science also has tens of thousands
of mediocre professionals who really should be employed else-
where, these people are not supposed to be able to impose their own
mediocrity upon the better scientists.
With all of this high-powered talent, how do such things as the
carbon dioxide, chlorine, and ozone scams manage to survive? How
can such a simplistic notion as the no-threshold, linear hypothesis
about radiation dominate a whole field and damage Americas entire
energy industry? Where are our best scientists while EPA policies
are being formulated on the basis of scientific nonsense that actually
damages public health rather than enhancing it?
Access to Energy has repeatedly dissected published scientific ar-
ticles containing errors and distortions designed to buttress politi-
cally correct myths. Everyone makes mistakes, however, and every
large human endeavor includes some dishonest individuals. The real
question is, where is the correcting response of American science?
Where also is the correcting response to the decaying standards
of personal honesty and professional integrity in American research
laboratories? In just one individual research career, I personally have
seen and learned about enough scandalous behavior to fill several
books. With very rare exceptions, however, the American scientific
establishment just ignores this behavior.
Some may answer that the Dixy Lee Rays and Petr Beckmanns
are that response - that pamphlets from the George Marshall Insti-
tute, newsletters like Access to Energy, and articles written by a few
outspoken scientists do this job. As valuable as these efforts are,
however, they are too small a response from American science.
John F. Kennedy once remarked to a large group of Nobel Prize
winners who were dining with him at the White House that there
had not previously ever been more brain power in that room except
when Thomas Jefferson dined there alone. Everyone laughed. If,
however, Kennedy had said moral and ethical courage instead of
brain power, there would have been little to laugh about.
The professional skills available at just one scientific institution
such as Caltech are sufficient to demolish the pseudoscientific un-
derpinnings of the entire enviropolitical movement. This is not even
work. The job could be done as lunch-time entertainment with per-
haps a small gag trophy that circulated among the faculty weekly.
Remember the Carter energy crisis? As American scientific aca-
demia dutifully wagged its collective head about the imminent end
of the petroleum age, the U. S. government undertook a huge reserve
program to pump oil back into the ground. The real price of this
vanished resource has declined ever since. people. In science this is especially true.
Now Vice President Gore is building a whole career on non-
science with very little criticism from the scientific establishment.
would cause it to stop gradually. As I have watched this process, I
LOSING MOMENTUM
dustry because my father spent his life designing and building large
Alexander Poniatoff, whom we quoted last issue, used to compare
the American economy to a giant flywheel. He said that the squander-
ing of Americas industrial heritage would have its effects slowly, be-
cause the enormous momentum of the American industrial flywheel
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
There is one reason for this silence - tax support of scientific re-
search. Almost everyone in American science is running scared that
his research funds might be cut off in response to politically incor-
rect statements. Laboratories and scientists that undertake and pub-
lish research contrary to political dogma either succumb to pressure
to mend their ways or else find themselves without funding. Profes-
sional societies carefully beat politically correct drums, so that their
membership will be allowed to stay in the band.
Even some of our most principled scientists have been forced to
decide to limit themselves to research and refrain from politically
incorrect publications which might destroy that research.
Scientists holding endowed chairs in institutions with large
amounts of private funding are also affected, because most of these
institutions also receive large amounts of tax money. Misbehavior
could cost their institutions and their colleagues money essential for
professional and institutional survival.
With the single specific exception of research essential for na-
tional military defense - a legitimate responsibility of government -
America would be far better off with no tax support of scientific re-
search whatever. This single statement, if shown to the referees of
any research paper I submit for publication, would probably doom
the paper. What rock have I been living under?
Am I unaware of all the wonderful research and famous careers
that have been made possible by government money? Most of my
colleagues live on government money, and so once did I. I spent
large amounts of your tax dollars before I decided to stop applying
for this. Moreover, I can tell you from first-hand experience that sci-
ence without government support, in a society which assumes that
government is taking care of science, is difficult indeed.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that if all tax support of non-de-
fense research suddenly ended, the professional and ethical quality
of American science would immediately begin to rise dramatically.
The number of scientists would, of course, drop sharply as en-
dowed institutions shed the army of administrators and mediocre
professionals that is sustained by tax money. It might even become
possible to read the scientific literature again without becoming lost
in mountains of diaries that need not be published. Even the most
brilliant scientists would probably publish only an average of once
every few years or so. Relieved of the publish or perish burden and
the requirement to keep churning out grant requests, these people
would have much more time for careful work.
And the professional enviros who masquerade as scientists?
They would be laughed out of the profession. Private donations to
research from enriched taxpayers would increase and would no
longer be lost in the politics of government-supported institutions.
A standard line runs Ive been rich and Ive been poor, and rich
is better. True riches, however, are not achieved by sharing the loot
from a governments confiscation of the earnings and savings of its
Tax money is causing American science to tell enormous lies of
omission to the American people.
have been especially aware of the decline of Americas chemical in-
petrochemical plants for Union Carbide.
Since this industry is already built, it is not so vulnerable to the
merchants of fear who have damaged the nuclear power industry. The
chemical industry can be harmed, but it cannot be destroyed by
the Greenpeace pogrom against elements such as chlorine. The Some may say that this is just sentimentalism that has no place in
chemical industry is more likely to succumb to the pervasive taxes the free-market. This magnesium plant, however, was not destroyed
and regulations through which Washington big-spenders and bureau- in a free market. First, its world-class profitability and replacement
crats have eaten away its capital base. capital were taxed away by socialism. Second, paper shuffling execu-
As I write this, I have beside me on the wall a photograph of the tives whose culture has been partially created by American socialism
plant at Seadrift, Texas, that my father designed about 40 years ago. A and fascism killed it. The only free market involved was that of the
couple of years ago, there was a serious explosion in one part of that scavengers, such as ourselves and the scrap dealers, who gathered to
plant. I wonder about the maintenance of the rest of it. For 40 years it collect the bones.
has been pouring out huge quantities of polyethylene, largely using
the equipment that men working under my father installed in it. That PROTECTION BY RADIATION
equipment is wearing out.
Where is the capital needed to repair and replace that equipment? It is generally accepted that medical use of nuclear radiation is of
It is not there. It has been squandered in Washington, DC. A Swiss net positive benefit. Even in a political world dominated by the no-
civil defense expert told me that his company anticipates a good mar- threshold, linear hypothesis and therefore believing that every incre-
ket in blast valves for American chemical plants. These valves keep mental increase in radiation exposure is harmful, popular opinion
explosion blast pressure out of enclosed structures. He says that holds that the overall benefits of these medical procedures outweigh
American chemical companies are starting to blast harden their con- the claimed harmful effects. In part, this is because fearful people in
trol rooms to mitigate the effects of plant explosions. immediate danger from disease are relatively uninterested in theoreti-
Our industrial heritage is also being squandered by the new culture cal claims about long-term health hazards.
of corporate executive control by a class of people who know more
about board room politics and lobbying than they do about the indus-
tries under their control. These people often are loyal only to financial
reports that affect their careers.
Recently we participated in an event made possible by such corpo-
rate executives. Without government money, our small research insti-
tute, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, cannot afford
many items of research equipment that it needs. We have been look-
ing, therefore, for auctions of laboratories. Two weeks ago, we found
a bonanza. I was able to buy at auction lab equipment for about 3% of
the catalogue price (3 cents on the dollar) that filled two 48-foot semi
trucks. A colleague and I and four men whom we hired worked 50
hours just to deinstall the equipment and load the trucks. That is the
good news. The bad news involves the occasion of the auction.
Five years ago, executives at a large American corporation de-
cided to spin off a plant that was not making as large an average
profit as the rest of their holdings. This plant near San Francisco was
Americas largest magnesium plant with over one third of American
magnesium production capacity and almost all of American high-pu-
rity, pharmaceutical grade magnesium. Magnesium is manufactured
by extraction from seawater and dolomite. The plant, Marine Magne-
sium, produced magnesium oxide, hydroxide, and carbonate.
In a deal typical of the new corporate culture, the executives sold
the plant to one company and the land under the plant to another com-
pany - with a five-year lease. The new owners increased the profit-
ability of the plant through better management, but the lease on their
land ran out. Flush with cash from other paper deals (they arent pro-
ducing much yet), the landowners refused to renew the lease.
The plant was too huge and expensive to move, so Americas larg-
est magnesium plant and most of her high-purity magnesium capacity
are being demolished. This production is now being made up by im- Atmospheric nuclear testing, however, succumbed to political
ports from Israel and Japan. campaigns based upon the linear hypothesis. Fear of claimed long-
We bought most of the R & D and quality control labs. The rest of term health effects had a greater political effect than did concerns
the auction was heart-rending. Most of the machinery was sold for a about inadequate national defense. This result was then parlayed by
small fraction of metal scrap value. A large ship lathe sold for $50; a the antitechnologists into political campaigns that partially paralyzed
recently purchased $500,000 machine went for $5,000, and spare 3- other parts of American defense technology and severely stunted the
phase motors were $1.50 each. A large supply of stainless steel bolts growth of American nuclear power production.
was sold unnoticed in a lot with an old desk for almost nothing. The Not only were these campaigns based upon poor science, the po-
huge settling tanks and other large steel installations didnt even sell. litical results have caused a loss of human life even if that loss is esti-
They will go to the demolition crews for their work. mated using the erroneous linear hypothesis.
Many of the men who had maintained this plant for decades were Radiation Protection Philosophy: Time for Changes? by J. V.
present, although the plant ceased operation in February 1994. These Jovanovich of the University of Manitoba, Physics in Canada,
productive men watched the demolition of their lifes work. March/April 1994 contains a thoughtful review of the risk-reward
I believe that there is an obligation that comes with ownership and balance for nuclear radiation. (See also Jovanovich, J.V., La Physique
responsibility for such an industrial asset. When these executives sold au Canada, September 1993 pp 293-301, Could the Chernobyl Ex-
the land out from under this plant, they violated that obligation. They clusion Zone be Recovered?) The figure above is from the United
probably received a little more money or some other reward. What Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
will their children and grandchildren do when Israel and Japan decide 1982: 37th Session, Suppl. No. 45 (A/37/45), Ionizing Radiation:
to stop trading magnesium for American paper? Sources and Biological Effects as reproduced by J. V. Jovanovich.
 There are three competing hypotheses concerning the health ef-
fects of low-level ionizing radiation.
1. The linear, no-threshold hypothesis states that health effects are
linearly dependent upon dose from zero (where effects are assumed
zero) to doses high enough to cause degenerative diseases in a large
percentage of animals or people. Even higher doses that cause imme-
diate fatalities are excluded, because these involve additional effects.
2. The threshold hypothesis states that there is a low-level thresh-
old of ionizing radiation below which damaging health effects do not
occur. In the absence of better information, a linear extrapolation
from high doses may be acceptable, but the extrapolated line should
not be forced to the 0,0 origin.
3. The radiation hormesis hypothesis states that at sufficiently low
radiation doses health effects actually become positive. Not only
should the extrapolation from high doses not pass through the graphi-
cal origin, it should change sign. This predicts that ionizing radiation
dose has a non-zero optimum for human health.
Initially there was no experimental data with which to distinguish
between these hypotheses. All three predicted health effects at low ra-
diation doses that were too small to measure directly without the use
of very large numbers of experimental subjects.
Antidefense and antitechnology groups preferred the no-threshold,
linear hypothesis, because it predicted small damaging health effects
that could be made to appear large when multiplied by billions to al-
low for world numbers of animals and people. In order to stimulate
public fear, these groups promulgated the false notion that the linear
hypothesis was a proved scientific theory.
Gradually, indirect experimental health data has accumulated for
low-level radiation. Since much of this data looks unfavorable for the
linear hypothesis, it has been politically ignored. With the radon
scare, however, the linear hypothesis is beginning to politically un-
ravel. As described in recent issues of Access to Energy, radon data
on hundreds of thousands of American homes is strongly supportive
of the hormesis hypothesis. Besides helping to preserve American
freedom, it looks increasingly possible that atmospheric nuclear test-
ing actually may even have unintentionally improved human health.
As Jovanovich points out, however, it is not necessary to choose
among these three hypotheses in order to argue that radiation expo-
sure standards have been set at unhealthfully low levels. The figure
here, reproduced by Jovanovich from World Development Report
1984, published for the World Bank by Oxford University Press, il-
lustrates one of his points. The straight line shows an increase of life
expectancy of three and one-half years for each doubling of electricity
consumption. The curved line shows increases up to about 3,000 kilo-
watt hours per year per person and saturation above that level.
Correlation does not prove causality. Energy is, however, the cur-
rency of technological progress. There is no doubt that technological
progress has increased the quality and quantity of human life and that
the rate of this increase depends upon energy cost and availability.
Does this curve suggest that nuclear power plants should be built
primarily in underdeveloped countries for the present? While this
might save the most lives per kilowatt hour, it does not take into ac-
count the broad range of life expectancy and life quality in even the
most developed countries such as the United States. Abundant, low-
cost energy can extend and save many lives in America, too.
The average American, however, knows little about these facts
and arguments. Four decades of propaganda by the merchants of fear
have frightened many people regarding this mysterious phenomenon
which they can neither see nor feel. Jovanovich gives some excellent
tables showing loss of life expectancy as a function of various occu-
pations and risks and gives good, quantitative evaluations of these
values. (He falls down only when, at the end of the paper, he throws
in the increasingly popular argument that an additional benefit of nu-
clear power is that it limits carbon dioxide release. He quotes a refer-
ence that erroneously predicts carbon dioxide increases of 10-fold
from burning fossil fuels. Nuclear power, which has the real argu-
ments of science on its side, will not benefit from an expedient alli-
ance with nonscience and other enemies of human progress.)
An early beneficiary of the no-threshold, linear hypothesis was
Linus Pauling, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his cam-
paign against atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Paulings cam-
paign of fear was based upon the linear hypothesis. Edward Teller
and his colleagues were its victims. Radiation fear also has other uses.
A decade ago, when Linus Pauling and I were in an extensive legal
and professional fight, his lawyers were becoming desperate to find
something with which to counter the overwhelming evidence against
Pauling. They needed some transgression by me with which to influ-
ence a jury. They found it in the merchandise of radiation fear.
Three of my graduate students had synthesized polypeptides
which contained small amounts of carbon 14 enriched alanine. These
peptides were stored in a laboratory freezer which contained all of the
synthetic materials that my coworkers and I had produced in a decade
of work on the deamidation of peptides and proteins. Materials in that
freezer were essential to the continuation of our research. The carbon
14 products were properly labeled as radioactive.
Pauling and his retainer Zuckerkandle called for measurements of
radioactive contamination and brought in a technician to check inside
the freezer. Carbon 14 contamination was found; Pauling ordered the
freezer and its contents destroyed, ending our research program; and I
was accused of dangerous and irresponsible safety practices.
The actual measurements by Paulings technician were later used
in independent calculations by several scientists including Petr Beck-
mann and Martin Kamen, the discoverer of carbon 14. These calcula-
tions showed that, if all of the contamination in that entire freezer had
been dissolved in two gallons of water, those two gallons would not
have exceeded the EPA standard for drinking water.
Nevertheless, my attorneys were convinced that Pauling had made
a strategic coup. No matter how many experts we brought to testify
about radiation safety, fear of radiation would still have a damaging
impact on the jury. In this small way, our research on deamidation
joined Edward Teller and his colleagues among Paulings victims.
Fear and ignorance about radiation are political currency in Amer-
ica today. The Clinton Administrations recent attempt to use that
ploy to divert public attention shows that this currency still buys real
goods in the American marketplace.
Moreover, fear of radiation has been a major stepping stone for the
entire antitechnology movement. Sensitized by radiation fear, the
public is ready to believe similar nonscience about chlorine, ozone,
and carbon dioxide, which are also mysterious entities that most peo-
ple do not understand. This has extended even to conceptual entities
as, for example, in Jeremy Rifkins bestseller, Entropy, which argued
that human industrial activity was increasing the entropy of the uni-
verse and must be stopped. This excursion into nonsense thermody-
namics was dishonest in the extreme but it was politically effective.
Rifkin did actual damage to technology.
Research and education are only partial answers to the threat posed
by the antitechnologists. The socialism that is allowing antitechnolo-
gists to intimidate American academic science must also end. The
truth will eventually prevail, but how many will die in the meantime?
 Dare we reveal that a major volatile component of human breath is
FRIED FROGS EGGS also ethanol, even in non-drinkers? Along with the carbon dioxide
we are exhaling, we may not be able to get a permit to breathe.
The Associated Press wire carried advance news of a paper by A. l The National Center for Public Policy Research, 300 I Street,
R. Blaustein, et al, PNAS 91, pp 1791-1795 (1994) reporting the rela- NE #3, Washington, DC 20002 reports in PFE #5 that the Depart-
tive egg hatching success in several species of frogs and toads as a ment of Transportation may soon classify salad oil, butter fat, cocoa
function of ultraviolet light, and including some relevant biochemis- butter, and other cooking oils as hazardous materials when
try. AP quoted Blaustein as saying, The bottom line is that current shipped in quantities of 120 gallons or more. Trucks that have once
levels of UV-B radiation in sunlight are killing the eggs. been used for transport of hazardous materials are prohibited from
Among those species which did not lay their eggs in shielded loca- shipping food, including cooking oils.
tions and which already had reduced hatching success, an average of l Carl Sagan is suing Apple Corporation. Apple previously
about one-half of the normally unhatched eggs were induced to hatch agreed to stop using Sagans name as an internal code name for a new
by shielding with UV-B blocking filters. This research seems to be computer model, and substituted the letters BHA. Someone noticed
well done, but its politically correct ozone-ification is unfortunate. that this could represent Butt-Head Astronomer, so Sagan sued.
First, Blaustein blames a world-wide decline in amphibian species The Wall Street Journal for April 11 reports that lawyers are now de-
on increases in UV light in recent years even though there is no data bating the precise meaning of the term Butt-Head.
on UV light at the locations of those declines. In fact, the preponder- l The Energy Information Administration report Domestic Ura-
ance of evidence indicates no change in UV-B levels. Second, he cites nium Milling and Mining Industry 1992: Viability Assessment now
the flawed Kerr and McElroy report from Toronto (see Access to En- available from the Government Printing Office concludes that 80 per-
ergy, January 1994) which created a trend from one volcanic erup- cent of U.S. domestic utility requirements for uranium between 1993
tion. The Toronto data actually show a constant to lower UV light and 2003 will met by natural and enriched uranium imports. Soon the
level during the relevant decline period between 1989 and 1992. bureaucrats may even have to import their paper.
UV sensitivity in some species of amphibian eggs may be advan- l The U. S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights is still
tageous or disadvantageous. Frogs and toads have been hiding or not considering a complaint filed by the ACLU claiming that the PSAT
hiding their eggs for millennia in widely varying levels of UV light. test used to award National Merit fellowships is unfair to girls, be-
Associated Press quotes Blaustein further as advising, Showing cause more boys score in the top 15,000 who become National Merit
damage to an animal means there probably will be an effect on hu- semifinalists. Apparently the distribution function of performance is
mans. We await his study of humans who do not hide their eggs. wider for boys than girls, so averages are different at the extreme end.
Boys also have a shorter life expectancy than girls. Perhaps this will
HOME SCHOOLS be corrected by affirmative action under the Clinton medical plan.

When Mike Farris, President of the Home School Legal Defense GOOD READING
Fund, and Congressman Dick Armey initiated their two-week effort
to block Congressman George Millers attempt to bring home schools l Global Warming and Ozone Hole Controversies (1994) by
under federal regulation, they also began a test of the relative political Frederick Seitz from the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M street,
strengths of the National Education Association dominated public N.W., Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036. Dr. Seitz is President
schools vs. the home schools. Emeritus of Rockefeller University and past President of the National
When the dust settled, Congress had received more calls than it Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society.
had on homosexuals in the military, NAFTA, and the 1990 congres- l The Earth is Fine; The Problem is the Greens by Andrew
sional pay raise combined - over one million calls. Millers legisla- Kenny in The Spectator for 12 March 1994. This is an especially
tion, which had majority support prior to the call-in, received only good article on the CFC ban with special attention to its disastrous
one vote - Millers. In addition, Armeys amendment prohibiting fed- implications for health in less developed countries.
eral regulation of home and private schools passed 374 to 53. l Environment Betrayed by Edward C. Krug available from P.O.
The home school movement with technological help from the Box 1161, Winona, MN 55987. Volume I, No. 4 concentrates on the
computer revolution may soon be the dominant force in American myth of the noble and environmentally aware savage. All four in-
education. This is one reason to be optimistic about the future. itial issues are filled with good information.
l Human Radiation Experiments by Bernard L. Cohen, The
RADIOISOTOPE SHORTAGE Health Physics Society Newsletter 22, March 1994 pp 12-13 and Nu-
clear News, March 1994 pp 72-75. Dr. Cohen calculates the most
The American Nuclear Society (See ANS News, March 1994 p 4 probable number of deaths from all of the experiments reviewed in
and Nuclear News, March 1994 p 71) has initiated a campaign to as- the Markey Report on which the recent Clinton publicity campaign
sure an American supply of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and has been based. That number of deaths is zero. Moreover, most of the
other applications. These isotopes are currently obtained by imports experiments involved less radiation exposure than is currently being
largely from Russia and Canada. As Department of Energy reactors used in positron emission tomography research involving over 10,000
and accelerators are closed, virtually all American radioisotope pro- healthy human subjects each year in the United States.
duction is ending and shortages of specific isotopes are preventing l The Latest Anti-Nuclear Hysteria: Radiation-Caused Breast
some cancer research and other important programs. Cancer in Nuclear Energy Info for April 1994 from the Nuclear En-
ergy Institute, Suite 400, 1776 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006.
STARK RAVING MAD A combination of Greenpeace, the Womens Environment and De-
velopment Organization, and such luminaries as Ernest Sternglass
l The Wall Street Journal for April 13 reports on page one that have initiated a new scare campaign against nuclear medicine.
the Clean Air Act requires bakeries to spend millions of dollars in
order to reduce their emissions of odors, especially ethanol.
The EPA recently proposed an addendum to this same Clean Air ACCESS TO ENERGY
Act requiring that corn-based additives, primarily ethanol, be added
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
to gasoline. See EPAs Ethanol Giveaway by J.H. Adler, Com- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
petitive Enterprise Institute newsletter, March 1994 from CEI, 1001 monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036. tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JUNE 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 10) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
98% Fact Free
Science is the study of facts that are experimentally determined
by human beings. It consists of the experimental observation and
measurement of facts and the organization of these facts by means
of hypotheses and theories. This organization allows the extrapola-
tion of observations, so that the results of additional experiments can
be predicted. Experimental verification of these predictions refines
and strengthens the hypotheses and theories. As this cycle of induc-
tion and deduction repeats, we converge on a comprehension of
truth to the extent that we are able to understand it.
Most observations involve some uncertainty. These uncertainties
are reported with the observations and are taken into account in our
use of that information. Uncertainty affects some scientific disci-
plines more than others, because degrees of complexity and our
abilities to make reliable measurements vary with the subject. In
general, our certainty about facts is perfect for mathematics and then
diminishes as we move from mathematics to physics, from physics
to chemistry, and from chemistry to biology. For disciplines beyond
biology, uncertainty is so great that science alone is insufficient.
Most aspects of human affairs involve disciplines of great scien-
tific uncertainty. These aspects are governed, however, by a rela-
tively small number of great truths and facts about human activities.
Virtually all human progress has involved increased under-
standing of truth and increased use of truth in the governing of hu-
man affairs. The latter has been especially difficult, because the
baser aspects of human nature greed, fear, envy, hatred, and the
lust for power often cause people to oppose the truth.
The American national experiment has been possible because our
founding fathers were able to incorporate a remarkable amount of
truth into the fundamental rules of our republic. After two hundred
years of determined attack by human nature, much of their remark-
able accomplishment still exists and protects us from ourselves.
Those who would mentally and physically enslave us have a
common enemy the truth. This includes simple scientific truths,
the guiding political truths of our nation, and the great moral and
ethical truths of our civilization. For this reason, all of these areas of
truth are under assault today. This is not unusual. In one form or
another this conflict has been a part of human affairs throughout re-
corded history. Freedom must be continuously defended.
As the fortunate beneficiaries of a civilization that has been built
on the many actions of our forebears to advance the truth, each of us
has an obligation to continue that advance or, at the very least, to
prevent its reversal. In 1994, prevention of reversal would be an ac-
complishment. Irrationalism in the service of tyranny has increased
substantially during the past three decades.
The goal of Access to Energy is to effectively oppose untruths in
scientific disciplines that are especially relevant to human affairs.
Access to Energy is not primarily a newsletter. It is actually a stead-
ily growing community of subscribers who provide each other with
information about truths in science and engineering through the
newsletter. When I asked Petr Beckmann where he found the infor-
mation he published, he replied, The readers send it to me. The will permanently harden our national arteries.
walking. When I sat down, it stopped; when I walked, it started again.
NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS
into the local emergency room and asked for an electrocardiogram.
Shown on the next page is a portrait of your editor. Every reader of
Access to Energy should avoid having such a photograph made - but,
if you have one, I hope it looks a lot like this.
On July 23, 1993, I experienced a pain in my left shoulder while
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
editors job is to select which parts of that information to emphasize
and to augment it with additional facts, articles, and information.
The pervasiveness of the drift away from interest in truth and
facts in our society is truly astonishing.
Everyone has noticed the debate over the Clinton medical plan.
Most remarkable was the intense national debate complete with doz-
ens of Presidential speeches, hundreds of appearances by Presiden-
tial representatives, seemingly endless television propaganda, and
almost daily public opinion polls which took place for two months
before any actual facts about the plan were revealed. Similarly, ma-
jor legislation restricting our Constitutional right to keep and bear
arms has now supposedly passed both houses of Congress, but not
one of the hundreds of media accounts of this which we have seen
has given a detailed and specific description of the restrictions.
In the environmental debate, the Vice President of the United
States recently called Ted Koppel of Nightline, a major television
program, to give him a list of scientists who have published politi-
cally incorrect research facts that the Vice President does not want
the public to know. He asked Koppel to smear these scientists on his
program by linking them (incorrectly) to unpopular industrial, politi-
cal, and religious groups. To his credit, Koppel did not do it.
A concerted effort is being made throughout the public school
system to divert student interest away from rigorous truth. This
month, Zachary is taking a series of eleven advanced placement ex-
aminations for college. Unsurprisingly, the humanities exams are
awash with politically correct essays and misinformation. Ameri-
cans have come to expect this nonsense from nonscience academics.
I call this fact-free education. Math is supposed to be different.
When I asked about the calculus exam, however, Zachary re-
plied, I think I got most of the problems right, but I dont know
how Ill do on the free response. I worked some of the problems in
my head, but they decrease your grade for that. Free response
turns out to be a section where little credit is given for correct an-
swers. The grade depends instead on whether or not the student
writes out the currently popular approach to the problem.
This is not merely a trend in teaching style. It is exemplary of the
trend toward teaching students that absolute truths are unimportant.
Great moral truths have always stood in the way of tyranny. With
the explosion in scientific knowledge, an additional edifice of facts
has created stumbling blocks for those who would enslave the hu-
man mind. Thomas Jefferson said, I have sworn upon the altar of
God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man. This includes the mental tyranny of fact-free political de-
bates, fact-free environmental politics, and fact-free education.
American technological accomplishments are fact-filled. Ameri-
can freedom is truth-based. There is no better way to lose both than
to allow the continuing purge from American public affairs and edu-
cation of both facts and truth. Those who are anti-science, anti-tech-
nology, and anti-free enterprise want us to be 98% fact-free. They
prefer that we consume politically correct factoids instead. Their diet
Being one parent with six children, I am overly cautious, so I checked
The miracles of modern diagnostic medicine took over. They put
me flat on my back, started oxygen and blood thinners, did the elec-
trocardiogram and multiple other tests, admitted me to the hospital,
and, the next morning, performed the heart catheterization shown in

the photograph. All of the tests were negative and my coronary arter-
ies were clear, so I was discharged with no further treatment.
Hospitals are dangerous places even for healthy patients, and these
tests were not risk-free, especially the catheterization. American hos-
pitals are, however, the best in the world.
Under socialized medicine, I would probably not have received
these tests. Only if the symptoms worsened would I have been put on
the waiting list. If my coronary arteries had been found to be blocked,
then I would have been put on another waiting list. In Canada the av-
erage wait for a coronary bypass operation is 24 weeks. Many people
die from heart attacks during that wait.
In Medford, Oregon, in 1993, I was scheduled to be in heart sur-
gery within 24 hours of entering the hospital with minor symptoms
if the catheterization showed blocked arteries. The cardiologist told
me that 75% of the patients that he sends for catheterization turn out
to have blocked coronary arteries.
A day as a patient in the heart ward of a modern hospital is a
highly motivating experience. The place is full of people who have
just had their chests cut open. You are waiting for word that yours is
going to be opened, too. The probabilities of survival are milling
through your head along with concerns about what you can still do for
the children in the few hours that you might have left.
Moreover, this is not just a win-or-lose situation. It is lose a little or
lose a lot. Most successful patients lose at least a little brain function
to the heart-lung machine and the probabilities of permanent serious
debility and of relapse are very high. Heart surgery is good only in
contrast to the alternative sudden death.
There are, however, other alternatives, although they are very
poorly understood. It is believed (correctly in my opinion) that the
probability of heart disease is a function of diet. It is also a function of
smoking, but if you are smoking dont worry about reading nutrition
literature. You have much bigger health problems.
American science is inching forward toward an understanding of
the relationship between nutrition and disease. Progress has been ex-
cruciatingly slow. This field of inquiry has been devastated by gov-
ernment interference. Some of this interference is direct as in the
various Food and Drug Administration pogroms against people
whose nutritional ideas are different from those approved by bureau-
crats. It has also been indirect as, for example, in the dead hand of
government regulation and licensing in medicine. The resulting guild
has prevented publication, objective evaluation, and implementation
of much useful nutritional research.
In a recent incident, a report of excellent and extensive experimen-
tal nutritional research was submitted to the Proceedings of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences with recommendation by the usual three
reviewers. All three are outstanding senior scientists; two are mem-
bers of the Academy; and one is a Nobel Laureate. Not one of the
three is a proponent of any particular nutritional theory or has any
other reason for bias. Academy rules, however, require further review
of medically relevant manuscripts by reviewers with medical creden-
tials. The paper will not be read in PNAS. The medical reviewers
found it out of step with currently popular medical opinions. The cre-
dentials of these medical reviewers derive from government licensure
procedures. The Academy rule for further review arises from a fear of
offending those who control government research funds.
Countless numbers of such incidents over the past few decades
have slowed research on nutrition and health. Moreover, they have
markedly decreased the willingness of capable scientists to work in
this field and have distorted the work of those who do.
Linus Pauling eventually discredited himself with unethical ac-
tions by which he attempted to suppress research not consistent with
his own preconceived nutritional hypotheses. He also deliberately
picked fights with many different health research organizations in at-
tempts to gain further notoriety. He did not, however, begin that way.
When Linus and I began nutritional research together in 1968,
Linuss theoretical work was clear, perceptive, and valuable. Much of
the experimental and theoretical work we carried out between 1968
and 1978 had significant potential.
Unfortunately, for the millions of people whose health has been
destroyed by lack of nutritional knowledge, Paulings personal weak-
nesses imploded under pressure from the government sanctioned es-
tablishment, and most of our work was lost.
Now, people of the same sort who crushed Pauling (sure he had
weaknesses and faults, but who among us is perfect?) are popping vi-
tamin C and vitamin E pills into their mouths and giving sage opin-
ions about anti-oxidants. Establishment nutritional science has
reached approximately the level of the health food industry of the
1940s and probably has about the same high incidence of erroneous
ideas. At least there has been a little progress.
There is, however, a possibility that Paulings downfall acciden-
tally led to a series of events that might help to keep many of us from
having our hearts photographed on the way to a surgeons knife.
Regardless of his hope that vitamin C alone could prevent or cure
75% of all cancer, Linus, his wife Ava Helen, and his principal clini-
cal collaborator Ewan Cameron all developed cancer two died and
Linus is seriously ill. Moreover, clinical trials showed that the 75%
estimate is wrong. It might be over 0%, but this is as yet unknown.
These tragic events and also financial problems from mismanage-
ment and corrupt administrators of his Institute led Pauling to change
direction in 1990. He hired a European physician named (perhaps ap-
propriately in view of past and later events) Matthias Rath.
Rath had already been studying correlations between nutrition and
heart disease. In collaboration with Pauling this work accelerated, a
unifying hypothesis was developed, substantial amounts of research
funds were raised, and the work proceeded to a predictable conclu-
sion Rath and Pauling are suing each other. From what I have seen
of the evidence, Rath is going to win hands-down.
In the midst of all this, however, Matthias Rath managed to write a
popular book about his work and to distill current knowledge about
nutrition and heart disease into a nutritional supplement. The book is
Eradicating Heart Disease by Matthias Rath available from Health
Now, 387 Ivy Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. The nutritional sup-
plement is Cardirite available from Carlson Laboratories, 15 College,
Arlington Heights, IL 60004, telephone 800-323-4141. The book is
$14.95. The supplement is about $40 per month, or about $20 per
month for doctors. Dr. Raths picture is on the bottle, so hopefully
some of this money goes to further his work.
I do not want to go back to that cardiology ward. For this reason, I
eat a low fat diet with lots of grain and fruits and vegetables, and I
have started taking Raths supplement. If I were ever diagnosed with
cancer, I would have to stop the supplement, but that is another story.
 Is my diet better than the average American diet with regard to
heart disease? Probably. Is it close to the ideal diet for me? Probably
not. Can research with modern technology determine an ideal diet for
me at a reasonable price? Yes. Unless, however, a substantial amount
of private money is devoted to research entirely outside of the current
government-dominated research, medical, and academic estab-
lishment, this knowledge will not become available until long after all
of the generations of Americans now alive are dead.
thus saved can be measured in human lives.
QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF HEALTH
prove and have hoped to see their proper application to medicine.
The principal technical impediment to the optimization of human
nutrition is the lack of standardized cost-effective methods for the
quantitative measurement of human health. Technical means are
available, but they have not been incorporated into medical research
and application.
If someones health has deteriorated so far that he has overt symp-
toms of disease, then blood and urine samples are taken for the meas-
urement of a few dozen substances most of which have been popular
for decades. These are reported relative to population means and
standard deviations that assume unimodal, gaussian distributions
from a homogeneous population. Each substance is considered sepa-
rately by the physician. If one is a couple of standard deviations low
or high, this is included with clinical data in arriving at a diagnosis.
In research studies of healthy populations, these same substances
are measured. In addition, laboriously accumulated observational data
about life-style, overt disease, and physical appearance are often in-
cluded. In essence, the same observations that physicians make of
sick individuals are made of well individuals. These are computerized
in attempts to link them with present and future health. As the enviro
movement has gotten rolling, there is an increasing tendency to also
include measurements of popular environmental parameters.
This hodge-podge of crude parameters has little chance of contain-
ing the necessary information for quantitative measurement of health
and has no chance whatever of being developed into a cost-effective
tool for general improvement of health.
On the other hand, there are steadily advancing analytical tech-
niques that can already quantitatively measure thousands of metabolic
substances in a single sample. These measurements can be coupled
with computerized pattern recognition procedures for the extraction
of enormous amounts of quantitative information about present and
future health. They allow precise location of a person on one-dimen-
sional axes like those shown below.
These precise measurements would permit empirical studies of
populations and single individuals with respect to optimum nutri-
tional requirements and many other adjustable conditions of life. Bio-
chemical individuality, variation in individuals over time, differences
in environment, and even variation in personal goals could be taken
into account. Quantitative measurement of the probability of illness
would allow medicine to fight that probability in each person rather
than waiting for deterioration of health into illness itself.
Can this sort of analytical capability be developed now? Yes. We
were close at the Pauling Institute in 1978 with only 200 substances.
The cartoon below illustrates the point. Now technology allows
measurement of 2,000. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
is gradually gathering resources to finish this work.
Medical research is different from other competitive activities,
however, in one fundamental way. Each medical scientist should
hope that his competitors get the answers before he does. Any time
For 15 years, I have watched analytical and computer tools im-
This just has not been done. It only took a couple of years in the 1960s
to reach a good understanding of what needs to be done, but after 25
years I still do not fully understand why this sort of research is ig-
nored. I do know that pervasive government control of research is a
major factor. Tax-financed research is entirely driven by politics.
The journals overflow with tax-funded research on the origin of
life and evolution, while even Stanley Miller admits that little if
any progress has been made in this field. The goal is political. The
Surgeon General made a speech this week in which she said that fail-
ure to cure AIDS will destroy our entire society. She also said that
cancer and heart disease kill primarily old people who are going to die
anyway of sompfun. This woman would be a national embarrass-
ment if her boss didnt continually upstage her, but she does know
which research is politically correct.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent for blood and urine tests
that are hopelessly obsolete but are entrenched in the medical system.
Soon socialized medicine may make them permanent.
Meanwhile, David Kessler at the FDA is moving to bring the
deadly force of government police powers to bear on those who dare
to guess about nutrition without government approval.
The American people have watched on television as this govern-
ment used poison gas and tanks against women and children with un-
popular ideas. Yet they have entrusted that same government with
most of their medical research. They are close to adopting compul-
sory socialized medicine under the control of this government, too.
Meanwhile, we all get to guess. My guess is that Raths guess
about supplements and heart disease is sensible. There are scientists I
respect (and who subscribe to this newsletter) who think otherwise.
Our government does its best to keep us all equally ignorant.
COFACTOR R?
Sometimes vitamins serve as co-factors for specific enzymes.
They form combinations with the enzymes that are essential for en-
zyme function. Vitamin R, radon, seems to be a co-factor too. The
antinuclear lobby cant function without it.
Their latest offering is by G. Pershagen, et al, New England Jour-
nal of Medicine 330, pp 159-164 (1994) which reports data from se-
lected Swedish municipalities. The authors selected 56 municipalities
expected to have high radon levels and 53 municipalities expected to l Chlorine has not yet been burned at the stake, but already the
have low radon levels. This selection was carried out after the authors natives are howling for another element. S. Man and M. O. Andreae,
already knew the municipal lung cancer rates. The paper carefully Science 263 pp 1255-1256 (1994) entitled Emission of Methyl Bro-
avoided giving any data that could be used to determine whether or mide from Biomass Burning illustrates this new growth industry.
not these selections were biased. Glenn Seaborg may feel safe with the newly named element 106
The antinuclear lobby has been most pleased with these selections seaborgium, Sg, having isotopic half-lives of only 1 and 30 seconds.
which led to a claim that radon was positively correlated with lung See The Health Physics Societys Newsletter 22, No. 5, May, pp 1&4
cancer. See for example J. Peto & S. Darby, Nature 368, p 97 (1994). (1994). The enviros will eventually demonize his element, too.
Bernard L. Cohen submitted a letter to the editor of the New Eng- l Quoting from the book, Animal Scam: The Beastly Abuse of Hu-
land Journal of Medicine pointing out that selection of the munici- man Rights by K. Marquardt with H. M. Levine and M. LaRochelle,
palities could lead to bias in the result and asking for some simple the New American quotes Ingrid Newkirk, national director of People
data on the municipality distributions that could resolve this question. for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as saying, I dont believe hu-
His letter was not published and the requested data was not provided. man beings have the right to life. Thats a supremacist perversion. A
Fact-free research in nuclear medicine why not? rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.

YOUR DOCTOR IS NOT IN GOOD READING

This is the title of a new book by Dr. Jane M. Orient published by l Willet, W. C., Science 264 pp 532-537 (1994) entitled Diet
Crown Publishers, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022. The and Health: What Should We Eat? This is a well-referenced sum-
book is a devastating analysis of the problems with government med- mary of sensible advice concerning your nutritional guesses.
dling with medical care including current problems as well as those l Recycling Mania Crashes and Burns in California in the
that will arrive with further socialized medicine. Wall Street Journal, April 26 pp B1&B6 (1994). Forced recycling is
This book is entertaining reading. If you dont have time to read it, primarily interactive propaganda. Its principal goal is to produce and
just buy one and put on a shelf where visitors can see it. The title of reinforce an enviro mind set in the general population.
the book conveys its message. l What Causes AIDS? in Reason, June pp 18-23 (1994) by C.
A. Thomas, K. B. Mullis, and P. E. Johnson. K. B. Mullis received
ONE MOLECULE HYPOTHESIS the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993. Led by Peter Duesberg, the
number of prestigious scientists questioning the hypothesis that HIV
Science 264 p 183 (1994) has an excellent editorial by Philip Abel- virus causes AIDS is growing substantially.
son entitled Chemicals: Perceptions Versus Facts as does Nature If the answer turns out to be that HIV does not cause AIDS, reper-
582 p 582 (1994) by John Ashby entitled Change the rules for food cussions in the non-scientific world may be dangerous. Already there
additives. These editorials attack the ridiculous extrapolations of is a sellers market for irrationalism a market that could be increased
high dose effects of chemicals on animal health to very low dose re- by an error of this magnitude. Moreover, the vast army of scien-
strictions on human exposure. The same methodology that has been tists who have been in a feeding frenzy for the tax money in HIV
used against nuclear power is used against the chemical industry. research is just the sort of group that could make such an error.
In his letter to the editor in Nature 368 p 580 (1994) entitled De- If the error is there, it will be found, and it couldnt happen to a
lany and cancer, Thomas H. Jukes reviews this problem with re- nicer group. The backwash of public outrage could, however, do sig-
spect to the Delany Clause which the FDA has interpreted in nificant damage to innocent scientists and engineers, too.
accordance with these low dose extrapolations. l Microbial Mining Boosts the Environment, Bottom Line by
Professor Jukes calls this the one-molecule hypothesis and then A. S. Moffat, Science 264 pp 778-779 (1994). Bacterial ore extraction
demonstrates its clear absurdities. For example, a normal human con- is widely used in copper mining and apparently may become more
tains about 100 billion arsenic atoms or about 100 thousand per cell. widely practical for some other elements.
Learned essays make most peoples eyes glaze over and few peo- l The Washington Legal Foundation, 2009 Massachusetts Ave-
ple read research articles. In the public arena, enviro-lies must be nue, N.W., Washington, DC 20036 has available materials about the
fought largely with mental sound-bites. In this regard especially, enviro assault on Disney Development Company over their construc-
one molecule hypothesis is a very valuable term both for the tion plans in Northern Virginia. This is another example of the grow-
chemical industry and the nuclear industry where one gamma ray ing enviro tendency to devour their own.
one molecule one mutation one human death has been the false
but effective slogan of the anti-nukes. Most ordinary people immedi- ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO ENERGY
ately understand the idea of molecules one-by-one. Once the prob-
lems are framed in this way, errors in the enviro arguments are easily Access to Energy is now available by E-Mail. The annual cost is
shown as the Jukes letter demonstrates. $10 if you are also a regular subscriber. The cost for an E-Mail-only
subscription is the same as for a regular subscription as listed below.
STARK RAVING MAD In order for you to utilize the full E-Mail version, complete with
figures and graphs, your E-Mail address must be file attachments
l The Arizona Daily Star reports that Paul Hebert, chairman of the capable and your computer must have Microsoft Windows. Other-
zoology department at the University of Guelph in Canada has sug- wise you will receive only the ASCII text.
gested that naturalists brew tea and dump it into lakes to save UV In cooperation with Mrs. Beckmann, we are also working on an
light endangered frogs. (See Access to Energy, May 1994, Fried electronic version of the entire 21-year set of back issues of Access to
Frogs Eggs.) Oblivious to the total lack of factual evidence that this Energy. This will be distributed on computer disk with electronic in-
danger to frogs exists, Professor Hebert states, This seemed to me dexing. Price and details will be announced in Access to Energy.
an empowering idea, because I could imagine people concerned with
the fates of amphibians actually doing something about it ...... If they
were too cheap to use tea, they could just use oak leaves. ACCESS TO ENERGY
Hebert has determined a volumetric formula from which I calcu-

Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
late that the irrigation pond near our house (which currently supports Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
a small army of apparently unendangered frogs) will require about monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
20,000 tea bags. tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 11) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy

Performance
Each month Access to Energy publishes facts and theory of gen-
eral interest, facts of special value in combating the pseudoscience
that is corrupting our society, and a little humor usually at the ex-
pense of those who have drifted so far away from truth and reason
that the effects are laughable.
These publications have value beyond our own mutual interest
and amusement because a significant number of the American peo-
ple are still interested in facts and truth. Documentation of relevant
intellectual ammunition can have a broad beneficial effect. Many
people do not want a 98% fact-free diet.
A frightening fact, however, is that the number of such people in
America is diminishing. Blame for this diminution is correctly laid
upon the enormous, corrupted, and intellectually bankrupt education
industry dominated by the two-million member National Education
Association union and led by academics, non-profit foundations,
and government bureaucrats who seek wealth, notoriety, and power
by twisting the minds of Americans with fact-free propaganda.
American educational decay is not just manifested in the lack of
factual knowledge and ability to think, which results in low scores
for students on standardized tests. The entire idea that truth, reason,
and correct information are desirable goals is being deliberately un-
dermined by the current education establishment.
Consider the report in the Wall Street Journal, May 31, 1994, pp
B1-B2 entitled Tests to Gauge Student Ability Create a Furor.
The California Learning Assessment System, a model for national
student testing as advocated by the Clinton Administration, empha-
sizes so-called performance-based testing. The key here is the
performance they are seeking. This kind of testing which is not peer-group pressure. Will the student, as an adult, give the cor-
isolated to California, and is replacing traditional tests throughout
American education deliberately avoids factual information, prob-
lem solving, and other intellectual activity that uses correct and veri-
fiable information to determine absolute truth.
Performance-based testing involves primarily essay questions
in which students are asked to write about politically correct topics
and encouraged to include information drawn from their personal
beliefs and family lives. Says Lauren Resnick, co-coordinator of the
New Standards Project in Washington, D.C., in defense of perform-
ance-based testing, The idea that youre being forced to put down
your thoughts scares people. People are afraid that what will be
judged is the content of those thoughts, not their expression.
Not only are the educrats changing to essay questions which en-
courage less intellectual rigor and more fluffy opinion and which are
impossible to grade objectively, they are assuring their critics that
they need not fear biased grading based on the content of the stu-
dents thoughts because the grading will not be based upon the
content of those thoughts. Grading is supposedly based upon a sub-
jective evaluation of the way the student appears to have reached his
opinions and how well he has expressed them.
This content-free testing is now being widely used even in
mathematics, physics, and chemistry. A typical traditional physics
problem asked the student for the numerical answer with correct
units. Traditional grading gave 100% credit for the true answer.
Often, partial credit was given for the students work even if he had
not completely solved the problem. (This can reach extremes. I re-
call receiving the highest grade in the class on a physics exam at
Caltech though I had not completely solved any of the problems.) In
the new testing, the correct answer determines only a minor part of
the grade. Most of the grade depends upon the graders opinion of
the students method. The truth doesnt matter. What matters is po-
litically correct expression.
It gets worse. Along with all of the other test scores, tests of
citizenship are slated to go into a computerized national dossier
of each student with confidential psychological profiles confiden-
tial even from the student himself. The Blumenfeld Education Letter
for May 1994, P.O. Box 45161, Boise, ID 83711 gives a sample citi-
zenship question for grade 11.
There is a secret club at school called the Midnight Artists.
They go out late at night and paint funny sayings and pictures on
buildings. A student is asked to join the club. In this situation, I
would JOIN THE CLUB when I knew...
1. My best friend asked me to join.
2. Most of the popular students were in the club.
3. My parents would ground me if they found out I joined.
Answer each selection with yes, no, or maybe.
The norm-referenced highest score for Positive Citizen-
ship for this question is two yes answers and one maybe.
Integrity here is irrelevant. The moral issue of vandalism does not
matter. What matters to the educrats is the students susceptibility to
rect answers in public opinion polls and in the voting booth when
his televised peers inform him as to the politically correct opinion?
It is fundamentally wrong for the state to seize private property
(more than one hundred billion dollars per year in America today) in
order to educate children and then to incarcerate millions of chil-
dren during their best hours each day for this purpose. It is doubly
wrong to seize this property and these children and then use the oc-
casion to teach propaganda rather than truth. These crimes are
falsely justified by the claim that the public schools provide our so-
ciety with educated citizens. While many young Americans still
manage to survive the moral and intellectual obstacle courses in our
public schools, why do we put these stumbling blocks in their way?
There is an old science fiction story (I am sorry to have forgotten
the title and author) which tells of a family whose only child, a son,
is scheduled for mandatory national testing. The tests are so exten-
sive that each student is required to travel to a central examination
center. The mother is greatly worried about her sons prospective
test performance, but is assured by the father that their son will do
fine. The boy leaves home for his trip to the examination center.
After a few days a telegram arrives addressed to his parents. The
telegram reads, We regret to inform you that your son scored
above the accepted norms on the national examinations. Where
would you like his remains to be sent?

The no-threshold, linear hypothesis of radiation danger, which ig-

RADIATION IN AIRLINERS nores hormesis (and is clearly wrong), has led to a gradual lowering
in public safety limits by safety bureaucrats. In 1985, the International
O. J. Wilson, B. F. Young, and C. K. Richardson, Health Physics Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) lowered the dose limit
66, pp 493-502 (1994) report a quantitative study of radiation re- for public exposure from 5 mSv or 500 mrem to 1 mSv or 100 mrem
ceived in Australian commercial airliners with special reference to per year. ICRP claims that 1 mSv per year causes one fatal cancer per
cumulative doses received by flight crews. 20,000 exposed people. The dose limit for occupational exposure of
radiation workers was set by the ICRP in 1991 at 20 mSv per year.
One problem with this nonsense is that the new dose limits put
airline crews above the public limits and necessitate their reclassifica-
tion as radiation workers. Wilson et al estimate that international air-
line flight crews receive up to 3.8 mSv per year.
Under ordinary conditions (above Melbourne, Australia in this
study), as an airliner leaves the ground, background radiation dimin-
ishes to about one-half normal at 1000 to 2000 feet of elevation as the
effects of terrestrial radiation sources diminish. At about 2 miles ra-
diation level is about equal to that at ground level. Radiation increases
to about 1.5 Sv per hour at 33,000 feet and 3 Sv per hour at 41,000
feet. This compares with typical ground level background radiation of
0.05-0.2 Sv per hour. The radiation that increases with altitude is a
mixture of primary and scattered cosmic radiation, which is mostly
protons (87%) and alpha particles (11%), and secondary radiation
(muons, electrons, photons, and neutrons) arising from absorption of
primary cosmic radiation in the atmosphere. The dose rate from radia-
tion of cosmic origin is proportional to the cube of altitude up to about
40,000 feet. After that, radiation intensity begins to level off. with minimal risk. Left to our imagination is the industrial and bu-
Measurements on the Melbourne to Darwin route shown in the reaucratic cost of this dose limitation strategy.
figure were made during scheduled passenger flights of a Boeing 767 Perhaps unreasoning fear here is the better part of valor. Good hor-
where cruise altitude was maintained at 41,000 feet between airports. mesis studies of airline crews might reveal a lower cancer rate. Where
The latitude dependence of radiation intensity is evident in the Mel- would we be then?
bourne-Darwin data and is shown directly in the third figure. Since A public demand for radioactive waste storage under homes in
low radon areas in order to minimize cancer risk might be met by
means of increases in nuclear power generation (Ban nuclear fuel re-
cycling! We need radioactive waste to stop the cancer epidemic in
Southwestern Oregon.), but how will we ever meet a demand for
daily airline flights to reduce cancer risk?

CORRECTION AND AMPLIFICATION

The June 1994 Access to Energy contains an error in the article
entitled One Molecule Hypothesis. We gave 100 billion arsenic
atoms per human being or about 100 thousand per cell. The letter that
we cited, Nature 368 p 580 (1994), gives these same values, but we
should have noticed that there is an eight order-of-magnitude (9x1010
instead of 9x1018) misprint in Nature. This leads to the obviously
wrong conclusion that a human contains only 1,000,000 cells.
The original reference is the excellent paper by Thomas H. Jukes,
J. Amer. Coll. Toxicol. 2(3), pp 147-160 (1983) entitled Chasing a
Receding Zero: Impact of the Zero Threshold Concept on Actions of
Regulatory Officials. On page 151, this paper gives 4.4 mg arsenic
or 9x1018 molecules of arsenic as As4 for the normal content of one
much of this radiation is scattered, it comes from all directions, not human. At about 1014 cells per human, this is 105 per cell as given in
just from above. Passengers sitting above and between the fuel tanks the Nature letter and in Access to Energy.
of a Boeing 737 receive 30 % less radiation. As fuel is used during a The Jukes paper discusses the one molecule hypothesis as it relates
flight, this shielding gradually disappears. to claimed dangers from food that contains aminotriazole, arsenic, ni-
Under normal solar conditions, these radiation levels are inde- trites, diethylstilbestrol, DDT, and selenium. In each of these cases,
pendent of time of day within measured accuracy. Also, measure-
ments at northern latitudes are about the same as those at southern
latitudes, so these latitude correlations are generally applicable.
Occupants of airplanes at altitudes below 2 miles receive less ra-
diation than they would on the ground.
This is an interesting and informative paper until one reaches the
politically correct Discussion and Conclusions.
The authors estimate that, based on current risk estimates, Aus-
tralian international crew members run a risk of fatal cancer due to
occupational radiation exposure of about 1 in 5,000 per year. (They
give 1 in 5,300 for 1,000 hours per year of flying time.) This puts
flight crews in the same risk group as uranium miners, nuclear
power workers, and industrial radiographers.
The authors state that, It is recognized that there is no dose limit
below which absolute safety can be guaranteed. They say that, It is
necessary that an appropriate dose limitation strategy be in place
when this technology (new airliners that fly higher and over longer
distances) arrives so that we are in a position to ensure that it is used
threshold concentrations exist below which damage to human health
cannot be inferred from the experimental results.
Moreover, government interference by bans and controls of such
substances has caused great amounts of human suffering and death
and substantial waste of resources.
DDT, for example, was banned for political rather than scientific
reasons. Professor Jukes discusses some of the scientific details about
the non-case against DDT and gives one example of its benefits. Be-
tween 1953 and 1962, cases of malaria in India were reduced from 75
million to less than 5 million and the average lifespan increased from
32 years to 47 years. The primary factor in these changes was the use
of 147 million pounds of DDT.
If we ascribe just half of this change in India to DDT, the savings
are approximately 3 billion years of human life or about 50 million
human lifetimes. Even if we estimate that all medical progress in the
United States during the past century has increased the life expec-
tancy of Americans by 10 years (total United States increase has been
about 20 years), we are still left with the conclusion that the entire
century-long multi-trillion dollar medical effort in the United States
has saved fewer years of human life than did DDT in India alone.
Yet DDT, which saved many American lives as well, was banned
by government bureaucrats who acted against then current scientific
knowledge and enhanced the power of the Environmental Protection
Agency. Moreover, DDT is cited today, by enviros who advocate a
comprehensive ban on all chlorine compounds, as an example of the
claimed dangerous nature of man-made chlorine chemicals.
will lose their punch. Ordinary, sensible recycling is not an answer
INTERACTIVE PROPAGANDA
sumer paper recycling is nothing more than interactive propaganda.
I recently received a letter from Linus Pauling printed on recy-
cled paper and printed with soy ink. The letter concerned a atmospheric carbon dioxide are already saving trees at a very high
search for the research records of the Pauling Institute which I have
asked to examine (I directed most of this work). Pauling and retainers
claim to have lost 50 file drawers of printed research data and over
300 computer data tapes. These comprise the entire research records
of the Pauling Institute for its first five years along with related re-
cords from Stanford University and the University of California at
San Diego much of which has never been published. Included is
several million dollars worth of publicly funded health research.
The printing on Paulings envelope announces the recycled paper
and soy ink in letters larger than either the address or return address.
Everywhere one goes today in America, he is inundated with recy-
cling propaganda. Corporations are hiring environmental vice-presi-
dents just to coordinate recycling advertising. The children and I have
given up on finding stores that do not do this. Instead, we now rank
stores inversely in order of the intensity of their recycling campaigns
and then shop accordingly. (The kids proposed this procedure and
forced it upon me. I was still shopping solely on the basis of an un-
principled search for the lowest price.)
Recycling is, of course, not new. Scrap iron from worn-out cars,
aluminum cans, silver from photographic film, and copper wire are
items that have been automatically recycled by the free market be-
cause these scrap materials compete favorably in price with new sup-
plies (and are sometimes of special value as in the need for scrap iron
in the manufacture of steel).
New is the recycling of many items of trash that have negative
economic value such as plastic, paper, and glass. Recycling of these
items wastes energy and other resources. It must be forced upon the
public by garbage regulations, advertising campaigns, and govern-
ment subsides and it has become oh, so politically correct. America
is drowning in recycling propaganda.
So much has been invested in this campaign that almost everyone
is taking a ride on the bandwagon. Most shipping containers proudly
announce that they are made from recycled paper. (Regarding Access
to Energy you can absolutely rely on the unique feature that it is
printed on 100% un-recycled paper.)
Before this new mania, paper already included recycled material.
Typically a significant percentage of trimmings and other waste was
added. This is practical as long as the trimmings are new paper with-
out printing ink and other characteristics of use. Trimmings also do
not require as much collection and transport, since they are generated
within the paper industry itself.
This economically sensible practice is not enough for the social
engineers. They demand post-consumer waste in the paper. This
raises production cost and lowers paper quality. Moreover, now that
the Clinton Administration has mandated that all government paper
have post-consumer waste, it is becoming more difficult to get un-
recycled paper. Paper mills are switching production methods. Even
though the recycling procedures are more costly, it is even less practi-
cal to keep producing paper by two methods when there is a huge
government demand for one product.
Why is this happening? Why not recycle paper the old and practi-
cal way by burning it? The carbon dioxide product is then reincorpo-
rated into trees and thence into new paper. With the explosive
increase in standing timber in American forests over the past 50 years
and with an efficient industry already in place, why recycle paper and
waste energy and chemicals while imposing enormous new costs on
the garbage disposal industry? Let the paper industry use trimmings.
Why involve every member of the public in a wasteful endeavor?
This last question answers itself. Public involvement is not just a
characteristic of recycling it is the goal of recycling.
The enviro propagandists have a problem. Enviro programs are
costing the public large amounts of money with net negative results.
How do they keep the public interested? Sooner or later the slick ads
because it involves few people, but everyone uses paper. Post-con-
The object of paper recycling is not to save trees. Increases in
(and embarrassing) rate. It is not to save garbage dump space, since
burned paper uses little space and decomposes quickly otherwise.
The object of paper recycling (plastic and glass, too) is to actively
involve each and every American in the enviro movement. This ac-
tive involvement this interactive propaganda makes it easier to sell
the many onerous programs of pseudoenvironmentalism.
ON TARGET
Surgeon and wound ballistics expert (and AtE subscriber) Martin
L. Fackler, M.D., President of the International Wound Ballistics As-
sociation, has written numerous research articles that are especially
relevant to current politically correct myths about firearms. See, for
examples, M. L. Fackler, J. A. Malinowski, S. W. Hoxie, and A. Ja-
son, Amer. J. Forensic Medicine and Pathology 11 pp 185-189
(1990); M. Fackler, J. American Medical Association 259 pp 2730-
2736 (1988); and M. L. Fackler, Testimony before the House of Rep-
resentatives Judiciary Committee on April 28, 1994 available from
M. L. Fackler, RR 4 Box 264, Hawthorne, FL 32640.
One thing is certainly not debatable about the current gun con-
trol craze in Congress. Legislation abridging the right to keep and
bear arms is unconstitutional and will continue to be so unless an ap-
propriate constitutional amendment is passed. The wisdom of gun
control itself is debatable, but the facts are against the gun controllers.
There is overwhelming evidence that violent crime diminishes when
guns are easily available to citizens. Moreover, there is an inalienable
human right and obligation of self-defense.
Dr. Fackler points out that 1) Assault rifle bullets are designed to
wound rather than kill as restricted by the Hague Convention of 1899.
2) Assault rifle bullets actually do less tissue damage and are less le-
thal than those from most other firearms. This is verified in recent ci-
vilian incidents where the death rate for people actually shot has been
21%. 3) In 1992 only 3% of all American homicides with firearms
involved rifles, and assault rifles were a small fraction of that 3%.
Why then is the firearms witch hunt starting with assault rifles?
The Founding Fathers protected the right to keep and bear arms
specifically as a final check on government power, which they feared.
Most of Americas assault rifles are in the attics, basements, and clos-
ets of patriotic Americans who never fire them and to whom war
against their own government would be an unthinkable nightmare.
The problem is that millions of such weapons are now being
stored in the homes of ordinary Americans, especially in the Western
United States. Assault rifles have a military appearance and contrib-
ute in a subtle, psychological way to growing resistance to govern-
ment oppression. Most farmers, ranchers, and loggers who see their
lives and families entirely destroyed by Babbitt and retainers will
never fire a shot. The existence of these weapons, however, makes
resistance, even legal resistance, more thinkable to these victims.
The bureaucrats and politicians do not fear armed criminals or
even armed political zealots so much as they fear peaceful Americans
who will probably never use their assault rifles but whose mental
toughness may be enhanced by possession of military weapons.
The gun controllers are not deterred by the facts about guns and
crime, because their primary fear is not criminals. They fear ordinary
Americans whose lives and freedom their policies are destroying. In
this fear and in their world, they are on target.
stopped even its experimental trial. The Wall Street Journal for May
RADIATION MONITORING
because informed consent was not satisfactorily obtained from the ex-
In all the ups and downs of civil defense through recent decades,
the sole consistent survivor was the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, FEMA, radiological monitoring program. Thousands of sur-
vey meters and dosimeters were stored and maintained in each state
and courses in their use were regularly given. Even the anti-nukes
liked this, because the program implied fear of nuclear accidents.
Now, under Clinton, FEMA is phasing out this program. Funding
reductions have already caused three states to drop the program and
many more are expected soon to follow. One AtE reader called to say
that in his state 3,000 survey meters and 5,000 dosimeters (the entire
state inventory) are being physically destroyed.
come upon a lion. Talk calmly yet firmly to it. ...FIGHT BACK and
OAK RIDGE SELF-HELP CIVIL DEFENSE
or try to get back up.
The demise of American civil defense was foreseen many years
ago by Conrad Chester and Cresson Kearny at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, so they decided to emphasize research on self-help proce-
dures in the Oak Ridge civil defense research program. The results of
those years of work were written in usable form in Nuclear War Sur-
vival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny which has been published in up-
dated version by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
OISM, since 1986 ($12.50, Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523).
Now, as a result of the work of Arnold Jagt and OISM, Nuclear
War Survival Skills is available on the computer nets on the EXEC-
PC BBS and will be available on Internet as soon as an acceptable site
is found. It can also be requested from the system operators of other
BBSs. 1.44 MB disk copies are available from OISM for $19.95.
One development from Oak Ridge was a reliable high-level radia-
tion meter that can be constructed from ordinary household items in-
cluding a standard food can. This meter is now being sold in kit form
and assembled form for $9.00 and $37.50 respectively postage paid
by Stephen Jones, P. O. Box 520006, Salt Lake City, UT 84106.
Our government has decided to stop providing radiation meters
for emergency preparedness. Through, however, the benevolence
of our food stamp bureaucracy and the genius of Oak Ridge engi-
neers, it is still possible for all Americans to obtain the parts for a ra-
diation monitoring kit at their local grocery store.
May 1994 available from Physicians for Civil Defense, 1601 N. Tuc-
STARK RAVING MAD
l The New York State 1993 income tax refunds were mailed from
the Department of Taxation and Finance with an enclosed solicitation
from Ralph Nader. The letter begins Dear Friend: I have been sup-
porting the rights of American consumers for over thirty years against
misbehaving corporations. And from experience, I can tell you that a
continual burden on consumers is the unfair rates charged by greedy
electric and phone companies. It goes on to ask that $10, $15, or $20
contributions be sent to friend Ralph at his Citizens Utility Board,
so he can fight these greedy companies.
We wonder how much money in taxes those greedy companies
and their shareholders and employees paid to the Department of
Taxation and Finance and whether or not the Department will want to
offer misbehaving corporations the same free mail delivery and
endorsement they are giving Nader.
l 400,000 unhospitalized Americans experience sudden cardiac
arrest each year. Of those who receive standard CPR, 26% make it to
an intensive care unit and 20% leave the hospital alive. Based on lay-
man use of a household toilet plunger for CPR (allowing both com-
pression and decompression of the chest), an improved CPR pump
has been developed. In preliminary trials with a small number of sub-
jects, those treated with the pump made it to intensive care 40% of the
time and 38% left the hospital alive. Although larger trials will be
useful, this device is already in use in Canada, Britain, and France and
is required in ambulances in Austria.
In America, however, the Food and Drug Administration has
11, 1994 p B14 reports that the FDA was displeased with the research
perimental subjects the unconscious, dying victims of cardiac arrest.
Thanks to the FDA, more cardiac arrest victims are dying. The
free market is, however, still supplying Americans with toilet plung-
ers. Get one while you can. They may soon require FDA approval.
l With three enviro-friendly, government-protected cougars
(mountain lions) frequenting our farm, we were gratified to receive a
copy of the University of California at Santa Cruz advisory to stu-
dents as republished by Fresh Tracks, National Wilderness Institute,
25766 Georgetown Station, Washington, DC 20007. It advises:
STOP! DO NOT RUN FROM A LION. ...Running may stimu-
late a lions instinct to chase and attack. ...STAY CALM when you
try to stay on your feet if a lion attacks you. ...Always remain standing
During the Depression in the 1930s, the bounty on a cougar in this
county was $75. Now there is a government bounty on cougar hunt-
ers, so cougars have chased the children from our fields several times.
GOOD READING
l B. R. Fleming, Pulp and Paper, pp 59-62 April (1992) entitled
The Organochlorine Spectrum: Mills, Public Must Discern Toxic,
Nontoxic available from Dr. Bruce Fleming, Boise Cascade, 4435
North Channel Avenue, Portland, OR 97217. This a well-presented
plea for understanding that the chlorine compounds in paper mill
waste are not environmentally harmful.
l W. Beckerman and J. Malkin, The Public Interest 114, pp 3-16
Winter (1994) entitled How much does global warming matter?
The authors, while not accepting the myths of global warming, dis-
cuss the relative costs and benefits of various responses to such
warming even if it were to occur. The enviro campaign against carbon
dioxide emissions fails under all assumptions.
l President Gore in 1994? and several other articles in the
April 1994 issue of The Free American, newsletter of Freedom Alli-
ance, Steve Symms, President. This is available from P. O. Box 75,
Rushville, IL 62938. The chilling title speaks for itself.
l The EPA Risk Inverter in Civil Defense Perspectives 10,
son Blvd. #9, Tucson, AZ 85716. Excellent.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions: individuals $25 for 12
monthly issues (Canada $27, overseas, by air mail only, $30). Corporations double, US
tax-subsidized organizations $100. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $2 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
AUGUST 1994 (Vol. 21, no. 12) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Philosophy of Death
Although we are all participants in a pro-science, pro-technol-
ogy, pro-free enterprise newsletter, we have many differences. Ac-
cess to Energy readers range from Christians and Jews to atheists;
from farmers to nuclear weapons scientists; from politicians to com-
modity traders; from teachers to doctors; from children to octoge-
narians; from rich and free to penniless and incarcerated. We seem
different in every imaginable way. Yet, in some things, our differ-
ences tend to obscure our similarities and our similarities tend to ob-
scure our understanding of society.
Consider, as examples, some of the arguments that most of us
would make in individualized yet similar ways:
Free enterprise is clearly more productive in every way than is
socialism. Even if they cannot agree that freedom is morally su-
perior, surely they can understand that it is far more productive
that it markedly reduces human suffering and enhances human life.
The evidence is overwhelming. How can they be so wrong?
Technological progress leads to a higher quality life for all peo-
ple. How can they be so foolish as to oppose this progress?
Energy is the currency of human progress. Inexpensive energy is
the key to technological enhancement of human life. Surely every-
one will be better off if the constraints on production of inexpensive
energy are removed. How can anyone think otherwise? How can
they be so much in error?
Pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, genetics, and modern machinery
have made possible a revolution in world agriculture. These won-
ders make possible abundant, high quality food for everyone on
earth and increase the number of people who can enjoy life in this
world by orders of magnitude. How can anyone not see this? How
can they oppose these technologies? How can they be so blind?
Why should there be any limit to the percentage of their wealth
that Americans spend for medical care? It is their money. They
earned and saved it. Socialism in medicine leads to poor quality and
rationing. This increases suffering and decreases the average length
of life. How can they not comprehend this?
Socialized education is steadily diminishing the mental abilities
of young Americans while it impoverishes millions through crush-
ing taxation. Socialism in education is such a failure that a great ma-
jority of Americans from the poor to the affluent realize that it is
not working. How can they be so foolish as to continue it?
Last month Access to Energy mentioned the 3 billion years of hu-
man life saved in India alone in one decade by use of DDT. How
could they not see this accomplishment? How could they ban
such a wonderful benefit to humanity for no credible reason?
Carbon dioxide has already caused enormous world-wide in-
creases in plant and animal life. American forests alone are increas-
ing at a remarkable rate regardless of logging, which is having a
negligible impact on forests while it brings affordable homes to mil-
lions of families. These facts about carbon dioxide and forests are
unequivocally documented. Why then have they slowed logging and
attacked carbon dioxide? Why do they not understand the facts?
Mentioned rhetorically here, these are the sorts of things that
Agency Bulletin 36 No. 1 (1994) available from IAEA, P. O. Box
RADIATION AT WORK
articles on Radiation Technologies. These articles give an infor-
The continuous stream of reports about interference with nuclear
technology by politicians, bureaucrats, and others in the enviro indus-
try sometimes obscures the reality of a vast, growing, and healthy
world-wide nuclear industry. The International Atomic Energy
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
have been documented with careful reference to the scientific litera-
ture and reasoned arguments in Access to Energy for 21 years. They
are some of the foundations of our common interests. Those who do
not seem to understand these matters are often the objects of our hu-
mor. Why are we so smart and they so stupid? Surely we can
convince them. Surely we can make them understand.
I suspect that we are the ones who do not understand. Our oppo-
nents enemies is a more appropriate word do understand.
They are smart, tough, powerful people. They are a significant
part of Americas elite and generally control our government, our
universities, our media, and many of our large corporations and
foundations. They do not control everything. That is why there is a
national debate about most of these matters but generally they
have been winning in recent decades.
I do not believe that these people constitute a conspiracy.
They do not formally meet although some have their clubs and
organizations as do many groups with common interests. They do
not meet because they do not need to meet. They each know what to
do. They know this, because there is a current of subtle peer pressure
that runs throughout their strata of society and because they have a
common philosophical base. It is a base they share with many socie-
tal elites throughout history.
This elite fears technology, free enterprise, inexpensive energy,
modern agriculture, educational excellence, life-saving chemicals,
life-extending medicine, carbon dioxide-producing industry, and
high quality housing for millions of ordinary people. Their values
are entirely inverted from ours. The things we see as advances, they
see as destabilizing and threatening to their elite positions.
Before technology, this elite lived almost as well as it does today.
They see technology as a way to produce their luxury with fewer
people. More people and more individual economic freedom for
more people threatens their privileged positions.
The elitists may not understand the link between technology and
their own quality and length of life. They want fewer people. High
quality medical care, good education, long life, greater freedom, bet-
ter food, and greater numbers for the masses are not desirable to
them. This is why the arguments of reason, based on the assumption
that freedom and progress are good, fail to convince them.
This elite is understandable and predictable: it consistently op-
poses advances that will make possible greater numbers of people
with greater individual capabilities. It opposes advances that will
make the masses more thoughtful and less easy to herd. This elite
prefers ensured privilege for itself and the smallest number of men-
tally and economically enslaved others necessary for its own lux-
ury. For the masses, it prefers the philosophy of death.
Want to join up? This elite happily accepts new members. If you
have ability, money, and a little power, you are welcome. No dues,
no meetings, no conspiracy all you need to do is adopt their values
and act accordingly.
Enemy, evil, dishonorable even as modern, free-en-
terprise technologists, we may still have need of these ancient words.
100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria contains an excellent group of popular
mative summary of the many ways in which our world is being trans-
formed and improved by nuclear technology. Nuclear energy
production is central to this technology, but there are many additional
benefits. These include production of better plastics; sterilization of
medical products, sewage sludge, and food; removal of air and water
pollutants; wear and corrosion monitoring of machine parts; quantita-
tive analysis in mineral exploration; and nuclear medicine to name
only a few. The figure below from the IAEA Bulletin shows a pro-
posed radiation treatment system for sewage sludge. Before steriliza-
tion, human waste is quite a dangerous material. Afterward, it is a
useful product. Radiation is a superb way to effect this sterilization.
This brings to mind the whole waste disposal crisis of which
daily word is brought by the prophets of the enviro industry. Wast-
ing Away Mismanaging Municipal Solid Waste, a 59-page report
by James V. DeLong published in May 1994 by the Competitive En-
terprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1250, Wash-
ington, DC 20036 places this matter in proper perspective.
DeLong documents the negative economics of waste recycling
and the non-problem of disposal. The principal problem in municipal
solid waste disposal today is that, in response to crisis propaganda,
many municipalities have overbuilt disposal facilities that are not eco-
nomical for reduced operation. There is a serious shortage of garbage.
This figure taken from the DeLong report shows the distribution of
U. S. municipal solid waste in 1990. The total amount of such waste
in 1990 was 195 million tons. DeLong calculates that, at its average
density of 30 pounds per cubic foot, this is an annual pile one square
mile in area and less than 500 feet high. Less than 100 feet of this pile
is not easily degradable. If only one out of every one thousand square
miles of U. S. land is used for 100-foot-deep landfills of municipal
solid waste, we will run out of locations in about 3,000 years at pre-
sent rates and assuming no degradation for 20% of the garbage.
Here in the Northwest, envirocrats are needlessly raising the cost
of landfill disposal so high that increasing amounts of garbage are just
being dumped from pickup trucks in the national forests.
MEGA ENERGY
The first time I saw Edward Teller was at the University of Cali-
fornia at San Diego in the 1960s at a seminar where he discussed
some of the vast explosive phenomena that are observed by astrono-
mers. It seemed to me then that the great weapons designers eyes
flashed especially brightly as he described these enormous cosmic ex-
plosions. Weapons builders like Teller preserved American freedom
with their work. At the same time, I suspect that many of them greatly
enjoyed the scientific thrills of generating larger and larger chemical
and nuclear reactions.
I would like to see a seminar today in which Edward Teller de-
scribes the spiral-shaped disk of hot gas that the Hubble telescope has
photographed at the center of galaxy M87 about 50 million light years
from earth. Doppler shift measurements of the wavelengths of light
emitted by the parts of this cloud rotating toward earth and rotating
away from earth have permitted calculation of its rate of spin. This, in
turn, allows calculation of the mass around which it is spinning. The
mass turns out to be 2 to 3 billion times greater than that of our sun.
This discovery is being called the first confirmed black hole. See
Science 264 p 1405 (1994) and Science News 145 p 356 (1994).
CAPITAL FLIGHT
Clinton and Babbitt claim to have reduced logging in the
Northwest under a new, compromise plan to save our forests. In truth,
they have stopped logging and are moving to keep it stopped.
Northwestern forests actually were increasing rapidly regardless of
the effects of all-out logging before the federal ban (See Access to En-
ergy 21-3 and 21-4), so they did not require saving. Embarrassingly
large numbers of spotted owls have been found, too, which is elimi-
nating this feathered enviro surrogate.
Our basin area, which is heavily logged, is typical 70% of the
land is in federal hands. Logging (carried out primarily by small, local
companies) before the enviro bans, removed about 0.5% of the forest
per year and had been doing so for about 45 years. Forest regrowth
replaced more than that 0.5%, so total standing timber was increasing.
Regrown trees about 80-90 years old are preferred for lumber, so it
was anticipated that the local lumber industry would become entirely
sustained from regrowth in another 45 years. At that point, a little less
than half of the original forest would have been logged. Original
is, of course, a loaded word that is pronounced ancient, old-
growth, or native by the enviro industry. Most of our fir and pine
trees ordinarily live only about 150 years, and those few trees that live
longer, while valuable, are not necessary to the lumber industry.
Actually, with standing timber in American forests increasing rap-
idly (23% since 1958) and vast forests (which are also increasing)
available in other countries, this whole issue is one of not seeing the
lumber industry for the trees. It is our lumber industry our timber
fallers, skidders, truckers, and modern sawmills that are unique,
rather than our trees. Trees are available elsewhere. Shutdown of the
forests is destroying small and medium sized companies and leaving
the market to large lumber companies that own vast tracts of forest
and also can more easily utilize nation-wide and world-wide forests.
Contrary to Administration propaganda, the Clintons are moving
to permanently close the national forests not only to logging, but to
all other human activity. No logging whatever is being allowed on
government land here. Moreover, the forest service has been ordered
to begin contracting for the obliteration of forest service roads. Our
local forest bureaucrats have been told that, if they do not begin to
fund contracts to bulldoze the roads and thereby permanently seal off
access to the forests, they will not receive their own salary appropria-
tions. This road closure will not only stop human use, it will sharply
reduce fire fighting capability. As a result, we can expect devastating
fires in coming years which will burn vast tracts of forest and invade
inhabited private land and homes as well. These natural burns are
actually advocated by the enviros.
Moreover, government regulators are moving quickly to stop log-
ging on private land. Where access through federal land is needed, it
is being denied. Permits required for logging privately owned trees
are becoming harder to obtain, and new restrictive rules are coming

into force. These events are providing a saddening example of the
flight of capital from government oppression.
The most environmentally conscious people in this region have
been farmers and ranchers who live close to the land and are con-
stantly striving to improve their property. These people have gener-
ally looked upon the large trees on their land as savings. The trees
could be cut in time of financial emergency, but otherwise they let
them grow. Trees are beautiful and just keep getting more valuable.
Essentially, their trees are like money in the bank the last money
they spend because it has other benefits of ownership. Most of this
capital is never spent. It just passes from one generation to the next.
Not any more! For months the roads here have been filled with
logging trucks carrying trees from the farms and ranches. The local
lumber mill log yards are filled to capacity, but still the trees come.
Prices are dropping as a result of this local glut. Special targets are the
trees beside streams and rivers because new regulations will take ef-
fect soon that completely prohibit cutting such trees.
Logger: Shall we cut those big cedar trees down by the creek?
Farmer: I dont want to. Those are beautiful trees. Nobody in this
family will have trees like that here again for five more generations if
I cut them. Logger: Yes, but September 1st the new rules will go
into effect. After that, no one in your family can ever use them. It will
be forbidden to cut them. Farmer: O.K., I dont like it, but I guess
Ill have to do it. Well put the money away for safe-keeping.
When the trees belonged to the farmer, he took care of them.
When the government is coming to confiscate them, the farmer does
his best to salvage his capital. Capital is fleeing the Northwest now, as
enviro bureaucrats pillage private property. The bureaucrats will care
for this property properly. They are arranging some of those quaint
natural wildfires that will burn the rest of the farmers trees and fry
the protected cougars and spotted owls, too.
directly dependent upon energy supplies. The real world of real hu-
COLD FUSION
be generated cleanly and without destructive global warming.
Cold Fusion 5 Years Later in 21st Century 7 pp 62-80 (Spring
1994) available from 21st Century Science Associates, 60 Sycolin
Road, Suite 203, Leesburg, VA 22075 is a report of the 4th Interna-
tional Cold Fusion Conference and a discussion of the state of the art
of cold fusion. This is well worth reading.
Art is a key word here. This field is only gradually qualifying
as a reproducible science a descriptive statement, not a negative
evaluation. The conference included 230 papers by scientists who are
surely not working for public accolades. Professional negatives for
those seriously pursuing this subject are now very substantial. The po-
litical situation that has surrounded this work is shameful.
This field is in that difficult stage in which the phenomenon under
study is not understood and is often maddeningly irreproducible. It
may even be misnamed and non-nuclear. Nevertheless, it is surely
there. These scientists are studying something. Eventually they will
understand it, and it may well turn out to be a process of great value.
It is not at all unusual in science for experiments to be irreproduci-
ble even when they display significant results. Unfortunately, nega-
tive results and ephemeral results are rarely published and therefore
often repeated by scientists who are unaware of each others work.
This may change for the better with the increase of publication of re-
search results on the computer nets where refereeing is absent, publi-
cation is easy, and professional backlash may be less severe.
I recall carrying out some work on heme-heme interactions that I
had been assigned by Martin Kamen as a graduate student. One eve-
ning in the lab a preparation of a di-heme protein I was studying sud-
denly showed a virtually perfect heme-heme interaction by circular
dichroism spectroscopy. I was also able to reversibly couple and un-
couple the interaction. I doubt that anyone had ever seen such a per-
fectly symmetrical situation in a di-heme protein before. The heme
groups were apparently positioned exactly and symmetrically over
one another and demonstrating beautiful spectroscopic symmetry.
In those days our tools were few and most protein structures were
complicated and beyond our reach. We could have done some very
nice work with this symmetrical heme-heme interaction in captivity.
Unfortunately, it was not in captivity. I was never able to make it hap-
pen again. The recorded spectra were unequivocal, but there had been
some irreproducible oddity in the solution that evening perhaps an
impurity from incomplete washing of glassware or a contaminated re-
agent that I was never able to duplicate. After a few days, I went on
to other work. If, however, this work had the great importance of a
potential new energy source, I might have chased the phenomenon for
years. I know for certain it was there and have the spectra to prove it.
Cold fusion apparently merits the attention and support of quite
a few experimentalists so many that, before long, they will probably
understand the phenomenon they are studying. In the meantime, we
should all keep open minds and hope for the best.
ENERGY AND POPULATION
Nuclear News 37 No.8 p 23 (June 1994) by Nancy Zacha reviews
the book, Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense About Energy by Rich-
ard Rhodes, Viking Penguin Press, 375 Hudson Street, New York,
NY 10014. Rhodes earlier wrote the excellent book, The Making of
the Atomic Bomb. I read the Zacha review two weeks after writing
this months editorial, Philosophy of Death, which is derived pri-
marily from experiences that I have had in biomedical science.
Rhodes has a different background. The final paragraph of his book,
however, as quoted by Nuclear News reads:
Satisfying human aspirations is what our species invents technol-
ogy to do. Some Americans, secure in comfortable affluence, may
dream of a simpler and smaller world. However noble such a dream
appears to be, its hidden agenda is elitist, selfish, and violent. Millions
of children die every year for lack of adequate resources clean
water, food, medical care and the development of those resources is
man beings needs more energy. With nuclear power, that energy can
Whether it will be or not depends upon leadership and public educa-
tion. Where nuclear power is concerned, in both departments, the
United States has a long way to go.
Although I strongly disagree with his leaning on the crutch of
global warming (which is enviro nonscience), Rhodes has reached
the same conclusion as have I concerning the core philosophy of the
opposition to energy production.
The Pauling memorabilia file for this month (I receive a seemingly
endless stream of Linus alerts) contains a fund raising appeal from
Negative Population Growth, Inc., a 22-year-old nonprofit foundation
that lists Linus as a member of its Advisory Board. They give as their
long range goal: To stabilize U. S. population at no more than
150 million, and world population at no more than two billion, after
an interim period of gradual population decrease. One of their sug-
gested Interim Steps is to Foster universal recognition that, in an
already overpopulated world, no couple has the right to have more
than two children. We wonder which two of Linuss four children
(and how many of his numerous grandchildren) he is ready to sacri-
fice to the cause. The answer is that the elite are not thusly con-
strained. It is the others of whom there are too many.
Yes but what about the math? What if everyone has four chil-
dren? The math says that this eventually must stop.
By 1985 fertility rates (children born per woman) were Germany
and Denmark - 1.3, Netherlands and Italy - 1.5, Japan - 1.7, and
France, UK, and USA - 1.8. Third world fertility fell from 6.9 to 4.2
between 1970 and 1985. (See Civil Defense Perspectives for January
1993 available from 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85716.)
A fertility rate of 2.1 is required for replacement. Below that rate,
population stabilizes and then falls.
World population data clearly show that, as civilizations acquire
technological affluence, their populations stabilize and actually begin
to decline somewhat through voluntary decisions of parents. Some
still have large families, but most do not. It is more energy and more
technology that stabilizes population not less.
 support of radiation hormesis by its most outspoken proponent.
STARK RAVING MAD
ticle Birds of a Feather in The National Interest and also The
l In response to the Clean Air Act and in reliance upon a 1991
negotiated and signed agreement between the government, the oil in-
dustry, the auto industry, environmental groups, and the ethanol in-
dustry, $2 billion has been spent to build methyl tertiary butyl ether
production plants to provide oxygenate gasoline additives to improve
air quality. Now, with the plants built, the enviros and the ethanol
lobby want the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to require
the use of a corn-based ethanol derivative instead.
The Houston Post, June 5, 1994 pp D-1 and D-8 reports that this
change that is being considered by the EPA, Americas guardian of
malaria and other victims of the scourge of DDT, would raise the cost
of gasoline in Houston (and elsewhere) about 5 cents per gallon.
Houstonians can look after their own air. I recall, from my child-
hood days in Houston, that trucks spraying DDT drove through the
suburban areas on hot, summer nights. In those days, we welcomed
elimination of mosquitoes and concomitant disease.
William Ruckelshaus, EPA bureaucrat who ordered the genocidal
DDT ban, has recently implied (Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street
Journal, March 21, 1994) that the ban applied only to the U.S. He
claimed that he would have made a different decision, for example, in
Ghana. Actually, the U. S. Agency for International Development,
AID, requires all nations to obey EPA requirements as a condition for
receiving AID funds. By this mechanism, EPA succeeded in banning
DDT in many other countries including Ghana. (See Letter to the Edi-
tor, The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1994 by John E. Kinney.)
l Someone, we hope not a friend or subscriber, has put us on the
mailing list of earth preserv bathe the body... preserv the planet,
a four-color marketer of bath products to the enviro elite and retainers.
With the aid of their products, I am invited to moisturize myself in
earth-friendly nectars, comb and brush my hair with wooden utensils,
and lounge in unbleached robes and slippers. The most interesting ad
is for the multipurpose recycled glass sack which is billed as
great for flowers and candles, as well as chilling a bottle of wine
(which presumably I will rush to the appropriate recycling bin).
The multipurpose recycled glass sack is merely an 8-inch-tall
open-topped glass jar that has been frosted, according to the cata-
logue, by eco-friendly sand blasting instead of traditional acid dip-
ping. The price is $42 each.
l Gang That Couldnt Give Shots Straight by Robert Goldberg
in The Wall Street Journal p A14, June 20, 1994 documents the Clin-
ton child immunization program. The immunization goals had al-
ready been met before the program started, but the new program is so
poorly conceived that immunization may actually decrease as a result.
l The new, eviscerated SAT tests (see AtE March 1994) have
been recentered. Artificially normalized 100 points higher, the
new scores will look the same as those in the 1960s, before socialized
education took a further toll on student performance.
ginning to affect quality in other ways.
GOOD READING
price to $35. Canadian subscriptions will be $37; overseas air mail
l Failed U.S. Non-Proliferation Policy Should Be Abandoned
by Sam Cohen in Human Events, May 27, 1994. The inventor of the
neutron bomb suggests that U.S. policy should be based on non-inter-
ventionist policy and on deterrence, which has been shown to work,
rather than on suppression of the advance and dissemination of tech-
nological knowledge and ability which will never work.
l E. A. Suter, MD, Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia
83, pp 281-289 May 1994 entitled Assault Weapons Revisited An
Analysis of the AMA Report. Regardless of moral and constitu-
tional arguments, documented scientific facts about these weapons
are entirely different from myths being used in gun control propa-
ganda. This is a well-researched article with 66 literature references.
l T. D. Luckey, Radiation Protection Management 11, pp 73-79
(January-February 1994) entitled A Rosetta Stone for Ionizing Ra-
diation. This is a summary of some of the data and arguments in
l In the Hands of the Doves reviewing Angelo Codevillas ar-
New Russia and Strategic Defense by Leon Goure are both sobering
reading. These two articles are in the American Strategic Defense As-
sociation Newsletter 24 No. 3 (May-June 1994) available from
ASDA, P. O. Box 42605, Washington, DC 20015-0605.
INFLATION
The advance of industrial science and technology should continu-
ously decrease the real cost of goods and services. Savings, the de-
ferred enjoyment of earned income, should therefore have the
additional benefit that money buys more in the future than it does in
the present even if it is saved without any interest or investment
income whatever. Deflation of prices as a result of increased human
productivity is the expected process in a technologically advancing
society with honest money.
Unfortunately, America does not have honest money. Americans
have been taught not even to expect such honesty. Low inflation is
considered desirable, zero inflation is utopian, and negative inflation
is unthinkable in our country, today. Our money is managed so
that government theft by monetary inflation will not be so large as to
disrupt the economy altogether.
Economists bemoan the low American savings rate even though
the real value of savings (plus interest minus inflation and direct taxa-
tion) shrinks with time. People are supposed to become clever in-
vestors (translation speculators or gamblers) in order for their
savings to retain purchasing power or grow. The established view (al-
though many do not understand the implications) is that the economic
benefits of all increases in productivity belong to the government.
They are immediately collected through the hidden tax of inflation.
The average real income of Americans peaked in 1973 and has
been decreasing irregularly ever since. Government regulation and
taxation is gradually destroying the American way of life.
Access to Energy has always been managed as a free-enterprise
business. Its net financial income supports the scientific work of its
editor (Petrs and now ours), while its dissemination of information
informs its readers and provides ammunition in support of our com-
mon interests. Its price is low primarily because it has no employees,
and all aspects of its production, including printing and mailing, are
done by the editor and family. (Gradually we have been learning the
use of Petrs printing press. Thank you for your patience.)
Access to Energy readership has grown about 5% during the past
year. Nevertheless, inflation has taken its toll. Twelve years ago, the
subscription price was $22. Six years ago this was raised to $25. A
twelve year adjustment based on the government admitted inflation
index would bring the subscription price to $38. The government in-
dex is artificially low. Inflation has now reduced the Access to Energy
budget for advertising for new readers essentially to zero and is be-
We have decided, therefore, to raise the individual subscription
$40; corporations $60, and US tax-subsidized organizations $150.
Prices for E-Mail electronic delivery will be the same. Price for both
mail and E-Mail delivery will be the one subscription price plus $15.
A few individuals, such as students and others with low incomes,
receive Access to Energy without charge. If you would like to receive
the newsletter on a complimentary or reduced price basis, write to us
giving an explanation. Each request will be considered individually.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 1994 (Vol. 22, no. 1) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Words
The language of science is primarily mathematics. The better un-
derstood a science becomes, the more completely it can be described
without the use of words except for a minimum number that are de-
fined very carefully and quantitatively.
In the Principia, Isaac Newton describes his three laws of motion
in just 60 Latin words which he then definitively circumscribes with
mathematical equations.
The science of equilibrium thermodynamics can be entirely
mathematically derived from the science of statistical mechanics,
which itself is derived from statistics and a few simple natural laws.
With a knowledge of mathematics, a good thermodynamics text can
be read and understood regardless of whether or not the reader has
knowledge of the word language in which the book is written.
There are many such examples in the fields of physics and
chemistry. In the more poorly understood subjects such as biology,
words play a greater part, largely because the explanations are tenta-
tive and incompletely understood.
Generally speaking, a scientist should be able to enter a lecture
hall without notes and give an understandable and correct lecture on
his subject by means of diagrams, graphs, symbols, and equations on
a large chalkboard without ever verbally uttering a word. Words
serve then as additional communication aids, especially for less in-
formed members of the audience.
Scientific knowledge requires great precision of expression and
manipulation, so the language of mathematics is best suited to it.
Without mathematics, modern science would probably not exist.
In the public arena, however, words and subjective images are
everything. The majority of people are moved primarily by words,
by audio-visual images, and by their perceptions or misperceptions
of their own self-interests.
Enormous investments of money and effort are made in order to
define certain words and phrases in the public mind. Often, in order
to conserve resources, words that already have special value and rec-
ognition are appropriated and redefined. For example, the word
entropy from thermodynamics was appropriated by Jeremy
Rifkin in his best-selling enviropropaganda book of the same name.
In this effort, Rifkin rode the scientific reputation of the word and
applied it to energy use in an entirely incorrect manner. He so de-
monized it that several theologians, hoodwinked by Rifkins word
game, even wrote books about entropy and original sin.
In the case of entropy, scientists have little choice other than
to defend the meaning of their word. Entropy is too entrenched in
the scientific literature to be discarded.
In other cases, it may be well to discard a term and its propagan-
dists. The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a well-known natural
phenomenon wherein atmospheric components admit energy as
electromagnetic radiation from the sun, but then block the escape of
some of that energy after its spectrum is altered by interactions with
earthly components. This is an essential phenomenon in maintaining
an atmosphere warm enough to support human life.
Upon greenhouse effect has been built the term global tists today must ignore his advice or else lose our way of life.
experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth (ital-
GLOBAL WARMING
While it is proper for theoreticians to develop any hypotheses
On the first page of his three volume work, Lectures on Physics,
published with Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands and by Addison-
Wesley in 1963, Richard Feynman wrote, The principle of science,
the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
warming. While global warming could have led a relatively
harmless semantic life, it has been diverted into a life of crime by the
propaganda mills. They have given it a public meaning synonymous
with huge atmospheric temperature increases due to industrial activ-
ity, catastrophic environmental effects, mobs of government funded
scientists fighting for the life of the planet, and reason enough for
massive invasions by government bureaucrats and regulations into
all aspects of our economy. Meanwhile there is no credible scientific
evidence of global warming. Access to Energy has been referring to
global warming as enviro-nonscience, which it is as the
words are now used.
Recently Access to Energy published a few scientific references
concerning assault rifles because media claims about these rifles
are greatly in error. We received three letters from readers who feel
that we misused the words that assault rifles are not semiautomatic
military rifles of the sort used in World War II and now available in
modern versions. These readers consider assault rifles to be only
fully automatic rifles that spray bullets Rambo-style (and are used
mostly for mowing down children on playgrounds).
Unfortunately, we are both right. We used the term correctly, but
they are using it with the currently perceived, propaganda-induced
and demonized public meaning. This meaning is the one that is be-
ing used against American freedom. We should have realized this
and defined our terms more accurately and more broadly.
Some words, especially when used to obtain publicity, can trig-
ger a sharp immune response. The experiments that were announced
as cold fusion caused a logical demand from physicists for proof
that nuclear fusion was involved. There was substantial backlash
when insufficient evidence was presented. It is usually better to ex-
ercise modesty in the publication of research results.
The grain of truth in the propagandists lie can serve as a seman-
tic trap. Accepting global warming but questioning its severity
aids the propagandist rhetorically. Attempts to constrain the term
ozone hole only to an antarctic region of ozone reduction have
not fared well in the media wars. Strategically, it may be best to let
each such term mean everything the extremists want it to mean and
then destroy the word with the propagandized definition.
These sorts of exercises are generally difficult for good scientists
who are interested in precision of meaning and are not trained in the
manufacture of hyperbole and sound bites. Moreover, it is difficult
to compete in the propaganda world of words when one is con-
strained to the truth while ones opponent is not.
In each such activity, it is well to keep the goal clearly in mind.
When communicating with the public, the goal is communication.
The public uses words rather than equations and those words mean
whatever the public thinks they mean meanings that can change
with the next edition of the evening TV news.
It is easy to be right. It is especially easy to be right and silent.
Mark Twain is said to have remarked, never get in an argument
with people who buy their ink by the barrel. Unfortunately, scien-
ics and quotes in the original).
they wish, those hypotheses have no validity whatever in science un-
less they conform to experimentally determined truths. Usually a hy-
pothesis is based upon previous experiments and predicts the
outcome of future experiments that will test the hypothesis.

Sometimes a hypothesis conforms only to previous experiment or
only to future experiment, but it must refer in some way to experi-
ment. A hypothesis has no validity whatever unless it is in some man-
ner verified by experiment. This is true regardless of the complexity
of the hypothesis, the amount of computer time expended in its devel-
opment, the public relations skills of its originators, the amount of tax
money used for its creation, or hopes of advocates for money, fame,
professional advancement, and political power.
Global warming, the hypothesis that release of carbon dioxide the facts are known. They claim the consequences are too great to
(and to a lesser degree other gases) from human activities will cause
sufficient atmospheric greenhouse warming to result in substantial
negative consequences for life on earth both human and nonhuman,
is not reliable because it does not conform to any experimental facts.
Moreover, there are previously determined experimental facts which
suggest that the global warming hypothesis is wrong and cannot ever
be verified by future experiments.
This hypothesis was science when first presented. It might still be
called an unproved scientific hypothesis. There is still the theoretical
possibility that, for unknown reasons, it could prove to be correct.
When, however, its advocates embarked on a massive effort to force
the American people and people in other countries to adopt extensive
and damaging changes in their ways of life on the basis that global
warming is a verified product of science, global warming became
non-science or, perhaps more correctly, scientific nonsense.
Why then is this hypothesis more important to us than the many
other unverified assertions from the enviro industry? It is more impor-
tant because its potential political consequences are enormous. If the
political opponents of technology and human freedom can establish a
rationale for political control of atmospheric carbon dioxide release,
they will have a stranglehold on virtually all human activities. We
cannot even breathe without releasing carbon dioxide.
We must, therefore, be absolutely certain that we know the experi-
mental facts that relate to the global warming hypothesis. We need
these facts to prevent the political imposition of damaging and free-
dom-destroying carbon dioxide controls. We also need them, so that
we can adapt to the consequences of experiments that may be done in
the future. The truth will not adjust itself to our wishes. Suppose that
some part of this hypothesis were to receive experimental verifica-
tion. How could we adjust to this without a thorough knowledge of
the hypothesis and relevant experimental facts?
Figure 1
Are we not certain that global warming is entirely a hoax and al-
ways will be? Science is a wonderful construction of the human mind
and human observations, but it is in its early infancy. Very few of the
potentially knowable scientific facts are presently known. It is, there-
fore, always dangerous to claim certain knowledge concerning future
discoveries. Almost anything is possible.
This, of course, is the last refuge of the enviros. They claim that we
must act against catastrophic global temperature change even before
wait. Our reply, as Petr Beckmann phrased it, is do we act against
the threat of warming or of cooling?
Arguments currently given in support of global warming are:
1. The earth is known to be warmed, in part, by the greenhouse
effect in its atmosphere. Atmospheric components more readily block
electromagnetic energy in the frequency range leaving the earths at-
mosphere than in the range entering the atmosphere. This warms the
earth and plays an important role in creating conditions suitable for
life. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
2. Current global climate models predict that a global temperature
rise of about 4C (an average for several calculations) will occur if
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise from 300 ppm to 600 ppm (the
expected rise over about a century if current trends continue).
(Ppm is defined as parts per million or number of CO2 mole-
cules per million molecules of atmospheric gases.) These climate
models are computer calculations for the atmosphere of Earth with
which scientists are attempting to combine all of the factors that affect
the atmosphere into one self-consistent and predictive model. (This
problem is very difficult and current calculations are primitive and
unreliable.)
3. Global temperature over the last century has risen about 0.5C
while atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen about 70 ppm.
This corresponds to a rise of about 2C for 300 ppm a value ap-
proximately in agreement with global climate models. (See below.)
4. A rise of atmospheric temperature comparable to that predicted
by climate models for extrapolated changes in carbon dioxide levels
is expected to have catastrophic effects on global living conditions.
(These predictions of catastrophe from warmer temperatures are
highly speculative. Warmer temperatures might well be an overall
improvement. Nevertheless, actual effects would surely be remark-
able, and no reliable means is available to predict them.)
 5. Carbon dioxide release should be sharply reduced in order to
mitigate the effects of global warming. If this is not done (by force if
necessary), the earth will suffer terrible consequences.
Assertions 4 and 5 are speculative and political. The science and
potential science is in 1 through 3. Number 1 was well established as
scientifically correct long before global warming was suggested.
Are there, however, any experimental observations which support
the hypothesis that current global climate models correctly calculate
the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect? Without experimental verifica-
tion, this hypothesis cannot be accepted as true. In fact, there are no
experimental observations that support this hypothesis.
First, the 0.5C temperature increase during this century occurred
in the years before 1940. It cannot have been caused by the 70 ppm
increase in carbon dioxide because 56 ppm of that increase occurred
after 1940.(See Access to Energy, April 1994 p 4 for additional data.)
The global warming hypothesis predicts a temperature rise since 1940
of about (56)(4)/(300) = 0.75C. This rise has not occurred.
Second, greenhouse warming by carbon dioxide has been meas-
ured on three planets Earth, Mars, and Venus. Figure 1 shows these
measurements as summarized by S. B. Idso, Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change: Earth in Transition, pp 27-28 (1989) IBR Press. The
Figure 2
straight line, log-log plot of these measurements gives a predicted
warming of only 0.4C for 300 ppm increase in CO2. This is a smaller
increase than has already occurred in this century without climatic
difficulties and is an order of magnitude below the model predictions.
Figure 1 also shows a curved line calculated from the U. S. Na-
tional Research Council relationship summarizing global climate
models. The line is mathematically forced through the data for Earth
and obviously fails completely to correspond with experiment. Idso
explains some of the reasons for this failure.
Therefore, experimental tests of the global climate model hypothe-
ses on which global warming depends are possible with temperature
and carbon dioxide data from Mars, Venus, and Earth. The hypothe-
ses fail to agree with any of this data. There is no experimental data
whatever in agreement with the hypotheses supporting global warm-
ing. This is all that science requires. Until it agrees with experiment,
the burden of proof is on the hypothesis. There is no requirement that
science prove a hypothesis wrong. A hypothesis is given no status be-
cause it has not been proved incorrect. If it were, progress would be
difficult. Any assertion, no matter how improbable, could demand the
resources of scientists for its disproof a requirement that would
quickly absorb available resources and stall productive work.
Since, however, global warming has been given a political life
that is potentially very damaging to our society, scientists have pre-
sented some experimental facts which cast doubt upon it. These are:
1. The straight line relationship in Figure 1 is not just empirical.
The slope of this line agrees well with greenhouse effect calculations
based upon the absorption of energy by planetary atmospheres. More-
over, this relationship takes into account synergistic effects from other
greenhouse gases, especially water. It predicts a 0.4C temperature in-
crease with an increase of CO2 from 300 ppm to 600 ppm.
2. Warming since 1940 of 0.75C as predicted by global warming
has not occurred. An increase of about 0.1C has been observed.
Within experimental error and with the qualification that other factors
such as variations in solar activity are present, this observation is con-
sistent with the straight line in Figure 1 and not with global warming.
3. Figure 2 (Figures 2 and 3 are from Global Warming and Ozone
Hole Controversies: A Challenge to Scientific Judgment by Frederick
Seitz, published by George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street,
N.W., Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036.) shows a correlation by E.
Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen, Science 254, 698 (1991) between
the 0.5C temperature rise during the past century and solar activity.
Correlation does not prove causality, but this correlation does agree
with the simple hypothesis that Earth is a little warmer because solar
radiation increased an increase well within expected fluctuations
and an increase that preceded the increase in carbon dioxide.
4. Finally, there is a question as to whether or not the observed
increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is actually even of human ori-
gin. It has been widely assumed by scientists that the burning of coal,
oil, and natural gas has caused the observed increase of carbon diox-
ide during the past century. The increase in CO2 correlates in time
with release of carbon from coal, oil, and gas, and the amounts re-
leased and observed are qualitatively reasonable.
Global CO2 balance is, however, not well understood. The greatest
reservoir is in the oceans where CO2 is dissolved both as CO2 and as
carbonates. This storage is temperature dependent. The rise in ocean
temperature from solar heating may have caused a net release of CO2.
Figure 3 shows the decrease of atmospheric 14C since the end of at-
mospheric atomic testing in the 1960s. Frederick Seitz has pointed out
that these measurements suggest a residence time of about 10 years
for CO2 in the atmosphere. When considered with certain assump-
tions about global carbon balance, this 10 year value could mean that
the increase in CO2 is not of human origin.
It is sometimes said that the way to originate good ideas in science
is to have lots of ideas and then throw away the bad ones. Often the
sifting of ideas is not so clear as good and bad. Corollary hy-
potheses can be developed to rationalize a poor fit to experiment, and
often definitive experiments have not been done. It is acceptable to
cling to an improbable idea even when the great preponderance of
evidence and the opinions of most scientists suggest that the idea is
wrong. Stubborn individuals who have refused to discard unpopular
ideas have sometimes given the world remarkable discoveries.
On the basis of existing experimental evidence, we must conclude
that the hypothesis underlying global warming is unproved, inconsis-
tent with available experimental data, and probably entirely wrong. It
is apparently a typical computer artifact of the sort that often arises in
attempts to calculate solutions for complicated, multiparameter prob-
lems with insufficient data and inadequate equations.
The promoters of this hypothesis, if they do not wish to abandon it,
may reasonably expect journal editors to continue to publish their arti-
cles until definitive experiments are available. They should not, how-
ever, expect anyone to change his way of life on this basis.
Figure 3
 l EPA Came Through for Archer-Daniels-Midland Soon After
TECHNOLOGICAL BARGAIN
A22, July 6, 1994 reports the new EPA rule that 10% of all gasoline
Nuclear News 37, p 70 (July 1994) reports that the lowest cost nu-
clear producer of electricity in 1993 was Commonwealth Edisons
Braidwood station which produced power at 1.29 cents/KWh. Aver-
age for nuclear power in the United States was 2.15 cents/KWh. Here
in Southern Oregon we pay a delivered price of 5.37 cents/KWh.
One KWh is the amount of energy required to lift 370 sacks each
weighing 110 pounds to a height of 65 feet. (See Siemens Stand-
punkt, July 1994 p 38 available from Siemens AG, KWU Ref PK31,
Postfach 32 20, 91050 Erlangen, Germany or ask any home schooled
16 year old. The one here checked this in under two minutes includ-
ing time for looking up the constants.)
Can any of the anti-technology enviros be hired to carry 300
100-pound sacks of chicken manure up 6 flights of stairs for 5 cents?
tional (so far) EPA ruling that humans stop exhaling CO2. The ruling
PEOPLE POWER
l In case of ingestion, give 2 to 4 cups of milk or water. Then
The anti-technologists may still look good in the trust-and-parrot
press, but the worlds people are voting overwhelmingly pro-technol-
ogy by their actions. The International Energy Agency (as referenced
by Nuclear Issues, 8 Ruvigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney, Lon-
don SW15 1LE) reports that world energy use has risen 65% during
the past 20 years as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
nating to see a few of these plants built.
STARK RAVING MAD
from Harry Brownes Special Reports, Box 5586, Austin, Texas
l It couldnt happen to a nicer guy. Nature 370 p 165 (1994) re-
ports that Carl Sagan is being left behind by renewed interest among
astronomers for comet and asteroid tracking to guard against an event
on Earth like the recent impacts on Jupiter. Sagans problem the
projects may suggest mitigation with nuclear explosions. After a ca-
reer of arguing that one nuclear disaster, no matter how improbable, is
not worth the risk, Sagan now claims that the risk of cosmic impact
catastrophe is only 3,000 deaths per year (because it is improbable)
and therefore protection is not worth the risk of nuclear development.
Andreass Role at Presidential Dinner in The Wall Street Journal, p
sold in the U.S. by 1996 contain corn-based ethanol. The ruling coin-
cided with Dwayne Andreass co-chairmanship of a $2.5 million
presidential fund raising dinner. ADM makes 60% of U.S. ethanol.
Meanwhile the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) requires that
10% of motor fuels be nonpetroleum by year 2000 and 30% by 2010.
(See Energy Information Agency report Estimates of U. S. Biomass
Energy Consumption 1992, GPO Stock No. 061-003-00852-6, avail-
able from GPO at telephone (202) 653-2050.)
This insanity has become so rampant that even the politically cor-
rect AAAS cannot stand it any more. See Paradise Gained by D.
E. Koshland, Science 265, p 167 (1994). In a very bad sign for the
envirocrats, Koshland (Editor-in Chief of Science) is not just criticiz-
ing them, he is laughing at them. Paradise Gained is about a fic-
is phased in over two years in order to give exhalers time to adapt.
induce vomiting ...... and get medical aid immediately. This is just
part of the politically correct warning now carried by laboratory grade
NaCl and NaHCO3 better known as table salt and baking soda.
Many irreplaceable laboratory reagents have been banned entirely.
GOOD READING
l The Ozone Crisis by Sallie Baliunas from the George C. Mar-
shall 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 Cen-
ter 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 Cri-
sis 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.
l 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 Fords Big
Flaw, but even that article gives an interesting account of Fords ac-
complishments. Included are great articles on button technology,
bridge engineering, the bicycle army, and the invention of video re-
cording, 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 worlds most successful pre-
mature infant nursery as a public display at Coney Island funded en-
tirely 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.
l Renewable Energy from the Ocean by W. H. Avery and C. Wu,
Oxford University Press (1994) as reviewed in Science 265, 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 fasci-
l The Breakdown of Government by Harry Browne available
78763. This is an excellent analysis of a serious problem we all face.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail in addition to first-class mail. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
OCTOBER 1994 (Vol. 22, no. 2) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Optimism vs. Pessimism
The Stark Raving Mad section of Access to Energy could be
expanded to four pages and filled completely every month with re-
ports of apparently contradictory actions involving compassion
toward people and animals. These actions involve both biological
control and technological control such as efforts to stop the rapid in-
crease in energy usage by the people of developing countries see
Figure 4 of Access to Energy 22-1.
Behind the silliness (such as recent demonstrations at Rockefeller
University in New York against the use of cats in medical research),
however, there is a well-defined group of related arguments.
It is argued, for example, that mice, rats, cats, dogs, and other ani-
mals should never live or should die unless their lives conform to a
minimum standard of quality as defined by animal rights activists. In
medical research, animals are sometimes brought into existence for
the specific purpose of experiments as are mice in our laboratories
here at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. In other cases,
stray animals such as cats and dogs are used for experiments. These
would otherwise be put to death in animal control facilities.
It is argued that farm animals should not be killed and eaten.
Even though these animals, for economic reasons, are usually raised
in excellent living conditions and would not live at all except for
their use as food, it is argued that non-life is preferable for them.
It is similarly argued that people in underdeveloped countries
should never live or should die, because their living conditions do
not meet minimum standards of quality as defined by others who do
not live in such poor conditions.
Moreover, serious parallel debates are in progress in the United
States where rationing of medical care is, in part, supported by the
argument that euthanasia by non-treatment only causes the deaths of
people whose lives are of unjustifiably low quality. It is also increas-
ingly argued that overt killing of human beings can be justified by
laws which include standards of living quality regarding the victims
and their immediate associates. Proponents of compassion often
argue that death is the best available alternative.
It is easy to ridicule these arguments when they involve animals
or demonize them when they involve humans. It is also easy to asso-
ciate opinions with which we do not agree with more fundamental
differences. Christians may argue, for example, that atheists are will-
ing to mistreat people because they are not constrained by Gods
laws. Atheists conversely may argue that Christians are willing to
mistreat animals because of human dominion passages in the Bi-
ble. If we mix in Jews, Deists, Moslems, and Hindus, we should be
able to find reason to disagree about practically everything. Is our
technology doomed by these differences? I do not think that it is.
I am a Christian. I have seen well-meaning and intelligent Chris-
tians on all sides of these and other technology vs. non-technology
issues. I have also seen well-meaning and intelligent people of many
other religions and non-religions on all sides of these issues. All of
us are both blessed and afflicted by the positive and negative aspects
of our human nature. Our allies are the positive aspects of human
nature that we all share if we mobilize them correctly.
of technology and human achievement in the United States. It is even
MUSEUM
The museum covers about 100 acres and includes extensive sec-
We recently had an opportunity to visit the Henry Ford Museum
and Greenfield Village which were founded by Henry Ford in 1929
as The Edison Institute, an independent foundation, and are located in
Dearborn, Michigan, near Detroit. This is an extraordinary display
Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy
It is not enough to have fundamentally good moral and ethical
intentions. Those intentions must be translated into working princi-
ples that, if consistently followed by the human mind, will lead to
good moral and ethical results.
Consider two statements that both arise from the same positive
side of human nature and both seem to incorporate moral goals held
in common by most religions including atheism.
1. We should seek, through science and technology, to minimize
the amount of human suffering (and animal suffering).
2. We should seek, through science and technology, to optimize
the quality and quantity of human life (and animal life).
The goals stated in the assertions above seem similar. The results
of adherence to these statements can, however, be quite different.
How is it possible to argue, for example, that a cat should be
killed rather than used in medical research? Is no life better than a
sub-optimum life? Minimization of suffering says yes. Optimization
of life says no. There is some positive value in the living cats life,
whereas there is none where there is no life and this can be said
without even considering the value of the research itself. The mice in
our experiments here might prefer to be free rather than in cages, but
caged life is surely of greater value than no life at all.
Regarding humans, the same is true. A starving child should be
fed. Even, however, if the child continues to starve and lives in poor
conditions, that childs life has positive value. Also, conditions may
improve. The principle of minimum suffering, however, can lead to
the conclusion that the child should not live.
Moreover, when we undertake to decide who shall live and who
shall not, we step out upon a slippery slope that can lead to disaster.
From the hopelessly comatose old person or the hopelessly retarded
child, human political and social affairs can slide relentlessly down-
ward until all lives are at risk. Ask the tens of millions of dead who
were put out of their suffering by communist regimes.
The demonstrators in New York really were saying that the cats
at Rockefeller University should be killed. They focused on the
imagined suffering not life. They were pessimists not optimists.
Some were probably animal-worshiping oddballs or anti-technolo-
gists. Many, however, were probably moral but misguided people.
The principle of minimization of suffering has a fundamental
flaw in its boundary conditions. Suffering can be minimized just by
killing everyone. When the fundamental goals that give rise to this
principle are instead translated as the principle of the optimization of
the quality and quantity of life, this flaw disappears. Then only in the
very rare circumstance that a life appears to have negative value
should zero life be advocated. The birth of animals for the sole pur-
pose of later killing them for food even has positive value to the
animals as well as farmers and diners. By similar reasoning, the birth
of a child, even in very poor circumstances, has great value.
Years ago I read a true story about a policeman who sought to put
an injured dog out of its suffering. Gently he cradled the dogs head
in his hand and shot it through the head blowing a hole in his own
hand as well. Many compassionate people are similarly engaged.
better than those in Washington, DC.
tions on most aspects of technology from pioneer days through the
present, both in the context of science and engineering and of ordi-
nary American life. There is special emphasis on the inventions in-
volving steam and electric energy which were the foundation of
 the American Industrial Revolution.
Although the museum contains original models of an amazing ar-
ray of inventions and the improved models that followed them, it is
never boring or tiresome. The displays are beautifully designed to
capture and hold the attention of visitors in all age groups especially
children. What most museums attempt, this museum actually
achieves. Many of the exhibits of original technology are actually op-
erating independently or being demonstrated by museum staff.
Moreover, this fascinating 100-acre exhibit is occasionally punctu-
ated by remarkable special items the automobiles in which Presi-
dent Reagan narrowly escaped death and President Kennedy did not;
the chair in which President Lincoln was shot along with the theatre
program he was holding; President Washingtons camp chest and
equipment such as his bed and eating utensils used during the war for
independence; the Wright brothers home and shop in which they
built their first airplane; and the entire six buildings of Thomas
Edisons Menlo Park laboratory completely equipped and in operat-
ing condition along with his working models for patent applications.
Personal depth is extensive, for example, in the displays of the ac-
tual homes or birthplaces of educator William McGuffey, Luther
Burbank, Stephen Foster, Noah Webster, Thomas Edison, Henry
Ford, and many other remarkable Americans.
This celebration of American science, technology, and free enter-
prise is a great physical display of the principles and accomplishments
which Access to Energy seeks to protect and promote. It is the essence
of everything our enemies hate.
Well worth a special two-day trip to Detroit, I doubt that most
readers of Access to Energy can get through all of these displays of
technological accomplishment without tears in their eyes.
that there are no blocks. Take away the first terms [in the two equa-
ENERGY
The analogy has the following points. First, when we are calculating
Recently, at a gasoline station, the driver at the next pump re-
marked that my pickup truck must use a lot more fuel than his com-
pact car. He went on to confide that his father had driven a car that
burned only water as fuel. His fathers secret had been lost during a
family squabble, but he was sure that his brother had the information.
If this secret could be uncovered, no one would need to worry any
more about fuel economy.
Clearly this man did not know enough about energy especially
conservation of energy. How much, however, do most people know
about it? We speak of energy extraction as though it is a substance
that we mine. It is all around us in its various forms. In fact it may be
all that is physically around us including ourselves.
In planning a series of articles about the various forms of energy
for Access to Energy, I thought it best to start with a few words an-
swering the question what is energy? The problem is that I dont thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the
know. Richard Feynman, in Volume 1, p 4-1 of his freshman physics
book, Lectures on Physics, with Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands,
Addison-Wesley (1963), explains the difficulty of this question and
also the law of conservation of energy with the following analogy:
Imagine a child, perhaps Dennis the Menace, who has blocks do not know what energy is.
which are absolutely indestructible, and cannot be divided into pieces.
Each is the same as the other. Let us suppose that he has 28 blocks.
His mother puts him with his 28 blocks into a room at the beginning
of the day. At the end of the day, being curious, she counts the blocks
very carefully, and discovers a phenomenal law no matter what he
does with the blocks, there are always 28 remaining! This continues
for a number of days, until one day there are only 27 blocks, but a
little investigating shows that there is one under the rug she must
look everywhere to be sure that the number of blocks has not
changed. One day, however, the number appears to change there are
only 26 blocks. Careful investigation indicates that the window was
open, and upon looking outside, the other two blocks are found. An-
other day careful count indicates that there are 30 blocks! This causes
considerable consternation, until it is realized that Bruce came to visit,
bringing his blocks with him, and he left a few at Dennis house. Af-
ter she has disposed of the extra blocks, she closes the window, does
not let Bruce in, and then everything is going along all right, until one
time she counts and finds only 25 blocks. However, there is a box in
the room, a toy box, and the mother goes to open the toy box, but the
boy says No, do not open my toy box, and screams. Mother is not
allowed to open the toy box. Being extremely curious, and somewhat
ingenious, she invents a scheme! She knows that a block weighs three
ounces, so she weighs the box at a time when she sees 28 blocks, and
it weighs 16 ounces. The next time she wishes to check, she weighs
the box again, subtracts sixteen ounces and divides by three. She dis-
covers the following:
numberof (boxweight)16oz
blocksseen + 3oz = constant
There appear to be some new deviations, but careful study indi-
cates that the dirty water in the bathtub is changing its level. The child
is throwing blocks into the water, and she cannot see them because it
is so dirty, but she can find out how many blocks are in the water by
adding another term to her formula. Since the original height of the
water was 6 inches and each block raises the water a quarter of an
inch, this new formula would be:
numberof (boxweight)16oz (waterheight)6in
blocksseen + 3oz + 14in = constant
In the gradual increase in the complexity of her world, she finds a
whole series of terms representing ways of calculating how many
blocks are in places where she is not allowed to look. As a result she
finds a complex formula, a quantity which has to be computed, which
always stays the same in her situation.
What is the analogy of this to the conservation of energy? The
most remarkable aspect that must be abstracted from this picture is
tions] and we find ourselves calculating more or less abstract things.
the energy, sometimes some of it leaves the system and goes away, or
sometimes some comes in. In order to verify the conservation of en-
ergy, we must be careful that we have not put any in or taken any out.
Second, energy has a large number of different forms, and there is a
formula for each one. These are: gravitational energy, kinetic energy,
heat energy, elastic energy, electrical energy, chemical energy, radiant
energy, nuclear energy, mass energy. If we total up the formulas for
each of these contributions, it will not change except for energy going
in and out.
It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowl-
edge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in
little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are
formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it
all together it gives 28 always the same number. It is an abstract
various formulas.[End of quotation]
Virtually every aspect of the universe that is currently physically
observable by human beings is a part of the energy equation. We
therefore say that everything we observe is a form of energy, but we
Fortunately, we do know how to convert some forms of energy
into other forms of energy. We thereby control energy to a limited
extent and manipulate the physical world in ways that we find useful.
In a nuclear power plant, mass energy is converted into heat en-
ergy and then into electrical energy. If we wished to be more detailed,
we could mention the electromagnetic and kinetic energy in the nu-
clear decay products and the translational, rotational, and vibrational
kinetic energy in the fluid driving the turbines.
The human body is a cleverly designed combination of different
forms of energy about which we really know very little not even the
fundamental nature of energy itself.
We are not really very much more knowledgeable about energy
than our colleague at the gasoline pump. The water his father alleg-
edly poured into his automobile was a form of energy. No ordinary
(non-nuclear) engine, however, can convert that mass energy into ki-
netic energy for an automobile.

FREE RADICALS

This title is applicable to virtually all of the speakers at the recent

DDP meeting in Tucson. This was a remarkable meeting of intellec-
tually free scientists whose radical ideas and surprising data you will
definitely not see on the evening news. (Audio tapes are available
from DDP by calling telephone 602-325-2680.)
The chemical free radicals of special interest, however, were those
operative in the outstanding presentations by Bernard Cohen and T.
D. Luckey on the health benefits of low-level ionizing radiation. Data
in support of this effect is now very convincing. In any ordinary sci-
ence, this work would be widely acclaimed in scientific and popular
articles. That will eventually happen, but it will take longer here be-
cause the findings are politically incorrect.
Although not yet thoroughly understood, the probable mechanism
is that ionizing radiation stimulates biological defense mechanisms by
providing a continuous source of low-level molecular damage. These
defenses are, therefore, more readily available and effective in de-
fending against other dangers to life.
Part of this damage results from direct collision of particles of ion-
izing radiation with macromolecules such as DNA and proteins. Most
of it, however, is probably secondary. As ionizing radiation passes
through living cells, it produces free radicals and other reactive inter-
mediates which then attack and damage biological macromolecules
(large molecules). Biological synthesis and repair machinery is kept
busy repairing this damage and, thereby, in a high state of readiness to
repair damage from other sources as well.
If, of course, radiation levels become too high, this beneficial ef-
fect is overwhelmed by radiation damage, and health effects are nega- theory of degenerative disease and aging is currently popular. The
tive. The radiation level for optimum health is apparently far above general idea is that metabolically generated free radicals damage bio-
normal background, however, so the whole culture of radiation fear in logically important structures and lead to degenerative diseases and
our society is both industrially and also medically counterproductive. death.Antioxidants (substances that react with free radicals) have,
therefore, become popular dietary supplements.
Although this is a fad that has yet to be proved beneficial, it may
be correct and is easily reconciled with the observed beneficial effects
of free radicals from ionizing radiation. Free radicals may be good for
health in small amounts and bad for health in large amounts.
Especially interesting in this context is Vitamin C. Since Vitamin
C is required for life (in very small amounts on the order of several
milligrams per day), has been widely advocated for over 50 years as a
health supplement in quantities of a gram or two per day, and is a
chemical reducing agent, it is included in the list of antioxidant, free-
radical trapping agents currently popular as dietary supplements.
Remarkably, however, Vitamin C is itself a very potent source of
free radicals (See S. L. Richheimer and A. B. Robinson, Orth. Psych.
6, pp 290-299 (1977) and references therein.) Vitamin C oxidation
products react vigorously and destructively with proteins, DNA, and
other biological macromolecules!
Sadao Hattori, State of Research and Perspective on Radiation I suggest that (if we assume that the nutrition folklore is correct in
Hormesis in Japan, Belle Newsletter 3-1, July 1994, published by advocating a gram or two per day of Vitamin C a subject that is still
the Northeast Regional Environmental Public Health Center, Univer- vigorously debated) the beneficial effects of Vitamin C may be pri-
sity of Massachusetts, School of Public Health, Amherst, MA 01003, marily a result of damage done by its oxidation products to biological
describes numerous ongoing Japanese studies of the biological effects macromolecules that the health benefits of Vitamin C are quite
of low-level radiation. Figures 1 and 3 from the Hattori article illus- similar to the benefits demonstrated by Cohen, Luckey, and their col-
trate the reduction in leukemia deaths in A-bomb survivors (and the leagues for low-level nuclear radiation. (As far as I am aware this is
increase when radiation level becomes too high) and the greater lon- an original hypothesis, although the publications by Richheimer and
gevity of Nagasaki residents who were exposed to the A-bomb. Hat- me in the 1970s contain similar suggestions.)
tori reports that Professor Sakamoto has raised the five-year survival The implications of these possibilities are remarkable. The health
rate from non-Hodgkins lymphoma at Tohoku University Hospital benefits of low-level radiation appear to be very substantial. Cohen
from 36% to 90% by means of low-dose radiation. finds, for example, (see Access to Energy 21-4, December 1993) that
lung cancer varies over a two-fold range as a function of home radon
MORE FREE RADICALS level the higher radon levels having the lower cancer rates. It ap-
pears that the free-radical levels in human tissues should be adjusted
Free radicals (although this term has a specific chemical meaning, for optimum health not too high and not too low (but higher than
it is being used to refer to a general class of small and highly reactive currently exist in many people). This would be difficult to do with
chemical substances of which the OH radical is the most prevalent) nuclear radiation because of the currently prevailing political climate,
have been much in the news in recent years because the free radical but it would not be difficult at all to do with Vitamin C.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT
Zachary, the 18-year-old in our class of six home-schooled chil-
dren here, took a series of College Board Advanced Placement tests in
May. As a result he has been given 65 units of credit at Oregon State
University in calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, European history,
and English, allowing him to skip a year and a half of college. (En-
tirely self-taught since his mothers death six years ago, his PSAT
was 1480 and SAT was 1440.) That is the good news. The bad news
is in the tests themselves.
The PSAT and SAT, Scholastic Aptitude Test, no longer exist (see
Access to Energy 21-7, March 1994). The watered-down and renor-
malized (grades artificially raised to politically correct levels) re-
placement Scholastic Assessment Test is now given. Zachary was in
one of the last groups to take the real test. His brothers and sisters will
have to take the watered-down one. Noah (age 16) took example tests
of both types here at home. He found that the new math tests have
easier problems and are more easily completed in the time allowed.
Also, the function that transforms raw scores to the familiar 200-800
scale has been revised to squeeze most scores into a narrower range.
This removed about one-half of the gender bias from the tests by
reducing the number of high scores.
The Advanced Placement Tests are a politically correct mine field.
Socially engineered essay questions are everywhere (over 30 essays
in the battery of tests Zachary completed) even in the science exami-
nations. Several times, he decided to not answer questions when he
realized that the desired answers were so incorrect that he could not
honestly write them on the answer sheets.
The nadir was English Literature. Zachary was not asked a single
question about any great author or great work of literature. The test
consisted primarily of numerous socially engineered, politically cor-
rect modern reading passages followed by multiple-choice reading
comprehension or essay questions. A student could achieve a top
grade on this examination without having read or even knowing the
names of any of the English authors ordinarily considered great.
These tests are yet another result of our American experiment with
socialized education and union-controlled schools. Fortunately
American kids are still achieving regardless of this system, but why
do we continue to burden the kids and the taxpayers with this world-
class mental handicap?
Note: Thanks to an AtE reader, we now have the name and author
of the science fiction story mentioned in AtE 21-1, July 1994, p 1. It is
Examination Day by Henry Slesar.
l Environmental Briefing Book for Congressional Candidates
AMERICAN TEACHER
published August 1994 by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001
Teacher W. S. H. sent AtE the following letter:
Your Access to Energy is absolutely great, entertaining and in-
formative. One of my students gave me a gift subscription, which
suits me perfectly. He knew exactly where I am coming from. I am
the one teacher at our school who is not a member of the NEA. We
had a sick out = strike at our school several years ago. I told my
students, I have not been absent yet this year. Im going to be here
tomorrow and I expect you to be here too. As I was the only one
teaching that day, I felt like the last living cell in a dead body.
I teach about 40 students in each of my five physics classes. I
demand that the administrators admit as many students as are quali-
fied. Everyone should understand physics. Now the union is on my
back for exceeding the quota: 28 students per class. It reminds me of
the masons who stop working at 2 pm after they have laid their 400
bricks.
The heat is really on for me to join the union. For the second time
in four years I have won the Teacher of the Year Award for our
school. That does not make the NEA look too good. The students ask
me why I do not park in the faculty parking lot. I reply, Id hate to be
mistaken for one of the teachers .
He is one of the Wild Cards (AtE 21-6) that makes America work.
STARK RAVING MAD
l Bruce Bartlett, The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 1994, p
A18 cites U.S. Commerce Department reports that pollution abate-
ment and control expenditures consumed more than 18% of gross pri-
vate domestic nonresidential investment in 1992, or $102 billion.
Over the past 20 years, U.S. businesses have been forced to divert al-
most 15% of their total fixed investment to nonproductive environ-
mental equipment. The total adds up to more than $1.2 trillion.
l The 46th question on a questionnaire administered to United
States Marines at a military base in California reads:
The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale,
transportation and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30)
day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to
the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number of citizen
groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following state-
ment: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confisca-
tion of firearms banned by the U.S. government. [multiple choice:]
Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree, No Opinion.
l Call the Hotline. If you suspect or witness unlawful refriger-
ant releases, you can file a report easily and anonymously by calling
the Stratospheric Ozone Information Hotline at 800 296-1996. Ad-
vises the EPA booklet A Checklist for Citizen Action EPA pub-
lication 430-F-93-006. We await the next Marine questionnaire.
l We have to tell our children that they must redefine their rela-
tionship to the sky, and they must begin to think of the sky as a threat-
ening part of their environment Senator Albert Gore, February 6,
1992, in a speech before Congress, as quoted in the environmentalist
magazine, Garbage, October 1993.
GOOD READING
l Passive Smoking, Scientific Method and Corrupted Science
by Antony Flew available from FOREST, 2 Grosvenor Gardens,
London SW1W 0DH, Great Britain. Smoking is definitely a serious
health hazard to the smoker, but second-hand smoke is probably just
the latest EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) power play. Flew
writes that, [by the standards employed by EPA in this matter], the
EPA could move immediately to ban chlorination of drinking water,
order massively expensive reorganization of electricity service lines
(because of the speculative dangers of electromagnetic fields), and
outlaw diesel vehicles and heating systems that use number 2 home
heating oil. This is the real danger in this lever against smoking.
Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036, tele-
phone (202) 331-0640. This is an excellent 70-page booklet providing
well-written and accurate briefs on 23 environmental issues. CEI also
publishes a wonderful Federal Disaster Calendar, a monthly com-
pendium of government-sponsored fiascoes, from the idiotic to the
catastrophic. This is actually a large wall calendar with each
months picture illustrating innovative U.S. government programs.
l Deadly Microbes: Forgotten But Not Gone in Civil Defense
Perspectives, 10-5 (1994) published by Physicians for Civil Defense,
1601 N. Tucson Blvd. #9, Tucson, AZ 85716. Incidence of infectious
diseases is rising and will explode upward if current enviro cam-
paigns against chlorine and pharmaceuticals are even partially suc-
cessful. Visit an historic old graveyard of your choice for a graphic
reminder of the probable results.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail in addition to first-class mail. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1994 (Vol. 22, no. 3) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy

Consensus
Consensus reached on climate change causes, trumpets Science Human history is awash in outrageous examples of the foolishness
News 146 p 198. R. Monastersky goes on to inform us that While of large crowds of humans that have been overtaken by their herd
the politics of global warming inspire division and argument among instincts, peer pressure, imagined self interest and wishful thinking.
nations, the worlds scientists have reached a consensus on what Both ancient and modern science have often advanced as a result of
causes climate change. Hundreds of top researchers from more than one individual who recognized the truth when everyone else did not.
80 countries agreed last week that carbon dioxide and other green- A mundane example of peer generated mediocrity occurs thou-
house gas pollutants represent the most important forces currently al- sands of times each year in the peer review system of U. S. gov-
tering the climate, drowning out other effects that can cool the globe. ernment research funding. There, each review decision sinks to the
To produce the authoritative document, the Intergovernmental Panel lowest common denominator of a committee of scientists with
on Climate Change (IPCC) enlisted more than 140 scientists to write nothing more interesting to do than sit on government committees.
the report and then sent the work to 230 reviewers. Yet the nonsense that truth can be determined by getting a crowd
The article goes on to inform us that this new IPCC report reaf- of humans together, inducing them all to agree, and then calling the
firms the earlier IPCC prediction of 3C global warming by the year result a consensus decision has gained wide acceptance.
2100. Yet, the models upon which this prediction is based predict The Founding Fathers recognized the moral truth that humans
over 0.5C warming from greenhouse gases during the past century have a right to certain freedoms. They protected these freedoms by
a warming that has definitively not occurred (see AtE 22-1 pp 2-3). forming a Republic. An effective attack upon that Republic has been
How can these 140 people reach total agreement to support a made through the notion of democratic justice or democracy. This
highly speculative hypothesis that has completely failed its only ex- notion holds that human rights are subject to majority vote. Any tyr-
perimental test? What is going on here? anny whatever is apparently justified if one can induce a majority of
This phenomenon transcends global warming, transcends the humans to vote for it.
self-interest of a group of scientists whose funding depends upon The problem is, however, that even in this age of tax-subsidized
global change, and transcends the political interests of those who government funding and sophisticated mass media propaganda, it is
wish to use carbon dioxide control as a lever for world power and usually not possible to get unanimous agreement. Short of extermi-
social engineering through suppression of energy availability. This nating the minority, ideas unwanted by the elite leadership are still
IPCC consensus is exemplary of the growing ascendancy in sci- present in the background waiting to assert themselves.Consensus
ence and human affairs of the negative human attribute peer pres- is promoted as a solution for this not just in science, but very
sure which is being mobilized as the consensus process. broadly in our society. The consensus process works as follows:
Physical reality the only phenomenon for which scientific inves- First, a well-defined and carefully thought out decision is adopted
tigation has proved useful is describable by statements that are by individuals who seek community approval for a certain course of
either true or false. Understanding of a few truths has given scientists action usually a course that benefits them.
and engineers the ability to manipulate the physical world in simple Second, a sub group is selected and advertised as representative of
ways that humans find desirable. The physical world, however, does the whole such as the 140 top researchers in the global warming
not conform to what scientists hope is true or what scientists agree is consensus. This group is designed with a substantial majority already
true. It conforms only to what is true. in agreement about the desired decision and inclusion of those most
When a scientist adopts the positions that global warming will easily subject to peer pressure. In science, pressure from the peer-re-
devastate the planet, or HIV virus will exterminate mankind, or view funding process and peer-review publication system is effective.
germs do not cause disease, or the earth is flat or that carbon dioxide Third, the group functions in a facilitated atmosphere where the
is actually enriching the environment, HIV virus is benign, some well-established methods of pressure can be applied. Dissent, if still
germs do cause disease and surgeons should wash their hands, and present, is stifled or ignored. Voting is not usually allowed. The con-
the earth is round, each position is either true or false. sensus process moves beyond voting, since an aura of unanimity is
Access to Energy, for example, adopts positions on truth or false- important to gaining public acceptance of the decision.
hood in many scientific subjects that are not yet fully understood. It is Fourth, having sociologically engineered an agreement, the lead-
not possible that we will be right about all of them. We give our argu- ership advertises the consensus decision widely and forcefully in or-
ments and references, encourage readers to draw their own conclu- der to give it a society-wide credibility and to weaken potential
sions, and hope to find and correct our errors quickly. dissenters who were not participants in the consensus group.
The most important thing to realize is that, in each case, truth ex- Consensus opinion has no relevance whatever to scientific truth.
ists. Knowing the truth is often difficult, but it is always there. Two As I write this, a large flock of semi-wild turkeys (introduced two
plus two is four. It is never five. Even if a consensus building exercise years ago here by a State program) is gobbling in the yard outside my
of school children should reach agreement that two plus two is four window. One gobbles and the gobbling spreads infectiously through
and a half, the true answer is always and immutably four. The opin- the whole flock by consensus. The consensus, of course, is not al-
ions of any individual or group are irrelevant to this true fact. ways wrong. Their concern is well-founded. Thanksgiving is coming.
enormous political power to world bureaucrats and politicians, but it
LOCAL CONSENSUS would also provide pseudojustification for world population control
(spelled genocide if one looks closely at Africa and other develop-
The IPCC climate-change propaganda is the most ambitious politi- ing regions). Enviro leaders have repeatedly stressed that they view
cal program to which consensus methodology has yet been applied. abundant, accessible energy supplies as a global threat.
The goal is little less than control and suppression of the entire world The consensus process, as it is lovingly called by bureaucrats,
coal, oil, and natural-gas energy system. Not only would this provide functions at the local level just as it functions internationally.
 Two years ago a local farm family told me that the enviros were
bragging to them that farming in this region would soon come to an
end. This optimism was based upon a consensus process that had been
launched by a regional bureaucracy that calls itself the Rogue Valley
Council of Governments (RVCOG). The goal was to close all farming,
logging, and mining in this region even though the population is ac-
tually overwhelmingly in support of farming, logging, and mining.
With great fanfare, RVCOG launched its program in which the citi-
zenry would rise up and, by consensus, seize control of the local envi-
ronment (and implement a 17-page document already written by
RVCOG). First, two public meetings were held. Then 12 committees
were formed with names such as Emergency Committee, Forest Com-
mittee, and Fish Committee. There was, noted the farmers, no agricul-
ture committee. The 12 committees each elected a chairman and
vice-chairman to serve on the coordinating committee. The chair-
man of the coordinating committee was to rule the process at the
side of RVCOGs enviro bureaucrat. All committee proceedings
would be by consensus in order to project an image of unanimity.
The coordinating committee included primarily professional agita-
tors, amateur enviros, and welfare cases. A few ordinary citizens were
included by accident or as protective coloration. All was in readiness
for the first big event the first coordinating committee meeting. The
Chairman had already been informally chosen (but was still partially
incognito due to an apparent inability to shave or endure a haircut).
I first learned of this event when a neighbor suggested that he and I
attend the meeting. We were not among the invited 24, but, in the in-
itial disorganization and socializing, no one seemed to notice two addi-
tional faces at the table. To my astonishment, however, my neighbors
first action was to complain that he had not been sent a meeting notice.
He claimed to be vice-chairman of the Agriculture Committee (which
did not exist). Moreover, the RVCOG bureaucrat apparently decided
that another spear-holder from the community would do no harm and
allowed him and his newly-created committee to stay. As introductions
became more formalized, I whispered to my neighbor, who am I?
Youre the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, he replied. On
this basis, we stayed in the room and endured a couple of hours of pon-
tification by RVCOG about how and what was to be done.
With the group hypnotized or asleep from this experience, the bu-
reaucrat announced that it was time for election of The Chairman. The
chosen luminary was duly nominated, but, just as nominations were
being closed with only one nominee, my neighbor nominated me. Now
fortunately I live in a different world from most of those people and
none of them knew me. Moreover, there must have been some dissen-
sion in the enviro ranks, because, when the votes were counted, I was
elected a dark hour for consensus in the Rogue Valley.
RVCOG had advertised this new consensus group all over Oregon,
so it could not be stopped. Moreover, their 17 pages of rules allowed
for only one vote election of the chairman. All else had to be done by
consensus. The chairman and the few ordinary citizens would not
conses to his removal. Weekly proceedings became so unruly with
Rumplestilskin-like enviros trying every form of disruption to get me
out of that chair that the meetings became community spectator events.
Their best shot came one night when they packed the room with
enviros from all over Southern Oregon (even including a reporter from
the Chicago Tribune to chronicle the event). Forewarned, however, we
had arranged the tables with my back against the wall (the defeated
candidate for chairman liked to get behind me at the meetings) and
three tough Oregonians on each side of me. Our plan was that, no mat-
ter what happens, nobody leaves his chair. We didnt, and they lost.
After about a year, it was discovered that the 17 pages also con-
tained no limit to the number of committees that the chairman could
recognize. I recognized 10 more sets of chairmen and vice-chairmen;
RVCOGs consensus group was outvoted (the first vote was to vote)
by the combined group of 46 people; and the enviros withdrew.
Unfortunately, the international consensus builders are not so in-
competent. The methodology is, however, the same. Originate an
agreement that serves their purposes; choose a consensus group that is
easily controlled; have the consensus group endorse the original agree-
ment; widely advertise the agreement of the consensus group with the
implication that it represents the views of the larger body of people
from whom the group was selected; and use the manufactured appear-
ance of unanimity to suppress dissent by peer pressure.
The operative phrase in the report quoted above is the worlds sci-
entists have reached a consensus. Sure they have all 140 of them!
SAVING ENERGY
Nuclear Issues, 16, No.9 (1994) p 2 available from APG, 8 Ruvi-
gny Mansions, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LE in its article
Demand Side Mythology discusses the fallacy in demand side
management, a favorite anti-electric energy concept promoted by
Amory Lovins. The concept is to spend money improving the effi-
ciency of energy use instead of spending money for new electricity
generating equipment. Figure 1 was presented by John Reid of the Ca-
nadian Nuclear Association at a Financial Times conference.
Figure 1
The upper line shows extra costs of demand management as esti-
mated by the Electric Power Research Institute, while the lower line
shows Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute estimates. Notice that Lovins
claims that demand reduction measures would have negative cost up to
19% reduced electricity consumption and almost no cost to 40%.
The current balance of electricity supply and demand is in free-mar-
ket equilibrium. (This is distorted somewhat by government regula-
tions.) The upper line is consistent with that free market equilibrium,
while the lower line is not. Both supply and demand should be allowed
to adjust in a free market with as little hindrance as possible.
RADIOACTIVE COAL
Access to Energy is unhesitatingly in favor of increasing American
nuclear power production at least several-fold. Inexpensive, available
energy is the currency of technological progress, and technological
progress is the key to improvement of the quality and quantity of hu-
man life. Other sources of energy, particularly coal and natural gas,
should be developed as extensively as the free market determines. (Oil
is in a special category. America is not self-sufficient in oil, and insta-
bility in the world oil-producing regions is a national security concern.
National policy should remove all impediments to domestic oil pro-
duction and should not subsidize imported oil.)
Access to Energy articles about the great environmental benefits of
carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere (see, for examples, AtE 21-
3 pp 2-3 and AtE 21-4 pp 2-3) prompted one reader to remark, how-
ever, that these were the strongest arguments that he had seen favoring
the increased burning of coal, oil, and natural gas over nuclear power.
From Oak Ridge National Laboratory, comes another pro-coal
argument. Alex Gabbard in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Re-
view, November (1993) pp 25-32 as reviewed in Science News, Octo-
ber 1, (1994) p 223 estimates that 1982 U. S. atmospheric release of
radioactive components of coal ash included 800 tons of uranium and
2000 tons of thorium. World-wide release from coal was 3,600 tons of
uranium (with 26 tons of uranium-235) and 9,000 tons of thorium.
Gabbard calculates that radioactive materials in coal ash from U. S.
coal-fired power plants exceed the entire radioactive fuel consumption
by U.S. nuclear power plants and that radiation exposure of the U.S.
population from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.
Now, of course, the politically correct interpretation of release of
carbon dioxide and radioactivity by the coal power industry is that nu-
clear power is safer and cleaner. Hormesis has shown, however, that
current levels of background radiation in most areas of the United
States are below the levels consistent with optimum human health.
(See AtE 21-4 p 4, 21-8 p 4, 22-2 p 3, and the referenced articles by T.
D. Luckey, Bernard Cohen, and their colleagues.)
The concomitant benefits to the health of world vegetation from
carbon dioxide release are also documented in thousands of experi-
mental studies. See, for example, Flower Power, Rising Carbon Di-
oxide is Great for Plants by Sylvan H. Wittwer in Policy Review, fall
(1992) pp 4-9 in addition to the work of Sherwood Idso and his col-
leagues described in previous AtE articles as referenced above.
Gabbard also discusses the mercury, arsenic, and lead content of
coal ash. It may be that the public health benefits of scrubbing certain
chemicals out of coal ash is great enough to justify the cost. Many pre-
cautions are sensible. Low level radiation is safe, but it would be fool-
ish to argue against reactor containment buildings on this basis.
Human health and quality of life will benefit enormously from the
rapid development of inexpensive, widely available electrical energy.
This includes primarily nuclear, coal, and natural gas generation in the
United States (with the future addition of sources such as solar power
in instances where cost and less intense usages make these cost-effec-
tive). Politically correct nonscience has impeded this development, es-
pecially in the case of nuclear power. Carbon dioxide and moderate
radioactive isotope release are unexpected benefits in this enterprise.
As these forms of energy compete in the market place, it is abso-
lutely essential that they compete on the basis of truth. It is very coun-
terproductive for them to compete on the basis of politically correct
myths such as carbon dioxide pollution and radiation fear. The ulti- shows none of the classical characteristics of a disease-producing or-
mate winners in a competition based upon enviro falsehoods would be
the anti-technology enemies of all power generation industries.
This danger is especially great because, at the present time, the
United States is afflicted with an unusually serious case of fascism
wherein competing industries lobby government in favor of laws and
regulations that will hinder their competition.
HIV carriers who are symptom-free are being treated by powerful life-
CENTRALIZED WASTE
These dissident articles are, of course, only a tiny fraction of the
Figure 2
Figure 2 is from The Energy Information Administration, U.S. De-
partment of Energy, Forrestal Building, EI-231, Washington, DC pub-
lication number DOE/EIA-0579. The comparison is between
developing countries (DCs), developed countries (OCED), and cen-
trally planned economies (CPEs).
Notice that energy consumption per 1985 dollar of GNP is in a
moderately uniform range for both developed, wealthy countries and
for undeveloped, poor countries with the latter being slightly higher.
(The low population, oil exporting countries are a special case.) Central
planning, however, boosts energy consumption about 3-fold without
concomitant benefit to citizen income. Perhaps we should export
Amory Lovins to one of these peoples republics, so that, through
demand side management, they can increase their advantage.
AIDS
For several years we have been reading articles by Peter H. Dues-
berg and his colleagues about AIDS. See PNAS 88 (1990) pp 1575-
1579; Biomed. & Pharmacother 46 (1992) pp 3-15; Progress in
Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology 43 (1992) pp 135-204;
Pharmac. Ther. 55 (1992) pp 201-277, and Why We Will Never Win
the War on AIDS by Bryan J. Ellison and Peter H. Duesberg published
by Inside Story Communications, 190 El Cerrito Plaza, Ste. 201, El
Cerrito, CA 94530. Also, see What Causes AIDS? by C. A.
Thomas, K. B. Mullis, and P. E. Johnson, Reason, June (1994) pp 18-
23. The book by Ellison and Duesberg and the article by Thomas,
Mullis, and Johnson summarize the arguments of a growing number of
prestigious scientists who are questioning the entire direction of AIDS
research and even the premise that AIDS is a distinct disease. There is
a possibility that the entire war on HIV and AIDS is in error.
U.S. government AIDS programs are now receiving $6 billion per
year and are based entirely upon the hypothesis that HIV virus causes
AIDS. Yet, the articles referenced above and numerous additional pub-
lications by scientists who have become involved in this controversy
state that: attempts to cause AIDS experimentally with HIV have com-
pletely failed; thousands of AIDS victims are HIV-free; and HIV
ganism. Moreover, AIDS is not a unique disease it is an increased
susceptibility to many ordinary diseases presumably as a result of de-
pressed immune response. This depressed immunity can result from
many other factors including those especially prevalent in the AIDS
afflicted population drug abuse and unhygienic exposure to very
large numbers of different disease vectors. Moreover, large numbers of
threatening drugs that kill people in ways very similar to AIDS.
remarkable 77,000 papers that have been published about AIDS, but
ultimately only one paper will be sufficient to describe the truth.
First, the arguments presented against the HIV hypothesis are
sound, although they are difficult to independently evaluate. In part,
they cite lack of evidence. Who has time to check this with a review of
77,000 papers? The burden of proof is on the HIV advocates a bur-
den they have not accepted in a forthright manner. Second, it is in-
creasingly improbable that the ongoing expenditure of tens of billions
of dollars to chase one infectious disease could be failing so miserably
if something fundamental is not wrong with the effort. Third, the epi-
demic is not growing as predicted. Only government reclassification
of more and more disease types as AIDS cases has kept the numbers of
victims at politically necessary levels. Fourth, AIDS is conveniently
serving as an excuse for all sorts of social engineering, especially in the
public schools, that could not be sustained without a crisis.
Fifth, in describing their explanation of the HIV-AIDS error that
they think has occurred, Ellison and Duesberg describe the inner work-
ings of government grant-funded science correctly. The first few chap-
ters of their book are very good reading even if you are entirely
uninterested in AIDS. Also, pages 228 and 264-265 describe the way
in which AIDS consensus building has diverted billions of dollars
into the pockets of the consensus builders of the HIV-AIDS industry.

APRIL FOOLS
On April 1, 1995 the recentering of SAT scores will go into ef-
fect. The official College Board guide to the SAT I gives two sets of
conversion factors for its sample test one for use before April 1, 1995
and one for use thereafter. For example, a verbal raw score of 52 will
be counted as 530 before that date, but as 600 afterwards. Last year just
17 students achieved a perfect grade of 1600 with 800 on each test
given only for no incorrect answers. After April 1, three incorrect an-
swers on the verbal test will still be given a score of 800.
Figure 3, from Science 265 (1994) p 1030, summarizes this change.
Figure 3
We wonder how often this debasement of the nations intellectual
currency will be necessary in the future. With socialism in education
increasingly turning our institutions of higher learning into remedial
academic grade schools, the universities may soon be unable to per-
form their modern goals of politically correct social engineering.
terprise items to which we object originated with William Clinton, but
SCIENCE
errors, but Efron provides an additional remarkable hypothesis.
A series of excellent editorials in Science indicates that something
unusually good must be stirring in the inner sanctums of the AAAS.
First, Risk Assessments of Low-Level Exposures, Science 265 Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall, University of Vir-
(1994) p 1507 by P. H. Abelson endorses both radiological and chemi-
cal hormesis and includes the statement that, The current mode of
extrapolating high-dose to low-dose effects is erroneous for both
chemicals and radiation. The public has been needlessly frightened and
deceived, and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.
Second, Chlorine and Organochlorine Compounds, Science 265
(1994) p 1155 by P. H. Abelson summarizes factual arguments against
the enviro attack on chlorine and ends with the statement that, There
is reason to hope that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) will
not continue to act like a tool of Greenpeace. A plethora of EPA regu-
lations and unfunded mandates coupled with examples of brutality in
enforcing them has cost the EPA support in Congress.
Third, Magnetic Energy Storage, Science 266 (1994) p 11 by P.
H. Abelson endorses superconducting magnetic energy storage
(SMES) as currently being supplied in small, cost-effective units built
by American free enterprise. The summarizing statement that Even-
tually a substantial demand will arise for intermediate-size SMES de-
vices doesnt even hint at non-free-enterprise, tax-financed SMES.
Fourth, The Time Traveler, Science 265 (1994) p 1639 by D. E.
Koshland ridicules anti-technology enviroism and government entitle-
ment programs with the fool of the piece suggesting corrective drugs
for people who get hooked on facts. $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
Either Abelson and Koshland are both getting ready to retire, or else
their recent writings portend good news for American science.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Times-Colonist, Victoria, BC, August 3, 1994 reported that
Steven Hawking, in a speech at Cambridge University, made the
astonishing statement that I think computer viruses should count as
life. Hawking went on to embellish this idea.
Hawking holds the academic chair of Isaac Newton who wrote, I
do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to
have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting my-
self in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me. Unfortunately, Hawking lacks his great predecessors humility.
l The San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, CA, June 12, 1994 re-
ported that the California Environmental Protection Agency has com-
pleted a Comparative Risk Project that includes human perceived
risk as an environmental hazard. The social welfare component of
environmental risk will play a prominent role in setting future agency
priorities according to the California EPA secretary. Included in social
welfare risk will be anything that damages a childs (or adults) view
of their world as a safe and nurturing place regardless of whether or
not the persons perception is, in fact, correct.
We wonder if the California EPA will ban the mailing of Green-
peace propaganda into California on the basis that it raises perceived
risk or rather merely bludgeon the targets of that propaganda.
l The New American 10, October 17, 1994 p 44 reports that the
Board of Trustees of Green Cross International includes Yoko Ono,
Olivia Newton-John, Carl Sagan, Robert Redford, and Ted Turner.
Green Cross plans to foster a global value shift and the develop-
ment of international ecological law. The head of Green Cross Inter-
national is Mikhail Gorbachev. For reference to Mikhails methods of
fostering value shifts, potential targets of this new enviro organization
may wish to consult with the people of Afghanistan.
GOOD READING
l Can the President Think? by Edith Efron, Reason, Novem-
ber 1994, pp 21-44. Some anti-science, anti-technology, anti-free en-
most were growing long before his Presidency. It is easy to criticize his
l World Climate Review, Volume 2, Nos. 2-3 (1994). This is an
excellent quarterly review of global climate issues published by the
ginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 under editor Patrick J. Michaels.
l Ozone, skin cancer, and the SST by S. Fred Singer in Aero-
space America, July (1994) pp 22-26. This one of Americas foremost
spokesmen for scientific truth in environmental science writing in the
publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
l Cold Fusion Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, May 1994 published
by Wayne Green, 70 Route 202 North, Peterborough, NH 03458 with
articles by Julian Schwinger and Arthur C. Clark. The truth concerning
the experimental phenomenon designated cold fusion will eventu-
ally be definitively known. Until then those with a general interest in
energy production should, at least, keep open minds and have a general
awareness of this work. This magazine is useful for that purpose.
l Power Lines are Homely, Not Hazardous by William R.
Bennett, Jr., Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1994 p A10. $23 billion
has already been spent responding to public fear of tiny electromag-
netic fields in the absence of objective evidence of actual risk.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1994 (Vol. 22, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1994 by Access to Energy

Conservation of Energy
The 1994 report Technology for a Sustainable Future, A Frame-
work for Action signed by Bill Clinton and Al Gore and pub- the brakes which convert excess kinetic energy to heat energy so that
lished on recycled paper by the National Science and Technology
Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Room 443, Old
Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20500, on page 118
gives Avoidance Examples. Under the heading Carbon Dioxide
Emissions, the Energy Supply is broken down into Renewable transformed from mass and nuclear energy (from nuclear power
Fuels including biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, superconduc-
tors, hydropower, and ocean and Non-Renewable Fuels includ- ergy (from coal plants) and supplied by our electrical energy grid.
ing nuclear and fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide is, of course, falsely demonized as usual as a
greenhouse gas. In combining nuclear, coal, oil, and natural gas in
a non-renewable category, these technophobes send mixed sig-
nals. Are we to be pessimistic with fear of boiling oceans and ioniz-
ing radiation or optimistic as we anticipate the exhaustion of these
non-renewable threats in a few thousand years? Maybe we should all
just go for it and burn coal and atoms as fast as possible to reach
the renewable millennium where these dangers are gone.
This framework for action (which bears the Great Seal of the
United States) is notable for its lack of numbers. There is not one
graph or table in the entire document that would interest readers of
Access to Energy because there is virtually no quantitative informa-
tion presented.
Much of this document is about energy and energy production.
(The report has great pictures of windmills but none of nuclear power
plants.) We all use these two terms routinely, but one wonders if that
might be part of the cause of our undoing.
First, what is energy? Richard Feynman said It is important to
realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy
is. (See Access to Energy 22-2 (1994) p 2.) If Feynman didnt know
what it is, most of the rest of us probably dont know either. Thats
OK, however, what we really know is how to produce it. Right?
Second, the law of conservation of energy tells us that we cannot
produce it. The amount of energy is rigorously conserved at least
according to the best experimental data and scientific theories that are
available today. We cannot increase it or decrease it.
What can we really do? We can transform energy, and we can
measure the amounts of the different forms of energy. Feynman lists
these forms gravitational energy, kinetic energy, heat energy, elas-
tic energy, electrical energy, chemical energy, radiant energy, nuclear
energy, and mass energy. These forms are often subdivided further
such as in the rotational energy, vibrational energy, and translational
energy of molecular motion that are component parts of heat energy.
Different forms of energy are useful to us at different times. As I
write this, our truck sits in the driveway with its fuel tank filled with
chemical energy in the form of diesel fuel and its battery also filled
with chemical energy in the form of lead, lead dioxide, and sulfuric
acid. This energy is useful to me even now because it assures me that
I can drive to another place if need arises.
In driving, this chemical energy is converted into kinetic energy
for the truck and its occupants. In the winter, heat energy from the
burning fuel is also useful. When we reach a destination, we apply
we can stop. Along the way, the chemical energy is also made into
electrical energy for our lights and radio. As we go up and down
hills, it is also transformed to and from gravitational energy.
If the car were electric, it would be powered by electrical energy
plants), gravitational energy (from hydro plants), and chemical en-
To go outside and use the car, my body (composed primarily of
mass energy and nuclear energy and having small amounts of chemi-
cal energy) must convert chemical energy into kinetic energy and
gravitational energy. While doing that, I will also convert chemical
energy to heat energy and radiant energy.
The human body and mind are able to transform energy in ways
that they find useful. As far as science now knows, the physical world
(including the bodies of human beings) is entirely made of energy
manifested in different forms.
According to the law of conservation of energy, we cannot pro-
duce energy or consume energy. Moreover, it is silly to try to demon-
ize some forms of energy especially nuclear energy. After all, we
ourselves are made primarily of mass energy and nuclear energy.
The new age enemies of technology are busy today promoting
earth worship and animal worship under the banner of harmony with
nature. This ancient disease has afflicted people periodically for thou-
sands of years. They are also promoting disharmony with technology
by campaigns against the components of technology.
Chlorine, ozone, plutonium, carbon dioxide, DDT, dioxin, asbes-
tos, PCBs, radiation all are guilty. So far, pure water has escaped
condemnation, but there isnt any pure water. Water, according to the
new age gurus, is contaminated with thousands of chemicals created
by the evils of technology.
Ordinary Americans are confused by all of this nomenclature.
They are doubly confused as a result of the enormous resources that
have been expended in efforts to demonize certain words and sanctify
others for example, nuclear vs. natural.
The idea that energy is actually one thing which has different
forms forms from which we ourselves and all we see about us are
actually constructed is easily understood. That we cannot make en-
ergy or destroy it is also simple to communicate.
General public knowledge of these facts about energy would go a
long way toward immunizing the American people against such non-
sense as Technology for a Sustainable Future.
Our enemies seek to reduce our freedom to transform energy for
human use. We cannot hope to educate most Americans about the
intricacies of science. Moreover, our strength does not lie in pretend-
ing omniscience about subjects we claim are too difficult for others to
understand. Our opponents are excellent play actors, too.
We must look for unifying concepts that are easy to communicate
to untrained minds. Energy and conservation of energy can be such
concepts if we describe them accurately.

moved to this farm in 1980, I noticed three things the 100-year-old

ENERGY EFFICIENCY farmhouse had no insulation, cutting firewood was time-consuming,
and an enormous amount of water was available in the irrigation sys-
It is our observation that it is generally easier to transform energy tem and creek from the average 60-inch rainfall during the winter.
into a convenient form than it is to do without it. In any case, a free Rather than insulating the house, therefore, I put a homemade turbine
market keeps these two activities production and efficiency of use and generator in the irrigation system. This $5,000 project generated
in correct balance. Circumstances, of course, vary widely. When we a continuous 30 kilowatts during the winter and made insulating
the house and cutting firewood unnecessary. (Then the Oregon bu-
reaucrats discovered that I had transformed gravitational energy from
the water on my land into electrical energy without a permit and the
whole thing became a nightmare provided to us by our government
with our taxes.) The point is that, in this circumstance, conservation
and efficiency were the more expensive options.
Road to Nowhere Energy conservation often backfires and real return on this capital plus depreciation of $500 per year gives a
leads to increased consumption by Herbert Inhaber and Harry Saun-
ders in The Sciences, November-December (1994) published by the
New York Academy of Sciences provides a rare insight into the conse-
quences of conservation. In the case of convenient forms of energy,
they conclude that conservation will probably increase the consump-
tion of those forms of energy and also increase overall economic activ-
ity and living standards both desirable goals.
With citations and examples beginning with the invention of the
steam engine in 1698 and continuing through the present day, Inhaber
and Saunders present a compelling case.
Early inefficient steam engines consumed little coal because they
were not greatly used, while the advent of efficient steam engines
sharply increased overall use of coal. Early steel production was ineffi-
cient and used only small amounts of iron ore, while introduction of
the efficient Bessemer process led to greatly increased usage of iron
ore and coal. The government of Denmark introduced severe conser-
vation standards for the efficiency of electrical appliances with the ef-
fect that (efficient appliances being more desirable and less costly to
operate) electrical energy consumption in Denmark increased. The
United States mandated more fuel efficient automobiles, so more auto-
mobiles were purchased and driven farther, canceling the expected re-
duction in national fuel usage.
These events were much more desirable than those hoped for by
conservationists. Had civilization been trapped in the wood-burning
age or the coal age by actual reduced consumption of these resources,
progress toward the nuclear age would have been slowed and overall
living standards and life expectancies would have been much lower.
The authors also point out that this principle applies to conservation
of labor by industrial increases in labor efficiency. It played a role in
the concomitant fall of Marxism. Marx claimed that, as labor effi-
ciency increased, workers would be thrown out of work. In fact, in-
creased labor efficiency led to vast increases in employment.
In a free market, the use of a resource is determined by its marginal
price. This price (measured at present in America in dollars) is actually
the fractional purchasing power of potential users. Efficiency gives us-
ers more for their money, so use of more efficient resources is greater.
An example yet to come may be use of solar energy. Although it
will never be the method of choice for high intensity energy needs (as
Petr Beckmann has shown in earlier Access to Energy issues), solar
energy has potential to supply residential energy requirements in most
of the United States.
Our family uses about 60 kilowatt hours per day (more than most
residential users because we pay only about 6 cents/kwh). At todays
price of $5/watt for solar panels and efficiency assumed for fixed col-
lectors, in our climate, of 4 peak hours per day, we would need 15,000
watts of panels on our roof at a cost of $45,000 and about $5,000 for
batteries, inverters, and other attachments in order to transform 60
kwh/day. A typical, currently available solar panel generates about 11
peak watts per square foot, so we would need 1,350 square feet of roof
angled in about the right direction. Moreover, panel lifetime is cur-
rently estimated at 20 to 50 years. Assuming 35 years, depreciation on
the panels alone is about the same as our current electric bill.
Special situations, low energy applications, hobbyists, and self-suf-
ficiency projects are using these panels now, but most Americans are
surely not shingling their houses with them. (There is even a tiny local
industry here that refills ordinary automobile-sized storage batteries for
people who carry them to their homes in the hills, withdraw electrical
energy, and bring them back for refills.)
Solar cells will, however, become less expensive in the future. In-
terestingly, in a world of solid-state electronics where advances in effi-
ciency are so rapid that each months computer catalogue is a new
experience, solid-state solar cells have decreased in price very little
over the past decade. This may not be entirely an engineering problem.
In any case, imagine the new situation that would prevail if solar
cell efficiency in terms of cost per watt were to decrease ten-fold to 50
cents per watt. Then, shingling the roof of our home with solar cells
plus related equipment would cost less than $10,000. Assuming a 5%
cost of electricity of less than 5 cents per kwh. (With nuclear power
cost dropping toward 2 cents per kwh, this may still not be a bargain.)
Many Americans pay 10 cents or more per kwh, so a spectacularly
successful conservation program to improve solar cell price/watt could
lead to orders of magnitude more demand for solar cells.
Inhaber and Saunders conclude that their difference of opinion is
not with those who seek to save energy; it is primarily with those who
are confused about what transpires when they do.
Access to Energy has deeper differences with many of the pseudo-
conservationists who seek to use government power against free-enter-
prise. The free-market already knows that conservation and efficiency
of a resource increases utilization of that resource and increases the
technological well-being of our civilization. Inhaber and Saunders il-
lustrate that beautifully. Lets hope not many of the pseudoconserva-
tionists read their article.
SECRECY AND SECURITY
Edward Teller has argued for decades that secrecy in American de-
fense programs has been counterproductive. Secrecy limits the number
of American scientists who can think productively about problems in-
volving the defense of our nation. It also provides a false sense of secu-
rity. Instead of building civil and strategic defenses and developing the
best technology for defense, America has relied, in part, upon main-
taining a monopoly of technical knowledge about weapons of mass
destruction. Figure 1 from Nuclear Weapons Supply and Demand
by Michael M. May published in American Scientist, 82 November-
December p 526-537 (1994) shows how well this policy has worked.
A new nuclear-weapons state has been added every five years.
Figure 1
While it is sensible to limit the rate of proliferation of potentially
dangerous scientific knowledge, it is also dangerous to delude oneself
with the belief that such knowledge can be sequestered forever.
Programs to be first to develop technology and limitations on the
rate of spread of some technologies buy time while we implement de-
fensive measures that can protect us from misuse of those technolo-
gies. It is the nature of scientific knowledge, however, that ultimately
knowledge becomes generally known. Pretending otherwise has put
Americans in a dangerous position regarding the risks of chemical,
biological, and nuclear technology in incidents of terrorism and war.

Socialized education programs are working accordingly. The
NO PLACE TO STAND?
United States students rank 14th and 15th in science and math respec-
Just as we were adjusting to enviro warnings that the planet was
about to be inundated with water from global warming, a new threat
has arisen. Figure 2 is from Gaining More Ground by Jonathan Tol-
man published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecti-
cut Ave., Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036, p 7, October (1994). The
United States is losing dry land by over-saving wetlands.
Figure 2
Extrapolating this trend, we estimate that the entire United States
will be under water in about 800 years. Now we realize that mitigating
factors might arise and that our linear extrapolation is a compromise
between various hypotheses (our more alarmed brethren argue for an
exponential), but the precautionary principle so elegantly provided
to us by Greenpeace mandates that we err on the side of safety. We
cannot wait for data before we act!
Remedial action must be multifaceted. A new program to build nu-
clear power plants along the Great Lakes would be a good place to
start. Electric power from these plants can be used to reclaim land by
pumping the Lakes dry. (They probably were not there at some better
time in the past anyway.) This solves the Greenpeace concern about
chlorine contamination of the Lakes as well.
years of 24 hour per day continuous operation. Helping to ensure that
SAXON MATH
analyzers from contamination.
Figure 3 is from Statistics published by Saxon Publishers, Inc.,
1320 West Lindsey, Norman, OK 73069, July (1994). It shows the
SAT math scores of students at Governor French Academy in
Belleville, IL before and after introduction of the Saxon math books.
Statistics has 46 pages of results from different schools all similar
to this one. Experience in our home school here indicates that these
books are outstanding even when no teacher is available.
Saxon emphasizes problem solving and repetition in a program ex-
tending from arithmetic through calculus and first-year physics. Pre-
dictably, most public school educators refuse to use these books
because they are not in step with new trends away from teaching sim-
ple mathematics. Now popular is the notion that calculators and com-
puters can do all the calculating and kids need conceptual thinking.
Figure 3
Christian Science Monitor, September 7, p 8 (1994) reports that
tively in tests administered to students in 17 developed nations.
The problem is that mathematics is the language of science. Imag-
ine teaching students foreign language based on computer translation.
They cannot put the calculators and computers inside their heads.
There is little value in teaching science (other than reading encyclo-
pedias and other descriptive material) until the student is proficient in
mathematics through calculus without use of calculators or computers.
Disasters caused by socialized educations teaching of mathematics
in the United States beginning with the new math of the 1970s
and continuing with todays trendy non-teaching continue to grow.
Coping With the Unprepared Undergraduate by A. S. Moffat in
Science 266 p 846 (1994) reports that even at MIT exams administered
to incoming freshmen showed that many students were deficient in
algebra, plane geometry, trigonometry, and logs and exponentials.
Socialism in American education has matured into the usual inef-
fectual bureaucratic nightmare. It should be replaced by free enterprise.
DANGERS OF DIOXANE
1,4-dioxane is a very useful organic solvent. We used it by the gal-
lon in our laboratory at the University of California at San Diego with
no special precautions and no apparent health effects. Since then, half
of all chemicals tested by massive animal exposure experiments have
been classified as carcinogenic and dioxane is apparently in that un-
fortunate half. These experiments are interpreted by a measure called
the HERP value which supposedly quantifies the relative risks of ex-
posure to various chemicals. High exposure animal tests exaggerate
risk, and HERP is probably a poor measure of relative risk. Neverthe-
less HERP is currently part of the basis of government policy.
We do not use dioxane at OISM, but we do use a pair of LI-COR
carbon dioxide and water vapor analyzers for the computer-control
system of CO2 chambers used in our rodent experiments. This pair of
LI-COR analyzers has worked with 100% reliability for almost two
reliability have been the Gelman Sciences, Inc. filters that protect the
Gelman uses 1,4-dioxane in the manufacture of its filters and has
been disposing of it by various ground treatment methods for 25 years
in accordance with Department of Natural Resources, DNR, specifica-
tions and approval. Now, since the animal tests giving dioxane a high
HERP value, DNR has attacked Gelman demanding enormously ex-
pensive ground cleanup. So far, legal and other defensive costs have
consumed more than 15% of the companys assets and endangered its
existence. (See, for example the article by John E. Kinney in The Ann
Arbor News for September 7, 1994 or write to Gelman Sciences, 600
South Wagner Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.)
In The Ann Arbor News of October 29, 1992, Kirk M. Maxey cal-
culated that, according to the HERP standards, the chloroform in Ann
Arbor, Michigan municipal tap water was 10-50 times more carcino-
genic than ground water at the Gelman sites.
Dioxane is not to be confused with dioxins, the chemicals fea-
tured by Greenpeace in their July 1994 publication entitled Achiev-
ing Zero Dioxin An Emergency Strategy for Dioxin Elimination.
Dioxins are central demons in the Greenpeace world-wide campaign
against the element chlorine. (Does world elimination of an element
qualify the eliminator to name the hole created in the periodic table?)
Dioxins are, according to Greenpeaces citation of the Environmental
Protection Agency, emitted into the environment in a total amount
from all man-made and natural sources of 25 kg/year. That is 55
pounds per year diluted over the entire planet. Except for the miracles
of modern analytical chemistry, this amount would already be zero.
Dioxane and dioxins are definitely dangerous but not for chemical
or biological reasons. They are dangerous because an enviro-govern-
ment-industrial complex has turned them into reciprocal spotted owls
and is using them as surrogates to attack productive enterprises.
 l A federal judge in Montana ruled that a man must meet the same
INCREASING ACCESS TO ENERGY
that would be required for killing a human (Pick and Shovel, July
As Figure 4 from Atom 435 p 10, August-September (1994) based
on Gallup Poll results shows, Americans are becoming increasingly
more sensible about the benefits of nuclear power. In doing its part for
this and other technological causes, Access to Energy is not just enter-
tainment. It provides ammunition for use against the enemies of sci-
ence, technology, and free enterprise by its readers and the readers of
other publications that rely on it for accurate and original information
and ideas. For this reason, it is desirable for Access to Energy to have as
many readers as possible.
Figure 4
During the past year, readership increased at about 1% per month
with no paid advertising. We wished, however, to accelerate this. Un-
fortunately, except for a few special opportunities, new readers can be
located at an average advertising cost of about $50 each. Our solution
was to raise the price to $35 and to advertise two options an ordinary
subscription or an ordinary subscription plus a year of back issues and
an audio tape about radon for an additional cost. This offer is being
disseminated along with an update of Petr Beckmanns warning
against the effects of drinking over 63,000 gallons of rainwater.
As a result of this offer and the additional income from the price
rise, Access to Energy can now advertise widely. Readership has in-
creased by a total of 31% during the past two months.
We are, therefore, increasing circulation without compromising our
policies of not carrying advertising and not selling our mailing list. For
readers, there are two inconveniences. First, the price rise from $25 to
$35. We are thankful that subscription renewals have remained high
regardless of this. We do not want to lose any of you. Second, it is not
cost-effective for us to screen other mailing lists for our current readers
or for duplicates within those lists. Therefore, some Access to Energy
readers receive one or more ads. Thank you for your patience. Please
pass the ads on to someone who may be interested.
The annual Elizabeth Mudge cumulative index for Access to En-
STARK RAVING MAD
Energy for the 21 years between September 1973 and August 1994 is
l The Wall Street Journal for October 27, 1994 p B1 reported an
effort by some school board members in Half Moon Bay, CA to abol-
ish homework. One member argued that homework is bad for family
life, favors children of smart parents (who can help do it), and wears
out text books that must be carried to and from school.
He is right that children do not need evening school work provid-
ing they learn during their best hours earlier in the day. Unfortunately,
those best hours are currently wasted in public schools. For those Limited text search will be available, but the Elizabeth Mudge subject
kids that are still trying to learn regardless of socialized education,
homework is the last opportunity each day.
l Ranking Japans Life Science Research by S. Yamazaki in to Energy, PO Box 1250, Cave Junction, OR 97523.
Nature 372 pp 125-126 (1994) evaluates Japans medical research or-
ganizations based on total output of papers and the annual paper out-
put per head. This is also largely the way in which American
scientists are judged in their efforts to stay funded by grants of tax
money. (Bureaucrats are also judged by their paper output.)
The great discoveries of science are contained in a relatively few
seminal publications. The war on AIDS shows the relation between
number of papers and value 77,000 papers and almost no progress.
standard of evidence for claiming self defense in killing a grizzly bear
1993); the fairy shrimp has been given government protection from
humans in Sacramento (The Wall Street Journal, October 21, 1994);
and a group that calls itself Physicians for Social Responsibility has
now endorsed radical pseudoenvironmentalism in the name of protect-
ing humans (Technology Review, November-December 1994).
GOOD READING
l Tenure versus teaching by Thomas Sowell in Forbes for No-
vember 21, 1994 p 96. The path of least resistance for tenured acade-
mia has now reached such a low point that, as Sowell says, The idea
that students should be admitted or given scholarships on the basis of
academic performance is viewed with horror. Increasingly, the ten-
ured academics and their employers are just selling diplomas rather
than providing quality education.
l Nuclear Energy in France and the U.S. by Bertrand de Galas-
sus; Hormesis: The Beneficial Effects of Radiation by Zbigniew Ja-
worowski; A Rational View on Stratospheric Ozone by Hugh W.
Ellsaesser; and Silent Spring and The Betrayal of Environmental-
ism by Thomas H. Jukes all in the Fall 1994 issue of 21st Century
Science and Technology from 21st Century, P.O. Box 16285, Wash-
ington, DC 20041. This is a great issue of an excellent publication.
l Global Warming: Messy Models, Decent Data, Pointless Pol-
icy by Robert C. Balling, Jr. published November 1994 by the Com-
petitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite
1250, Washington, DC 20036.
l Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with
Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and reviews of this book
by Stanley Rothman and Edward Teller in National Review, October
10, 1994 pp 70-72.
OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
During December, each Access to Energy subscriber will receive a
mailing from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Earlier
this year, each received a mailing from Doctors for Disaster Prepared-
ness. AtE readers also received mailings from these two volunteer,
non-profit organizations in the years prior to Petr Beckmanns death.
Both are examples of accomplishments by productive individuals en-
tirely without tax-financed support.
ACCESS TO ENERGY INDEX
ergy is now available. This 100-page index of all issues of Access to
an invaluable aid in utilizing information in these issues. The 1993 in-
dex was not published, although Elizabeth Mudge did compile it. It is
contained in the 1994 edition.
This index will become even more valuable as soon as the CD-
ROM publication of all 21 years of issues of Access to Energy be-
comes available next month. This CD-ROM will contain image files
of all issues, so that any back issue can be printed in its original form.
and author index will be much more useful to most readers.
In order to receive the Elizabeth Mudge Index, send $20 to Access
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy

Information
The ongoing computer revolution and concomitant increase in the
availability of information will soon provide virtual oceans of words
and numbers to each individual at very little cost of time or money.
This is not just a spatial phenomenon as computer networks link
tens of millions of computer terminals world-wide, providing instant
access to contemporary words and numbers generated at the present
time. It is also an historical phenomenon. As the worlds great librar-
ies and other depositories of information are scanned into electronic
form, virtually all surviving recorded human knowledge will soon be
easily available to anyone, anywhere on earth.
The great libraries will probably just be scanned and sealed their
entire contents available in low-cost boxes in discount stores and also
on computer networks. The text files from 10,000 books can already
be stored on a consumer computer tape priced at less than $20 (that is
a million books for $2,000), and this capability is increasing so rap-
idly that computer magazines are obsolete as they are printed. Eco-
nomical scanners for converting printed documents to electronic form
currently operate at 100 pages per minute and are steadily improving.
Microcomputer processing speed has increased logarithmically
with time for 15 years (see figure on page 3), while cost per computer
operation has decreased at the same rate. (We were recently delighted
to buy a 66MHz 486DX2 Intel CPU and motherboard for $380 when
the published price was $500. Two weeks later, I tried to buy another
one at the same price, but failed. The price had dropped to $295.)
As human nature interacts with this cornucopia of information and
processing capability, it is not surprising that some strange myths
have arisen. One of these is that of the information economy. This updated subscriptions for the growing complete record of his work
myth envisions the United States as an information megalith that no
longer needs to dirty its hands with productive industry. We just
lounge warmly by solar-powered computers and dominate the world
by virtue of our superior access to information. As a result of this su-
periority, the rest of the world clamors to satisfy our material needs.
It is a wonder that this myth lives on when the rest of the world is
obtaining the same computer capabilities so fast that our computer-
producing industry itself has difficulty staying ahead and, if anyone
wishes to correct illusions about alleged superiority of American
abilities to utilize information technology, he need only turn on a TV
set and tune to a random channel of his choice.
The ocean of words and numbers will be available everywhere. In
America, we have only the advantage of the first peek. Our wealth
has allowed us to have this technology while it is still relatively ex-
pensive; our proximity to the early computer industry has let us use it
first; and our language is an advantage because a large part of human
knowledge is available in English. All of these advantages are time-
dependent and will be gone forever in a relatively few years.
During the transition to this new situation in which virtually eve-
ryone has easy access to the information ocean, it is natural that most
people focus on the means of obtaining access. Each new network or
hardware innovation has its brief days of notoriety, and staying in
high-tech fashion seems to require an up-to-date knowledge of new
developments and possession of the latest machinery. During the 30
years that we have been using mini and, later, micro computers for
research and word processing, we have usually purchased computer
equipment that was a couple of years out-of-date. This saved lots of
money, while the rapid advance of technology assured that our com-
puter capabilities were sufficient for our needs. This is, however, be-
coming a socially demeaning practice, as I find many friends feeling
sorry for me as though I wear too shabby a set of clothes.
The real problem, however, is how to use unlimited access to in-
formation. How does one extract quality from this ocean? Many of
the words and numbers in this ocean are incorrect, and most of the
available correct information is not of great enough value to a given
individual to be worth his time. This is not a new problem. Even 30
years ago, the scientific literature was already so large that scientists
in many fields could not read all of the papers relevant to their work.
Now this problem is becoming worse by many orders of magnitude.
One solution has been to read primarily the works of the few best
people in a given field. (Reading the best journals has been helpful,
too, but that opportunity may disappear.) A small tape or disk can
contain all of the writings, audio records, and (soon) video records of
any individual for his entire life. Publication may eventually be pri-
marily by individuals using electronic media rather than by journals,
magazines, book publishers, and newspapers.
As a scientist gains in reputation, he may find an increasing de-
mand for regularly updated complete copies of his writings, research
data, and other publications. Video and audio of his experiments and
presentations and can easily be put with these records, too. Regularly
may provide his principal source of income and research funds as the
dinosaur of tax-financed research gradually becomes extinct.
For the CD-ROM of 21 years of Access to Energy described on
page 4, we are using scanning and disk recording hardware and soft-
ware for ordinary personal computers. For those too busy to produce
their own, I expect that businesses will offer these services provid-
ing living, frequently updated biographies of productive people.
An individual interested, for example, in environmental hazards
would want to be informed of work by Bruce Ames and his col-
leagues. It is easy to make a CD-ROM of everything Professor Ames
has ever published along with data and other valuable items that have
not been published. Periodically this disk could be updated with his
new material (available by network during interim periods).
The time-tested way to filter information has been through the
best minds available. We read one Shakespearean play or Mark
Twain novel, and then read everything they wrote.
Computers may soon give everyone immediate, low-cost access
to the continually updated works of living people as well as the com-
plete works of those now dead. Censorship by publishing institutions
and limitations by publishing economics will disappear.
No one, no economy, and no society can hold an advantage in in-
formation technology. The lifes work of productive individual peo-
ple will, however, provide paths to quality in the information ocean.
This will greatly benefit the ascendancy of individual free enterprise.

evil. This tendency has provided much benefit to propagandists.

GOOD AND EVIL Visions of mushroom clouds and mountains of expensive propa-
ganda have, for example, placed nuclear in the evil category for
While there are doubtless universal truths and phenomena that are many Americans and thereby deprived our nation of sufficient
appropriately discussed under the heading of good and evil, there is amounts of safe, clean, inexpensive nuclear-electric energy.
a widespread tendency among people (an evil, if you wish) to catego- This tendency has also been an impediment to obtaining sensible
rize scientifically observed realities inappropriately as good or and reliable information about nutrition and human health. The myth
that there is a single good diet for everybody is alive and well in sponse curves for vitamin C, vitamin E, and total protein along with 12
the halls of medical schools as well as among legions in the alterna-
tive diet counter-culture.
When we completed our first experiments on raw fruit and vegeta-
ble diets and cancer in mice in 1976 with the finding that these diets
suppressed cancer just as their advocates in the health food culture had
reported, we were immediately surrounded by people who advocated
this very low protein diet for pregnant and nursing mothers, infants,
small children and virtually everybody including cancer victims. If it
seemed good for one group of people it was good, and therefore which cancer growth was suppressed. This raw fruit and vegetable diet
good for everybody.
I have a friend who was a world-class miler in the 1960s when the
general belief was that a very high protein diet was good for everybody
and that athletes all needed even more of the same. He blames this fad
for his failure to be among the few men of his generation to break the
four-minute mile. After spending his running years loading up on high
protein, he later learned that high carbohydrate was better for runners
and that too much protein inhibited performance.
A recent publication about nutrition and cancer is illustrative.
Suppression of squamous cell carcinoma in hairless mice by dietary
nutrient variation by A. B. Robinson, A. Hunsberger, and F. C.
Westall, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 76 pp 201-214
(1994) reports the effects of 38 different diets on cancer development
in a total of 1,846 mice. The rate of onset and development of tumors
in these mice varied over a 20-fold range as a function of diet alone.
This result illustrates the importance of diet in the control of cancer.
Figure 1
The specific nature of the diets comprising this 20-fold range is,
however, not in accordance with the good diet myth. Figure 1 illus- would be of even greater importance.
trates this with respect to one of the nutrients. (Figure 1 is taken from
the MAD 1994 paper but was first published in Barrons September 3,
p. 7 (1979 ) because of the self-destructive explosion that these experi-
mental results initiated in Linus Pauling. The 1994 paper itself was
published from abbreviated research summaries because the Linus
Pauling Institute claims to have lost the 300 computer data tapes and
50 file drawers of research data that comprised the records of all re-
search conducted at that Institute during the five-year period that in-
cluded this work. As a result, completed and remarkable experiments
on over 2,000 human subjects have never been published.)
In experiments conducted over a four-year period, each of these
1,846 hairless mice was subjected to repeated quantitative exposure to
ultraviolet light such that it developed skin cancer (squamous cell car-
cinoma). The development of this cancer was carefully recorded for
each mouse. Included in the 38 diets were those comprising dose re-
other diets of interest in human nutrition.
The gram/kilogram food values in Figure 1 are roughly equivalent
to grams per day oral dose for a human adult. Notice that this cancer
grew faster in the mice receiving human equivalent doses correspond-
ing to 3 to 6 grams per day of vitamin C. The mean lethal dose of vita-
min C for these mice is between 200 and 300 g/kg. As doses
approached this lethal dose, the growth of cancer was suppressed. Fig-
ure 1 also illustrates two of the raw fruit and vegetable experiments in
is very low in protein. When vegetable protein is added, the cancer
suppressive effect disappears. The authors summarize as follows:
Cancer growth was most rapid at the human equivalent doses of
1-3 g of vitamin C, 150-300 mg (about 150-300 International Units) of
vitamin E, and 80-170 g of protein. Cancer growth was accelerated by
a multinutrient mixture typical of human megavitamin supplements
and by a rich mixture of seeds and nuts.
Conversely, cancer growth was suppressed by near lethal doses of
100-200 g of vitamin C, by 200 g of sucrose [20% by weight of ordi-
nary table sugar], by protein deprivation and protein overdoses, by a
raw plant food diet so restrictive that [it] will not support long-term hu-
man life, and by large doses of butylated hydroxytoluene and glu-
tathione.
Thus a daily intake of ordinary supplements of vitamin C, vitamin
E, and multivitamins, a well balanced amount of fruits, vegetables,
seeds, and nuts, and minimal amounts of candy and other sweets a
diet considered healthy for most Americans would appear to be a
harmful diet for a cancer victim; whereas insufficient protein and fat,
high empty calories from sucrose, and near lethal amounts of vitamin
C would appear good for a cancer victim. In addition, it has long been
known that rat lifespan is maximized by a nutrient-rich diet early in life
followed by nutrient restriction later in life.
Perhaps nutrition during cancer therapy should be viewed as the
provision of fuel for a race between rapidly growing young tissues and
mature older tissues where nutrient restriction or malnutrition may fa-
vor the older tissues. The prevailing attitude that good nutrition is the
same for everyone may be especially dangerous for cancer victims.
Before anyone hurries to dispose of his vitamin pills, however, he
should realize that these experiments were carried out in mice which
make their own vitamin C. The oral doses may have suppressed the
ordinarily produced amounts in the mice. Moreover, vitamin C oxida-
tion products are very destructive of macromolecules such as proteins
and nucleic acids and may, therefore, participate in a sort of biochemi-
cal hormesis effect.
Most importantly, it is possible that diets like those which enhanced
growth of cancer in these mice may also lower the probability of con-
tracting cancer by strengthening biochemical defense mechanisms.
It may be that the overall death of humans from cancer would be
minimized by rich dietary supplementation with nutrients currently
considered good until cancer is initiated and then by sharp restric-
tion of these nutrients during cancer therapy. In this case, markedly
better techniques for cancer detection before symptoms are evident
The squamous cell carcinoma in these mice was pathologically the
same as human squamous cell carcinoma and was induced in the same
way that humans usually acquire it overexposure to UV light. That
its rate of growth could be varied over a 20-fold range by diet alone
using diets that are common in human nutrition and easily adopted by
any cancer victim is remarkable. Mice are not the same as men, but, in
the absence of similar data on men, they provide our best guess.
I am reminded of a surgeon who told me of a patient he examined
who had inoperable cancer in his throat and about two months to live.
After leaving the surgeons office, this patient adopted a raw plant food
diet so restrictive of nutrients that it will not support human life. Six
months later the patient was back to see the surgeon. Three things were
remarkable. He was not dead; he had no trace of cancer; and he looked
as if he had been in Auschwitz almost dead of malnutrition. With
ordinary food, he recovered his weight, and the cancer never recurred.
 Alas, the Lancet publication contains no figures or data whatever from
21 YEARS OF ACCESS TO ENERGY
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While they last, the printed versions will be shipped by Mrs. Beck-
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basement printing press. As individual issues are exhausted, she will
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Figure 2
It will be interesting to see how many Access to Energy readers pre-
fer the electronic 21-year set as compared with the printed set. After
three decades of computer work, I will still be among those who con-
sult the printed index and printed issues most frequently. Figure 2 from
the The Wall Street Journal, p B1, December 7, 1994, however, illus-
trates the phenomenon that is inexorably overtaking us.
muir, I. Popova, A. Shelokov, and O. Yampolskaya reporting on the
RADIATION RISK
victim as gathered by its Russian authors, this article definitively
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC, claims to
have done a six-year evaluation of combined cancer incidence data on
over 95,000 workers in the nuclear industry and to have verified that
IARC risk estimates are correct. See Nuclear News 37, p 48, Decem-
ber (1994) and E. Cardis, et al, The Lancet 344, pp 1039-1043 (1994).
Several studies have found that nuclear workers have a lower inci-
dence of cancer than the average elsewhere. This is cited as an example
of hormesis (health benefit from low-level radiation) or as a healthy
worker effect, depending upon the writers bias regarding the no-
threshold linear hypothesis. This hypothesis has been badly damaged
by Cohens finding that radon radiation exposure reduces lung cancer
incidence (see Access to Energy 21-4, December 1993, p 4), but the
IARC study is potentially valuable, especially for external radiation.
By using only nuclear workers, the IARC risks a bias against hor-
mesis. Their study, however, includes 10,000 nuclear workers classi-
fied as having received zero dose, so we were eager to read their paper.
which the reader can evaluate this work. In a five-page scientific publi-
promise to publish a better account elsewhere.
We are left to believe their final result, which does little to sup-
port their conclusion that current warnings about the dangers of low
level radiation are acceptable. For leukemia, they report an excess rela-
tive risk of cancer of 2.2 per Sv (the International Commission on Ra-
diological Protection proposes a dose limit of 0.001 Sv per year for the
public) and, for all other cancers, they report an excess relative risk of
cancer of - 0.07 per Sv (less cancer with higher radiation exposure).
IARC reports a 90% confidence range (the range within which
there is a 90% chance that the actual values fall) of their results for
leukemia of 0.1 to 5.7 excess relative risk per Sv and for all other
cancer of - 0.39 to 0.30 excess relative risk per Sv.
In the absence of data, the best we can do is to consider their statis-
tical result. With 119 leukemia deaths and 3830 deaths from other
cancers and averages of 2.2 and - 0.07 excess relative risk respectively,
we calculate (119)(2.2)+(3830)(- 0.07) = - 6.3. Therefore, the IARC
study actually reports a slight decrease in total cancer deaths with in-
creased low-level radiation exposure (with a confidence range that
makes this result statistically insignificant).
We wonder how the IARC study group and writing committee of
18 coauthors managed to rationalize the publication of a six-year study
of 96,000 people purporting to measure a correlation between low-
level radiation and cancer deaths without even a simple graph of radia-
tion exposure versus deaths from cancer.
ANTHRAX AND YELLOW RAIN
For more than a decade, there was continual argument between
apologists who contended that the lovable rulers of the Soviet Union
would never do anything so dastardly as to violate the ban on biologi-
cal weapons or provide chemical weapons to their surrogates in places
like Southeast Asia (yellow rain) and Angola versus Western ob-
servers who noticed that the Soviets were, in fact, doing these things.
This argument was epitomized by numerous articles in the Wall
Street Journal in opposition to the pro-Soviet positions of one Mat-
thew Meselson at Harvard who saw only bee pollen instead of chemi-
cal weapons and agreed with the KGB that only contaminated meat
had caused anthrax deaths in Sverdlovsk. There, under chief Commu-
nist Party official of the Sverdlovsk region, Boris Yeltsin, citizens died
of anthrax apparently released from a nonexistent Soviet biological
weapons facility. (It couldnt exist because it was proscribed by treaty.)
When political conditions permitted, the Wall Street Journal sent
investigators to Sverdlovsk, verified that the deaths were due to inhala-
tion of anthrax spores, and published a series of articles about this.
In Science 266 pp 1202-1208 (1994) is published an excellent re-
search article by M. Meselson, J. Guillemin, M. Hugh-Jones, A. Lang-
Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak. Based on information on each anthrax
proves that human and animal deaths from anthrax up to 2.5 miles and
30 miles respectively downwind from a Soviet military compound
were caused by anthrax spores released from that compound. The pa-
per concludes, In sum, the narrow zone of human and animal anthrax
cases extending downwind from [military] Compound 19 shows that
the [anthrax] outbreak resulted from an aerosol that originated there.
Aerosols of anthrax spores have been used in biological weapons
for about 50 years. They are so common that American troops were
inoculated with anthrax vaccine and huge quantities of appropriate an-
tibiotics were shipped to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.
Remarkably, Matthew Meselson, who used his position at Harvard
as a major smoke screen to hide such Soviet actions, is the unapolo-
getic first author of this publication. The many people whose deaths in
the Cold War were facilitated by Professor Meselson and other Soviet
apologists would undoubtedly be delighted to be alive and able to read
his paper in Science.
 Ralph Nader, Ernest Sternglass, Carl Sagan, and even Jane Fonda
RECYCLED PROPAGANDA
equipment and worthwhile skill, while the works of many brilliant
We have been calling the paper recycling mania interactive propa-
ganda because its primary purpose seems to be to involve everyone in
hands-on enviro action rather than in saving resources. The article
Suddenly, Paper is on a Burn by D. J. Yang and T. Smart in Busi-
ness Week, p 126, November 21 (1994) illustrates this point.
Paper prices have increased from $460 per ton to $550 per ton a
20% increase. Yang and Smart report that the paper industry has spent
$7.5 billion for equipment needed to recycle paper. This expenditure,
which must be added to paper prices, is not the only cost.
In response to a letter from an Access to Energy reader, Fletcher
Challenge, one of Canadas largest forest products companies, replied:
You asked How much more costly is it to produce recycled pa-
pers over virgin stock? What are the economics?
The quick answer is that, depending upon the percentage of recy-
cled fibre used (which ranges up to 40%), it costs us 15% to 20% more
to make recycled paper versus virgin paper. That translates to an added
cost of roughly $75 to $100 per metric ton of paper produced........
In general, recycled fibre costs more than virgin fibre because pro-
ducing it uses more energy. Part of that extra energy is consumed in
collecting the old paper think of all the trucks hauling bundles of
newspapers from communities all over the region.......
The requirement to produce recycled paper is driven more by leg-
islation than consumer demand. Our biggest paper market, California,
has a law requiring newspaper publishers to use so much recycled pa-
per within a set timetable. If all our markets adopted similar laws, we
would have real problems getting enough used paper to comply.
This letter also discusses the cost of deinking equipment.
Access to Energy is proudly printed on 100% unrecycled paper. In
order to assure this, we recently purchased about a three year supply.
Our paper company says that excessive costs of recycling and federal
and state regulations requiring recycled paper are reducing the supply
of unrecycled paper (since factories now maintain virgin paper produc-
tion as a separate capability), so that it may eventually be unavailable.
l Hypoglycemia and Diabetes by William Campbell Douglass
STARK RAVING MAD
sage is to avoid a high sugar diet (unless you happen to be a mouse
l But do they take requests? B.C. Greens recognize the spiritual
value of singing trees by Rick Hiebert in Alberta Report, p 24, No-
vember 7, 1994, describes a situation in south-eastern British Colum-
bia, where logging has been stopped by enviros who claim that trees
actually sing. One G. McIntyre of the Applied Ecological Stewardship
Coalition claims to have heard the trees singing a hymn of joy of
creation. A local Anglican cleric joined McIntyre in calling for pres-
ervation of the trees because of their spiritual force. In response, the
British Columbia Commission on Resources and Environment has
recommended and agreed to identify and conserve physical condi-
tions necessary to the super-physical life-force renewal function.
l Since there are politically incorrect racial differences in the ex-
perimental results, it has been out of fashion in recent decades to speak
of genetic influences on intelligence. There are, in fact, significant dif-
ferences in the mean intelligences of different races, yet these differ-
ences are entirely irrelevant with respect to specific individuals
because the distribution functions overlap so greatly between races.
(There are also sexual differences in distribution shape which lead to
the differences in SAT math averages for girls and boys that educrats
are so desperately trying to remove from SAT scores.)
C. Murray recently coauthored a book with R. J. Hernnstein entitled
The Bell Curve and then felt compelled to write a Wall Street Jour-
nal editorial (December 2, 1994, p A12) trying to mitigate the political
controversy that their efforts to discuss this matter had caused. This
was followed by a long Wall Street Journal editorial (December 13,
1994 p A18) in which 52 academic experts on intelligence attempted
to summarize the known facts about heredity and intelligence. Their
points include that heredity is between 40% and 80% responsible for
IQ differences and that the IQ curves center around 100 for whites and
85 for American blacks with Hispanics roughly midway between.
probably have high IQs, illustrating the great difference between good
black Americans testify about the distribution function overlap even
before we see the data. Racist efforts to make all groups equal rather
than giving equal opportunity to all individuals are, of course, incon-
sistent with science in this case.
I can think of no better reason to teach all Americans about statisti-
cal distributions than to enable them to understand this important sub-
ject (not only with respect to IQ but also other measures of innate
ability). In the absence of this knowledge, demagogues have manipu-
lated Americans into public policies harmful to those with least ability.
These Wall Street Journal articles belong in Good Reading, but
well leave them in Stark Raving Mad since madness is where de-
liberate ignorance about human similarities and differences will lead.
GOOD READING
l A scientific agenda for climate policy? by Sonja A. Boehmer-
Christiansen, Nature 372 pp 400-402, 1 December 1994. The author
states that For others, including the chairman of the IPCC, global
warming has become the justification for a crusade against material-
ism..... and The creation of knowledge at increasing rates by a few
individuals engaged in a political game, one of whose primary goals is
to obtain funding for their own work, must influence the way that envi-
ronmental problems are defined and prioritized. The appearance of
this article (with which we do not agree in its entirety) in Nature is a
further indication that pseudoenviro scientists are losing their grip on
credibility in the scientific community.
l Shock Journalism. The junk reporting behind the power line-
cancer connection. by Michael Fumento in Reason, p 23, January
(1995). The control of fire (which produces carbon dioxide) and elec-
tricity (which produces electromagnetic fields) have generally been
considered positive human achievements. The antitechnologists are
now conducting unrestrained attacks on both with bogus arguments. In
this article, Michael Fumento answers on behalf of electricity.
in Second Opinion 4, 11, pp 1-5, November (1994). The general mes-
with squamous cell carcinoma. The mice with diets having 20% su-
crose had about 20% slower cancer growth in the experiments dis-
cussed on page two of this issue of Access to Energy).
l Adequate Supplies of Fruits and Vegetables by P. H. Abelson,
Science 266 p 1303 (1994) warns that the Environmental Protection
Agency, EPA, is participating in a Consent Decree that would ban
many important fungicides. Close to becoming administrative law, this
decree would ultimately sharply decrease the production of fruits and
vegetables and thereby raise the incidence of degenerative diseases that
are moderated by good supplies of these foods. Why not just add EPA
to the list of banned evils and really improve the environment?
l Behind the atomic curtain by Hans A. Bethe, Nature 372, No.
6503, pp 281-283 (1994) in review of the book Stalin and the Bomb:
The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 by David Holloway.
l Climate claims wither under luminous lights of science by S.
Fred Singer in the Washington Times of November 29, 1994. Global
warming is dying as an issue with each passing year of actual tempera-
ture measurements. Direct measurement of actual UV light levels may
kill the ozone scare, too. We should always measure the final result
when considering hypothetical claims and intermediates.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
FEBRUARY 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 6) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Envy
When Thomas Jefferson wrote: I have sworn upon the altar of
God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man, he clearly realized that most tyranny originates in the mind of
man and in the basic conditions of human existence.
Some aspects of those basic conditions remain, so far, essentially
unchanged such as the short human lifespan. Others have been
markedly changed by science, engineering, and increases in human
knowledge. Even King Solomon was trapped in the boredom and
vanity of repetition of works of agriculture and architecture little dif-
ferent (except in extent) from those of his predecessors. Today, ordi-
nary scientists, engineers, and those who support and work with them
can undertake projects that are entirely unique. The technological age
has mobilized some of the best qualities of the human spirit by pro-
viding mankind with an endless frontier.
While each of us might categorize the properties of the human
mind and spirit in different ways, most lists would include charity,
love, faith, hope, inventiveness, reason, self-importance, greed, fear,
jealousy, and envy among the fundamental properties of human be-
ings. While science, engineering, and other technology are exact and
rational, most human properties are not. A great modern challenge is
to meld all of these human characteristics with technology for an ulti-
mately positive result.
Jefferson and his colleagues understood that civil institutions can
be formed in such a way as to encourage the positive characteristics
of human beings and to discourage the negative characteristics. Each
individual needs such institutions because each must struggle with
these things within himself and others.
In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gradually it was dis-
closed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through
states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either but
right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This
line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within
hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is re-
tained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an
unuprooted corner of evil.
During the years that Laurelee and I traded commodities, we be-
came very familiar with greed and fear. For example, about 100 times
each year, short-term fluctuations in the copper market moved either
upward or downward out of the usual range and triggered a reaction
of greed or fear in many individual speculators. This reaction was
partially predictable, so we were able to parameterize this phenome-
non and use it for profitable trading. Fear is a stronger emotion than
greed, so markets that reflect these emotions tend to fall faster than
they rise. With our PDP-11 computers, she and I traded these fluctua-
tions in copper from a room on our farm. On some days, we made
about 1% of all trades in the world copper market.
Today, technologists are seriously hampered by the growth of
civil institutions that stimulate negative aspects of human nature. The
government welfare industry is not just an institution that wastes re-
sources. It is also an institution that has built a large underclass of
people who are more than usually motivated by jealousy and envy.
many people discounting its merit in the belief that any lie can be sup-
STATISTICS
mathematical science of very great value. It can only be misused in
Misuse of statistics has become the stock-in-trade of many of the
anti-technologists, pseudoenvironmentalists, social engineers, and
other aberrations with which our environment is currently polluted.
This has become so widespread that statistics itself is maligned, with
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
Jealousy is not necessarily a destructive emotion except within the
mind that expresses it. Blinded by jealousy of the accomplishments of
others, a person may never learn enough about the basis of those ac-
complishments to equal them himself.
Envy, however, is generally destructive. Envious individuals ex-
press their hatred of the accomplishments of others by attempting to
destroy those accomplishments rather than trying to duplicate them.
Envy is a primary driving force behind a large part of the grassroots
agitation against technology.
When the Bolsheviks chose village commissars in Russia, they
often chose the village bums. These people were easily controlled,
and they were motivated by envy.
Much has been written about individual and institutional power-
seekers at the national and international levels who exercise control
over such movements as global pseudoenvironmentalism. These peo-
ple and the politicians and businessmen who join them pursue a con-
temptible agenda. (Contemptible even if it seems to serve our own
interests as in the case of nuclear power advocates who repeat the lies
of global warming in order to advance nuclear power.)
These few individuals would certainly fail, however, if it were not
for the many grassroots agitators who amplify their efforts. These agi-
tators are largely motivated by envy.
Here in the Northwest, the anti-logging, anti-farming, anti-mining,
anti-human accomplishment pseudoenvironmentalists agitators are
primarily the community bums. They live in or on the fringes of the
welfare community and are motivated primarily by envy.
Environmentalism is just their latest excuse for hatred.
A great strength of American free enterprise is that it shares na-
tional power among the millions of productive individuals who rise in
economic, social, and political influence as a result of their own indi-
vidual productive accomplishments. There is much wisdom and vast
decentralized strength among these individuals.
Unfortunately, a few individuals are overcome by ambition and
desire for increased power to such an extent that they attempt, by the
various means of tyranny, to dominate the millions of others. Since
productive accomplishment and economic freedom and property are
the specific strengths of productive Americans, the mobilization of
hatred of these accomplishments is used against the productive peo-
ple who stand in the way of tyranny. This mobilization is often ac-
complished through the politics of envy.
Reason will not stop envious individuals from telling lies to the
good people of America about trees, or animals, or ozone, or carbon
dioxide, or nuclear radiation. They do not fear the power plant they
hate those who were able to build it. They do not fear the chemical
industry they hate those who were able to create it. They do not fear
carbon dioxide they hate the technological accomplishments of
which it is a byproduct.
Compassion is the proper attitude toward those who have failed,
so far, to be successful in life. Rewarding failure with payments of tax
money, however, has created a breeding ground for envy that is an
impediment to technology and a threat to American freedom.
ported by statistics. This is false. Statistics is a beautiful and exact
the service of falsehoods when the audience lacks basic mathematical
knowledge. Unfortunately, this lack is widespread. Even the scientific
journals themselves are filled with statistical errors especially since
politically correct results determine tax-financed research funding.
 One of the most beautiful uses of statistics is in the science of statis-
tical mechanics. There, the laws of probability and a few simple princi-
ples like conservation of energy are used to derive the entire science of
thermodynamics. Misuse of statistics, however, is not so beautiful.
Correlations: Newspapers carry a continual diet of correlational
nonsense such as electric shavers found correlated with brain can-
cer. In opposition, we sometimes see counter-examples like num-
ber of churches correlated with number of incidents of violent crime.
This latter example illustrates the truth that correlation does not prove
causality. Churches and crime are correlated with population density
which therefore links the two but not causally.
The electric shaver example shows a type of statistical error that is
very common. Most mathematical tests of correlation calculate a value
of the probability that the two measurements under study are not corre-
lated with one another, Pnc. For example, Robinson, A. B. and Robin-
son, L. R., Mech. Ag. Dev. 59 pp 47-67 (1991) gives Pnc for the
correlation between urinary cystathione and age in 205 men as 0.025.
Therefore the probability of correlation is 1-Pnc=Pc = 0 .975 or 97.5%.
If cystathione were a pesticide and the Robinsons had a grant re-
quest pending with the Environmental Protection Agency, we might
read headlines like, Cystathione linked to premature aging.
But wait. The Robinsons measured 51 substances in this experi-
ment. Since they tried 51 times to get a correlation, about one sub-
stance is expected to have Pnc = 0.02 or less by random chance. They,
in fact, found 10 (with even higher Pcs), so this paper is interesting.
Had they found only one or two at 97%, this would be insignificant.
The electric shaver discovery involved the screening of large
numbers of items until one was found for publicity. Without correction
for the number of efforts to find a correlating item, the report is errone-
ous. Since thousands of pseudoscientists with lavish tax funding are
searching for correlations between technology and evil, random
chance is providing a plentiful supply of false correlation scare stories.
A second common error is in actual calculation of the correlational
probabilities. The value of Pc usually must be at least 0.95 or greater
before statistical significance is claimed. In other words, unless
there is less than one chance in 20 that the result is a random occur-
rence, it is not termed statistically significant. Most reports calculate
these Ps with the assumption that the measurements of interest are dis-
tributed in accordance with a Gaussian or normal distribution function
the familiar bell curve. In fact, many measurements do not have nor-
mal distribution functions. This error often leads to falsely high prob-
abilities of correlation.
Distribution functions: It can be rigorously proven that, when the
variations in a measured value are entirely dependent upon a large
number of similarly sized independent variables, the measurements
will be distributed as a normal distribution. The functional form of this
normal distribution is illustrated in Figure 1 reproduced from Introduc-
tion to Probability and Statistics by H. L. Alder and E. B. Roessler, W.
H. Freeman and Company (1977), p 115. Figure 1 shows a bar graph
and normal distribution function for the expected frequencies of heads
in tossing groups of nine coins 512 times. Since the factors that deter-
mine the variation in outcome of a single toss of nine are many and
similarly sized, the distribution function is normal.
If another set of coins that had a larger number of coins were used,
then the distribution would be shifted to the right. In this case, both
distributions would be normal. Assuming this, a calculation of the
probability that the two sets of coins are different can be made with
high reliability after a relatively few experimental trials.
Suppose, however, that the two different sets of coins are used to-
gether in a single experiment. The result will be a broadened distribu-
tion function that is not normal. If the sets were different enough, the
experiment would even show a distribution with two peaks with a
shape like two overlapping bells. In this case, the variation is not due
only to similarly sized independent variables. The difference in num-
ber introduces a variable much larger than the others that give rise to
the variable outcomes of individual tosses of sets of coins.
In most instances of alleged ill effects of technology, there is insuf-
ficient data to prove that the measurements under study have a normal
Figure 1
distribution function. This is not surprising because most experiments
involving living things or other environmental phenomena are rela-
tively difficult to perform. This limits the number of observations.
Powerful statistical tests are often needed to extract significance from
small numbers of experimental measurements. These tests are more
likely to give values indicating significance if they assume distribution
function shape, so tax-financed experimenters much prefer them.
When distribution function shape is unknown, the proper approach
is to use nonparametric statistics. There are simple non-parametric
methods of which the most common is the Wilcoxon Test.
Suppose that we know the age at death of 10 men (and only ten
men, since it is imperative to use all of the data without selection), five
of whom were members of the Sierra Club. The control subjects died
at ages 78, 81, 83, 85, and 88, while the Sierra Club members died at
ages 73, 76, 79, 80, and 82. The distribution of these men in order of
age at death is, therefore, S-S-C-S-S-C-S-C-C-C. Since we do not
know the shape of the distribution functions, the Wilcoxon test simply
assigns a rank to each individual of S1-S2-C3-S4-S5-C6-S7-C8-C9-
C10. The sum of the ranks of the Sierra Club members is 1+2+4+5+7
= 19. The test then calculates, for the case of blindly choosing 10 ob-
jects, five of one label and five of another in succession, the probability
of a set having a sum of ranks less than or equal to 19.
For our simple case, this can be done by actually listing all possi-
bilities and counting them. In this case, Pnc = 0.048, so there is a 95%
chance that our experiment shows that Sierra club members do not live
as long providing there were no other systematic variables besides
Club membership. There are, of course, other variables. For instance,
those still clinging to Sierra Club membership in the 1990s, when it has
allied itself with Greenpeace and Earth First and abandoned allegiance
to its original goals, are likely to be people of below average wisdom.
This may also shorten lifespan. Correlation does not prove causality.
Nevertheless, we have done our calculation properly without as-
suming a normal distribution when the data set is too small to check
that assumption. For much larger sets of data, Wilcoxon calculations
are more involved. See the above-referenced book by Alder and
Roessler and also the Mech. Ag. Dev. article by Robinson and Robin-
son for examples and references.
(This reminds me of the story of the conservative retired Iowa
farmer who suddenly announced to his friends that he had joined the
Communist party. Why, they asked, had he done such a dishon-
orable thing? Well, he explained, I have been to my doctor. He
says that I have just six months to live. I figure it is better that one of
them should die than one of us.)
Errors: Whenever possible, each quantitative scientific assertion
should be accompanied by a quantitative estimate of its reliability or
likely range of error. Where the error itself is an important part of the
result, then the error of the error should also be calculated and reported.
One sign of unreliable science is poor reporting of errors. Each scien-
tist is obligated to estimate and report the reliability of his results.

BELL CURVES FOR SHRIMP
While undergraduates at Caltech, Ken Manly, Mike Anthony and I
devised a means of testing the hydrate microcrystal theory of general
anesthesia (see S. L. Miller, PNAS 47, 1515 (1961) and L. Pauling, Sci-
ence 134, 15 (1961)). Our method depended upon the normal distribu-
tion function. See A. B. Robinson, K. F. Manly, M. P. Anthony, J. F.
Catchpool, and L. Pauling, Science 149, pp. 1255-1258 (1965).
In order to test this theory, we needed to make measurements of the
potency of various general anesthetic agents at thermodynamic equilib-
rium and to an accuracy of about 1 to 2%.
After a survey of numerous animals, we chose brine shrimp because
they were aquatic and could be easily equilibrated with anesthetic; were
hearty; were easily grown in large numbers; and were easily controlled
by their tendency to swim toward light. Figure 2 illustrates the anesthe-
sia tank we built (along with hatching, purification, and counting appa-
ratus). After hatching and purification, 100,000 to 150,000 brine shrimp
were divided between the temperature-controlled separatory funnels
and different amounts of anesthetic were introduced into each funnel.
Shrimp that stayed awake swam in the upper, lighted parts of the
funnels, while those that went to sleep sank through the stop-cocks into
the lower tubes. The separated groups of shrimp were then counted.
Figure 2
Most biological dose-response curves are log-normal as illustrated
in Figure 3. When the effect of an anesthetic is plotted vs. the logarithm
of the concentration, a normal distribution function is found. This
shows that individual variation depends upon a large number of simi-
larly sized independent variables. The dependence upon the logarithm
is thought to result from the logarithmic relation between chemical
concentrations and the energies of chemical reactions (as in the equa-
tion F = -RT(lnK) from introductory chemistry).
Figure 4 is a graph of our experimental results for the general anes-
thetic Halothane (CF3CClBrH). The logarithm of the anesthetic con-
centration is plotted vs. the percentage of brine shrimp asleep using a
vertical axis such that a normal distribution function will result in a
straight line. After introduction of the anesthetic, this line is curved, but
it gradually becomes straight as the entire system comes to equilib-
Figure 3
Figure 4
rium. The straight line allows all of the data from the different concen-
trations to be used in determining, with high accuracy, the amount of
anesthetic required to anesthetize just 50% of the animals.
With this accurate tool for measurement, we were able to distin-
guish between the then-popular theory of general anesthesia which de-
pended only upon the lipid solubility of anesthetics and the
microcrystal theory which depended in predictable ways upon the ge-
ometry of specific anesthetic molecules. The microcrystal theory, pro-
posed independently by Miller and by Pauling, turned out to be correct.
This looks like the sort of odd study that provides dark humor con-
cerning the waste of tax money anesthetizing shrimp. Actually, it had
fundamental implications for the design of improved general anesthet-
ics for use in human surgery. The entire experiment was conceived and
executed by three students during three summer months at a cost of
about $2,000 and received no tax financing whatever. It also illustrates
the value of statistical distribution functions in solving problems other
than analysis of error and statistical significance.
Brine shrimp are not yet an endangered species, unlike scientists
who work independently of government regulation and control.
AIDS
Additional readings for the AIDS article in Access to Energy 22-3
are The Longevity of Homosexuals Before and After the AIDS Epi-
demic, by P. Cameron, W. L. Playfair, and S. Wellum, Omega Jour-
nal of Death and Dying 29, pp 249-272 (1994) and AIDS: The
Epidemic that Never Was, New African, pp 8-11, December (1993).
Cameron, et al report research results showing that the median age
at death for homosexual men dying of AIDS is 39 years and that for
homosexual men who do not die of AIDS is 42. By comparison, the
value for heterosexual married men is 75. This is evidence in support
of the hypothesis that AIDS may be little more than a general classifi-
cation of deaths resulting from exposure to homosexual behavior.
CORRECTION
Access to Energy 22-1 reports that the average cost of nuclear
power in the United States in 1993 was 2.15 cents/KWh with cost as
low as 1.29 cents/KWh at one plant. The 2 cent figure was also referred
to at the end of our article Energy Efficiency in Access to Energy
22-4. Since the latter article drew a comparison with solar power that
included capital costs, we should have added capital costs to the nu-
clear power values of an additional 1 to 3 cents/KWh depending upon
whether a reasonable or unreasonable regulatory climate is assumed.

Figure 5
GOOD READING
NUCLEAR WASTE
l Nuclear Power: Our Best Option by M. Oliver and J. Hospers
The myth that nuclear waste remains a threat for hundreds of millen-
nia is exposed in Figure 5, from a World Health Organization report by
Nuclear Issues 16, p 1, December 1994 available from 8 Ruvigny Man-
sions, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LE. In less than one mil-
lennium, glassified waste becomes safer than naturally occurring
radioactive minerals such as pitchblende or some uranium ores.
This alleged threat is itself an artificial result of storing the waste in
repositories in concentrated form. If radioactive waste were dissolved
as water soluble compounds and then widely dispersed in the oceans,
no health or other environmental risks would ever occur.
Moreover, as is shown in Figure 6, nuclear waste recycling is an
even better option in the case of plutonium. World Energy Council esti-
mates that serve as the basis of this figure from 21st Century 7, p 49,
Winter 1994-1995 available from P. O. Box 16285, Washington, DC
20041, suggest that, without recycling, nuclear fuel costs may be much
higher during the next century.
Figure 6
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903. The two ends of the
STARK RAVING MAD
l Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins in the Santa Rosa, Califor-
nia Press Democrat for December 25, 1994, pp G1 & G6 propose a
new generation of plastic automobiles weighing about one-fourth of
current models and powered by electric motors using electricity gener-
ated in the car from compressed natural gas or hydrogen. They predict
these and other innovations will increase fuel economy to 600 miles per
gallon. Who will be the first to put his family in this little beauty?
l Out of Control by Brenda Scott, available from Huntington
House Publishers, P. O. Box 53788, Lafayette Louisiana 70505, de-
scribes the current American child protective services industry
which has itself become the greatest source of actual child and paren-
tal abuse in our country. This is not just about the billions of dollars of
tax money that is paid for the abduction of hundreds of thousands of
children from their homes each year. Pages 85-100 describe the rou-
tine, official use of Farrall Instruments plethysmographs on par-
ents of both sexes throughout the United States. A significant
contribution to American society could be made by criminal prosecu-
tion of every child services bureaucrat involved with this use.
l A widely reported NASA press conference on December 19,
1994, continues the now well-established standard of enviroscience by
press announcement without release of actual data and without publi-
cation in the scientific literature. These publicists claim to have de-
tected hydrogen fluoride in the stratosphere and to have proved thereby
that man-made compounds are destroying the ozone layer. Evaluation
is impossible, of course, because they have published no paper that de-
scribes this work. By the time they do publish, if ever, their press
claims will be firmly established in the minds of laymen and tax-dis-
persing politicians whether or not those claims are true.
in The Freeman 45, pp 40-45, January 1995, available from The Foun-
dation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533, is a
good laymans review of reasons including those of Petr Beckmann.
l Whatever Happened to Cold Fusion? by D. L. Goodstein in
Engineering and Science 58, pp 15-25, Fall 1994, available from the
California Institute of Technology, 1201 East California Blvd.,
Pasadena, CA 91125. This article is a good balance for the pro-cold
fusion articles that we have previously recommended. Goodstein does
not support cold fusion, and he clearly explains the arguments against
it. At the same time, he gives an account of recent improvements in
cold-fusion research and displays an open mind.
l Reflections on the First Half-Century of Long-Lived Radioac-
tive Carbon (14C) by Martin D. Kamen in the Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society 138, pp 48-60 (1994). American sci-
ence stands upon the shoulders of her great scientists, engineers, and
industrialists of previous generations. It is a privilege to be able to learn
from the few, like Martin Kamen, who are still with us.
l Economic Fascism by T. J. DiLorenzo reprinted from The
Freeman by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,
1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716. Although most
people equate fascism with the misdeeds of Nazi Germany, few re-
member that it is actually an economic system that poses a dangerous
and immediate threat to human freedom within America today.
l The Health Physics Society Centennial Calendar published by
The Health Physics Society, 1313 Dolley Madison Blvd., Suite 402,
Mclean, VA 22101. This is a terrific 1995 wall calendar giving much
information about nuclear science. The back page is especially good.
l Naked Unto Our Enemies by A. M. Codevilla in Commen-
tary, pp 43-48, October 1994. National defense is one of the few essen-
tial functions of government, yet, in this very dangerous technological
age, the American government still ignores part of this responsibility.
l Mid-Latitude Ozone: Going Down, Went Up in World Cli-
mate p 15 available from Dept. of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall,
ozone curve, over 30 years apart, are at approximately the same level.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MARCH 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 7) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
A Dash of Truth
The recipe for a lie usually includes at least a small pinch of truth.
This includes even those small lies we tell ourselves to help cope with
our own personal set of faults.
Mark Twain said that he was not addicted to cigars. He could give
them up whenever he wished. He knew this, he said, because he had
done it a thousand times.
At law, this is known as the colorable argument the lie that
contains just enough truth that it can be told with a straight face, little
risk of being accused of outright perjury, and a chance of success if
the opposition is not quick enough in rebuttal.
The lies that are most dangerous to science, technology, and free-
dom in 1995 are also disguised by their own dashes of truth.
Consider, for example, the pseudoenvironmentalist enviro bums
and agitators whose lies we discussed under the heading envy in
AtE 22-6. (This, we have told ourselves, represented great rhetorical
restraint on our part. We could have resorted to vituperation.)
Is careful preservation and enhancement of the natural environ-
ment a good thing? Obviously it is. Most farmers, loggers, and other
individuals who make their livings close to nature are active environ-
mentalists. They are continually taking actions to enhance and pre-
serve the environment. Our region of the Northwest, for example, has
been intensively utilized by farmers, loggers, miners, and a wide vari-
ety of other people for about 150 years. Most of these people have
worked harder and earned less than their counterparts in urban areas.
They have stayed here largely because they love this environment.
Now welfare-supported enviro agitators in collusion with national
pseudoenvironmentalist groups are trying to eject these people from
the Northwest because (they say) people may harm the pristine envi-
ronment here. It is admirably pristine because those same people and
their ancestors (whom the enviros vilify) have kept it that way.
Are there occasional people who irresponsibly harm the environ-
ment? Of course there are. These people provide the dash of truth in
the enviro recipe for depopulation of the American rural Northwest.
We write frequently about the global warming fraud in which
carbon dioxide is being falsely demonized. Is it not true, however,
that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas? Yes, that is true. The earth is
warmed in part by the energy trapped by atmospheric carbon dioxide.
It is also true that there has been an increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide in recent decades. These are the pinches of truth in the
global warming recipe. It is not true, however, that the earth is
slipping quickly toward global environmental disaster as a result of
these truths. In fact, the only detectable environmental changes ob-
served so far as a result of this rise in carbon dioxide have been uni-
formly favorable to the natural environment of the earth.
The ozone hoax also has its own truthful ingredients. It is true that
chlorine compounds have been shown in the laboratory to dissociate
and participate, under atmospheric conditions, in reactions that con-
sume ozone. It is also true that CFCs such as freon decompose and
participate in these reactions and undoubtedly do so also when they
are released into the atmosphere. The extent of this participation is
still unknown. We do know, however, that world atmospheric ozone
commodity in public debate. The opponents of shutting down human
ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
warming (and opponents of the political empowerment of those
It is always prudent to examine all of the essential premises of ones
opponents and of ones allies. Adopting and promulgating the errors
of ones allies can sometimes be more debilitating than ignoring an
opponents error, since credibility is an essential yet very perishable
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
levels are within the range of ordinary fluctuations. Most impor-
tantly, we know that there has been no significant increase in UV
light levels at the earths surface during recent decades. The few
credible measurements show, in fact, a slight decrease.
These bits of correct atmospheric chemistry have been parlayed,
however, into the lie that CFCs are leading to a global UV light disas-
ter and mass cancer deaths which can only be stopped by destroying
chlorine chemistry-based technology.
Is it true that we would be slightly better off if our food contained
no traces whatever of pesticides, herbicides, and preservatives? This
is probably true in a very limited sense. In the broader sense, how-
ever, which includes the fact that elimination of these substances will
markedly reduce the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables and
will likely even increase our intake of dangerous substances from
naturally resistant plants, this small truth supports a very large and
dangerous lie. This lie may cause millions of early deaths.
Were the traces of DDT in the world food chain a hazard to hu-
man and animal health? Colorable arguments to this effect were made
and an exhaustive search would probably have discovered concrete
examples of ill effects if one overlooked (in probably the most
genocidal lie of omission in human history) the fact that DDT saved
more than 500 million human lives before it was banned and failed to
save hundreds of millions more thereafter.
Is recycling a sensible activity? Well, the free market thinks so.
Aluminum, steel, silver, and many other items were being recycled
long before the enviro industry became established. Does this small
truth mean, however, that coercive laws should require that every-
thing be recycled? Does it mean that paper must be collected, trans-
ported, deinked, and recycled? American forests are increasing so fast
that our wood and paper industry could not possibly stay even with
them. Burning waste paper (thereby fertilizing the trees) and manu-
facturing low-cost high-quality virgin paper is actually the most en-
ergy and resource-efficient procedure. The big recycling lie (based on
the small recycling truth) serves as justification for coercive recycling
the interactive propaganda of the enviro industry.
There is no substitute for the truth when it is the whole truth. The
stock in trade of the liar is the small truth with which the large lie or
falsehood of omission is disguised. The dash of truth is often like a
spice that covers up the taste of poison in the whole brew.
We now have sufficient science and technology to eliminate early
deaths and give almost everyone an opportunity for 80 to 100 years of
vibrant good health; to explore our solar system and give all of the
members of our civilization an opportunity for at least vicarious en-
joyment of this spectacular and unprecedented new frontier; to pro-
vide such an abundance of low-cost energy and industry that even the
least wealthy live more richly that the most wealthy of previous gen-
erations; and to banish hunger and other forms of human suffering as
completely as we have banished smallpox.
We can do these things if we retain our freedom and our commit-
ment to truth. If, however, we allow the large lies that oppose us to
hide behind small truths, we may forfeit these great opportunities.
progress in order to combat the phantoms of carbon dioxide global
who have hitched their personal ambitions to these phantoms) are
now using arguments that can be summarized as follows:
1. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is not increasing.
2. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, but the increase is not
being caused by human activities.
3. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being increased by human activi-
ties (primarily the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas), but this in-
crease is not causing a significant increase in global temperature.
4. The increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide is actually beneficial
because it causes an increase in the amount of plants and animals. Even
if global temperature does rise, plants, animals, and humans will bene-
fit from better nutrition and a warmer, more hospitable climate.
This is reminiscent of the Texas trial lawyers shifting defense
which asserted: My clients dog did not bite your client; my clients
dog doesnt bite; my clients dog wasnt there; and, moreover, my cli-
ent doesnt have a dog.
Our friends look a little confused for two reasons. First, they are
participating in a debate concerning a subject for which the essential
scientific knowledge is not yet available. This is not the fault of sci-
ence. Global carbon balance and its atmospheric and environmental in-
teractions is a difficult, as yet poorly understood subject.
Why not just add 5. Neither we nor anyone else knows enough
about atmospheric composition and global environments to reliably
comment on their interactions or to suggest political action or inac-
tion? This truth is, unfortunately, rhetorically weak. You say you Figure 2
dont know; your opponent says he does know; you look foolish; and
everyone listens to him (and gives him a big tax-financed grant). samples lead to such severe contamination that data from this source is
of little value, especially for a volatile, water soluble gas like carbon
dioxide. The history and details of these efforts are carefully reviewed
in Do glaciers tell a true atmospheric CO2 story? by Jaworowski,
Z., Segalstad, T. V., and Ono, N., The Science of the Total Environ-
ment, 114, pp. 227-284 (1992), which is the source of Figures 1 and 2.
In one typical drilling operation, temperatures as high as 100C
were maintained around the outside of the ice core (of diameter about 4
inches) by the dissipation of as much as 600 kW of power in the bore
hole, and the drilling fluid around the hole and core included 28 metric
tons of an antifreeze composed of numerous hydrocarbon constituents
and hundreds of contaminants. Moreover, various components of the
drilling apparatus itself were slightly soluble in this antifreeze. When a
core is drilled and thereby released from the pressure of the overlying
ice, it fractures, and drilling fluid is admitted into the interior.
In addition, carbon dioxide is soluble in the water layer on the sur-
face of ice and also forms inclusion clathrates within the ice under
some circumstances. These and other difficulties make carbon dioxide
measurements of ice cores almost valueless. Reported measurements
of carbon dioxide tend to correlate with drilling parameters as is shown
in Figure 1. Notice the similarities between CO2, ice crystal size, and
pressure and expansion of the cores. Accordingly, reported ice core
CO2 values have varied over a range of about 10-fold with 2 to 3-fold
Figure 1 typical of the narrower ranges until 1985.
In 1985, in an effort to make their measurements consistent with the
Second, some of the science in this field has been poorly conducted. actual atmospheric record that began in the 1950s and relevant to
This is not surprising. Global atmospheric environmentalism is be- the increasingly popular global warming debate, investigators began
ing politically driven by self-interested groups. Some politicians and simply discarding measurements that were outside of the popular
bureaucrats see global problems as an opportunity to greatly ex- range. Worse, when the newly cleansed data did not match the curva-
pand their power. Some scientists see global problems as an oppor- ture of actual measurements, a fortuitous hypothesis was introduced:
tunity to greatly expand their funding from politicians and bureaucrats. the air in the ice was assumed to be younger than the ice just enough
Therefore, in addition to those scientists who are doing excellent work
in these fields, there is a contingent of others who sacrifice integrity
and quality in order to obtain tax money and notoriety.
With reference, then, to the arguments above:
1. Why do some people think that atmospheric carbon dioxide is
not increasing? The reason is that the carbon dioxide content of arctic
and antarctic ice cores has been cited in support of the popular graphs
of atmospheric carbon dioxide vs. time (see Access to Energy, 21-3, p.
3 and Figure 2a below).
Drilling cores from ice far under the earths surface (some more
than a mile deep) initially seemed to be a good way in which to obtain
historical information about the atmosphere. Atmospheric components
are deposited in falling snow which is eventually frozen in the ice re-
cord, and bubbles of air also become entrained in the ice.
Unfortunately, the engineering problems involved in obtaining ice
Figure 3

Figure 4
younger to shift the values into register. (See Figure 2b which shows
the actual cleansed data and 2a which shows the newly fabricated
data after the young air shift.) This dishonesty has led some to reject
the CO2 increase shown by these indirect measurements.
Shenanigans cannot, however, alter truth nor be used as an excuse
to ignore truth. Direct measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide
were made about 100 years ago. For example, the Encyclopedia
Americana for 1908 gives an atmospheric CO2 value of 290 ppm. The
carbon dioxide section of the International Critical Tables of 1926 was
written by W. J. Humphreys, who cites his own work published in
1921 and gives a value (which we calculate from his total atmospheric
mass values) of 280 ppm. Almost 40 years ago, direct and continuous
measurements began and have now been extended to numerous sites.
Figures 3 and 4 are from Trends 93: A Compendium of Data on
Global Change available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak
Ridge, TN 37831 as Publication No. ORNL/CDIAC-65, which con-
tains complete literature citations. These values from Hawaii and the
South Pole are consistent with other world-wide stations. CO2 has
definitely risen substantially during the past century.
2. There is serious doubt, however, about the source and effects of
this rise. Since the atmospheric increase during the 1980s has been
about 3 Gt C (gigatons carbon) per year and the estimated human re-
lease is about 5 Gt C per year, most people have assumed that the in-
crease is of human origin. For these values and Figure 5 see
Terrestrial ecosystems and the carbon cycle by D. S. Schimel,
Global Change Biology 1, in press (1995). F. Seitz, however, (see Ac-
cess to Energy 22-1, p 3) has suggested that this assumption is not con-
sistent with atmospheric turnover rates of 14CO2 from atomic testing.
It is entirely possible that atmospheric CO2 ordinarily fluctuates and
that the past 50 to 100 years have been an upward period on that curve.
During this time, atmospheric temperature has risen about 0.5C (ap-
Figure 5
parently from solar variation and not from CO2 effects see Access to
Energy 22-1, p3). The solubility of CO2 in sea water (see International
Critical Tables) diminishes about 2.5% per C increase in temperature.
Therefore, making the imperfect assumption for purposes of estima-
tion that equilibrium is maintained, a total ocean warming of 0.3C per
century would lead to ocean outgassing of 3 Gt C per year the ob-
served atmospheric increase. (We calculate (40,000)(0.3)(.025)/(100)
= 3 Gt C using the ocean value of 40,000 from Figure 5.) Interestingly,
the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 does lag behind the increase
in temperature as expected from this hypothesis.
Where then could the 5 Gt C from human activity have gone? Well,
United States forests have increased 23% since 1958 (see Access to
Energy 21-3, p 2) or 0.6% per year. We may reasonably estimate world
tree growth at (400)(0.006) = 2.4 Gt C and the rest of the biosphere
might absorb the other 2.6 Gt C (or it may really be in the atmosphere).
It is claimed that laboratory results on CO2 fertilization do not apply
to the real world because global plants are stressed by shortages of
water and other nutrients, pollution, high temperature, and shading.
The literature on this has been carefully reviewed by K. E. Idso and S.
B. Idso, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 69, pp. 153-203 (1994)
and summarized in Figure 6 (from their paper) which demonstrates
that stress actually increases the percentage effect of CO2 fertilization.
The real point is that no one knows. Figure 5 gives the 1994 Inter-
governmental Panel Assessment on Climate Change estimated global
Figure 6
carbon values. These are so uncertain that no conclusion can be reli-
ably drawn as to the fate of CO2 from human activity. A 3% change in
the ocean flux estimate, for example, turns the ocean into a CO2 source
rather than a sink, and this estimate has a much greater than 3% uncer-
tainty. Human activity is a 5 Gt C per year flux out of the total earth
flux of 300 Gt C per year and total reservoir of 43,000 Gt C.
3. So, what do we know? We know that atmospheric CO2 has risen
70 to 90 ppm during the past century. This increase has been accompa-
nied by (and, research indicates, has caused) substantial increases in
world plants and animals. The increase in CO2 so far has not caused
any detectable increase in atmospheric temperature (since the only rise
in temperature occurred before the CO2 increase see Access to En-
ergy 22-1, p 3). CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the net greenhouse effect
on the earth has not measurably changed during recent decades.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 may have been caused by human
activity, especially the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, or it may be
an ordinary fluctuation associated with solar activity or other causes.
4. Whatever the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2, the
effects so far have been beneficial. There are more plants growing on
earth as a result of CO2 fertilization, and these plants are supporting a
concomitant increase in animal life. We should be pleased by our good
fortune and should not permit pseudoscientific scare mongering in the
name of global warming by self-interested politicians, bureaucrats,
and tax money-seeking scientists to turn this good event into a negative
for our technology, our freedom, and our civilization.
 l The Compuserve Executive News Service for 1/18/95 reports
LANGUAGE LESSONS that two indicted men in Florida face 20 years in prison and fines of
more than $2.2 million for smuggling freon into the United States in
Socialized educators extol the virtues of teaching foreign languages violation of the Clean Air Act. Their crime was claiming the freon
to grade school children. In this, they disregard the fact that most chil- would be shipped to Mexico when, in fact, it remained in the U.S.
dren are insufficiently familiar with their own language and with the without consumption allowances issued by the Environmental Protec-
language of science and technology mathematics. Without good tion Agency. Apparently CFCs are O.K. if released in Mexico.
abilities in their native language and in mathematics, children are re- Meanwhile, Civil Defense Perspectives 11, No. 2, p 2 (1995), avail-
tarded in their ability to think. Citizens who cannot or will not think able from Physicians for Civil Defense, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Ste 9,
may provide a continuing supply of humor for Stark Raving Mad, Tucson, AZ 85716, reports that the Arizona legislature House Envi-
but they constitute a dangerous flaw in our technological civilization. ronment Committee has approved a bill that would allow the posses-
The first College Board exam, the PSAT, is usually given at the age sion, use, manufacture, transportation, or sale of CFCs in Arizona.
of 16. By then, a childs ability in mathematics is largely determined. Perhaps federalism can stop the CFC ban mania.
More techniques can be taught, but little improvement in fundamental l Coleman has stopped making radioactive mantles for camper
ability is possible. At 16, however, verbal skills are still rapidly devel- lanterns because of the dangerous radiation that they emit. (Product
oping especially active vocabulary. warnings on the old mantles resemble those for sucrose and starch
Now, the continuing experiment in self-education in our home above.) Cresson Kearny reports (letter to AtE) that he measured
school here has a second set of PSAT values. The students are cur- gamma radiation of 0.25 mr/hr with an older mantle pressed against
rently 18, 16, 15, 13, 13, and 7 and are entirely self-taught. They use the open 1.3 cm2 window of a Wallac RD-8 meter and 0.05 mr/hr with
the Saxon math series of books followed, after they complete calculus, the window closed. Background (Montrose, CO) measured 0.02 mr/hr.
by university level physics and chemistry books, also entirely self- A camper worried about this risk had best restrict his activities to the
taught. We teach no grammar, no spelling, and no punctuation except seashore, since background radiation in mountainous areas is compara-
in the correction of their written essays. Their verbal skills are almost ble to that from the mantles. Hormesis fans, however, will want to grab
entirely developed by speaking and extensive reading. some old mantles and head for the mountains to lower their cancer risk.
Zachary at age 16 scored 750 in math and 730 in verbal for a total
of 1480 on the PSAT. He missed two math questions. Noah, who is
GOOD READING
now 16, scored 770 in math and 630 in verbal for a total of 1400. He
missed one math question. The difference in verbal score is entirely l Test of the Linear-No Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcino-
due to extent of reading. Noah engages in much less spontaneous read- genesis for Inhaled Radon Decay Products by B. L. Cohen, Health
ing than does Zachary, so his rate of vocabulary development is Physics 68, No. 2, pp 157-174 (1995). This is a detailed research paper
slower. If the test were given again at age 25, I would expect the two to showing that lung cancer mortality decreases as inhaled radon in-
score approximately the same because, by then, they should both have creases for the exposure levels found in most American homes.
an active vocabulary that includes most of the words on the tests. The linear-no threshold hypothesis is dead along with many lung
On April 1, 1995, the new factors for converting raw tests scores to cancer victims that were unfortunate enough to live in localities with
the 200 to 800 scale go into effect (see Access to Energy, 21-7 & 22-3). low background radiation. Also dead are very large numbers of margi-
This is being done to diminish politically incorrect differences between nalized Americans for whom the loss (Cohen estimates) of over $250
students of differing sex and race and to raise scores so that they will billion in unnecessary radiation protection expenditures not to men-
not reflect the disastrous results of American socialized education. tion the enormous cost from reduced development of nuclear power
Using the new conversion table effective after April 1, Zacharys has been fatal. This radiation myth has had grisly consequences.
scores will be 760 in math and 800 in verbal for a total of 1560, and l Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) by F. Seitz, Nature 373, p 288
Noahs will be 800 in math and 700 in verbal for a total of 1500. (1995). Eugene Wigners work helped initiate the nuclear age and
I am certain that this performance is far higher than it would have helped to preserve American freedom through both development of
been had they been enslaved in the socialized public schools during nuclear technology and protective civil defense technology.
their formative years. I am also certain that it is higher than it would l Its the Battery Stupid by S. F. Brown, Popular Science, pp
have been had I taught them with the usual teacher-student methods 62-78, February (1995). This gives a review of limitations on current
rather than letting them learn by themselves from good books. technology for the production of electric cars.
One of the finest gifts that any parent can give his children is to l Poking Holes in NASAs Latest Ozone Scare by K. M. Towe,
provide each child with a large desk in a quiet place; a set of Saxon Citizen Outlook 10, No. 1, p3 (1995) from Committee for a Construc-
math books available from Saxon Publishers, Inc., 1320 West Lindsey, tive Tomorrow, P. O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035 and A
Norman, OK 73069; a large and diverse source of light reading, good Case Study in Shaky Science by S. F. Singer, Insight, p 37, January
literature, history, economics, and other books; orders to work alone 30 (1995) report credibility depletion in the ozone mania industry.
and uninterruptedly with these materials during his best 5 or 6 hours l Washington Legal Foundation Legal Studies Division 1995 Pub-
early each day, six days per week; a home with no TV set; a diet with lications Catalog available from WLF, 2009 Massachusetts Avenue,
no added sugar; and instructions never to attend a socialized school. N.W., Washington, DC 20036. There is a wealth of information and
Note: We know that many talented and dedicated teachers exist in ammunition for pro-technologists in WLF publications.
America. All of them should be working where their talents will be l Libertys Champion by L. H. Rockwell, The New American
appreciated and best utilized in free-enterprise, private schools. 11, No. 3 , p. 42 (1995) in memorial to Murray N. Rothbard whose
death is a substantial loss to the cause of economic freedom. Liberty
STARK RAVING MAD
needs theoreticians, and Murray Rothbard was one of the best.
l An EM Science, OSHA acceptable material safety data sheet
ACCESS TO ENERGY
warns Provide adequate general ventilation. Protect eyes and skin
with safety goggles and gloves. Do not take internally. Wash thor- Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
oughly after handling. In case of ingestion: Get medical assis- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
tance. These warnings are for sucrose (ordinary table sugar). $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
More dangerous still, Material should be handled or transferred in $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
an approved fume hood or with adequate ventilation. Protective gloves Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
should be worn to prevent skin contact. Safety glasses with side shields 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
should be worn at all times. This is advised for soluble starch. of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
APRIL 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 8) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Science, Technology, and Defense
It is generally understood that each civilization must defend itself
or it will be forcibly replaced by another civilization. This may not be
in accordance with our wishes, but it is a fact of human nature.
The founding fathers of the United States distrusted and feared
government. Nevertheless, they built a central government largely
because they deemed it necessary for national defense. They under-
stood that government could also become an engine of tyranny within
America. For this reason, they inserted strict binding limitations on
federal power into the Constitution. Tyranny has been gnawing at
those bindings for 200 years. A combined taxation rate of 50%, de-
preciating fiat money, enslavement to a vast regulatory bureaucracy,
and toleration of the murders in Waco and Idaho (they could have
happened in any country but not without punishment for those in-
volved) are indications that federal power has become too great.
Nevertheless, America is a wonderful country. Moreover, it is our
country. It is our duty to improve it where we can, to change it where
we must, and to defend it always against its enemies.
For the past century, our defense has been based upon our superior
science and technology, the productive industries that these and our
free-enterprise economy made possible, patriotic scientists and engi-
neers who devoted their lives to defense applications, and our sol-
diers, sailors, and aviators who risked their lives in combat.
Until about 1950, the possession of advanced industry, science,
and technology and maintenance of a core military organization were,
in themselves, sufficient. The nature of weapons and warfare was
such that, in the event of national peril, there was adequate time to
mobilize these assets and apply them to military needs.
After World War II, however, military technology had become so
sophisticated and the time required for its use so short that it was nec-
essary to build and maintain a modern war machine for immediate
use. Otherwise, our country could have been defeated and its citizens
enslaved in less time than was required for military mobilization.
This perpetual state of mobilization, however, weakened us with
respect to other dangers. High military expenditures weakened our
economy; fear of a continuous external threat made our people more
willing to tolerate a vast expansion of federal power; possession of
great and immediate military power tempted our leaders to engage in
military adventures of little or no relevance to our defense; and an
egotism grew within our ruling elite who came to feel that they
should dictate the affairs of the people in other sovereign countries
and in the whole world. The dangers of these side effects have grown
as the inevitable leveling effect of knowledge erodes our superiority.
Moreover, the latter two dangers gradually changed our military
preparations until they emphasized offense and de-emphasized de-
fense. While we (and our enemies) built enormous capabilities for
killing the citizens of other countries, we built essentially no defen-
sive protections for our own citizens. Our scientists and engineers de-
veloped excellent civil defense technology for protection against
chemical, biological, and nuclear attack (lifesaving in war, terrorism,
or even accidents), but this was never built for the American people.
The people of Switzerland have this defense, but we do not.
perceptive, moving, and well-reasoned discussion of the merits of im-
A PERPETUAL FRONTIER
to read. Combined with the specific Mars exploration engineering
Dr. Robert Zubrin, in his article A New Martian Frontier: Recap-
turing the Soul of America published in American Civilization, Janu-
ary 1995, p 1, 22-23 available from American Civilization, 1250 H
Street, N.W., Suite 550, Washington, DC 20005, has written the most
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
Later, our scientists and engineers developed excellent and effec-
tive technology for strategic defense. Even if we had no safe shelters
from nuclear, biological, or chemical attack, we could diminish the
effect of that attack but we have not built a strategic defense either.
Offensive military technologies have always given rise to mitigat-
ing defensive technologies. It is very dangerous for a civilization to
ignore the need for modern defenses. This danger does not arise
solely from the potential actions of a conquering enemy. Terrorism
alone could cost us our freedom. If an anthrax attack killed most of
the people in New York City or a small nuclear weapon were deto-
nated on a boat in San Diego harbor or fuel-air explosions began to
level city blocks here and there in America, what would be our na-
tional response? It is easy to imagine that our response would spawn
so much repression that we would have lost our freedom.
Some say that we should, at least, limit our risks by disengaging
from world affairs so that we have fewer enemies. This is very wise,
but the world is a small place. We cannot disengage entirely.
Others say that we should manufacture new enemies that cannot
fight back and then vent the whole worlds aggressive tendencies on
these artificial enemies. This is part of the intellectual basis for the
world environmental movement. The apocalyptic aspects of environ-
mentalism are, however, not based upon truth and are not sustainable.
Certainly we should build a civil defense and a strategic defense,
but so far this has proved politically impossible.
There is probably no single solution to this problem, but there is
one possibility that I have long thought has been overlooked.
Every human being has, within his nature, a hope for greatness a
hope that he or a group to which he belongs will be a part of some
great thing that transcends the ordinary prospects of life and death.
This hope drives not only the leaders of great human enterprises but
also the ordinary citizens who follow them. This hope has made pos-
sible some of the great accomplishments of human civilizations, but it
has also contributed substantially to the popularity of war.
War is enormously popular especially among those who have no
immediate involvement in the death and destruction. During the re-
cent Gulf War, many Americans were literally dancing in the streets
in anticipation and celebration. Tyranny sometimes makes war un-
avoidable, but it is a flaw of human nature to enjoy it. I do not think
that this flaw involves an innate desire to kill I think it is instead a
perversion of the human desire for greatness. We cannot change this
desire, but we might make better efforts to redirect it.
Consider, for example, an all-out effort for the manned (not
robotic) exploration of Mars, the colonization of the moon and Mars,
and the complete exploration of the solar system. This is an enterprise
that could capture the imagination of literally everyone on earth. It
could provide us all with the vicarious experience of being a part of a
very great undertaking. It could fill a human need that otherwise
might find destructive expression.
Our national defense should protect against all threats. We must
defend ourselves against these threats at all levels in the air, on the
sea, on the land, and, at their origins, in human minds and hearts.
mediate manned exploration of Mars that I have ever been privileged
proposals developed by Zubrin and his co-workers, this discussion
leads to the conclusion that manned settlement of Mars must be one
of the highest priorities of our civilization.
Zubrin begins by quoting a statement by Fredrick Jackson Turner
in 1893 that summarizes the thesis of his article: To the frontier the
American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness of
strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical,
inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp
of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great
ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism,
working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance
that comes from freedom these are the traits of the frontier, or traits
called out of elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.
To this, in an extraordinary text, Zubrin himself adds, Free socie-
ties are the exception in human history they have only existed during
the four centuries of frontier expansion of the West. That history is
now over. ....... The key is not to let the process stop. If it is allowed to
stop for any length of time, society will crystallize into a static form
that is inimical to the resumption of progress. ....... Mars will not allow Figure 1
itself to be settled by people from a static society those people wont
have what it takes. We still do. Mars waits today for the children of the AN UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY
old frontier, but Mars will not wait forever.
I wrote the editorial on page 1 before reading Dr. Zubrins articles. This years DDP meeting will be cosponsored by Access to Energy
The general idea is similar, but his is positive rather than negative and and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine and will be held Au-
is far more elegantly presented. America is stagnating, and her people gust 4-6 in Grants Pass, Oregon. (Use the nearby airport in Medford,
are turning inward and against science and technology turning even Oregon.) Scientists who have already agreed to speak include:
against truth, reason, freedom, and the great potential of the human Sam Cohen inventor of the neutron bomb.
spirit. Mars, the solar system, and beyond present themselves as a per- Peter Duesberg controversial challenger of the HIV hypothesis.
petual frontier that can reverse and prevent this stagnation. Martin Kamen discoverer of carbon 14.
Is this dream science fiction? Is it the $400 billion, 30-year welfare Cresson Kearny foremost authority on expedient civil defense.
program for a generation of bureaucrats with a goal of only 30 days Bruce Merrifield first man to chemically synthesize an enzyme.
on Mars that has been proposed by NASA? It is neither. Edward Teller father of the hydrogen bomb.
Zubrin proposes a ten-year, $40 billion program with two trips to Robert Zubrin whose Mars Direct proposal is discussed above.
Mars each involving a 500-day stay and the exploration of hundreds These and other speakers will emphasize the remarkable prospects
of thousands of square miles of Martian land. Subsequent yearly expe- and problems in our technological future.
ditions would set up permanent colonies and begin a project to trans- For those wishing to estimate the probable length of their own indi-
form the Martian atmosphere and colonize the entire planet. Since both vidual future, we reproduce Figure 1 taken from Temperament for
have $40 billion price tags, which do we prefer three years on Mars Longevity by Constance Holden in Science 267, p 1269 (1995). The
or the bailout of the moguls who invested imprudently in Mexico? 74-year study upon which this figure is based defined conscientious
Overviews of the proposals by Zubrin and his colleagues are pre- males and females as high IQ high school students who were rated as
sented in Mars Direct by Lance Frazer in Air and Space, April/May prudent, conscientious, truthful, and free from vanity.
1994, pp 60-65 and in Humans to Mars in 1999 by Robert Zubrin For example, the age at which 50% will be dead for currently 53-
and David Baker in Aerospace America, August 1990, pp 30-32, 41. year-old conscientious males is that where the curve crosses 0.1 + (1.0
These proposals are based upon the use of nuclear power plants to - 0.1)/2 = 0.55 or 83 years. This is a 50% life expectancy of 30 years.
transform the water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other compounds The calculated value corrects for deaths that have already been avoided
and elements on Mars into rocket fuel, fertilizer, and other materials by those who have reached 53. Parental divorce, here used as a meas-
necessary for a technological civilization. This minimizes the materials ure of social stability, reduces the life expectancy by 4 years.
that would need to be imported from Earth.
The initial flights use hydrogen imported from Earth and Martian GROWING FUEL
carbon dioxide to manufacture rocket fuel. Each group of men is pre-
ceded by an unmanned flight that establishes a nuclear powered base Figure 2 below is a diagram of a liquid metal fast breeder reactor
and synthesizes the necessary fuel for their return trip. taken from The Breeder Reactor Affordable Energy Forever by
This entire proposal is based upon already existing technology. $40 Bernard L. Cohen in 21st Century, Spring 1995, available from P. O.
billion is ten days of current U. S. government expenditures. Would it Box 16285, Washington, DC 20041. This reactor produces more fuel
not be better to use private enterprise? Of course it would. Moreover, if
Mars is colonized, the job will surely not be done by bureaucrats. The Figure 2
national defense benefits of this project alone, however, easily justify
funding the initial flights from the Department of Defense.
Two arguments that have been made against this proposal deserve
special mention. Firstly, it is said that the project for the first flights
should be drawn out over several decades. Secondly, it is said that un-
manned rather than manned flights should be used. Both are proposed
as cost saving proposals.
It must be remembered, however, that it is men who must pay the
bills for this effort, and it is men whose spirits must be inspired by this
outward reach of civilization. There is little inspiration in a project that
crawls along for 30 years, and there is little vicarious joy for most non-
technical people in the deployment of robots.
President Kennedy was right about the New Frontier of space.
Since 1970, however, America has lost her way to this frontier. Robert
Zubrin and others, such as Lowell Wood, who want to go to Mars now
may succeed in showing us the way back.
than it uses. It converts uranium 238 into plutonium 239 while it is
generating heat to produce electricity. This article also contains an ex-
cellent section demolishing the myth of unacceptable plutonium toxic-
ity. In every imaginable use, large and small, there should be a lot of
these reactors in our future.
Meanwhile, in U. S. Oil Fields Double in Size, R. A. Kerr, Sci-
ence 267, p 1090 (1995), reports that United States estimated oil re-
serves increased from 75 billion barrels to 110 billion barrels, and gas
reserves increased from 500 trillion cubic feet to over 1000 trillion cu-
bic feet between 1989 and 1995.
parlayed this hypothesis into a Nobel Prize for Peace and also a Lenin
ATMOSPHERIC OZONE AND TEMPERATURE
Pauling successfully fought the men who were building American
DEATH OF A HYPOTHESIS
When Linus Pauling died, the world lost an excellent chemist.
Moreover, as John Donne wrote, any mans death diminishes me, be-
cause I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Pauling was also one of the worlds great beneficiaries of the hy-
pothesis that cancer risk at high doses can be extrapolated smoothly to
zero with no negative values the no-threshold hypothesis. Pauling
Prize, which he told me was his favorite of the two.
nuclear weapons with the argument that they were causing great num-
bers of cancer deaths. Building on his example, a whole generation of
agitators has used this hypothesis to cripple the American nuclear
power industry and to mount an increasingly irrational attack upon
technology in general. Never, however, did Pauling or anyone else
have data to support this hypothesis.
Now there is data. The no-threshold hypothesis is clearly wrong.
Figure 5 shows this hypothesis as currently purveyed by the Interna-
tional Atomic Energy Agency in IAEA Bulletin 36-4, p 42 (1994).

Figure 3

Figure 5
One difficulty with the enviroscience feeding frenzy for more tax
money is that, in spite of the best efforts of the lowest common de-
nominators in government committees, some data does accumulate.
When that data does not support the mythology of enviroscience, the
self interests of all sorts of people are put at risk. This could not happen
to a nicer group of people.
Figure 3 from World Climate Review, 3-1, p 15 (1994), discussing
the work of J. W. Krzyscin, summarizes ozone values between 1958
and 1991 at about 30 stations located between latitudes 30 and 60
(over the Northern Hemisphere) .
Figure 4 is from Science 267, p 612 (1995) by R. A. Kerr. This in-
cludes global temperature data from balloon measurements between Note that this figure correctly portrays actual data only at high ra-
1958 and 1994 and satellite measurements between 1979 and 1994. diation doses. Until recently, there was no reliable data at low doses
the doses potentially deliverable by most radioactive waste and most
ordinary exposures to environmental levels of radiation.

Figure 4

This record shows a substantial variability over these short time in-
tervals. A longer record would doubtless show an even wider range.
Within this observed time, however, there is virtually no net
change. Ozone was about - 3% in 1958, rose as high as + 3.5%, drifted
over a 7% range, and then declined to about - 3%. (Figure 3 is normal-
ized to 0 and plotted as total percentage change.)
Temperature was 0 C in 1958, drifted over a 1.5 C range, and was
about 0 C in 1994. (Figure 4 is normalized to 0 C and plotted as de-
grees centigrade. The range in degrees Fahrenheit is about 3 degrees.)
Where does this data leave the people who have obtained large
grants of tax money on the basis that ozone reduction in the Northern
Hemisphere is already wiping out animal species (see, for example,
Fried Frogs Eggs in Access to Energy 21-9, p 4) or that global
warming is already upon us? It leaves them publishing nonscience by
press release and hoping that the taxpayers will not notice the truth. Figure 6
 Figure 6 shows experimental data from Test of the Linear-No
Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcinogenesis for Inhaled Radon De- STARK RAVING MAD
cay Products by B. L. Cohen, Health Physics 68, pp 157-174 (1995).
The lines in Figure 6 labeled theory correspond to the line la- l Mike, from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, called the Rush
beled ideally fitted linear relationship and, with slope properly re- Limbaugh program of March 17, 1995, to express his concern about
duced, also correspond to the line labeled linear term in Figure 5. his second-grade childs public school Outcome Based Education
Cohens figures use radon data from hundreds of thousands of classes. Mike became concerned when his child reported the great
homes in 1,601 counties of the United States. His paper describes de- news that all of the children in the class made the honor roll. Then
tailed examination of the possibility that this epidemiological data Mike learned about the grading system which uses a scale of M, S, or
could be biased by smoking (shown in the figures) or by any one of 53 N. An M grade on a recent spelling test required seven or fewer
other potentially confusing variables. wrong answers. M stands for most of the time; S stands for
Cohen demonstrates that, at the levels found in most American some of the time; and N stands for not yet.
homes, increased radon levels correlate with decreased lung cancer l The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a book about the contamina-
mortality. If the Pauling-Teller debates were held today, it is Teller tion of a monkey colony near Washington, DC, with a rare virus that is
who could take the moral high ground by calculating the number of sometimes fatal for humans. In this case there were no human fatali-
children who would die if Paulings view prevailed. ties, but epidemics are always a danger. Preston offers this explanation
for the existence of dangerous viruses: In a sense, the earth is mount-
THE COST OF LOST TECHNOLOGY ing an immune response against the human species. It is beginning to
react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, the dead
Figure 7, from Russian Chaos Breeds Diphtheria Outbreak by J. spots of concrete all over the planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe,
Maurice, Science 267, pp 1416-1417 (1995), illustrates one of the ef- Japan, and the United States, thick with replicating primates . Preston
fects of technological breakdown and diminished wealth in Russia. A describes the human race as a very large quantity of meat.
diphtheria epidemic has affected 80,000 people and killed 2,000. l The World Resources Institute in its February 1995 Issues
Maurice states that Russian officials are anxious to get the diph- and Ideas has launched an attack on all fully fluorinated compounds
theria epidemic out of the way so they can get on with the other prob- (FFCs). Say good-by to Teflon and all its lower molecular weight
lems of daily life, such as cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis, AIDS, and cousins. These are described as having approximately 10,000 times
even malaria. They lack, however, resources to vaccinate the Russian more global warming potential than carbon dioxide and atmospheric
people. Perhaps, as an act of charity, we should send Russia some of lifetimes of thousands of years. Maybe we should roll with this and
the money that America is wasting on the enviro craze but without trade them the FFCs for plutonium, carbon dioxide, and CFCs.
the enviros. Sending the enviros would be an act of aggression.
The average loss of life from loss of wealth and of the technology GOOD READING
that creates wealth is difficult to determine. A credible effort has been
made by R. L. Keeney (see Access to Energy 21-5, pp 1-2), who esti- l The Education of Thomas Edison by J. Powell, The Freeman,
mated one fatality per $5 million. The Russians are now determining February 1995, pp 73-76. Edison was home schooled by self-teaching
this value by experimental measurement. from well-chosen, high-quality books. He had been withdrawn by his
mother from school where the teacher classified him as addled.
Edisons method was the same in its essential characteristics as the
method we advocate as a replacement for public schools.
l Work is the Main Thing by L. E. Lehrman, Wall Street Jour-
nal, February 10, 1995, p A8. This describes the views of Abraham
Lincoln opposed to direct federal taxation except in war; favoring
equality of opportunity, but not forced equality; favoring a cooperative
relationship between labor and capital; and believing that intelligence
and labor should be allowed to lead to savings and entrepreneurship.
l AZT Falls Short for Kids with HIV in Science News 147, p
100 (1995). A study of 839 children at 62 medical centers was stopped
because those receiving AZT were deteriorating the most rapidly.
l How to Fight Terrorism and Win! by Si Frumkin in Graffiti
for Intellectuals, March 3, 1995, p 1, available from P. O. Box 1542,
Studio City, CA 91614-0542. This is an excellent monthly newsletter.
l Wasted Energy in The Wall Street Journal of March 16, 1995,
p A20. The Department of Energy has already spent $4.5 billion of a
$10.5 billion fund created from a special tax on nuclear generated elec-
tricity to provide for waste disposal. None has been provided. One gem
all of the radioactive waste from American nuclear power plants for
the last 30 years would cover just one football field three yards deep.
l Right to Read Report of December 1994, from 3220 N. St.
NW, Suite 174, Washington, DC 20007, in defense of phonics against
efforts to substitute other methods that do not work.

ACCESS TO ENERGY

Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Figure 7 Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MAY 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 9) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
A Sinking Ship
Access to Energy receives a steady stream of mail describing new
ideas about science and technology. The majority of these have com-
mercial application but lack the capital required for a trial in the mar-
ketplace. Most of these ideas clearly have some merit. We are not
qualified to evaluate them all and lack the capital to help any of them.
Moreover, like many technologists, we have our own ideas that we
are certain have great merit, but we do not have the resources to im-
plement these ideas either. Competition for resources is, of course, an
ordinary characteristic of a free market. Many ideas are not imple-
mented. Today, however, there are greatly reduced total resources.
The American miracle was built by ten generations of productive
men and women with millions of ideas
about science and technology that were
filtered and refined in the free market.
The dams, bridges, chemical plants,
mines, railroads, farms, power plants,
electronics and other technological ac-
complishments that surround us are the
result of that 10 generations of work and
of the great human accomplishments that
preceded and made that work possible.
It is evident today, however, that this
progress is being brought to a halt, and
that the fruits of the earlier ten genera-
tions of progress are gradually being
withdrawn from the American people.
Figure 1 showing average real wages in
the United States adapted from an ad for
the newsletter Strategic Investment avail-
able from 824 E. Baltimore St., Balti-
more, MD 21202 is only one of hundreds
of quantitative measures of this decline.
Surely, there are still areas of progress.
The computer industry is the most spec-
tacular example. Overall, however, our
industries are undercapitalized and many are actually being torn
down. In a typical American household, two people now work in a
gradually losing effort to maintain a standard of living that was easily
available to one-worker families a generation ago.
As resources decline, 250 million people are scrambling to obtain
a greater share of a diminishing total a scramble that takes place
primarily in the paper world of office buildings. Our previous genera-
tions built bridges, dams, factories, railroads, and even the techno-
logical infrastructure for manned exploration of other planets. The
remnants of their accomplishments are all around us. What have we
added to this? Our most visible accomplishments are the enormous
office buildings that have transformed the skylines of our cities
office buildings in which many of our brightest people, including al-
most a million lawyers, compete for shares of what remains of our
country. So distorted has become our outlook that many Americans
now believe that information is a substitute for productive work.
with cancer, especially lung cancer, which we have featured several
RADON AND HUMAN AGING
hens experiments have enormous importance.
Burying False Assumptions About Radiation Risk by Bernard
L. Cohen, published in Citizen Outlook, available from P.O. Box
65722, Washington, DC 20035 is a short article summarizing Cohens
finding that radon concentration in homes is negatively correlated
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
Why do we no longer have the resources to maintain our industrial
infrastructure and to extend it to the creation of the spectacular world
that is now technologically possible? Why do most indicators of our
individual economic freedom look like this graph of real wages?
Some might answer that our technology is being crippled primar-
ily through overregulation. The real answer, however, is in the phe-
nomenon that makes this regulation possible oppressive taxation
that entirely exceeds the productive capacity of our nation.
The marginal tax rate for a self-employed, single Oregon resident
with over $22,100 taxable income is now 28% (federal income) +
9% (state) + 15% (social security) = 52%. For a head-of-household,
this rate starts at $29,600. Then there are
property taxes and, in most localities (not
in Oregon), sales tax. Alternatively, a
comparison of government taxation at all
levels and national expenditures for all
goods and services shows that govern-
ment taxes away about 50% of all earn-
ings by all Americans.
Moreover, a substantial part of those
earnings are actually being created by
the productive legacy of the past. They
were actually earned by Americans in
previous generations and are not a prod-
uct of our current efforts. If we allot only
20% of our earnings to that capital leg-
acy, then taxation of new earnings is actu-
ally about 70%. The remaining 30% is
not enough for us to feed, clothe, and
house ourselves and pay our hirelings in
the office buildings to try to protect us
from further predation. Therefore, we are
spending the nations capital by not re-
placing and maintaining our industrial
base, and we are spending the inheritance
of future generations by not implementing many of the industrial and
scientific ideas that are technologically feasible for our generation.
The American dream has become a sinking ship as our genera-
tions economic freedom and the legacies of ten previous generations
of economic freedom are taxed away by an economic tyranny.
Do our taxes buy anything? Yes, they buy national defense and a
justice system. They also buy legions of regulators who increase our
misery. Mostly, they buy awards for citizens in recognition of their
nonproductivity and for armies of bureaucrats with negative produc-
tivity; and they buy the enforcement apparatus necessary to levy fines
against all citizens who are productive with a sliding scale that pun-
ishes the more productive with proportionally higher fines.
This cannot be fixed by politicians who debate the merits of cut-
ting taxes by a small amount or by presidential candidates who prom-
ise not to raise our taxes. Over half of our taxes should be abolished.
Americans must peacefully take their economic freedom back.
times in Access to Energy. We keep writing about this because Co-
First, if the no-threshold hypothesis by which low-dose radiation
health risks are currently estimated falls, our technological environ-
ment will improve greatly. Remove the fear of low-level radiation
from radioactive byproducts of power plants and from the power
plants themselves, and nuclear power will markedly lower our energy
costs and thereby improve the prospects of industry and technology.
Moreover, the antitechnology hysteria nurtured by pseudoenviron-
mentalism and its various mutations is based, in large part, upon the
unreasoning fear of radiation. Fear is a very powerful motivater of
human beings. Remove this fear, and much of the antitechnology
movement is likely to collapse.
Second, as shown in the figure on page 2 of the April 1994 Access
to Energy, 21-8 article about the research of Bruce Ames and his co-
workers, the incidence of cancer rises so sharply with age that it be-
comes the ultimate determinant of lifespan for all humans who manage
to escape earlier death from heart disease, accidents, or other killers.
No matter how well one manages to avoid the other causes of
death, there is an impenetrable wall of rising cancer probability waiting
for each person of advanced age. While it is to be hoped that funda-
mental discoveries in molecular biology may eventually provide a
door through that wall, our only current option is to push the wall back
as many years as possible by maximization of our defenses and, once
cancer strikes, minimization of cancer growth rate. A reasonable guess
is that human life span might be increased by 10 to 25% by this means.
Cohen has reported a threshold that discredits the way in which the
health risks of radiation are calculated. He has also reported a negative
correlation between cancer and radon which has significant implica-
tions for the human lifespan.
This is not a newly reported phenomenon. The books by T. D.
Luckey, which have been recommended many times in Access to En-
ergy, summarize a very large number of observations that are collec-
tively known as hormesis, the beneficial effect on health of low-level
ionizing radiation. Taken together, these many reports constitute what
is referred to in science as a mounting evidence for argument. Not until they are entirely definitive. While this might be partly done by
common in physics or chemistry, this sort of argument is very com-
mon in biology where experimental systems are more complicated and
definitive experiments are much more rare.
It is likely, for example, that daily ingestion of 500 to 1000 mg of
vitamin C, as has been recommended by health food gurus for over 50
years, is beneficial to the health of some people. This is, however, a
likelihood supported entirely by the preponderance of evidence from
many nondefinitive experiments. They constitute a mounting evi-
dence for argument. While this kind of argument is sufficient for a
current guess about moderate and probably harmless amounts of vita-
min C supplements, it is not sufficient to resolve the no-threshold de-
bate. That resolution must be based upon excellent science. Excellent
science requires a definitive experiment.
It is for this reason that we have devoted so many articles to Co-
hens work. Radon vs. lung cancer experiments have the necessary in-
gredients to be definitive to be unassailably correct. Scientific
advance requires only one such experiment regardless of whether or
not there are hundreds of nondefinitive experiments to the contrary
(which in this case there are not).
Cohen clearly realizes this. He has devoted a very substantial effort
to what Feynman would say (see page one, Access to Energy January
1994, 21-5) is his highest obligation as a scientist to prove himself
wrong. Ignoring the many hormesis experiments that might be cited to
buttress his case, he has focused on the primary weakness of his own
work that correlation does not prove causality. He has tried to destroy
the negative radon and cancer correlation by means of 54 socioeco-
nomic variables, 7 climatic variables, and other parameters that might
mediate or cause the correlation. This effort has, so far, failed.
An especially important, possibly confounding variable is cigarette
smoking. Cohen has, therefore, corrected his data for this by using
cigarette tax and census bureau data as measures of the amount of
smoking in the 1601 U.S. counties in the radon study. This is espe-
cially important because not only can smoking cause cancer, but also
Cohen has found a correlation between radon levels and smoking.
Smokers tend to live in houses with lower radon levels. (This may be
because smokers tend to prefer better ventilated houses.) In any case,
correction for smoking has, in Cohens work, left the negative radon
and cancer correlation intact to the extent of 20 standard deviations.
Now, Cohen is getting some help. Robert Ehrlich (George Mason
University, Fairfax, VA 22030) has submitted a paper to Health Phys-
ics entitled Possible Evidence for a Threshold Exposure in Radon-In-
duced Lung Cancer. Ehrlich is not satisfied with the corrections for
smoking that Cohen has made. He corrects the data in a different way
and calculates a result from which he suggests two things: 1. There is a
threshold below which ionizing radiation does not induce lung cancer
the no-threshold hypothesis is wrong. 2. There is no negative correla-
tion between lung cancer and radon ionizing radiation does not, in
this case, reduce cancer risk. Ehrlich does not think that hormesis is
demonstrated by Cohens experimental results.
Evaluation of Ehrlichs arguments, regardless of the fact that they
are surrounded by equations, calculations, and graphs in his paper, is
necessarily somewhat subjective because they rest on preferences con-
cerning imprecise data about smoking. Personally, I prefer Cohens
corrections and result, but my preference is, of course, irrelevant. Also
irrelevant is the fact that Cohens result is more effective ammunition
with which to attack the antitechnologists. Attacking ones competi-
tion with incorrect arguments is an ultimately losing proposition a
lesson that I fear will be learned the hard way by our friends in the
nuclear power industry who are busily promoting global warming be-
cause their nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide.
No doubt Ehrlichs paper will be seized upon by both his antitech-
nology enemies and those of Cohen, who are in real trouble regardless
of which smoking correction is used. The sound bites will be some-
thing like radon study discredited by smoking data (pun intended).
The current Cohen experiments, even as interpreted by Ehrlich, can
serve as ammunition against the anti-nukes, and we intend to use them
in this way. It is imperative, however, that these experiments be refined
more theoretical work, the final answer can be given by an
epidemiological study in which the confounding variables, especially
smoking, are recorded for each individual human in the study.
Will this be done correctly? How much confidence do you have in
science by government committee?
If I were an aging multimillionaire (there are many), I would get
these two men in a room, ask them how much money they need to do
this job right, and give it to them. The result and simple action based
upon the result might add a couple of years to that multimillionaires
personal life (regardless of its implications for the rest of us).
What will actually happen in the absence of such a self-interested
benefactor? If these scientists advertise enough, someone will decide
that the study should be done with someone elses money. Tax
money is the usual source that comes to such minds, but they might
even think of the resources of private foundations or other agencies
all of which share the characteristic that decisions sink to the lowest
common denominator of committee nonthought.
After compromising with the committees administering someone
elses money, the scientists will do the best they can, but probably not
enough. So, years later, we may still get to write articles in Access to
Energy weighing the evidence, trying not to pretend that it is defini-
tive, and uncertain as to what actions to base upon it.
My advice to Cohen and Ehrlich is to summarize the problem, its
implications, and the cost of solving it in about four paragraphs and
send the ad not to the government, not to large foundations but to
The Wall Street Journal.
In 1976, I had the problem of finding research money for several
ideas that were not popular with committees. One evening, around
midnight, I became so frustrated that I started writing ads for The Wall
Street Journal. I ultimately wrote and published four. These ads were
so successful that they and follow-up actions by my wife Laurelee and
me funded much of the research.
The first ad was entitled For Sale One thousand mice with ma-
lignant cancer - $138 each (delivered after the research). That ad was
so popular it was shown full screen on the CBS television evening
news. The others were We are bearish on sugar and bullish on Vita-
min C, Wanted - Executives Between the Ages of 75 and 100
years, and We Predict that Urine will break 2,000 before 1980.
 formed on the whole earth as it is and as it has actually reacted to in-
A COOL EXPERIMENT
a half. During the most recent 15 year build-up of dangerous green-
As some of our friends in the nuclear power business are suckered
by their own lack of principles into beating the drums for global warm-
ing (nukes produce no CO2) and thereby providing aid to their ene-
mies, experimental evidence accumulates to discredit this scam. The
best recent summary of this is The Global Warming Experiment
available for $6 from the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street,
N.W., Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036-4505.
There is no dispute as to the existence of the greenhouse effect and
the general role of certain substances including carbon dioxide in
warming the earth, although the quantitative nature of this phenome-
non is poorly understood. The greenhouse effect has been blown into a
lucrative crisis by the enviro industry and its retainers, however, on the
basis of erroneous models that predict rapid and extensive warming
from the effluents of technology and agriculture. It is now evident,
from excellent experimental data, that these models are wrong. This is
not surprising given the complications of atmospheric chemistry and
physics, but it is unpleasant indeed for those who have built careers and
fortunes by feeding public fear of global warming.
Figure 2
Figures 2 and 3, reproduced from the Marshall Institute publication,
summarize the experiments. In these two figures, actual measurements
of global and arctic temperatures by satellite observation are compared
to the temperatures predicted by the models used by the global warm-
ing industry. These observations are free from significant error. They
take into account all relevant variables because they have been per-
Figure 3
creased concentrations of greenhouse gases during the past decade and
house gases, global temperatures have cooled at the rate of - 0.06C per
decade, while arctic temperatures cooled at the rate of - 0.37C per
decade during the 40 years between 1950 and 1990.
TEA TIME
The Arizona Legislature has passed and Arizona Governor Fife
Symington has signed into law the following House Bill 2236:
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona: Section 1.
Title 49, chapter 3, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by
adding section 49-409, to read: 49-409, Chlorofluorocarbons: permit-
ted use: retaliation prohibited.
A. Notwithstanding any other law, a person may possess, use,
manufacture, purchase, install, transport or sell chlorofluorocarbons.
B. The possession, use, manufacture, purchase, installation, trans-
portation or sale of chlorofluorocarbons does not subject any person,
this state or any political subdivision of this state to any penalty, fine,
retaliatory action or other punitive measure.
Governor Symington is quoted on page one of the April 14, 1995
issue of the Tucson Citizen as having said in reference to the federal
chlorofluorocarbon ban and House Bill 2236, Just because its a law
doesnt mean its sacred and that it shouldnt be challenged . . . . Where
would we be today if Americans hadnt stood up and said, Weve had
enough, your tea is going in the harbor?
TOO GOOD TO MISS
The August 4-6 Grants Pass, Oregon meeting of DDP co-sponsored
by Access to Energy and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
now includes some additional speakers.
Sallie Baliunas is staff astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory and Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson
Institute. She is also Chairman of the Science Advisory Board of the
George Marshall Institute, one of the foremost groups of scientists
working in opposition to the misuse of science in human affairs.
Jane Orient is Executive Director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons and a practicing physician. See A Medicare
Prescription by Jane Orient, the lead editorial in the Wall Street Jour-
nal for April 24, 1995 (p A12), for an example of why Dr. Orient is
Americas most effective physician opponent of socialized medicine.
Lowell Wood, 1995 recipient of the Edward Teller award to be pre-
sented by Dr. Teller at the meeting, is the principal scientist in charge
of development of the Brilliant Pebble strategic defense system and
originator of a low-cost program for manned exploration of Mars.
Conrad Chester was the last Director of the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory civil defense research program and is an internationally
recognized authority on the use of explosive, chemical, and biological
weapons in terrorism and war.
Ed York began as chief photographer for the Manhattan Project and
became Americas foremost authority on the design of blast protective
structures for military and civilian defense.
These are in addition to those already announced:
Sam Cohen inventor of the neutron bomb.
Peter Duesberg challenger of the AIDS and HIV hypothesis.
Martin Kamen discoverer of carbon 14.
Cresson Kearny foremost authority on expedient civil defense.
Bruce Merrifield Nobel Laureate for first synthesis of an enzyme.
Edward Teller father of American nuclear defense.
Robert Zubrin originator of the Mars Direct exploration plan.
Attendance, including two days of lectures, two lunches, and the
awards banquet at the Riverside Inn in Grants Pass (near Medford,
Oregon) costs a total of $95. If you wish to attend, send a check for $95
payable to DDP, Access to Energy, or the Oregon Institute of Science
and Medicine to P.O. Box 1250, Cave Junction, OR 97523.

MINIATURIZED FREEDOM
The Incredible Shrinking Laboratory by Robert F. Service in
Science 268, pp 26-27 (1995) summarizes recent developments in ef-
forts to carry out analytical chemistry using miniaturized apparatus en-
graved on silicon chips. The initial primitive devices look like tiny
versions of the centrifugal analyzers pioneered by Robert Melville and
his colleagues for the clinical laboratory two decades ago. Developers
are thinking of them as improved technology for the analytical labo-
ratory. Conceptually better combinations of this miniature technol-
ogy are possible and will undoubtedly be produced.
Most people, however, are missing the greater point. Just as mini-
aturized computer technology has made the capabilities of the old large
computer centers available to any office or home, so the miniaturiza-
tion of analytical technology will bring this capability to any individual
with a personal computer and a desk. We now have decentralization of
information. We are going to have decentralization of analytical phys-
ics and chemistry. Consider just one application.
Suppose you could buy a device about the size and cost of a laser
printer that would carry out daily analysis of a few hundred chemical
components in your breath and urine. (Blood, too, if you dont mind
the pin pricks.) Daily monitoring of your personal chemistry and that
of the other members of your family coupled with interpretive soft-
ware that can already easily be produced could allow your personal
health care to be reduced largely to fighting the probability of disease
rather than disease itself. Years, perhaps even a decade or more, might
be added to your individual lifespan, and your overall quality of life
would be increased substantially.
Such devices even have potential to quantitatively measure the rate
of aging. Would you like immediate feedback from your computer
about the personal biological cost of each action you take such as
changes in diet, exercise, or other daily habits?
I can provide no reference because I have not heard this or seen it
written. I predict, however, (20% off your 2005 subscription to Access
to Energy if Im wrong) that within ten years you will be able to buy
such a device as an ordinary peripheral for your personal computer.
This is the clearest explanation I have seen of the reasons that commit-
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
that most of their individual members would consider immoral, dis-
They should have just pulverized or solublized it and then dispersed
it in the deep ocean where it would be so diluted as to be completely
harmless and almost undetectable, but our government is determined
that all radioactive waste will be stored in one large pile where it can
remain dangerous for as long as possible.
Even this pile, sufficiently secured underground, will be quite safe,
but creating it seems to be beyond bureaucratic abilities. Over $10 bil-
lion has been collected in energy taxes under the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act of 1982 for this purpose, and half of this has already been spent.
The legislation requires that the Yucca Mountain depository begin to
receive waste by 1998. Now our government says it will not be ready
until 2010 (far enough in the future for this crowd to retire and leave
the next delay to another gaggle of decision makers). Now they are
getting help from their friends in the press who are publicizing an erro-
neous suggestion that the whole depository could self-destruct in a nu-
clear explosion. This is not possible, but fear is their stock in trade.
Fred Upton (R-Michigan) and Edolphus Towns (D-New York)
have recently introduced legislation to force the Department of Energy
to provide nuclear storage and disposal facilities starting in 1998. Let
DOE provide temporary storage until permanent storage is available,
rather than requiring this of a nuclear industry that has already paid the
special taxes required for this purpose.
This ongoing debacle has been described in numerous industry
publications. A good five-page summary is in the March 1995 issue of Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
Nuclear Energy Insight available from the Nuclear Energy Institute, $35
1776 I Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006-3708.
Even the government is mad at the government. The Department of Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
Defense has no place to dispose of spent fuel from nuclear submarines. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
STARK RAVING MAD
l Citizen Outlook for March 1995 available from P. O. Box 65722,
Washington, DC 20035 reports that Maurice Strong, internationalist
super-enviro who presided over the Rio Earth Summit, calls his home
The Valley of the Refuge of World Truths and is a founding mem-
bers of a group that calls itself the New Age Planetary Citizens.
Strong also has a ranch in Colorado complete with Vedic earth god-
dess worship and a Temple to the Sun God.
l Liberal Greens, Mainstream Camouflage by S. R. Lichter in
The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1995 p A12 describes the new na-
tional strategy of the enviros to paint themselves as mainstream as
opposed to the extremists who now control Congress. Polls of the
views of the senior staffers and directors of the large enviro organiza-
tions reveal their mainstream views: 75% favor increased taxes; 59%
favor saving all species regardless of cost; 80% favor confiscation of
private property without compensation; and 93% voted for Clinton.
Mad perhaps, but only Stark Raving Mad because they think
they can promote these views as majority American values.
l The PC Assault on Science by Wray Herbert in U. S. News
and World Report, February 20, 1995 pp 64-65 describes science
criticism and cultural studies courses that have become popular in
the humanities departments of many major universities in the United
States. These courses teach that science is a sexist, racist, classist,
capitalist plot and that science is simply meaningless. They teach
that the fundamental assertions of science . . . . are a mass delusion or
a deliberate deception concocted by a power-hungry priesthood. We
should have compassion for these people. Now that pseudoscientists of
the enviro industry have seized the limelight of socialism, what else
can frustrated activist humanities professors do to get attention?
GOOD READING
l Very good reading is the AAPS (1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Ste 9,
Tucson, AZ 85716) reprint of the Foundation of Economic Education
1949 publication of Leonard Reads essay On that Day Began Lies.
tees, organizations, governments and other group bodies act in ways
honest, or imprudent as personal action.
l The Endangered Species Act: Making Innocent Species the En-
emy by Richard L. Stroup, PERC Policy Series, edited by Jane S.
Shaw, Issue PS-3, April 1995, 22 pages, available from PERC, 502
South 19th Avenue, Suite 211, Bozeman, MT 59715 for $3 each.
Since it creates an adversarial relationship of people vs. animals and
plants, the actual effects of this Act are counterproductive.
l Asbestos Risk - Fact or Fiction by Ted Eyde in The Torch,
4-2, pp 1,4-7, April 1995 available from 4060 E. 4th St., Tucson, AZ
85711. This is a good historical summary of the tragedy of the asbestos
industry, which has been largely destroyed by ignorance and lies. It is
estimated that compliance with the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Act
will cost over $150 billion.
l Articles on pages 3, 4, 14, 18, and 32 of Atom, Issue 437 available
from AEA Technology, 329 Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0RA, Eng-
land (or a good library) about nuclear power progress in Iran, Russia,
and China as compared with the United States and predicting increased
world wide demand for uranium. The advance of nuclear power is un-
stoppable. The only question is who will lead it.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JUNE 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 10) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Verbalize
Scientists and technologists have many opponents and a few ac-
tual enemies, but our greatest real enemy is ignorance both in others
and in ourselves. The language we speak, mathematics, and the tech-
nical subjects that we speak about can be understood by anyone who
has made a special effort to learn them. That effort, however, requires
so much time and expense that most people are not willing to under-
take it. Moreover, professional scientists require many years of for-
mal training and must acquire study habits which continue that
training throughout their lives.
Each science student must not only learn a substantial amount of
factual information; he must also learn to think quantitatively and
with rigorous honesty about his subject.
There has been a tendency in science to teach to those who learn
easily and to forget the others. Those forgotten others, comprising
most of our fellow citizens, are now coming back to haunt us as they
respond to the demagogues of pseudoscience and antitechnology a
response conditioned upon their lack of understanding of science.
When I taught 300 students each year at the University of Califor-
nia at San Diego, this skimming procedure was the norm. The stu-
dents read the best chemistry text available; listened to three lectures
by me each week; attended laboratory twice weekly; and endured ex-
aminations at two-week intervals. In addition, every evening (five
days each week) I returned to the lecture hall and answered questions
until no students remained. The same 30 to 40 students came each
evening. I doubt that more than 25% of the 300 students learned
much from the course or that more than 10% mastered the material.
One student learned a great amount of science from these fresh-
man chemistry courses the professor. I found that my active knowl-
edge of my subject increased substantially. Obviously, I already had
good passive knowledge, the ability to understand. Active knowl-
edge, however, is understanding so complete that all aspects of the
subject are spontaneously used in everyday thought and work.
I have noticed that many of the best research scientists prefer to
teach general introductory courses. The poorer scientists frequently
prefer to teach advanced courses. They prefer specialized subjects from Louis Publishing, 1105 Inverness Lane, Bellingham, WA
close to their research fields that require little thought or preparation.
The desire to teach introductory courses is often explained in
terms of the professors enthusiasm for teaching and stimulation by
young minds. I have often suspected, however, that desire to person-
ally relearn the basics of their subject is a primary motivation. This is,
of course, not admitted. How many chemistry professors would ad-
mit to less than perfect knowledge of freshman chemistry?
This learning takes place while one is lecturing. It is a mental
process linked to oral presentation. I have also noticed that my best
research ideas occur when I am speaking with others about the re-
search whether or not the listeners contribute to the ideas.
Now, with the six students in my home school, I am definitely not
interested in skimming off only those who learn easily. I am deter-
mined that each will learn the material well. This is the sort of moti-
vation that the educators of science and technology need to bring to
society at large. If most of our fellow citizens remain ignorant about
synthesized peptide from its polystyrene support by means of a reac-
SIX ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
perature that might work. Luckily, these reaction conditions worked,
It is remarkable how apparently quantitative and objective stand-
ards can actually enter our intellectual environment from subjective
processes and, once there, become firmly entrenched. One night in the
lab, as a graduate student, I decided to try to cleave a solid-phase
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
science and technology, we will continue to be in political trouble
from those who misuse that ignorance to personal advantage. The
same holds true for ignorance about the moral and practical advan-
tages of free enterprise.
Our home school is entirely self-taught by the students. Science is
not taught until mathematics through introductory calculus has been
completed by means of the excellent Saxon Math series of books.
(We recently interviewed John Saxon, the writer of these books. In-
terestingly, he does not think of them as self-teaching texts for use
outside of organized classrooms, but they work very well in this use.)
After the children finish Saxon calculus, they receive General
Chemistry by Pauling and The Mechanical Universe Mechanics
and Heat, Advanced Edition by Frautschi, Olenick, Apostol, and
Goodstein. When they finish The Mechanical Universe, they get Be-
yond the Mechanical Universe from Electricity to Modern Physics
by Olenick, Apostol, and Goodstein. They must read these books and
work half the problems in the chemistry book and all of the problems
in the physics books. They check their own answers and correct their
own mistakes. They are also asked to read at their leisure (without a
requirement to fully understand) the first volume of Lectures on
Physics by Feynman, Leighton, and Sands. All of these books have
been used as freshman texts for physics and chemistry at Caltech.
Zachary (age 18) is finished with this; Noah (age 17) is in the mid-
dle of it; and Arynne (age 15) has started it, having finished Saxon.
All three have good math ability, with unrecentered SAT math scores
of 750, 770, and 690 (a practice exam) respectively. The three vary,
however, in their ability to absorb information from reading alone.
I noticed that Noah was experiencing a difficulty identical to my
own experience when I was his age. One reads the book but doesnt
really absorb it. Problem solving becomes an exercise in scrambling
back through the text looking for formulas and combining these with
computing tricks such as dimensional analysis. As the physics ad-
vanced, his error rate grew as high as 30%.
Then we read The Overnight Student by M. L. Jones, available
98226, Ph. (206) 647-3229. This book advocates that the student be-
come an oral teacher of an imaginary class.
Noah tried this. Now, for about an hour each day, he closets him-
self in the press room where we have installed the equipment used to
print and mail Access to Energy. There, he teaches the physics orally
in small segments to an imaginary audience as he reads through the
book. Students are naturally shy. None of us has heard him do this.
The result his study time is reduced; he understands the material
better; and his problem solving error rate has fallen essentially to 0%.
Some children are very talkative during the first few years of life,
whereas others are quiet. Perhaps the talkative ones develop a tech-
nique for mental verbalization while reading when they are older.
Teaching others is a great way to learn; teaching orally is espe-
cially useful; and teaching science to our fellow citizens is essential to
the cultural survival of science, technology, and freedom. Verbaliza-
tion is a technique that can be of great value to this educational effort.
tion in liquid hydrogen fluoride. I just guessed at the time and tem-
but I never found time to investigate further and determine the ideal
conditions. During the next 20 years, this procedure was used in the
synthesis of many thousands of peptides, but it was not changed.
Each chemist carefully repeated the reaction conditions that I guessed
in the lab that night as though these had been carefully determined
experimentally. The procedure was acceptable, but it would have
been much better if the reaction conditions had been optimized.
Quirks of human nature produce many guesses that become real be- Figure 1
cause so many people notice them. Commodity and stock traders are
very familiar with these. No silver trader can live without the price $6
engraved on his subconscious. Remember the many times the Dow
stock average bounced off 1,000? Now it is rushing toward 5,000 (or
perhaps 10,000). No one knows for sure where it will bounce down-
ward, but, when the smoke clears, it will probably have bounced from
a magic number. This is not numerology. It is the self-fulfilling na-
ture of human psychology.
These sorts of oddities or entrenched micromanias generally cause
little harm and provide some profits for those who understand them.
When they become embedded in the minds of government bureau-
crats, however, the potential for harm is substantial.
The Myth of 10-6 as a Definition of Acceptable Risk by K. A.
Kelly and N. C. Cardon, EPA Watch Vol. 3 available from 14140-L
Parke Long Court, Chantilly, VA 22021, phone (703) 968-9768 dis-
cusses a particularly onerous example.
A million (106 or six orders of magnitude) and its reciprocal are
firmly entrenched in our psychology. Regardless of inflation, people
still hope for a million dollars although, as Bunker Hunt said, even a
billion dollars doesnt buy what it used to.
Kelly and Cardon searched throughout the Federal and state agen-
cies for a source of the commonly accepted notion that 10-6 (one mil- position. On the other hand, it is marvelous that good outfielders make
lionth) represents a rational level of risk for environmental so many catches in which they are running all the way and arrive per-
pollutants or their effects. Neither those agencies nor their fellow fectly at the ball only just as it arrives at the ground. The LOT hypothe-
travelers in the enviro industry could give a rational answer. Appar- sis explains this.
ently 10-6 just seemed like a good idea at the time and gradually be- As the authors mention, their hypothesis explains why fielders run
came entrenched as various non-thinking entities parroted one another. into walls chasing uncatchable fly balls [because they are out of the
The application of 10-6 as an acceptable level for chemicals at baseball field] and why they do not rush ahead to the ball destination
hazardous waste sites has been such a good idea that estimates for point, choosing instead to catch the ball while running. The LOT
cleaning up all currently designated sites are as high a trillion dollars. model [also] explains why balls hit to the side are easier to catch.
Even Bunker Hunt would consider that real money. Recent EPA at- Curvature of the LOT trajectory is easy to detect and compensate by
tempts to apply this standard to hazardous waste incinerator rules have running, whereas accurate ball acceleration measurement [needed for a
led to an estimate of $288 million per case of cancer avoided (with the ball hit directly at the fielder] is much more difficult to achieve.
actual cost probably much higher). Most importantly, the paper reports experimental curves of out-
From pesticides and food additives to ground water contamination fielders actually catching fly balls. In these experiments, the paths and
and smokestack emissions, Federal bureaucrats are sacrificing our varying speeds of the fielders along the ground have been transformed
wealth and health upon the altar of 10-6. As the fire licks around our by calculation to show that they were just those necessary to maintain
knees, this knowledge may not save us, but it is satisfying to know that linear optical trajectories.
even our government has no rational basis for the use of this standard. This is apparently a general technique. Cited are references to pa-
pers showing similar procedures used by airplane pilots, mating preda-
FLY BALLS tors, and feeding fish and houseflies.
For most of us, this knowledge comes too late in life to parlay into
How Baseball Outfielders Determine Where to Run to Catch Fly baseball careers. Maybe, however, it could be adapted to give us a sur-
Balls by M. K. McBeath, D. M. Shaffer, and M. K. Kaiser, Science vival edge on the Los Angeles freeways.
268 pp 569-573 (1995) is a joy to read. First, it is good science applied
to a subject that brings back memories of successes and failures on the
WARMER SUPERCONDUCTORS
baseball field for most Americans. Second, the paper does not acknow-
ledge tax-financed support or pander to any politically correct group. Los Alamos National Laboratory has reported the production of su-
Science still shows signs of life. perconducting ribbons that, operating at a temperature of 77K, can
A combination of theory and experiment, the authors basic hy- carry current densities of one million amperes per cm2 in the absence
pothesis is that outfielders manage to arrive at the proper place to catch of a magnetic field and 500,000 amperes per cm2 even in an 8 tesla
a fly ball by maintaining a linear optical trajectory or LOT. This is il- field. See summary in Science 268 p 644 by R. F. Service.
lustrated in Figure 1 reproduced from their paper. By comparison, No. 12 copper wire can carry about 800 amperes
The angle is the observed angle of ball movement with respect to per cm2. A temperature of 77K is maintainable with liquid nitrogen.
the horizon. If the outfielder runs so that the image that he sees of the Liquid nitrogen currently costs about 25 cents per gallon and is moder-
ball rises linearly along the line rising at angle from home plate, he ately long-lived in properly insulated containers. It is manufactured
will automatically run directly under the ball as it reaches the ground. from air, so it could even be made at the point of use in large scale
Maintenance of this linear optical trajectory requires that he run in a applications.
curved path at varying speed, but it eliminates the very difficult prob- Many of the anticipated first uses for warm superconductors in-
lem of optically measuring the trajectory of the ball and mentally cal- volve production of magnetic fields such as in electric motors, electro-
culating its path and destination. magnets for medical imaging, and frictionless levitated passenger and
Obviously, not all fly balls are tracked in this fashion. We have no- freight trains. These new superconductors are especially important be-
ticed, however, that outfielders who run and camp under the ball often cause, unlike earlier versions, they retain most of their superconductiv-
need a little dive at the catch to make up for miscalculation of their ity even in significant magnetic fields.
 in the laboratory was treated as a major event by health and safety per-
THE FOOD BOMB
metallic mercury is harmless. Breathing mercury vapor is the worst
The True State of the Planet edited by Ronald Baily for the Com-
petitive Enterprise Institute, published by The Free Press, 866 Third
Avenue, New York, NY 10022, 450 pages, $12, phone 1-800-323-
7445, is an excellent set of essays on everything from pesticides to
global warming. We strongly recommend it.
One of the books many figures is reproduced below as Figure 2.
From the World Resources Database, World Resources Institute / DSC
Dataservices Inc., Washington, D.C., Figure 2 is normalized to 100 for
1979-1981. Although Paul Ehrlichs population bomb that would have
left us all starving in the dark before 1980 turned out to be a dud, it is
clear from this graph that we do have a developing food problem.
What are we going to do with the looming enormous surplus?
Figure 2
Maybe the government could open a waste disposal site in Nevada
Figure 3 is from Nuclear Issues 17 No. 4, April 1995 available from
because food is loaded with radioactivity, but what will we do until the
disposal site is ready in 2050? There is one obvious solution more
people. This is one race that technology cannot be allowed to win!
More seriously, does this graph tell us anything about the millions
of unfortunate people who are currently starving? There is a surplus of
food, but there is also a surplus of government meddlers. Technology
and free enterprise created the farming methods that have produced
most of this food. If technology, free enterprise, and normal human
compassion, where necessary, were allowed to distribute it, suffering
by starvation could be as rare as smallpox.
ENVIRONMENTAL MERCURY
The excesses of pseudoenvironmentalism and of New Age natu-
ralism are enough to cause a reaction of repulsion in anyone who
thinks rationally and is interested in objective truth as opposed to mys-
ticism. Conditioned by having correctly rejected seemingly endless
claims that specific products of technology are creeping into our bodies
to do us harm, there is a human tendency to reject all such possibilities
without further investigation. This is a further harm that the mystics do.
They discredit by association certain sensible considerations.
When I studied nutrition and cancer in mice many years ago, we
determined dose-response curves for several individual nutrients. We
also conducted the first rigorous laboratory experiments showing the
beneficial effects of fruit and vegetable diets in reducing cancer
growth. I was always looking for clues in the alternative health litera-
ture that might have merit, even though it was obvious that much of
that literature is nonsense. Some of the things of interest were so politi-
cally incorrect that I used codes for them on my office chalkboard, so
that visitors would not be offended.
The 1970 Handbook of Chemistry and Physics uses italics to warn,
It is therefore important that mercury be handled with the utmost
care after commenting about its toxicity and ability to enter the body
even through unbroken skin. The Merck Index also warns of mercury
toxicity. In the 1950s, long before the OSHA madness, a mercury spill
sonnel. Yet the Merck Index also says that occasional swallowing of
hazard. Of course, the dose makes the poison, but what about the mer-
cury that most of us have in our amalgam dental fillings?
The benefits and risks of dental amalgam by S. B. Corbin and
W. G. Kohn, JADA 125 pp 381-388 contains some interesting data.
They point out the great dental benefits of amalgam tooth fillings and
estimate the cost of replacement of all existing amalgam fillings at
about $248 billion. The extra cost of placing no new amalgam fillings
is estimated at $12 billion per year. If we assume that one life is lost for
each $10 million of waste (probably too conservative), amalgam fill-
ings would need to kill 1,200 people per year to be the more danger-
ous. This would surely be detected. Loss, however, of a few weeks
from each of a million or more lives by slight acceleration in physi-
ological aging might be very difficult to detect.
Central questions, of course, are whether or not there is a mercury
threshold or even a mercury hormesis effect. Rigorous answers to these
questions are not known. Very high doses of mercury are fatal, and
subclinical effects have been seen at doses about 10-fold higher than
the normal human intake. Corbin and Kohn report, from a review of
1980s published research, that the usual intake from food, water, and
air (mostly food) is about 2 to 6 micrograms/day/person. The median
of wide-ranging experimental determinations of intake from amalgam
tooth fillings is about 3 micrograms/day/person.
So, an ordinary complement of amalgam fillings approximately
doubles ones mercury intake. We do not know whether this is harm-
ful, but most parents are forced to guess. My guess is that, where the
economic impediment is not too great, parents should have non-mer-
cury fillings put into their childrens teeth.
ENERGY ACCIDENTS
8 Ruvigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LE, re-
porting a study by the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland of acci-
dents in worldwide energy industries. Immediate deaths in 2,300
accidents occurring between 1969 and 1986 were considered.
These results, showing the overwhelming safety of nuclear power
generation, are a further chapter to Petr Beckmanns book The Health
Figure 3
Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear, which is still available for $7.95 from
Mrs. Beckmann at Golem Press, Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306.
While this study does not include every accident that occurred, it
does include the most comprehensive list of accidents its authors were
able to assemble through a substantial effort. Notice that the total of all
accidental deaths in all five energy generation industries for the entire
world combined was less than 20,000 or about 1,000 per year.
If we estimate that the existence of this wonderful energy system
adds only 5 years to the average life expectancy (20 years may be more
accurate), then (5,000,000,000)(5)/(30)(1,000)(60) = approximately STARK RAVING MAD
14,000 human lifetimes saved by energy for each life lost in energy
accidents. (We assume 30 years of life lost for each accidental death l Two millennia ago, during the Roman civil war, Julius Caesar
and 60 years for the average life span.) noted that the army opposing him had an advantage during a period of
Calculated another way, (60)(1000)(365)(30)(24)/(5)(109) = ap- heavy rainfall because its soldiers were equipped with personal flota-
proximately 3 hours of life lost to energy accidents per human lifetime. tion bladders for safely crossing swollen streams. Yet, during the Viet-
If all power were generated by nuclear plants, then, on the basis of the nam war, American soldiers frequently drowned. They had no
actual accident record, this 3 hours drops to about 1 minute. If air pol- personal flotation equipment in spite of efforts by senior advisor Cres-
lution deaths are included, the time lost rises but not for nuclear son Kearny to get the military bureaucrats to provide this much-needed
power which produces no air pollution. Then, there are the lives lost in equipment. Major Kearny (ret) designed much of Americas jungle
other activities related to energy generation and use. These, too, are habitability equipment during World War II.
fewer for nuclear power. See The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nu- Now, after the incident of Ranger trainees dying of hypothermia in
clear for those estimates. a Florida swamp, Cresson Kearny is again attempting to convince the
military to provide personal flotation equipment and breath inflated
ELEMENTAL EVIL boats. He also recommends space blankets ($1.96 at Walmart).
One wonders how many military bureaucrats would need to be
Our laboratory freezer required repair this week. Fortunately, the dunked in the Potomac river before they realized that foot soldiers do
repair man had some of the dwindling supply of freon to repair it. He not function well under water or that jungle fighters should be at least
informed me that, if he were to allow any freon to escape into the at- as well equipped as weekend campers. Maybe United States military
mosphere and I reported him for this transgression, he would be fined manuals should include advice to stop by your local discount store for
$20,000 $10,000 of which would be paid to me for reporting him. survival equipment before reporting for active duty.
We thought this sort of tyranny was supposed to be going out of style. Write to Cresson Kearny, P. O. Box 92, Montrose, CO 81402 for
As the enviro war on column 7 of the periodic table intensifies, more on this madness. He is speaking at the August 4-6 meeting and is
many species just have not gotten the apocalyptic message and many now completing a book entitled Jungle Snafus ... and Remedies.
polluters are proving unwilling to inform on one another. This in- l The Food and Drug Administration now requires about 900 days
cludes a long list of malefactors such as marine algae, kelp, wood fun- to give approval to market a new medical drug or device. (The FDA is
gus, ice plant, mushrooms, cedar trees, and phytoplankton. Mother required by law to rule in 90 days.) This is in addition to the great num-
Earth, too, just keeps belching from volcanoes vast quantities of bers of advances that never make it to the approval stage because of the
CFCs as well as hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen chloride. enormous expense of meeting FDA filing requirements.
The Natural Production of Chlorinated Compounds by G. G. When the FDA finally gave approval for the beta blocker drugs in
Gribble, Environ. Sci. Technol. 28 pp 310A-319A (1994) documents 1981, the FDA Commissioner bragged that this new product would
this. See also Naturally Occurring Organohalogen Compounds A save 17,000 lives per year. Not mentioned were the over 100,000 peo-
Survey by G. G. Gribble, J. Natural Products 55, pp 1353-1395 ple who had unnecessarily died during the seven years that the FDA
(1992). A good complement to these papers is A Rational View of prevented use of these drugs before giving approval.
Stratospheric Ozone by H. W. Ellsaesser (1994) available from Wirt- FDA Drug Lag Reader and How FDA is Causing a Technological
schaftskammer sterreich, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, A-1040, Wien, Exodus available from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Con-
Austria or from Hugh W. Ellsaesser, Lawrence Livermore National necticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036 give the
Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551. latest facts about this deadly government madness. (CEI founder and
Gribble reports, for example, that the global emission rate of chlo- president Fred Smith will also be a speaker at our August 4-6 meeting.)
romethane from the marine and terrestrial biomass is 5 million tons per
year, whereas anthropogenic [human caused] chloromethane emis- GOOD READING
sions are only 26,000 tons per year. He counts 2,000 different halo-
genated chemicals (containing fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine) l Invention and Technology 11, summer 1995, available from
that are discharged into the atmosphere by natural processes. Forbes Inc., 60 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, has three articles
Ellsaesser quotes several authorities who admit that they have no about the atomic bomb including Making It Happen, which is a
idea whether man-made chemicals are affecting the ozone layer at all. tribute to Cmdr. Deak Parsons, whose remarkable skills and dedication
Moreover, changes in atmospheric ozone observed to date are in the were an essential ingredient to the success of the Manhattan Project.
range of natural fluctuations and are not having any demonstrably l Green and Gold from Stratek cc, P. O. Box 74416 Lynwood
negative effects. See, for example, Access to Energy 21-3 p. 4. Ridge, Pretoria 0040, South Africa. The April 1995 issue is, as usual,
These and similar enviro scams are, I think, beginning to run out of good and includes an article with world coal use figures.
steam. While the counterarguments were bottled up in professional l Prolotherapy: The Empiricism Rationalism Dichotomy in the
journals and enviro-friendly news media kept repeating the lies, the lies February 1995 Newsletter by Dr. Thomas A. Dorman available from
were able to thrive. Now, however, the pain of such things as refrigera- 171A North Santa Rosa Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405. I have
tion repression is beginning to reach the general public along with eas- never had a back problem, but I have several friends who are certain
ily understood explanations of the truth. that the unconventional prolotherapy helped them.
Two recent reports in the Readers Digest, Are We Running Out l War on the Poor by R. J. Isaac in National Review, May 15,
of Trees and Is the Earth Really Getting Warmer (December 1994 1995 pp 32-44. This is about the tax-financed Legal Services Corpora-
p. 131) are examples. With 27 million copies per month and probably tion and its victimization of the poor whom it was supposed to aid.
over 100 million actual readers, the Readers Digest is one source of
truth from which the enviros cannot hide.

ACCESS TO ENERGY

ATE CD-ROM Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
Some MacIntosh users have had trouble using the Access to Energy $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues. If anyone is still having difficul- for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
ties, please send us a note. A replacement disk is being prepared that Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
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 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 11) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy

Risk
The war between technophobes and technologists over nuclear
power has been waged primarily upon the battleground of risk assess-
ment. Visions of cities vaporizing beneath mushroom clouds as nu-
clear power plants run amok are, of course, promulgated by those
whose perversions include the politics of fear, but the bottom line in
the underlying intellectual debate is evaluation of risk.
Death is not the only parameter determining the quantity and qual-
ity of human life, but, being important and easily measured, it is usu-
ally central in this debate. Petr Beckmann, in The Health Hazards of
NOT Going Nuclear, discussed the number of deaths per quantity of
electricity produced for the various sorts of power generation. Nu-
clear power has by far the safest record. The risk of a death per kilo-
watt-hour is lowest for nuclear power.
The antinukes claim that a single nuclear accident could change
this record because literally millions of deaths are possible in such an
accident. In order to make this claim, they close their eyes to physics,
since nuclear explosion of a nuclear power plant of present design is
physically impossible. Chernobyl adds a different sort of claim that
hundreds of thousands of people could die of cancer and other radia-
tion-induced illnesses even if there were no nuclear explosion. That
only a few people died in this accident and that the claims of harm to
hundreds of thousands by radiation at Chernobyl are completely
mythical has not stopped the propagandists.
Even without deaths to show, however, the technophobes fall
back upon something they call the precautionary principle. This
principle is seeing wide service in the enviro debate. Global according to Adams data, helmet laws have not reduced deaths. Mo-
warming is a failing hypothesis, but what if it were true? Nuclear
power plants will not kill millions of people, but what if they did? The
precautionists want to shut down coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear pression that, with blood alcohol below a fixed level, they are safe
generated electricity just in case just as a precaution.
Doomsday scenarios and the precautionary principle are being
packaged with the politics of fear and sold as science to the tech- fected by drinking alcohol.
nologically illiterate. This is a very profitable business.
Can this fearmongering be successfully fought by correct and rig-
orous evaluation of risk? Superficially, the answer is yes. We just
need good data on death, injury, and other harm that results from the
various technological activities. Where accidents are rare, as with nu-
clear power, scientists have reasonable means for creating estimated
data of sufficient reliability. Based on the past record and correcting
for expected improvements in safety measures, we then simply calcu-
late the consequences of future action.
There is, however, one major confounding difficulty. This diffi-
culty is elegantly discussed in the book Risk by John Adams publish-
ed in 1995 by UCL Press Limited, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. People respond to past accidents
and to perceived risks by changing their behavior and thereby con-
found the calculation of actual risk.
Could it be, for example, that the Russians felt that it was accept-
able to build the Chernobyl reactors without containment buildings
because nuclear power has such a great safety record? Is the virtually
perfect safety record of American nuclear power plants partly a result
of the false perceptions of risk generated by the antinuke propagan-
dists? Not wishing to give credit to our enemies, we recoil from an-
swering, yes. This really doesnt matter. Nuclear power has
proved itself as a wonderful and wonderfully safe technology.
Adams gives some thought-provoking examples. Seat belt experi-
ments lead to the expected result that fewer people would be killed in
auto accidents if they were wearing seat belts. Careful people have
always worn them. When, however, seat belts were made mandatory
in Great Britain, traffic deaths did not drop. According to the data
given in Risk, driver deaths dropped slightly, while pedestrian, bicy-
clist, and rear seat deaths rose. Drivers responded to the law by driv-
ing faster and more recklessly because they felt safer when strapped
in their seat belts. Pedestrians did not have additional protection.
Seat belts do, of course, increase efficiency on the highway. They
apparently allow greater speeds without an increase in death rate.
Transfer of part of the death rate to nondrivers is, however, unjust.
Between 1922 and 1986, the number of motor vehicles in Great
Britain increased by a factor of 25, yet the number of children under
the age of 15 killed by motor vehicles decreased from 736 per year to
358. Child road deaths per vehicle fell by 98%. This was not a result
of safer roads it was a result of more dangerous roads. Between
1971 and 1990, the percentage of children traveling alone to school
dropped from 80% to 9%. As the perceived and actual risk went up,
deaths decreased because people altered their behavior.
Motorcyclists are obviously afforded protection by helmets, but,
torcyclists just drive more recklessly with this extra protection. Even
drunk driving laws are tricky, because they give people the false im-
drivers. In fact, there is great variation in individual alcohol tolerance,
and there are few if any people whose driving is not adversely af-
Now, however, the stakes in the game of adaptive human response
to risk have been raised to a much higher level. Global social engi-
neers and power-seekers are trying to alter the behavior of the whole
human race by means of perceived risk of ozone depletion and global
warming. This is an attempt that may determine the freedom or slav-
ery of billions of people for many centuries.
The data show, as we have continually documented in Access to
Energy, that these perceived risks are artificial and without experi-
mental basis. Each year that passes brings more evidence that these
are nonproblems. The elitists are desperate to get controls on CFCs
and greenhouse gases into place before more data accumulates.
Once the controls are in place, they can say that the data shows
that we have been saved from these calamities by the controls that
adaptive human response mandated by oppressive world government
saved the planet and much of the human race.
If this scam succeeds if the statists are able to convince the world
that they saved it from environmental disaster then free enterprise
and freedom will have suffered a major defeat. As Petr Beckmann
would say, Please dont let it happen!

weapons, have not been invited to provide light entertainment.

REAL RISK For a recent review of this threat see International Defense Review
of Janes Defense Magazines 28, March 1995 pp 33-42 articles by H.
The August 4-6 meeting here features, among the 18 speakers, Porteus, C. Beal, and L. Ness.
three on the subject of terrorist and military use of biological weapons. Conrad Chester has estimated that a beginning graduate student in
Conrad Chester, Michael Baker, and Col. Ernest Takafuji, Com- biochemistry with two helpers, about $200,000 to spend for off-the-
mander of USAMRIID and of U. S. defenses against biological shelf equipment and supplies, access to an ordinary science library,
and about two years to work could launch a biological attack that
would kill most of the people in New York City.
Chester has, however, overestimated the expense. This past week I
attended another of the laboratory auctions where we obtain equipment
and supplies at prices a non-tax-financed laboratory can afford. This
one was the liquidation of a plant genetics company. A mere $20,000
in cash and a U-Haul truck to collect the equipment would have pro-
vided all that Conrad Chesters three terrorists would need. In fact, this
one auction could have equipped three independent terrorist teams.
Moreover, a well-trained biochemist working by himself with this
highly automated equipment could probably do the job in one year
rather than two.
So what do we do to counter this threat? Learning from the anti-
nukes who oppose breeder reactors, we could ban the breeding of bac-
teria. This will be a little hard to enforce as was illustrated by the odd
smell I detected near our kitchen window last night. (The children had
disposed of some excess milk by - I really couldnt believe it either -
tossing a few pails of milk out of the window.)
We could try to get everyone with bacteria-growing equipment to
sign a bacteria non-proliferation treaty and agreement to on-site in-
spection. The children might be willing to sign but, following the
North Korean example, they might hold out for a milking machine and
a new barn or at least a few pigs to utilize the extra milk.
We could slap secrecy systems on the science libraries for all docu-
ments 100 years old or newer. Everything will need to be classified
because no one will be prescient enough to know which knowledge
will never be useful for terrorist activities. Not all countries will coop-
erate, but America could set an example by doing the right thing. Then,
with our science and engineering knowledge frozen in red tape, we
could sink into an Ehrlichesque dark age, while other countries thrived.
The fact is that the standard efforts to prevent the use of technology
for the mass killing of people really do not work. The advance of
knowledge cannot be stopped; the possession of technology cannot be
prevented; and all attempts to monopolize knowledge and dangerous
technologies are doomed to ultimate failure. Moreover, secrecy inhib-
its public knowledge and diminishes the development and deployment
of realistic protective technology.
These approaches only seem to have partially worked for nuclear
technology because nuclear technology has been so expensive and
complex that the economic barriers to entry have aided non-prolifera-
tion efforts. So far, we have just been very lucky.
Ordinary explosives do relatively small amounts of damage;
chemical poisons are bulky and difficult to use; nuclear technology has
been very costly; and biological technology by far the most cost-ef-
fective and low-tech method for mass murder has been ignored. This
luck will not hold forever.
What then do we do sign up with the Luddites of outcome based
education in the hope that further advances in education will re- city to have at least a fighting chance. This is also part of the reason
duce everybody to non-reading, non-thinking vegetables incapable of
independent action? This will not work. We will just be replaced by
civilizations that do teach their children to read.
There are, I believe, some realistic actions that our civilization can
take to truly diminish these dangers.
First, the public should be so sufficiently informed about these dan-
gers, especially in the case of biological and nuclear weapons, that it
becomes politically feasible to build a realistic civilian defense system
for the United States. Offensive technology can be largely neutralized
by defensive technology, and we must have a national mindset consis-
tent with deployment of that technology. A well-built civil defense
system can protect people from nuclear, biological, and chemical tech-
nology whether the danger is from accident, terrorism, or war and can
protect them from most natural disasters at the same time. It can never
protect them completely, but it can prevent most deaths.
Second, we must adopt a realistic view of human nature that is un-
clouded by fear, over-pessimism, or over-optimism. Most people,
whether they control governments and armies or control only them-
selves, are fundamentally decent human beings. This decency can be
relied upon more when they act as individuals rather than as members
of groups, but it nevertheless assures that most people will never use
technology to deliberately harm others. The problem is that, as tech-
nology advances, one or a few individuals can do an increasing amount
of damage.
Although many wonderful things may lie ahead in the coming mil-
lennia, we now have no means with which to change the basic fact of
nature that the human population contains some very dangerous indi-
viduals and that there is no certain way to restrict the activities of these
few or even to identify them without destroying our own freedom.
We can, however, maintain a situation wherein they do the least
damage possible. This situation is not necessarily optimized by efforts
to ration potentially dangerous items.
Gun control efforts, for example, are pushed along further each
time a lone nut kills a few people. A well-armed population, of course,
is best prepared to end these incidents quickly by incapacitating the
gunman on the spot, but there is yet another argument. I personally
prefer my lone gunmen using firearms rather than vans full of explo-
sives in their exploits. They do a lot less damage this way.
If they work their way up to vans of explosives anyway, I prefer
those vans to be filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil as opposed
to some of the really dangerous items they could be carrying. We ac-
cept about 100 violent highway deaths per day in the United States,
which is about the same as the likely toll from an exploding van. Each
death is a terrible tragedy, but a distorted preoccupation with rare
events might raise the risk of something much more spectacular.
Imagine turning on the news to learn that several million Ameri-
cans, completely unprotected by civil defense, are dying from a bio-
logical terrorist attack. There are hundreds of thousands of people with
sufficient training and resources to perpetrate this disaster. A few of
those people are likely to be far enough out on the tails of the distribu-
tions of mental stability and decency to be capable of this action. It is
singularly imprudent to deprive these people of guns and fertilizer.
Aside from the damage that they do to human freedom and the
great advances in the human condition that they impede, red herrings
like mythical ozone holes and melting icebergs misinform the public
about the real potential dangers from technology. Well-meaning peo-
ple dutifully sort their garbage and send money to the enviro organiza-
tions in the mistaken hope that they are helping to battle the truly great
dangers and risks that face mankind as a result of technological ad-
vance. Not only are most of these efforts counterproductive, they divert
attention from real dangers.
Edward Teller and Lowell Wood (both also speakers at the August
meeting) share a significant part of the credit for moving America into
a position to deploy a working antimissile defense. They know that
technological advance means that sometime in the future no one
knows when there may be at least one missile with one nuclear war-
head traveling toward one American city. They want the people of that
that Edward Teller has supported civil defense for half a century.
The great human experiment with freedom, science, and technol-
ogy that is being carried out during our lifetimes has already partially
transformed the world in ways that are in keeping with the highest as-
pirations of the human spirit. Many of the articles in Access to Energy
are intended to weaken attacks upon this great experiment from those
who claim that it is too dangerous to continue especially those attacks
that are based upon false claims and untruths.
It would be wrong, however, to say that there are no substantial
dangers associated with the advance of science, technology, and hu-
man freedom. These dangers are not inherent in technology itself; they
are inherent in the negative aspects of human nature. These dangers,
moreover, can be so successfully mitigated by protective technology
and sensible laws that the risk reward ratio of further human advance
is overwhelmingly positive.
Unfortunately, at the present time, very little attention is being paid
to real risks and real risk reduction. This must change. If it does not,
then somewhere in our future there may well be a disaster of such
enormous magnitude that it, in combination with public ignorance,
might divert our civilization into an era of tyranny.
 puters were maintenance nightmares in those days, so our lab was con-
COST OF NUCLEAR POWER
computers became available, we bought several and vowed never to
Operation and maintenance costs for U. S. nuclear power plants
rose sharply in the 1980s largely as a result of increased staffing to
meet safety requirements for security, fire protection, health physics,
and other precautions. Increased utilization of capacity (72.5% in
1993) and good management have now brought these cost increases
under control as reported in Cutting O&M costs: a US progress re-
port published in ATOM 436 pp 32-36.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows operation and maintenance costs in 1993 dollars per
kilowatt hour of capacity on the left and cents per kilowatt hour gener-
ated on the right. The right curve looks better because of increased
utilization. Total cost of nuclear power is above 1.6 cents/kilowatt
hour, since this does not include capital costs of plant construction.
THYROID CANCER AND CHERNOBYL
With anti-technologists chanting about vast numbers of cancer
deaths as a result of the 1986 accident at Chernobyl, it may seem politi-
cally imprudent to admit to any cancer problem at all. This is not, how-
ever, consistent with the truth which is still solidly on the side of
nuclear power. Unfortunately, the accident did spread significant
amounts of Iodine 131 in the Ukraine and, equally unfortunately,
Ukrainian authorities did not protect children against this by the simple
civil defense expedient of iodine supplements.
Iodine accumulates in the thyroid. Supplemental oral iodine taken
as described, for example, in Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson
Kearny (available from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
PO Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523 for $12.50) saturates the thy-
roid with iodine and, thereby, inhibits uptake of radioactive iodine.
Thyroid cancer in the Ukraine by I. A. Liktarev, et al, in Nature
375 p 365 (1995), reports that there were 418 thyroid cancers found in
children (ages 0-18 at the time of the accident in 1986) in the Ukraine
between 1986 and 1993.
The incidence rate for thyroid cancer in children appears to have
risen from about 0.7 per million in 1986 to about 4 per million in 1993.
This is suspect, however, because reporting has been sharply improved
to study the effects of the accident.
Geographical distribution is, however, very suggestive of Cher-
nobyl-induced cancer. The authors find a 20-fold gradient in cancer in-
cidence that corresponds very well with distance (adjusted by known
contamination patterns) from Chernobyl. Based on this gradient and
other data given in this paper, I estimate (subtracting the incidence in
zones 6 and 7 from that in zones 1-5) that about 70 extra cases of thy-
roid cancer have arisen in children as a result of the accident. Incidence
falls off very rapidly with distance, so most of the Ukraine is unaf-
fected and no effect at all would be expected outside the Soviet area.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force!
COMPUTER LINKS
George Washington
In the 1960s, our need for lab automation required that we link our
analytical machinery to the main computer center at Stanford. Com-
tinually disrupted by outages. As soon as DEC PDP-11 series mini-
hook two activities to each others error rates again. Micro computers
have changed the world since then, but we have clung to our prejudices
bolstered now only by the minor threat of virus contamination. Our
numerous computers communicate only by tape and disk transfer, but
now we are finally giving up this idiosyncrasy almost entirely.
Beginning the first week in July, Access to Energy and the Oregon
Institute of Science and Medicine will operate a World Wide Web site
from the laboratory here. Domain names will be althouse.com and
oism.org. E-mail addresses will be announced next month. Althouse,
the name of a creek near our laboratory, is the business name under
which Access to Energy is administered.
TECHNOLOGY AND COMMODITIES
Technological advance should continually lower the cost of com-
modities and services and thereby continually increase the quality of
human life. Since cost is a measure of scarcity, the cost of commodities
is also a good indicator with which to answer enviro doomsayers who
predict dire shortages.
Unfortunately, our government is committed to taxation by dilution
of the money supply, which inflates prices and masks decreased costs.
U. S. government-caused inflation also robs widows and orphans of
their savings savings that should buy more rather than less over time
as a result of technologically accomplished decreased costs.
In Chapter 4 of The True State of the Planet (available from The
Free Press, 866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022 for $12) entitled
The Coming Age of Abundance, Stephen Moore documents the
Figure 2
sharp decrease in real commodity prices over this century. Figure 2,
reproduced from this chapter, shows an average of aluminum, anti-
mony, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, platinum, tin, tungsten,
zinc, coal, and oil costs priced in hourly wages to remove inflation.
We show here only this one graph. Moores chapter is filled with
tables and graphs showing the pervasive and ongoing decrease in the
real price of almost all individual commodities.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, page 1, June 5, 1995 reports
that Paul Population Bomb Ehrlich and Stephen Global Warming
Schneider are negotiating another bet on this with Julian L. Simon.
Ehrlich lost his first bet with Simon because of the trend in Figure 2. If
Vegas makes odds on this bet, we suggest you stay with the winner.
WORTH REPEATING
Like fire, it is a troublesome servant and a fearful master.
As quoted by The New American, June 12, 1995, p 26.
 over, that interpretation is situated: readers creations (not retrievals) of
COLOR-BLIND QUALITY meaning with the text vary, depending on their purposes for reading
and the expectations of others in the reading event. This view of read-
I shall never forget an encounter I had with a black professor at the ing implies that there is no single correct meaning for a given text,
University of California at San Diego while I was teaching freshman only plausible meanings.
chemistry at that University. This mans black power, Third World Whole language is now popular in socialized American schools.
message was so different from my own outlook that we might as well Imagine a student trying to learn mathematics, science, engineering, or
have been from different planets until the subject of the discussion even history by creating his own interpretation under the assumption
turned to my chemistry course in which I made no effort to tailor that the author has not written a specific meaning into the text.
standards to minority groups regardless of their backgrounds. His l Thad Cochran, Republican Senator from Mississippi, writes in
words were: Your course is tough. I know, Im tutoring two students the April 4, 1995 Washington Times that The American Farm Bureau
in your class. But you are exactly right. Our worst enemies are these Federation estimates that U.S. agricultural interests spend between $18
white liberals who teach watered-down courses to our people and turn billion and $20 billion per year complying with federal regulations. To
them into permanent second-class citizens. put things in perspective, that figure is roughly 35 percent of total net
Very good reading is the article The Attack Against Phonics It farm income in the United States. If this estimate is correct, and if any-
could be the most racist act in decades by C. M. Richardson in Des- thing it is probably low, farmers spend $2 complying with government
tiny Magazine, April 1995 pp 51-53. (Destiny, written primarily for mandated regulations for every $1 they receive in price supports.
black Americans, is available from P.O. Box 1000, Selma, OR 97538.)
This article describes the linkages between The Great American

GOOD READING
Reading Machine which feeds at the trough of tax-financed social-
ized education and the adoption of whole language and look-say l The Medias War on Essential Chemicals: Targeting Chlo-
reading (see Stark Raving Mad below) which are enormously profit- rine by Kenneth Smith with text also by Gordon W. Gribble in Pri-
able for everyone in the Machine except the students. Especially vul- orities 6 pp 6-11 (1994) published by The American Council on
nerable are students from environments where alternative help to Science and Health, 1995 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
overcome the burden of whole language is not available. 10023-5860. Also, ask ACSH to send their monograph Is There a
Cancer Epidemic in the United States? Age-adjusted cancer rates
FINGERPRINTS OF FAILURE have been stable to slightly declining during the past 50 years except
lung cancer from cigarette smoking. Most environmental chlorine
Science News 147, pp 362-363 June 10, 1995, Dusting the Cli- compounds originate from natural sources and man-made chlorine
mate for Fingerprints Has greenhouse warming arrived? Will we compounds are not causing the non-existent cancer epidemic.
ever know? by R. Monastersy describes efforts by the enviro industry l The Health Physics Societys Newsletter 23 , No. 6, June 1995
to save its tax-financed research grants from the thermometer. Monas- pp 2-16 contains 22 letters in a special issue devoted to radiation dose-
tersy describes the new concept of greenhouse fingerprinting that is response models. As numerous articles in Access to Energy have
beginning to spring up in numerous scientific journals. chronicled, the linear, no-threshold model is dead. With it, unnoticed
This fingerprinting involves constructing weighted averages of so far by the popular media, has died the basis for fear of low-level
various climate variables in an effort to find unusual weather behavior radiation. Sometimes, in this sort of shift, a generation of professionals
that can be blamed on global warming. Stephen H. Schneider is quoted must also die before the truth is accepted. These 22 letters give indica-
as telling Science News I am beating very hard on the community to tion that this will not be true in this case for health physicists.
drop forever from our vocabulary that pernicious term unambiguous l When batterer turns murderer by I. J. Good in Nature 375 p
detection. Perhaps Schneider has learned from his fellow Stanford 541 (1995). First, Good quotes A. M. Dershowitz, O. J. Simpson de-
doomsayer, Paul Ehrlich, that the public gets a little surly when ones fense team advisor, to the effect that only about a tenth of 1% of batter-
predictions are first unprovable and then demonstrably wrong. ers actually murder their wives. Then Good provides the data and
Thermometers, you see, are devastating these people space-age calculations to show that this statistic also means that, if a woman is
thermometers on satellites that measure the actual temperature of the both battered by her husband and also murdered, the probability that
earth. See, for example, Access to Energy, 22-9, May 1995, p 3. The the husband is the murderer is about 50%.
earth just is not warming up. In fact, it has fortunately been in a slight l Readers Digest for July 1995 includes The Recycling Myth,
cooling fluctuation during the past 15 years. Otherwise, the global pp 105-109 and Can You Trust Those Polls? pp 49-54. The second
warming enviros might already be rationing exhaled human breath. humorous story on page 85 is great, too. The enviros can ignore the
Fingerprints have the advantage that one can play with the truth when published in science journals and professional newsletters,
weighting constants until an effect in the politically correct direction is but they cannot ignore 100 million readers of the Readers Digest.
created. Moreover, public reports can then be laced with pretty graphs l Environmental Implications of Electric Cars by L. B. Lave,
of undefined parameters which the reader is assured have been de- C. T. Hendrickson, and F. C. McMichael in Science 268 pp 993-995
signed by experts. It is hard to fool even a whole language student with (1995) and Pull the Plug by E. Peters in The Free Market 13 No. 7,
a graph of falling temperature and a claim that it is getting warmer. July 1995 pp 3 & 8 published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
Auburn, AL 36849-5301, telephone (334) 844-2500. Evaluated on the
STARK RAVING MAD basis of amount of lead released into the air, cost, performance, and
general environmental pollution, electric cars are still inferior to inter-
l The book Whole Language: Whats the Difference by C. Edel- nal combustion engines. We anticipate that this will change. When it
sky, B. Altwerger, and B. Flores p. 19 as quoted in The Blumenfeld does, the free market will tell us not government bureaucrats.
Education Letter, P. O. Box 45161, Boise, ID 83711, states:
From a whole language perspective, reading (and language use in
ACCESS TO ENERGY
general) is a process of generating hypotheses in a meaning-making
transaction in a sociohistorical context. As a transactional process Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
(Rosenblatt 1978; Goodman 1984), reading is not a matter of getting Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
the meaning from text, as if that meaning were in the text waiting to $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
be decoded by the reader. Rather, is a matter of readers using the cues $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
print provide and the knowledge they bring with them (of language Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
subsystems, of the world) to construct a unique interpretation. More- 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
AUGUST 1995 (Vol. 22, no. 12) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
War Against Truth
In the 1950s and 1960s, it was popular in America for idealistic
youths to speak and think about absolute truth. This pursuit of truth
varied in its nature in accordance with the interests of the individual.
In response to the Biblical message that the universe is orderly, the
search for truth blossomed over many centuries to give rise to our
modern scientific and technical civilization. An ultimately successful
attack upon that civilization must effectively undermine and root out
our cultural preference for truth. The enemies of reason know this and
are doing their best to act accordingly.
See, for example, The Flight from Science and Reason by C.
H. Sommers the lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal for July,
10, 1995, p A12. This is a serious and growing problem.
In Access to Energy, we often seek to discredit those who misuse
science. We present factual evidence that their claims are wrong. We
think that we can convince others of the rightness of our statements
because those statements are factual they are true. Unfortunately,
there is a major growth industry in America determined to teach our
people that truth is not intrinsically meritorious or even does not exist.
This industry includes the educational establishment (2 million
unionized teachers and a vast system of socialized education) which
is even adopting whole language, a system teaching that there is
no exact meaning or truth in a written text only subjective cues for
the readers imagination. It also includes elements of the child enter-
tainment industry.
There is certainly nothing wrong with an anthropomorphic fic-
tional account of talking trees and an idealistic Indian maiden created
for the entertainment of children, even though we might not person-
ally agree with part of the enviro message. There is, however, every-
thing wrong with the wholesale alteration of factual history in order
to buttress this message with an aura of historical accuracy.
Unable to buy even a hamburger without being immersed in the
world of Disneys Pocahontas, we did a little additional reading - see,
for example, Encyclopedia Americana of 1908 and references.
By Captain John Smiths personal account of his perils at the
hands of Powhatan, at the minute of my execution she hazarded the
beating out of her own brains to save mine. While some historians
have claimed that Smith exaggerated, he was there and they were not.
In any case, it is agreed that this 12-year-old Indian girl was a great
and perhaps critical help to the survival of the colony at Jamestown.
Captain Smith was, however, a married man (his wife died at
Jamestown) who was 27 years old when Pocahontas was 12. Poca-
hontas married John Rolfe when she was 18, converted to Christian-
ity, went to England at the age of 21 (where she was called Lady
Rebecca after her baptismal name), and died at the age of 22.
Disney portrays a world of noble savages pitted against evil Euro-
peans interested only in digging for gold. Gone are the deprivations of
survival in the New World that killed half the colony. These Disney
Europeans have plenty to eat as they rape the land and murder Indi-
ans. Smiths fictional love affair with Pocahontas (portrayed as an
episode that would probably have gotten them both killed by their
actual peers of the time) causes him to reform, only to be shot by a
advantage in information access time, this advantage can be substi-
GAINING AND LOSING IT
cal change is giving everyone fast access to information and
As data storage and transmission advance, our access to knowledge
is rapidly increasing. Most people are thinking of these new capabili-
ties as access to information, which they define as very recent data
with special time value. Some even think that, if they can maintain an
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
European. She stays in North America to love nature as he returns to
England. Their spirits are, however, united forever, presumably
along with the talking tree. For more see The Real Pocahontas by
D. A. Price in The Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1995, p A18.
The Jamestown settlers, John Smith, and Pocahontas are not the
most important part of American history, but they were tough, admi-
rable people whose meritorious actions should be remembered as a
part of our historical heritage. The truths about them are worth telling.
Why replace these truths with politically correct lies?
The Cold War was a war against truth lost by the monolithic
tyrannies, in part because printing presses, radios, and finally comput-
ers destroyed their control over the flow of truth to captive people.
Along with Access to Energy, we inherited the printing press from
Petr Beckmanns basement on which Zachary and Noah print the
newsletter. Imagine Petrs joy as he set his own type and printed
truths against the enemies of freedom. In the Czechoslovakia from
which he escaped, a printing press meant imprisonment and death.
Freedom is not lost, of course, only by physical enslavement. Peo-
ple can be enslaved physically, economically, intellectually, or emo-
tionally. They can be enslaved by governments or by participation in
groups that place the individual in bondage to the group or its leader-
ship regardless of how wonderful may be the purposes of the group.
They can even enslave themselves through ignorance of the truth or
through belief that they personally always know the truth a belief
that closes their minds and leaves them slaves of their own errors.
The trend toward decentralization made possible by advances in
electronics is a great aid to truth. People will always make errors, but,
if there are many separate independent individuals and groups, it is
unlikely that they will all be in error simultaneously. Somewhere
truth will survive, eventually to triumph by its own strength.
The enemies of truth still prefer great, all-powerful monolithic
governments where their control of people cannot be challenged.
That control is largely exercised by manipulation of the truth.
Respect and veneration of truth is a value of great importance in
the education of students. This value and reliable methods of thought
for recognizing and determining truth are far more important than any
specific body of factual information. This is one reason why mathe-
matics is an excellent core curriculum for all students. It is very diffi-
cult (although not impossible, as our tax-financed schools have
shown) to teach mathematics without teaching rigorous truth.
We must never forget that past civilizations which went horribly
wrong such as the later years of Rome, the Inquisitions of the Mid-
dle Ages, or the Nazis of Germany were made up of people just like
us. They came under the control of lies lies that have a fundamental
appeal to certain negative aspects of human nature.
We are not different or superior because we now have the fruits of
science and technology. If we lose our respect for truth whether in
history, in economics, in politics, or in science then we will prob-
ably succumb to the baser aspects of our nature. One need look no
farther than a history or environmental studies course at the local so-
cialized school to see how precarious our position has become.
tuted for productive work. Unfortunately for them, rapid technologi-
undermining their advantage. Productive work is better security.
In addition to access to information, the new technology is
bringing better access to knowledge, the accumulated wisdom of sev-
eral thousand years of recorded human history and inquiry.
 One CD-ROM can now hold image files of about 25 books or text
files of about 500 books. Image files are better because they preserve
the typesetters art, figures, and the format preferred by the author.
Text file methods for accurately preserving these images are, however,
improving. New CD-ROMs with five times greater capacity are ex-
pected soon, and those with fifty times greater capacity are probably
not far way. These will make possible 25,000 books on a CD-ROM
if the CD-ROM itself is not obsolete by then. We are approaching a
time when a copy of the Library of Congress or the National Library of
Medicine could be sold in a box at your local discount store.
It will be a major undertaking to scan all of the pages in these librar-
ies, but scanners are improving. Even with current scanners, this could Figure 1
certainly be done. Image files can be preserved, while current optical
character recognition programs can link these images to full-text
search with 95% or better reliability. There are, however, two ways in
which we risk losing some of this knowledge while gaining the rest.
First, recorded knowledge can be lost when recording methods
change. This process once took hundreds or even thousands of years as
languages changed and sometimes were lost. Now, the process has
speeded up. Carl Boehme, professor of electrical engineering here at
the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, recently resurrected and
repaired an old DEC PDP-11 computer system in order to recover
some essential computer programs and other knowledge that had been
recorded on DEC Tape 15 years earlier. Had he not been able to per-
form electronic archaeology, this knowledge might have been lost.
We cannot read many of the writings of Julius Caesar because all
copies were lost. Copies require work. Our rapidly changing recording
methods require that copies be made more and more frequently. This
effort may not be made for knowledge of little current interest. Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20006-3708, is about the wonderful nu-
Second, the effort of copying may not be made when legal impedi- clear power plants being built in Asia by French industry, since com-
ments stand in the way. Copyright law is currently creating a memory petition from American industry is inhibited by our government.
hole for knowledge published during the past 50 to 75 years. Opinions Why are all these people so shortsighted? Why are they not joining
vary on how old a document must be before its copyright expires the people of California and building windmills instead? (California
and, regardless of which opinion one adopts, time and resources are has 90% of U.S. wind generation installed capacity.)
required to enforce that opinion. Imagine the problem of scanning and Energy Choices in a Competitive Era The Role of Renewable
distributing a library including several hundred thousand books that and Traditional Energy Resources in Americas Electric Generation
may still have enforceable copyrights. Mix, April 1995, Center for Energy and Economic Development,
For our home-school curriculum, we want to recommend some 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 370, Alexandria, VA 22314, answers this.
very excellent science texts and other materials that have been publish- U.S. electrical usage has doubled in the past 25 years. Currently
ed in recent decades. These are, however, out of print but still in copy- only 2% of that electricity is from renewable sources. (They do not
right. Where permission can be obtained, we scan them, but often count breeder reactors and, anyway, we are not allowed to have any.)
permission will not be given. For our small project, we are using sub- Of that 2%, 70% is actually from combustion of biomass and waste.
stitutes. For large projects, however, such as the computerization and The CEED study (ask for the full report not just the executive sum-
dissemination of great libraries, recent materials will just be passed mary) estimates that, under free market competition, this 2% would
over and many may eventually be lost forever. drop to 1% by the year 2010. They further estimate that it could be
If bureaucratic costs and legal stumbling blocks can be removed, raised to 4% by 2010 with about $50 billion in tax-financed subsidies
large projects for the computerization of human knowledge can sweep and to 11% by 2010 with about $200 billion in subsidies. Moreover,
everything into modern storage media and keep updating these media. these increases would primarily replace natural gas, which is so plenti-
Sure, it is not all worth keeping, but there is no human or machine ca- ful that it is almost limitless in supply and which has a lower environ-
pable of deciding what should be thrown away. We are arriving at a mental impact than the renewable sources.
wonderful time in which we can stop losing knowledge and can dis- Figures 1 and 2 are from the CEED report. Figure 1 shows total US
seminate that knowledge throughout our civilization. renewable capacity as compared to that of individual nuclear and coal-

PIE IN THE SKY

We are forever hearing that American dependence upon hydrocar-

bon combustion and nuclear power must give way to renewable en-
ergy sources in the New Age. Now, global elitists are even Figure 2
peddling this nonsense to emerging underdeveloped nations who like
the notion even less because their futures depend upon inexpensive,
abundant energy. The Asian response is summarized in China:
Ready for more nuclear power by S. Rippon, Nuclear News, 38, No.
8, pp 32-33 (1995) and Energy-Hungry, Asia Embraces Nuclear
Power by P. Shenon, The New York Times, April 23, 1995, p 4E.
If we cannot build nuclear power plants in the United States, we can
at least build them elsewhere right? Wrong. No Sale: U.S. Compa-
nies Lose Business to Export Controls, in Nuclear Energy Insight,
May 1995, pp 3-4, published by Nuclear Energy Institute, 1776 I
fired plants. Figure 2 gives the cost of hydrocarbon fuels, which is
steadily decreasing. Air pollution emissions from coal plants have
fallen by 50-fold since 1970, so the competition is between coal, natu-
ral gas, and nuclear power. Renewables are not even in the game. tal involvement. For two years, we have been working to produce ma-
We admit that we would like to see a ten-fold drop in photovoltaic
cell costs, because this could decentralize home electricity supply and
enhance individual freedom. This is not available now, however, and,
if it were, it could still not supply the needs of American industry.
pages from books of history, economics, and general literature that we
GENDER AND MATHEMATICS ABILITY
software allows them to print one that is identical to the original. Also
In 1960, James Bonner included in his introductory biology lectures
at Caltech a section about the width of the distribution functions of
mental ability in men and women. Men, he said, have wider distribu-
tion functions than women. There are more men of unusually high
ability and more of unusually low ability. It was hypothesized that this
might be caused by factors on the X chromosome which affect intelli-
gence. With two X chromosomes, an averaging of the two could occur
in women and not in men. This would lead to lower variation.
Since then, this has become a politically incorrect research subject.
It has not, however, been completely buried. This year, the College
Board SAT math exam was made easier in order to reduce gender
bias, the tendency for boys to have higher math scores than girls (see
Access to Energy 21-7, p 1). Now, with perestroika spreading even to
affirmative action, this subject, too, is climbing out of its hiding places.
Sex Differences in Mental Test Scores, Variability, and Numbers
of High-Scoring Individuals by Larry V. Hedges and Amy Nowell in
Science 269, pp 41-45 (1995), combines six studies of over 200,000
individuals. They find that although average sex differences have
been generally small and stable over time, the test scores of males con-
sistently have larger variance. Except in tests of reading comprehen-
sion, perceptual speed, and associative memory, males typically
outnumber females substantially among high-scoring individuals.
This effect is especially pronounced in math. One study of 73,425
individual math scores found male/female ratios of 1.3 for the top
10%, 1.5 for the top 5%, 2.1 for the top 3%, and 7.0 for the top 1%.
This would be enough to cause the observed differences in average
SAT scores because low-scoring individuals do not take the test.
Since these distribution functions are mostly overlapping, this result
says nothing at all about the abilities of each individual or of small
groups of individuals. (For example, women can be found as the top
people in specialized research fields including those requiring ex-
traordinary math skills.) It also says nothing about education through
age 18, since there is no need to be in these top percentages to learn
basic skills and facts. It suggests, however, that politically correct ef-
forts to eliminate differences in the averages of large numbers of indi-
viduals (such as the SAT change) are misguided.
VA 22101 answer, by means of a March 1995 Minnesota Department
SELF-TEACHING HOME SCHOOL
mortality is higher near Minnesota nuclear power plants. As expected
In order to be intellectually free, each individual must have the abil-
ity to think and have sufficient knowledge about the world around him
as a basis for thought. In this age of science and technology, these men-
tal tools for productive thought should be obtained early and reinforced
throughout life. Hundreds of thousands of American families have
now decided that their childrens educations are too important to be left
to socialism they are home schooling.
Figure 3, from One Parents Experience with Home Schooling lower than usual incidence back to the historical average incidence.
by Barry Brooks in National Minority Politics, 7, No. 6, June 1995,
available from 5757 Westheimer Road, Suite 3-296, Houston, TX
77057-9764, shows an economic profile of these families. This article
is also illustrative of the growing awareness among black Americans
that true freedom from intellectual slavery is better obtained through
home education than through tax-financed, socialized schools.
One impediment to the home-school movement has been the per-
ceived need for a parent in the home with sufficient time to be a
teacher. This is particularly a problem among lower income Americans
who are currently less likely to have such a parent. Our personal expe-
rience in the Robinson household, however, has been that a home
school works very well when the children are self-taught with good
books, lesson plans, and study environment, and with very little paren-
terials on CD-ROM that would enable other families to do more easily
what the children here have done and to improve our own school.
Version 1.0 of this effort is now finished and is comprised of sets of
six CD-ROMs. The six CD-ROMs contain image files of over 50,000
recommend. If the family does not have a particular book, included
included are a few special reading and vocabulary examinations, a de-
tailed description of our curriculum, and recommendations of other
books to buy. These materials are for children of ages 5 to 18.
This is Version 1.0 and is quite useful. (It requires Microsoft Win-
dows, a 386 or higher, and 4 MB of memory.) This curriculum needs,
however, another 100,000 pages of books and a great many more ex-
aminations. Therefore, we are selling the 6 CD-ROMs for $95 per set
postage paid. Profits will be used to expand the curriculum. Families
who cannot afford $95 can buy the set at a lower price. Version 1.0
was made possible by donations, by earnings from Access to Energy,
and by the volunteer help of many friends. We will start shipping these
sets in mid August. Orders should be sent to the Oregon Institute of
Science and Medicine, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523.
Figure 3
CANCER AND NUCLEAR POWER
Pages 1-4 of the July 1995 Health Physics Society Newsletter avail-
able from HPS, 1313 Dolley Madison Boulevard, Suite 402, McLean,
of Health Study, the 1994 Ernest Sternglass claim that breast cancer
from numerous other studies and from the lack of any known physical
phenomenon that could cause this alleged increase, no increase in
breast cancer (or in several other cancers also studied) was found.
Sternglass manufactured his increase by selecting some, but not all,
of the counties near the plants. This selection was for those that had an
upward fluctuation of breast cancer incidence during the period imme-
diately before his press conference. They were fluctuating up from a
Fluctuations of averages of small numbers of individuals are larger
than for large numbers, so Sternglass had a historical range of between
20 and 34 deaths per 100,000 to work with while he dishonestly cre-
ated his nonexistent correlation.
By contrast, Prevalence of Lens Changes in Ukranian Children
Residing Around Chernobyl by R. Day, M. B. Gorin, and A. W. El-
ler in Health Physics 68, pp 632-642 reports an increase from 1.1%
(control population) to 3.6% in detectable eye lens abnormalities for
children living in the most heavily contaminated zone near the Cher-
nobyl power plants. This is not cancer but it is honest science.
 of $21,760 in taxes for every household in the nation.
INTERNET CONNECTIONS Imagine the effects of shutting down all except the essentials of the
national defense and court systems, freeing America of bureaucratic
The Access to Energy editor now has an E-Mail address: regulators, and ending the theft of at least $15,000 in average annual
art@ZWR.OISM.ORG per family purchasing power from the American people. Then we
We also have a World Wide Web site at OISM.ORG which will would really see the enormous productive power of free enterprise.
require some time to become useful. Our near-term goals are to make l Dr. C. Fountain writes that Green groups in the US are threaten-
available our civil defense publications; our publications on home ing legal action over a move by the US government to remove 3 spe-
schooling (except book image files which would require too much cies of kangaroos, the red, eastern gray, and western gray, from the
time for users to download); back issues of Access to Energy (not cur- endangered species list. Roos on the danger list, say US greens by
rent, since we must stay in business and not before September 1993, P. Wilson and S. Hornsburgh in The Australian of 3/10/95 quotes an
which are a source of income for Mrs. Beckmann); and professional Australian National Conservation Agency spokesman I dont know
publications by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine faculty. what theyre talking about. It sounds like someones got their wires
This will be a slow process as ZWR also has a full load of college crossed. Their population is four times what it was when Captain Cook
work beginning in September 1995, but the site should eventually be- landed. [The kangaroo] would have to be one of the most common
come quite useful. Now, we are designing our home page. mammals in the world theres literally millions of them.
l EcoKids: New Automatons on the Block by Jo Kwong in The
SMOKE AND MIRRORS Freeman, March 1995, pp 155-159 chronicles the new use that enviros
have found for children brainwashing them in the socialized schools
The mirrors in the solar power field near Barstow, California, are into fearful, unthinking opponents of technology. This article is hilari-
not working as well as they might, operators say, because the atmos- ous until one realizes that American children actually believe this
phere still contains smoke from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the propaganda. Meanwhile Lessons in Hypocrisy by D. P. Doyle in
Philippines four years ago. It happens, also, that 20% of the mirrors are The Wall Street Journal, June 13, p A18, gives the percentages of pub-
broken. None of this is, however, stopping Southern California Edison lic school teachers sending their children to private schools in Boston,
from paying five times the market price (15 cents/KwH vs. 3 Chicago, and San Francisco as 44.6%, 36.3%, and 36.7% respectively.
cents/KwH) for electricity from this field and passing the extra $800
million annual cost along in higher bills to its customers.
GOOD READING
The Public Policy Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, accord-
ing to The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 1995, pp A1 & A8 article by J. l But is it True? A Citizens Guide to Environmental Health and
Bailey, entitled Carter-Era Law Keeps Price of Electricity Up In Safety Issues by Aaron Wildavsky, Harvard University Press (1995).
Spite of a Surplus, requires that $37 billion be paid by U. S. electric- Professor Wildavsky makes a final effort (published after his death) to
ity consumers through the year 2000 above ordinary market prices. protect us from the nonscience in our political environment.
This act subsidizes alternative energy. l Environmental Gore: A Constructive Response to Earth In the
In the nearby California wind farms, turbine blades have Balance edited by J. Baden and published by the Pacific Research In-
chewed up 78 golden eagles during the past two years. (Meanwhile in stitute. Also read the review of this book by J. Morris, Nature 375 pp
Florida, concern for the lives of two woodpeckers stopped a launch of 115-116 (1995). Bookstores in the U. S. National Parks have been fea-
the space shuttle.) At least, most of the windmills are still spinning. turing Algores handbook of fictional horrors if only they would put
The manure-burning power plant in El Centro, California has com- this new book on the shelves beside it.
pletely stopped. It is plugged with manure that refuses to burn. l T-Cells and C-Notes by Tom Bethell, The American Specta-
tor, April 1995, pp 16 & 18. This summarizes the vast, inbred tax-fi-
LOCAL POLLUTION nanced HIV and AIDS industry that feeds upon human suffering.
l Peer-Review Panel Rejects EPAs Dioxin Reassessment,
While propaganda from national and international enviro leaders is EPA Watch 4, No. 10, pp 1-2, May 1995, available from EPA Watch,
the usual focus of attention and debate, it is also interesting to watch 14140-L Parke Long Court, Chantilly, VA 22021. See also, Cleaning
their foot soldiers in action. In response to a local newspaper article Up EPAs Dioxin Mess by K. E. Kelly, The Wall Street Journal,
favorably reporting the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meeting that June 29, 1995, editorial page. EPA is using a no-threshold dioxin
we are cosponsoring here August 4-6, the following advertisement is model. A panel of scientists formed by the Environmental Protection
being posted around town by local enviros: Agencys own Science Advisory Board rejected this model and EPAs
DOCTORS OF DEATH IN THE ILLINOIS VALLEY? further efforts to demonize the current U. S. environmental levels of
FACT OR FICTION? O.I.S.M. Research uses high voltage dioxin most of which do not originate from human activity.
power, biological suits, viruses, animal tests, chemical storage, and l Currency Debasement: Its Effect On the World Economy by the
......... what else? Is the Illinois Valley a base for secret government Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, 211 East
funding of biological warfare? Why white suits with hoods? What are 43rd Street, New York, NY 10017-4707. They point out that currency
in the big tanks? (sic) Why 20,000 watts of power? debasement decreases the time span over which investors are willing to
ARE WE THE LAB RATS? What protection do we have from take risks. This is especially damaging to scientific research.
accidental pollution to air and water caused by testing & research by l Thomas Jeffersons Sophisticated, Radical Vision of Liberty
O.I.S.M? Who funds nonprofit biochemistry research? Have any of by Jim Powell in The Freeman 45, pp 467-471 (1995) available from
these people done anything to give us a safer world to live in? (This The Foundation for Economic Education, 30 South Broadway, Irv-
last sentence points with an arrow to a list of DDP meeting speakers.) ington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. These thoughts should be reread often.
We admit to a 20,000 watt line the power rating for a normal
household line. We wish we could afford the machinery to use more.
ACCESS TO ENERGY

STARK RAVING MAD Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
l The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 1995, p 1 reports that Tax $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
collections are likely to climb 5.7% this year, the Tax Foundation esti- $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
mates. In a report to be issued soon, the Washington-based research Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
group says federal, state, and local governments will collect an average 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 1995 (Vol. 23, no. 1) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Secrecy
All readers of Access to Energy are entirely truthful right? Well,
at least we all try to be where impersonal scientific facts are con-
cerned. Science requires not only the truth, but also the whole truth. It
is forbidden to omit consideration of any data, especially data that
might reflect upon the accuracy of a particular hypothesis or theory.
Human affairs, however, are much more complicated, particularly
where the whole truth with no omissions is concerned. I still recall
a dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a young lady whom I dated dur-
ing graduate school. There was some difficulty which the idealistic
student was certain could be resolved if all relevant facts, thoughts,
and feelings were entirely and openly expressed and discussed. I bus-
ied myself during the dinner in putting this theory into practice. I do
not remember the specifics of the issues or discussion, but I have
never forgotten the fortune cookie that I opened at the end of that din-
ner. It said, Young man who is open book is soon on shelf. international contests in nuclear weapons development, it is highly
A good rule of truthfulness in human affairs is to try to never
knowingly leave another individual with an impression that is funda-
mentally different than he would have if he knew all of the facts, par-
ticularly regarding a subject that you know is important to him. This
avoids the common practice of literally correct lying by double-en-
tendre and by deliberate falsehoods of omission.
A better rule is absolute candor in all matters if you are able to
take the heat. I have a friend who is greatly admired for his many fine
attributes of character of which one is total candor. In a draft of a
book, he wrote that his wife is the second smartest woman he has ever
met. She reacted with good humor, but the risks are clear.
On the other hand, overt lying and secrecy are generally accepted
as permissible when in combat with an enemy. I once caused the cap-
ture of a burglar and the loot from several robberies in San Diego by
lying to the burglar in a back alley at 2:00 am. I convinced the fellow
that I, too was being chased by the police. In fact, the police and I
were both chasing him. Jeff Cooper would have done this more hon-
orably, but then I did not have his skills or equipment available.
War between nations usually involves a great amount of secrecy
and disinformation. Nuclear weapons development during World
War II and during the Cold War included much deliberate dishonesty
and secrecy. This stimulated a substantial debate. Edward Teller has,
for decades, consistently argued against this secrecy.
Nuclear secrecy deprived most American scientists of the infor-
mation needed to contribute their own talents to the defense of their
country. It also left most Americans uninformed of the facts needed
to prudently evaluate their countrys policies toward nuclear weap-
ons, civil defense, and even nuclear power development. It has been
convincingly argued that these effects of secrecy did far more harm
than good to the United States especially since our totalitarian op-
ponents managed to learn our secrets anyway. Secrecy was really
only effective against honest, patriotic Americans.
Incomplete knowledge of matters of crucial public importance is
inherently dangerous to a free society even regarding issues less spec-
tacular than nuclear weapons. At present, for example, suspicion and
distrust concerning numerous semi-secret events is completely shred-
to increasing levels of greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols by
TEMPERATURE
troubles on cooling from sulfate aerosols) it is useful to review
As we watch the the global warming gurus presently impaled
upon their thermometers and writhing unhappily in an atmosphere
where the temperature just refuses to go up (see, for examples, Access
to Energy Vol. 22, No. 9, p 3, for temperatures and Climate response
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
ding the remaining credibility of the current American President. If
the truth is so bad that it must be hidden, then we need another Presi-
dent. If it is not, then we need the truth, so that the President can do
his job in an atmosphere of trust and confidence.
In fact, experienced people usually watch for signs of secretive-
ness as a negative measure of veracity and also as a measure of mind-
set. If a person or group is secretive, it is reasonably probable that
they view those to whom they are secretive as enemies or potential
enemies. Privacy is, of course, an entirely different matter. Privacy is
a valuable and enjoyable benefit of freedom. Secrecy is manipulative.
Sensible application of secrecy (and even overt dishonesty) in
combat with an enemy requires the wisdom to determine whether or
not the secrecy is actually beneficial whether it does more harm to
ones enemy than it does to ones allies. In retrospect, regarding the
probable that Edward Teller was right. Secrecy about nuclear tech-
nology has been counterproductive.
As nuclear, chemical, and biological technology has advanced and
knowledge has become more widespread, however, all decent people
face an increasing danger from an old enemy terrorism. With cur-
rent technology, terrorists can threaten or destroy the lives of very
large numbers of people. Moreover, successful terrorist attacks of
large magnitude could damage all of our lives by means of the dimi-
nution of our freedom that might take place in reaction to such acts.
Terrorists are always our enemies. Press spinmeisters use words
such as freedom fighters and insurgents for the leftists and re-
serve terrorists or right wing extremists for the rightists. We
wonder what euphemisms would have emerged if the suspects in
Oklahoma City had called themselves environmentalists.
Every person, given special circumstances and potential mental
instability, is a potential terrorist, but the risk that any single individ-
ual will commit a terrorist act is very, very small. How far can we go,
therefore, in describing the details or even the general potentialities of
terrorist acts without raising the risk of those acts? Conversely, in a
free society, how will we ever raise awareness of this risk high
enough to stimulate reasonable protective measures if we do not dis-
cuss the potential acts? Wisdom dictates that we balance the chance
that each discussion will lead to protective measures vs. the chance
that it will enhance the daydreams of a twisted mind. After all, five
decades of open discussion of the risk of nuclear war have failed to
stimulate realistic American civil defense.
As a countermeasure to terrorism, we might try national publicity
and well-publicized conferences concerning terrible weapons for ter-
rorism mythical weapons that will not work. This would, however,
probably just fool our friends and not the terrorists.
We do not claim to know whether or how much public discussion
of potential terrorist weapons and actions should be restricted. Se-
crecy and dishonesty are justified when in mortal combat with an en-
emy. Sometimes they are counterproductive. Terrorists dangerous
and difficult to deter enemies of us all may constitute a case in
which wise use of secrecy is the best course.
Mitchell, et al in Nature 376 p 501 (1995), for an effort to blame their
briefly the definition and simpler properties of atmospheric tempera-
ture. The earths atmosphere is primarily a diatomic gas. Of each
10,000 atmospheric molecules at sea level, about 7,708 are nitrogen
(N2), 2,075 are oxygen (O2), 120 are water (H2O), 93 are argon (Ar),
and 3 to 4 are carbon dioxide (CO2). This assumes certain standard
and typical conditions (see International Critical Tables 1, p 393,
1926). There are also traces of neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xe-
non, ozone, radon, and other gases (see CRC Handbook of Chemistry
and Physics). These values change with altitude primarily by de-
creases in H2O, O2, and Ar and increases in hydrogen (H2) and N2.
Most atmospheric molecules (N2, O2, and H2) are diatomic, mean-
ing that each contains two atoms joined by a chemical bond. O2 mole-
cules are about 4 angstroms or 4x10-8 centimeters long. Lined up end
to end, there would be about 60 million O2 molecules per inch.
The temperature of a gas such as the atmosphere is defined as
the mean (average) kinetic energy of the molecules in that gas. Figure 1
The kinetic energy of an object (whether of an airplane full of envi-
ros winging their way to another meeting about the immorality of en-
ergy use or of a single molecule innocently bouncing around in your
breath) is one-half its mass times its velocity squared ( E = 1/2mv2 ).
For a monatomic gas with only only one atom in each unit, the ki-
netic energy arises only from translational motion movement of the
atom from place to place in three dimensions. For a diatomic molecule,
additional motions are possible. These are rotational motion the two arises here as 1.0 units from thermal expansion; 1.5 from translational
atoms in the molecule spin about their mutual center of mass and energy; 1.0 from rotational energy; and 1.0 from vibrational energy.)
vibrational motion the two atoms vibrate back and forth by stretching The problem was that Maxwell and his colleagues did not have ac-
and compressing the chemical bond that holds them together. (Imagine cess to quantum mechanics because it had not yet been discovered.
the molecule as a tiny barbell suspended by a string from the bar be- Figures 2 and 3 show the quantum mechanical explanation that now
tween the two weights. Now, if you hit one of the weights, the barbell allows theoretical calculations to agree with experiment. These figures
rotates. If, however, the weights were connected by a spring instead of are from Spectra of Diatomic Molecules by G. Herzberg, p 99 and p
a rod, you could also pull them apart and let go with the result that the 107 (1950), published by D. Van Nostrand Company.
two weights would vibrate in and out with respect to one another.) Figure 2 shows the distances between the H2 atoms in a hydrogen
As heat is added to a gas, that energy must be stored in the gas. The molecule as they vibrate back and forth (horizontal axis) vs. the energy
storage that takes place in the motion of the molecules of a diatomic contained in that vibration (vertical axis). Quantum mechanics shows
gas is in the translational, rotational, and vibrational motions of the that these vibrations can only take place at discrete energies and are not
molecules of that gas. Some molecules can store more heat than others allowed for energies in between these discrete levels. These levels for
with the same velocities of motion because they have more or heavier H2 are labeled 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on in the figure. At high levels, vibra-
atoms or atoms that are more free to move under certain conditions. tion tears the molecule apart as indicated by the gray area at the top.
Looking at this another way, each diatomic molecule has two atoms Until the temperature is sufficiently high to cause some of the hy-
that can move and therefore more degrees of freedom to engage in mo- drogen molecules to vibrate vigorously enough to be in level 1, they all
tions with kinetic energy. The two atoms, however, are bound together must stay in level 0. They cannot, therefore, store additional energy in
and are, therefore, not entirely free. Therefore, it is useful to categorize vibration when at low temperature.
the new potential motions as rotations and vibrations of the molecule. As shown in Figure 3, molecular rotation is also quantized. The first
The more energy that is added to the gas and stored in the gas, the five vibrational levels (0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 labeled v) are those in Figure 2.
faster its molecules move and therefore the higher its temperature. Superimposed on each of these, we see the sets of rotational levels al-
For historical reasons, we use temperature scales of degrees Fahren- lowed in each vibrational level. No energy can be stored in rotation
heit (F), Centigrade (C), or Kelvin (K) and varying definitions of until the temperature is high enough to provide energy for the mole-
temperature. These can all be related to average molecular kinetic en- cules to move to the next higher quantized J rotational state above 0.
ergy by appropriate constants and conversion procedures. Returning to Figure 1, we see that H2 is unable to store energy in
The theory of the behavior of gases was conceptualized in the early either vibration or rotation at temperatures between its boiling point
1700s and elegantly worked out by several great theoreticians, culmi- (about 20 K) and 50 K. Above 50 K, H2 gradually accumulates ro-
nating with James Clerk Maxwells classic paper in 1859. These scien-
tists did such careful work that their calculations were mathematically
perfect. So, they should have obtained perfect agreement with experi-
ments on simple gases. Maxwell, however, realized that there was
something wrong with their molecular model because his calculations
of the energy that could be stored in a gas were not in agreement with
actual experimental measurements. Feynman quotes Maxwell as say-
ing ten years later, I have now put before you what I consider to be
the greatest difficulty yet encountered by the molecular theory. (See
Feynman Lectures on Physics by R. P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton, and
M. Sands, Volume 1, p 40-9 (1963), published by Addison-Wesley.
To Maxwell and his contemporaries, it appeared that certain mo-
tions of molecules, allowed at high temperatures, became impossible at
lower temperatures. They had no explanation for this effect. The effect
is shown in Figure 1 which is adapted from General Chemistry third
edition by L. Pauling, p 364 (1970), published by W. H. Freeman.
The experimental heat capacities in Figure 1 show perfect agree- Figure 2
ment with the theoretical value of 2.5 for the monatomic gases, He, Ne,
Ar, Kr, and Xe. Only, however, at very high temperatures do the ex-
perimental values for the heat capacity of the diatomic gases reach the
value of 4.5 equivalently calculated by Maxwell. (The heat capacity
tational energy storage which is mostly complete above 400 K, but is
still unable to store energy in vibration. Above 700 K, vibrational en-
ergy storage begins to become possible for the more energetic H2
molecules. The other diatomic molecules shown in Figure 1 have dif-
ferent curves because their atoms have different masses and chemical
bonding ability, so their quantum levels have different spacings.
Different individual molecules in the same gas can have differing
energy contents at different times. The actual detailed theory calculates
distribution functions for the different energy configurations. These
functions give the indicated overall results.
The O2 and N2 (and, at high altitude, H2) which comprise most at-
mospheric molecules have quantum levels such that, at ordinary tem-
peratures of 0 C to 100 C (32 F to 212 F or 273 K to 373 K), to conform to experiment. Newton is quoted in Science 255, p 693
additional rotational energy can be stored but vibrational energy can-
not. Too few molecules are able to reach energies high enough to oc-
cupy the first vibrational level above the 0 state.
As our atmosphere warms and cools, therefore, the diatomic mole-
cules of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen and the atoms of argon store
and release heat energy by increasing or decreasing their average trans-
lational velocities. In addition, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen are able
to store energy by increasing their rates of rotation. At ordinary tem-
Figure 3
peratures, however, increases in molecular vibration do not take place.
Energy transfer to atmospheric molecules occurs primarily by colli-
sions between those molecules and the molecules of warmer bodies
and by absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation.
As you read, you cannot see the tiny diatomic benefactors in the air
between your eyes and this page. If they were not there, however, tire-
lessly bumping into your body and storing and releasing energy by in-
creasing or decreasing their rates of translational and rotational motion,
you would be immediately uncomfortable and soon dead.
In these few words, we can communicate only a little about the sub-
ject of energy storage in atmospheric gases and the measure of that
storage which is called temperature. This is, however, a very beau- voltage is used in power lines in order to pass more energy through a
tiful and exact part of physical science. If you know a student 16 years
of age or older to whom you wish to give a lasting gift, get copies of
the three books listed above (as sources for Figures 1 to 3) from your
library or from interlibrary loan and suggest that he study these books
until he understands this subject and all of its associated mathematics.
Notice three things. First, as complicated as this simplified explana-
tion may sound, it is childs play in comparison with understanding the
atmosphere of the whole earth an ability the global warming industry
falsely claims to have acquired. Second, Maxwell insisted that theory
agree with experiment if theory were to be considered correct. Global
warming calculations have a common characteristic they do not
agree with experiment because they fail to agree with measured atmos-
pheric temperatures. These calculations are fundamentally flawed and
cannot be corrected with fudge factors designed to give a politically
desirable answer. Third, we are very fortunate to live at a time when
the world that surrounds us has been enhanced by science. In previous
times, people lived out their entire lives without ever having an oppor-
tunity to know about and enjoy the truth about the air around them.
ISAAC NEWTON
During the years before his death in August 1995, Nobel prize-win-
ning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar worked through the
mathematical propositions in Isaac Newtons Principia and formulated
them into a book entitled Newtons Principia for the Common Reader
by S. Chandrasekhar (1995), Oxford University Press. This is re-
viewed by D. Hughes in On the shoulders of giants, Nature 376, p
395 (1995). The Principia is entirely unchallenged as the greatest sci-
entific achievement in history.
Even sciences greatest theoretician, however, required his theories
(1991) as saying, about his work on pendulums and inertial and gravi-
tational mass, I tried the thing in gold, silver, lead, glass, sand, com-
mon salt, wood, water, and wheat. I provided two equal wooden boxes.
I filled the one with wood, and suspended an equal weight of gold (ex-
actly as I could) in the center of oscillation of the other. The boxes,
hung by equal threads of 11 feet, made a couple of pendulums per-
fectly equal in weight and figure, and equally exposed to the resistance
of air: and, placing the one by the other, I observed them to play to-
gether forwards and backwards for a long while, with equal vibrations.
And therefore the quantity of matter [inertial mass] in the gold was to
the quantity of matter in the wood as the action of the motive force
[gravitational mass] upon all the gold to the action of the same upon all
the wood; that is, as the weight of the one to the weight of the other.
When Newton invented the reflecting telescope, he first built a
brick oven. In that oven he carried out metallurgical experiments to
formulate the composition of the mirror. Then he made the mirror with
which he constructed the telescope. Technology has changed, but this
is still the sort of activity that characterizes real scientists in 1995.
Compare this with the nitwitted, tax-funded apparitions, hands un-
sullied by honest work, who appear at press conferences today to howl
that the skys ozone is falling and its temperature is rising when the
experimental data shows that both are only fluctuating in a normal way
and neither has changed significantly.
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
Electromagnetic Fields from Utility Power Lines and Salem
Witchcraft by H. E. Payne has been published in several places and is
available from Payne Engineering, Rt. 29 Rocky Step Road, Scott De-
pot, WV 25560. The magnetic field in milligauss of a straight electric
wire is equal to 6.6 times the electric current in the wire in amperes
divided by the distance from the wire in feet. For reference, Payne
gives the usual human exposure to the earths magnetic field as about
500 milligauss. This exposure is continuous, 24 hours each day.
The magnetic field depends upon the amount of current flowing
through the wire regardless of whether the voltage is high or low. High
wire of minimum diameter, but it is the current that determines the
magnetic field strength. As an example, Payne uses a high voltage
power line 300 feet from a home and transmitting 300 amperes of cur-
rent. This would result in a field in the home of about 7 milligauss.
Conversely, the low voltage wiring in the house itself, assuming 30
amperes on average 24 hours per day and wires averaging 10 feet from
the occupants, exposes them to about 20 milligauss. During high expo-
sure periods, such as working 5 feet from the wiring of a 40 ampere
electric range, this rises to about 50 milligauss. All of these magnetic
fields are small with respect to the earths field. Also, even in a house
near a high voltage transmission line, most of the exposure comes from
the wiring of the house itself and it appliances.
Little is known about the biological effects of magnetic fields. Since
these fields are weak in comparison with molecular forces, it is be-
lieved that the biological effects are small. If they are affected, how-
ever, biological systems must function in the usual environmental
magnetic field. This field comes from the earth and, except in unusual
locations, is not increased appreciably by human activities.

DISHONESTY IN SCIENCE
Access to Energy keeps reviewing the facts about the enviro scams
that falsely allege global warming, ozone destruction, forest depletion,
and whatever else is politically correct. Our back issues and good read-
ing recommendations already contain more than enough information
to discredit these claims. Why, however, do mediocre scientists keep
repeating these myths? Why, also, are most good scientists silent about
them? Moreover, what is the scientific community going to do as fur-
ther research accumulates to show that these myths which it promoted
or at least tolerated are deliberate falsehoods?
Three recent articles help to answer these questions.
No: Doomsayers are just trying to scare money out of the govern-
ment by S. Fred Singer, Insight, September 4 (1995) pp 19-21 re-
views some of the dishonesty in the global warming industry and
correctly links this behavior with the current $2.1 billion annual U. S.
tax-financed expenditure for global-change research. There is big
money in global lies, and a surplus of people willing to tell whatever
lies are necessary to continue receiving that money money that is
taken by force or threat of force from the men and women who earned
it. Also, there is a surplus of government bureaucrats and politicians
who are are happy to do the taking as long as they receive a portion of
the loot (and the prestige and lifestyle that it buys) as it goes past.
Peer Review After the Big Crunch by David Goodstein, Ameri-
can Scientist 83, September-October (1995) pp 401-402 discusses
some of the pressures that have caused an increase in dishonesty in sci-
ence with special reference to breakdown of the peer review system.
David Goodstein is vice provost and professor of physics at Caltech
and one author of the two physics texts we have been recommending
for self-teaching home schools (see Verbalize in Access to Energy
22, No. 10, June 1995 p 1). He points out that the exponential increase
in resources for scientific research, which was fed by enormous in-
creases in tax money during its latter decades, ended about 1970. Since
then, too many people who are in the business of science (we can-
not call the majority of these people real scientists) have been scram-
bling for shares of the static to slightly decreasing amount of money
available. Increasing numbers of these people are willing to discard
scientific integrity in order to preserve their place at the trough.
A Fickle Sun Could Be Altering Earths Climate After All by
Richard A. Kerr, Science 269 (1995) p 633 is illustrative of the sort of
articles that are starting to appear with respect to everything from
AIDS to ozone. Correctly reviewing a research paper that shows a
strong correlation between solar flux and atmospheric pressure (re-
member those tiny barbells discussed on pages 2 and 3 which exert
more pressure as they get warmer and therefore hit the objects around
them with greater frequency and velocity), Kerr manages to open this
article, however, with the politically correct and very dishonest state-
ment, No, theres still little evidence that a brightening sun drove the
last centurys global warming, as some greenhouse skeptics argue.
Remember, the small increase in global temperatures during the
past century occurred before the release of most of the dreaded CO2,
and no increase at all has been observed in satellite temperature data
for the past 15 years. (See Access to Energy 22-9 p 3. 22-1 pp 1-3, and
21-8 p 4.) There is no evidence whatever that increases in greenhouse
gases have caused significant or even measurable increases in global
temperatures during the past century. Such warming probably does ex-
ist, but is apparently of minor importance and not yet measurable,
whereas there is evidence that fluctuations in the sun are important.
The procedure here is, when the truth becomes inescapable, to slip it
into the literature gradually along with repetitions of the original lies.
The taxpayers are supposed to be so busy earning more money for the
tax collectors that they do not notice the shifting argument.
It is important to realize that many honest scientists are institution-
ally trapped into silence on these issues. As soon as a research institu-
tion, even one with a large endowment of private money, has a
significant number of tax-financed people, all of its scientists feel peer
pressure to avoid endangering the money of the tax-supported group.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Wall Street Journal, August 23, (1995) p A10 reports that a
new calendar put out by the 241,000 member tax-financed California
Teachers Association, the largest affiliate of the National Education
Association, includes the following holidays: Womens Equality Day,
Hispanic Heritage Month, International Day of Peace in Education,
American Indian Day, National Coming Out Day, United Nations
Day, Kwanza (an African-American harvest celebration), International
Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, the anniversary of Wounded
Knee, Nirvana Day, Asian/Pacific Heritage Month, and the anniver-
sary of the Stonewall Rebellion (when New York homosexuals rose
against police in 1969). Not included on the calendar are Christmas,
Independence Day, and Labor Day.
Tens of thousands of refugees from California have been pouring
over the Oregon border each year. Unfortunately, those hoping for bet-
ter from socialism in education in Oregon are going to be disappointed.
l E. B. Dunckel sends four infamous ravings worth repeating:
Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It
would be little short of disastrous for us to discover the source of clean,
cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.
Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute.
We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capital-
ists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and the plowed
land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled
rivers and return to wilderness millions and tens of millions of acres of
presently settled land. David Foreman, Earth First!
People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of
them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as
good a way as any. Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund.
Giving society cheap, abundant energy . . . would be the equiva-
lent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. Paul Ehrlich, Stanford.
GOOD READING
l Rising CO2, A Breath of Life for the Biosphere by Keith E.
Idso, World Climate Review 3, No. 3, pp 8-15 available from Depart-
ment of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, VA 22903. Access to Energy has reported many times
about the excellent research of the Idsos and their colleagues. This is a
good overview of that work. If CO2 were not already rising in the at-
mosphere, its many environmental benefits would strongly suggest
that it should be intentionally increased.
l Why Im Running for President by Harry Browne available
from 4094 Majestic Lane, Suite 240, Fairfax, VA 22033. Access to En-
ergy is not going to start endorsing candidates, but this libertarian
monograph is worth reading regardless of your presidential preference.
l For Sale: U.S. Enrichment Corporation in Nuclear Energy In-
sight, August (1995) pp 1-2 available from 1776 I Street, NW, Suite
400, Washington, DC 20006-3708. The government is selling its nu-
clear fuel business that supplies 90% of the U.S. and 40% of the world
markets. They want to privatize it, but will they also deregulate it?
l Chinas Nukes in The Wall Street Journal of August 24
(1995) p A16. While a large nuclear weapons capability is rising in
Asia, our government has dismantled our tactical nuclear weapons and
left us defended only by the suicidal threat of strategic retaliation.
Meanwhile, the administration continues its efforts to gut strategic de-
fense. It is refusing its obligation to provide for our common defense.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
OCTOBER 1995 (Vol. 23, no. 2) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Morality in Medical Science
Fundamental scientific research is not dependent upon morality
except as regards the behavior of the individual scientists conducting
it. If they do not conduct their work with scrupulous intellectual hon-
esty, then that work is likely to fail and to cause the failure of other
efforts that depend upon it. Also, since good research is an activity
requiring excellent physical and mental skills, individuals of debased
habits are less likely to succeed consistently, although many discover-
ies have been made by such people during brief periods of lucidity or
serendipity that are not characteristic of their lives in general.
For those fortunate enough to experience it, fundamental research
is very enjoyable. Outstanding scientists who tend to work nearly Science 267, p 956 (1995), provides an example. Embellished with a
every waking hour of the day are often described as dedicated, de-
voted, or even married to their work. In fact, most of them are just
having so much fun that they are unwilling to stop for less enjoyable
activities. (We are referring here to real scientists not to the granta-
holics who spend vast amounts of time at their desks generating paper
in a never-ending search for more of the tax collectors loot and most
of the rest of their time rushing to meetings where their activities rein-
force this political quest.)
When it became clear at age 25 years that I could have a perma-
nent laboratory of my own in exchange for a modest amount of teach-
ing, I often thought to myself, This is great. I may never have to
work. I am going to get to play all my life, and people are going to
pay me for it. This reverie became more sophisticated and sub-
sequently led to a moral conclusion that I owed something in return
to those who were financing my fun. (I was then still oblivious to the
involuntary nature of their contributions and therefore to the inherent
immorality of accepting tax money at all for research except for
defense research in which I was not engaged.)
These thoughts led the idealistic young tax recipient to decide that
he should spend half of his time doing work that was immediately
applicable to human well-being, so I chose medical research. Medical
research turned out to be actual work (not play) and also turned out to
have moral and political components that are far more difficult to deal
with than are scientific experiments.
Although initial progress can be made in simpler systems, medical
research ultimately involves experiments on human beings. Humans
are generally the worst experimental animal that one can choose.
They are inherently complicated in chemistry and biology, subject to
great individual variability, difficult to work with in large numbers,
time consuming, almost impossible to control, and not expendable. In
a single afternoon, one can perform a rigorous experiment on 100,000
brine shrimp. The same experiment, more crudely done, could prob-
ably not be completed on humans in an entire lifetime.
Except in certain restricted specialties, one chooses to do research
on human beings solely for moral reasons to increase the quality
and quantity of human life and to diminish the amount of human suf-
fering. These goals cannot be met by science alone, but science and
engineering can be a great help. Although the ideals that motivate sci-
entists to do this sort of work are often different from those of basic
research, they are still ideals that usually are a necessary part of good
four months from direct fatalities and perhaps as much as year when
MAGNETIC DEMONS
ered. Now, we realize that this lost year is minor in comparison with
About every 15 minutes, someone is killed and several others are
injured in auto accidents in the United States, yet our government has
spent trillions of dollars to build the roads that make this carnage possi-
ble. These accidents shorten the average American life span by about
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
work. Some people have other goals. They enter research on human
health for fame or notoriety or, much more commonly, because it
provides an easier source of money than other fields.
In a more free society, these self-serving motivations would be
beneficial just as they are in any free market of goods and services. In
our society, however where most aspects of the development and
delivery of medical technology are financed or regulated by govern-
ment bureaucrats and where a vast industry of tort litigation stands
ready to feed upon any irregularity morality is too often ignored.
Brookhaven Prepares for Boron Trials by Andrew Lawler in
photo-op picture of energy bureaucrat Hazel OLeary with her
arm around a recently treated brain cancer patient, this article de-
scribes a research project to test the use of boron neutron capture ther-
apy. A boron compound is administered which concentrates in the
brain tumor. A beam of neutrons then activates the compound, mak-
ing it radioactive. This kills the tumor.
Brain cancer is very difficult to treat. Efforts to mitigate it with
neutrons or otherwise have had many failures. Boron neutron capture
therapy is controversial, but has shown very promising results in
some animal and human tests. It is also politically advantageous for
those like OLeary who control Brookhavens budget.
Let us assume, in any case, that the Brookhaven boron activation
procedure is ready for a human test. What is the protocol? They plan
to treat two patients per month for 8 or 9 months. Meanwhile, large
numbers of brain cancer victims with 6 months or less to live are beg-
ging to serve as experimental subjects. The facility is capable of treat-
ing several patients per day. Why reject them? Typical of government
programs, this experiment appears to involve a few unfortunate vic-
tims surrounded by hoards of self-interested paper shufflers.
The real scientists would undoubtedly prefer to accumulate data as
quickly as possible. Time is crucial in medical research where lost
time can be measured in lost lives lives that are never recovered.
Ah, but there are other interests. Food and Drug Administration
approval was required for these experiments. FDA bureaucrats are re-
warded for never approving anything that might cause criticism for
their superiors, not for saving lives. DOE and the smiling OLeary
will be rewarded with photo-ops as long as the program is in pro-
gress. They would probably much prefer that any potential failure be
delayed. Brookhaven bureaucrats are paid for work in progress. They
have instituted a lottery plan to decide which two individual dying
patients will be treated each month. This is the greed side. On the fear
side, everyone is looking over his shoulder at the lawyers.
All of these wonderful people are being paid large amounts of
money for their meetings and decisions to make sure that dying
people are not killed by scientists who are trying to save their lives.
In a disaster, a morally responsible physician just wades in among
the victims and tries to help regardless of the ultimate personal conse-
quences for himself. Medical scientists should behave similarly. Un-
fortunately, our society is awash in people who will make sure that
any such idealistic Samaritans are soundly punished for their efforts.
the indirect effects of injury, suffering, and family losses are consid-
the enormous loss of life caused by taxation rates that now exceed
$20,000 per family per year think of the increased safety and quality
of life that money would buy if it remained in the hands of those who
earned it. Still, traffic deaths are a major technological hazard. We do
not, however, hear a clamor to ban automobile transportation. Vari-
ous enviro groups do work to make autos more efficient and lighter in
weight which promotes the driving of additional dangerous miles
and increases the likelihood of fatalities when accidents occur.
We often wonder what form transportation would have taken with-
out the vast highway subsidies. In any case, there seems to be a belief
among the American people that our motor transportation technology
adds more to their lives than is subtracted by its dangers. This may in
fact be true. Personal transportation has added substantially to individ-
ual freedom. Furthermore, that freedom has greatly enhanced the ad-
vance of technology of all sorts, which is largely responsible for the
increase of 8 years in life expectancy in developed countries since
1950 (from 66 years to 74 years see The True State of the Planet,
edited by R. Bailey, Free Press, Simon and Schuster (1995)).
Technological advance (the increased life expectancy since 1950 in
less developed countries has been 22 years) is critically dependent
upon the availability of electric power. Without inexpensive electric
power, world-wide life expectancies would be much lower. Therefore,
it is to be expected that the antitechnology earth-huggers who wish to
rid this planet of a substantial fraction of its
people (not including, of course, them-
selves, since a few sensitive and superior
beings must remain to smell the flowers)
would attack electric technology by any
means available to them. Among their pre-
ferred demons are the electric and mag-
netic fields that are associated with the
transmission and use of electric power.
The electromagnetic spectrum is very
broad. The low end includes oscillations of
60 Hz (hertz or cycles per second) for the
ordinary power in your wall outlets or even
a fraction of a hertz for the field you will
generate when you turn around to adjust
your reading light and thereby move the
molecules in your body relative to the
earths magnetic field. The high end in the
ranges around 1020 Hz (the total range is of
unknown magnitude) includes the electro-
magnetic radiation emitted from radioac-
tive decay, which is so energetic that it can
tear electrons away from atoms and break
chemical bonds and is therefore called ionizing radiation. We are con-
tinually bathed in ionizing radiation resulting from radioactive materi-
als in our bodies and environment and from cosmic radiation so
much so that ionizing radiation from nuclear power plants is a negli-
gibly small addition.
In between are the frequencies of the
Figure 1 microwaves that may have cooked your
breakfast by increasing the rotation rate of
the polar molecules such as water in your
food and thereby heating it. (Remember
those little rotators with quantized rota-
tional energy levels that we described in the
September 1995 Access to Energy.) In-
cluded also are the radio and television
electromagnetic waves that bring us word
from the enviros about the evils of electro-
magnetic radiation. (In the 1860s, James
Clerk Maxwell combined the laws of elec-
tricity and magnetism with the laws of the
behavior of light and discovered that a part
of electric and magnetic fields is attenuated
linearly with distance rather than as the
square of the distance. This makes radio
and television communication possible.)
Living things are full of polar particles
and biologically important electric and
magnetic processes, and they do interact
with electromagnetic fields. Ionizing radia-
tion directly changes molecular structures.
In so doing, it causes the beneficial effects
of hormesis (see, for example, Access to Energy 22-8, p 3, April 1995)
and also, if the dose is too great, harmful effects. High frequency radio
and microwave radiation can cause injuries by heating living tissue.
Therefore, there are strict safety limits of exposure for consumer mi-
crowave devices and even amateur radio transmitters limits that are
far above ordinary exposure levels.
Very low frequency fields are produced by ordinary alternating cur-
rent electrical devices. Their magnetic fields diminish as the first
power of the distance from a linear source and as the second power of
the distance from a point source, and, for practical purposes, do not
radiate. These magnetic fields are difficult to shield, exert a significant
force on molecules in living things, and have been shown to have nu-
merous interesting biological properties. Although these effects are
also caused by non-manmade phenomena such as the magnetic field of
the earth, power transmission and use is a substantial contributor.
Figure 2

Figure 3
The magnetic field of the earth is about 500 milliGauss (mG) at the
surface. This includes small oscillating fields, but is largely static. The
earth is also a spherical capacitor continuously being charged by light-
ning (about 100 strokes per second worldwide) and discharging with a
time constant of about 18 seconds. The resulting electric field at the
surface is about 100 volts per meter of height. (See F. S. Barnes, In-
teraction of DC Electric Fields with Living Matter in CRC Handbook
of Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, pp 99-119 (1986).)
A changing magnetic field exerts a force on electrically charged
bodies within the field. A charged body moving through a static mag-
netic field also experiences a force. The charged substances in a human
body are, therefore, coupled to static and oscillating magnetic fields.
For example, if you turn completely around at a speed of one revo-
lution in six seconds, the electrical forces in your body exerted by the
500 mG static earth field will be equivalent to those exerted by about a
1.0 mG AC power line magnetic field oscillating at 60 cycle per sec-
ond. Walking generates an equivalent of about 0.2 mG. (See Sources
and Characteristics of Electric and Magnetic Fields in the Environ-
ment by D. W. Deno and D. O. Carpenter in Biological Effects of
Electric and Magnetic Fields, Volume 2, ed. Carpenter and Ayrape-
tyan, Academic Press (1994)).
Figures 1, 2 and 4 are from the Deno and Carpenter article. Figure 3
is from Electric and Magnetic Fields and Cancer: The Use of Field
Exposure Measurements in Epidemiological Studies by S. Koifman
and G. Thriault in Volume 1 of Biological Effects of Electric and
Magnetic Fields (1994). Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of
measured magnetic fields in a real estate office in mG. Fields near the
typewriter and copier are as high as 30 mG but fall off rapidly with
distance, so both chairs are at much lower levels. The chair in front of
the computer terminal is at 0.2 to 0.5 mG comparable to the effect of
the static earth field if the chairs occupant does not sit very still. (For
more, read Electromagnetic Fields and VDT-itis by Petr Beckmann
available for $3 from Golem Press, Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306.)
These authors also give typical approximate values for household de-
vices as: electric blanket at 1 cm distance, 20-30 mG; clothes washer, 4
mG; dishwasher, 4 to 7 mG; vacuum cleaner, 16 mG; hair dryer at 2
inches distance, 100 mG; electric razor at skin surface, 14 mG; hand
circular saw, 100 mG; and gasoline driven chain saw, 150 to 500 mG.
Figure 2 illustrates the magnetic fields measured in and around an
elementary school near Ottawa, Canada, that result from a major trans-
mission line energized at 230,000 volts passing very near the school in
the right of way shown at the top of the figure along with one of the
high voltage line towers. With the line turned off, values outside the
school at sites 1 through 10 and 1 meter above the ground were 0.3,
0.2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.2, 1.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.2, and 0.2 mG, respectively. With the
line on, the values at 1-10 were 32.5, 16.4, 5.4, 2.6, 6.1, 8.1, 16.5, 24.0,
13.0, and 5.8 mG. With the line turned off, values inside the school at
sites A through M were 0.3, 0.5, 0.3, 0.7, 2.5, 0.2, 0.2, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.4,
0.3, and 0.2 mG. With the line on, the values at A-M were 0.6, 0.6, 1.0,
1.4, 5.1, 2.2, 0.8, 1.6, 3.4, 3.8, 2.4, 2.2, and 1.9 mG. The highest values
in classrooms were at sites I and J of 3.4 and 3.8 mG. By comparison
with classrooms L and M, which are closer to the power line, we can
see that about half of the magnetic field in rooms I and J comes from
the padmount transformer supplying electricity to the school. Inside
the school rooms, the magnetic field from the high voltage transmis-
sion line varies from an average of 0.4 mG for those rooms farthest
from the line to an average of 1.9 mG for rooms closest to the line.
Aside from electronic equipment inside the office, home, or school,
the greatest exposure to magnetic fields is usually from the local lines
to the structure. As I write this, I may be receiving about 1 mG from
my computer monitor, but I may be receiving as much as 5 mG from
the power line that supplies this building and goes by outside my win-
dow. Figure 3 shows that this is complicated. The power line itself has
two, mostly parallel wires whose fields tend to cancel one another, but
ground loops from other sources can be important.
Figure 4 shows measurements on city streets in Alexandria, Vir-
ginia. As the distance from the electric power substation on Union
Street increases, magnetic fields decrease, since there is less current in
the transmission lines. However, peaks of magnetic field scattered
through the pattern show fields arising from other sources. These 5 to
10 mG peaks are comparable to power line fields in much of the grid.
Figure 4
So, as the flying instructor said in Top Gun, you can run, but you
cant hide. In fact, running in the earths magnetic field may just
cause your highest magnetic field exposure for the day. Perhaps this is
one of the hidden health benefits of exercise. Living or working right
beside a high voltage power line right of way does increase your expo-
sure, but, if you use an ordinary complement of electrical devices, the
power line exposure (obviously, this does not include hanging from the
towers right under the line) is not of overwhelming importance.
What about the health benefits or risks? Well, your body does de-
tect these fields. There is a great amount of biological research show-
ing all sorts of effects of electric and magnetic fields on living things.
Most of these experiments are not immediately relevant to humans,
but, taken as whole, it is clear that the human body which, through its
biochemistry, utilizes many electromagnetic processes is affected by
forces of the magnitudes caused by motion in the earths magnetic field
and by fields from electrical appliances and power transmission.
After large amounts of research effort (see, for example, the books
referenced above), still no reproducible and significant negative health
effects have been demonstrated. This does not mean that none exist.
The positive health effects of electric power in increasing the quality
and length of human life are, however, obvious. The great cost in hu-
man lives from the huge amount of resources that would have to be
expended to substantially reduce magnetic field exposure is certainly
not justified in the absence of proven significant negative effects.
Turn on the power and enjoy its benefits. Being struck by lightning
is probably a greater electrical danger but, of course, lightning is
natural, so it is a politically correct and acceptable risk.
 This hype precedes the other SAT change that has now also taken
GRANTS PASS CONFERENCE
everyones score and also makes possible a perfect score of 1600 with
The Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, DDP, conference cospon-
sored by Access to Energy, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medi-
cine, and Physicians for Civil Defense was attended by about 200
participants who heard many interesting and informative presentations.
Edward Teller spoke about meteorite impacts and means for deal-
ing with them and also made some remarks about fusion weapons.
Martin Kamen discussed carbon 14 and radioactive tracers. Bruce
Merrifield spoke about recent work on antibiotics and vaccines using
solid-phase peptide synthesis.
Potential terrorism with biological weapons was discussed by Con-
rad Chester, Lowell Wood, Ed Eitzen, and Michael Baker, and with
nuclear weapons by Sam Cohen.
Sally Baliunas spoke about the scientific errors and frauds that are
being used to perpetuate the ozone scare, and Fred Smith discussed this
and other efforts by our government to regulate and control us, while
Cresson Kearny described some of the resulting deaths.
Robert Zubrin summarized his Mars Direct plan for extensive
manned exploration of Mars with off-the-shelf technology at low cost.
The 50-year anniversary of the release of nuclear energy was com-
memorated by Ed York speaking about the Manhattan Project.
Peter Duesberg presented the experimental data that leads him to
question the hypothesis that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.
Jane Orient described U. S. government regulatory programs which
diminish American medical care; Sharon Packer and Paul Seyfried dis-
cussed our governments defense programs that leave Americans with-
out a credible strategic defense; and Arthur Robinson explained the
disaster in government schools and the increase in American
homeschooling.
DDP is providing sets of 16 audio tapes of all of the presentations
for a price of $99. These may be ordered from DDP, 2509 N. Camp-
bell, Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719. Telephone (520) 325-2680. They
also have video tapes available.
l Mortality before and after HIV infection in the complete UK
STARK RAVING MAD
79-82 (1995). HIV positive haemophiliacs were ten times more likely
l The article Rotting trees provide perfect wildlife habitat in the
Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Oregon, September 24, 1995, p
B12, reports that forest scientists are now experimentally injecting
fungus into healthy 50-75 year old trees to make them rot. This, it is
claimed, will provide nesting places for birds and animals including
the omnipresent spotted owl.
Currently, they are drilling holes for the fungus, but are soon to be-
gin work on another technique - blasting the fungus into trees with
shotguns. It seems that these people have decided that American for-
ests are too healthy for their inhabitants. The described experiments"
are another sterling example of our tax dollars at work.
The same page has a large section devoted to Earthweek: A Diary
of the Planet complete with global warming alerts. The probability
function for nuttiness increases sharply as one nears a college campus.
l We predicted it, but still could not quite believe it. In The Wall
Street Journal for September 13, 1995, p A14, The Real Score on the
SAT by B. V. Manno quotes College Board President Donald Ste-
wart as saying, This is the best-prepared [college] freshman class in
recent memory, certainly in the last 10 years. USA Today, August 24,
1995, p 6D, trumpeted this wonderful news with barely a rhetorical
wave at the truth. It turns out that 1995 SAT scores increased 6 to 8
points for the top 10% of students, 4 to 5 points for the next 10%, and
decreased a little for the bottom 50%. Students taking the other major
student evaluation test in 1995, the American College Test (ACT)
showed no rise in scores at all. The real reason for the increase in
scores is that, in 1995, the SAT was significantly dumbed down (see
Access to Energy 21-7) with more time per math problem, hand calcu-
lators permitted, and the toughest section of the verbal exam elimi-
nated. Word meanings are tested in context now, so students do not
need to have as much independent vocabulary knowledge.
place recentered scores. Recentering just adds about 100 points to
four wrong answers. Previously, zero wrong answers were required.
If the educrats perform as usual, we can expect to see further brag-
ging about the higher scores in 1996 and debate in the fine print about
the possibility that this might be partially the result of recentering.
l The tax-financed Central Utah Project will deliver water to the
agricultural regions in southern Utah. The actual cost of the water will
be $350 per acre-foot. This water will generate about $30 per acre-foot
of additional farm value. Southern Utah farmers will pay about $3 per
acre-foot for the water.
This and the general world-wide tendency for cost-ineffective gov-
ernment water projects is discussed in Water Options for the Blue
Planet by Terry L. Anderson, Chapter 8 of The True State of the
Planet, R. Bailey, editor, a project of the Competitive Enterprise Insti-
tute. Buy this book! from The Free Press, Simon and Schuster Inc.,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
GOOD READING
l The DDT ban: ecologism as a weapon of mass destruction by
M. M. Hecht and DDT, DDE, and Population Increase by T. H.
Jukes in Executive Intelligence Review, Science and Technology, Sep-
tember 8, 1995 pp 16-20, available from P.O. Box 16285, Washington,
DC 20041. Professor Jukes exposes the recent scare about DDT effects
on male reproduction which is typical of the continuing genocidal
propaganda against DDT. Rats in the androgen study were fed DDE, a
DDT metabolic product, at a dose per body weight 170,000 times
higher than the human intake in 1965.
Those humans who were alive in 1965 were also eating at least a
few milligrams of vitamin C each day. Otherwise they would have
died of scurvy. Ingesting 170,000 times the minimum dose required to
prevent scurvy would, however, have killed most (possibly all) of
them, since that is far beyond the lethal dose.
population of haemophiliacs by S. C. Darby et al, Nature 377, pp
to die of AIDS associated conditions than were HIV negatives.
This may be the best evidence yet accumulated in reply to Dues-
berg. (Nature certainly is crowing to this effect.) Still, it is not defini-
tive. Correlation does not prove causality. Presumably, they already
have lots of correlational data, or the HIV-AIDS hypothesis could not
have flourished in the first place. With tens of billions of dollars for
research and more than 70,000 published papers, we notice that they
still seem unable to complete a definitive experiment on HIV causality.
l The health effects of low-level radiation: Science, data, and
corrective action by J. Muckerheide, Nuclear News, September 1995,
pp 26-34. This is an excellent review of the death of the no-threshold
linear hypothesis for ionizing radiation effects and with it, the death
of most of the myths that have politically debilitated nuclear energy.
The saving and extending of nuclear power in the United States can
be accomplished with the effective dissemination of truth of which this
paper is an example. It cannot be accomplished by riding the fickle
wave of lies about global warming and demon carbon dioxide as too
many nuclear executives seem to be trying to do.
l From Love Canal to Present, Superfund Aint So Super in
Citizen Outlook, 10-4, pp 1-3 (1995) from the Committee for a Con-
structive Tomorrow, P.O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1995 (Vol. 23, no. 3) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Technology and Lifespan
Public debate about technology and lifespan usually emphasizes
the high-tech procedures of crisis medicine and the relative merits of
their use. Human interest stories about individual children saved at
very great expense by the miracles of modern medicine keep the pub-
lic convinced that all is well at the leading edge of health research.
Simultaneously, controversy rages about the delivery of life-pro-
longing technology at the other end of life. There is not enough
money to deliver the current miracles to everyone. The political
purveyors of the politics of envy argue, therefore, that no one (except
themselves) should be allowed to utilize this technology just because
he can afford it or because he can afford old-age medical insurance.
Hence, the current plan that puts all older Americans under a gov-
ernment system that either rations medical care directly or else dele-
gates this rationing to corporations.
Technology does have a major
impact on lifespan, but this effect is
largely unrelated to expensive medi-
cal techniques.
The lifespans of most of the citi-
zens of Ancient Rome were entirely
independent of age. Figure 1, from
the 1995 Taylor Lecture by A. M.
Kellerer, Health Physics 69, pp 446-
453 (1995) with data by J. Cairns,
Entwicklung der Mortalitt. In:
Mannheimer Forum 85/86. Mann-
heim: Boehringer, 49-94 (1986), Figure 1
gives the probability of a five-year-
old child reaching a specified age.
Half of the five-year-old children
in Ancient Rome were dead before
the age of 20. Their lifespan curve
decays with a constant probability of death so high that few people
achieve ages where physiological deterioration limits their lifespans.
The life-extending technology that these Romans lacked was pri-
marily related to hygiene and simple procedures for the control of dis-
ease epidemics. All roads led to Rome, and the diseases of the ancient
world traveled those roads. In the Roman colonies where there were
fewer such roads and a lower population density, lives were longer.
They were still short, however, compared with the USA today, where
technology provides hygiene and other improvements in life.
These technological gifts are reversible. Russian State Statistics as
given by Michael Specter of the New York Times News Service
show a decline in the life expectancies for Russian men from about
64 years to about 57 years between 1990 and 1994. This drop in
lifespans parallels the sharp drop in Russian technological output.
See, for example, Access to Energy 22 No. 8, p 4, concerning the in-
crease in epidemics of disease during recent Russian chaos.
Within the United States itself, the average lifespan of homosexu-
als is about 40 years (see Access to Energy 22 No. 6 p 3). AIDS is
estimated to be causing a 3-year drop in homosexual life expectancy
civilization. It is, however, a special tragedy of our time that their toys
NUCLEAR POWER
aged to retard sensible power development during the past generation.
Providing for the energy needs of several billion people is definitely
an adult activity. The cute toys of the enviros and other countercultur-
ists make pretty four-color spreads in magazine articles, but they are
dwarfed into insignificance by the real power consumption of human
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
for those afflicted. Lack of hygiene, increased exposure to diseases,
and the drug culture which are predominant in this community (not,
of course, for all individuals) are probably causing the rest.
Figure 1 shows that lifespan in the United States is now being lim-
ited primarily by time-dependent increased probability of death from
physiological causes aging. Still, the area in the figure above the
USA line includes many younger people who are unnecessarily de-
prived of many years of life along with the older citizens who should
be living productive, healthful lives to greater ages.
We say unnecessarily deprived because technology now
makes possible some low-cost major advances beyond hygiene and
epidemic disease control. For example, routine metabolic profiling
coupled with individualized nutritional and lifestyle modifications
could add many productive years of life.
The key is low individual cost. High-
cost crisis medicine reaches fewer peo-
ple and is of less benefit to each person
than is low-cost preventive medicine.
Why then are most of our technolo-
gists working on high-cost techniques
and neglecting low-cost ideas? The rea-
son is tax-financed government failure.
First, most non-profit health research
is now government funded or control-
led. Cost is a very unimportant concern
to the mindless bureaucracies that deter-
mine health research priorities based on
fad and fashion within the review sys-
tem. As research priorities sink to the
lowest common denominator of govern-
ment review committees, expensive
methods seem to predominate.
Second, government overregulation of the private health industry
is also biased toward high cost. With several hundred million dollars
and years of red tape required for FDA approval of one new product,
private industry cannot develop low-cost products. Very high costs
are necessary to pay government-imposed regulatory expenses.
So we have government bureaucrats rationing health care and
deciding who shall live and who shall die because expensive modern
medicine cannot be afforded for everyone. Meanwhile, the develop-
ment of low-cost technology for the further extension of lifespan
through preventive medicine is retarded and left largely to the under-
funded and chaotic alternative medicine subculture where good
and bad ideas alike seldom receive adequate evaluation.
Imagine where we would be if the National Institutes of Health
and the FDA controlled the development of computer technology.
This is a life-and-death matter that confronts every one of us.
Wealth is no protection. Undeveloped medical technology cannot be
purchased at any price, and high-cost crisis medicine is a poor substi-
tute. Most of us will have shorter lives filled with substantially greater
personal suffering as a result of tax-financed inhibition of technology.
became politically correct and, coupled with the politics of fear, man-
Even if these political problems were entirely solved now, it would
require decades to correct the damage that has already been done
damage that has exacted a terrible price in human lives.
There is, nevertheless, gradual progress. Figure 2 is from the Inter-
 As the effects of these new laws replacement of all the refrigera-
tion equipment in the world and an end to the expanded use of hydro-
carbon fuels and other technology that is needed to maintain and
improve human lives have begun to be felt, a much harder look is
being taken at the underlying hypotheses and relevant scientific data.
Moreover, unlike the tens of millions of people who lost their lives
when DDT was banned, many of those affected by the ozone and
global warming scams are strong enough to be heard.
Not to worry, say the power brokers, people will believe whatever
we tell them through their TV sets and newspapers. The big lie tech-
nique will save us. Data does not matter. Get a bunch of enviro scien-
tists together, and well claim they represent all scientists most of the
others will keep quiet or lose their grants. Well ignore the rest. This,
however, is not working. Truth and information spread easily today.
So, the globalists are panicked. Award of the Nobel Prize in Chem-
istry to three of the ozone gurus is one indication of this. Previously,
political statements were largely restricted to the Nobel Prize for Peace
Figure 2 which, regardless of occasional worthy recipients, has become widely
recognized as primarily a political tool. It is sickening to see the sci-
ence prizes being used in this fashion.
Henning Rodhe, a member of the Swedish Academy that awarded
national Atomic Energy Agency Bulletin 37, No. 2, p 45 (1995) and the prize, was quoted by Associated Press on October 11 as saying, I
gives the range of IAEA projections for nuclear power generation personally hope that the Nobel prize will put some pressure on the par-
over the next 20 years. The narrow range of estimates during the in- ticipants. The timing of the prize is good in view of the Vienna meeting
itial years reflects the lead time necessary to construct nuclear power [a meeting in November to review a U.N. agreement to restrict use of
plants. The wide range of estimates thereafter reflects uncertainties in CFCs]. Maybe the ozone gurus should be given the Peace Prize, too.
demand, finances, and public attitudes toward nuclear power. The peace of the grave will doubtless be enjoyed by the many people
Page 53 of the same IAEA Bulletin gives the world generation of who die prematurely from the effects of junk science run amuck.
nuclear power as of December 1994. There are 432 operating nuclear (We do not mean that atmospheric science is junk or that careful
power plants and 48 under construction. The United States has 109 studies of ozone or even of the hypothesis about CFCs should not be
with one under construction. Percentages of electricity generated from done. It is the self-interested exaggerations and falsehoods [with no
nuclear power for countries having more than 1% are: corrective effort by these prize winners] with which this cause has
been surrounded that are junk. Moreover, the science of the matter cer-
Lithuania 76.4 % Ukraine 28.9 % tainly does not deserve the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.)
France 75.3 % Czech Republic 28.2 % Other indicators of panic abound. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Belgium 55.8 % Japan 27.2 % Climate Change is quoted as four-square for the Chicken Little predic-
Sweden 51.1 % United Kingdom 25.8 % tions on global warming and very widely so reported in the press on
Slovak Republic 49.1 % United States 22.0 % the basis of a leaked draft labeled DRAFT, FOR INTERNAL USE
Bulgaria 45.6 % Canada 19.1 % ONLY, DO NOT CITE/DISTRIBUTE. This draft deals solely with
Hungary 43.7 % Argentina 13.8 % impacts and response options all of the scientific data and evaluations
Slovania 38.0 % Russia 11.4 % are in another, still confidential document. (See R. C. Balling, The
Switzerland 36.8 % South Africa 5.7 % Wall Street Journal, October 16, 1995, p A14.)
Republic of Korea 35.5 % Netherlands 4.9 %
Spain 35.0 % Mexico 3.5 %
China Taiwan 33.5 % China Mainland 1.5 %
Finland 29.5 % India 1.4 %
Germany 29.3 %

TURNING UP THE HEAT

It all sounded great at the international conferences. Junketing at

public expense while crying crocodile tears about the whole earth and
simultaneously raising ones income from tax-financed grants seemed
to be a double winner and there was just enough hypothetical science
to provide colorable camouflage for the whole exercise.
Then the political power brokers and their owners weighed in, espe-
cially those with grandiose dreams of world control, since any excuse
for manipulation of people on a world scale looked good to them.
Their shills in the press took up the cause and the grants grew even
larger and came with the added perk of public notoriety.
Now, however, things are turning a little unpleasant. The power
brokers, you see, meant business and have been passing laws based on
the hypotheses in the research grant proposals especially those about
ozone holes and global warming. They do not seem to realize that such
hypotheses are proffered primarily to keep tax money flowing to re-
search and are often of little substance. After all, medical research
grants have been able to promise pie in the sky without delivering.
Why should the enviros be held to an accounting?
Figure 3
Graphs of ozone decreases are appearing frequently in the press.
These graphs are often corrected for solar effects and other truths
that might confuse the reader, and they are smoothed to prevent display
of ordinary variability. Also, the vertical axes are always adjusted so
that a very small part of the vertical scale is visible. See Access to En-
ergy 21-3, November 1993, p 4, for a graph of world ozone levels
showing the entire vertical axis, which removes cause for alarm.
The ozone level is supposed to worry us because lower ozone might
allow more UV light to fall on us with a concomitant increase in skin
cancer. While this is mostly a sham risk, the UV levels themselves are
relevant. Since American research to measure these levels in the

Figure 4
United States were terminated [after it was discovered that levels were
actually fluctuating downward an embarrassment to the ozone pan-
demicists] along with the government career of the chief scientist at
DOE after he suggested resumed UV measurement, the press treats us
to UV graphs from Antarctica. It has been known for decades (even
before release of CFCs) that levels of ozone and UV light fluctuate
wildly in Antarctica. (See Access to Energy 21-1, p 4 and 21-5, pp 1-3.)
Figure 5
With UV light as the claimed danger from reduced ozone, one
would think that the multibillion dollar global ozone research crowd
would have UV monitors all over the United States. They are not,
however, looking for truth. In fact, they are looking for fame and con-
tinued fortune studying underlying processes that can be hypothesized
to affect UV light. (Actually, I wonder if they have some UV monitors
quietly watching for the next natural upward fluctuation in UV it will
not fluctuate downward forever before holding a press conference.)
Meanwhile, the replacements for CFCs in refrigeration are now
coming under enviro attack (see Nature 376 CFC alternatives under a
cloud by S. E. Schwarzbach, pp 297-298 and T. K. Tromp, et al, pp
327-330); supersonic transportation is being described as an ozone
menace (see SST emissions cut stratospheric ozone by R. Lipkin, Unfortunately, this will set a poor precedent for any real threats that
Science News 148 p 229); and K. Coale and colleagues are worried that
their experiments showing ocean phyto-
plankton fertilization by added iron could be
used to mitigate the global warming frenzy
(see Iron versus the Greenhouse by R.
Monastersky, Science News 148 pp 220-
222). Too many enviros are clamoring for a
unique place at the public trough at a time
when the public is already surly over the
prospect of losing its refrigeration.
Even more cold water is being thrown on
the global warming welfare system for me-
diocre and honesty-for-sale scientists.
Figures 3-5 are from World Climate Report
1, No. 1 pp 3-4, P. O. Box 455, Ivy, VA
22945, and Figure 6 is from the weather is-
sue of Kids Discover magazine. See also
many back issues of Access to Energy.
CO2 and other greenhouse gases have
risen substantially during the past 15 years,
but global temperatures show no indications
of significant rise. Figure 3 shows Antarctic temperatures normalized
to 0 for the past four decades. Other regions are comparable, but Ant-
arctica has been claimed to be a special case, since the enviros have
recently discovered that icebergs are made in Antarctica. Each new
large iceberg is now greeted with wails of concern about melting ice.
Notice that there was an upward fluctuation (from an unusually
cold period) in temperature in the 1960s. As a result of this fluctuation,
no doubt S. Schneider at Stanford and his fellow travelers are nerv-
ously awaiting the next Nobel awards hoping fervently that few will
notice that this warming preceded the greatest increase in release of
greenhouse gases. Temperatures have not risen over the past 15 years.
Figures 4 and 5 show the temperature values from hemispheric av-
erages of satellite data. This data is superior to ground measurements,
which tend to be affected by the amount of nearby human activity. The
open circles show the actual data, while the closed circles show the
temperature predicted by the global climate change models upon
which the greenhouse gurus base their Noble hopes.
If we pump enough CO2 into the atmosphere, we will probably
eventually have enough warming to detect. Why worry about this?
Much of humanity lives now in regions that are uncomfortably cold, so
a little higher average temperature (with annual fluctuations still much
larger than any likely systematic rise) would probably be welcomed.
So far, the enviro answer to this has been more theoretical calcula-
tions by the same models that cannot reliably predict past temperature
averages. They predict dryness where it is already dry, more rain for
regions that already have enough, and generally worse conditions
somehow things never seem to be predicted as better anywhere. With
skills provided by socialized education math programs, however, most
peoples eyes glaze over when considering these fancy calculations.
As a substitute, the enviros hope that, since many people live in
coastal areas, fear of rising ocean levels will work. Careful research has
not detected an increase in ocean levels, and, in any case, even the
models predict at most small, slow sea level rises affecting only a few
regions and easily countered by modest dikes.
Figure 6 shows the utter dishonesty with which these facts are being
presented to American children. There is, so far, no greenhouse-caused
detectable rise in global temperature or in sea level. The weather issue
of Kids Discover magazine portrays these facts with a colored figure
showing ocean waves breaking over the Statue of Liberty and a
WARNING! WARNING! about the greenhouse effect.
This fascinating combat between a mob of self-interested liars and
the truth is proving to be one of the more interesting spectacles of this
generation. The truth will win eventually, but what will be the near
term outcome? I think that the enviros are going to lose even in the
near term. The public does not understand much of the scientific argu-
ment, but the public understands very well its immediate self-interest.
may need to be countered by unpleasant actions in the future.
Figure 6

RENEWABLE OIL FIELDS
Scientist suggests some oil reservoirs refilling by M. W. Brown,
New York Times, in the Houston Chronicle, October 1, 1995, p 9D re-
ports the work of J. K. Whelan from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute in Massachusetts. She finds evidence in the composition of oil
in some oil fields and also in the rate of depletion of some fields that
suggests that these fields are refilling from previously undiscovered oil
and gas fields below them.
The new fields are estimated to be more than 30,000 feet deep
below depths currently drilled for oil. K. K. Bissada from Texaco in
Houston is quoted as skeptical that this refilling can keep up with cur-
rent human use, but he thinks it possible that the upper reservoirs that
currently serve as a source for oil could be refilled in 10 or 20 years
which is comparable to current emptying times.
It does seem odd that all of the earths oil fields just happen to be
within easy reach of 20th Century drilling techniques. That deeper
fields might rise into the empty reservoirs which we create above them
would be a fortuitous occurrence indeed.
Even if this turns out to be a rare occurrence, it has value. Think of
the nightmares it will give Paul Ehrlich when news reaches Stanford.
ELECTRICAL LUBRICATION
Managing water and pollutants in soil with electric currents by J.
Raloff, Science News 148, pp 168-169 (1995), reports about the proc-
ess of electroosmosis, which has been of interest in agriculture for over
70 years. This article puts an enviro spin on potential use, but the re-
ported phenomenon is remarkable.
The positive charge of mineral ions in soil moisture allows move-
ment of soil water with low voltages and current. For example, a 1924
experiment with a miniature plow connected to a pulley and weights
showed that a 4-volt battery could reduce the weight required to pull
the plow through soil by a factor of more than ten-fold. Reversal of
polarity increased the normal weight required by more than two-fold.
More recently, on a practical scale, it was demonstrated that pile
drivers required one third as many blows to drive piles through soil
with appropriately connected electrodes, and energy requirements for
real plows on tractors were similarly reduced by up to 40%.
Water is attracted to the implement by the applied voltage. This
water then lubricates the steel and facilitates its passage through soil. A
similar phenomenon allows rock drills to penetrate rock at double the
ordinary speed by application of 5 to 10 volts and less than 1 ampere.
Electrodes can also move water which contains fertilizer into tubes
in the soil. Some experimenters are investigating the possibility that
nitrate fertilizers might be concentrated near plant roots and then ex-
tracted from the field for reuse by means of electroosmosis attach-
ments to drip irrigation systems.
CA 91614-0542. Captain Rockwood is in trouble for refusing to ig-
ELECTRONIC UNIVERSITIES
ernment of Haiti. We always enjoy reading this excellent newsletter.
Electronics and the Dim Future of the University by E. M.
Noam, Science 270, pp 247-249 (1995), raises the question of whether
or not universities will survive the information revolution. We expect
that those that respond to the growing demand for remote electronic
degrees and that retrace their steps toward the quality lost over the past
three decades will survive. The others will deservedly perish.
The 35-year-old barber in Cave Junction recently remarked to me
that he is now half way through college and expects to have a PhD
before he retires. He then explained that, although he graduated only
from high school, his high school work is now the equivalent of two
years of college. As colleges deteriorate, his educational level automat-
ically advances. The terrible truth is that this barber is right.
Universities exist to create, preserve, and transmit information. Pri-
vate university tuition fees are now about $50 per lecture hour often
for lectures of questionable worth. The information revolution will de-
mand quality delivered remotely, quickly, and inexpensively.
STARK RAVING MAD
l 21st Century, Fall 1995, p 9, reports that a two-page article in the
July 15 edition of The Financial Times of London by Lyall Watson
describes cannibalism as a radical but realistic solution to the prob-
lem of overpopulation and states that headhunting can be seen as
good ecology, because it reduces competition on the hunting and fish-
ing grounds. Watson says that headhunting has nothing to do with
war. It is the formal and ritual expression of a need to keep things in
balance. It is [the headhunters] admission of human responsibility for
human destiny . . . . Whatever you may feel about it taking place, you
have to admit that it works.
l Why Welfare Pays by M. Tanner and S. Moore in The Wall
Street Journal, September 28, 1995, p A18, reports the hourly wage
equivalent of welfare for the 50 individual states and Washington, DC,
as compiled by the Cato Institute. The highest is Hawaii at $17.50 per
hour, and the lowest is Mississippi at $5.53 per hour. The median for
all 51 jurisdictions is $9.18 per hour. Below these levels, welfare pro-
vides a higher income. Here in Oregon, welfare recipients also form
the core of the pseudoenvironmentalist movement that is destroying
local industry. Honest working people have more productive interests.
GOOD READING
l But Is It True? A Citizens Guide to Environmental Health and
Safety Issues by Aaron Wildavsky from Harvard Press, A Moment on
the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism by Gregg
Easterbrook from Viking, The New Ecological Order by Luc Ferry
translated by Carol Volk from University of Chicago Press, and related
reviews by D. A. Price, The American Spectator, September 1995 pp
68-70 and by A. Brinkley, The New Republic, October 2, 1995, pp 50-
53. The enviros are losing. These books explain why.
l Chlorine and Health published by the American Council on Sci-
ence and Health, 1995, Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10023-
5860, and Durable Facts About Plastic Unwrap Alarmist Green
Hype in Citizen Outlook 10, Number 5, pp 1-3 (1995), available from
P.O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035. These provide facts with
which to repel the enviro attacks on chlorine and plastics.
l Power from plutonium in Nuclear Issues 17 No. 9 (1995),
available from APG, 8 Ruvigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney,
London SW15 1LE. Plutonium already produces part of our nuclear
power, since it is made and then fissioned in a normal uranium fueled
reactor. Recycling and also breeding plutonium provides an additional
wonderful energy source for those nations with sensible leadership.
l Captain Rockwood Who? in Graffiti for Intellectuals, August
21, 1995, p1. Also read the entire September 5, 1995 issue. Published
by the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews and written by Si
Frumkin, this newsletter is available from P. O. Box 1542, Studio City,
nore political imprisonment, torture, and murder by the current gov-
l He Did the Hard Job: Going Beyond Hype Of Fantastic Dis-
covery by T. Petzinger in The Wall Street Journal, September 15,
1995, pB1 about the development of practical high temperature super-
conducting wire by Gregory Yurek. His company, American Super-
conductor Corporation, recently filled its first commercial order of
$53,000 for superconducting wire. Why not just make a list of produc-
tive people like this and randomly choose one for President?
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1995 (Vol. 23, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Up From Slavery
During the past two centuries, Americans have demonstrated that
they, their form of government, and their institutions and institutional
flexibility are well suited to the invention and implementation of sci-
ence and technology. No people has originated more of the worlds
technological accomplishments, and no country has more institu-
tional momentum with which to continue to lead the advance of hu-
man civilization.
At the same time, Americans have fallen victim to a number of
ancient scourges which demonstrate that we are no more than an or-
dinary people who have risen to extraordinary opportunities. Oppres-
sive, enslaving taxation; extreme moral decay, especially within our
institutions of higher learning; and the emergence of a vast welfare
class of nonworkers and pseudoworkers have sapped our national
strength and are gradually slowing the great flywheel of American
industry.
In addition to the personal talents, character, and faith of our indi-
vidual citizens and those from other countries by whom we are con-
tinuously reinvigorated through immigration, we have two great
resources from which to draw protection from these scourges. First,
the ongoing advance of technology continues to yield surprising new
capabilities such as those from the current computer revolution. Sec-
ond, the accumulated wisdom of the most outstanding of our people
is stored and available in our books and other literature.
One of the greatest of these books was written by a 40-year-old
black man (he would have said coloured) who lived the first few
years of his life on the dirt floor of a slave cabin and who, freed from
slavery at the age of six at the end of the Civil War, was put to work
in a salt furnace and then a mile underground in a West Virginia coal
mine. Yet, before he was 40, he (and three wives, two of whom
worked themselves to death beside him) had built the Tuskegee Nor-
mal and Industrial Institute, a university with 66 buildings and 1,400
students, which had received such world-wide acclaim that the Presi-
dent of the United States and his Cabinet had traveled to Tuskegee,
Alabama, to honor it.
Many people, of course, have fought their way from humble be-
ginnings to great accomplishments. It is not the Horatio Alger story in
this book nor the racial aspect and post-Civil War setting that bring
tears to the eyes of the reader. It is the great depth of Booker T. Wash-
ingtons wisdom concerning the specific knowledge, ethics, and ac-
tions that were needed by his people in order to permanently free
them from all forms of slavery and prejudice.
As we look at America today, we can see that only part of the
black people bear the legacy of Booker T. Washington. Many others
have fallen victim to the traps that he worked so hard to teach them to
avoid. Moreover, a substantial part of the white population has fallen
into those same traps and is now similarly enslaved.
In fact, such a large part of our population is currently enslaved
and unproductive that Americas leadership in science and technol-
ogy is weakening, and our future as a nation of opportunity, high liv-
ing standards, and reasonable personal safety is insecure. To explain
why, Booker T. Washington would only need say, read my book.
New York 1957). In addition to intrinsic genetic differences, the dif-
TECHNOLOGY TO EXTEND HUMAN LIVES
degenerative processes which accumulate and eventually end our
In a series of publications several decades ago, Roger Williams ar-
ticulated the fact that each individual person is biochemically and
physically unique to a much greater extent than is usually realized.
(See, for example, Biochemical Individuality by R. J. Williams, Wiley,
Copyright 1995 by Access to Energy
Science and technology do not exist in a vacuum. They must be
melded with people ordinary people with ordinary strengths and
weaknesses or they will be lost.
The greatest weakness that Booker T. Washington saw in his
newly freed people was the tendency to try to live by their wits
rather than by productive work. He taught that any man who pro-
duces something that truly enriches the lives of others will earn their
respect and admiration. Whether that man is producing food, bricks,
or furniture in 19th Century America or food, computers, or electrical
energy in the 20th, it is skill and productivity that earns the coopera-
tion of others and melts away their human prejudices.
While many blacks have learned this lesson and thereby earned
their way out of slavery to a prosperous, free life, a substantial part of
Americas white population has forgotten these precepts and sunk
into lives of slavery and prejudice with some members of other races.
Literal armies of bureaucrats, decision makers, paper shufflers,
and welfare recipients of various types make up a very large part of
the American work force. These people do not produce they
only consume, and they are continually in the way of those who are
still trying to produce. Moreover, they do not have the respect of pro-
ductive, useful people. They return this lack of respect with envy and
subliminal hatred even of those who ultimately feed and clothe them.
A man who does not do useful work even if he is paid very
handsomely for his nonwork knows that this is so, and he gradually
loses his self-respect. He comes to hate and even fear those upon
whom his life actually depends. How long will they continue to trade
him something for nothing?
Science and technology are the modern tools of those who make
the world work those who do things. Moreover, these tools have
made each individual person more and more productive and thereby
widened the gap between the doers and the others.
It is a terrible thing to be physically enslaved and unable to do
things with your talents because you are constrained. It is far more
terrible, however, to be so enslaved by lack of ethics and ability that
you cannot do anything of value even if you are physically free. This
sort of slavery twists the human mind to hatred.
American technology will not have a bright future unless this sort
of hatred is diminished. The mob of welfare recipients at a demon-
stration against nuclear power or Northwestern logging; the faceless
bureaucrats who add years to productive undertakings; and the edu-
crats who turn our schools into moral sewers for social engineering
rather than places to hone the skills of our childrens minds all have
much in common. They are populated by people who have learned to
live by their wits rather than by their personal worth.
We do not respect them because they are of negative value to our
lives. They do not respect us because we seem to them to be an un-
derclass that is not clever enough to live by its wits.
We are not directly enslaved, but we are entangled in chains such
as onerous taxation and regulation created by the unproductive. Up
From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, an autobiographical voice
from the distant past, points in a direction that we all need to travel.
ferent paths that we travel in life generate differences. Ultimately, the
lives produce even more differences differences that we would like
to eliminate or, at least, postpone.
Our health is, in part, a function of our biochemical environment.
Since we are each unique, it is likely that the ideal chemical conditions
for each of us are also unique. Even these ideals are individual-
ized, since the aspirations, for example, of a long-distance runner are
different from those of a physicist or an expectant mother. If all three
happened to be biochemically identical, the goals of each would prob-
ably be optimized by different chemical environments.
This applies to both our internal and external chemical environ-
ments. A farmer in Iowa might differ from a farmer in India. One
might prefer DDT on his crops alone, while the other would apply it
also to the walls of his home in order to prevent malaria.
The wonders of modern chemistry have enabled us to synthesize a
great many of the chemicals that affect our lives such as vitamins and
hormones. Chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides have also
enhanced the efficiency of modern farming to such an extent that we
have a wide variety of foods available with different chemical compo-
sitions. Medicines are, of course, another chemical benefit.
The trick is to know how much of each substance to introduce into
our own individual environments to achieve optimum health. More-
over, this is not a question that any of us can postpone. We are living
now in a chemical environment over which we have a substantial
amount of control. We do not have the ability to delay our lives and
live them at some future time when more knowledge is available.
Everyone, therefore, guesses. Even the drug addict guesses, al-
though his guess is obviously wrong. Obviously wrong also are the
guesses of ignorant people who decide to fear that which they do not
understand and seek escape from chemicals. The editorial How to most will discontinue it eventually. Few will ingest an ideal dose.
Survive the Perils of Eating by Thomas H. Jukes, The FASEB Jour-
nal 9, pp 991-992, August 1995 gives current examples of this.
Figure 1
The stakes are high as is illustrated in Figure 1. As Jukes points out,
life expectancies are steadily rising in the United States. This is hap-
pening largely as a result of modern chemistry. Still, millions of lives
are unnecessarily shortened as a result of limitations in our abilities to
optimize our chemical environments.
Figures 1 to 7 are from the paper Quantitative Measurement of
Human Physiological Age by Profiling of Body Fluids and Pattern
Recognition by A. B. Robinson and L. R. Robinson, Mechanisms of
Ageing and Development 59, pp 47-67 (1991). Figure 1 shows the life
expectancies (violent deaths omitted) of two experimental groups of
American men one group in their 20s and the other in their 50s and
60s. Notice the large group of young men who will be outlived by the
older men and the large group of older men who will die long before
some of the others. Moreover, there are many years of deteriorating
health and suffering associated with most of these early deaths.
In order to intelligently adjust a chemical system, one needs quanti-
tative information about that system and a quantitative evaluation of
the results of each adjustment. This is especially true of the biochemis-
try of a human being a system so complicated that it cannot (during
our lifetimes) be directly and entirely understood.
It is ironic, therefore, that today there are tens of millions of people
sitting at computers that are providing them with a river of information
about the outside world but which are providing no information at all
about the individual health and biochemical well-being of these peo-
Figure 2
ple. Yet, measured by their own self-interest, this internal biochemical
information is far more important than most other information.
Suppose, for example, that you have just read the popular book The
Melatonin Miracle by W. Pierpaoli, W. Regelson, and C. Colman, Si-
mon and Schuster, 1995, have examined some of the underlying re-
search papers, and have decided to adjust your melatonin level. The
book contains some guesses about dose as a function of age, but how
much is best for you individually? More importantly, how are you go-
ing to know whether or not the dose you decide to take has a positive
or negative effect on your health? (We could just as well have used
vitamin C in this example or any one of the thousands of other low-
cost chemical modifications that are available to most Americans.)
Melatonin has been shown to reverse and retard some of the degen-
erative effects of aging in mice. Will it do the same for you? Since the
effects of such systemic changes are usually slow and people prone to
self experimentation usually try numerous supplements, most mela-
tonin users will never know whether or not it has helped them and
If, however, your personal computer had been daily measuring and
tracking the physiological age of you and your family members by
means of biochemical indicators in your urine or breath, you could ob-
tain objective information about your melatonin experiment. If it slows
your rate of aging or diminishes your personal probability of serious
diseases, then the computer could help you adjust the dose for an opti-
mum effect. If not, then you could move on quickly to something else.
Also, even though there is substantial biochemical individuality,
there are many similarities between different people. As experience is
accumulated, your computer should be able to direct you toward the
most promising modifications.
Aging occurs slowly, but death-dealing conditions focus ones at-
tention immediately. Each of us has his own examples. A close friend
of ours died of lung cancer metastasized from colon cancer which
could have been surgically stopped. A family member died of hemor-
rhagic pancreatitis, also without the chance that surgery could have
provided. In these cases, surgery might have saved their lives, but they
did not know that they were ill. A computer interfaced to look daily at
their biochemical profiles could have provided that knowledge.
Are such interfaces available in the marketplace? No. Could current
technology provide them to the marketplace at prices comparable to
good laser printers? We are sure that the answer is yes. These inter-
faces will not be provided by the deadwood of tax-financed inquiry
and they will probably not be built by those parts of the medical indus-
Figure 3
 tative measurement of your own physiological age would give you and
your computer a longitudinal baseline which takes into account your
own biochemical individuality and rate of aging. After you have been
taking melatonin for a while, the computer could simply calculate the
probability that it is affecting your physiological age. If the results are
pleasing, you could vary the dose to find an optimum.
This is not science fiction. We originated part of this field of inquiry
and have worked in this area for many years. These machines can be
built now, and they eventually will be built. It is then that the computer
will be a truly interactive tool for the benefit of ordinary people.
Through optimum nutrition; through hormone adjustment with age;
through early application of procedures such as surgery; and through
other techniques guided by the computational power of microchips
Figure 4 that track our personal health within our own homes (entirely inde-
pendent of the deadwood of government and medical bureaucracy),
try whose executives count their profits in human suffering, but they our aging curve will eventually improve as illustrated in Figure 7.
will certainly be built by free enterprise. The only question is whether
or not they will be built in our lifetimes.
We believe that a peripheral device for the personal computer of
about the same size and cost as a laser printer can be built which has
the capability of quantitative measurement of 50 to 100 substances in a
sample of breath or urine. All of the software required to interpret this
information was written and tested many years ago (see references in
Robinson and Robinson paper mentioned above). The building of a
prototype of this peripheral device is a primary goal of our work at the
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
Even one or two substances can contain substantial amounts of in-
formation. Figure 2 shows, for example, the successively increasing
diagnostic coefficients as a function of age in fruit flies calculated from
only two substances. Figure 3 shows the summed values of only two
substances in the casual urine of men as a function of age, while Figure
4 gives age diagnostic coefficients calculated from 15 human urinary
constituents 8 of which increase with age and 7 of which decrease.

Figure 6

How much can we expect to adjust our fate by the intelligent use of
chemistry? Many years ago, I designed a series of experiments on can-
cer in mice which were then carried out over a two-year period by
technicians under my direction and extended later by F. C. Westall.
Figure 5 (See Robinson, A. B., Hunsberger, A., and Westall, F. C., Mechanisms
of Aging and Development 76, pp 210-214 (1994). The results of one
part of those experiments (increased rate of cancer growth with vita-
min C supplements) caused so much trouble that Linus Pauling went
ballistic and even now, after his death, his relatives are still publicizing
In the case of Figure 4, quantitative measurements of 15 substances myths about the incident.
in casual (ordinarily provided without special instructions or require- This controversy over vitamin C obscured, however, the real result.
ments) urine samples have been compressed by calculation into a one- In experiments on squamous cell carcinoma in 1,846 mice using about
dimensional parameter of the sort illustrated by Figure 5. It is these 30 different diets, we were able to vary the rate of growth of cancer
one-dimensional compressions that guide decisions. over a 20-fold range by diet alone. Obviously, the possibility of giving
It is important to recognize that the substances measured in these each cancer victim (or potential victim which includes us all) a tool
experiments did not include any special selection based on aging. Ap- for quantitative health measurement to guide his own nutritional self-
proximately 30% of the substances in human urine are moderately to experiments should be turned into a reality.
strongly age correlated, so virtually any random selection of metabo-
lites can lead to the same result. Since this is true of many aspects of
our systemic health, it is to be expected that a single computer periph-
eral could evaluate most conditions of interest.
Figure 6 illustrates a simple use of this technique. From the diag-
nostic coefficients from Figure 4 scattered along the life remaining axis
in Figure 5, the men can be classified as young or old by choosing an
arbitrary point and calling everyone to the left young and everyone
to the right old. By using all possible arbitrary points, Figure 6 can
be constructed. The curved line shows a theoretically perfect result
(taking into account the overlapping life expectancies), while the
stepped line is from the experiment. Imagine that we were instead
classifying colon cancer or pancreatitis.
Returning to our problem with the melatonin pills, the daily quanti- Figure 7
 l Oleg Khabarov of the Russian Academy for the Protection of
NUCLEAR WASTE Life has proposed a spaced-based laser defense system against
CFCs. Russia is complaining that it does not have $600 million to
The Uranium Information Centre Newsletter, September-October eliminate CFC emissions from its factories. The laser system on 30 to
1995, available from GPO Box 1649N, Melbourne 3001, Australia, re- 50 satellites would, according to Khabarov, ionize oxygen and produce
ports about nuclear fuel rod disposal. In Sweden, used nuclear fuel atmospheric ozone at a ten-year cost of $100 billion.
rods are waste and are put in underground storage. In France, the Perhaps we should buy just one of these satellites and aim it at the
rods are raw material and go to a reprocessing facility that makes new seasonal, naturally occurring ozone reduction area over Antarctica. We
fuel rods. In America, they go nowhere. The federal government as- could pay for the satellite with the no-longer-needed funds that are cur-
sumed responsibility for them in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of rently being used to study Antarctic ozone. Since ozone over the rest of
1982. In 1994, the Department of Energy announced that a waste re- the earth is not being significantly reduced, the whole issue would go
pository was at least 16 years from completion, although over half of away, and we would get to keep our refrigerators.
the $10 billion dollars paid into the waste fund by consumers has been
spent to finance the federal deficit. GOOD READING
This dishonesty has now prompted action by the Louisa County,
Virginia, board of supervisors, who have asked the State of Virginia to l Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington and 130 other good
place future consumer payments in an escrow account if the federal books in the Self-Teaching Home School curriculum available on six
government fails to provide storage in 1998 as previously promised. CD-ROMs from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, P. O.
The mandated wastefulness of keeping reactor grade plutonium Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523. The image files on these CDs
combined with other materials and stored in repositories was origi- are identical to the original books when viewed on a monitor or printed
nated by the Carter Administration. Most countries recognize that this with an inkjet or laser printer.
wastes both fuel and storage space, so they do not follow this policy. l CO2 and the Biosphere: The Incredible Legacy of the Industrial
In another development, Nuclear Energy Insight, October 1995 Revolution by Sherwood B. Idso, October 1995, a monograph with
available from the Nuclear Energy Institute, Suite 400, 1776 I Street, 361 references published by the Department of Soil, Water, and Cli-
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006-3708, reports that an effort is now be- mate, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108.
ing made to use bacteria to clean the walls of concrete structures con- Access to Energy has described the remarkable work of Sherwood
taminated with nuclear waste. Since only the top few millimeters is Idso and his colleagues in several past issues. Atmospheric fertilization
usually contaminated, sulfuric acid excreted by the bacteria can dis- by carbon dioxide is sharply increasing the world-wide abundance of
solve away the contaminated layer and avoid storage of the entire plants (and the animals that depend upon them). Increasing CO2 in the
structure as nuclear waste. atmosphere is probably the most beneficial environmental phenome-
non in human history.
STARK RAVING MAD l Ozone Variations and Accelerated Phaseout of CFCs, testi-
mony by Sallie Baliunas before the U. S. House of Representatives
l Outcome Based Education by V. M. Fareed in Issues & Views: Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, September 20, 1995
An open forum on issues affecting the black community, Winter 1994, available from the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, N.W.,
available from P. O. Box 467, New York, NY 10025, describes the Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036-4505.
National Education Association program that is being installed l The Ozone-CFC Debacle: Hasty Action, Shaky Science by S.
throughout the United States under the titles of Master Learning, Fred Singer, Technology: Journal of the Franklin Institute 332A, pp
Outcome Based Learning, and Outcome Based Education. 61-66 (1995) and testimony by S. Fred Singer before the U. S. House
Fareed writes, In the ideal OBE classroom, less content (basic of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Sep-
skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic) is taught, while teachers en- tember 20, 1995 available from The Science & Environmental Policy
courage students to concentrate on developing specific values, atti- Project, 4084 University Drive, Suite 101, Fairfax, VA 22030-6812.
tudes and orientations. The objective is to control the minds of the Drs. Baliunas and Singer summarized the evidence concerning the
students and to nullify their ability to think independently. The child is possible decreased ozone in the atmosphere and concomitant increase
coerced to conform to the correct attitude on particular subjects or is- in UV light at the earths surface that is claimed to result from CFCs
sues as desired by the program administrators. Otherwise, the child and other human-caused effects. This phenomenon, if it exists at all,
risks retention at the same grade level in the next school year. cannot be proved at present because it is evidently much smaller than
Learning outcomes are designed to affect the students thinking natural fluctuations in ozone and UV light. The CFC ban is a political
on everything from environmental issues to social issues to notions action that is not justified by scientific experiments or theory.
about his own self-worth. In other words, the children must adopt the l High-Level Radioactive Waste by Howard C. Hayden, The
value (worth) of themselves, that program administrators determine is Physics Teacher 33, pp 450-454, October 1995. This is a clear, high-
correct and they must do the same for over 50 learning outcomes. school level explanation of the facts about radioactive waste one of
OBE is designed to level all children to a common denominator which is that it is an easily solved problem when rationally understood.
of learning and beliefs. Sound knowledge of a subject is not considered l The Publications Catalog of the Washington Legal Foundation
as important as the students social attitudes. In effect, OBE is a form available from Washington Legal Foundation, 2009 Massachusetts
of attitudinal indoctrination. Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20036 and the Property Rights
This phase in the destruction of tax-financed schools and the minds Reader published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Con-
of students who attend them parallels the situation on university cam- necticut Avenue NW, Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036. These are
puses where politically incorrect remarks can result in expulsion. At useful tools for the protection of free enterprise.
first, the social engineers just combined their wares with academic
subjects thereby diluting them. Now, they are beginning to demand ACCESS TO ENERGY
that those with incorrect attitudes be given failing academic grades.
l The Deweese Report 1, p 5 (1995) available from 14140-L Parke Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
Long Court, Chantilly, VA 22021, reports that the following pledge $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
was read in tax-financed schools throughout America, presumably on $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
Earth Day I pledge allegiance to Planet Earth, mother of all na- for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
tions; and to the infinite universe in which she stands; our planet, Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
among millions, expressing truth and unlimited possibilities for all! of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
A Double Honor
On December 12, 1995, it was announced that the United States
has chosen Martin D. Kamen to receive the Enrico Fermi award. Dr.
Kamen will travel to Washington, DC, to receive a gold medal from
the President, a reception at the White House, and a check for
$100,000 (part of which he must return in income taxes).
The Fermi prize, Americas highest award in science, is given to
only a few very distinguished and accomplished scientists. In this un-
usual case, it is a double honor it is an honor to Dr. Kamen and it is
an honor to the United States.
The award will undoubtedly mention that Martin Kamen was the
first man to synthesize Carbon 14, the first (with his co-worker Sam
Reuben) to make a qualitative characterization of its properties, and
the first to estimate its half-life (2,000 to 4,000 years in his initial
work now known to be 5,730 years). The award may also mention
that the discovery of 14C was no accident.
In the fall of 1939, Dr. Kamen devised a
series of experiments using the 37-inch and
60-inch cyclotrons at Berkeley and including
essential modifications in the cyclotron appa-
ratus that he had made. His experiments were
specifically designed to synthesize a long-
lived isotope of carbon. Less than six months
later, on February 27, 1940, he succeeded.
The synthesis was considered so important
that it was announced at the Nobel Prize cere-
mony for E.O. Lawrence a few days later
even though Kamens co-worker, Sam
Reuben, was so worried about error that he
did not attend. (There was plenty to worry
about, since, even after the experiments were
completed, J. Robert Oppenheimer held to the
opinion that such a long-lived isotope of carb-
on could not exist for theoretical reasons.)
Later, Martin Kamen was the first man to
use carbon 14 as a tracer in a biological sys-
tem. His subsequent work, with many co-
workers, laid an essential cornerstone of
modern biochemistry which depends upon
the ability to label and then trace carbon atoms through chemical
processes by means of carbon 14. Kamens book, Isotopic Tracers in
Biology, in its several editions was so influential with two generations
of biochemists and so widely read that the publishers, Academic
Press, called it their Gone With the Wind. United States government has not only correctly honored his scien-
With radioactive tracers and with a wide variety of other tech-
niques, Dr. Kamen pursued a life-long fascination with the biochem-
istry of photosynthesis. The hundreds of research papers that he and
his colleagues published on this subject made possible much of our
current understanding of photosynthetic processes. Always generous,
almost to a fault, Kamen shared the fruits of his brilliance so com-
pletely with his many coworkers that a great many scientists owe
their careers and fame largely to his extraordinary help.
was promoting his research program partly on the basis that no long-
CARBON 14
biological importance hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.
In the fall of 1939, it was generally believed that no long-lived ra-
dioactive isotope of carbon existed. In fact, Harold Urey, who had dis-
covered the stable hydrogen isotope deuterium, and who was the
foremost proponent of the use of stable isotopes in biological research,
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
Martin Kamen would have received the Nobel Prize for the syn-
thesis of carbon 14. Later, he would have received serious considera-
tion for a second Nobel award based on the tracer and photosynthesis
work. In over 50 years he has, however, received neither.
Responding to his countrys needs in 1941, he joined the Manhat-
tan Project along with most of the physicists and chemists with whom
he worked before World War II. He made valuable contributions to
that project. Suddenly, however, in July 1944, he was forced off the
project on the basis of an erroneous security report that he was not
allowed to see until ten years later.
Officials of the United States Government then commenced a de-
liberate program to drive him out of science, smear him in the public
media, prevent him from working with colleagues abroad by passport
denial, and, in a plan that was fortunately dropped, to murder him.
For an entire decade, he was tracked and
smeared continually by government spooks
and so harassed, both personally and profes-
sionally, that he finally attempted suicide.
From this low point, he fought his way
back, cleared his name in successful lawsuits
against the government and their fellow trav-
elers in the press, recovered his passport, and
finally cleared himself of all official suspicion
in 1955. His wife Beka, whose steadfast help
was essential to Martin Kamens victory in
this 10-year battle, died from the effects of de-
pression brought on by this ordeal.
Martin Kamen was always a patriotic
American who rigorously kept Americas se-
crets. There is not a shred of evidence other-
wise although it took years of litigation to
force the government to allow a comprehen-
sive look at their files on him.
It is remarkable that Kamen managed such
a brilliant research career in the midst of this
turmoil and under the clouds that federal gov-
ernment thugs cast over him.
In one particular, however, his enemies
have won so far. They smeared Kamen with so much mud during
the apex of his career and the years after his greatest accomplish-
ments that he was not awarded the deserved Nobel Prize.
Now, it is finally over. With the award of the Fermi prize, the
tific achievements, it has lifted the last vestiges of the cloud it placed
over his character and patriotism. Martin Kamen is honored by the
receipt of this award. The United States is honored by its choice and
by his acceptance.
Martin Kamen is 82. It is too late to restore the years that he and
Beka lost. It is not too late, however, for intellectual justice the
award to him of a Nobel Prize.
There is no living candidate more worthy of this award.
lived radioactive isotopes existed for any of the elements of primary
Tritium, 3H, was believed to be stable and therefore not radioactive.
The longest-lived known radioactive isotopes of the other three ele-
ments were 11C, 13N, and 15O, with half-lives of 21 minutes, 10 min-
utes, and 2 minutes, respectively.
 The superscript in these symbols designates the atomic mass of
each atom. The nuclei of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen con-
tain 1, 6, 7, and 8 protons. Each of these positively-charged protons is
accompanied by a negatively-charged electron moving in a cloud
throughout the atom. Most of the chemical characteristics of each atom
are determined by these charged particles.
The stabilities of the atomic nuclei are, however, determined by
both the protons and the neutrons of which they are composed. (This is
now understood in far more detail than will be mentioned here.) Each
neutron has a mass approximately the same as each proton, but the
neutrons are not charged and are not, therefore, associated with the
overall chemical properties.
11
C, which has 6 protons and 5 neutrons, has about the same chemi-
cal properties as 12C, which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. The two can
be used interchangeably in chemical systems except that 11C is ra-
dioactive and spontaneously self-destructs with half of the atoms dis-
appearing every 21 minutes. 12C is completely stable. The lack of a
sixth neutron confers a fundamental instability on the 11C nucleus.
Since most of the atoms in naturally occurring substances are sta-
ble, scientists are able to label specific atoms in molecules by introduc-
ing radioactive atoms into the molecular positions of interest. Those
atoms can then be followed along through chemical processes by
measuring the radiation that is emitted when they self-destruct. Each
unstable atom has a constant probability of death depending upon its
nuclear structure, so a steady amount of radiation is produced, which
gradually decreases as the atoms disappear.
This is illustrated by Figures 1 and 2 from Isotopic Tracers in Biol-
ogy, Third Edition by Martin D. Kamen, Academic Press, New York
(1957). Figure 1 shows the molecular structure of cholesterol, where
the ms and Cs are carbon atoms. By labeling the carbons of ace-
tate, CH3CO2- the first carbon being the methyl (m) carbon and
the second being the carboxyl (C) carbon, biochemists were able to
show that cholesterol is synthesized in animals from acetate and to de-
termine which cholesterol carbons originate as acetate methyl carbons
and which as acetate carboxyl carbons. Through many tracer experi-
ments of this sort, a complete understanding of the biochemistry of the
production of cholesterol was obtained. This has been of great impor-
tance to biochemistry and to medicine.
After a complex molecule has been radioactively labeled, there is
often a substantial amount of organic chemistry required for the com-
plete interpretation of the experiment. The molecule must be degraded
atom by atom through procedures that keep track of where each atom
was located in the intact molecule. Figure 2 summarizes some of this
degradative chemistry in the case of radioactive carbon tracer experi-
ments on the biosynthesis of heme the red, oxygen-carrying mole-
cules within the protein hemoglobin in blood. Heme is shown in the
figure with its central iron atom removed and its carbon atoms num-
bered for reference through the degradative procedure.
Figure 1
Without the knowledge gained by radioactive carbon tracer experi-
ments of this sort, modern biochemistry would have been delayed at
least 50 years. Only recently have mass spectrometers capable of meet-
ing the demands of this research by quickly and reliably measuring the
amounts of stable isotopes at high sensitivity come into existence.
These machines are still not available to many biochemists.
In 1939, however, these experiments were not possible. The short
half-life of 11C made it unsuitable for most of the needed experiments.
Kamen and Reuben were trying to use 11C in experiments to under-
stand the first biochemical steps in photosynthesis. Kamen had initi-
ated some experiments to find a longer-lived isotope, but could not
obtain enough cyclotron time and resources for this work.
Figure 2
The Berkeley cyclotrons had been built under the direction of E. O.
Lawrence to accelerate atomic particles to energies necessary for nu-
clear reactions. Kamen was a member of the team of scientists who
kept these particle accelerators in operation and improved and modi-
fied them for various purposes.
Of special importance was the obtaining of continued financial sup-
port of the research, for which Lawrence needed to demonstrate practi-
cal uses for the new isotopic materials. This requirement and the
competition with Urey ultimately caused Lawrence to give Kamen the
cyclotron priority and resources he needed. Six months later, the re-
sults changed the history of biochemistry.
The exciting history of this whole era is vividly described in Martin
Kamens autobiography, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, A Memoir of
the Nuclear Age, published by University of California Press (1985),
which is in print and available from U. C. Press at 1-800-822-6657.
See also Reflections on the First Half-Century of Long-Lived Radio-
active Carbon (14C) by Martin D. Kamen, Proceedings of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society 138, pp 48-60 (1994).
The most efficient procedure for the synthesis of 14C turned out to
be bombardment of nitrogen, 14N, with slow neutrons. Even with this,
the amounts of 14C that could be made with the Berkeley cyclotrons
were quite small although they did provide material for the first 14C
tracer experiments.
In his autobiography, Kamen tells of the unusual way in which he
learned that this limitation on the amounts of 14C would cease to exist.
Although the existence of the atomic piles, the first built at Chicago
under the direction of Enrico Fermi and the second at Oak Ridge, was
vaguely known about by many scientists within the Manhattan Project,
the operating parameters of these machines were very closely guarded
secrets. It happened that arrangements were made for the production of
a small amount of 24Na in the pile at Oak Ridge for Kamens use in
work he had been assigned in the isotope purification effort there. He
was officially told that 5 grams of sodium chloride would be put into a
machine for several hours. This apparently involved a misunder-
standing of his requirements or of the capabilities of the pile, but not
knowing the parameters, Kamen could only take what he was given.
That turned out to be a huge lead container which he opened to re-
veal a sample that, to his astonishment, emitted a purple glow. Shocked
by the realization that the pile neutron flux must be millions of times
greater than that achievable in the cyclotron at Berkeley and realizing
the revolution this would make possible in the synthesis of radioiso-
topes including 14C, Kamen excitedly told E. O. Lawrence the news in
the presence of Lawrences Army guard.
The result was a security investigation to try to find a nonexistent
person who had given Kamen this secret information. The security
people knew too little physics to understand that Kamen had been able
to calculate it himself from the information at hand.
Fifty years later Kamen, the man who first synthesized carbon 14, is
being honored in the name of Fermi, who built the first atomic pile.
ATMOSPHERIC CARBON 14
Carbon 14 has turned out to be of fundamental importance in many
different sciences as is summarized in Figure 3 reproduced from the
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society as cited above.
Part of this importance arises from the fact that it is continuously
synthesized in the atmosphere by the bombardment of atmospheric ni-
trogen with secondary neutron radiation from cosmic rays. This pro-
duces a steady-state concentration of 14C in the atmosphere that has
been relatively constant for thousands of years.
14
C-containing atmospheric carbon dioxide is incorporated in the
tissues of plants and animals and thereby contributes some of the back-
ground radiation which is contained in the bodies of all living things
including humans.
Once trapped in living tissue, the 14C can no longer mix with the
atmosphere, and it begins to disappear with its characteristic half-life of
5730 years. By making assumptions about the atmospheric concentra-
tion of 14C in earlier years assumptions that can be checked over the
past two millennia by reference to the 14C concentration in the tree
rings of living trees it is possible to calculate the age of tissue sam-
ples that are recovered by archaeologists.
Alternatively, by reference to fluctuations in 14C as revealed by the
tree ring record, it is possible to study prior solar activity. A contro-
versy arose, for example, regarding a nineteenth century report by G.
Sporer and E. W. Maunder that astronomical records from 1645 to
1715 showed a marked absence of sunspot activity, which was at vari-
ance with the records from other periods.
Sunspots interfere with cosmic radiation, so it was predicted that
cosmic radiation and, therefore, atmospheric 14C would increase if sun
spots had actually decreased. Tree ring studies showed that an increase
in 14C between 1650 and 1700 occurred, which was exactly as pre-
dicted from the Maunder minimum. Moreover, another increase oc-
curred between 1450 and 1550, giving rise to the suggestion that the
sun undergoes long periodic fluctuations as well as those of the well-
known 11-year solar cycle.
For more ancient times, preceding those for which atmospheric 14C
concentrations can be directly checked by techniques such as tree ring
analysis, assumptions about atmospheric 14C concentration and other
factors can contain significant errors. Sample contamination also be-
comes a serious source of error in less well-defined artifacts.
As a result of nuclear weapons tests, atmospheric 14C increased
from the early 1950s to a maximum in about 1963 and has since de-
creased with an atmospheric half-time of about 10 years. This short
atmospheric half-time has been cited by Frederick Seitz as evidence
that the increase in atmospheric CO2 during the past century may not
have been entirely caused by human activity, since it is equilibrating so
rapidly with huge terrestrial reservoirs having CO2 contents that dwarf
human production (see Access to Energy 22-1, September 1994, p 3).
This increase of 14C has also been used by antinuclear activists in
support of their claims that nuclear weapons testing has caused world-
wide increases in cancer and that accidents in nuclear power plants
could potentially make this problem worse.
Actually, in view of the growing amount of experimental data about
hormesis (see numerous past issues of Access to Energy and included
references), it appears most likely now that these small increases in
background radiation have actually had a beneficial influence on hu-
man health. There is no direct evidence whatever in support of claimed
harmful effects. These claims depend upon arbitrary and probably er-
roneous extrapolations from effects of very high radiation doses.
Figure 3
Although some scientists involved in early research on radioactivity
were harmed by high doses of radiation before the dangers were
clearly known, most were apparently not adversely affected. In Martin
Kamens case, he was forced to leave operation of the laboratory
counting apparatus to his co-worker, because Kamen himself was
often so radioactive that he disrupted the counters. Fifty years later, he
shows no ill affects from the many cyclotron-produced nuclear iso-
topes that were induced in his clothing and body tissues.
ENVIRONMENTAL CARBON 14
Amid our current plague of swarming pseudoenvironmentalists, the
story of carbon 14 also provides a lesson in true environmental science
the study of the actual physical realities of our environment by means
of the phenomena we find within it.
With every breath, we ingest substantial amounts of this radioactive
substance. It is in our water, in our food, and in the rocks, plants, ani-
mals, and people around us. The most recent results of health physics
indicate that we have learned to live harmoniously in the sea of radia-
tion to which 14C is a contributor, and (although this work is ongoing
and not yet complete) there is a growing indication that we actually
benefit from it.
Moreover, by understanding 14C and learning to manipulate it, we
have learned a great amount about chemistry, biochemistry, and other
sciences, and have greatly increased our own personal benefits from
medical science. Through biochemistry, we have also enriched the
beauty of our lives. We no longer see only the forests and the trees. We
are able to see inside these and other living things and understand them
on a molecular level. The incredible molecular beauty of our environ-
ment is a wonder that has been hidden from all human beings who
have lived on earth before this century.
Contrast this knowledge with the fear of the ignorant who still be-
lieve that radiation is an evil and that there is no safe dose who
interfere with the life-giving and life-saving energy that flows from nu-
clear power plants because it is associated with radiation.
Ignorance is a debilitating handicap, fear a terrible master, and the
true story of 14C is a great place to start in the elimination of both.
 As Gilder illustrates, a large part of current American technology
THE PRICE OF POWER
neers. Many of our past accomplishments, such as the moon program
Does Price Matter? The Importance of Cheap Electricity for the
Economy, January 1995 edition, a monograph prepared for the West-
ern Fuels Association, 1625 M Street N.W., Washington, DC, 20036
by Mills, McCarthy & Associates, 6900 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 700,
Chevy Chase, MD 20815, provides an analysis that concludes that the
delivered price of electric power in the United States will fall from its
present average of 7 cents per kWh to less than 5 cents per kWh by the
year 2010 (in 1992 cents).
This analysis includes the effects of competition, improved technol-
ogy, fuel costs, and other factors including inefficiencies from govern-
ment regulation and enviro agitation. It is at variance, however, with
conventional belief that real electricity costs will remain about constant
during the next 15 years. In an aside, Mills, et al., point out that 1980
Department of Energy predictions of real cost changes between 1980
and 1990 for electricity, coal, natural gas, and oil were for increases of
30%, 30%, 350%, and 90%, respectively, whereas the actual changes
as of 1993 had been decreases of 10%, 10%, 10%, and 60%.
Most inflation-corrected long-term commodity prices show a stead-
ily decreasing price trend primarily as a result of improvements in
technology. Electricity, the most important commodity in terms of dol-
lar amounts purchased, will probably join this trend for similar reasons
regardless of the debilitating efforts of antitechnologists.
This is not to suggest, however, that the average American will al-
ways enjoy a better life as a result of these technological advances.
Notes, a 133 page compendium of economic data, published by H. F.
Langenberg, Smith, Moore & Co., 400 Locust Street, St. Louis, MO
63102, provides an exhaustive look at the other side of the power equa-
tion government power.
More than half of the earnings of individual Americans are now
seized by government. In addition, government printing presses assure
that the natural deflation in prices that should result from technological
advance is erased by inflation and the savings thereby confiscated.
The real price of electricity will probably, as predicted, be lower in
2010. Unfortunately, the real purchasing power of productive Ameri-
cans is also on a downtrend caused by endemic socialism and eco-
nomic fascism. For two decades, the price of government power in the
United States has been rising faster than can be compensated for by the
aggregate accomplishments of technology.
known) be an open system, too.
STARK RAVING MAD
ence 270, p 914 (1995), describing a new technique for channeling a
l Hour of Lead and Our Familys Story by Amity Shlaes beam of atoms through a hollow optical fiber. By tuning the laser just
in The Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, December 20, 1995 p A14,
tells of the attack on her family by New York City lead bureaucrats.
As a result of playing with a vacuum cleaner with lead dust con-
tamination, her two-year-old sons blood levels rose to 25 micrograms
per deciliter higher than the 10 /dl now considered acceptable by
lead bureaucrats, but not higher than the national average for American
children in the 1960s and lower than the 1960s median level of 30 /dl
in Chicago. Her sons level dropped back below 10 /dl after he was
no longer allowed to play with the vacuum cleaner.
Nevertheless, the family is being required to do tens of thousands of
dollars of work rebuilding their house to the satisfaction of city offi-
cials. Amity Shlaes also relates other similar stories of the activities of
the burgeoning lead-in-children industry. This industry has been made
possible by recent lowering of acceptable lead standards to enviro cor-
rect levels which include the blood levels of a great many children.
Events are following a now familiar pattern: Some lead levels in a
few children are much too high, and the causes need to be corrected.
For safety reasons, standards are set far below the scientifically de- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
termined harmful quantities. Then, with a profuse outpouring of croco-
dile tears, the usual gaggle of opportunists takes over.
l Geniuses From Abroad by George Gilder in The Wall Street Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
Journal for Monday, December 18, 1995, p A14, discusses Congres-
sional efforts to reduce legal immigration into the United States.
has been brought into existence by foreign-born scientists and engi-
and the nuclear energy industry, depended upon immigrants. The en-
tire history of the United States teaches the incredible productive
power of a melting pot of the worlds best and brightest people espe-
cially those with the personal ambition to seek the best national envi-
ronment. Nevertheless, Congress seems determined to interfere.
Perhaps Congress isnt mad. The politics of this may help keep
them in power, and we get to pay for their pensions when they retire.
We, however, are stark raving mad to let them do it.
GOOD READING
l Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman, Engineering and
Science, June 1974, pp 10-13, available from Engineering and Science,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
We based an Access to Energy editorial on this but did not give the
reference. This was the Caltech commencement address of 1974 and is
a superb discussion of the distinction between science and pseudo -
science a distinction much more relevant today than in 1974.
l Maverick Mark Twains Exhilarating American Individual-
ism by Jim Powell, The Freeman, November 1995, pp 728-733,
available from The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 30
South Broadway, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533.
l A Home Cure for School-Induced Funk by Sarah B. Miller in
The Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, December 13, 1995, p A14.
Home schooling is spreading throughout the United States in all divi-
sions of society and at remarkable speed. This phenomenon, coupled
with the decentralization made possible by computers and digital com-
munications, is solving the problem of our dying socialist schools by
creating a marvelous and superior new educational system.
l Complex Questions: The New Science of Spontaneous Order
by William Tucker, Reason, January 1996, pp 34-38. Although the
philosophical implications of this subject are an intellectual mine field,
the science is especially important as refutation of the utter nonsense
published by Jeremy Rifkin and others claiming that the earth and uni-
verse are running down citing the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The Second Law, which deals with entropy, is entirely inapplicable
to a nonequilibrium, open system such as the earth. It is also inapplica-
ble to the universe, which is not at equilibrium and may also (not now
l Laser Is a Guiding Light for Atoms by Robert F. Service, Sci-
below a resonant frequency of the atoms and directing the laser down
the hollow fiber, the atomic beam can be made to follow the loops of
the fiber. Moreover, the device acts as an atomic filter, since only those
atoms of the appropriate resonant frequency follow the path.
l Use of Therapeutic Radionuclides in Medicine by P. J. Early
and E. R. Landa, Health Physics 69, pp 677-694 especially the short
section about Marie Curie. This issue of Health Physics is devoted to
papers about the history of medical uses of radiation and is good read-
ing in its entirety.
l Nanotechnology Promises Endless Abundance Courtesy of
Molecule-Manipulating Robots. Is That Nuts? And Do We Want It?
by Ed Regis, Reason, December 1995, pp 28-34.
It is not nuts, and we definitely do.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
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 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
FEBRUARY 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 6) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Peer Review
Most scientific journals are peer reviewed, which is another review committees. It seems that the committee members have not
way of saying that those responsible for the journal ask other scien-
tists to read the papers and make recommendations concerning their
publication. The principal reviewers are usually designated as an
editorial board. These reviewers often receive a free subscription
to the journal, and their names are printed in each issue. If they are
well-respected scientists, this is a benefit for the journal as well.
Although this system helps with publication quality, it is recog-
nized to have serious flaws. Advertised as objective, it often favors
those who are friends of the reviewers. Advertised as confidential,
there have been many instances of reviewers using their positions to
delay publication of work while they or their friends plagiarize the
papers under review and rush into publication under their own names.
Advertised as raising quality, it often suppresses the publication of
innovative work that is not a part of current fad or fashion.
There is an unwritten but very strong rule among scientists today
to suppress public discussion of most instances of favoritism and out-
right scientific dishonesty. Tax-based appropriations of private earn-
ings are used to pay a large proportion of scientists. Public discussion
of scientific fraud might threaten to close this money spigot, so just a
an occasional instance is publicized to give an erroneous impression
that big-time tax-financed science is self-policing.
The fad and fashion problem has historically been handled in vari-
ous ways. For example, publication in the Proceedings of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences, PNAS, required only sponsorship by an
Academy member and two other reviews which the member ar-
ranged. Even scientists with very unusual ideas could usually find at
least one such sponsor. This has changed. Now, any publication in
PNAS with medical significance must pass an anonymous medical
board, so innovation is being substantially suppressed.
So-called peer review has also been adopted by the bureau- tic. This social engineering to produce students that do not think
cratic agencies that distribute tax money to scientists. Having confis-
cated the earnings of ordinary Americans against their will by threat
of force, these people try to show how ethical they are by peer review
of proposed research before it is funded. With money at stake, the
problems endemic to peer review of publications are amplified.
Government funded research sinks, therefore, to the lowest com-
mon denominator of review committees of politically correct scien-
tists who seem to have nothing better to do than sit on government
committees. Actually, many good scientists also waste their time in
this way because reviewing the grant proposals of others is helpful in
having ones own grant proposals approved. Favoritism, theft of
ideas, and suppression of innovation are widespread in this process.
AIDS Trials Take on Peer Review by Jon Cohen, Science 271,
pp 20-21 (1996), illustrates a further problem composition of the
review committees. With billions of dollars annually available from
tax funds and the number of published papers approaching 100,000,
AIDS may not be a single disease caused by HIV, and little progress
may have been made in its pursuit, but it surely is big business in the
government welfare system of grant-supported science.
The squabble reported by Cohen relates to selection of the peer
vocabulary and conceptual abbreviations that are simple but unfamil-
THERMOMETERS
high foreheads, and furrowed brows thinking great thoughts that are
Any discussion involving science or technology can quickly be-
come too complicated for the layman. Although some subjects are
sufficiently specialized as to require unique study for their under-
standing, most are not. Usually, the apparent complication arises from
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
published as many articles on AIDS as have those being reviewed.
Actually, in view of the sorry state of this field, it might be best to
disqualify all reviewers who have published an article about AIDS.
A very outstanding colleague of mine once confided that he had
almost lost grant support for his entire laboratory by making a strate-
gic mistake. For the first time in his long and distinguished career, he
had applied for a grant to do work that he had not already completed.
The research turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, so he
was unable to report success in time for the next review.
Dishonesty in grant applications is virtually a way of life in sci-
ence today. Those who are entirely honest about their work are at
such a competitive disadvantage that they are often not funded. The
current system, therefore, expects scientists to be dishonest half of the
time while they are writing grant proposals and then honest the other
half of the time while they are conducting research.
Is it any wonder that the scientific literature is swarming with po-
litically correct, intellectually dishonest articles while most good sci-
entists, afraid of endangering their own grants, look the other way?
Peer review as such or under various euphemistic nom de plumes
is also extending its tentacles throughout the American educational
system and into general society.
In American universities, even in science, there is increasing use
of group work and peer review the grading of one student by
another. This has even extended to the ultimate idiocy of students
grading the faculty a very common practice which selects for pro-
fessors who reduce the quality of their courses to the norms in order
to prevent poor student grades from damaging their own careers.
In the public schools for students in grades 1-12, of course, group-
think has become more important than reading, writing, and arithme-
independently and are easily molded to the political views promul-
gated by the state and by the political groups controlling the schools is
essentially a peer-review process. Sociological peer-think in both
grade schools and the universities is excellently described in The
Dirty War by Thomas Sowell, Forbes, January 22, 1996 p. 66.
Science, technology, and free enterprise are listed together on the
Access to Energy masthead for several reasons one of which is that
they are intrinsically linked in the human mind. Science and technol-
ogy have advanced almost entirely on the shoulders of individual in-
novators many of whom were opposed by their peers. Those
individuals, in order to make their contributions, needed freedom
intellectual freedom, economic freedom, and personal freedom.
Peer review, government confiscation of economic and personal
freedom, and the education of American youth in politically correct
group-think are beginning to have a devastating effect upon our tech-
nologically-based civilization. American enviropolitics, loss of world
economic and technological superiority, and loss of the individual
freedom for which our country was established are the result.
A free man carries his only important peer within himself in his
own conscience. He must not be enslaved by external peer review.
iar to the uninitiated. The image of scientists with advanced degrees,
beyond the ability of most mere mortals is a sham.
It is, however, necessary to the understanding of science as of most
other subjects to be able to think clearly and independently. It is an
unwillingness to think that permits most pseudoscience to flourish.

Figure 1
Each day, for example, the front page of The Wall Street Journal
displays a graph of a selected economic parameter. Often, this graph is
accompanied by a brief statement in a nearby column as to the signifi-
cance of the latest data point added to the graph.
From this column, we might learn something like yesterdays re-
port of the consumer price index showed an increase of 0.3% from the
previous month. This sign of resurgent inflation has dampened the
bond market and also caused a drop in stock prices as traders worry
that the Fed will raise interest rates. But wait it is immediately obvi-
ous from looking at the graph that this index fluctuates in a range of
about 0.5% and that last months number was down by 0.2%. By turn-
ing the newspaper sideways and sighting down the curve or by draw-
ing a pencil line through the values to create a rough average, one can
see that the 0.3% value is well within the normal fluctuations and no
noticeable change in the inflation trend has taken place.
Why then are these apparently mindless single point analyses pub-
lished alongside the graphs? As a regular reader of this page, I have
turned it sideways and visually averaged such graphs literally thou-
sands of times to escape the errors of these written analyses. Are the
writers of the front page of The Wall Street Journal addicted to
misanalysis in which they blame or credit market movements on what-
ever number is at hand? Perhaps, but is is far more likely that signifi-
cant numbers of market participants are mindlessly led to make
economic decisions on the basis of insignificant fluctuations.
Everyone should read the first 100 pages of Extraordinary Popular
Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, first pub-
lished in 1841. There is a 1980 edition published by Bonanza Books in
New York. Mackays accounts of the Mississippi Scheme, the South-
Sea Bubble, and the Tulipomania are merely extreme examples of or-
dinary human behavior. This mindless behavior is even quantitatively
predictable. Excellent procedures for market trading have been based
upon it. A depressingly large percentage of people are controlled by
such emotions as greed and fear to an extent that they are swayed only
by facts that conform to their desired view. As Adlai Stevenson ob-
served, Decisions are made in the viscera and ratified by the mind.
Even obviously flawed facts are sufficient for these people.
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by J. A. Paulos in the
Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 1996, as quoted in The New
American, January 22, 1996, available from 770 Westhill Blvd., Ap-
pleton, WI 54914, cites the value of normal oral human physiological
temperature, which is 37 Centigrade. Human temperature fluctuates
from person to person and as a function of time of day and other fac-
tors. Since most values lie between 36.5 C and 37.5 C, the value 37
C given to only two significant figures is correctly stated. If the
value were given as 37.0 C, however, this would be incorrect un-
less it was accompanied by an analysis of errors stating the experimen-
tally observed variations in the values.
Most people know this value as 98.6 Fahrenheit, which contains
three significant figures and is actually the exact conversion of 37.0 C.
Therefore, 98.6 F is incorrectly stated. Most people have enough ex-
perience with taking temperatures that they realize that 98.6 F is only
an average value until symptoms of disease are present. Then, any
deviation above 98.6 F is usually considered significant because the
subject then has a greater personal interest in the higher value..
We also are very familiar with the fact that temperature depends
upon the location of the thermometer oral, rectal, or under arm in the
example above. At the local hardware store, we can buy dual ther-
mometers with elements for outside temperature and inside tempera-
ture. Virtually all adults have experience with thermometers and with
the fact that temperatures fluctuate within normal ranges and vary with
the location of the thermometer.
There is, however, a group of people with personal interests in pro-
moting two peculiar popular delusions about temperature 1. They
claim that the current temperature of the earth is the best of all possible
temperatures. 2. They claim that carbon dioxide from the burning of
coal, oil, and natural gas is causing that perfect temperature to change,
so we should reduce this burning.
Since this is supposed to be very scientific, we probably shouldnt
mention that these are generally the same people who promoted the
idea in the 1970s and 1980s that the world would soon run out of oil
and natural gas, so we should reduce burning. Moreover, these are
largely people who promote population reduction, world government,
and the expenditure of huge sums of tax money on enterprises from
which they personally benefit. All three of these interests are served by
schemes to forcibly control world output of carbon dioxide.
Central to this issue, of course, are thermometers. We have already
had a large increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. What has been the
effect on temperature? Figures 1 and 2 show some of the data. Figure 1
is reproduced from 1995 Captures Record as Warmest Year Yet by
R. Monastersky, Science News, 149 p 23 (1996). Figure 2 is from
World Climate Report 1, No. 1 p4, as cited with other similar figures in
Access to Energy 23-3, November 1995.
Figure 2
Figure 1, in various incarnations, has been publicized extensively
throughout American newspapers and magazines by the global warm-
ing industry. Several things about this figure are, however, rarely men-
tioned. 1. The temperature rise between about 1910 and 1940 restored
global temperatures to their more usual norm from an unusually cold
period known as the Little Ice Age. Moreover, this rise preceded
most of the rise in carbon dioxide and therefore could not have been
caused by that rise. 2. The period from 1940 to 1980 was one of rapid
rise in carbon dioxide, but no temperature increase occurred. 3. The
rise between 1980 and the present is probably an artifact of the location
of the thermometers at surface sites throughout the world.
Human activity is known to increase temperatures at many surface
sites. Also, the rise between 1980 and 1995 is not uniform tempera-
tures in eastern North America, southern Europe, and northern Africa
did not rise. This nonuniformity might be just an artifact of weather
variability except for Figure 2, which shows the global temperature av-
erage for the Northern Hemisphere up to an altitude of about 4 miles
during the same period as recorded from satellite measurements and
plotted as open circles with no rise in temperature. The upper line in
Figure 2 plotted as closed circles is the predicted temperatures from

Figure 3
global climate models the same models that global warming gurus
claim have been verified by Figure 1. Southern Hemisphere satellite
values show essentially the same pattern. See Access to Energy 23-3.
The rise in carbon dioxide is expected to cause a rise in temperature.
The question is, how much rise? Based on the data so far collected,
the answer to that question is apparently an insignificant rise.
creased growth of plants with increases of carbon dioxide. See, for ex-
RAINFALL
Biosphere: The Incredible Legacy of the Industrial Revolution by
In the absence of cooperative thermometers, the global warmers
have been looking for other indicators such as increased rainfall
caused by increased evaporation of water caused by higher tempera-
tures. World Climate Report 1, no. 3, p 1, available from P. O. Box
455, Ivy, VA 22945, reports that Vice President Gore, in his Earth
Day speech, said, Torrential rains have increased in the summer
during agricultural growing seasons. Figure 3 shows the data on
which Gore based his remarks. Karl, T. R., Knight, R. W., and Plum-
mer, N., Nature, 337, pp 217-220 (1995), found a 2% increase over the
last 80 years in the amount of precipitation falling during rainstorms of
two inches or more in 24 hours (as plotted in Figure 3). About 10% of
the worlds rain falls in these rainstorms. Described another way, there
was one more such day of 2-inch rainfall on average in each 730 days.
This sort of finding is already questionable because there are many
ways to look at rainfall data. Did they try one-inch days, three-inch
days, five-inch weeks, or other subdivisions? It is likely that numerous
subdivisions were tried and the best one published. Was the statisti-
cal significance of the result corrected for these other tries?
Leaving this aside, however, notice that most of this increase oc-
curred before 1940 again before most of the carbon dioxide release.
Figure 4, however, provides further embarrassment for Gores rain
dance. It is one of five similar figures (the others show essentially the
same result for different geographical regions) in Evaporation Losing
Its Strength by Peterson, T. C., Golubev, V. S. and Groisman, P. Y.,
Nature 377, pp 687-688 (1995). Reported are data from 936 evapora-
tion-pan stations where rate of water evaporation is measured. Evapo-
ration rate is, of course, dependent upon many factors besides
temperature, but the torrential rains are supposed to have resulted
from increased evaporation. As the figure shows, evaporation rates
have actually fluctuated downward during the period in question.
Maybe these people should go back into the global cooling business
(in which many of them were found during previous decades). The sat-
ellite data shows a slight cooling and the rest of the data, probably just
from ordinary fluctuations, looks better for them there, too.
Figure 4
UTOPIA
In all of this reactive comment, however, we should also not lose
track of the basic premises of the global warmers now a new popular
delusion of our time. The first premise is that the current temperature
of the earth is perfect, and that any deviation is undesirable. The sec-
ond, regarding the alleged culprit, carbon dioxide, is that increased
CO2 can only do harm. It can never do good.
Actually, a large part of the worlds population lives in regions that
are colder than desirable. A little more warmth and rain would prob-
ably be welcomed in many places. Although it does not look as if CO2
from coal, oil, and natural gas is going to provide much more of either,
the greenhouse effect from increased CO2 should eventually be detect-
able. Increased atmospheric CO2 is, however, already providing a lot
more plants and animals something the enviros claim to want.
We have already written extensively about the remarkable work of
Sherwood Idso and his colleagues and many other scientists on in-
ample, Access to Energy 21-1, 21-3 and 21-4. Also, read CO2 and the
Sherwood Idso (1995), available from Department of Soil, Water, &
Climate, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108.
Another recent paper, Carbon Dioxide Uptake by an Undisturbed
Tropical Rain Forest in Southwest Amazonia, 1992 to 1993 by J.
Grace, et al, Science 270, pp 778-780 (1995), reports that a mature rain
forest was found to be absorbing 8.5 (plus or minus 2.0) moles per
square meter per year of additional CO2. From this we calculate
(8.5)(44)(4.05)(103)/(454) = 3,334 or, rounding appropriately, 3,300
pounds per acre of CO2. This CO2 is being synthesized into between
one and two tons of new plants and animals per acre per year in the
Amazon rain forests. In the United States, as we calculated earlier (see
references above) from U. S. Forest statistics, the increase in CO2 is
producing 600 pounds per person per year of additional standing tim-
ber for every man, woman, and child
Will you read about these benefits in the press or hear about them
from the enviro-wonders supported by the multibillion dollar envi-
ronmentalist industry? No. All we hear from them is word about the
ongoing, tax-financed ($2 billion per year) witch hunt for evidence of
catastrophic global warming. Witch hunts are also covered in Extraor-
dinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (pp 462-564).
ASIAN POWER
Decline of the West in Nuclear Issues 17. p3, December 1995,
available from APG, 8 Ruvigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney,
London SW15 1LE, reports that Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, India,
Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia. and Thailand are
building and/or planning new nuclear power installations.
It is expected that the number of nuclear plants in Asia will double
from the current 79 to about 150 during the next 15 years. Japan, Ko-
rea, and Taiwan respectively already generate 27%, 35%, and 33% of
their electric power from nuclear plants. (See Access to Energy 23-3. p
2.) The United States has 109 nuclear power plants generating 22% of
its electricity, but has only one new plant under construction.
The Asian countries are also developing a broad infrastructure of
uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing facilities, and
India and Japan have fast reactor development programs.
Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, India, and Pakistan, respec-
tively, have 50, 10, 3, 6, 9, and 1 nuclear plants in operation and 30, 13,
12, 2, 13, and 1 nuclear plants planned or under construction.
Uranium Information Centre Newsletter No. 6, November/Decem-
ber 1995, available from GPO Box 1649N, Melbourne 3001, Austra-
lia, reports that Australia has about 40% of the western worlds
low-cost uranium reserves (recoverable at less than $80 per kilogram).
As this decline continues and we become the non-producers, we are
definitely going to need a World Government to tax Asia for a wel-
fare program for the United States. Asia will, no doubt, cooperate.

WOUND BALLISTICS
The science of wound ballistics is a quantitative and well-devel-
oped discipline. Wound Ballistics and Soft-Tissue Wound Treat-
ment by Martin L. Fackler in Techniques in Orthopaedics 10, pp
163-170 (1995), and Differences in the Wounding Behavior of the
Two Bullets that Struck President Kennedy; An Experimental Study
by John K. Lattimer, et al in Wound Ballistics Review 2, pp 13-37
(1995), available from the International Wound Ballistics Association,
P. O. Box 701, El Segundo, CA 90245, are good illustrations of this.
The Fackler article addresses the widely believed myth that bullet
velocity determines tissue damage. He shows that tissue damage is pri-
marily a function of projectile design, which determines the tendency
of the bullet to yaw or disintegrate.
The Lattimer article presents a very extensive array of experimental
evidence in support of the position that President Kennedy and Gover-
nor Connally were struck solely by two bullets fired by Oswald. Any-
one who holds a different view owes it to himself to read this excellent
and detailed report of experimental research.
For those interested in minimizing the probability that they or their
loved ones will ever suffer injuries of interest to Drs. Fackler, Lattimer,
and their colleagues, there is one premier American authority Jeff
Cooper. If there were a Nobel Prize for practical advice and training for
personal defense, Jeff Cooper would have received two or three.
Cooper writes like a modern Mark Twain with, however, titanium
ink and knowledge based on a lifetime of practical and teaching expe-
rience. A complete listing of his books and articles should be available
from P. O. Box 401, Paulden, AZ 86334. Some can be obtained from
ordinary commercial sources.
BASEBALL JET LAG
Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. This is a
Baseball Teams Beaten by Jet Lag by L. D. Recht, R. A. Lew,
and W. J. Schwartz, Nature 377, p 583 (1995), reports a statistically
significant (P = 0.006) effect of jet lag on baseball players who have
traveled by air across three time zones within the previous three days.
After separating jet lag effects from other parameters such as home
field advantage, they found that jet lag reduces the number of runs
scored per game by 1.24 (plus or minus 0.45) runs if the travel across
time zones has been eastward. Westward travel has no effect.
The authors point out that, although this factor affects only 5% of
games played, division titles in 1991 and 1993 in the National League
West were lost by western teams to eastern teams by only one game.
Baseball is only a game, but the greater message to Westerners is
clear. If the issue is important, have the Easterners come to you.
News 149, January 20, 1996, p 36. They left the Hubble Space Tele-
GULF WAR SYNDROME
combined the 276 exposures. The image contains 1,500 galaxies. Even
In the politically supercharged atmosphere that surrounds this par-
ticular controversy and with key data in the hands of politically con-
trolled government agencies, the causes of the increased incidence of
debilitating diseases among participants in the Gulf War may never be
reliably known. Soldiers in foreign wars have often found that their
immersion in an unfamiliar biological environment has led to many
casualties sometimes more than those inflicted by their opponents.
The current availability of modern chemical and biological agents is a
further complication. Regardless of hypothetical causes, empirical
findings on the cure of these soldiers are of great importance.
Doxycycline Treatment and Desert Storm by G. L. Nicolson
and N. L. Nicolson, J. Am. Med. Assoc. 273, pp 618-619 (1995), and
Progress on Persian Gulf War Illnesses Reality and Hypothesis by
G. L. Nicolson et al, Int. J. Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 4,
pp 1-6 (1995), report an antibiotic treatment successful in treating 55%
of the Gulf War Syndrome cases on which it has been tried.
Professor G. L. Nicolson is in the Department of Tumor Biology,
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
77030. Telephone (713) 792-7481.
STARK RAVING MAD
l Get a Whiff of This! by James Bovard in The Wall Street
Journal, Wednesday, December 27, 1995, p 10 discusses the new en-
viromania, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity or MCS. One Julia Ken-
dall, coordinator of the Chemical Injury Litigation Project, in San
Francisco is quoted as saying, No one should be wearing perfume to
theaters. Why should we have brain damage because people are wear-
ing toxic chemicals? ..... Basically, we want to destroy the fragrance
industry. The Human Ecology Action League has announced, Per-
fume is going to be the tobacco smoke of tomorrow.
Fueled by the Americans with Disabilities Act under which they are
bringing lawsuits and pandered to by HUD which is giving them tax
money, MCS activists are on a roll. Apparently, if these people can
smell it, they file suit and some of them have very sensitive noses.
l New Limits to Scientific Immigration by J. Kaiser, Science
271, p 281 (1996), reports that Senator Alan Simpson has sponsored a
bill that would specifically limit the immigration into the United States
of skilled workers and require special fees to be paid by employers of
such workers. The goal is to keep people with scientific and technical
skills out of the country. Perhaps you thought that these nuts were only
only trying to keep out inexpensive farm laborers or welfare cases?
l Henry Gee, The Moons a Balloon, Nature 378, p103 (1995),
uses the occasion of a review of two books about Apollo 13 to ridicule
the manned space program. For a full page in Nature, Gee derides the
greatest engineering accomplishment in human history. Gee says he
was eight years old in 1970 he has apparently regressed since.
GOOD READING
l Why Government Doesnt Work by Harry Browne (1995), St.
well-written book clearly explaining the fundamental reasons for most
government failures. An extra feature is that it does so without limiting
its audience by confusing the issues with particular political prejudices.
l The Truth is Never Out of Date by Lynne V. Cheney,
Readers Digest, January 1996, pp 135-138. Beginning with an exam-
ple of a math teacher who opposes practice addition of a grocery bill
because it teaches students that paying for food is natural, this arti-
cle examines the current effects of moral relativism.
l The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell as reviewed in
Destiny Magazine, January 1996 p 30, available from P.O. Box 1000,
Selma, OR 97538. This book is a devastating critique of elitists who
are above the facts that constrain mere mortals.
l Hubbles Deep View of the Universe by R. Cowen, Science
scope aimed at one small bit of sky for 10 consecutive days and then
the small photographic print displayed in this article is breathtaking.
l Subtle Impact by Ed Carson, Reason, February 1996, p 14,
reports that, although tests show that airbags reduce fatalities in front-
end collisions by 24%, drivers actually are more likely to be killed with
air bags than without them. See Risk in Access to Energy 22-11, p 1
for further discussion of how safety devices lead to more recklessness.
l Has Radiation Protection Become a Health Hazard? by G.
Wilander, published by The Swedish Nuclear Training and Safety
Center, P. O. Box 1039, S-611 29 Nykoping, Sweden as reviewed by
S. Rippon, Nuclear News, November 1995, p. 58.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MARCH 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 7) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy

Golden Tears
During 1995, the United States government spent an estimated
$71 billion on programs labeled research and development.
Planning the Budget for This Year and Last by T. Adler in Science
News 149, p. 86 (1996), reports that this included $38 billion for na-
tional defense and $33 billion for nondefense. The nondefense ex-
penditures were spread over agencies labeled health, science,
agriculture, interior, transportation, environment, and commerce.
About half was for health and about 10 % was for basic science.
Expenditures for defense are, of course, justified by the Constitu-
tional requirement to provide for the common defense. After 50 years
in the nuclear and high technology age, America is still free of foreign
domination by force. This fact is largely the result of defense research
and development work by our scientists and engineers.
The nondefense expenditures are an entirely separate matter.
There is no Constitutional justification whatever for the confiscation
of the earnings and savings of men, women, and children by force or
threat of force through taxation for nondefense research and develop-
ment. Over the past few decades, the seizure of private property for
this purpose has totaled over a trillion dollars.
The usual critique of this expenditure involves its effects. Govern-
ment research funds now have such an overwhelming influence in
universities and other non-profit institutions that the private funds of
those institutions are also spent in accordance with the wishes of a
vast horde of politically correct government research bureaucrats. In-
tellectual freedom has accordingly diminished, output of new knowl-
edge has been stunted, and the actual effect of that trillion dollars has
been to retard overall research and development.
The fact that pseudosciences like global warming are now run-
ning rampant over the political landscape while most scientists are
silent indicates how far we have descended as a result of government
programs. America has created a giant welfare program for scientists.
This welfare program has failed just as the welfare programs for
nonscientists have failed. The science and technology failure is more
easily hidden because private enterprise has made substantial ad-
vances, which are incorrectly credited to government.
Scientists at universities and non-profit institutions have also
made progress although less than they would have made without
the distortions caused by this welfare program. Without the free en-
terprise options that have been lost, even our Nobel Prize winners
must waste much of their time pleading with bureaucrats for support
support that is only given for projects that these bureaucrats favor.
Inefficiency and ineffectiveness are, however, not the most com-
pelling arguments. The fact is that it is morally wrong to steal the
property of other people. Our government has no legal or moral justi-
fication for this theft. We would probably look with disfavor upon a
scientist who obtained his salary and research funds from privately
organized crime such as the Mafia regardless of whether or not he
did good scientific work. Why then do we not look with equivalent
disfavor upon scientists who obtain their salaries and research funds
from publicly organized crime in Washington, DC?
Part of the reason is that, in addition to scientists, a great many
other Americans also receive money that they did not earn as a result
of the plundering of their neighbors property by government. In ef-
fect, we have all gotten used to living in a very high crime environ-
ment. We have stopped asking questions about morality and justice.
We just accept the fact that thievery is all around us and spend our
time trying to limit our own personal losses.
In addition, our vision is obscured by the torrential rain of tears
that is shed upon us by those who receive portions of the tax collec-
tors loot. These are very sensitive people. They implore us to:
Consider the terrible suffering from cancer, heart disease, birth de-
fects, and other maladies. Imagine those who have inadequate food or
transportation and insufficient commercial opportunities. Even
worse, visualize the suffering of animals, plants, and the environment
and of people whose lives are miserable because they suffer psycho-
logically for planet earth. Most of all, consider the children.
No atrocity is so great that it cannot be justified by a river of
crocodile tears shed for the children. Children must be free of disease,
must be well fed, must be well educated, must be protected from vio-
lence (especially spanking and other forms of parental discipline),
and must have a future. That future is too important to be left to their
parents to build it must be designed and built by politicians and bu-
reaucrats who have the wisdom and sensitivity to do it correctly.
These critical needs have bred a new, superior form of human life.
Perhaps there were a few of these specimens in our gene pool all
along or, perhaps, we have just been fortunate that they arose in our
midst by spontaneous mutation when they were needed. In any case,
they are here. They are human beings who speak for those who can-
not speak for themselves.
They speak for the children, for the downtrodden and poor, for the
sick and helpless, for the animals, for the plants for the whole earth.
Their tears are shed in substitute for those that are not shed by avari-
cious, unfeeling, and evil people (most Americans). Their tears wash
away such minor questions as morality, ethics, and justice. Theirs are
the golden tears that make everything right and nothing wrong as
long as it conforms to their agenda.
Those who shed these tears have become an elite in our society
they do not need to work. They only need to cry. They have built an
enormous industry populated by bureaucrats and welfare recipients.
They have built that industry upon the backs of the American people
whose property they have plundered. It is true that a small portion of
their loot makes its way to truly worthy causes. These causes serve as
an excuse for their continued thievery.
In the river of irrelevant scientific publications that flows today
from government subsidies, there are certainly islands of success.
Valuable discoveries have been made with government funds. Are
these scientists to be congratulated?
The few who manage to make progress while accepting tax subsi-
dies do so at the expense of the greater progress that would be made
in a free economy. They provide propaganda for those with the
golden tears. They are the modern alchemists. They have succeeded
in turning tears into gold at the expense of American freedom.

lives, and upon providers who begin to think of themselves as an

GLOBAL INERTIA elite that is superior to the recipients and to the productive people
whom they plunder to keep the game going. Less noticed is the ugly
In considering the ill effects of welfare, critics frequently focus turn that welfare often eventually takes in which the recipients actu-
upon its failures and upon the immorality of the theft that supports it. ally try to harm the productive people who have provided for them.
There is also discussion about the negative effects it has upon recipi- This problem seems to arise from a negative aspect of human na-
ents who become passively dependent and unable to lead productive ture. Even in private charity which is the honorable way to provide

Figure 1
for those who are truly in need this can occur. As charity continues,
the providers sometimes begin to feel superior to the recipients, and
the recipients begin to resent the providers. In private charity, how-
ever, all is voluntary and the participants are usually in close contact
with one another, so these difficulties are manageable.
Public welfare has, of course, more beneficiaries. These include the
vast and voracious bureaucracy that administers welfare welfare for
scientists and welfare for pot-smoking back-to-nature hippies who just
prefer not to work. Therefore, these welfare programs become ends in
themselves. No matter how extensive the difficulties, this bureaucracy
is determined to keep the failed system going at all costs.
Perhaps the greatest cost is the deliberate damage eventually done
to the productive victims of welfare by some of the welfare recipients
themselves. In the Northwest, for example, the destruction of the log-
ging industry has largely been accomplished by agitators who are ex-
tensively supported by welfare. These are the people who have time to
spike trees, promulgate hate campaigns against the lumber industry,
and participate in demonstrations. Antinuclear demonstrators are
somewhat similar. Antinuclear protests include a very large proportion
of people who are not engaged in productive work.
The elite behind these movements has, however, a larger agenda.
The same elite that promulgated the energy crisis in the 1970s pro-
motes the global warming crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.
Their first claim was that we were running out of coal, oil, and natu-
ral gas, so there would soon be none to burn. Their new claim is that
we are going to burn coal, oil, and natural gas in ever increasing
amounts in perpetuity and fry the planet. Simultaneously, they have
stunted American progress in nuclear energy by means of false claims
about the dangers of nuclear power.
Their agenda has little to do with any of these claims. For many of
them, that agenda is the elimination of human beings. The goal is re-
duction of the earths human population by means of technological
genocide the reduction of life-supporting technology.
These elitists cannot, however, succeed by themselves. They must
have foot soldiers to get the job done. These foot soldiers are now be-
ing provided by the giant welfare system that they have built for sci-
entists. For the first several decades of this welfare system, scientists
were content to passively participate. Now, however, some of them are
beginning to behave in the predictable manner of long-term welfare
recipients. They are beginning to bite the hands that feed them.
Now we find welfare-supported scientists willing to elevate tenu-
ous hypotheses with little or no experimental support to the level of
robust theories of unquestioned verisimilitude in order to deliber-
ately destroy the way of life of those whose earnings pay for welfare.
A problem with science, however, is that it still includes a method
of thought that is based upon truth. While one is shoveling welfare to
the scientific mob, there is no completely reliable way to guard against
a discovery that is inconsistent with the political agenda. Moreover,
scientists who are playing the desired game may, at any time, revert to
their fundamental training and uncover some embarrassing fact.
For this reason, the global environmental scams must be presented
as crises requiring immediate emergency action. It is not the direct
claimed danger from ozone destruction or global warming that re-
quires emergency action; it is the danger that, given a little time, scien-
tific facts may arise that discredit these hypotheses altogether.
In this context, the global warming crowd recently suffered a very
severe setback. After extensive squabbling in which referees modified
the paper and tried to suppress it, Economic and Environmental
Choices in the Stabilization of Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations by
T. M. L. Wigley, R. Richels, and J. A. Edmonds in Nature 379, pp
240-243, was published. Figures 1 and 2 are adapted from this paper.
Wigley, et al, subscribe to the entire global warming scenario in
which computer models that fail to predict past weather and contain
only the most rudimentary guesses as to the actual effects of atmos-
pheric release of carbon dioxide from human activity are used to pre-
tend to predict the future with breathtaking precision. Wigley, himself,
is one of the lead authors of the recent report by the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that has been enthusiasti-
cally publicized throughout the media in recent months as the most
authoritative verification of the looming global warming catastrophe.
Alas, Wigley asked one question too many. Assuming that the en-
tire global computer model is correct (nonsense as shown in AtE 23-06
but it is this nonsense upon which the global warming facade rests),
Wigley calculated the effects of waiting another 10, 20, or 30 years
without any control of CO2 emissions at all before taking action. His
calculation assumes the worst case scenario adopted by the UN for un-
controlled emissions. The calculation was carried out for ultimate at-
mospheric CO2 levels of 350 parts per million through 750 ppm.
Figure 1 shows the predicted atmospheric CO2 levels assuming im-
mediate crisis reductions (IPCC) or assuming a wait of 20 years before
Figure 2
any reductions (WRE). Figure 2 shows the total amount of CO2 emis-
sions from human activity under the two assumptions. (The line la-
beled IS92a is the IPCC assumption for CO2 emissions if no action is
ever taken. Planners love this sort of apocalyptic scenario.)
For a 30-year wait and his recommended level of 550 ppm, Wigley
finds that the end result for the global environment is unchanged.
Along the way to that UN-created nirvana 300 years from now, there is
a difference of less than 2 inches in sea level and about 0.2 C in
temperature. In other words, as Wigley et al conclude, the effect of
waiting 30 more years before controlling CO2 emissions, even when
one assumes that the entire global warming scenario is correct (which
it is not), is so slight as to be not worth significant economic disruption.
A 30-year wait would, of course, be devastating to the global
warming industry. Without a crisis, their war-level funding from tax
money would decrease and, worse yet, their predictions would need to
stand the test of 30 years of future climatological data.
From the Wigley, Richels, Edmonds (WRE) calculation there is no
honest escape. From here on, the crisis teams at the UN and the welfare
receiving scientists and other unprincipled participants in the multibil-
lion dollar global warming crisis business will have to fly on hope.
Their fuel tanks are empty. They just must hope that no one notices.

FARM TECHNOLOGY
At the core of every argument about science and technology are
certain assumptions upon which the evaluations ultimately rest. Basic
science has, for example, a fundamental value in that it raises the qual-
ity of human life by allowing people to understand and enjoy the
physical world on an increasingly deeper intellectual and emotional
level as their knowledge increases. This is one reason that science
should be a substantial part of every persons education.
More compelling is the assumption that technology is good because
it increases the quality and the quantity of human life. If we value hu-
man life and desire that its quality should be improved, then only the
most selfish elitists can argue that the number of high quality human
lives and the length of those lives should not also be maximized. We
seek to maximize some function of the general form: [quality of hu-
man life] x [number of human lives] x [length of human life] = value.
Quality and length of life depend, of course, upon number of lives.
If there are more people than can be technologically provided for, qual-
ity and length decrease. The whole function must be considered.
Where the elitists err is in their assumption that their own lives are
of far, far greater value than those of other people. This causes them to
write the above function as something like: [quality of life] x [(elite
lives) (K) + (ordinary lives)] x [length of life] = value. They put a very
high value upon K. From Auschwitz and Dachau to the board rooms of
big time pseudoenvironmentalist organizations today, it is this inflation
of the value of K that has been used to justify virtually any atrocity.
Elitists often advocate minimization of suffering as a substitute world farmland an area the size of Alaska can be taken out of pro-
for maximization of value. This leads to the golden tears mentioned duction. An 8 ton per hectare average idles an area of farmland the size
on page one, above. Minimized suffering is a functional goal with of Australia. The curves in Figure 3 indicate that this is reasonable.
flawed boundary conditions (except as viewed by those who use a high
value of K). After all, one can minimize suffering by just killing every-
one or at least everyone else except for the elite decision makers.
We usually do not express these assumptions explicitly, but they
are always there. An individual with the elitist, Auschwitz mentality
might read Access to Energy for a while, but before long this underly-
ing difference in assumptions would repel him. Few such people do
read Access to Energy because Petr Beckmanns personal assumptions
over a period of 20 years selected against this mentality.
Can Technology Spare the Earth? Evolving efficiencies in our use
of resources suggests that technology can restore the environment even
as population grows by J. H. Ausubel in American Scientist 84, pp
166-178, March-April 1996, gives several examples. One of these re-
lates to farming as shown in Figures 3 and 4 from that paper.
Even though world population has continued to grow, the area of
farmland planted to grain has been decreasing since about 1980. It is
approximately the same as in 1960, as is shown in Figure 4. This has
been possible because of technological improvements in farming that
have increased the yield of grain per acre as shown in Figure 3.
The spared line in Figure 4 shows the amount of farmland that
would have been needed had this increase in productivity not taken
place. The spared line assumes that productivity per acre remained 20006-3708, reports a survey of 1,000 adult Americans by Bruskin
at 1960 levels.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Anyone who has invested in farmland during the past 35 years is
familiar with the effect of this increase in productivity. American farm-
land increased in real value until about 1980 and has decreased since.
Ausubel calculates the area of farmland that may be required if
world population doubles from the current level to a total of about 10
billion. He estimates that a vegetarian diet requires production of about
3,000 calories per person per day, while a diet of meat, milk, and other
foods such as that consumed by most Americans requires about 6,000
calories. The difference is calories lost in the production of livestock.
Irish wheat and American corn now yield an average of 8 tons per
hectare. He calculates that, if average world productivity rises to just 5
tons per hectare (for reference, see figure 3), the entire 10 billion peo-
ple can eat an American (6,000 calorie) diet, and one-fourth of current
This is a wonderful effect of the advance of science and technology
but the elite environmentalist leadership does not agree. They are
doing everything possible to diminish technology including the tech-
nology that increases farm yields. Why? Surely they support the rever-
sion of vast tracts of cultivated land to the natural state. The answer
is that environmentalism is, to them, only a tool with which to accumu-
late wealth and power and to reduce the world population in accord-
ance with their enormous estimates of their own self-importance.
Whether or not the issue is nuclear power, chemicals for farm fertil-
izer and pest control, chlorine and bromine compounds for refrigera-
tion, or the use of coal, oil, and natural gas for power, lubrication and
chemical production, underlying assumptions about life divide most
scientists and technologists irreconcilably from their enemies. Why
can the enviros not see the wonderful benefits of the advance of sci-
ence and technology in a free-enterprise economy? They cannot see
these benefits because, in their world view, these are not benefits at all.
NUCLEAR POWER
The January 1996 issue of Public Opinion, published by the Nu-
clear Energy Institute, Suite 400, 1776 I Street, N.W. Washington, DC
Goldring Research in November 1995 on the subject of nuclear power.
Of the respondents, 80% replied that nuclear power should be an op-
tion for future new power plants, and 72% supported this as an option
for their area of the country. However, only 12% replied that we
should build new nuclear power plants now, and 44% felt uneasy
about the existing nuclear plant nearest to them. Also, 74% considered
it important that American manufacturers of nuclear power plants play
a leading role in world markets. Few of these people, of course, have
any reliable knowledge about nuclear power. Their responses are pri-
marily a measure of the effects of the ongoing propaganda war.
The January-February 1996 Uranium Information Centre Newslet-
ter, available from GPO Box 1649N, Melbourne 3001, Australia, re-
ports that seven nuclear power reactors began operation in 1995 in
the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Armenia, South Korea , Japan (2), and
India.. They estimate that, by 2005, world mine production of uranium
will need to double over that provided by currently existing mines.

GLOBAL ANGULAR MOMENTUM

It follows from Newtons laws that the angular momentum of a

spinning body, in the absence of outside forces, must be conserved.
The mass orbiting a point multiplied by the distance to that point and
the velocity of the motion measures angular momentum. This is
summed over all the points of mass in an object. Therefore, when a
spinning figure skater draws his arms inward, the velocity with which
he spins increases because this preserves angular momentum.
Science News 149, p 108 (1996), says that B. F. Chao (December
15, 1995, Geophysical Research Letters) has found effects on the
earths rotation from manmade water reservoirs. The shift in mass
caused by 10 trillion tons of water storage in the Northern Hemisphere
over the past 40 years has changed the rotation rate of the earth by 8
millionths of a second per day. This storage has the effect of moving
mass closer to the axis of spin because much of it is removed from the
equatorial oceans. So the earth, like the figure skater, is rotating faster.
Moreover, since this rearrangement of mass is not uniform over the
globe, it has also increased the rate of drift of the earths axis of rota-
tion. Since 1940, this effect has pushed the axis of rotation about 60
centimeters away from the North Pole toward Western Canada and
equals 5% of the natural axis drift over the last 100 years.
Will this become the next environmental crisis? We can imagine
the headlines Earth wobbling uncontrollably as a result of the stock
watering ponds of Western ranchers, Vice-President warns. Loss of
trees from equatorial rain forests also a culprit.

A HISTORY OF PI GOOD READING

Nature 379 p 291 (1996) reports that Yasumasa Kanada at Tokyo l Under Pressure by David Diaz in American Heritage of In-
University now holds the record for accuracy in the calculation of the vention & Technology 11, Spring 1996 issue, pp 53-63 , from Forbes
value of . In five days of calculation on a HITAC S-3800/480 com- Inc., Forbes Building, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011.
puter, Kanada determined the value to 6,442,450,000 decimal places. This is an account of the building of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis in
For a fascinating history of this competition over the millennia (in- the early 1870s. The unique building method involved sinking cais-
cluding the value to the first 10,000 decimal places), you may wish to sons deep into the bed of the Mississippi with workers adding to them
order A History of by Petr Beckmann from Mrs. Beckmann at Golem from above and shoveling sand from under them below. This added a
Press, Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306, for $18 postage paid. new peril from the bends, which was not then understood.
Another $3 will bring you one of her remaining copies of Petr l The Critical Distinction Between Homeschooling & Govern-
Beckmanns reprint of Fancy Napkin Foldings by Kunda Yakoyama.. ment Schooling by Chris Cardiff in The Education Liberator, Febru-
The cover recommends that you Fascinate Your Family and Enchant ary 1996 issue, pp 1-3, available from 4578 N. First, No. 310, Fresno,
Your Guests with these techniques. Your family and your guests will CA 93726. Cardiffs message is summarized in his quote of Thomas
appreciate this artistry from the past. Jefferson To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for
the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful
STARK RAVING MAD and tyrannical. Jefferson would probably agree that tax support for
the propaganda mills now called public schools should be abolished.
l Flush with funds partly derived from their campaign to destroy l Ciceros Prognosis by M. F. Caldwell available from the As-
nuclear power, the Union of Concerned Scientists is now running sociation of American Physicians and Surgeons, 1601 N. Tucson
lavish ads on the editorial pages of the New York Times (see New York Blvd., Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716. Ciceros efforts to save the Roman
Times of February 2 and 4, 1996). A large photo of the children in- Republic have many lessons applicable to the American Republic.
cludes the heading If you worry that too much junk food can damage l The Grand Deception by Stanley K. Monteith, HIV Watch 4,
their health, consider what junk science could do to their planet. Junk No. 1 available from P. O. Box 1835, Soquel, CA 95073 and AIDS
science is then defined as that questioning the crisis scenarios of ozone by Prescription, How My Healthy Baby Developed AIDS from AZT
holes, global warming, and species extinction. Antienvironmental- by Cheryl Nagel, Reappraising AIDS 4, No. 1 available from 7514 Gi-
ists are equated with those who think that cigarettes are harmless. rard Ave., #1-331, La Jolla, CA 92037. These are articles from oppo-
l Chemicals May Steal Our Future is the title of the article site sides of the HIV war. We have previously recommended the book,
which was embellished by the charming creature (representing the Why We Will Never Win the War on AIDS by Bryan J. Ellison and
chemical industry) who is about to devour a hapless human in the fig- Peter H. Duesberg, which Monteith attacks.
ure. Written for the Los Angeles Times by one Donelle H. Meadows,
professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, the sub-
heading reads, Substances we have thrown into the environment af- ACCESS TO ENERGY
fect both our ability to have children and our propensity to get cancer.
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
With the usual scare scenarios about cancer and endocrine disaster, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
Professor Meadows offers the following new principle Chemicals, $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
unlike people, should be assumed guilty until proved innocent. $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
The article finale is a shower of tears for the children. The final for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
punch line As long as we are able to have children, anyway. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
We thank Dartmouth College for making this warning possible. of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
APRIL 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 8) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Sweet and Dangerous
Two weeks ago, as part of enzyme analysis work here, we ordered
a kilogram of high purity sucrose manufactured by International
Biotechnologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak Company. Su-
crose is used to reduce diffusion and mixing during one of our proce-
dures. In due course, a wonderful bottle and data sheet arrived
complete with six-digit lot number, purity specifications, chemical
data, and a list of 15 alternative names for sucrose including: beet
sugar; cane sugar; confectioners sugar; fructofuranoside, alpha-D-
glucopyranosyl, beta-D; beta-D-fructofuranoside, alpha-D-glucopyr-
anosyl; glucopyranoside, beta-D-fructofuranosyl, alpha-D; alpha-D-
glucopyranosyl beta-D-fructofuranoside; (alpha-D-gluco-sido)-beta-
D-fructofuranoside; granulated sugar; NCI-C56597; rock candy;
saccharose; saccharum; sucrose (OSHA); and sugar.
The data sheet even provides the LD50s (amount required to kill
50% of the animals) for rats and mice to three significant figures -
29700 mg/kg and 14000 mg/kg, respectively. Apparently, five
pounds of sugar has a 50-50 chance of killing a 170 pound rat - or
man if he behaves (biologically) like a rat. (We are apparently safe,
since there are only 2 pounds in our bottle.) This is all very scientific.
The data sheet provides, however, additional advice. Included are:
First Aid - In case of contact, immediately wash skin with soap
and copious amounts of water. If swallowed, wash out mouth with
water provided person is conscious. Call a physician. Wash contami-
nated clothing before reuse.
Steps to be taken if material is released or spilled - Chemical
safety goggles. Use protective clothing, gloves, and mask. Sweep up,
place in a bag and hold for waste disposal. Avoid raising dust. Venti-
late area and wash spill site after material pickup is complete.
Waste disposal method - Dissolve in water and dilute to a 5%
solution. Check the pH and adjust it to 7 if necessary. Pour the solu-
tion down the drain with running water and continue to flush the
drain system for 10 minutes, provided that rules at your place of em-
ployment or local, state, and federal guidelines allow you to do so. If
you are unable to flush the solution down the drain or in doubt about
the suitability of the method, use a licensed waste disposal company.
Observe all federal, state, and local laws.
Is this why Hillary Rodham Clinton avoids making cookies?
I am not a sucrose advocate. I avoid feeding it to children and
think that it is not an especially healthful food for adults either - al-
though, in one experiment we conducted, sucrose decreased the rate
of growth of skin cancer in mice. This first aid, safety, and disposal
information is, however, obviously ridiculous. Why is it included with government horns and a regulatory pitchfork. Fine, make them
in an otherwise rational scientific document?
It is included because these manufacturers in New Haven, Con-
necticut, are evidently frightened that they will be attacked in court-
rooms or by government bureaucrats if they provide inadequate
warnings. Their lawyers have probably advised them to include dra-
conian warnings on every chemical that they produce not for the
safety of the users, but for their own legal and regulatory safety.
So, why do we not laugh this off in Stark Raving Mad and for-
get it? After all, who reads safety data sheets anyway? As chemists,
This was not always so. Prior to recent advances in technology, su-
SUCROSE
only small amounts by ordinary people. It is naturally present in most
It has been estimated that the average American eats about 100
pounds of sucrose per year. A reading of grocery store labels, espe-
cially if one attempts to buy groceries without added sugar, demon-
strates how ubiquitous this substance has become in our food supply.
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
we can surely rely on our own knowledge about laboratory dangers.
Right? Wrong! There are many special circumstances in which fa-
miliar, usually harmless substances can become very dangerous.
This sort of practical information is not taught to young scientists
today as was ordinarily done two generations ago. Crying wolf in
the material data sheets diminishes the chance that safety informa-
tion will be heeded when it is really necessary.
More importantly, the insinuation of false information into the en-
vironment of science undermines the fundamental integrity upon
which the intellectual substance of science and technology depends
for its survival. Dishonesty is entirely incompatible with scientific in-
quiry. There will, of course, always be occasional dishonest scientists,
but false statements must not be allowed to become an ordinary and
tolerated part of scientific discourse. Incorrect statements, whether or
not they are inadvertent errors or deliberate lies, must be habitually
hunted down and eliminated by scientists.
If intolerance of error is not a routine part of science, progress
slows or stops because the errors compound until neither experimen-
tal observations nor theoretical constructs are reliable. Moreover, to
the extent that science is politically important, tolerance of error turns
the facts of science into just another source of controversial opinion
rather than anchors of truth which can be relied upon.
Why shouldnt the peer review grant process encourage exaggera-
tion and falsehoods of omission without which the scientist will lose
his support? After all, these proposals just wind up in file cabinets.
Everyone understands the game. Why shouldnt safety sheets contain
bizarre and false warnings? We all know the reasons. No one pays
attention. Why shouldnt scientists cook their results and make exag-
gerated claims to get their political point of view on the evening
news? The opposition does the same thing. This is the real world.
Why should scientists speak up when they see obviously false or
exaggerated claims by other scientists about global warming, ozone
depletion, acid rain, chemical apocalypse, or species extinction being
used to set public policy? After all, false and erroneous statements
have become a way of life. We cannot be expected to fight them all.
Every laboratory that receives this sucrose from Eastman Kodak
should send it back with a letter of explanation: If your safety data
is this far wrong, how can we trust your purity data? If your labora-
tory personnel are no smarter than this, we cannot trust your chemi-
cals as a part of our experiments.
They would, no doubt, reply that the devil made them do it one
fight that devil. Science cannot tolerate lies, regardless of their origin.
It is fashionable today to consider uncompromising honesty, strict
rules of integrity, inflexible codes of honor, and intolerance of error as
obsolete artifacts. Those who exhibit these properties are thought of
as troublemakers politically incorrect throwbacks from the past.
Scientific knowledge and the scientific method rest, however, upon
the shoulders of people who have these characteristics.
We agree with the data sheet. Lot # 7B0250 of sucrose from East-
man Kodak is dangerous it does not belong in any laboratory.
crose was a relatively expensive condiment which could be afforded in
foods. Unless sucrose is added separately, however, the amounts in
food are much lower than those routinely consumed today.
Food is, of course, entirely made up of chemicals. There is not any
difference between sucrose contained in sacks of a chemical labeled
sugar and sucrose contained in a healthful glass of orange juice.
(Orange juice has so much sugar that, during one period of inflated
world sugar prices, consideration was given to converting the Florida
orange crop into sucrose and selling it for a higher price.)
When, however, a chemical substance is extracted from ordinary
food and purified before use, several changes can take place none of
which change the fact that the chemical in the food is entirely identical
to the same chemical after extraction and purification.
First, substances not normally present in food can be inadvertently
added to the chemical during extraction and purification. Second, sub-
stances that are normally present with the chemical in the food and are
needed for its healthful use can be removed. Third, the amount of the
chemical eaten can be altered radically because it is no longer por-
tioned by combination with other substances. This third effect has been
large in the case of industrial purification of sucrose.
Also, the specific form of a substance has an effect upon its rate of
absorption. Carbohydrate supplied as starch releases sugars slowly into
the blood stream, while carbohydrate from sugar is released more
quickly. This rate of release can have physiological effects.
Figure 1
As shown in Figure 1, sucrose is a dimer of glucose and fructose.
Soon after it is eaten, this dimer is hydrolyzed to produce separate glu-
cose and fructose molecules. Fructose, sometimes referred to as fruit
sugar, is also contained in many foods. Glucose is even more com-
mon. It is a major metabolic constituent, and it has many other uses.
For example, cellulose, the primary structural component in many
plants, is a polymer of glucose.
It is, as yet, not definitively known whether or not a change in diet
in which the intake of sucrose is increased far beyond that to which the
human body was previously exposed is harmless, harmful, or benefi-
cial. This is a continuing subject of research. It is a complicated prob-
lem because foods are made up of tens of thousands of different
chemicals in variable amounts. Also, humans are notoriously difficult
research subjects, so controlled experiments are difficult.
Twenty five years ago, a remarkable biochemist, Milton Winitz,
developed a completely defined chemical diet upon which humans can
live indefinitely. He marketed this diet as Vivonex 100. It may still they were entirely correct. Since then, I have eaten much less sugar.
be available. The Winitz diet was made entirely with purified chemi-
cals amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fats, and carbohydrates. The
amounts of chemicals in the diet could not be optimized for each indi-
vidual person, since the necessary information was unknown. The for-
mula was an average that supported satisfactory health in most people.
One interesting property of this diet is that it requires no digestion
and contains no waste. All of the constituents are physiologically ab-
sorbed and utilized as provided. Therefore, an individual eating this
diet has no solid waste. The colon just rests with nothing to do. This
makes the diet useful in treating some digestive disorders. Experiments
showed that this rest was not harmful. After many months of disuse,
the colon starts working again as soon as it is given something to do.
The original carbohydrate source in Vivonex 100 was solely glu-
cose. In this form, Vivonex 100 was extensively tested on convict vol-
unteers who were biochemically and physiologically monitored during
a prolonged period ingesting only this diet.
One remarkable finding was that, after a few weeks on Vivonex
100, the convicts average blood cholesterol had dropped to about 150
as compared with about 220 previously. The convicts complained,
however, about the monotonous taste of the diet, so Winitz decided to
provide a variation. He removed 25% of the glucose and replaced it
with sucrose. After this, the average of the convicts blood cholesterols
immediately returned to pre-diet levels.
Winitz found that he could control blood cholesterol over a range of
a factor of 1.5 solely by exchanging glucose for sucrose (or, perhaps,
glucose for fructose by way of sucrose). See M. Winitz, D. A. Seed-
man, & J. Graff, Am. J. Clin. Nutrition 23, p 525-545 (1970). This
work, however, does not mean that sucrose always causes high choles-
terol. A complete diet has numerous chemicals the absolute amounts
and ratios of which may affect this result.
In another experiment, when we were studying cancer as a function
of diet in mice (See Suppression of Squamous Cell Carcinoma in
Hairless Mice by Dietary Nutrient Variation by A. B. Robinson, A.
Hunsberger, and F. C. Westall in Mechanisms of Ageing and Develop-
ment 76, pp 210-214 (1994)), we found that replacement of 20% of the
ordinary mouse diet by sucrose (approximately the percentage eaten
on average by Americans) reduced the growth rate of cancer by about
20%. This reduction corresponded, however, to the reduction in cancer
growth rate also observed when protein intake was reduced by 20% by
other means. The sucrose simply replaced some of the protein. Protein
is positively correlated to the rate of growth of cancer. A person with
cancer should try not to feed the cancer an enriched diet.
Thousands of experiments have been performed on human health
and sucrose. Some of these have been interpreted to mean that high
sucrose intake raises the probability of heart disease, cancer, mental in-
stability, tooth decay, and numerous other maladies. Other experiment-
ers claim that high sucrose is harmless that the observed ill effects are
caused by accompanying fat intake or other factors. Almost all of the
work on both sides of this issue is correlational in nature. Always re-
member, however, that correlation does not prove causality.
I do not feed sugar to the children because I do not want them to be
a part of the currently ongoing grand experiment on high sucrose in-
take that almost the entire American population is performing on itself.
My opinion is that this large arbitrary change in nutrition is more likely
to be harmful than helpful and that the mounting evidence against su-
crose will eventually include definitive experiments.
I have not, however, ever been able to completely control the addic-
tion to sucrose that I developed as a child. Sugar is definitely addicting,
as most adults with a sweet tooth should realize. I occasionally
smuggle sucrose-enriched items into my office, and friends also bring
this contraband to me. One time, several years ago, I noticed that some
of my cookies were disappearing. I questioned the children thinking
that one of them was developing a sweet tooth.
Finally, my oldest son explained the disappearance. He had been
gradually removing my cookies and burning them in the stove. He was
doing this, he said, because the children had observed that I was more
irritable when eating sugar. I experimented with this and found that
Even when people try to control their intake of a substance like su-
crose, misinformation often proves self-defeating. The enviro industry
has promoted a widespread misbelief that natural is always good
and synthetic is always bad. They divide chemicals into natural
chemicals and synthetic chemicals a distinction that is entirely
without rational meaning. Every material thing that we see around us
including our own body is entirely constructed from chemicals of es-
sentially natural origin.
Some people eat lots of honey. They think that natural honey is
O.K., but refined sugar is not. Honey is, however, just another
source of sugars. Aside from the remote possibility that trace sub-
stances of special value are provided by honey, there is little difference.
Eating honey to avoid sugar is nonsense. Eating artificial sweeteners
like aspartame may also be harmful. Habitual use of any substance ex-
poses the user to potential hazards. An ancient saying advises, Every-
thing in moderation, nothing in excess. This applies to sucrose.
 diation a largely neglected subject. When, however, Bernard L. Co-
UNITS OF MEASURE
the radon scare and subsequent radon measurements in many Ameri-
Science is critically dependent upon quantitative measurement.
Therefore, the units of measure in science have been carefully selected
and are closely guarded. It would be unthinkable for the size of a gram,
the length of a meter, or the amount of energy in a kilowatt hour to be
changed continuously at the whim of individuals or agencies.
The American Founding Fathers knew that commerce, too, de-
pends upon stable units of measure. For this reason, they included the
rule that, No state shall ........make any Thing but gold and silver Coin
a Tender in Payment of Debts, Article I, Section 10, United States
Constitution. Gold is especially useful, since it is so difficult to obtain.
Even with modern technology, the world supply of gold cannot be in-
flated at an appreciable rate by current production.
Figure 2
Figure 2 is from The Moneychanger 14, No. 12, March, p1 (1996),
available from P. O. Box 341753, Memphis, TN 38184-1753. It pro-
vides a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial average in United States
gold dollars between 1916 and 1995. Conversion of other economic
graphs into gold units also improves their information content.
The governmental devaluation of our money by over 90% during
the past 50 years has had many effects including the confiscation of
savings and disruption of commerce. One additional effect has been to
hide the benefits of science and technology from ordinary citizens.
Advances in science and technology have steadily reduced the cost
of raw materials and manufactured goods. If our money were constant,
we would notice that our savings automatically purchase more as time
passes. This would reward savings and would also serve as a daily re-
minder to everyone of the benefits of science and technology con-
crete benefits far more impressive than the hypothetical scare scenarios
of antitechnology pseudoenvironmentalists.
Even the claimed government goal of making wholesale and retail
prices constant is unfair to savers and technologists. This objective as-
sumes that all technological improvements that reduce the costs of pro-
duction and thereby reduce the prices of goods should automatically be
confiscated by the state. The actual fall in real prices does not reach the
citizens whose savings and inventions made it possible.
Continuously changing the size of measuring units would be dam-
aging to science. Playing with the monetary unit has been counterpro-
ductive for all Americans especially those whose work, if more
easily observable, would be gratefully celebrated by their peers.
including those groups that were close to the accident.
A RADIATION RENAISSANCE
Chernobyl disaster has been less than one ordinary day of injuries and
Stimulated by the unexpected results of the Environmental Protec-
tion Agencys radon witch hunt and by the actual effects of the Cher-
nobyl accident, nuclear power and the radiation it produces is gaining a
new, much improved public image. The rapidity of this change, espe-
cially evident now in professional publications, is remarkable.
Access to Energy published numerous articles over many years
about radiation hormesis, the beneficial health effects of low-level ra-
hen published his analysis of radon and cancer risk made possible by
can homes this effect could no longer be ignored. (See, for example,
Vitamin R? and More Radon in Access to Energy 21-4 and 21-
8.) Cohen found a cancer inhibitory effect from radon that is compara-
ble in magnitude to the cancer promoting effect from cigarettes. The
resulting debate among health physicists is being won by hormesis.
To the Contrary, by Gregg M. Taylor, the lead editorial in Nu-
clear News, March 1996, p 3, published by the American Nuclear So-
ciety, is an example. Taylor writes, There is growing support among
radiation specialists for the view that the biological effects of radiation
exposure do not follow a linear path between low and high levels of
dose. In fact, some interpret the evidence to imply that low levels of
radiation exposure accelerate DNA-repair mechanisms in cells, result-
ing in a net decreased risk of cancer. The experimental evidence is
much stronger than Taylor indicates, but this editorial is indicative of
the rapid change of established opinion.
The Radiation Rebellion in Nuclear Issues 18, No. 1, p 4, Janu-
ary 1996, available from 8 Ruvigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney,
London SW15 1LE, also discusses radiations new image. Listing
three influential recent books on hormesis and radiation safety, Nu-
clear Issues points out that Germany spent $350 million battling Cher-
nobyl caused radiation levels which averaged only 1% above normal
background. The surface radiation rise from use of phosphate fertiliz-
ers over the ten years since Chernobyl was 5%, five times greater.
The three books are Has Radiation Protection Become a Health
Hazard? by Walinder, Health Effects of Low Level Radiation by
Kondo, and My Life with Radiation The Truth about Hiroshima by
Ralph Lapp. The Lapp book illustrates the benefits that are being de-
rived from careful studies of very large releases of radioisotopes. The
actual health effects from such releases have been quite moderate.
Chernobyl itself is becoming a substantial example of nuclear
power safety. (See Nuclear Issues 17, No. 11 and 18, No. 2.) During
this accident, a graphite reactor with no containment building melted
down and burned, with the result that radioisotopes were spread over a
very wide area. Moreover, firefighters and other disaster personnel
were utilized with very little regard for their own safety. Involving very
improper design and severe human error, the Chernobyl accident is
one of the worst nightmares that could possibly occur with a nuclear
power plant. After 10 years, what have been the effects?
At the time of the accident, 31 people died 28 from high doses of
radiation and 3 from other effects of the explosion and fire. Also, dur-
ing the following 10 years, about 700 additional thyroid cancers in
children living near Chernobyl have been reported. This value may
eventually reach about 1,000. Thyroid cancer is unique because the
thyroid gland greatly concentrates iodine. The thyroid glands of chil-
dren are especially sensitive to radiation damage. Since this cancer re-
sponds well to treatment, only three of these children have, so far, died.
This thyroid cancer was caused by iodine-131, which has a half-life
of 8 days, so this is a short-term hazard. Moreover, the effects of io-
dine-131 could have been mitigated by prompt oral administration of
blocking doses of iodine, but the Russians did not take this precaution.
(See Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny available for
$12.50 postage-paid from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medi-
cine, P. O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523.)
Other than thyroid cancer in children, there has been no observed
increase in cancer rates, even in leukemia, in any population even
Overall, the actual cost in human lives from direct effects of the
deaths from highway accidents in the United States.
There has, however, been one much larger human cost as a result,
not of the Chernobyl accident itself, but of the self-serving cacophony
of propaganda and fear-mongering by the world-wide anti-nuke indus-
try both before and after the disaster. Psychological effects on fright-
ened people have been dramatic. (See Chernobyl, Cancer, and
Creeping Paranoia in The Economist, March 9, 1996, pp 81-82.) One
example the birth rate in central Europe dropped by one-third in
1986-1987 as a result of the abortion of children whom the parents
feared would be malformed as a result of Chernobyl radiation. No such
increases in malformation were, however, observed even in regions
close to the accident. So, the accident killed few, but the anti-nuke
propaganda killed tens of thousands of children and caused very wide-
spread psychological suffering.
As the actual results of this radiological disaster become widely
known, fear of nuclear power should diminish. This is especially so as
a result of the fortuitous circumstance that low levels of radiation are
increasingly being recognized as a health benefit.
We are a long distance from the time when we shall be permitted to
mix a little power plant waste with the foundations of new homes in
Oregon to bring the low background radiation here up to a more
healthful level, but we are on our way. Both the radon scare and the
Chernobyl disaster are now helping to increase our rate of progress.
smuggling just make lots of other substances illegal, too.
BURNING BOOKS
GOOD READING
If you followed Access to Energys earlier recommendation to buy
Why We Will NEVER Win the War on AIDS by Brian J. Ellison and
Peter H. Duesberg, you may soon have a rare collectors item. Media
Bypass Magazine, March 1996, p 42 (available by calling 1-800-4-By-
pass) reports that New York Federal Judge John E. Sprizzo has ordered
all existing copies of the book destroyed.
We do not claim to have an understanding of the condition that is
called AIDS, but the ongoing attack on Peter Duesberg and other
scientists who have questioned the hypothesis that HIV virus causes
AIDS is reprehensible. Also, the multibillion dollar HIV-AIDS indus-
try with 100,000 tax-financed research papers published and still little
or no practical progress not even proof that HIV causes AIDS is
highly suspect. Therefore, even without reference to the specifics of
their scientific arguments (which are quite credible), we recommended
this book and sponsored a lecture by Peter Duesberg at the DDP meet-
ing last year. His presentation was excellent. (Audio tapes are available
from DDP, 2509 N. Campbell, Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719.)
This book is especially interesting because it not only gives evi-
dence against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis and in support of an alterna-
tive possibility, it describes Peter Duesbergs persecution by the
tax-financed research establishment. This is of special significance be-
cause Duesberg is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
who gained his scientific reputation in the study of retroviruses like
HIV. In this context, the book is also an expos of the corrupt inner
workings of the federal medical research program.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, so 20,000 copies were sold
before the book burning was ordered. Ellisons attorney is quoted as
saying, There is no question that this decision represents a radical de-
parture from two hundred years of American legal tradition.
chusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001. This is a hilarious
STARK RAVING MAD
assessment and public health. It would be even funnier if so much of
l The West Penn Power Company in Pennsylvania has notified its
customers that it is seeking to pay Mon Valley Energy Limited Part-
nership $31 million to not build an 80-megawatt power plant. West
Penn says that this $31 million, which it plans to add to customer
power bills, will avoid a $665 million dollar future loss by purchase of
power from the Mon Partnership at higher than market rates. West
Penn would be forced to purchase this power under the federal Public
Utility Regulatory Policies Act and its implementing bureaucracy.
Therefore, our government will force the citizens of Pennsylvania
to pay the Mon Valley Project to not produce electricity.
l The Dumbing Down of Higher Education by William E. Si-
mon in The Wall Street Journal, March 19, p A14, reports that 15 mil-
lion students attend American colleges and universities at an annual
cost of $170 billion. Of 50 leading undergraduate institutions in 1993:
34% required courses in natural sciences down from 90% in 1964;
12% required math courses down from 36% in 1964; and an average
of 156 classroom days were required down from 191 in 1964.
Multicultural and politically correct and relevant courses are
replacing traditional education in history, literature, economics, and the
other humanities. For example, the liberal arts requirement for all
students at Oregon State University must be met by taking one course
each from seven lists including Western Culture, Cultural Diver-
sity, Literature and the Arts, Social Processes and Institutions,
Difference, Power, and Discrimination, Contemporary Global Is-
sues, and Science, Technology, and Society. These lists include
about 60 courses that teach the new rages in social engineering. Ore-
gon State still requires science by nonscience majors one course each
in physical science and biology about 4% of total class hours.
l The New American, April 1, 1996, p 40, reports that an estimated
30% of CFC sales in the United States are now on the black market. It
is reported elsewhere that freon smuggling is so lucrative and extensive
that it is beginning to interfere with the smuggling of illicit drugs. Our
government may finally have found a way to win the war on drug
l The Eagles Nest by Samantha Parker in Sky & Telescope,
February 1996, pp 32-34. These Hubble Space Telescope images of
interstellar clouds in the Eagle Nebula, 7,000 light years from earth, are
spectacular.
l Chess Champion Sinks Deep Blues Figuring by I. Peterson
in Science News 149, February 24, 1996, p 119. Kasparov maintained
his superiority in chess over the IBM computer by 3 wins, 2 ties, and 1
loss. He did this by learning the computers weaknesses during the first
game, which he lost.
l 1995: Maybe it Wasnt Such a Hot Year, After All by Sallie
Baliunas in Citizen Outlook 11, No. 1, March/April 1996, available
from P. O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035. This is a short, concise
article for the layman showing that the crisis scenario global warming
predictions are not in agreement with experiment and that actual
warming can be expected to be insignificant.
l Grand Opening, Japan Starts Worlds First Advanced Reactor
in Nuclear Energy Insight 96, February 1996, pp 1-4, available from
the Nuclear Energy Institute, 1776 I Street, NW, Suite 400, Washing-
ton, DC 20006-3708. Japan built and brought this power plant into op-
eration in 52 months.
l Research Attacks Immune System Theory by J. E. Bishop in
The Wall Street Journal, March 22 (1996), p B5. This new hypothesis
suggests that the immune system is activated by specific danger signals
rather than by learning the difference between self and nonself as has
been believed for half a century. If this should turn out to be correct, it
would have remarkable ramifications in medical science.
l Science Without Sense, The Risky Business of Public Health Re-
search by Steven Milloy published by the Cato Institute, 1000 Massa-
guide for the young professional wishing to make a career in risk
the authors advice were not excruciatingly correct.
l A New Dawn for Sun-Climate Links? by Richard A. Kerr,
Science 271, pp 1360-1361, 8 March 1996. Complete with a graph
showing correlation between the Earths temperature and the Suns ac-
tivity, this article demonstrates that more scientists are inching toward
a realization that the weather is warmer when the Sun shines more
brightly, which has previously been recognized by only a select few.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MAY 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 9) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy

Correlation and Causality

Several decades ago, even in socialist schools, it was the custom to
teach children the phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means
after this, therefore on account of this. This tiny Latin lesson illus-
trated the fallacy in concluding that a thing which follows another
thing is therefore caused by it. See Oxford English Dictionary VII p
1164 (1933-1970). The practice of incorrectly reasoning in this way
is termed post hoc reasoning.
Examples of post hoc reasoning are boundless and have been the
source of much humor. Mark Twain often used post hoc humor such
as in his story about the woman who died after neglecting to adopt the
vices of smoking and drinking. Mark Twains audiences in post Civil
War America were very literate in the logic of common sense learned
in a free enterprise society. If he were with us today, Mark Twain
might find it prudent to have a helper planted in his audiences to give
cues about the appropriate times to laugh.
Americans today are still partially immunized against post hoc ar-
guments by this legacy from our intellectual past. Some mutant forms
of post hoc logic do afflict us, however, such as the notion that a man
cannot stand on his own two feet in society without tax subsidies and
preferences because his ancestors over a century ago were enslaved
or the fallacy that, since many Americans lead productive and decent
lives after attending socialist schools, the socialist schools are to be
credited with their accomplishments.
(Selective observation is usually a part of such arguments. Social-
ist schools which encourage intellectual dishonesty and moral degen-
eration are not credited with the subsequent moral decay of adults.)
Today, far more people fall victim to a close relative of the post
hoc virus than to the original virus itself. This new affliction is the
fallacy that when two things are statistically correlated they are, there-
fore, cause and effect. Paraphrasing the original fallacy, people have
come to believe statistically together with this, therefore on account
of this. (Fear of scholars who read Access to Energy prevents me
from attempting the Latin.)
Examples of the logical error that correlation proves causality ap-
pear almost daily in newspapers, magazines, and other information
sources. They also appear regularly in scientific publications. Scien-
tists who should know better are even using this logic in situations
where one of the two correlated phenomena is only postulated or
even known not to exist.
In the article Fried Frogs Eggs (Access to Energy 21-9 p 4),
we reported the claim by scientists that world-wide amphibian popu-
lations are decreasing because of increased UV light levels caused by
depletion of the ozone layer. UV light is capable of disrupting living
systems as illustrated by its use in water purification and the steriliza-
tion of medical instruments or its known role in the induction of skin
cancer. It was no surprise, therefore, that these people found that frogs
eggs had a higher hatch rate when protected from UV light.
With this mundane observation in hand, however, and the goal of
snaring large amounts of your tax dollars in government grants, they
immediately pointed out a correlation between a reported recent de-
crease in world amphibian populations and a claimed recent increase
in world UV light levels in their scientific report and in their (oh,
so important for grant funding) statements to the press. Fame and
fortune await those who link their work to the ozone mania.
The problem is that there were no measurements showing an in-
crease in UV light. The best available data showed a slight decrease.
The only increase in UV was in the public perception formed by false
press reports. Correlation was claimed to prove causality in this case
even when the correlation was to a perceived reality, but not to meas-
ured reality. For achieving this new low in logic, these scientists were
rewarded with large tax-financed grants.
The abandonment of logic in the pursuit of tax money is the most
important force driving the correlation-causality arguments that fill
our media. Electric shavers and brain tumors; breast cancer and
power plants; logging and fish populations each is a correlation in
pursuit of government expenditures, either direct monetary grants or
indirect exercise of power through regulation and litigation.
There is only one way to immunize ourselves and our countrymen
against this sort of lie. Each person must learn the truth that:
Correlation does not prove causality!
Examples can help. A common one is the strong correlation be-
tween churches and murders. There is a very strong positive correla-
tion between the number of churches and the number of murders
because both are correlated with high population, not because
churches cause murders or vice versa.
Since correlations are usually bolstered by statistical calculations
giving the statistical reliability of the correlation, many people believe
that statistics lie or that it is possible to prove a lie with statis-
tics. This is nonsense. Statistics is a very valuable branch of applied
mathematics and is a great help in establishing scientific truth.
The correlation between murders and churches is statistically reli-
able, since this correlation is definitely true. The error is in the logical
conclusion that, if two things are correlated, they are cause and effect.
AIDS is definitely correlated with the HIV virus. Unproved, so
far, is the hypothesis that HIV alone causes AIDS. One or more other
AIDS-causing factors may correlate with both.
High cholesterol is correlated with heart disease. Unproved is the
hypothesis that high cholesterol causes heart disease. (Recent experi-
ments showing actual lowered death rates with use of cholesterol-
lowering drugs do not indisputably prove this either, but they are a
significant step in that direction.)
Logic is an ordinary part of common sense. To this end, come-
dians may be much more effective than scientists in correcting errors
in logic because they use memorable humor to ridicule errors of com-
mon sense that are carried to illogical conclusions.
Global temperatures have increased during the last century. Fortu-
nately, their correlation with increased CO2 fails because the tempera-
ture increase preceded the CO2 increase unless one looks at the
whole century and not at the yearly values or at the ground data, not
the satellite data. Correlations are often creatively manufactured.
Correlation does not prove causality! This truth provides protec-
tion against much of the scientific propaganda we endure.

people of an affluent nation would choose to allot this large propor-

HEALTH TECHNOLOGY tion of their earnings to good health, why are they getting so little in
return? Is the current level of human technology capable of providing
In the ongoing political debate over who will have control over the only crisis medicine for the great majority of people who suffer and
one-seventh of the American economy devoted largely to crisis medi- die long before experiencing 80 or 90 years of healthful life? Is pre-
cine (government bureaucrats being the most likely), an important ventive medicine really constrained to a gaggle of correlational stud-
question is being overlooked. Although it is understandable that the ies, health food gurus, and general life style advice that few
people follow and even fewer find beneficial? The answer to these
questions is definitely, no! Yet, for 30 years I have watched in sorrow
as their practical answer was given in the affirmative.
The reason for this seems to be that many of the research and devel-
opment people who apply technology to health are unable or untrained
to think quantitatively, and those who do not have this failing are con-
strained by government agencies.
These constraints take the form of bureaucratic domination of re-
search through tax-financed institutions, regulations that make ad-
vances uneconomical unless huge sums of money are paid for
regulatory approval, and a justice system that turns personal trage-
dies into engines of economic destruction for those who take risks in
the development and application of technology that may benefit hu-
man health. Consider two examples:
Although the measurement method is very outdated and should
have been replaced long ago, it is known that useful information about
heart function can be obtained by electrodes attached to the skin and
monitored to produce an electrocardiogram. Computerized inter-
pretation of these patterns provides useful quantitative data about heart
blood supply, beat regularity, and pumping rate factors that are vi-
tally important to every living human being. The devices that collect
this data for a 24-hour period, including the computer to interpret it,
have been reduced to tiny, portable machines weighing about five
ounces and selling for about $6,000. (These machines are no more
difficult to make than hand-held calculators selling for less than $100.)
How is this technology used? Primarily, it is used as part of screen-
ing systems to decide which members of the population are now ready
for crisis surgical techniques that attempt to save their lives by means
of operations costing $50,000 to $100,000 or more. Checkups in-
clude 30-second exposures to electrocardiograph machines (usually
not the miniature variety) or, sometimes, several minute exposures ac-
companied by a little exercise. We all participate in a glorious national
system to see whose turn it is, based on symptoms and occasional brief
measurements, to go under the $100,000 knife which may, if we are
lucky, forestall our imminent and usually premature deaths. Some-
times, if it is suspected that we have problems that have escaped the
brief tests, we are attached to one of the five ounce portable units for 24
hours to look for events that appear only occasionally.
In addition, as a result of the personal seriousness of the matter, we
are inundated by general advice about life style, nutrition, vitamin sup-
plements, exercise, drugs, and other factors that may change the odds
(calculated relative to the whole population and not considering our
own individual characteristics) of our being chosen for the knife. Al-
though much of this advice is sensible, it is difficult for us to know
which advice is best for us personally, and, in the absence of informa-
tion about our cardiac health, the advice is only sporadically followed.
Would it not be better to monitor our hearts regularly in all sorts of
conditions exercise, sleep, and other activities all day, every day (or
at least one day per week)? This would build a longitudinal baseline of
data for us, individually. Suppose the calculated parameters of the elec-
trocardiogram were simply normalized to our individual life-long
baseline (giving them enhanced predictive value), crunched into a sin-
gle parameter, and combined with predictive research information to
display a single number the probability of death from heart malfunc-
tion. Although it would not be perfect because of the fundamental limi-
tations of this technique, this probability would rise for many people
long before crisis medicine decided they were candidates for surgery.
Electrocardiograms should be tools for measuring and allowing
us to fight the probability of disease rather than disease itself. Also,
by giving us something quantitatively measurable with which to judge
our progress, they could help us to adhere to those healthful habits that
lower our own individual probabilities of death and help us to avoid
those fads that are not helpful or even may be harmful to us.
Mass production of portable cardiac monitors (then sold at retail
stores for hand-calculator prices) and a little computer software that
would be trivial to produce could bring this remarkable tool for pre-
ventive medicine within reach of all Americans. Mass marketing
would pay development costs even with the regulatory burdens.
Three groups of people stand in the way. First, government regula-
tors who might not allow such dangerous toys in the hands of mere
American citizens. Second, some medical people who prefer medicine
as a monopolistic system (only some, since the vast majority of physi-
cians place human health above self-interest). Third, some lawyers
(only some, we are not complaining here about all lawyers) who would
bring lawsuits against the manufacturers and suppliers each time the
monitors failed to prevent a heart problem on the basis that reliance
upon the device diverted their clients from other alternatives. Since no
predictive device will ever be perfect (especially not the initial technol-
ogy), there will always be grounds to sue. The more good the device
does, the greater the profits of its producers, which can be targeted by
the lawyers.
Notice that none of these impediments are technological and none
of them enhance human health. They are all distortions of free enter-
prise which derive from misuse of government power.
As a second example, consider blood and urine analysis which can
now provide more health information than electrocardiograms, and,
with technology that has already been demonstrated, could provide
hundreds of times more. See Access to Energy 23-4, December 1995.
Today, when we go in for some tests and provide blood and
urine, the samples are sent to a clinical laboratory that analyzes a few
substances mostly the same few that have been popular for more than
40 years. Each value is then reported to our doctor along with the mean
and range for the normal population. No attempt at quantitative in-
terpretation of the entire observed pattern is made and, of course, no
baseline pattern is considered for our biochemical individuality. A ten-
year-old could look over the data sheet and report sagely that every-
thing looks fine as our physician does on our next visit.
Americas clinical labs charge tens of billions of dollars annually
for this service, which our doctor orders whether he wants it or not to
avoid legal claims against him for medical malpractice.
These measurements, like the occasional electrocardiogram, do
have some merit. If a value is too far out of the normal range, crisis
medicine kicks in along with the usual price tag. Also, a little preven-
tive medicine takes place as our blood lipid values are also compared
to those of millions of other people, and we are advised to eat less fat
which may be good or bad advice for us individually.
If instead of this charade, a larger number of substances (or even the
same number) were measured at low cost, reduced to computerized
quantitative patterns, and reported as probabilities of impending dis-
ease, then blood and urine analysis especially used in comparison
with life-long individualized profiles could become a major techno-
logical tool permitting us to fight the probability of disease rather than
disease itself.
The stakes are high. Avoidance of premature death could add at
least a decade to the average lifespan and could avoid the unnecessary
suffering that is often a part of early death suffering that afflicts not
only the dying person but also those around him.
The goal of medicine should be to ensure that each person has an
optimum chance to live in good health to an age near the intrinsic hu-
man life span (now approximately 90 years) and then to die at the
greatest individual age possible with a minimum of suffering.
The technological tools to accomplish this already exist. For the
most part, however, they are not being applied to the daily, quantitative
measurement of individual health that is necessary for preventive
medicine. The tools of crisis medicine are remarkable. It is good that
they exist and are available when preventive medicine fails. High-tech
preventive medicine could accomplish, however, far more of the goals
of medical science.
There is no magic here. Nor are geniuses required. It is only neces-
sary for government to get out of the way to stop taxing away the
needed capital, to stop regulating away the needed freedom, to stop
fostering a legal system that penalizes those who take risks, and to stop
enforcing monopolies for those who cling to obsolete methods.
Until these things are done, we shall each continue to be observers
who watch unnecessary suffering and death overtake those around us,
one by one, until finally the antitechnologist reaper comes for us.

DRIVING ON EMPTY
[This article was written by Bonne W. Posma, who can be reached
at Saminco Inc., 10030 Amberwood Road, Fort Myers, FL 33913.]
In early 1996, GM announced that its first production electric car,
the 2-passenger EVI (formerly called the Impact) would go on sale
during the fall of 1996.
Priced at about $35,000, the cars curb weight is 3,000 lbs, includ-
ing a 320V battery weighing almost 1200 lbs 40% of the vehicles
weight. The EVIs specifications claim a range of 70-90 miles per
charge, requiring 3 hours to charge the battery from a 220V, single
phase supply. Initially, the car will only be sold in southwestern states
where the climate is most favorable for EV operation, that is, where
no energy-hungry heaters will be required.
GM is not claiming that the EVI will be a substitute for all gasoline-
powered vehicles, and the car will most likely sell to well-heeled elec-
tric car enthusiasts who require a second car for short-range city
driving.
Most battery-powered electric vehicle programs have been
prompted by Californias ill-considered Zero Emission laws (now
modified), which mandate that 2% of all vehicles sold in 1998 produce
no emissions. Without this coercion and generous tax rebates, it is un-
likely that an expensive, heavy car, with a short driving range, requir-
ing 3 hours to recharge, would have ever been developed.
The EVIs biggest problem is its energy source the 320V battery,
which has a rather small energy content of only 16.2 kWh (kilowatt
hours). The EVIs electric drive converts about 90% of this energy
(14.6 kWh) into the mechanical energy which propels the vehicle.
In comparison, one gallon of gasoline contains 45 kWh of energy,
of which about 25%, or 11 kWh, is converted into useful mechanical
energy, given the same driving conditions for which the EVIs battery
energy content is rated. The rest of this energy is converted to heat (34
kWh), and some of this heat is used to heat the gasoline vehicles inte-
rior during cold weather conditions (see Figure 1).
Todays average cars tank contains between 1.5 to 2.5 gallons
when its fuel gauge reads EMPTY, and the EVI, with its battery
fully charged, does not have much greater range than that of an ordi-
nary car when driving on empty.
There are two other points worth noting:
During 1890 to 1900, a number of electric cars were produced, of
which the Riker Electric Victoria (Figure 2) was one of the better de-
signs. It was powered by a 40 cell, 80V lead-acid battery, weighing
800 lbs, which had an energy density of 10 Wh/lb (watt hours per
pound), compared to 13.5 Wh/lb for the EVIs battery. It is obvious
that the lead acid battery has not improved much over the past 100
years.
Second, suppose that, miraculously, a battery was invented which
had the same usable energy content as that contained in a typical cars
16-gallon fuel tank (about 180 kWh), and which could also be re-
charged in the same time that it would take to fill up this fuel tank. A
gas stations pump delivers fuel at about 4 gallons/minute, so it would
take 4 minutes to fill up the tank. Now lets assume that this 180 kWh
battery could also be recharged in 4 minutes. The rate of energy deliv-
ery, or power output, would then be (180 kWh)/4 minutes =
(180)(3600) kWh/(4)(60) seconds = 2,700 kW or 2.7 MW (2.7 mega-
watts).
Suppose that, in a city of 5,000,000 people, 2,000 cars were refuel-
ing during peak refueling hours (based on 400 cars/million). This
would require an electric power system capable of providing the enor-
mous amount of (2,000)(2.7) MW = 5,400 MW of extra generating
capacity.
Considering that a medium-sized power plant is capable of generat-
ing about 500 MW, a total switchover to electric cars would require the
construction of about 11 extra power plants for each one of our larger
metropolitan areas a situation clearly not anticipated by the advocates
of battery-powered electric vehicles!
The beautiful, sleek EVI contains some of the finest 20th Century
electric propulsion technology, married to a cumbersome, obsolete
19th century energy source. The EVI represents a shotgun marriage,
doomed to fail, forced on us by elitist bureaucrats. It is sad that, when
promising alternative electrical energy sources such as fuel cells or
cold-fusion generators become economically feasible, the general pub-
lic may well be soured on electric vehicles, delaying the widespread
use of this technology.
Ed note: Referencing History of the Electric Automobile by E.
Wakefield, p 43, Bonne Posma, a specialist in electric traction drives,
points out that successive improvements in lead acid batteries led to
energy densities of 3.7 Wh/lb in 1859, 5.7 Wh/lb in 1881, 10.8 Wh/lb
in 1888, and 13.5 Wh/lb in 1995.
Generating pollution-free power for their electric cars will, of
course, lead the enviros to advocate nuclear power. Right? Wrong, be-
cause most of them are actually antitechnologists in enviro trappings.
 psychoactive drugs to keep them there.
DDP MEETING l The Wall Street Journal of 28 March 1995, p A14, reports that
there has been a sharp increase in precollege students at elite private
The 1996 DDP conference will be August 2-4 at the Airport Hilton schools who are diagnosed as learning disabled. It turns out that
in Salt Lake City. Registration forms are available from DDP at 2509 payment of $1,000 buys a learning disabled certificate which al-
N. Campbell Ave., Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719 or telephone (520) lows the holder to spend 50% longer working the timed Scholastic Ap-
325-2680. For reservations at $79 per night call (800) HILTONS. titude Test for college entrance (4 1/2 hours vs. the usual 3 hours).
The speaker schedule is still being arranged. Presentations will in- This year 30,000 learning disabled students will take the test
clude the subjects of civil defense, biological threats, and environmen- up from 18,000 in 1991. Also, new recentered SAT scoring auto-
talist issues. Special treats will be speeches by Martin D. Kamen, 1996 matically raises their scores about 100 points compared with students
winner of the Enrico Fermi Award, and Stanford S. Penner, one of of previous years, and calculators now help those who never learned to
Americas most outstanding aerospace scientists. multiply. Perhaps scores should also be normalized to Ritalin dose.
l Here in Josephine County, Oregon, in the backwoods of Oregon
HEALTH AND RADIATION and 3,000 miles from Washington, the number people with goods-pro-
ducing jobs is exceeded by the number of people employed by govern-
For almost 40 years, since Linus Pauling parlayed the linear no- ment. Two thirds of the government employees are in local
threshold hypothesis of radiation damage into a Nobel Peace Prize dur- education. Apparently, Ritalin is essential to our economy.
ing his campaign against American nuclear defense, this model has
been the central weapon of the anti-nuclear power politicos. It is prob- GOOD READING
able that no other single myth has done more technological damage
than this hypothesis (dishonestly presented, of course, as fact rather l Rachels Folly, The End of Chlorine by M. Malkin and M.
than hypothesis by Pauling and his successors). As an indirect killer of Fumento; Natures Hormone Factory, Endocrine Disrupters in the
human beings through economic and technological loss, it may stand Natural Environment by J. Tolman; and Science Under Siege and
second only to the banning of DDT. the video based on this book by M. Fumento. These are available from
The final death knells of this damaging myth are now being the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.,
sounded as threshold experiments and hormesis experiments (showing Suite 1250, Washington, D.C. 20036, telephone (202) 331-1010.
the beneficial health effects of low level radiation) are finding their Also, read the Competitive Enterprise Institutes background arti-
way from specialized journals to general science publications. Can- cles about the tax-financed Environmental Protection Agency pur-
cer Risk of Low-Level Exposure by Marvin Goldman in Science chase of the town of Times Beach, MO, in 1983. For this EPA
271, pp 1821-1822, 29 March 1996, is an example. nonsense, CEI has awarded the EPA its first annual Panic at the Drop
When this information spreads to the public media, it is likely to of a Rat Award. For so many reasons, EPA is a deserving recipient.
stimulate a technological revolution. In the best interests of not getting l Human Version of Mad Cow Disease by S. Sternberg in Sci-
too far ahead of this and becoming a negative influence, we refrain for ence News 149, p 228 (1996). The British are going to destroy 11 mil-
now from answering an obvious question will the lives saved by ra- lion cattle because of a disease that is being successfully eradicated by
diation hormesis from Chernobyl exceed the lives lost from the initial measures taken in 1989. This is being done as a result of an unproved
accident? Hint: The likely answer is definitely not politically correct. hypothesis that 10 people caught a similar disease from cattle. Indirect
human deaths from this loss of over $5 billion will be far greater.
MEDICAL SENTINEL l Sugar and Health by T. H. Jukes in World Review of Nutrition
and Dietetics 48, pp 137-194 (1986), which Professor Jukes sent to me
Two applied sciences have a greater effect upon the lives of most with the comment What else was in those cookies that made you irri-
people than any others power production, which transforms and sup- table? This is an extensive review of the literature that supports the
plies the energy needed for all human technological activities, and use of large amounts of sugar as a food. Alas, I also did the experiment
medical science, which applies the discoveries of health research to with pure sucrose (which did give slightly different symptoms).
maximize our length and quality of life. If, however, I am ever unfortunate enough to be afflicted with can-
No organization of medical doctors has done more to slow the de- cer, I shall eagerly embrace the mouse results and eat lots of sugar.
cay of medical science resulting from intrusion by government than the l Stormy Weather Ahead in The Economist of 23 March 1996,
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Now, AAPS has which summarizes many of the arguments concerning global warm-
started a peer-reviewed journal, the Medical Sentinel. The first issue of ing propaganda, including some of those that discredit it. Clearly
this excellent journal is now available from AAPS at 1601 N. Tucson some progress is being made against this mania.
Blvd., Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, telephone (800) 635-1196. l Leaking Underground Storage Tank Problem May Be Over-
blown in The Torch 5, No. 2, pp 1 and 7, (1996) available from 5535
STARK RAVING MAD E. Rosewood Street, Tucson, AZ 85711 reports research at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory showing that cleanups of ground con-
l The Corvallis Gazette-Times of 1 April 1996 reported that the tamination from leaking underground fuel storage tanks are unneces-
federal Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 2.4 million sary unless the tank is within 250 feet of a drinking water well.
American children are taking prescribed Ritalin. Ritalin is prescribed Otherwise, naturally occurring microorganisms in soil provide a suffi-
for children diagnosed as inattentive, impulsive, or hyperactive and cient cleanup. California alone is expected to save $3 billion by termi-
therefore claimed to have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or nating most of the ongoing enviro assault on fuel storage.
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) depending on the
presence of the third symptom. Russell Barkley, billed as a leading
ACCESS TO ENERGY
ADHD researcher, is quoted as saying, Ive seen it work, time and
again. Its not a miracle drug, but it can make the difference between Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
whether kids stay in school or not. Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
If I were forced to endure participation in most public schools and $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
their attached social environment, I hope that I, too, would be rational $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
enough to develop an impulsive, hyperactive attention deficit in self Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
defense. Children are essentially being forced into school environ- 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
ments that are alien to ordinary human nature and then being given of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JUNE 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 10) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy

The White Scientists

In his classic work entitled The White Company, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle spins a tale about a company of 300 English longbow men and
the knights who led them or opposed them in war against France and
Spain. In addition to a wonderful vicarious adventure, Doyle also
provides the readers of this book with a vivid lesson in the culture and
living conditions of medieval England and France at the time when
the long bow, cross bow, sword, spear, and lance were just beginning
to feel the competition of gunpowder.
Included are a wide variety of characters thieving and generous,
lying and truthful, drunk and sober cutthroats, fair damsels, monks,
merchants, brave soldiers, cowards, and many others possessing the
usual cross section of virtues and foibles with which the human race
has been blessed and cursed for thousands of years.
Standing at the apex of this society were the knights and their re-
tainers, who possessed an extremely rigid and lofty code of personal
honor. Although coarse brutality with hand weapons was a way of
life for these men, they simultaneously held to a very high standard of
truth, justice, and ethical behavior. This standard provided the glue
that held their civilization together. Passed down through the centu-
ries to us, their standard today provides essential principles that help
prevent our modern civilization from descending into the base forms
of anarchy whereto the darker aspects of the human spirit would lead.
Sir Doyle ends The White Company with these words:
So they lived, these men, in their own lusty, cheery fashion receive annually for civilian research and development is not enough.
rude and rough, but honest, kindly, and true. Let us thank God if we
have outgrown their vices. Let us pray to God that we may ever hold
their virtues. The sky may darken, and the clouds may gather, and
again the day may come when Britain may have sore need of her chil-
dren, on whatever shore of the sea they may be found. Shall they not
muster at her call? As it turned out, Britain did need them again, and
they were there as, in America, they have also been there each time
their country has needed them in war and in peace.
But whence do they come? Are they drawn from among our ava-
ricious merchants, our lying politicians, our thieving lawyers, our
self-righteous clerics, our lazy bureaucrats, our self-serving execu-
tives, or the numerous other negatively stereotyped groups who make
up the American population? Yes, of course, they are. These stereo-
types are wrong. We are not a nation of good people and evil cion that a government-funded scientist had traced a few lines from a
people locked endlessly in a struggle with one another. We are, in-
stead, a nation of ordinary people (all of us) responding with the later paper without revealing the source was the cause of a nine-year
good and evil within each of us to the circumstances in which we find
ourselves. Given a glorious opportunity to be for a moment a white
knight of the highest order, there is not one American in a thousand
who could not rise to that occasion.
We cannot change human nature. We can only hope to adjust the
human environment so that it draws out the best qualities within each
person and suppresses the worst. Soon, we will be able to read the
entire molecular library which contains the genetic code for a whole
human being. Will we use this knowledge to eradicate human dis-
ease, or will we use it to eradicate human freedom by building a ra-
tionale for euthanasia and selective breeding under control of the
state? We are, of course, capable of both. Soon, we will have a good
understanding of our planets atmosphere. Will we use this knowl-
edge to enhance our lives through accurate weather prediction and,
perhaps someday, benevolent weather manipulation, or will we use
it as a rationale for the destruction of human freedom by government
control of every human activity that affects the atmosphere?
Each member our civilization (and his descendants for centuries to
come) has a critical stake in the answers to these questions and thou-
sands of other similar questions that can be posed concerning ad-
vances in science and technology. The answers lie in the guiding
ethics that prevail within our communities of scientists and engineers.
Our scientists and engineers are, however, just ordinary people. The
real question (to restrict ourselves to that which we can hope to affect)
is: What are the conditions under which our technologists should live
and work which will nurture that within them which is honest,
kindly, and true and will help them to outgrow their vices?
Well, suppose that we ask them. After all, this is a question about
science. We must put ourselves in the hands of (at the mercy of) spe-
cialists at least until the new generation of TV-free home-schooled
kids grows old enough to reteach us to think for ourselves.
Today, the almost unanimous answer from academic scientists
and the publications of science which they control would be Send
more government money. The 34 billion tax dollars that we currently
Moreover, it is projected to decrease to about $30 billion by 2002.
(See J. Kaiser, Science 272, p 941(1996).) If you want us to be at our
best, you must send more money! Think of it as providing for the
common defense from the chaos that will reign if we are not given a
blank check to pursue knowledge.
But wait, does not the forcible transfer of money from those who
earned it to those who did not earn it corrupt the ethics and decrease
the productivity of the recipients? From ancient Rome to the modern
welfare state, one wretched experiment after another teaches us that
people who receive such money sink to very low standards of ethics.
Why should you fellows be different?
Oh, but we are different. We, are scientists. Look at the article by
J. Friedly, Science 272, pp 947-948 (1996). In this case, just the suspi-
figure in one of his own research papers and republished them in a
investigation by all sorts of ethical bodies including especially the Of-
fice of Research Integrity. When we suspected that this scoundrel had
plagiarized himself, we spared no expense (of tax dollars) in our dec-
ade-long investigation. Science today is as pure as the driven snow,
and we intend to keep it that way if we get enough money.
The human spirit rises to its highest attainments under a system of
free enterprise, and it sinks to its lowest perversities under a system of
socialism. Moreover, this latter tendency is one of the most dangerous
influences faced by our civilization today particularly regarding the
use of science and technology. Two examples, one past and one on-
going, described in the articles below, may serve to illustrate this.

before symptoms were evident, so that preventive medicine could be-

DIAGNOSIS BY MASS SPECTROMETRY come far more effective. Based upon the fast and inexpensive analysis
of large numbers of the ordinary substances produced by human in-
During the late 1960s and the 1970s, my coworkers and I conceived termediary metabolism, followed by some unique computerized pat-
and built a new procedure for medical diagnosis which had the poten- tern recognition procedures, this approach has the potential to provide
tial to markedly improve the diagnosis and quantitative evaluation of a substantial advance in the technological improvement of individual
overt disease and also to make possible the detection of disease long human health. See Access to Energy 23-4, pp 1-3 for a more complete
description. Ultimately, our effort consumed approximately 100 man-
years of laboratory work and many millions of dollars in government
research grants and private contributions. Overhead from our govern-
ment-funded profiling grants also provided much of the money that
built what later was called the Linus Pauling Institute. In the course of
this work, we built the finest entirely automated chromatography
equipment that had ever been constructed, carried out tens of thou-
sands of analyses of urine, blood, and breath, and showed that this
technique worked for the analysis of conditions ranging from multi-
ple sclerosis and cancer to the degenerative conditions of human ag-
ing. This work was done at the University of California at San Diego,
Stanford University, and, finally, at the small Institute we founded in
Menlo Park, California.
One day at Stanford, a young physicist from the Stanford Research
Institute (SRI), William Aberth, visited our lab and told me that he had
an idea for a new kind of mass spectrometer that would be able to pro-
duce a high yield of essentially pure molecular ions (charged but un-
fragmented molecules) in a mixture of organic compounds. At that
time, there were no mass spectrometers that could do this. He said that
he wanted to build this machine and was wondering if I could think of
a medical use for it so that money could be obtained.
I suggested that his mass spectrometer be built as a potentially supe-
rior technique for the profiling work. Although somewhat inferior in
resolution to the chromatographs if built for one mass unit resolution,
the resolution could eventually be improved, and this molecular ion
mass spectrometer had the potential to be hundreds of times faster than
chromatography. This could markedly lower analytical cost, which is a
major factor in preventive medicine.
Bill and I therefore agreed upon a collaboration and wrote a gov-
ernment NIH grant request for funds. He would build the mass spec-
trometer at SRI, and my coworkers and I would provide the computer
interface and carry out test experiments using our samples and compu-
tational software. Comparison would be made with the diagnostic
power of the chromatographic techniques using identical samples.
Linus Pauling agreed to put his name on the proposal, too, to help us
get the money (your money, if you were paying taxes then). NIGMS (a
branch of NIH) liked the idea and fully funded the proposal.
During the following years, at a cost of about $1 million (1996
adj.), William Aberth and his coworkers built an excellent machine,
which worked as predicted. Figure 1 shows a human urine mass spec-
trum from this device. Figure 2 illustrates one of Bill Aberths original
ideas. Using techniques developed by other scientists at SRI, an array
of very tiny volcano-shaped structures was created with a similarly-
sized grid registered above them. By introducing the vaporized urine
m/e
sample through the holes in the volcanoes, each molecule was forced
to pass through a controlled electric field high enough to remove one
electron from each molecule, but not high enough to fragment the
molecule. Once the ions were obtained, they were separated on the ba-
sis of their differing charge-to-mass ratios in an ordinary way. Bill and
his coworkers at SRI also used a multipoint ionization source with an
array of tiny points registered below the grid that worked similarly.
One hitch developed when Bills work at SRI was transferred to the
administrative control of another scientist, Michael Anbar, who inhib-
ited our collaboration in several ways. Anbar, for example, refused to
allow us to attach a computer to the mass spectrometer detector, so the
output from each sample analysis was a long paper tape containing
about 1,000 numbers. These had to be transferred to our computational
computer by hand-typed data entry.
In early 1976, the field ion mass spectrometer was submitted to a
rigorous test in an experiment requiring 132 analyses of urine from
women with breast cancer and appropriate matched controls. Success
in this experiment might well have led to a fast and inexpensive test for
this disease. Unfortunately, the experiment was unsuccessful.
Immediately after that failure, a paper was published in the journal
Clinical Chemistry by Michael Anbar, in which he claimed to have
found a disease profile for infectious hepatitis using this mass spec-
trometer. He failed to report, however, that the ideas and techniques in
his paper had been originated by us. Unhappy that we had not been
given credit for our ideas and work, Aberth, Pauling, and I published a
letter in Clinical Chemistry saying that we actually had invented the
technique although our protestations were weakened by the fact that
we did not have successful and publishable results to report.
Needing the grant overhead to keep our new Institute running and
with the hope that springs eternal in the breast of every welfare-funded
research scientist, I continued to seek funding for mass spectrometry
work from NIGMS, although I altered the experimental program and
was not optimistic about our prospects. To my astonishment, the
NIGMS reviewers, led by the grants administrator Robert Melville,
generously approved nearly everything I requested even though our
experimental results did not warrant this treatment.
Robert Melville was a very fine man. He was dedicated to public
service and worked as an administrator at NIH only because he be-
lieved that there he could have a valuable impact on human health.
Many years later, after he had retired from government, Melville
invited me to dinner at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. After
dinner, sitting in his parked car on a nighttime Washington street, Bob
Melville said that there was something he wanted me to know. He said
that he considered it the blackest mark on his career in government. It
Figure 1

Figure 2
had to do, he said, with the field ion mass spectrometry work that Bill
and I had originated a decade earlier and with our failed experiment.
He told me that, at the time of our breast cancer experiment, he had
received at NIGMS a letter from Michael Anbar. In the letter, Anbar
admitted that he had secretly scrambled the labels on our 132 samples.
Included with the letter was a code sheet Anbar had kept, so that the
labels could be unscrambled and the experiment saved. Melville had
shown the letter to his superiors, and consideration of its contents had
gone to top administrators of the NIH, which oversees most govern-
ment funded health research. Whereupon, after extensive considera-
tion, Melville had been ordered to tell no one (including us), to destroy
the letter and code sheet, and to never speak of the matter again.
It had been concluded that this incident might cause a scandal. It
was better for a promising health research experiment to fail and for the
scientists involved to not know the reason for their failure than for an
NIH-funded project to run the risk of public scandal. (NIH, of course,
did not cause the initial problem. Anbars letter showed clear signs of a
man cracking under the strains of competition. Even so, he had kept an
unscrambling code and had voluntarily sent a letter to the grants ad-
ministrator of the project admitting his actions.)
Many of your tax dollars were wasted, and a promising medical re-
search project that might have helped you or someone close to you was
damaged secretly so that a gaggle of top health research bureau-
crats would not have to deal with an uncomfortable situation.
Two years later, Bob Melville took one more action he gave me a
copy he had kept of the Anbar letter and the unscrambling code. The
date on the letter showed that Anbars paper in Clinical Chemistry was
being refereed by the journal at the time he scrambled the labels and
that it was accepted for publication seven weeks later. He had obvi-
ously scrambled the labels to assure that we could not have a positive
result before his paper was published. Therefore, he would be able to
take credit for ideas and work by Bill and me and our coworkers.
Of course, after the strategy had worked and NIH had decided to
keep his secret, it was too late to give us the unscrambling code.
Michael Anbar is not, however, the villain of this story. Science will
always have individuals who act dishonestly just as does every other
profession. Melvilles superiors at NIH, who decided to put political
expediency above ethics and even above progress on cancer diagnosis,
are the villains. Too much power derived from too much money
money seized from other people breeds this sort of villain.
Yet even now, a decade after I received the code from Melville, I
have still not unscrambled the sample labels and calculated the true re-
sults of the breast cancer experiment. Why not? Therein lies a second
tale that you will not read in the pages of Science. Although Constance
Holden, who is a regular writer on the Science staff, once tried to pub-
lish an account in Science about it, the article never appeared. The fact
is that, for the past 18 years, I have not been permitted access to any of
this data or to my research notes and calculations regarding it.
100 MAN YEARS OF DATA
In 1978, my technicians and I completed a series of experiments on
nutrition and cancer in mice that, if appropriately published, might
have been embarrassing to Linus Pauling, who then, at the age of 77,
was making increasingly wild public claims about Vitamin C and can-
cer. At the time, I was President of the Linus Pauling Institute of Sci-
ence and Medicine, and Linus was Chairman of the Board.
In order to prevent publication, Linus convinced his relatives and
cronies, who made up a majority of our Board of Directors, to give him
control of the Institute. As soon as he obtained control, he locked up all
of the Institutes research records, which included over 60 large bound
research books, 528 computer data tapes, and about 15 file cabinets
filled with printed research records. These records included all of the
data from the profiling work that my coworkers and I had done at the
University of California at San Diego, Stanford, and the Pauling Insti-
tute (which is a 501(c)3 public foundation with all of its property
legally belonging to the public). This publicly-funded health research
work comprised about 100 man years of work and cost many millions
of tax dollars as well as large amounts of privately donated funds.
Still locked in those records, 18 years later, are over 20 unpublished
health research experiments on breast cancer, malignant myeloma, nu-
merous neurological diseases, aging, birth defects, and several other
important subjects. Included is the field-ion mass spectrometry data .
Laurelee and I fought a five year legal battle with all of our personal
resources to gain access to this data, but we failed. Pauling and his
Board simply used huge sums of donated health research funds to give
a blank check to lawyers instructed to stop us at any price. Our only
success was in forcing Pauling to pay us $575,000 in 1983 for personal
damages with $425,000 in payment of libel and slander but our pri-
mary objective, recovery of the research work, was never reached. No
one has ever been able to rescue those records from the locked room in
which we have been told that they are kept.
At the present time, following Paulings death, the Linus Pauling
Institute is being dissolved, and its assets are being transferred to Ore-
gon State University along with permission to use the Institutes name.
OSU hopes to be able to raise money using the Pauling name.
During the past year, Dr. Jane Orient and Dr. John Mann have re-
vived a special interest in one of the unpublished experiments. Dr.
Mann and his coworkers had provided me with 1,000 urine samples
from apparently healthy newborn infants. In the chromatographic pro-
files of these 1,000 samples, we made a new (still unpublished) discov-
ery in 1978. The profiled substances exhibited bimodal and trimodal
distribution functions, making it possible to divide the babies into
many distinct groups with respect to their intermediary metabolism. At
present, since the babies were born in the Kaiser-Permanente HMO
system where Dr. Mann works, his records have subsequent 18-year
health histories of these children. Do their health histories correlate
with their urine profiles as measured at birth? This is a unique opportu-
nity to answer a question that would otherwise be unanswerable, re-
gardless of resources, for another 18 years. The Pauling Institute has
refused to allow Orient and Mann to see the data or my calculations.
So, on June 3, 1996, a federal court in Arizona will consider tens of
thousands of dollars of legal motions generated by Pauling Institute
lawyers in opposition to Dr. Jane Orients attempt to see this data . Dr.
Orient argues that this data is public property paid for by government
grants and tax-deductible donations. Even Oregon State University
lawyers are refusing to cooperate with her. The reason money. What
if some of this long-hidden data proves to be of value to human health
(and, I assure you, much of it is very valuable)? How much value will
the Pauling name have then for their fund-raising program?
Is Linus Pauling the villain here? Not entirely. The fact that he
seized the research records of numerous scientists, thereby preventing
continuation or publication of their work is well known to many scien-
tists. They are afraid, however, that scandal involving a big-name sci-
entist will affect government funding. Everyone keeps quiet. Anyone
risking the $34 billion piggy bank risks the displeasure of his peers.

DDP MEETING
This years DDP meeting will be held on August 2-4 at the Airport
Hilton in Salt Lake City. It will feature an extraordinarily outstanding
group of speakers. Their names and subjects include:
Glen Griffin, pediatrician School-based Clinics.
Jim Phillips and Gary Barnes Personal Survival.
Gordon Edwards DDT, Alligators, and Regulatory Atrocities.
Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist, Global Climate
Stanford Penner, aerospace physicist Environment Management
Robert Jastrow, astronomer Missile Defense
Gary Sandquist, nuclear engineer Beneficial Low-level Radiation
S. Fred Singer Stratospheric Ozone and Political Correctness
Martin Kamen, discoverer of C14 Radiant Science
Stanley Monteith, orthopedic surgeon AIDS and Public Health
Henry I. Miller Anti-Medicine: The FDA and Medical Progress
Cresson Kearny Land Mines and other Government Snafus
Edwin York Soviet Shelters for Industrial Workers
Christopher Story Soviet-Chinese Strategic Deception
Sam Cohen U. S. Defense Policy and Technological Risks
Sharon Packer and Paul Seyfried Shelter Construction
Conrad Chester Surviving Biological Contamination
These speakers include some of the most outstanding scientists and
experts in the world speaking about subjects that are of immediate im-
portance to the well-being of most Americans. The DDP speakers and
meeting are organized each year by Dr. Jane Orient. These programs
are unequaled for the stature of the lecturers and the relevance of their
topics. If you can attend even one conference in 1996, this should defi-
nitely be the one. I look forward to seeing in August the many Access
to Energy readers who regularly attend these meetings.
Information and reservations are available from DDP, 2509 N.
Campbell, Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719. Telephone (520) 325-2680.
Registration cost for the meeting, including two lunches and the ban-
quet, is $95. Airport Hilton rooms are $79 per night, single or double.
This lag time masks the cause government money printing.
GLOBAL WARMING
Greenberg, published by the American Council on Science and Health,
Are Human Activities Causing Global Warming? recently publish-
ed by the George Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, N.W., Suite 502,
Washington, DC 20036, is an excellent update and summary of the
principal facts in opposition to the global warming mania.
Some of the primary points are:
1. Contrary to media hype, 1995 was not the hottest year on re-
cord. Satellite measurements rank it as eighth in the last 17 years.
2. Updated satellite records now show a warming of 0.09 C per
decade since 1980. This rate is well within the naturally fluctuating
temperature changes observed in the years before the release of signifi-
cant amounts of greenhouse gases by human activity.
3. Most of the 1 C temperature rise during the past 100 years oc-
curred before 1940 and therefore before the release of significant
amounts of greenhouse gases from human activity.
4. The historical record, contrary to enviro propaganda, shows that
warmer periods are associated with less extreme weather conditions
and do not give rise to more hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and bliz-
zards. In fact, in the 10th to 12th centuries, the temperature was about
0.5 C warmer than it is today, and the climate was so benign that this
period is known as the Medieval Climatic Optimum. This is the tem-
perature that climate models are predicting for the years 2030 to 2050.
5. Arctic temperatures have actually decreased for the last 40 years.
6. There is, as yet, no trace of global warming due to human activ-
ity, so any such future warming is expected to be less than 1 C.
Robert Jastrow, President of the Marshall Institute, and Sallie Bali-
unas, Chairman of the Marshall Institute Science Advisory Board, will
both be speaking at the DDP meeting in Salt Lake City.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The lead editorial in Science 272, p 177 for 12 April 1996 is
adapted from a speech given by Vice President Al Gore on 12 Febru-
ary 1996 at the AAAS meeting in Baltimore, entitled The Metaphor
of Distributed Intelligence. This editorial is the strangest mixture of
disconnected rhetoric, elitist philosophy, anti-industrial nonsense, and
big government rationalization that I have ever read. The ideal Ameri-
can nation is likened to a giant parallel processing computer with each
citizen being a tiny government-controlled element in the machine.
Apparently published by Science because it advocates increased tax
funding of research, we can only hope that the Vice President did not
write this and was asleep when he delivered it.
If President Bushs thousand points of light speech were cou-
pled with a demand for government-funded wind generators to power
the points of light and then rewritten by New Age poets, it still would
be outclassed by Gores offering. We believe (reluctantly) that Gore
said it. It is difficult to believe that Science published it.
l The current CAREERS bills, H. R. 1617 and S. 143 success-
fully wending their way through Congress would, according to Eagle
Forum (telephone 202-544-0353), create a Labor Market Informa-
tion System that would compile data about every child in the United
States academic, medical, personal, family, attitudinal, and behav-
ioral into a computer data base and give access to all future employ-
ers and the government. Workforce Development Boards would
regulate education in order to turn out kids ready to be plugged into
centrally planned, government chosen jobs. It would become illegal to
hire anyone not possessing a government issuedskills certificate.
A detailed discussion of this is in the DeWeese Report, May 1996,
available from 14140-L Parke Long Court, Chantilly, VA 22021.
GOOD READING
l The Real Conspirators Behind High Gas Prices by John
Mueller in The Wall Street Journal, p A14, May 8, 1996. Mr. Mueller
shows, with data going back to 1965, that gasoline price increases are
proportional to the rise in world dollar base with a 2 1/2 year lag time.
l Irradiated Foods, 4th edition, revised and updated by Richard A.
1995 Broadway, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10023-5860. Food irradia-
tion is an excellent preservation method. Food preservation lowers the
cost of high quality food and thereby improves human health.
l The Torch, May 1996 issue, is a newsletter published by the So-
ciety for Environmental Truth, 5535 E. Rosewood Street, Tucson, AZ
85711. This newsletter publishes good technical articles for laymen
and some other information such as the quote from Dave Foreman,
currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club
The blood of timber executives is my natural drink and the wail of
dying forest supervisors is music to my ears (p 2, May issue).
l Hazardous to Our Health? FDA Regulation of Health Care
Products, ed. Robert Higgs, published by the Independent Institute,
134 98th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94603.
l Russias Toxic Threat by James R. Adams and The Navys
Enemies by John Lehman in The Wall Street Journal of April 30,
1996, p A14 and May 21, 1996, p A18, respectively.
NOTE: The May 1996 Access to Energy editorial should read:
temperature increase preceded the CO2 increase, not vice versa.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 11) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Knowledge Is in Books
Sooner or later, those who think extensively and effectively about
the advance of science and technology and about the preservation of
freedom and free enterprise, which are essential to that advance, be-
come concerned with the problem of education both that of scien-
tists and technologists and also that of the citizenry in general. They
realize that it is not possible for these disciplines to flourish very long
in a civilization in which most of the individual citizens are unable or
unwilling to learn and to think.
The majority of those who control American primary and univer-
sity education and American corporate and political power do not, of
course, agree with this premise. Theirs is essentially an elitist view
wherein a top stratum of society monopolizes knowledge, wealth,
and power, while the masses beneath must be taught proper be- study environment and study habits, and a minimum of distractions.
havior rather than independent thought. This is not surprising. Human
history is, to a large extent, a sorry, several thousand year record of
one elite after another trying to run the world and ultimately failing
with general suffering for everyone in the course of each such failure.
There is, however, enormous strength in the Constitutionally pro-
tected free republic (not democracy) that was bequeathed to America
by our founding fathers. Regardless of the depredations of two centu-
ries of elitist assaults on that freedom, 250 million Americans, con-
tinuously revitalized by immigration of freedom-loving people from
many other lands, have great vitality and productive potential.
It is the nature of a free society that, when an important aspect of
civil life begins to fail, new approaches arise spontaneously to replace
the failures. If the failure has been an especially important one, then
the changes can appear to be revolutionary in scope. Any amount of
positive change at any sustainable rate is acceptable, providing the
freedom itself that makes change possible is not undermined.
At present, this sort of revolution is underway in American educa-
tion. The institutions that have provided education in America have
gradually succumbed to the underlying flaw that they are based upon
socialism. At every level academic, social, and spiritual American
primary and secondary schools and American colleges and universi-
ties are failing and are being perceived as failures by an increasingly
large percentage of the American people. Moreover, this is occurring
at the same time that the revolution in computer technology is shatter-
ing the monopoly that educational institutions have held on informa-
tion as a result of the previously high cost of maintaining great
libraries and other storehouses of knowledge.
The most obvious symptom of this collapse is the very rapid rise
of home schooling. From a relatively rare curiosity, home schooling
has risen so rapidly during the past ten years that estimates of more
than one million American children currently being educated by their
families entirely outside of educational institutions are realistic.
We have recently sampled the intensity of this movement. In
April, we mailed a two-page advertisement and a six-page article
about home schooling to a mailing list that a previous test had indi-
cated would be a good market for our home school CDs. The mailing
was successful and a small profit was realized, which will help with
production of more CDs. Astonishing, however, were the letters and
which he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Audio tapes are still
SOLID PHASE ANTIBIOTICS
projects that he described is the synthesis of a new class of antibiotics
At the DDP meeting last year in Grants Pass, Oregon, Professor R.
B. Merrifield described several projects proceeding in his and other
laboratories using solid phase synthesis the methodology that he in-
vented and used for the first laboratory synthesis of an enzyme and for
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
telephone calls more than 1,000 so far and still arriving here at a
rate that exceeds our ability to respond to them. As I have talked
with these people (mostly Americans who are determined to obtain
quality education for their children), I have come to realize that I am
becoming an advocate of certain simple truths that have apparently
been lost to many people. These are that:
1. Knowledge is in books good books books carefully selected
from the collections of great literature and history written over the
past several hundred years and those of science and technology.
2. Academic education consists of transferring knowledge (and
the ability to use it to think independently) into the brains of students.
3. This transfer of knowledge requires substantial time, good
Not only are hand-holding teachers, manipulatives and other study
games, numerous course titles and subdivisions, grade levels and
other norming techniques, new age educational methods, work
books, and other special educational tools entirely unnecessary, these
things primarily serve to intrude between the student and the books
and thereby diminish the transfer of knowledge.
Consider one example drawn from education in math and science
the very important skill and foundation of independent thought,
problem solving especially the so-called word problem in which
the student must conceptualize the problem and reduce it to a form for
which mathematics enables a solution. This ability is acquired by
solving problems tens of thousands of them, starting with the level
of a six-year-old child and extending gradually to university level
physics and chemistry and beyond.
What do modern educational tools offer? They offer wonderful
gimmicks in video, colored textbook illustrations, interactive com-
puter programs, and other crutches which are highly praised because
they so beautifully explain each problem to the student. A prob-
lem explained, however, is a problem that has lost its value for the
student. There is nothing left requiring independent conceptualization
in the students brain. His brain gains little from memorizing solu-
tions and plugging numbers into equations conceptualized by others.
As a result of numerous errors of this sort made within the politi-
cally controlled educational establishment and uncorrected because
free market mechanisms have been excluded by socialism the abil-
ity of American children to solve problems and think independently
has dropped to a world-class low level. Jokes about this are almost as
prevalent as lawyer jokes and not funny at all. Science and technol-
ogy cannot prosper in a society wherein the majority of the citizens
have been so poorly educated that they cannot understand the under-
lying principles of science and think independently about them.
The outlook for American science and technology is, however,
very bright because of American freedom. If present trends con-
tinue and free enterprise has its way, American tax-supported schools
will collapse and disappear (including a large percentage of colleges
and universities) and will be replaced by free-market alternatives that
are already growing very rapidly. I think that this will happen within
the lifetimes of many current readers of Access to Energy.
available from DDP at telephone (520) 325-2680.) One of the current
modeled on peptide sequences found in silk moths and honey bees.
The 26 residue peptide that Dr. Merrifield and his coworkers have
made is active against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria.
Moreover, synthesis of this peptide with d isomer amino acid resi-
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
AUGUST 1996 (Vol. 23, no. 12) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Life on Mars
Two weeks ago, my 20-year-old son Zachary remarked that he
thought the first human mission to Mars would be undertaken by free
enterprise not government. It is clear that he would like to make the
trip. (He also wants to bury a small nuclear reactor here on the farm,
so that we can have easy access to energy for our various activities.)
I replied that he was probably right, but that we would need to
wait until the price of a Mars mission became a little lower. This, I
estimated, might not be too long a wait given the example of the cost
of strategic missile defense, which has dropped so low during the past
decade that deployment is now almost entirely a political issue.
We then discussed the Mars Direct proposal made by Robert
Zubrin and his co-workers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics, P.O.
Box 179, Denver, CO 80201. (Literature is available from that ad-
dress, or, if you want an excellent summary, the audiotape of
Zubrins lecture at last years DDP meeting in Grants Pass is avail-
able from DDP at telephone (520) 325-2680.)
Zubrin estimates that five teams of four people each can make
round trips from Earth to Mars, with 500-day exploration stays on
Mars for each team, at a total cost of $30 billion expended at a rate of
$3 billion per year over a ten-year period. Ten rocket launches are
required (five with robots and five with human passengers); the re-
quired technology already exists and has been extensively tested and
used for other purposes; and no intermediate projects such as space
stations or moon bases are required. The space ships go directly from
Earth to Mars and return.
A key idea in the Mars Direct proposal is the use of a small
nuclear power plant producing only 100 kilowatts approximately
the same as the combined electric service capacity of two ordinary
American homes for which, in Cave Junction, we would pay, at full
capacity and todays rates, about six dollars per hour. This power
plant is used to convert CO2 in the Martian atmosphere and liquid
hydrogen brought from Earth into methane, oxygen, and water. The
chemical plant itself is trivial, as Zubrin has illustrated by building a
full scale working unit for a total cost of $37,000.
Six tons of hydrogen suffices for 108 tons of methane and oxygen,
which provides fuel for internal combustion engines used to explore
Mars and rocket engines for the return trip to earth. Each proposed
Mars rocket has a little less power than the rockets used for the
Apollo Moon trips in 1969 and the early 1970s and is capable of de-
livering 47 tons to Mars during each six- to eight-month voyage.
Zubrin even includes 5 kilowatts of solar panels to provide for life
support functions on Mars if the nuclear generator fails to operate.
The first trip with humans (an initial robot mission sets up the
chemical plant) occurs about $10 billion into the project. A very large
part of this cost is allocated to hardware and fuel for the return trip to
Earth. Ten billion dollars, I reminded Zachary, is still quite a lot of
money to raise from private enterprise. His reply: Why come back?
Did the European families that settled North America have round-trip
tickets? Without the round-trip ticket, the first Mars mission, aug-
mented with human supplies for self-sufficiency, may be as low as $2
billion eight dollars per American citizen and well within the
to attempt such simplifications of new problems by means of tech-
MECHANICAL DISEASE
This is especially true in medicine because medical science in-
The greatest scientific discoveries are often those that merely sim-
plify a large number of facts and observations that were previously
considered very complicated and only approachable by extraordinary
and very sophisticated means. There is a logical tendency for scientists
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
reach of private enterprise if the people who earned that money can
come to understand that this is a wise expenditure of their resources.
Could we, for example, convince the advertising executives of
American industries that a small portion of their budgets should be
used for this purpose? That alone would pay the cost.
The usual arguments for such adventures would almost certainly
fail. Science will be advanced who cares? Very few of our cus-
tomers are scientists. Technology will be advanced great! The
politicians and enviros have our customers scared of the technology
we have now. Who wants more? Well finally learn for certain
whether there is or has ever been life on Mars. This argument fails,
too, but it contains a clue to the solution of our problem.
Whether or not there is life on Mars now, there should be life there
now human life family life. America was settled by courageous
families who desired no return ticket. They brought with them only
those possessions too valuable to leave behind their husbands,
wives, and children, and the tools they expected to need to provide for
those husbands, wives, and children.
Very few Americans alive today will ever go to Mars. If, however,
a Mars mission were launched with two or more families on board
(with the adults selected for appropriate technological abilities and
their children of varying ages), virtually everyone in America would
go to Mars vicariously. The lives of these families during the trip
and during the succeeding years of their adventures on Mars would
be the greatest human interest event of the century (until, in later
years, so many other families joined them that Mars became routine.)
What American company would be willing to admit that they had
not helped with this adventure?
But this is dangerous, right? Thats why 10,000 families would
volunteer to make the trip. If the first families died (perhaps a 10%
chance), the second mission of families would set up an appropriate
monument to them on Mars and then work even harder to succeed.
Would you like to devastate the opponents of nuclear power? Peo-
ple learn by example. The Mars families use nuclear power.
Would you like to bury the purveyors of socialism? The Mars
families were sent by free enterprise.
Would you like to obliterate the professional antitechnologists?
No magazine issue in America is complete without an update on the
Mars families and their use of technology to tame Mars.
Would you like to reawaken American family traditions and re-
verse the decline in family life? If those families on Mars can over-
come the obstacles they face, surely so can we.
We cannot change human nature. Moreover, history teaches and
reteaches us the horrible consequences that accompany the descent of
human civilizations into domination by human vices and failings.
The way to avoid such horrors is to conduct our affairs in such a
way that the virtues of the human spirit are predominant. One such
virtue is our spirit of adventure, the desire within each person to be a
part, during his short life, of a least one great undertaking. If Ameri-
can families go to Mars now and live there, the spirit of every
person they leave behind on Earth will be able to go with them.
niques that have proven successful in solving previous problems.
volves the study of such extraordinary, beautiful, and yet complex phe-
nomena that often only a small fraction of the needed facts are actually
known, so each subject initially appears to be a frustrating morass of
suppositions and beliefs connected by small glimmers of actual con-
crete facts. Since biochemical, bacterial, viral, and genetic explana- Hackett (1956). Each of these men induced tissue formation in their
tions have worked well in the solution of some medical problems, patients by injecting proliferants at the sites of injury. These original
there is a tendency to believe that these disciplines hold the solutions proliferants were, however, very painful. Dr. Ongleys contribution (in
to all medical problems and to believe this at the expense of other New Zealand in 1957) was to develop a proliferant solution that was
approaches that should be given more consideration. painless when injected. This permitted patient compliance with re-
This is especially well illustrated by the career of Dr. Milne Ongley, peated injections and with the necessary exercises following injection.
a British physician who has spent more than 40 years studying me- I know several men, for example, whose typical back injuries were
chanical damage to joints and the spine as causes of human ailments. corrected by Ongley more than ten years ago. In each case, the cure
After completing his formal medical training, Dr. Ongley worked was safe, almost painless, and, most importantly, it was permanent.
for three years at St. Thomass Hospital in London (1953-1956) with Anyone who has chronic pain in any of his joints or spine, especially if
Dr. James Cyriax, the father of orthopedic medicine. He then entered he is considering surgery, should at least consult Dr. Ongley first.
medical practice in New Zealand in 1956, where he worked for 15 The proliferant solution Ongley uses is a mixture of 12.5% glucose,
years until coming to the United States in 1972. 12.5% glycerine, 1.25% phenol, and 0.25% (plain) xylocaine. In addi-
Most of Dr. Ongleys patients in New Zealand were either athletes tion to the proliferant properties of this entire mixture, the phenol and
or industrial workers with physical injuries. This simplified things for xylocaine help prevent infection, and the xylocaine (an anesthetic)
him, since he could usually be quite certain that the symptoms and helps confirm the correctness of the injection site by relieving pain.
signs exhibited by his patients were the result of mechanical problems. Numerous fascinating findings have followed from these simple
Gradually, he developed very great skill in the use of the diagnostic techniques. For example, based upon 40 years of professional experi-
procedures that he had learned from Dr. Cyriax procedures which are ence, Ongley has found that the majority of the simple broken bones
based upon functional examination of the various components of the that are placed in rigid casts during healing would be better treated by
patients body and upon the usual information available from x-ray ex- no casts at all. If proliferants are properly injected to speed healing and
amination and, now, other modern imaging techniques. the motion of the limb is not impaired by rigid immobilization, the pa-
The diagnosis of mechanical injuries to the knees, the elbows, the tient heals more quickly and with less likelihood of restricted limb mo-
back, the neck, the joints of the hands and feet, and other such struc- tion. The broken bones to which this technique does not apply are
tures is not as easy as one might expect. Many of the essential tissues largely breaks in load-bearing bones which cannot remain in place if
cannot be seen directly by x-ray examination. The positions and health the patient puts weight upon them before they are healed.
of these tissues must be inferred from the positions of the bones and
other dense structures in various states of flexion and from the symp-
toms and signs exhibited by the patient. Many years of diagnostic ex-
perience are required before a physician is skilled in these techniques,
and, even then, additional confirmatory tests are sometimes necessary.
Accurate diagnosis is, of course, only the first step. Treatment is the
next. Dr. Ongley specializes in the treatment of mechanical injuries
without surgery techniques that do not require hospitalization or gen-
eral anesthesia and can be performed in an ordinary doctors office.
There is an ethical rule in medicine which is expressed as first, do
no harm. Each physician endeavors to help his patient by means that,
at the very least, are unlikely to make his condition worse. Since sur-
gery, especially that involving general anesthesia and regardless of the
wonderful skills that surgeons have developed, is inherently a danger-
ous, expensive procedure that can inadvertently harm the patient,
medical ethics requires that non-surgical approaches be exhaustively
considered before surgery is carried out except, of course, in immedi-
ately life-threatening circumstances where time is a critical factor.
Obviously, some injuries are so severe that surgery is ultimately re-
quired, but a surprisingly large proportion of mechanical injures do not
require surgery and can be more successfully cured without surgery.
This is especially so with the use of specialized techniques that Ongley
and his predecessors have developed.
For example, if a bone in the back or neck is malaligned (incor-
rectly positioned as a result of injury), Ongley first destroys scar tissue
that has formed at the injury. Then he returns the bone to its correct
position by manipulation. Finally, in a series of injections at weekly
intervals, he introduces substances at the injury site that stimulate the
regeneration of the normal tissues which maintain the bones in their Figure 1
correct position. During this period, the patient regularly performs ex-
ercises that involve a full range of motion of the damaged structures, so
that the tissues formed will not later inhibit bodily movement. Ongleys techniques involving neck injuries are especially interest-
This use of injected proliferants, which are defined as substances ing. As most people know, the bundle of nerves by which the brain
that cause the growth of new tissue by the reproduction of similar cells, communicates with the rest of the body runs through the neck and
is a unique technique. This weekly injection process involves the in- down the back in the middle of a long structure of bones and tissues
duction of a repeated and controlled inflammatory response at the site collectively known as the spinal column. There are 33 bony segments
of injury to cause increased normal tissue formation. Dr. Ongley dis- in the spinal column called vertebrae, seven of which are in the
covered that it is essential for the treated joint to be exercised fully dur- neck. The spinal column provides flexible structural support for the
ing the healing process to assure normal tissue growth. head and body and also a protective sheath for this important bundle of
Proliferants were originally developed by three American physi- nerves on which most bodily movement and sensation depends.
cians, Dr. C. O. Rice (1936), Dr. George Schultz (who immediately In many neck injuries, out-of-place vertebral structures or scar tis-
adopted and extended Rices original work in 1936), and Dr. George sue formed at the site of injury press on the nerve bundle. Light pres-

Figure 2
sure can cause such symptoms as tingling of the hands and feet. More
serious pressure can damage motor nerves and impair bodily move-
ment. Also, if spinal structures are improperly in contact with this
nerve bundle, the chance that it will be seriously damaged in an auto-
mobile accident or other such event are markedly increased. The sur-
gery necessary to correct this dangerous condition can often be avoided
using Ongleys techniques. Moreover, surgery can lead to additional
misplaced scar tissue and recurrence of the condition.
Fewer people know that the vertebral bones and surrounding tissues
in the neck also provide a channel for a very special pair of arteries
known as the vertebral arteries, which provide blood for the spinal
tissues, the brain stem, and critical parts of the back part of the brain.
Since the vertebral arteries supply blood to the most critical areas of the
central nervous system, they are encased in the spine for special physi-
cal protection.
Figure 1 shows the better-known right carotid artery that lies near
the front of the neck and supplies blood to the front parts of the brain.
Also shown is the right vertebral artery winding its way through the
vertebral bones of the neck. A similar left view of the head would show
the left carotid and vertebral arteries. Figure 2 shows these two pairs of
arteries as seen from the underside of the brain one pair supplying
blood to the front of the brain and one pair to the back. These figures
are from Grays Anatomy, 28th Edition, published by Lea and Febiger,
Philadelphia, 1966.
The arteries of the brain are connected in such a way that they can
sometimes supplement one another and thereby overcome minor re-
strictions in one artery by circulation through another artery. The brain,
however, requires so much oxygen and nutrients that any significant
restriction, while perhaps not fatal, may have harmful consequences.
As can be clearly understood from Figure 1, disruption of the spinal
structure of the neck can result in impaired blood flow through the ver-
tebral arteries. The joints in the neck, like those in the rest of the body,
are relatively easy to injure, especially as the bones in those joints dete-
riorate with age. Such an injuries can lead to many syndromes. to die with it. The political target is, of course, larger than mere space
A syndrome is defined as a group of symptoms and signs of exploration. There are a multitude of Earth-based applications for
disordered function related to one another by means of some anatomi-
cal, physiological, or biochemical peculiarity. Medical scientists sim-
plify their communications with each other and with their patients by
giving syndromes specific names such as, to give one example, mul-
tiple sclerosis. Research scientists use the same names and often sim-
plify their work by assuming (sometimes incorrectly) that each
syndrome has a discoverable single cause and cure.
Although tens of thousands of research papers have been published
by scientists documenting changes in the brain that correlate with age
and with specific syndromes associated with degenerative diseases of
the brain and nervous system, they rarely consider that these changes
could be brought about by simple mechanical injuries or degeneration
of the neck. This, however, has been Dr. Ongleys experience.
He has found that patients who have been diagnosed with, for ex-
ample, multiple sclerosis (commonly thought to be a disease of bio-
chemical or viral origin) often actually have dislocations in their necks
which interfere with proper function of the nerves and the vertebral ar-
teries. By non-surgical treatment of these mechanical problems, he has
restored health to many such multiple sclerosis patients.
Mechanical diseases of the joints and spine some of which lead to
pain and some of which lead to other symptoms not obviously related
to skeletal problems such as visual or central nervous system malfunc-
tions afflict a great many people. Yet the field of orthopedic medi-
cine, which involves the nonsurgical treatments that Dr. Ongley and
his colleagues have developed, is largely overlooked. A few American
physicians have been trained by Dr. Ongley and he himself currently
treats patients in a new, modern hospital (owned and controlled by an
American corporation, Group Med International) in Ensenada, Mex-
ico, about 80 miles south from San Diego, California.
Prospective patients who wish to consult Dr. Ongley or be referred
by him to a physician whom he has trained, physicians who would like
to learn these techniques, or professionals desiring detailed technical
information can reach him by telephone at his home in the United
States near San Diego at (619) 468-0055 on Mondays thru Thursdays.
Why Ensenada? Get used to it. As the United States government
(both the Democrat and Republican branches) continues its already
well-advanced destruction of free enterprise in medicine, Americans
will increasingly find that the best medical care lies beyond the borders
of their own country out of reach of the dead hand of government
and, unfortunately, also out of reach of their medical insurance.
NUCLEAR REACTORS IN SPACE
The United States government is currently on the verge of destroy-
ing its tiny $8.5 million dollar per year program for the development of
small nuclear reactors of the sort needed for Mars exploration. The arti-
cles Space Nuclear Power Programme at Risk by Tony Reichhardt,
Nature 382, p 6 (July 4, 1996) and End of Space Nuclear Reactor
Program by Jocelyn Kaiser, Science 273, p 21 (July 5, 1996) report
that continuation of the project is very unlikely.
The United States first flew a nuclear reactor in space in 1965. The
Russians apparently developed the better models. The United States
Defense Department purchased six Russian TOPAZ reactors in 1991
and began a joint testing project with Russian participation.
Progress, however, has been slow because, during the entire five-
year, $80 million research program, these scientists have never been
allowed to put nuclear fuel into the reactors. Electrical heating ele-
ments have been used to simulate actual operation.
The excuse given for this restriction is that nuclear reactors are un-
popular. No federal agency, including NASA, which admits that such
reactors will be required as power sources for any future large robotic
spacecraft or for manned exploration of Mars, is willing to risk an-
titechnology pseudoenvironmentalist criticism by supporting this pro-
ject or allowing realistic tests of the already developed technology.
The United States National Research Council has concluded that, if
this program is allowed to die, an entire body of knowledge is likely
which small, standardized nuclear reactors would be very useful.
A free-enterprise corporation with more faith in mankind than these
governmental deadheads, should buy this hardware, hire the scientists
and engineers who understand it, and continue to develop this technol-
ogy. The future belongs to those who have confidence in the best
qualities of the human spirit, and that wonderful future will come
regardless of politicking by the merchants of fear, envy, and doom.

Figure 3
ander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, spoke there 51 years ago.
NUCLEAR PROGRESS
already, maybe they just didnt want to know any more......
The article by Poong Eil Juhn and Jrgen Kupitz in IAEA Bulletin
38, No.1, pp 2-9, available from the International Atomic Energy
Agency, P. O. Box 100, A-1400, Vienna, Austria, reviews past and
projected world growth of nuclear power generation.
As can be seen from Figure 3, reproduced from the Juhn and Kupitz
article, the percentage of world-wide electricity production that is pro-
vided by nuclear power has risen from less than 2% in 1970 to 17% in
1994. Moreover, this rate of growth is likely to accelerate during com-
ing years, especially in Asia (and possibly even in the United States as
pseudoenvironmentalism wanes in influence).
atom thick. The resistance of a single Xenon atom turns out to be 105
GLOBALLY WARMED UNEMPLOYMENT
l What a Waste. Recycling Is Garbage. Recycling squanders
The tax-financed research crowd that has been created by advertise-
ment of a coming global warming apocalypse may soon be facing a
more down-to-earth problem unemployment. Too much good re-
search is beginning to be published which indicates that greenhouse
warming from human activities will be a negligibly small effect and,
considering enhanced plant growth from increases in CO2, is likely to
be an overall beneficial phenomenon and the press, even the New
York Times, is beginning to pay attention.
Recent examples are: 1. Are Human Activities Causing Global
Warming? by the George Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, N. W.,
Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036, which concludes that global tem-
perature is now increasing at about 0.10 C per decade. 2. Inference
of Solar Irradiance Variability from Terrestrial Temperature Changes,
1880-1993: An Astrophysical Application of the Sun-Climate Con-
nection by W. H. Soon, E. S. Posmentier, and S. L. Baliunas, an As-
trophysical Journal preprint available from Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138,
which concludes that variations in solar activity have contributed at
least as much to global temperatures changes as have greenhouse gas
changes since 1880. 3. A Skeptic Asks, Is It Getting Hotter or Is It
Just the Computer? by William K. Stevens, The New York Times , pp
C1 & C8, June 18, 1996, which reports the work of Richard S. Lindzen
at MIT, who has concluded that global warming will be so mild as to
be essentially a non-problem. While not endorsing Lindzens conclu-
sions, the Times gave him a fair hearing, a good picture, and 50 column
inches. 4. The virtual panic set off in the global warming community
by A Major Deception on Global Warming by Frederick Seitz in
The Wall Street Journal, p A16, June 12, 1996, which discredited the
latest United Nations IPCC global warming report, is the most spec-
tacular evidence that the global warming people are in serious trouble.
In this article, Professor Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller
University and chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute said, In
my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific com-
munity, including service as president of both the National Academy
of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed
a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events
that led to the IPCC report.
STARK RAVING MAD
On one page, Science 272, p 1747 (1996), Constance Holden has
provided both of our Stark Raving Mad winners for this month.
l A presentation during World Animal Awareness week in Wash-
ington, DC, June 20-24 was entitled: In Defense of Disease - Dis-
abling Science: How Negative Stereotypes of Illness Have Been Used
to Promote Animal Experimentation.
l A furor, led by the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, erupted
among 1600 seniors at Harvard University when it was learned that the
1996 commencement address would be delivered by scientist Harold
Varmus, Nobel laureate and Director of the National Institutes of
Health. Harvard had, it was widely noted, not stooped so low as to al-
low a scientist to address their commencement ceremony since Alex-
Commented physicist Leon Lederman, Look, theyve graduated
GOOD READING
l Energy & Environment, Hopes, Hurdles by George M. Roy,
available from Roy Publishing, 12098 Centerville Road, Chico, CA
95928, Telephone (916) 343-4511. This book is a good energy primer
for the layman and contains many useful factual comparisons.
l Off-Resonance Conduction Through Atomic Wires by A.
Yazdani, D. M. Eigler, and N. D. Lang, Science 272, pp 1921-1924.
This article reports the measurement of the resistance of wires only one
ohms and that of two xenon atoms is 107 ohms.
money and good will and doesnt do much for the environment,
either. by John Tierney, The New York Times Magazine, pp 23-29,
44,48,51, & 53, June 30, 1996. Access to Energy has previously called
recycling, except for that spontaneously done by free enterprise for
economic reasons, interactive propaganda for the enviro industry.
l A Road to Hell Paved With Good Intentions by Thomas Sow-
ell, Forbes, pp 60-65, January 17, 1994. Sowell points out that the dis-
crediting of communism and socialism has not included discreditation
of the collectivism that nurtured them. He urges that we all reread Frie-
drich Hayeks Road to Serfdom.
l ROTC at a Turning Point by Fred W. Decker, Washington
Inquirer, pp 7-8, July 1, 1996, available from 4455 Connecticut Ave-
nue NW #330, Washington, DC 20008.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 1996 (Vol. 24, no. 1) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Defendable But Undefended
In 1994, in a low security building at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, a bent, balding 61-year-old engineer hands slightly
shaking from the oncoming ravages of Parkinsons disease, which he
daily ignored as he continued his lifes work in defense of his country
performed the last useful action of the American civil defense pro-
gram. He boxed all of the approximately 10,000 reports, mono-
graphs, books, and other research documents in the Emergency
Technology Library at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and
shipped them to a safe location, out of reach of the federal govern-
ment, so that they would not be destroyed. These documents contain
a complete record of the American civil defense research program
from the end of World War II until its termination by the Bush and
Clinton Administrations.
At the present time, the United States has no strategic missile de-
fense even though her scientists and engineers are easily capable of
building one; she has no tactical nuclear weapons even though her
scientists and engineers built a complete inventory which was then
ordered destroyed by President George Bush; she has no biological
weapons these were destroyed by treaty with the Soviet Union,
which nevertheless continued to build biological weapons; she is cur-
rently incinerating her entire stockpile of chemical weapons even
though these weapons continue to be accumulated by her enemies in
many countries; and she has no civil defense program whatever not
even the pitiful evacuation and radiological monitoring program that
was in place until its termination by the Bush and Clinton Admini-
strations.
In those days of 1994, the third and last director of the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory civil defense research program, Dr. Conrad V.
Chester, could think of only one final action. He acted to preserve a
printed record of American engineering research knowledge about
civil defense so that, if his country ever decides to provide civil de-
fense protection for its people, the engineers of that day will have this
information available.
Connie Chester was born to Lithuanian immigrant parents in Bos-
ton on July 8, 1933. He was trained as a chemical engineer. His
brother commanded an American nuclear submarine. When Eugene
Wigner founded the Oak Ridge National Laboratory civil defense re-
search program in 1964, Dr. Chester became one of the original
members of that research team and became director of the program in
1972. He made many substantial contributions to knowledge about
civil defense, including work that assured completion of development
and publication of the expedient civil defense techniques described in
the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny.
Dr. Chester gave essentially his entire professional life to the de-
velopment of technology and knowledge with which the American
people could be protected from chemical, biological, or nuclear disas-
ters that might result from accident, terrorism, or war (and, inciden-
tally, from natural disasters as well). He was one of a small and
dwindling number of superb scientists and engineers whose knowl-
edge of these subjects remain available to the American people. Soon,
all that will be available will be the remnants of their libraries.
nuclear reactor at San Onofre in Southern California. Professor of En-
CORPORATIVISM VS NUCLEAR POWER
bustion Research and the Department of Mechanics and Engineering
During one section of his presentation entitled Are We Using
Sound Scientific Principles in Environmental System Management?
to the 1996 DDP meeting, Professor Stanford S. Penner reviewed the
factors and circumstances surrounding the shutdown of the 460 MWe
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
Conrad Chester died from natural causes on 16 August, 1996. Dr.
Chester, whose death was not noticed by the American people, gave
his life to the development of the means to protect those people and
their families from very real and continuing dangers in the modern
world means that the gaggle of 20th century politicians and bureau-
crats have been too selfish and shortsighted to implement.
Ah, but we are told that all of the threats are gone. Just this past
month our new Russian friends were whiling away their time firing
multiple tests of their newest submarine-launched ballistic missiles
missiles for which the only practical target is the United States. This,
of course, must just be a new and more spectacular form of disarma-
ment. If they keep the tests going for the next 50 years, maybe they
will run out of missiles. Anyway, who are we to say that nascent free
enterprise in Russia should be discouraged by prohibiting them from
participating in the growing world market for weapons of mass kill-
ing along with entrepreneurs in North Korea, mainland China, Syria,
Iran, and other innovators in the field of population control.
If anyone ever unleashes this nuclear, biological, or chemical tech-
nology upon the American people and there are many capable indi-
viduals in the world who would like to do so the ingenious defenses
that Connie Chester and his patriotic professional colleagues invented
to protect Americans will probably not be available.
If present conditions prevail, there will be no civil defenses, no
strategic defenses, and no practical offensive deterrents. All there will
be is fear fear which may be used to convince the American people
to give up much of their freedom and all of their self-respect.
I was fortunate to meet Dr. Chester at the American Civil Defense
Association meeting in 1985 and, through his generosity, to have the
opportunity to read about 1,000 of the documents at the Oak Ridge
Emergency Technology Library in 1986. (He and Greg Zimmerman
had identified the most valuable 1,000 in their ORNL review report
No. 6252 published in 1986.) Over the years, he has given me infor-
mation and advice on numerous technical subjects such as that evi-
dent in one of the articles below. His wisdom and engineering
knowledge were very remarkable. Each year, except in 1996 due to
poor health, he traveled to meetings of the DDP and other organiza-
tions to share information both about dangers and available defenses.
In recent years, Dr. Chester concentrated largely upon the specific
dangers of biological and chemical weapons from terrorism and
from war. Although his work generally emphasized the passive de-
fense of civilian populations, my notes from a recent conversation
with him include his following chilling statement: Biological and
chemical weapons, since and including World War I, have always
been used against those with no retaliatory capability.
As soon as the ongoing chemical disarmament is completed, the
United States, for the first time in half a century, will have no ability
whatever to respond in kind to an attack by chemical or biological
weapons no retaliatory capability whatever. (Unless, of course, one
has fantasies about our current crop of American politicians raising
the ante to a city-busting strategic nuclear exchange.)
Dr. Conrad Chester will be missed far more than we now know.
gineering Physics S. S. Penner built the Center for Energy and Com-
Sciences at the University of California at San Diego, where he has
been the most eminent engineer for the past 30 years. Prior to that, he
had a distinguished career at the California Institute of Technology.
Author of 300 research papers, numerous books, and also much clas-
sified defense research work that cannot be listed in his public CV,
which is already longer than that of 10 ordinary scientists, Dr. Penner
is a very authoritative source of information. After reviewing the seri-
ous problems in energy planning that are arising as a result of the po-
litical successes of anti-nuclear power political agitators who have
essentially stopped the construction of new nuclear power plants in
the United States, he made the following additional remarks:
A significant advantageous development that could serve to ame-
liorate some of the imbalances resulting from current failures of ade-
quate planning is the result of unanticipated long operating lifetimes of
properly designed nuclear reactors. In general, U. S. planning has as-
sumed 40 years for reactor lifetimes, which is consistent with normal
40-year depreciation schedules. New Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) license-renewal rates generally allow 20 years of additional op-
eration in the U.S. Nuclear reactors in France are generally assumed to
last longer than 50 years, planners in Belgium assume 40 to 70 years of
operation, Japanese reactors are expected to have 60 years of operating
lifetimes. Consistent with these longer operational windows, experts at
the IAEA have been developing component-specific guidelines to ex-
tend useful periods of operation. Needless to say, a longer operating
lifetime would reduce the need for new electricity correspondingly.
Unfortunately, the opportunity provided by longer operating life may
well become a casualty of collusion between anti-nuclear public utility
regulators and utility executives with their eyes on the near-term bot-
tom line at the expense of the public, as will now be described by an
unfortunate, perhaps trend-setting example.
The Southern California nuclear reactor complex at San Onofre
consisted of three operating reactors, one with a design power output
of 460 MWe and two 1160 MWe units. The smaller reactor was put
out of commission in 1995 following the suggestion by the California
Public Utility Commission to allow the involved operating utilities full
cost recovery over a four-year period if this plant were decommis-
sioned, coupled with the threat that cost recovery for future failure cor-
rections of this plant would not be approved. From the perspectives of
the utility executives (of Southern California Edison and San Diego
Gas and Electric Companies), the near-term bottom line could be se-
cured by accepting the offer. The clear loser in this deal is the public:
close to 500 MWe of power output at a cost of about 2.5 cents/kWh
will have to be replaced by non-nuclear capacity costing close to 6
cents/kWh. The needed power will ultimately be supplied either by a
utility spin-off or an independent power supplier, and we can see no
new market entries that could come close to the production cost of the
decommissioned nuclear reactor. The complete text of Dr. Penners sources that result in the loss of a human life. This is a highly qualita-
talk is available by writing to him at the University of California of San
Diego. It will be published on CD-ROM by DDP. Audio tapes of his
talk are currently available from DDP at telephone (520) 325-2680.
Professor Penner also said that the decommissioned reactor had an
exemplary operating record and a probable useful life of as much as 40
more years. Southern California Edison executives reply that this was
an older reactor. What do we expect them to say that they agreed to
an anti-nuclear deal with California state regulators whereby the public
will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in extra electricity costs in or-
der to protect their profits? What did we expect them to do make a
stand on principle, keep the reactor operating, and then be punished
with rate schedules that would cost their company its profits and per-
haps cost them their jobs? Executives rarely do that sort of thing.
Dr. Walker F. Todd, in an interview entitled From Constitution to
Corporativism in The Moneychanger, pp 1-5, August 7, 1996, avail-
able from P. O. Box 341753, Memphis, TN 38184-1753, calls this
corporativism, which he defines as a partnership of big business, were arbitrarily deprived of its electrical energy.
big labor, and big government. My high school economics teacher just
called it fascism, but then he did not have to contend with the visions of
World War II concentration camps which have complicated the mod-
ern usage and interpretation of this word. Fascism Todd defines as San Diego Gas and Electric, who colluded to decommission the power
corporativism with an aggressive military component added.
In any case, one thing is certain. This is not free enterprise or hensible event may well be magnified if it serves as an example that
anything else resembling it. It is tyranny. Tyranny should be attacked
on principle. A secondary and much weaker way in which it is attacked
is by pointing out instances in which it fails to work according to nor-
mal standards of rationality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. In the
San Onofre case, the central governmental authority is dominated by
an irrational ideology which it managed to pursue by making this deal
with its corporate counterpart at the expense of the public.
Increasingly, we are seeing engineers standing by helplessly while
obviously wrong actions are taken for politically correct purposes that
have no rational justification. Much of the rest of Dr. Penners presen-
tation provided another example that of the irrational agenda by
which enviro agitators are shutting down the garbage incineration in-
dustry. It is becoming politically incorrect to burn trash even in high-
tech incinerators which produce a minimum of pollution.
As I watched Professor S. S. Penner, one of our countrys most ac-
complished engineering physicists and aerospace engineers, speaking
with technical facility and yet helplessly protesting that the enviro-con-
taminated corporativists [my term for them] will not even let him burn
garbage, I was reminded of a play that I attended many years ago in
London. It was a surrealist drama by Ionesco entitled Rhinoceros. Al-
though I do not especially care for this sort of drama, I attended this
one because it was produced and directed by Orson Welles and the
leading role was played by Sir Laurence Olivier.
As I remember it now, the play opens in an English pub which is
disrupted when a rhinoceros runs down the street outside. It develops
that turning into a rhinoceros has become the latest fad, and soon eve-
ryone is doing it. The climax of the play was a soliloquy by Sir
Laurence Olivier (one imagines him doing Hamlet or Macbeth) during
which he expounded upon the reasons why he refused to turn into a
rhinoceros. It turned out that Orson Welles had built the walls of the
staged room in which Olivier was standing from scrim curtains, which
become invisible to the audience when lights shine on the back of
them. Therefore, as Olivier delivered his speech, Welles changed the
lighting so that the walls of the room around him disappeared, and he
found himself standing in a jungle inhabited by many rhinoceroses.
A special tragedy is that the people who suffer most from artifi-
cially high electricity prices are not the government and corporate elit-
ists who prevent the accomplishments of modern engineering and
science from being used correctly. Even as America diminishes in
wealth as a result of damage from thousands of events such as this, the
elite will still have enough money to pay for electricity at inflated
prices. It is the great majority of Americans who are in the middle class
and poorer classes who suffer the consequences.
Many efforts have been made to estimate the amount of lost re-
tive exercise, but reasonable estimates suggest an upper limit of about
$10 million per life. In other words, when $10 million is wasted and
that waste distributed among 250 million Americans, the collective
private decisions in response cause at least one unnecessary death. For
example, with less disposable income, decisions are made that may in-
volve less safe driving equipment such as worn tires, or less nutritious
food, or perhaps a fatally delayed visit to a doctor. These decisions de-
crease public well-being enough that somewhere in the country a per-
son dies. More pessimistic estimates are as low as $1 million per life
the lifetime earnings of an average American. (See, for example, Ac-
cess to Energy 21 No. 6 about the work of R. L. Keeney, Risk Analysis,
Vol. 10, pp 147-159 (1990), estimating $5 million per life.)
Whatever estimate we use, it is evident that the unnecessary closing
of the 460 MWe reactor at San Onofre cost the lives of many Ameri-
cans lives that were made possible by the engineering miracles
within this power plant, and lives that were forfeited when Americans
Those American lives were exchanged for personal ambitions the
personal ambitions of the members of the California Public Utility
Commission and of the executives of Southern California Edison and
plant. Moreover, as Professor Penner points out, this particular repre-
deprives us of part of the extra life remaining in the exceptionally well-
engineered inventory of other American nuclear power plants
 over the few days following an attack.) The greatest loss of life would
NUCLEAR WASTELANDS? occur as a result of loss of technology. Just as technology has increased
the number of healthful lives that can be lived in the United States, loss
Most of the antinuclear debate revolves around minuscule radiation of technology would decrease that number of lives.
levels that are barely detectable above background and for which harm How much? Well, the Soviet Union did not suffer a nuclear attack,
to human health has never been observed. Moreover, the growing sci- but the delivery of the fruits of technology decreased significantly as a
ence of hormesis indicates that such low levels are, in fact, beneficial result of confusion during and after the events of 1990. Between 1990
with a crossover to harmful levels somewhere around 50 milliSv/year. and 1994, the life expectancy of Russian men dropped from 64 years to
(See Access to Energy 23, No. 11, p 3 and earlier articles.) 57 years 2,500 days. (See Technology and Lifespan, Access to
Even the Chernobyl accident has only managed three identifiable Energy 23, No. 3 (1995)). Modern civilization can tolerate even large
deaths from residual radiation those among the approximately 700 increases in radiation much better than than it can loss of technology.
excess children with thyroid cancer which could have been avoided if
the Soviets had immediately distributed potassium iodide and insti- FERTILIZED TREES
tuted other simple prophylactic measures. There are also a claimed
seven extra cases of infant leukaemia among children exposed before An interesting example of the biased mindset of scientists working
birth. (See Infant leukaemia after in utero exposure to radiation from with complicated biological systems and anxious to relate their work to
Chernobyl, E. Petridou, et al, Nature 382, pp 352-353 (1996)). the latest politically correct fad is provided by Mongolian Tree Rings
Rarely do we look at the other end of the scale the unthinkable and 20th-Century Warming by G.C. Jacoby, R. D. DArrigo, and T.
end where radiation dangers actually approach those falsely claimed Davaajamts in Science 273, pp 771-773 (1996). Choosing pine trees
by anti-nuclear agitators for peaceful, well-built nuclear power reac- growing very near the tree line of mountains in central Mongolia, the
tors. What conditions must prevail to actually kill large numbers of authors observe a sharp increase of growth during the 20th century (see
people with residual nuclear radiation? Figure 1), which they attribute entirely to 20th century temperature in-
Residual Radioactivity in the Soil of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear creases. They conclude that these increases were solely of solar origin
Test Site in the Former USSR by M. Yamamoto, T. Tsukatani, and until recently. Lacking direct temperature data before 1820, they as-
Y. Katayama in Health Physics 71, No. 2, pp 142-148, is instructive. sume that all increases in tree growth are the result of temperature in-
This location in Kazakhstan was the site of the first Soviet nuclear ex-
plosion on 29 August 1949. Altogether 459 nuclear explosions were
conducted at the three technical areas of this site between 1949 and
1989. Of these, 346 were underground explosions. All 113 of the other
explosions 26 ground explosions and 87 atmospheric explosions oc-
curred at one of the areas, Technical Area III. Surely here we can find
the nuclear hell on earth of unsurvivable residual radiation.
Measurements of radiation at Technical Area III in 1994 one meter
(3 feet) above the ground showed a residual radiation intensity of 30
microsieverts per hour ( microSv/h ). Is this a dangerous level? Prob-
ably. Even hormesis fans estimate the crossover to negative health ef-
fects at about 6 microSv/h, and International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) publications (see Access to Energy 23, No 11) give the global Figure 1
average background level as 0.3 microSv/ h.
However, IAEA gives the level for passengers in an SST at 10 mi-
croSv/h and in an ordinary airliner as 5 microSv/h. So, an hour spent at
the site of 113 nuclear explosions over a 40-year period ending in creases and derive earlier temperatures from growth of similar trees,
1989 has about the same negative health effects from radiation as a thereby constructing a correlation between growth and temperature.
trip from San Francisco to New York in an ordinary jet airliner. No doubt tree growth, especially at these altitudes, is strongly tem-
But what about On the Beach? Well, we cannot get there with all perature dependent, but what about carbon dioxide fertilization? Idso
the nuclear weapons on earth, but what can we do? Minimizing Ex- and coworkers have shown in their studies of Bristlecone Pine (see
cess Radiogenic Cancer Deaths After a Nuclear Attack by K. S. Gant Figure 2 and AtE 21, No. 4, p3 (1993) for references and discussion)
and C. V. Chester in Health Physics 41, No. 3, pp 455-463 (1981),
gives estimates for the health effects of residual radiation from an all
ground-explosion attack with 5,000 megatons of nuclear weapons on
the United States. After the initial few days, when the population is
assumed to be evacuated and in fallout shelters and with prudent near-
term use of shelters in the worst locations, much of the American
population would be forced to live thereafter in a radiation environ-
ment comparable to that at the Semipalatinsk test site. Residual radia-
tion levels in American counties with the worst fallout were estimated
to be about 3 times greater than the 30 microSv/h at Semipalatinsk.
Even including growing food in this inescapable environment, Gant
and Chester estimated a 400 day decrease in life expectancy from can-
cer for the average American. By comparison, days of life lost under Figure 2
ordinary conditions in America today are 1,000 days, 500 days, and
2,000 days from cancer, stroke, and heart disease respectively. Gant
and Chester considered only cancer. Other increases in degenerative
diseases could be added to increase their estimate somewhat. that this enhanced growth correlates well with their extensive experi-
The greatest loss of life in a nuclear war would not occur from ra- ments on tree growth and carbon dioxide fertilization a factor com-
diation, however, unless the nation were so foolish as to have no fallout pletely ignored by Jacoby, et al. The Mongolian increases are probably
shelters. (Find yours if you can. Fallout shelters are for protection from caused by temperature increases and carbon dioxide fertilization, but
the very high levels of initial fallout radiation which dissipate rapidly fad and fashion have hidden this from the minds of these investigators.

GLOBAL COOLING
With the global warming industry just beginning to find glimmers
of greenhouse warming that are almost undetectable within the noise
of ordinary temperature variations, it is evident that all observations are
consistent with the interpretation that global warming from human ac-
tivities is so small an effect as to be insignificant (unless, of course,
your research grant or political agenda depends upon it). Should this,
for some unforeseen and unlikely reason, change as a result of future
observations, there would remain the question as to how to counteract
the warming without condemning hundreds of millions of people to
death by energy deprivation, especially in less developed countries.
With a Bang, Not a Whimper by Eric Felten in The Weekly How much labor and waste of time these wicked insects do cause us .
Standard, pp 18-19, August 5, 1996, available from P. O. Box 96153,
Washington, DC 20090-6153, reviews some alternatives that have
been suggested. As he points out, if humans can turn the thermostat up,
why should they not be able to turn it down?
Suggestions that have been made (which Felten draws from a 1992
study by the National Academy of Sciences) include: 1. Firing dust
into the stratosphere with 16-inch naval guns at a cost maximum of
$500 million per year including all operating costs of the ships. 2. Ad-
justing the exhaust on commercial airliners so that one percent of the
fuel is converted to soot at an estimated cost of $7 million per year. 3.
Sulfur incinerators at sea to seed clouds with sulfur emissions at a cost
of about $500 million per year. (Here Felten points out that the global
warmers themselves reduced their estimates of warming by one half
when they included sulfur emissions by current power plants burning
soft coal.) 4. Converting the carbon dioxide into biomass by planting
forests or seeding some areas of the ocean with iron in order to increase
the growth of plankton, which is a very low cost activity.
Since waiting another 30 years to take temperature data does not
significantly alter the temperature outcome even in the extreme global
warming models (see Access to Energy 23, No. 7 pp 1-2 (1996)), there
is certainly no need for remedial action now. If a time for such action
should ever come, it is evident that there are many innovative ideas
available that would not involve trillions of dollars in economic losses,
hundreds of millions of human deaths, and technological stagnation.
ton, MO 63026-1850 or 1-800-346-6322. This is an excellent source
AMERICAN CIVIL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION
resources for homeschooling. I am writing a regular column in this
The American Civil Defense Association (TACDA) will hold their
18th meeting in Fairfax, Virginia on October 11-14, 1996. Information
and registration can be obtained from TACDA at P. O. Box 1057,
Starke, FL 32091-1057 or telephone (904) 964-9641. Publisher of the
Journal of Civil Defense which is now in its 29th year, TACDA has
been a consistent advocate of civil defense for the United States.
Many of the most active individuals working for civil defense at-
tend TACDA meetings either as speakers or audience. If you are inter-
ested in this subject, and far more Americans should be, attending a
TACDA meeting is an excellent way to further that interest.
have published on their grocery bags including one by Petr Beck-
ACCESS TO ENERGY COPYRIGHT
l Environmental Briefing Book 1996 by the Competitive Enter-
The Access to Energy copyright is not intended to require readers to
write, as many do, for permission to use the articles in helpful ways.
Articles in Access to Energy may be republished in other publica-
tions so long as they are not altered and they are attributed to Access to
Energy. If you wish to edit an article, please obtain our approval.
Subscribers are welcome to make as many copies for distribution to
others as they wish as long as these copies are not sold or used as sub-
stitutes for regular subscriptions. We print extra copies for use in ad-
vertising, so, if you wish to make a large number of duplicates of a
particular issue, it may be worthwhile to write to us for copies.
Access to Energy is also used as source and background material by
other publications with very large circulations that sometimes use parts
of Access to Energy with or without attribution. Although we prefer
mention, we are pleased to have these materials widely distributed.
STARK RAVING MAD
l Remembering Silent Spring and Its Consequences by J. Gor-
don Edwards at the DDP meeting (audio tapes from (520) 325-2680)
details the outright lies by which Rachel Carson and her followers de-
stroyed DDT and concomitantly the lives of hundreds of millions of
people in poor countries. The National Academy of Sciences con-
cluded in 1970 that DDT saved 500 million lives before it was banned.
Carson dedicated her book to Albert Schweitzer whom she quoted
as saying Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will
end by destroying the earth. The Schweitzer quote actually referred
to his concerns about nuclear war. About DDT, Schweitzer wrote,
. . . . . but a ray of hope, in the use of DDT, is now held out to us.
l An estimated 2.4 million children in American public schools are
now being given Ritalin, an amphetamine, for the alleged diseases of
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) (see Access to Energy 23, No. 9, p4 (1996)). Now
Science News 150, p 111 (1996) reports that 25% of those children di-
agnosed as ADHD soon develop the symptoms of manic depression,
which requires additional medication and, often, hospitalization.
To acquire a diagnosis of ADHD and thereby a ticket on the Na-
tional Education Associations joyride of mind-altering drugs, the
child must appear to be inattentive, impulsive, and hyperactive. In
other words, the child must react in an entirely normal way to the inhu-
man zoo in which he is incarcerated each day by the state. The number
of home-schooled children is now about 1.5 million and estimated to
be growing at 15% per year. This should help to stop the current epi-
demic of childhood manic depression.
GOOD READING
l The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin scheduled to be available in
bookstores in October. Dr. Zubrins address has changed from that
given in the August 1996 Access to Energy editorial. It is now Pioneer
Astronautics, 445 Union Blvd., Suite 125, Lakewood, CO 80228.
l Practical Homeschooling, available from P. O. Box 1250, Fen-
of a wide variety of materials, ideas, educational programs, and other
magazine as are 12 other people with useful and interesting ideas.
l New American 12, No. 18, p 42 (1996), available from 770 Wes-
thill Boulevard, Appleton, WI, which reports that American deaths in
1992 included 21,257 in passenger car accidents; 12,646 in falls; 4,186
by drownings; 3,958 by fires and burns; 1,196 by inhalation and inges-
tion of food; 53 from lightning; and 39 in airplane crashes. So, the fed-
eral government is saddling the airlines with more safety regulations
and the auto industry with rules for lighter, less-protective cars.
l Bagatorials by John and Ned Roscoe, Simon and Schuster 1996,
which is a wonderful selection of libertarian messages that the Roscoes
mann entitled Dont let yourself be duped on Food Irradiation.
prise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 1250, Washington,
DC 20036. This is excellent and reliable antienviro ammunition.
l The Education Liberator is the Monthly Publication of the Sepa-
ration of School and State Alliance, 4578 N. First #310, Fresno, CA
93726. Their name speaks for itself.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
OCTOBER 1996 (Vol. 24, no. 2) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Truth vs. Fiction
To a steadily increasing extent, the war that is currently in progress
freedom, science, and technology vs. totalitarianism and an irra-
tional society driven by envy, fear, and mythology is being reduced
to a simple conflict between truth vs. fiction. The outcome of this cul-
tural conflict will determine many things about the future of our civi-
lization especially the nature of its energy resources.
Although it is tempting to philosophize that truth will eventually
prevail, that eventually could be in the far distant future with ex- this temperature increase could not have been caused by the carbon
tensive unnecessary human misery between here and there.
As of September 20, all polls indicate that Clinton-Gore will win
the November election by an overwhelming margin. Yet the same
polls show that the majority of Americans realize that Bill Clinton is
habitually untruthful, while Gores lack of integrity, measured by his
published statements on environmental science, is rivaled only by
Clintons. Although it is not unusual for politicians to lack integrity,
these two individuals are worse by orders of magnitude.
Most worrisome, however, is the apparent lack of concern among
American women voters. While polls show that American men are
evenly split between Clinton-Gore and Dole-Kemp and professional
or college-educated men prefer Dole-Kemp by a margin of 12%,
two-thirds of American women say that they intend to vote for Clin-
ton-Gore rather than Dole-Kemp or one of other candidates. (See The
Wall Street Journal, pp R1 to R6, September 20, 1996.)
Can it really be true that two-thirds of American women do not
care whether or not the President of the United States is a habitual
liar? If so, what is the chance that they will teach their children to
value the truth? If a person is not truthful, then reliable communica-
tion with him becomes impossible. If children do not tell the truth,
why teach them to talk and write? Yet, children learn primarily by
example. If their mothers successfully support a liar for President,
why should the children be expected to be truthful?
There is supposedly a worldwide debate in progress on the ques-
tion of global warming the hypothesis that human release of mined range. Chemical and Engineering News apparently hopes to
carbon dioxide will cause a catastrophic rise in global temperature.
The Clinton-Gore Administration, which promotes this hypothesis as
established fact, is in the process of committing the United States to
reductions in the release of carbon dioxide that will severely diminish
American living standards and, promoted on a world-wide scale, will
mean death to great numbers of people in less-developed countries.
Yet, as the George Marshall Institute has very clearly pointed out,
an essential experiment that tests the global warming hypothesis has
been carried out. The results of that experiment demonstrate that this
hypothesis is erroneous. During the 20th century, atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels have risen approximately 80 ppm, but the temperature
increase from this rise has been so small that it is barely discernible
within ordinary temperature fluctuations (if present at all). The green-
house effect from carbon dioxide when added to the current earth at-
mosphere is, therefore, so small that projections of harmful global
temperature increases are clearly wrong. (See previous issues of Ac-
cess to Energy and also testimony on September 17, 1996 to the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate,
computer technology is rapidly destroying all central monopolies on
TECHNOLOGICAL FREEDOM
tion has historically been an indispensable aspect of tyranny. It is easy
Regardless of apparent current political trends, there is actually sub-
stantial reason for optimism that truth will prevail in the near term
even truth about such badly mangled subjects as nuclear energy and
atmospheric science. The principal reason for this optimism is that
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
by Dr. Sallie Baliunas, available from the George C. Marshall Insti-
tute, 1730 K Street, N.W., Suite 905, Washington, DC 20006-3868.)
Some scientists (most of whom depend upon tax financed
global warming research grants) have tried to cloud this issue by
pointing to a 0.5 C increase in temperature that occurred early in the
century. Since, however, this temperature increase occurred before
1940 and most of the carbon dioxide increase occurred after 1940,
dioxide increase which occurred afterwards. The 0.5 C increase was
apparently part of the normally fluctuating earth temperature which, it
happens, was higher than now during the Middle Ages a period of
benign climatic conditions.
How is this indisputable logic handled in the press? Consumer Re-
ports, p 40, September 1996, dismisses it by saying, perfect syn-
chronization is an unrealistic expectation. According to Consumer
Reports, it is unrealistic to reason that a cause must occur before or
during any alleged effect from that cause. It is also unrealistic to be-
lieve that writers for Consumer Reports are unable to understand this
simple logic. They are evidently telling an untruth in order to deliber-
ately mislead readers who are not carefully evaluating their text.
Even more outrageous is Global Warming Is the Target of Dis-
information Campaign by Bette Hileman in Chemical and Engi-
neering News, p 33, August 19, 1996. Hileman claims that satellite
measurements which show very little change in atmospheric tem-
perature during the past 17 years should be disregarded because they
are influenced both by the increasing cooling in the stratosphere
from increasing ozone depletion and by temperatures at the surface.
Yet, satellites are also measuring atmospheric ozone concentra-
tions (see, for example, Access to Energy 21 No. 3, p 4 (1993)) and
are finding no significant decrease in worldwide ozone levels. The
average atmospheric ozone level, except in the very special condi-
tions localized in the Antarctic, fluctuates in a narrow, naturally deter-
influence readers who do not know about the results of satellite ozone
measurements by compounding one enviro lie with another.
So, restricting the time interval to that following substantial in-
creases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, satellite measurements show
no increase in atmospheric temperature, while ground measurements
show a very small increase. This sets an upper limit on greenhouse
warming that is so small as to be of negligible importance.
Truthful scientists should generally conclude, therefore, that
global warming is an insignificant non-problem as far as all experi-
mental measurements to date have determined. Most also conclude
that atmospheric measurements should continue, so that this impor-
tant aspect of the environment is carefully monitored.
Untruthful politicians, self-interested enviro scientists and journal-
ists, and even some unprincipled nuclear power advocates, however,
continue to lie to the American people about catastrophic global
warming. Truth is an essential ingredient in the glue that holds our
civilization together. Without truth, all that has been built by freedom,
science, and technology will eventually disintegrate.
the dissemination of information. Monopolistic control over informa-
to concoct a lie, but it is not so easy to keep the lie viable in the minds
of people unless their sources of information are under tight control.
Virtually all tyrannies whether they involve small groups of people
or entire nations involve mechanisms for the control of information.
 This control does not necessarily imply a book-burning police state.
Small groups can be controlled simply by instilling a bias against ra-
dios, computers, unapproved books, and other information sources, mit essentially unlimited information at very low cost to almost any
and a preference for information supplied selectively by the groups
leadership, which, of course, functions only with the best of intentions.
In order to control states and nations, however, it is necessary to
control the press and other media and to control educational institu-
tions. While this can be done by direct force as in many communist
countries, in more free societies it must be established gradually
through economic and political means and by a long process of indi-
vidual screening so that information sources are largely staffed by
those with the desired political biases.
The extreme leftist, anti-free enterprise bias in American educa-
tional institutions and news and entertainment media did not arise
overnight. It has required generations of work. Now, however, that
work is beginning to unravel in a technological maelstrom. There are
two computer technologies responsible for this revolution.
The first of these is in the rate at which information can be trans-
ferred by means of wires, fiber optic cables, and satellites. The July and
August issues of the Gilder Technology Report available from Gilder
Technology Group, Inc., Monument Mills, P. O. Box 660, Housatonic,
MA 01236, or by telephone toll free at (888) GTG-2727, definitively
describe and analyze this advance. (The Gilder Report is, without ex-
ception, the very best source of information on computer technology
that I have ever read.)
George Gilder points out that the initial computer revolution oc-
curred when technological advance made the transistor almost free.
This allowed the mass production of equipment containing millions of
transistors and thereby the virtual miracles in computing power that are
now available at low cost to all Americans.
Now, new advances in electronics are making the real-time com-
munication of information almost free as well. Figure 1, reproduced
from the Gilder Technology Report, shows the effect that just the in-
itial phase of this almost free bandwidth (the information capacity of
an electronic transmission system) is having on Internet traffic.
Internet Traffic
Figure 1
This is only the beginning. With emerging technologies that Gilder
describes in detail in these newsletters, it will soon be possible to trans-
location. This capability is so great that the coming generations of
computers are expected to have ways of capturing and using this infor-
mation without requiring that it pass through the central processing
units, which are far too slow to keep up with it.
The effect of this revolution will be to give every individual, re-
gardless of his location, the ability to be mentally present at any other
location. This freedom of location will transform human affairs and
simultaneously destroy the barriers to information transfer that those
who trade in the control of people by disinformation require.
The second advance is that of information storage. Current CD-
ROM technology allows the storage of about 600 megabytes of infor-
mation on a plastic disk that can be manufactured for about one dollar
and read into an ordinary desk-top computer in a few minutes. One of
these disks can hold about 3,000 books as text files or about 50 books
as 300 dot per inch image files. New CD-ROMs that are to be mar-
keted late in 1996 or in 1997 will hold about 10 times as much infor-
mation about 30,000 books. Fifty dollars worth of these new
CD-ROMs can hold a university library of one million books.
CDs, however, only store information in two dimensions. New
Dye Adds Depth to Data Storage by C. Wu in Science News 150, p
148 (1996), describes one of the three-dimensional data storage meth-
ods that is being developed. This particular method depends upon a
block of material which contains dye molecules that fluoresce after a
two-photon absorption. This allows three-dimensional encoding of the
location and energy state of the dye molecules. It is estimated that one
cubic centimeter (a volume approximately equal to 30 ordinary-sized
drops of water and weighing 1/30 of an ounce) of this material could
store as much as 1,000 current CD-ROMs a three million book li-
brary. One ounce of this material could store 100 million books as text
files. Even using high quality image files (with perhaps simple, un-
cleaned OCR behind them to allow text search), one ounce would hold
25,000 books or about 400,000 books per pound. Audio and video ca-
pacity with appropriate compression is spectacularly large as well.
Therefore, both by wire transfer and by inexpensive physical stor-
age, the academic monopoly on published information is being shat-
tered, and the corporate media and government monopolies on
information dissemination are being destroyed.
Why attend a university where retired-in-place tenured academics
hoard information and disseminate it grudgingly in second-rate lec-
tures and books, when the entire lifes work and lectures of the most
accomplished scholars alive can be stored on a few CD-ROMs and de-
livered to any home by wire or on plastic for negligible cost?
Why be brainwashed by media moguls and their retainers who mis-
report current affairs to serve their personal political agendas, when es-
sentially free bandwidth can effectively transport you to the events
themselves and provide direct communication with the participants?
A major growth industry within this river of information will be in
defining quality. Entrepreneurs must reach into this river and extract
quality for delivery to the marketplace, since individuals will lack time
to sift through the river by themselves. What is the highest quality in-
formation? The highest quality is that which is the truth and in which
the truth is communicated most effectively.
Who will be the judges of these qualities? The market place will
judge. An honestly earned reputation for integrity will once again be
among each persons most valuable possessions. Economic power to
control media resources and monopolies on the distribution of infor-
mation will no longer confer pseudocredibility upon the holders of this
power, since the cost of disseminating and receiving information will
be negligible. With virtually all entrepreneurs having the economic ca-
pability to extract and send information, those who build the highest
reputations for integrity will become the more widely utilized.
Moreover, I predict that small entrepreneurs entirely outside of the
power structures of media and education will be the most successful.
People who remain within those power structures will be institution-
ally hampered by the prejudices and agendas of the institutions. It will
be much more difficult for them to build reputations of integrity. Even Science has taken note of the decline of American nuclear
The most influential news sources might become single, adventur- technology a trend which its editorial policy has certainly done little
ous reporters who are self-employed, gain a reputation for depth and to inhibit. Nuclear Power in East Asia by Philip H. Abelson, Sci-
accuracy, and are not beholden to any organization or group whose in- ence 272, p 465 (1996), notes that no nuclear power plants have been
terests must be considered when reporting the news. They could travel authorized in the United States during the past ten years while large
to interesting places and events, gather facts and analysis, and then numbers of power reactors have been built in four to five years and
make themselves available to anyone who wishes to tune them in. operated successfully in East Asia. Government regulations increased
No one can predict the ultimate events that will accompany the new American construction times to more than ten years. University nu-
informational freedom. It is, however, obvious that the lies that now clear engineering departments in the United States have decreased in
keep us in bondage manage to survive only because they are favored number from 80 to 35 since 1978, and, according to Abelson, if these
by those who control the enormous amounts of capital required to ef- trends continue, U. S. capabilities in nuclear technology will gradu-
fectively communicate with the public. As that economic control is ally become second class.
ended by low-cost technology, truth will be able to compete on a level
playing field with fiction. I think that there will then be a very high free COOLING TREND
market preference for truth.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
VOCABULARY DEFLATION (IPCC) continues to reel under revelations that its editor changed the
wording of its most recent report on global warming after it had been
Even though the College Board Scholastic Aptitude Tests have agreed upon by the scientists involved. In CEI Update 9, No. 7, p 5
now been dumbed down and the grades have been arbitrarily inflated (1996), available from CEI, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite
to obscure the lowered abilities of students in American socialized edu- 1250, Washington, DC 20036, James Sheehan discusses the changes.
cation, it is still necessary to have a moderately good vocabulary in For example, at one point in the IPCC text in the peer reviewed dis-
order to score well on the verbal examination. Test preparation prod- cussion of when scientists will be able [to] attribute climate change to
ucts, however, must conform to the abilities of their customers. human causes, the editor removed the phrase we do not know be-
The Princeton Review Cracking the SAT and PSAT, 1997 Edition cause (in his opinion) it overstated doubts that human activity can be
by Adam Robinson and John Katzman, published by Random House, blamed. This was then falsely advertised as the peer reviewed text.
provides vocabulary lists and definitions as study aids for the verbal The IPCC is, however, beginning to provide data of value to the
test. Two examples: Sycophant is defined as one who sucks up to global warming debate. Figure 2 is from Is Global Climate at Risk
others. Jingoist is defined as an extreme patriot. by Sallie Baliunas at the 1996 DDP meeting in Salt Lake City in Au-
gust 1996 (audio tapes available from DDP at (520) 325-2680).
NUCLEAR PROGRESS

Nuclear Issues 18, No. 8, p4 (1996), reports that the percentages of

electricity generated by nuclear power worldwide were 1.5% in 1970,
5.4% in 1975, 8.45% in 1980, 14.3% in 1985, and 16.2% in 1990.
The United States now stands 18th in the world in percentage of
electricity generated by nuclear power with 23%. First and second
places are held by Lithuania and France with nuclear electric genera-
tion of 86% and 76% respectively.
In a closely related development, the CTR Technical Services, Inc.,
(5619 Misty Crest Drive, Arlington, TX 76017) Summer 1996 news-
letter reports the discovery of a new element.
The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or
electrons and thus an atomic number of zero (0). It does, however,
have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111
assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312. These
312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous
exchange of meson-like particles called morons.
Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. It can, however,
be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction with which it Figure 2
comes in contact. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of
administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete Based upon a linear extrapolation of the declining IPCC estimates
when it would normally have occurred in less than a microsecond. for global temperature increase by the year 2100, it can be estimated
Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three that the entire debate will shift back into the global cooling mode
years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reor- (where it was just a few years ago) in about the year 2003.
ganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant Meanwhile, the Clinton-Gore Administration has told the United
vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the mass Nations that it seeks an international agreement requiring the worlds
actually increases after each reorganization. industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent
Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium oc- global warming. Specific targets are to be announced in December
curs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain 1997. (See EPA Watch 5, No. 13, p 1, (1996), available from 1725
points such as government agencies, large corporations, and universi- DeSales Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036.)
ties. It can usually be found in the newest, best-appointed, and best- So far, the only significant environmental change from the rise in
maintained buildings. atmospheric carbon dioxide has been a marked increase in world plant
Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at and (presumably) animal growth. Increased Activity of Northern
any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reac- Vegetation Inferred from Atmospheric CO2 Measurements by C. D.
tion where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to de- Keeling, J. F. S. Chin, and T. P Whorf, Science 382, p 146 (1996),
termine how administratium can be controlled to prevent further reports seasonal increases in the CO2 cycle of 20% and greater. Surely
irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising. 20% more natural living things cannot be termed an enviro disaster.
 remain entirely vulnerable to nuclear, biological, or chemical warhead
LONGEVITY AND TECHNOLOGY
able to afford only one missile.
In several previous articles, we have given data showing the posi-
tive correlation of lifespan and technology such as last months com-
parison of Russian lifespans before and after the recent breakdown of
parts of their technological economy.
Directions magazine 1, p10 (1996), reports a 1990 Harvard study of
lifespan in 26 developed countries. This places the United States 16th
in the world in life expectancy with 78.6 years for women and 71.6
years for men. First and second place are held by Japan and France
with 82.5 years for women and 76.2 years for men & 81.3 years for
women and 72.9 years for men respectively. This is three years or a 4%
shorter life for Americans vs. the average of Japan and France.
Interestingly, the average percentage nuclear electricity generation
of Japan and France is 55% vs. 23% for the United States. Although
only a small part of this decreased lifespan could reasonably be attrib-
uted directly to energy production, nuclear power percentages are in-
dicative of the technological environments of these three countries.
The United States is 18th in nuclear power and 16th in life expec-
tancy. Thirty years ago, before we began diverting vast amounts of our
capital to welfare programs and destroying our industrial base with
taxes and regulations, the United States was first in almost everything.
l The ABCs of Environmental Myths by Michael Sanera and
LIVESTOCK AND WATER
about environmental brainwashing in socialized education. They
In November, Oregonians will vote on a state-wide initiative that is
being billed as a clean water measure. Phased in over a 10 year pe-
riod, this measure will prohibit any cow, sheep, goat, horse, chicken or
other livestock from approaching within less than 100 feet of any of
the waters of Oregon. Since the state already claims to own all rain-
drops in the state, this will even include stock ponds that are filled by
rainfall runoff on public or private land. It will not even be possible to
ride a horse through the woods and meadows of Oregon, since the state
is very extensively covered by streams.
Just to be sure that the initiative is not impeded by rural law en-
forcement, the measure allows anyone (including nonresident paid po-
litical enviro agitators) to sue any animal owner whose animal gets too
close to water. It also specifies that the animal owner will pay the
plaintiffs legal bills if the plaintiff prevails, but the plaintiff will not
pay the animal owners legal bills if the land owner prevails.
Many of the signatures that placed this measure on the ballot were
obtained by directly paying students at the Oregon state universities for
their signatures. National enviro organizations provided the money in
hopes of making Oregon an example for other states.
American freedom is particularly well entrenched in the Western
United States, so the enemies of freedom are especially active here.
gram as compared to the NASA bureaucracy which now envisions
STARK RAVING MAD
shuttles as justifications for another 10 years of papershuffling.
l The Phyllis Schlafly Report 29, No. 12, p3, July 1996, available
from P. O. Box 618, Alton, IL 62002, reports that in Cecil County,
Maryland, basketball is now played by some very unusual rules. If one
basketball team is ten points ahead of the other, additional baskets
dont count until the underdog team catches up. No record is kept of
who scores how many baskets, so no player can ever be recognized as
the star of the team.
This system should be called Outcome-Based Basketball because
its just like the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) that has spread
through our public schools like a contagious disease.
l The Shield 13, No. 3, pp 1-2, May/June 1996 available from High
Frontier, 2800 Shirlington Road, Suite 405, Arlington, VA 22206, re-
ports that the Clinton-Gore Administration has cut the missile defense
budget by 60% and completely stopped those programs that provide a
realistic potential for deployment of a missile defense. Moreover, they
have even refused to release those funds already appropriated for 1996.
By gutting this research program and preventing programs for test-
ing and deployment, this Administration is assuring that America will
missile attack from even the smallest third-world dictators who may be
l Poisons for Peace in The Wall Street Journal, p A18, Septem-
ber 9, 1996 reports that the Chemical Weapons Treaty now being en-
tered into by the Clinton-Gore Administration gives all signatories
access to all of Americas latest chemical technology. It prevents the
signatories from keeping chemicals, information, or equipment from
one another. In other words, sign the treaty and you get complete ac-
cess to everything required to build the latest chemical weapons. Com-
pliance is, of course, unverifiable, since small scale chemical
production is trivial to conceal.
Moreover, the treaty also prohibits the use of non-lethal chemicals.
This could place the military in the position where it would be forced
to shoot people because it is not allowed to use tear gas.
GOOD READING
l Ward Valley Projects Last Opponent, The Department of Inte-
rior in CITE Newsletter, April/May (1996) available from Citizens
for Total Energy, P. O. Box 563, Sunol, CA 94586, describing Clin-
ton-Gore Administration efforts to block rational disposal of low level
radioactive waste from hospitals and other similar sources.
Jane S. Shaw in The Wall Street Journal, p A14, September 4, 1996,
killed trees to make my bed, said a sad six-year-old. Menace, catas-
trophe, collapse, shortage, disaster, breakdown, alarm, degradation,
and deadly are the vocabulary words socialized educators use to de-
scribe human technological progress, while school laboratory exer-
cises include pouring acid on plants to see them die.
l As the World Burns and Glaciers Grow to the Sea by Dr. Robert
E. Stevenson available from Vega Society Press, P. O. Box 689, Del
Mar, CA 92014-0689, contains much well-written ammunition against
the antitechnology enviros.
l Toll Roads The Newsletter of Tolling Turnpikes Bridges &
Tunnels by Peter Samuel, 301 East Third Street, Frederick, MD
21701-5316, is a remarkable source of information about the science,
engineering, and politics behind the American road system.
l Battery Charging by Carl E. Krupp in Self-Reliant Living 172
(1996). Since the word survivalist has been thoroughly demonized
by the press, I will avoid it, but Carl Krupps publication contains a
wealth of practical information including the solutions to small energy
problems that arise in a self-sufficiency environment.
l Ad Astra The Magazine of the National Space Society,
May/June 1996. This is a wonderful source of articles by many indi-
viduals who are leading the drive to begin a real manned space pro-
three or four very expensive improved replacements for their space
l FEMA Money Come & Get It in The American Spectator
pp 25-31, September 1996, describing how the Clinton-Gore Admini-
stration has turned the Federal Emergency Management Agency into a
permanent political campaign tool for buying votes (now that they
have finished killing all of its original civil defense mission).
l Second Opinion, September 1996, which is a very sensibly bal-
anced source of information about personal health and medicine. Al-
ready a valuable source, this newsletter will be increasingly important
as the Clinton-Gore-Kennedy socialization of medicine continues.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1996 (Vol. 24, no. 3) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Human Bandwidth
If we let our most positive hopes for the future and our imagina-
tions zoom out from our present locations and from our present time,
what do the subscribers to Access to Energy mostly people who also
subscribe to the submasthead printed above envision?
In the early part of that zoom, most of us see an earth and solar
system filled with free men and women using and rapidly developing
the miracles of technology that science is now making possible. Our
power is nuclear; our homes, food, and means of transportation are
wonders of convenience and effectiveness; our lives are long and
healthful; and our technological creations are blended into a lush
natural environment that is continually enhanced by advancing tech-
nology. (For one truth that our pseudoenvironmentalist enemies pre-
tend to overlook is that free enterprise and advanced technology
enable mankind to be generous and benevolent toward his environ-
ment, while tyranny and a lack of that technology require him to
damage his environment in his struggle for survival.)
Zooming farther out in time, our individual secular images in-
creasingly diverge as our abilities to predict become more unstable.
As the stage upon which mankind is permitted to live expands to in-
clude the nearby stars, the technology at our disposal becomes more
difficult to imagine. Certainly, with freedom and time at our disposal,
that future can be wonderful indeed.
As this exercise continues, we divide into two distinct groups
both groups completely allied in their support for science, technol-
ogy, and freedom and yet differing in their expectations for the ulti-
mate future. One group is solely secular in its outlook, while the other
believes in more than just a secular world. In America, this belief is
primarily Christian and is based upon the Bible. The Robinson family
is in this group as were most (but not all) of the originators of the
great experiment in human freedom that is called the United States.
Our optimistic view of the future, whether we focus upon its tech-
nological wonders or on the fact that it is morally right, always in-
cludes human beings. For if humans are not there, what have we
accomplished? Slightly rearranging a small corner of the universe and
then ceasing to exist seems a poor goal for all of this effort. In any
case, humans will almost certainly be there. We have little choice in
that. Humans provide, of course, our secular means of getting from
here to there, our primary motivation for making the trip and also
our only major impediment to doing so.
For both of the two distinct groups mentioned above have sub-
groups (not usually subscribers to Access to Energy) whose enor-
mously exaggerated view of their own self-importance leads them to
work for various sorts of mental and physical tyranny. This tyranny
sometimes exercised only over small numbers of people under their
immediate control and sometimes the driving force behind dreams of
world domination is definitively anti-science, anti-technology, and
anti-free enterprise. Pleased to use the fruits that science, technology,
and free enterprise have already provided, these people generally
work to prevent further advance which they see as threatening to their
own self-interests. Their primary weapon is misinformation. This
weapon is effective because of human ignorance.
canisters of aerosol-borne anthrax spores and that the resulting epi-
POLITICALLY CORRECT GENOCIDE
women, and children. Moreover, at his subsequent press conference,
Suppose that next week one of those cute cars or trucks labeled for
official use only that we see all over our highways (the label means
that we pay for the vehicle with involuntary taxes, but it is illegal for us
to use it) were to drive upwind of an American city and release a few
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
Even as our information technology expands rapidly toward a
time when entire libraries recording the lives, thoughts, and progress
of billions of human beings will be made almost instantly available to
machines in our homes by wire transfer and by small pieces of plastic
memories, the bottleneck between us and human freedom lies in the
human mind. The bandwidth (information capacity) of our technol-
ogy is expanding enormously, but the bandwidth of the human mind
is not. The accuracy of our technological information is increasing,
but the accuracy of the human mind ever influenced by self-interest
and ignorance is not. Regardless of the specific outcomes, brutal
reminders of this are awaiting Americans in the November elections.
It is easy to thrive upon a cause that is shared by a large enough
market. To sing and dance each month for the entertainment of scien-
tists, technologists, and their free enterprise allies in the general public
is more recreation than work. There is lots of new technology to brag
about and the antitechnologists busily provide endless material for
ridicule in Stark Raving Mad. Thats entertainment, but it does not
solve our underlying problem a problem that could bury all of our
hopes in a thousand years of tyranny and mysticism if we prove un-
equal to its solution.
It is absolutely necessary that the small bandwidth the small ca-
pacity to learn in our own individual brains and in the brains of our
fellow human beings be filled with the truth about science and tech-
nology and the truth about human freedom. If we are serious about
the Access to Energy masthead and are not merely using it as a vehi-
cle for entertainment, then our job is not the easy one of ridiculing
ignorance. It is the hard job of educating our countrymen most of
whom are currently unknowledgeable not only of relevant facts, but
are even unskilled in the rational methods of thought by which those
facts may be properly understood.
Each human mind has only a small capacity, and it also learns at a
slow rate. Moreover, as it becomes older, the capacity to absorb new
knowledge (and fit it in around the accumulation of prejudices and
other irrational content) decreases. It is absolutely essential that fun-
damental thought processes be taught at an early age and be continu-
ally augmented with a reliable flow of useful and truthful facts.
For these reasons, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
has started a school. (We have no delusions of grandeur. Thousands
of such schools should be started.) Through our initial six self-teach-
ing home school CDs, we now have about 5,000 students between
the ages of 6 and 18. Soon, our CD curriculum will be expanded to a
set of twenty CDs containing a very complete curriculum up to age
18. With these, we hope that our student body will grow to about
20,000 during 1997. It is our plan to then start producing university
level courses. We hope, before the year 2000, to have a complete cur-
riculum through at least four-year college and to begin producing
graduate courses.
We make no apologies that our courses are designed to produce
students who are pro-science, pro-technology, and pro-freedom.
There are not two sides to these issues. There is only one side of
value the truth. The truth is the only thing that we will teach.
demic of suffering from this disease killed 2 million American men,
the President announced that he was pleased by the success of this
project and had ordered that it become a yearly event. Each year, two
million innocent Americans would be murdered by disease. He ex-
plains that he is acting on an Environmental Protection Agency report
concluding that the environment is suffering from the impact of too general and the global warming industry in particular.
many people, so the obvious solution is to kill some of them. Being a Figure 1 is a diagram from Uncertainties in Climate Modeling:
moderate in all things (and this being an election year), the President Solar Variability and Other Factors, a paper presented to the Com-
has decided to kill only 2 million per year. mittee on Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate by
In the ensuing debate, he is supported by the ever-loyal press, but an Sallie Baliunas (available from the George Marshall Institute, 1730 K
undercurrent of dissatisfaction develops because the two million dead Street N.W., Suite 905, Washington, DC 20006-3868).
happen to include a racially unbalanced mix of people and a large pro-
portion of voters from the political party opposed to the President.
A compromise is reached. Henceforth the anthrax will instead be
released upon countries outside of the United States. A couple more
aircraft carriers are budgeted for the fleet in case anyone objects.
This series of events is unthinkable. Right? Well, the details are
probably unthinkable, but the program is not just thinkable it is effec-
tively a current program of the Environmental Protection Agency, all
of whose employees work for the President of the United States.
Yesterdays Malaria Wars by Robert S. Desowitz in Nature 383,
p 135 (1996), reviews a book The Tomorrow of Malaria by S. Litsios
which gives an account of malarias current annual toll 300 million
cases with 2 million deaths. DDT is gone.
Green and Gold 6, No. 7, September 1996, p 4, P. O. Box 74416,
Lynwood Ridge, Pretoria 0040, South Africa, quotes a 1994 World
Health Organization report that the number of countries considered to
be malarial rose from 90 in 1992 to 140 in 1994. In 1994, the 140 in-
cluded 33% of the world. WHO estimated the annual cases at 500 mil-
lion, with 2 million deaths and 90% of the cases occurring in Africa.
Remembering Silent Spring and Its Consequences by J. Gordon Figure 1
Edwards, available by preprint from Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, Depart-
ment of Biological Sciences, San Jose State University, One Washing- Since errors in the climate change models are much larger than the
ton Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0100, should be in every biology the predicted greenhouse effect, the modeling scientists should have
class. Edwards gives the science, nonscience and politics behind the disqualified their own models as irrelevant to the global warming hy-
EPA ban of DDT even though the EPAs own investigations con- pothesis. That this must be done by another scientist before the United
cluded that DDT was not harmful to man, fish, birds, or other wildlife. States Senate reveals improper actions by the modeling scientists.
Edwards writes that a reporter asked Charles Wurster, chief scien-
tist for the Environmental Defense Fund, if a DDT ban wouldnt re- TECHNOLOGICAL DEFLATION
sult in the greater use of much more toxic pesticides that had a long
history of killing people. Wursters response, So what? People are the Technological progress is continuously reducing the costs of pro-
cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get duction, so the cost of living should also be continuously decreasing.
rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any. He was then Unfortunately, the hidden tax of government money printing confis-
asked: Doctor, how do you square the killing of people with the mere cates this benefit. Still, in the theoretical world of constant 1995 dol-
loss of some birds [although the science showed birds were not being lars, it is remarkable to see this advance of technology as shown in
harmed by DDT]? Wurster answered: It doesnt really make a lot of Figure 2 reproduced from Electricity Costs: Nuclear Closes Gap with
difference, because the organo phosphate acts locally and only kills Coal in Nuclear Energy Insight 96, pp 1-5, available from the Nu-
farm-workers, and most of them are Mexicans and Negroes. clear Energy Institute, Suite 400, 1776 I Street, N.W., Washington, DC
Ah well, so there were unwise statements by extremists. Right! Ex- 20006-3708. The averaged costs of fuel, operating, and maintenance
cept that the DDT ban, currently in effect and completely under the costs in 1995 were 1.88, 1.92, 2.68, and 3.77 cents per kilowatt hour
control of the President of the United States and his employees at the for coal, nuclear, natural gas, and oil respectively.
EPA, is still killing 2 million people per year and causing suffering for
hundreds of millions more and most of them just happen to be South Fuel, Operating, and Maintenance
and Central Americans and Negroes (and some other races in Asia). Cents per Kilowatt Hour
As Marjorie M. Hecht reports in Bring Back DDT to Defeat Ma-
laria and Save Lives in 21st Century Science and Technology, avail-
able from P. O. Box 16285, Washington, DC 20041, even in localities
where mosquito strains have developed resistance to DDT, it is effec-
tive in repelling these insects from treated houses if not in killing them.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, DDT saved 500
million lives before it was banned. This is an ongoing story of political
power, nonscience, and genocide on a scale rivaled only by the mass
killings under Stalin and Mao. It is not mitigated by the claims from
the EPA and the President that they are acting with good intentions.

ANALYSIS OF ERRORS

In the evaluation of every quantitative scientific investigation, it is

mandatory that the scientist give a quantitative evaluation of the errors
inherent in his work. Along with many other principles of ordinary
honesty, however, the analysis of errors has been a casualty of press Figure 2
conference publication, politically correct interpretation, and the tax-
money driven pseudoethics that are the hallmarks of enviroscience in
 Figure 3

sors pandering to government bureaucrats. The endowments of Ameri-

MAKING THE GRADE can academic institutions and private capital would fund at least half of
our current scientific establishment the better half and that half,
Making the grade. Democrats ranked much higher than Republi- freed of politics, could return its attention to the truth. The quality of
cans did in a controversial analysis of 30 science-related votes in the American basic science could once again increase, since recognition
House was the subtitle on Figure 3 in Science 273, p 1793 (1996) in would be based upon accomplishment instead of money-raising.
the article Congressional Scorecard Sparks Furor by A. Lawler.
Calling itself Science-Watch Services Inc. and referred to by
Science as a group of distinguished scientists, a gaggle of tax-
spenders released their scorecard of the Members of the House of
Representatives based on 30 floor votes during the 104th Congress.
This scorecard was released just six weeks before the November 1996
election and published by Science five weeks before the election.
The controversy and furor referred to by Science has nothing
to do with the scorecard. The worry is that Republicans might retain
control of the House of Representatives, and their help may be needed
to fill the porkbarrel during coming years.
From Global Warming to the ban of CFC refrigerants, from DDT
to Endangered Species, and from Missile Defense to nuclear power, if
you are wondering why the United States seems to continually pursue
public policies that are the opposite of those that would be expected
based on rational scientific data and evaluations and why there are
always sufficient scientists and prestigious scientific publications
available to propagate the erroneous ideas upon which these wrong- Figure 4
headed policies are based, you need look no further than Figure 3.
Pro-science, to the horde of non-defense researchers funded Without government-paid physical and economic scientists dis-
each year by $33 billion of your tax dollars, means voting more money torting facts, Americans could be freed from many of the regulatory
for the research porkbarrel and anti-science means voting for less. burdens that have no rational scientific basis. That cost is illustrated in
For the spenders, pro-science also means bias and sometimes out- Figures 4 and 5 from Ten Thousand Commandments by C. W. Crews,
right lying about scientific matters if their big-spending political Jr. (1996) from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut
friends are in need of support; it means avoiding politically incorrect Avenue, N. W., Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036.
experiments that might produce data contrary to
the policies of these big spenders; and it means
producing blizzards of research papers with po-
litically correct biases in order to keep the
money flowing in the authors directions. The
competition is not for better science, it is for sci-
ence that more nearly conforms to the desires of
those who hold the purse strings. Also, even
among honest scientists, it means keeping quiet
about ones misgivings about the activities of
colleagues which may affect the flow of money.
If this $33 billion dollar annual porkbarrel
were removed from the backs of the American
taxpayers, the United States would be richer by
far more than this amount.
Science would be healthier if it were purged
of second-rate people who are only there as a re-
sult of money instead of ability. First-rate scien-
tists would be free to pursue their work rather
than being trapped in offices with word proces- Figure 5
 Once, we observed one eating a sheep at noon. Perhaps the cougars
RADIATION, CHILDREN, AND TAX MONEY
l Is Your Kid on Drugs? The FDA Makes It Hard to Know in
Effects of Radiation on Children in Nature 383, p 226 (1996), is
an exchange of letters by scientists attempting to detect evidence of
genetic changes in children in the children of Japanese atomic bomb
survivors and in children living near the Chernobyl accident. The Japa-
nese children show no detectable effect at all. The two research groups
are now squabbling over the Chernobyl data, which apparently can be
made to show a small effect if one is not too careful about controls and
ignores the small number of children under study. In other words, the
scientists are still looking and are hoping for a politically correct result.
This is separate from the acknowledged 700 excess cases of thyroid
cancer in children resulting in three deaths near Chernobyl. These re-
sulted from Soviet negligence in not providing the children with thy-
roid blocking doses of iodide during the weeks following the accident.
The radiation effect studies, as is now so common, focus upon find-
ing a measurable effect rather than upon finding differences in health.
Recently, during a visit to our laboratory here by a tax-funded sci-
entist, I was explaining that we are finding that the health and longevity
of mice is not diminished even at carbon dioxide concentrations as
high as 3,000 parts per million (the current atmospheric level is about
360 ppm, and 700 ppm is at the outer limit of most future global sce-
narios). Yes, our visitor exclaimed, but did you measure their 922 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Washington, DC 20003. Zubrin calcu-
blood pH? No, we are interested in their health and longevity. If
health is not diminished, there is little motivation to look for reasons
for nonexistent ill health. Regardless of substantial buffering, a slight
change in blood pH might occur at very high carbon dioxide levels, but
why would this be of importance? He disagreed. Those blood pH
measurements were, in his opinion, of very great importance.
If we were among the new breed of tax-guzzling scientists, how-
ever, we would probably agree with him. We would look for changes
in blood pH and not bother with the laborious health and longevity
studies. Just raise the carbon dioxide level around a few rabbits until a
blood pH change is detected (carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid
when dissolved in water, and pH meters are now very sensitive), call a
press conference, issue dire warnings about the potential health effects
of this newly discovered phenomenon, and send the resulting articles
in the popular press to the Environmental Protection Agency and the
National Institutes of Health along with grant requests for a few hun-
dred thousand more tax dollars per year.
If we were really astute, we would use baby rabbits. Relating the
new crisis to the children should ensure an even larger tax grant.
Biological systems are so complicated and measuring instruments
are now so sensitive that it is trivial to find a measurable difference and
then relate it to some hypothetical problem by convolutions of reason-
ing that can be neither confirmed or refuted by honest scientists. Then
press conference generated tax dollars can be made to flow copiously
over the whole charade.
April 1996, pp 24-33, concerning the lack of evidence that magnetic
STARK RAVING MAD
l Downer for Electric Cars by Constance Holden in Science
l Loggers World 32, No. 10, p 35, available from 4206 Jackson
Highway, Chehalis, WA 98532-8425, quotes a report in the Land
Rights Letter concerning Dr. Paul Beier, a wildlife ecologist at
Northern Arizona State University.
Commenting to the New York Times over the California Ballot
Proposition that would have lifted the strict protections on the states
mountain lions, Beier said, But now we know that if were going to
have mountain lions around, maybe theyre going to eat us now and
then. Im comfortable with that, but a lot of people may not be.
Oregon forests were awash in cougars (mountain lions) before
ecological controls were instituted here. Now, so are our farms and
rural neighborhoods. A large number of emus, a horse, and a group of
pigs were killed in separate attacks by cougars recently on farms
neighboring to ours. The cougars have lost much of their fear of hu-
mans and their nocturnal habits. The Robinson children have been
chased from our fields several times in broad daylight by cougars.
will develop a taste for ecologists before they start eating us.
The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 1996, p A12, reports that
David Kesslers Food and Drug Administration is blocking a home
urine test for drugs. The FDA does not find the kit defective. They
claim instead that families cannot be trusted to handle the results. The
FDA also threatened a mail order company that performed drug tests
on hair samples by claiming that the envelope used for mailing the hair
to the lab was a medical device.
This is the same Dr. Kessler who is using the FDA to wage an elec-
tion year regulatory war on cigarette companies because he claims to
be concerned that children may take up smoking.
l During a recent visit to our new local Barnes and Noble giant
bookstore, I found long shelves of books for children that focus on col-
ored pictures rather than text, over a hundred titles on Attention Deficit
Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, and exactly one
book on learning to read by phonics.
GOOD READING
l The Need For A Space Frontier by Robert Zubrin in Ad Astra,
May/June 1996, pp 6-9, available from The National Space Society,
lates that, the cost in terms of energy of launching a person to orbit is
less than that of flying him across the Atlantic, while the energy cost of
a trip to Mars is less than the cost of an airplane flight from New York
to Sydney. The problem is that we dont yet have spacecraft that we
build and fly like aircraft.
l Cold Fusion and the Press by Charles G. Beaudette as re-
printed by Cold Fusion magazine from The Torch 66, No. 1, Fall 1993,
ISSN 0040-9448, published by Bostrom Corp. We now seem to have
two forms of energy politically correct and politically incorrect.
Some cold fusion laboratories are producing large amounts of the
latter form and are working toward an understanding of its source.
l Ozone Layer Monitoring Resumes in Nature 383, p 294
(1996). This is a short article about the orbiting Total Ozone Mapping
Spectrometer, including a colored figure that puts world ozone levels
in an easily visualized perspective.
l The Optimists are Right by John Tierney in New York Times
Magazine, September 29, 1996. Technology is continuing to revolu-
tionize the world and increase the quality of human life and the envi-
ronment. Doomsaying is popular, and it is also quite wrong.
l On Catching Fly Balls in Science 273, pp 256-260, which in-
cludes three articles by scientists studying the techniques that outfield-
ers use in arriving at the right places at the right times to catch fly balls.
These supplement the Access to Energy 22, No. 10, p 2 (1995), article
Fly Balls based on the work of one of these three groups.
l Apocalypse Not by Jon Palfreman in Technology Review,
fields produced by electric power lines are harmful to health.
274, pp 183-184 (1996), reporting research work concluding that put-
ting 500,000 electric cars on the streets of Los Angeles would reduce
ozone levels from 200 parts per billion to 199 parts per billion or about
0.5 %. A California Air Resources Board bureaucrat is quoted as say-
ing that the electric cars should still be required because there isnt
anything out there that provides a 2%, 5%, or 10% ozone reduction.
All the easy stuff was done 20 years ago.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1996 (Vol. 24, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Eureka
Each of the three institutions that Access to Energy advocates has
become a part of our civilization as a result of enormous amounts of
work and sacrifice by many people over the past few centuries. That
they are interwoven in our environment in this brief time during
which we have been given to live is wonderful indeed. It is a privilege
and a duty of each person who benefits from freedom, technology,
and science to defend and extend them to the best of his ability.
Of the three, the rise of freedom is the most difficult to explain and
yet the easiest to understand. The desire for freedom is fundamental
to human nature. Each of us understands, at least viscerally, our
great preference to be free, and, regardless of our differences, under-
stands that freedom is morally right a truth needing no explanation.
Each of us carries within his own intuition an appreciation of the rea-
son that many millions of people have given their lives for freedom.
Technology is the result of engineering the manipulation of the
environment in efforts to change the human condition. For thousands
of years all of recorded history man has struggled to change his
environment in order to increase the quality and length of human life
and to improve the nature of human life. Unfortunately, throughout
that period, some men have also worked to build technology for
negative reasons, particularly technology that can be used to enslave
others and take away their freedom. In all cases, however, technology
can be described as human-controlled environmental change.
We know that our environment changes over time whether or not
we cause that change. The earth is a dynamic system biologically,
geologically, and astronomically. We now have the ability in small
ways to affect that change, but most environmental change is still
far beyond the control of man.
Those who have adopted the worship of a static, unchanged envi-
ronment in the new animal and plant-centered religion that they call
environmentalism (and we call pseudoenvironmentalism) have
adopted a lost cause. They advocate a world with less technology, but
their stated goals could only be fulfilled by technology so advanced
that it will probably still remain the province of science fiction for
many centuries to come.
To the limits of his ability, however, man has always struggled to
improve the environment to his own benefit. The invention of the
wheel, the control of fire, crude metallurgy, primitive agriculture, and
the many other helpful technologies that engineers developed in the
first few recorded millennia greatly improved the microenvironment
immediately surrounding human beings. These engineers produced
many valuable things. Their accomplishments are especially remark-
able in that their work was almost entirely empirical. They had little
fundamental understanding of the materials with which they worked.
They knew only a little mathematics and essentially no science.
Gradually they built an environment for man sufficiently ad-
vanced that he was able to take the next step the development of
science. Science then provided the understanding necessary for a sus-
tained advance in engineering which created our modern civilization.
What, however, is the nature of true science or scientists of
whom there are far fewer than is generally realized? Although there
his illness and some to counteract the side effects of treatment, Mike
RADIATION HORMESIS
many healthy men even if they did not have leukemia. Finally, he de-
As I write this, a friend of mine is near death a few miles from here.
Over the past three years, Mike and his insurers have paid $450,000 for
medical treatments for leukemia. Hospitalized seven times, months on
kidney dialysis, 41 blood transfusions, and a river of drugs some for
Copyright 1996 by Access to Energy
are now many hundreds of thousands of people with educational de-
grees in science, very few of these people are actually scientists
those whose work and insights truly advance modern science. Most
scientists, are, in reality, technicians whose activities have be-
come a profitable business in this era of $33 billion annual tax-fi-
nanced, non-defense research and government regulations that
require huge industrial expenditures for unnecessary procedures.
True scientists are unusual people not superior people, just peo-
ple with unusual characteristics. I have been fortunate to know some
such people and leave it to the opinion of others as to whether I
should be included as one of them. Their characteristics are these:
First, they are literally in love with their research work the day-
to-day work itself not the cause (such as curing a disease), not the
breakthroughs or stunning discoveries they might make, not the
awards or fame they might receive, not the money they are paid, and
not the personal research empire they might build. They think about
their work continuously, 24 hours per day, even when they are asleep.
Second, they are specialists. They tend to know a very large
amount about a very small part of the physical world. Most research
problems are sufficiently difficult that this specialization is required.
Third, they have learned to think quantitatively, and they fre-
quently make a game of quantitative mental calculations. If two or
more of them happen to be talking together at a social function, they
often may be heard in friendly competition with one another in calcu-
lating all sorts of simple things that would not interest other people.
Fourth, they are scrupulously honest about their work. In the
words of Richard Feynman, A scientists highest obligation is to
prove himself wrong. This requires active honesty a refusal to ig-
nore any experimental result and a continual active search for infor-
mation bearing on his hypotheses, whether positive or negative.
Fifth, most of the true scientists I have known were quite modest
individuals. An honest confrontation with the mysteries of the physi-
cal world is a humbling experience. Few individuals can experience
this confrontation without a marked tempering of their egos as in the
case of Isaac Newton, probably the greatest of all scientists, who said:
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to
myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the
seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Occasionally, a scientist will have a special success in his work.
Something he has been trying to do will finally yield to his efforts.
That thing may be large or small. It may have great significance or
little significance. To him, however, in the tiny, special world that he
inhabits, it is an occasion to say eureka. As he remembers his life,
the few times that this has occurred stand out as special memories.
The small eurekas and the large eurekas are additive and gradually
build the body of scientific knowledge. Upon that knowledge stand
the formidable engineering accomplishments of modern man.
has undergone a regime of medical procedures that would have killed
cided to quit all treatment. Remarkably, as soon as he did this, almost
all of the symptoms of his illness disappeared. Still, he is so weak
from the disease and medicine that he may not survive. What could
have been done to spare him this suffering?
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Science and Honor
Many years ago, I was listening to a lecture by a Los Angeles po-
liceman concerning civilian survival on the streets of his city. He ad-
vised that now it was best to resist muggers rather than to submit as
had been sensible in earlier days. Apparently, muggers were now so
capriciously violent that ones chance of survival was greater through
immediate resistance rather than cooperation. As the policeman fin-
ished making this point, a voice from the side of the room said:
Besides, not to resist would be dishonorable.
That voice belonged to Jeff Cooper. Even then, in the late 1970s,
most of the audience searched their passive memories for the word
dishonorable and realized that it was no longer in their active vo-
cabularies. Yet, their freedom and their way of life were substantially
dependent upon this precept. The United States was created, pre-
served, and protected for 200 years primarily by people who under-
stood clearly and valued greatly the principle of personal honor.
Harassment at VMI by John McGinnis in The Wall Street
Journal, December 19, 1996, p A18, describes Clinton administra-
tion efforts to change the Honor Code of the Virginia Military Insti-
tute. For 157 years this code has read in full: A cadet will neither lie,
cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. Now, the retainers of Bill
Clinton, whose sexual misconduct is legendary, demand that VMI di-
lute its Honor Code with a discussion of sexual harassment.
Honor codes are not taught in courses. They are taught by the only
means that human beings really learn the most important things in life
they are taught by example. As simple as possible in statement, they
must become a way of life. Moreover, just as young military officers
must be taught a code of honor, so must young scientists.
When I attended the California Institute of Technology (1959-
1963), the Institute honor code was even simpler than VMIs. It said
in full: You will not take unfair advantage of your fellow man.
That is the text to the best of my memory, since I did not see it in
written form, and no course or lecture ever mentioned it. It was taught
entirely by the example of the faculty and upperclassmen and it was
very strictly enforced.
A board of students, one elected from each student house and pre-
sided over by the vice president of the student body, investigated
complaints and determined punishment. This board considered
knowledge of a violation without reporting it (designated toleration at
VMI) to be as serious as the violation itself. The proceedings were
confidential and final. I know of one student who was expelled from
Caltech after this board verified that he had pretended to be ill so as to
have more time to study for an examination. He did not cheat during
the exam. He just took a makeup exam later as result of his illness.
I once accidentally lost my slide rule on the campus. Weeks later, I
found it in the classroom where I had left it. Theft was unthinkable
it was dishonorable. Nor was this code only for students. One ten-
ured and quite famous Caltech faculty member was stripped of most
of his privileges and eventually caused to resign by the weight of fac-
ulty opinion as a result of dishonorable conduct, even though he had
carefully avoided actions that would violate his contract of tenure.
ing the atmosphere. This global warming is depicted as so poten-
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE VARIATION
participation in international treaties to sharply reduce the use of hy-
As even young grade school children know, thanks to the propa-
ganda organs of the National Education Association and its retainers,
the greatest environmental worry on planet Earth today is that the hu-
man release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is warm-
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
There have, of course, always been soldiers and scientists whose
behavior was often dishonorable. Moreover, there probably has never
been a soldier or a scientist who did not, at some time in his life, com-
mit at least one dishonorable act. With, however, the principle of per-
sonal honor pervasive among ones peers and dishonorable conduct
not tolerated by those peers, such actions are rare and usually quickly
corrected and punished when they do occur.
Readers of Access to Energy often write that they appreciate the
ammunition that it provides them for argument against the ozone
and global warming frauds and other dishonest misuses of science
that have become so pervasive in our body politic. Such ammunition
is useful, but the greater need is for peer pressure against dishonorable
conduct against those who engage in it and those who tolerate it.
Global Warmers Wirth and Schneider, Nuclear Winter Sagan, Re-
source Depletion Ehrlich, Radiation Demonizer Pauling, the Ozone
Depletion Trio, and the gaggles of Chemical Haters and Innovation
Repressors at the EPA and FDA have a characteristic in common
they have practiced dishonest and, therefore, dishonorable science.
The greater problem, however, is that their lies and distortions are
tolerated by their peers.. By this, I do not mean that they should be
prevented from writing or speaking. Free expression is an absolutely
essential part of freedom and must not be abridged.
I mean that their dishonorable conduct in self-serving exaggera-
tion and in outright lies about the truths of science should be immedi-
ately met with outrage by their peers. The scientific community
should not tolerate dishonesty. It should respond vigorously and, by
peer pressure, reduce the effects and frequency of fraudulent science.
Unfortunately, during the past 40 years, the American scientific
community has gradually lost its intoleration of dishonorable scien-
tific conduct. Where this intoleration remains, it is primarily found
among scientists in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s in age.
Personal pragmatism has replaced honor among scientists, espe-
cially with the hammers of government funding hanging over the
heads of most academic scientists and government regulation over
the heads of most industrial scientists. Pragmatism says get along by
going along and do not speak up against fraud when such speech
can be avoided. The second part of the honor codes of VMI and
Caltech are being violated by most scientists. They are tolerating dis-
honorable conduct. Were this not so, the chorus of voices raised in
opposition to the frauds mentioned above would completely cancel
the effect of those frauds upon our political process, and peer pressure
against such frauds would markedly reduce their frequency.
Science is the study of natural truth. It progresses by a rigorous
process of experiments, ideas, hypotheses, and theories. There is
room within this process for almost any thoughts and trials. As a
trustworthy discipline, science can serve as an anchor of rationality
for the great benefit of our civilization. It cannot serve this purpose,
however, if dishonorable conduct is common and tolerated within it.
This dishonorable conduct is the greatest problem in science to-
day. It must be eliminated by example by honorable acts of intolera-
tion by greater numbers of our scientists and scientific institutions.
tially catastrophic that the Clinton Administration is on the verge of
drocarbon fuels which release carbon dioxide when burned.
The propagandists use is warming rather than may be warm-
ing, since they claim that a consensus of world scientists agrees that
this is so and that, even if there is doubt, the terrible consequences of
 Figure 1

global warming morally justify error on the side of certainty. It turns out that there is an isotope effect whereby cold-blooded or-
Whatever the consequences of the hypothetical construct called ganisms incorporate different amounts of the stable isotope oxygen 18
global warming may be, it is clear that the consequences of political into their tissues as a function of the temperature of their environment.
acceptance of this construct are likely to be dire indeed. Loss of hydro- By measuring oxygen 18 in the remains of tiny marine organisms (liv-
carbon fuel use, especially in economically poorer regions, will cause ing on the surface and sinking to the bottom when they die) in the sedi-
enormous losses of human life and increases in human suffering. Even ment of a rise in the Sargasso Sea (a region in the Atlantic Ocean) and
in well-developed countries, resulting dislocations will be severe. dating the sediment by means of carbon 14, the graph in Figure 1 of
Unfortunately, global warming has a powerful political constitu- temperature vs. time over the last 3,000 years was constructed. The
ency. Never before has there been such a colorably well-intentioned sedimentary cores represented in Figure 1 were about 20 inches long
reason for the extension of global political tyranny. World govern- 7 inches per 1,000 years.
ment, national governments, and the politicians and bureaucrats who (Carbon 14 is continually produced by cosmic rays in the upper at-
control them will have an opportunity to tighten a vise-like grip around mosphere, but it is unstable and decays with a half-life of 5,700 years.
all citizens in order to enforce the proposed draconian hydrocarbon The exact amount relative to carbon 12 in the atmosphere as a function
controls. This is not freon and ozone. Loss of refrigeration is bad, but of time during recent millennia can be checked by reference to tree
loss of access to energy is much worse. rings in very old trees and by other means. Therefore, the carbon 14 vs.
A similar scam was tried once before in the form of alleged loom- carbon 12 ratio can be used to determine the time during which dead
ing shortages of hydrocarbons and the energy crisis, but plentiful, organisms in samples of unknown age were alive.)
undiminishing supplies of hydrocarbons spoiled the game. Global There is an effect of changing salinity on oxygen 18 values which
warming is different because it alleges a future catastrophe that is more reduces the variability shown in Figure 1, but it is also known from
difficult for untrained individuals to understand direct measurements that sea surface temperatures at this location vary
Some people who are in the business of science have been quick less than the average of other locations. To a first approximation, these
to realize that the politicians and bureaucrats who are gaining power two opposite effects may be assumed to cancel. This is also verified by
and wealth from this scare are willing to pay almost any price to in- comparison of these measured temperatures with comparable tree-ring,
crease the scientific credibility of global warming. Essentially un- glacier, and other studies at different locations, which confirm the
limited cash in the form of tax-financed research grants, expense-paid shape and magnitude of the graph (see Keigwin paper for references).
trips to world conferences, notoriety in the public media, and appoint- In Figure 1, the direct temperature measurements since 1954 are
ments to perk-enhanced positions are easy to obtain by simply adding also plotted as highlighted by the arrow labeled Station S. Note
ones dishonorable voice to the correct side of this issue. the gradual rise during the past three centuries as the temperature fluc-
The public is, however, becoming a little surly at the prospect of tuated back from the lows of The Little Ice Age. The warmer period
losing its hydrocarbons, so a game called detection of the first signs during the Middle Ages about 1,000 years ago when global climate
of global warming has become popular. As chronicled in many past was milder and more ideal than today is also evident. The range during
issues of Access to Energy, this game is consistently being lost by the the past 40 years provides a measure of short term variability, while the
global warmers. Their response has been to simply declare themselves overall graph shows long term averages during the last three millennia.
winners anyway. An international cacophony of it is no, it Is the planet warming up? Yes. It is currently in an upward fluctua-
isnt it is no, it isnt with accompanying name-calling is tion from an unusually cold period with todays temperatures still sub-
about all that leaks through to the man on the street. stantially colder than the median of the last 3,000 years. Further
Has modern science really lost the ability to measure temperature perspective on the global warming debate is provided by the fact
and agree upon the results? No. The problem is that, as every child that the global warmers are currently spending oodles of your tax dol-
also knows, temperatures fluctuate. So, when they go up, the global lars claiming (without good reason) that they may have detected a dan-
warmers cheer, and when they go down, they change the subject to gerous man-made increase in temperature of about 0.2 C. This is
mythical ozone holes and other concerns. The absurdity of all of about 5% of the natural fluctuation during the past 3 millennia. Clearly,
this is well illustrated by Figure 1 which is adapted from The Little this claim is ridiculous. Moreover, their current scenarios for future
Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea by Lloyd D. temperature levels without emission controls are within the range in
Keigwin, Science 274, pp 1504-1508, 29 November (1996). Figure 1 (see Access to Energy 24, No 2, p 3 (1996)).
 that Thomas Jefferson approved keeping the spirit of armed rebellion
THOMAS JEFFERSON
blood of patriots and tyrants. Thus, OBrien claims, Jefferson serves
Among his many many accomplishments, Thomas Jefferson was
one of Americas early scientists and engineers. Visitors to his home
today can view many of his inventions and one of his errors a clock
that was not correctly designed. Jefferson had to cut a hole in the floor
to permit its function. Especially interesting is his copying machine
which consists of mechanically-linked quill pens that created a dupli-
cate while he was writing.
His greatest accomplishments were, of course, as principal author
of the Declaration of Independence and as one of the prime movers
behind the establishment of American liberty. His epitaph, which he
wrote himself, emphasizes the attainments that he held highest. It does
not mention that he was twice President of the United States. Perhaps
he thought we would remember (or maybe he anticipated the possibil-
ity of William Jefferson Clinton).
A famous story is of a dinner for Nobel Prize winners that President
Kennedy held at the White House. Kennedy is said to have remarked
to the assembled guests that there had not been so much intellect in that
room since Thomas Jefferson dined there alone.
Like hundreds of millions of other people in many nations, I greatly
admire the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. A visit to the Jefferson Memo-
rial including its engraved passages from some of his greatest writings
is inspiring indeed. He doubtless had many faults and failures and
made many mistakes, but his special contributions have enriched us all.
(Ten years ago, while looking up Isaac Newton in the rare books
section of the Library of Congress, I came upon the only book Newton
wrote about the Bible a study of the Prophecies of Daniel and John.
A few minutes after asking to see it, I was handed Thomas Jeffersons
personal copy. It still bears his initials. Jefferson sold his books to Con-
gress to pay his debts. These books were the beginning of the Library
of Congress. Later, I obtained a microfilm of the book, and we publish-
ed an exact facsimile of Jeffersons copy. Still in print today, this has
been a very popular publication.)
Now, I have read how terribly wrong have been my impressions.
We may need to go through our entire inventory of books crossing out
Jeffersons initials. Written by one Conor Cruise OBrien, illustrated
by Ben Verkaaik, and published by The Atlantic Monthly, October
1996, pp 53-74 is the article Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist
with the subheading, In the multiracial American future Jefferson
will not be thought of as the Sage of Monticello. His flaws are beyond
redemption. The sound you hear is the crashing of a reputation. The
National Review, April 22, 1996, pp 29-32 and November 25, 1996,
pp 67-69, has joined this pogrom with Liberalism and Terror by
Conor Cruise OBrien and Doubting Thomas by Forest McDonald.
Jeffersons flaws? Well, of course, he kept slaves as did George
Washington. Both men disliked slavery, sought to end it, and suffered
financially from neglecting their slave-owning duties while in public
service. This is not, however, OBriens primary complaint. His main
argument is that Jefferson disliked slavery all slavery, too much, and
was too vigorous and uncompromising in his advocacy of human free-
dom. Moreover (and this is especially remarkable in view of the diffi-
culties Jefferson endured as a result of his efforts to interpret the Bible
himself rather than accepting the precepts of organized religion),
OBrien tells us that Jefferson was too religious.
In a double shot, OBrien tries simultaneously to dilute Jeffersons
contribution to the Declaration of Independence and discredit him as a
religious fanatic by pointing to changes others on the committee made
in his original text. His prime example is Benjamin Franklins phrase
We hold these truths to be self-evident which replaced Jeffersons
original, We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.
OBrien could better have used Jeffersons statement, I have
sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyr-
anny over the mind of man.
OBrien admits that Abraham Lincoln quoted extensively from Jef-
ferson, but warns that Confederate leaders did also and that Jefferson
has even been quoted by the Klu Klux Klan. He is especially disturbed
alive in America and elsewhere refreshed from time to time with the
as justification for every patriot and pseudopatriot regardless of
whether or not OBrien approves their cause. He notes that domestic
terrorists have quoted Jefferson, so apparently Jefferson should share
the blame for any actions that they take.
McDonald is even more vituperative. He describes Jefferson as a
devious, wily, deceptive paranoid filled with bloodlust. He states
that the twentieth-century statesman he [Jefferson] would have ad-
mired most is Pol Pot. Pol Pot brutally murdered a large percentage
of the helpless civilian population of Cambodia.
Under this vicious rhetoric, it is evident that the essence of their at-
tack is that Jefferson was the most articulate and effective intellectual
spokesman for individual human freedom as a cause worth dying for
that America has ever produced. OBrien, McDonald (whose is
brought to us courtesy of the University of Alabama where he is a pro-
fessor), The Atlantic Monthly, and National Review believe that the
time for such thoughts has passed and that Jefferson is, therefore, a
dangerous anachronism.
I agree with OBrien and McDonald that the words of Thomas Jef-
ferson are dangerous. They are dangerous to those who would turn the
United States and perhaps the whole world into one giant plantation
wherein all people, except for a privileged few, are perpetual eco-
nomic, social, and (where they resist) physical slaves. Thomas Jeffer-
son is dangerous to C. C. OBrien and F. McDonald, and to The
Atlantic Monthly and National Review not to you and me.
INTRINSIC MUTATIONS
The Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation by Myron Polly-
cove, Health & Environment Digest 10, No. 7, pp 52 -54, November
(1996), available from the Freshwater Foundation, 2500 Shadywood
Road, Excelsior, MN 55331, is an excellent summary of some of the
best experiments showing that ionizing radiation, in low to moderate
doses, increases human health. These have been described in previous
issues of Access to Energy except for Mortality from Breast Cancer
after Irradiation during Fluoroscopic Examination in Patients Being
Treated for Tuberculosis, A. B. Miller, et al, New England Journal of
Medicine 321, pp 1285-1289 (1989). In this study, breast cancer deaths
decreased by 40% in women who received about 0.15 Gy of radiation.
At about 0.35 Gy, the death rate was the same as for women who were
not irradiated. Above 0.35 Gy, the death rate gradually increased to a
level of about twice the nonirradiated group at 1.75 Gy.
Pollycove summarizes the molecular biological discoveries (appro-
priate literature references are in his article) that permit us to under-
stand why radiation improves health as follows:
1. The very high background of intrinsic potential mutations
(240,000/cell/day) produced by reactive oxygen metabolytes (ROM:
free radicals and H2O2) and thermal instability compared to 20 poten-
tial mutations produced predominately by the free radicals generated
by 1 r of low linear energy transfer (LET) radiation. By comparison,
the average background radiation in the U.S., including radon, is ap-
proximately one-third r. In addition, by fundamental limitations on the
accuracy of DNA replication and repair, every single gene is likely to
undergo 400,000 unrepaired mutations per day in each person.
2. The presence of an active DNA damage control biosystem that,
until declining with age, effectively prevents, repairs and removes in-
trinsic and environmental mutations.
3. The activity of the DNA damage control biosystem is de-
creased by high dose (e.g., at or above 100r), high-dose-rate (at or
above 20r per m) radiation, but adaptively responds with increased ac-
tivity to low dose (e.g., at or below 20r), low-dose-rate (e.g., at or be-
low 1r per m) radiation as well as low-dose toxic chemical agents.
In other words, the ordinary chemical deterioration and rebuilding
of cellular genetic material in living things is so great in magnitude that
deterioration from low doses of radiation does not contribute signifi-
cantly to the destruction and replacement that is an essential function of
life. Low doses of radiation and toxic chemicals do, however, stimulate
the ordinary repair mechanisms to work harder. The net result is that
these repair systems do a better job of correcting ordinary natural bio-
chemical deterioration, so health is better rather than poorer as a result
of low exposures to radiation and toxic chemicals.
(For a chemical example, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
Newsletter, July 1994, available from 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Suite 9,
Tucson, AZ 85716, and Second Opinion, December 1996, available
from 7100 Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30328,
both report a study by William Hazeltine, Lancet II (7161): 4-6, July
1969, showing increased health in Beagle dogs that were given 10
parts per million DDT in their diets.)
These explanations will be refined by future research and may even
prove to be incorrect. This cannot, however, change the experimental
findings that disease incidence is lower and health is better in people
exposed to moderately increased amounts of ionizing radiation.
The natural intrinsic mutation rate is so high that we need extensive
biochemical machinery to cope with it. That machinery works better in
the presence of low-level damage from extrinsic factors, so such dam-
age improves our health.
This is not just a new scientific curiosity. It is going to cause a vir-
tual revolution in environmental politics, since it means that the vast
enviro apparatus constructed to prevent low levels of exposure to ra-
diation and other such factors has actually been diminishing rather than
improving health. It is so politically incorrect that, so far, the news me-
dia have completely ignored it, but the truth cannot be ignored forever.
Those who want to reverse public fear of nuclear power should be
actively advertising this effect rather than trying to hide under the en-
viro lie of global warming. Global warming will eventually die be-
cause it is a false construct, but no one can cause radiation hormesis
(the beneficial effects of low level radiation) to die because it is an ex-
perimentally demonstrated, naturally occurring biochemical truth.
l Conservative Environmentalism Reassessing the Means, Rede-
STARK RAVING MAD
Quorum Books, Westport, Connecticut (1996). This is a serious, well-
l The DeWeese Report 2, No. 11, p 5, November (1996), available
from 13873 Park Center Road, Suite 316, Herndon, VA 22071, reports
that People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals has called on
Fishkill, New York to change its name to Fishsave. Fishkill is a 300
year old Dutch town. In Dutch, its name means channel or creek.
l The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1996, p A20 reports that,
regardless of a July Federal Court order to do so, the Department of
Energy has notified the owners of American nuclear power plants that
it will not be able to meet its obligation to provide nuclear waste stor-
age in 1998. Nuclear utilities have paid $12 billion into a federal fund
for nuclear waste storage.
Kris Sanda, commissioner of Minnesotas Public Service Depart-
ment and spokesman for 73 nuclear plants in 34 states is quoted as say-
ing, Its outrageous that DOE can build a central nuclear waste
storage facility in Russia by 1998 but not in the U.S.
l MTV Math Doesnt Add Up by Marianne M. Jennings, direc-
tor of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State Univer-
sity, in The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 1996, p A22, relates her
experiences after learning that her straight-A daughter could not com-
pute 10% of 470 or convert one-fourth to 25% in an algebra problem.
Some highlights: Her Addison-Wesley text, Secondary Math: An In-
tegrated Approach: Focus on Algebra, has color photos, essays on the
Dogon tribe of Africa, and questions such as What role should zoos
play in todays society? Theres Maya Angelou poetry, pictures of
Bill Clinton and little insights from Tabuk and Esteban (youngsters
chosen to enlighten students about cultural differences in the ever-fluid
concept of slope). The book, with its busy pages and journey through
environmentalism, is an 800-page pedagogical nightmare.
Based on new National Standards, the students are supposed to gain
a conceptual understanding of math without outmoded ideas like
problems and practice. Group work is emphasized with students who
do not know math and do not practice it trying to teach each other.
When she asked school officials why the students were not required
to practice simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,
they labeled her as a member of the extreme Christian right. Her
daughter explained that she had been taught that people who demand
learning as a part of education are religious zealots.
l Its a Wonderful Life, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal,
p A16, December 20, 1996, relates the plight of Wiley Berggren, man-
ager of a 7-Eleven store in Odessa, Texas who successfully captured a
thief in the act of running away with the stores merchandise. Mr.
Berggren was fired for violating 7-Elevens national policy that no em-
ployee shall make any effort to thwart a criminal. (See the Jeff Cooper
quote on page 1.) It is likely that 7-Eleven does not fear criminals; but
it does fear lawyers. (See again the Jeff Cooper quote.)
This reminds me of the story circulating some years ago that in
Oakland crime had become so prevalent that it was considered entrap-
ment to open a 7-Eleven store. (See yet again the . . . . . . . )
GOOD READING
l Facts Not Fear - A Parents Guide to Teaching Children About
the Environment by Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw is an excellent
300-page book published by Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington,
DC (1996). With a wealth of information and many excellent compari-
sons, this book is good reading for adults, with or without children, and
a great gift for children and grandchildren.
l Recycling Boon or Bust in The Torch 5, Number 8, pp 1-8,
December 1996, available from 5535 E. Rosewood St., Tucson, AZ
85711. Recycling has always been a part of industrial procedures when
it was economically sensible, but the enviro-induced recycling mania
of recent years is just interactive propaganda. This article shows that it
has also become a great waste of resources. Especially interesting is the
explanation of why paper recycling actually harms forests by making
good forest management practices uneconomical.
fining the Ends by James R. Dunn and John E. Kinney published by
documented, and well-referenced book demonstrating that free-enter-
prise and technology generally enhance the environment and improve
human life, while government environmental controls and regulations
usually harm the environment and degrade human life.
l The Normal Population that Tried to Deny Itself or a Modern
Case Fable of the Foibles of Making 58.3% Better than the Other
Half by Carl Olson in The Journal of Irreproducible Results 24, No.
4, pp 24-27 (1978), is a hilarious description of those who try to defeat
the distribution function of human conditions by means of government
fiats. J. Irrep. Results 41, No. 6, pp 25-26 (1996), also reprinted the
Access to Energy 23, No. 8 (1996) editorial Sweet and Dangerous.
l Looking for Results, an interview with Nobel Laureate
Ronald Coase on rights, resources, and regulation by Thomas W.
Hazlett in Reason 28, No. 8, pp 40-46, January 1997, available from
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034-6064.
l Environmentalism Gone Berserk by Mike Oliver. Mr. Oliver has
been working on this interesting book for several years. If it is not yet
published, he may be willing to provide a draft copy. Write to Mike
Oliver, P.O. Box 485, 504 Mary Street, Carson City, NV 89703.
l The trick is to be so skilled at work that it becomes play Self-
Motivation for the Study of Science by Arthur B. Robinson in Prac-
tical Homeschooling, November/December 1996, pp 44-45, available
from P. O. Box 1250, Fenton, MO 63026-1850.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
FEBRUARY 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 6) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Self Experimentation
Most of the time, science is thought of in the abstract. We or oth-
ers conduct quantitative observations of the physical world and try to
correlate those observations within the framework of existing theory
or of some new hypothesis. Most scientists are simply skilled ob-
servers who are primarily engaged in making such measurements.
Some people like to cultivate the myth that scientists are great
thinkers with large brains and furrowed brows who spend their time
deep in complicated thoughts beyond the understanding of most mor-
tals. This, of course, is nonsense, but it does serve to pry a little more
tax money away from many taxpayers who are fooled by the myth.
A life in basic science or applied science (engineering) is very re-
warding. There are always new things to learn. The ocean of undis-
covered truths, large and small, is so extensive that there is no
possibility of running out of interesting things to do. Those who have
an opportunity to spend their lives in science are fortunate indeed.
Although most people are not professional experimentalists, many
of them do some experimentation in the course of their lifes work.
Moreover, an increasing number of people are conducting their final
series of experiments upon their own bodies.
The curve of death from cancer vs. age rises so rapidly in the later
years of life (see Figure 2 below) that those of us who do not die ear-
lier of other causes face a veritable wall of cancer probability above
the ages of 80 to 90 years. Moreover, the rate of growth of cancer is
markedly affected by parameters that are under our individual con-
trol. In one experimental system, for example, the rate of growth of
cancer in mice was varied over a 20-fold range by changes in diet
alone (see Access to Energy 22, No. 5, p 2 (1995)).
It is widely believed that a person who is diagnosed with cancer or
some other degenerative disease such as atherosclerosis or neuro-
muscular degeneration has little control over his fate that the best
course is to put himself in the hands of the medical system, rely on his
health insurance to pay the bills, and hope for the best. This is true in
some cases. It should be true in virtually all cases. The twin demons
of governmental and medical establishment control of medical re-
search and delivery and a legal establishment that threatens to confis-
cate the assets of any innovator who can be held colorably liable for a
patients misfortune have, however, greatly diminished progress in
therapeutic medicine.
Medicine has managed to make better progress in some (but cer-
tainly not all) areas of diagnostic technology, but progress in therapy
has been very limited. As a result, when a seriously ill person em-
barks on a course of treatment, he is often setting out on a course of
experimentation rather than a well understood and optimized therapy.
Degenerative diseases frequently disable or kill slowly, so the pa-
tient often has plenty of time to deduce that the therapy is not working
in his case. Moreover, there are numerous books and sometimes
friends and relatives available to tell him stories of others for whom
the therapy failed. This leads him to search for alternative approaches.
The search for alternative therapies for serious diseases gives rise
to the movement that is called alternative medicine. (The desire
for preventive medicine is also a component of this.) Alternative
research literature demonstrating radiation hormesis under many dif-
CANCER POSTPONEMENT WITH RADON
Pittsburgh on radon and lung cancer is probably the most spectacular.
Access to Energy has published articles about radiation hormesis
for many years. Petr Beckmann even wore a vest filled with low-level
radioactive material in order to illustrate this effect and to take advan-
tage of its health benefits. Although there is a large and rapidly grow-
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
medicine is comprised of those techniques that are not an accepted
part of ordinary medical practice. Some of these techniques are sen-
sible and very valuable, and some are useless dead ends. (These can
be worse than useless. They can be dangerous to a seriously ill pa-
tient who uses up his dwindling time pursuing them when there are
other therapies that would help him.)
Whether the patient chooses a therapeutic regime from ordinary
medicine or alternative medicine, he is more likely to prolong life and
diminish suffering if he uses diagnostic medicine in an unusual way.
The techniques of modern medicine for quantitative diagnosis of
disease are often very good (this depends upon the particular disease),
but they are rarely used often enough. A physician testing the blood
of, for example, a leukemia victim, once every two months (unless
there is a sudden change in symptoms) would be testing about as
often as ordinary practice permits. More testing might cause trouble
for the physician. The test is excellent and quite quantitative, but it is
applied far too infrequently.
The patient is engaged in a longitudinal self experiment. There are
many different things that he can do to alter the course of his disease.
Even if he cannot cure it, he can very likely affect the rate of its pro-
gress. For this he needs more data. A test every couple of months just
tells him about how long he can be expected to live. A test at least
weekly gives him much more information. It gives him sufficient
data to carefully track the progress of his disease even after averaging
out the inevitable experimental noise associated with the tests.
Perhaps the relentless change in his blood values toward death can
never be halted, but he may be able to alter the slope of the curve if
he can see it. Even if he is using conventional therapy, what is the
effect, for example, if he cuts his protein, fat, and vitamin intake in an
effort to partially starve the cancer? Does the slope increase or de-
crease? What is the slope following each course of chemotherapy? Is
this therapy improving or diminishing his chances?
Over the past 30 years, many victims of degenerative diseases
have asked me for advice about the course they should follow. If I
know a useful alternative course for them, I usually tell them about it
without saying that it is better or worse than other possibilities. How
am I to know which therapy will be best in their particular case?
Always, however, I advise them to use the best quantitative diag-
nostic procedure available and to use it much more frequently than
their physician advises even if they must pay for the tests themselves.
A seriously ill patient may be involved in the last series of experi-
ments of his life. Biochemical and environmental individuality cou-
pled with the very limited availability of definitive medical know-
ledge puts him in the unique position that only he can serve as the
source of good enough data to monitor his own condition. A simple
graph, created by means of the miracles of modern diagnostic medi-
cine applied, however, far more often than is ordinary medical prac-
tice, can give the patient the data he needs to try several therapeutic
procedures and objectively evaluate their effect on his particular fate.
This self experimentation, the data gathering and the evaluation,
should be carefully considered by every seriously ill individual.
ferent conditions, the work by Bernard L. Cohen at the University of
We first reported this in the Access to Energy article entitled Vita-
min R? in AtE 21, No. 4, p 4, December 1993. Cohen (who will be
speaking at our annual DDP meeting to be held in San Diego on June
14-15) has continued to refine this work until it has become a giant,
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MARCH 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 7) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy

Second Class Citizens

After I finished graduate school at the University of California at study in pre-college schools have been dumbed down about three
San Diego and was given a faculty position there, I spent much extra- years below those of a generation ago. Solid academic subjects now
curricular time with my graduate students and the other graduate stu- occupy about one-fourth of the school day.
dents, since we were of the same age. Some of this time was whiled After completing work at the Oregon Institute of Science and
away at a beer and hamburger joint in La Jolla known as El Som- Medicine on our 22 CD-ROM home-school curriculum for ages 6 to
brero. Unfortunately, El Sombrero succumbed to real estate develop- 18, we decided to start work on a college curriculum. Remarkably,
ment and no longer exists, but I shall never forget one evening there. however, we discovered that students from here are being classed as
As several of us sat at a back table, the El Sombrero door was transfer students at the university because they are entering with
suddenly filled by a tough-looking character whose black skin about two years of advanced placement. Apparently, we are already a
matched perfectly his leather jacket and also the dark imaginings of two-year junior college because our students are being taught a rea-
events that might follow too close an encounter with his disposition. sonable and traditional pre-college curriculum. This is no longer ordi-
The first rule of survival in such situations being no eye contact, I narily done. The first two years at universities are now devoted to
immediately became unusually attentive to the discussion underway material the students should have learned in high school and, worse,
at our table. much material that human beings should never be required to learn.
To my astonishment, however, the new arrival sauntered over to Moreover, by college age, it is too late for many people to learn basic
our table and sat down. He knew the graduate students. It turned out reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, so remedial instruction fails.
that he was also one of my fellow faculty members assigned to the In part, this drift into sub-mediocrity has been the result of popular
third college, a new division of the university for minority stu- demand. Students and parents wanted high grades and easy courses,
dents that still had no name because of an ongoing squabble over so unprincipled teachers and professors gave them what they wanted.
which third-world revolutionary to name it after (Lumumba Zapata The white liberals disliked by my black colleague became ever-
being the most recent discard). so-popular on campuses across the country as they posed as friends of
What followed was a discourse on third-world and black- minority students. This worked so well that they extended their popu-
power politics in which I took no part being unprepared academi- larity by plying their wares to all of the students.
cally, politically, or even psychologically for the prejudices of my More important has been the modern liberal campaign to turn all
esteemed colleague. (Actually, I just wanted to stay out of a fight.) American schools into tools for social and political engineering. This
Eventually, however, the subject turned to teaching. I was at the transformation has been so complete that the majority of school time
time teaching freshman chemistry to a class of 300 students and is now devoted to politically correct indoctrination rather than basic
found myself pointing out that I made no effort whatever to tailor the academic learning. Even courses labeled mathematics have been
goals of my course to separate standards for minority students or any ruined by infusions of non-academic nonsense. (See Access to En-
other group regardless of their preparation or ability. In my opinion, ergy 24, 5, p 4, January 1997, MTV Math Doesnt Add Up.)
they all needed to to know the same material in order to be prepared Moreover, pegged as their programs are to grade levels, tax-fi-
for the same post-academic world or at the very least to know that nanced schools are setting the academic standard for most alterna-
they did not know the material, so that they could plan accordingly. tives such as private schools and home schools. Parents think of their
The black professors response was immediate. You are right! children as being in particular grades, and the market responds
he said. Your course is tough. I know, Im tutoring two students in with materials at those grade levels as defined by public schools. In
your class. But you are exactly right. Our worst enemies are these our home school curriculum, we have omitted grade levels entirely
white liberals who teach watered-down courses to our people and because today they norm students to a very low academic standard.
turn them into permanent second-class citizens. This problem has more to do with American energy supplies for
More than 25 years have passed since that conversation, and times the 21st century than does current technology or any future technol-
have changed. American schools and universities (with some, in- ogy that may be provided by those who manage to become produc-
creasingly rare exceptions) have become less selective. Now, they are tive engineers and scientists regardless of these educational
turning all of the students into second-class citizens. disadvantages. We cannot expect an optimum use of energy technol-
A recent cartoon depicts a cocktail party conversation as follows. ogy by a society populated with technologically illiterate citizens who
A: You teach in the public schools? What subject? B: Creative have been given a vote on virtually every aspect of human affairs.
Mathematics! When a student adds two and two and gets seven, I This is especially true since many of those citizens have been fooled
ask him why he came to that conclusion. If he tells me he chose the into thinking that they are not illiterate (for their self-esteem) and
answer because it raises his level of self-esteem I give him an A+. are being fed tailor-made opinions by antitechnology public media.
Without the humor, read Poll Shows Schools Are Our #1 First-class technology and second-class citizens are incompatible
Worry in The Phyllis Schlafly Report 30, No. 3 available from P. O. because antitechnologists can manipulate ignorant, undisciplined
Box 618, Alton, IL 62002, which quotes a Washington Post poll indi- minds. It is time for America to terminate its failed experiment with
cating that the top worry of Americans is the low and declining qual- tax-financed, second-class, socialist schools.

to those who wish to register early for further enjoyment of the sail-
SAN DIEGO 1997 ing, swimming, and many other activities of this remarkable location.
The speaker schedule already reads like a compiled reference list
Even without the ambiance of El Sombrero, San Diego is beautiful from Access to Energy and is becoming even better as additional out-
in June. This year our annual DDP meeting is being held at the Bahia standing people agree to participate. So far, the confirmed speakers are:
Hotel on Mission Bay in San Diego during the weekend of June 14-15. Sallie Baliunas, staff astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian As-
Arrangements have been made for extension of the convention rates trophysical Observatory, Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Insti-
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
APRIL 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 8) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Economic Slavery
Energy accessibility should be solely a technological problem. As
engineering knowledge and the science that underlies it continue to
advance, the real cost of usable energy decreases and energy avail-
ability for each of us should, therefore, concomitantly increase. Since
energy is virtually the currency of technological progress, everything
from human living standards to human longevity increases as people
obtain more energy and at a rate that, given the large number of
innovative scientists and engineers and the technology at their dis-
posal, could be astonishing indeed.
Instead, however, progress in energy development is today se-
verely stalled. In the United States, propaganda campaigns by all sorts
of ignorant, fearful, and uninformed groups have led to a tragic dimi-
nution of progress on technologies that affect our access to energy.
The problem, however, is not misinformed people. Informed in-
novators could make progress even if their fellow citizens could not
if the freedom of those capable people were not being suppressed.
This suppression of freedom is essentially a question of property.
It is a self-evident truth that economic freedom is an indispensable
part of human freedom. A person who cannot hold property and use it
as he wishes becomes a slave. Every free human being has the right to
hold and use his private property in any way he wishes as long as he
does not infringe on this same right of other people.
This right to private property does not depend upon the Constitu-
tion or the Bill of Rights or even common law. It is an inherent right
that has been recognized as an indispensable part of freedom for thou-
sands of years. Men and women cannot be free if they lack the right
to private property and complete freedom in its responsible use.
Those who do not have such property rights are slaves regardless of
whether or not their property has been seized by an oppressive gov-
ernment against their will or voluntarily turned over to some other
entity, as is the situation, for example, with some religious sects.
There are, of course, degrees of slavery. People can also lose or relin-
quish a part of their economic freedom.
Obviously, certain property rights, such as the allotment of air-
space to airplanes, require communal adjudication. Also, a judicial
system and usually a military defense are required to assure protec-
tion of property rights. These are legitimate functions of government.
Many aspects of our future access to energy look bleak today. The
real reason for this is that our energy producers are being denied their
fundamental rights to private property.
Why do we care that Al Gore is listed as author of a book filled
with misrepresentations about energy production? Gore cannot fill
our energy needs. His views should be irrelevant. We care about
Gores views only because misguided laws backed by the police
powers of the state are being used to interfere with the property rights
of those who can produce energy. This has hindered the advancement
of nuclear energy in the United States and is increasingly interfering
with the production of energy from coal, oil, and natural gas.
Why have we allowed the economic freedom of our most produc-
tive scientists, engineers, and businessmen to be so severely abridged
that the flow of energy to our civilization has become imperiled?
the Health Physics Society (published by Williams and Wilkins 351
SCIENCE VS. SCIENTISTS
opinion, a certain winner even though the vast majority of its arti-
If there were an annual international prize given for the most inter-
esting peer-reviewed science journal (periodicals that publish detailed,
rigorous reports of research within the scientific community not arti-
cles for nonscientists), Health Physics, which is the official journal of
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
While most of us might answer this question by means of a well-
oiled tirade against oppressive politicians, bureaucrats, and other low
types and be correct in doing so there is another consideration.
Every free human being (or assembly of human beings, such as a
corporation, that shares their pooled rights) has the right to use his
property as he wishes as long as he does not infringe on the same
rights of other human beings.
For example, the sympathies of a twelve-man jury in a civil trial
would ordinarily lie with the victim of a burglary and against the bur-
glar unless the victim also turned out to be a burglar. Regardless of
the details of law, most people would agree that a burglar, as a result
of his thievery, gives up his claim to sympathy when he, too, is bur-
glarized. If I am mugged on a city street by a thug who steals my
wallet, I do not gain the right to replace my loss by mugging someone
else. If I become a mugger, I forfeit my right to property protection
and, of course, even my right to physical freedom if I am caught.
Most farmers are bitterly opposed to government agencies that are
taking their property through regulations, taxes, fees, and confisca-
tions. Yet, many of these same farmers are paid government subsidies
with money taken in taxes by force or threat of force from other citi-
zens who have earned that money by honest work. Since these farm-
ers are accepting a share of the loot obtained by denying other citizens
their property rights, they have lost the moral right to complain of
their own losses to government thievery.
Recently, a local farmer complained to me about the new govern-
ment regulations, fees, and potential fines that are destroying his
property right to maintain a gravel dam necessary to irrigate his farm.
When I suggested that he just ignore the bureaucrats and repair his
dam in the same way that it has been maintained for over 100 years
by owners of his farm, he replied, I wouldnt want to make them
mad. They are considering my request for a government subsidy to
put in a sprinkler system. Then I can sell the farm for a higher price.
It is an astonishing and very sad fact that many American indus-
tries support and encourage the taking of property from other Ameri-
cans through governmental means in order to enhance their own
prospects. Yet, they whine about their own suffering under the same
sort of oppression. Much of our energy industry engages in these ac-
tivities. In fact, a large part of the American utility industry has traded
away most of its freedom in return for government-assured monopoly
markets and guaranteed profits from utility commissions.
If all Americans and American corporations were to honestly
audit all of their own sources of income and other market advantages
and terminate all activities that involve the improper taking of the
property of others, the benefits to the free market and to technological
progress would be spectacular indeed. Imagine our government with
no customers except for those involved in national defense, the main-
tenance of an honest judiciary, and minimal national housekeeping!
Free enterprise, science, and technology cannot thrive in an atmos-
phere of economic slavery. Each human being has a self-evident right
to freedom, except for those people who make their way by destroy-
ing the freedoms of others. Those people deserve to be slaves.
West Camden Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-2436), would be, in my
cles are likely to put even the most enthusiastic of young physicists to
sleep. Month after month, this journal inches forward, filled to the
brim with research papers documenting the most accurate and de-
tailed experiments possible with modern technology concerning
radiation protection and exposure. Some of these articles describe rare
cases of accidental high radiation doses and resultant health effects,
but the vast majority deal with the distribution and detection of very
small amounts of radioisotopes and radiation. Since instrumentation
for these purposes has become extraordinarily accurate and the under-
lying science is relatively simple, research results reported in Health
Physics tend to be detailed, exact, and complete with very rigorous
mathematical analysis.
The underlying assumption supporting most of this work is that ra-
dioisotopes and radiation are very dangerous in even the tiniest quanti-
ties and must, therefore, be rigorously tracked down and quantitatively
measured wherever they are found. It is evident that nearly all of these
scientists blindly accept this assumption, which has, after all, been ac-
cepted dogma in their profession since the 1950s although most of
their articles do not discuss this. They just report their measurements.
The editors of Health Physics are apparently excellent classical sci-
entists who are willing to publish any submitted paper that survives
peer review of its experimental and theoretical rigor and its relevance Figure 1
to the journals purposes. [You thought, perhaps, that this is the way all ear hypothesis. This hypothesis has spectacularly failed all experimen-
scientific research journals are operated? Welcome to the age of politi- tal tests. In every instance, low-level radiation has either been found to
cal correctness. Even the prestigious Proceedings of the United States have no health effects within the experimental errors of the research, or
National Academy of Sciences has formed a special medical censor- has been found to have beneficial effects radiation hormesis.
ship committee, which prevents publication of any paper with medical Access to Energy has discussed some of these experiments most
implications that are contrary to current medical dogma regardless of recently in the February 1997 issue. Figures 1 and 2 show additional
the quality of the research or the importance of the conclusions.] experiments used as illustrations in the Patterson Health Physics paper.
It is this willingness of the editors of Health Physics to adhere to Figure 1, adapted from Radium in Man by R. D. Evans, Health
unbiased fairness in review that is causing a most startling form of Physics 27, p 504 (1974), gives tumor incidence versus radiation dose
chaos to break out within their publication. While the steady march of to the bone. Figure 2, adapted from Further Observations on Envi-
apparently endless radiation measurement articles continues apace like ronmental Radiation and Cancer in India by K. S. Nambi, S. D. So-
tin soldiers from a toy factory, interleaved among them are articles re- man, and S. D. Further, Health Physics 59, p 543 (1990), gives cancer
porting research on health effects of low radiation doses results that incidences as a function of environmental doses.
completely invalidate the underlying assumption of radiation dangers. For a detailed analysis of this work, see the published papers. Any
In two recent issues, for example, are Setting Standards for Radia- ten-year-old (at least a home-schooled ten-year-old) can see, however,
tion Protection: The Process Appraised by H. Wade Patterson, pp that linear extrapolation to zero dose would be ridiculous for the data in
450-457, and an exchange of letters by D. J. Strom and B. Cohen, pp Figure 1 and that the line best fitted to the data in Figure 2 is that la-
488-490, Health Physics 72, No. 3, March 1997, and Questionnaire beled Hormesis Hypothesis.
Study of the Lung Cancer Risk from Radon in Homes by B. Cohen, Professor Bernard Cohen (who will be speaking at our San Diego
pp 615-622, and Problems in the Radon vs. Lung Cancer Test of the meeting in June) has become the worst nemesis of the no-threshold
Linear No-Threshold Theory and a Procedure for Resolving Them linear hypothesis with his extensive studies of lung cancer in the
by B. Cohen, pp 623-628, Health Physics 72, No. 4, April 1997. United States as a function of radon levels. First, as we have described
The Patterson article points out that the no-threshold linear hy- earlier, he has gathered data on 1,729 counties containing 90% of the
pothesis originated during the 1950s to estimate the health effects of United States population and including nearly a million deaths from
radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests. This hypothesis had lung cancer and 20 million deaths from other causes, along with mean
two advantages. First, it was simple, since it involved only a linear ex- radon levels for the homes in those counties (see Access to Energy,
trapolation to zero from health effects at very high doses. Second, it February 1997 and earlier articles). This work shows an inverse corre-
gave results that were politically desirable to those who wished to ban lation between lung cancer and radon in the low dose levels the
atomic testing. Citing this hypothesis as fact, they claimed world-wide higher the radon, the lower the lung cancer. Since average radon values
damage to human health from tiny increases in background radiation. are used (but specific radon values are not known for each lung cancer
People who certainly were good enough scientists to know better, victim), these experiments rigorously disprove the no-threshold linear
yet determined to ban testing regardless of the truth, claimed to the hypothesis but do not rigorously prove the hormesis hypothesis, so Co-
public that this hypothesis was established scientific fact the most hen has been cautious in claiming lung cancer protection by radon.
infamous example being that of Linus Pauling in his debates with Ed-
ward Teller. Teller was working to preserve American nuclear de-
fenses against Soviet technology. From this activity Pauling wangled a
Nobel Peace Prize and a Lenin Prize, the latter being well-deserved.
The primary disadvantage of the no-threshold linear hypothesis of
radiation damage to health is that there is not a shred of experimental
evidence to support it. The predicted health effects are so low that such
experiments were exceptionally difficult to carry out. Politically, of
course, proponents multiplied the tiny hypothetical effects by the total
number of people on the earth and then cried crocodile tears over the
calculated human suffering none of which was ever observed.
Well, time moves on. Pauling is dead, and Edward Teller is revered
both personally and as a proxy for the many patriotic scientists whose
work preserved American freedom during the Cold War and kept
Western technology far enough ahead of the Soviets that the use of
nuclear weapons has, so far, been deterred. In addition, experimental
methods have improved. It is now possible to test the no-threshold lin- Figure 2
Considered with data from numerous other experiments, however, his
results provide strong support for radiation hormesis.
Now Cohen has driven a new, unique nail into the coffin of the anti-
radiation industry. In the first of his two articles in the April 1997 issue
of Health Physics, Cohen reports the results of 266,000 individual ra-
don measurements in American homes, which include 4,438 homes
where an occupant died of lung cancer and 7,756 homes where a death
occurred from some other type of cancer. Here deaths are individually
paired with individual home radon levels. He treats basement radon
levels separately from living area levels, smokers separately from non-
smokers, and both the cancer-free homes and the homes with cancer
other than lung cancer as separate control groups. The cancer victims
had been living in their houses for an average of 19 years. Lung cancer
is estimated to have a five-year latency period between induction and
symptoms.
Although the statistical significance of his calculations varies, as ex-
pected, with sample sizes, in every instance there is unequivocal rejec-
tion of the no-threshold linear hypothesis. Figure 3 shows the lung
cancer result when all 266,000 measurements are included lung can-
cer and control. The linear regression curves shown are curved by the
logarithmic axis (ask your home schooled twelve-year-old to explain
this). The line labeled theory (curving toward the top with no data
near it) is that predicted by the no-threshold linear hypothesis, and the
line labeled best fit is the line resulting from a best mathematical fit
of the actual data: +3SD is the 99% confidence level of the theory
line, while +1SD is the 67% confidence level of the best fit line.
Sample sizes were too small at the hormetic radon dose levels to
prove beneficial effects from radiation, but most of Cohens calcula-
tions of this work do show deviation of the measured averages in the
hormetic region that are consistent with radiation hormesis.
Meanwhile, what is happening in Health Physics? (This is a very
reputable peer-reviewed journal in a substantially exact science.) Well,
the articles on exact measurements of tiny radiation exposures keep
marching out of cookie-cutter laboratories, and the articles invalidating
their underlying significance are being published right alongside them.
This has led to another phenomenon that I have never before observed
in a mainstream research journal.
The good guys are beginning to augment their articles with quota-
tions about the scientific method. This is the equivalent of mathematics
journals carrying parenthetical reminders that we must not forget that
two plus two equals four. Both Patterson and Cohen have taken to
quoting Richard Feynman. From Patterson we have:
As Richard Feynman said, In general we look for a new law by
the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the conse-
quences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law we
guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation with
nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with obser-
vation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In
that simple statement is the key to science.
It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It
does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess,
or what his name is if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is
all there is to it.
Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague
theory wrong. If the guess you make is poorly expressed and rather
vague, and the method you use for figuring out the consequences is a
little vague you are not sure, and you say, I think everythings all
right because its all due to so and so, and such and such do this and
that more or less, and I can sort of explain how this works . . ., then
you see that this theory is good because it cannot be proved wrong!
Also if the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then
with a little skill any experimental results can be made to look like the
expected consequences. (Feynman 1965)
(This last Feynman paragraph is beautifully applicable to the global
warming and ozone scare industries.)
In the second April 1997 Health Physics paper, Cohen computes
the discrepancy between the no-threshold linear hypothesis and his ex-
perimental data from nearly one million cancer deaths and twenty mil-
Figure 3
lion deaths from other causes to be 20 standard deviations, which has
a probability of occurring by chance equal to the inverse of the total
number of electrons plus nuclei in the entire [known] universe.
The no-threshold linear hypothesis is as dead as the hypothesis that
the earth is flat, and with it has died the underpinnings of the anti-nu-
clear energy industry which spawned, through similarly devious sci-
ence, most of todays environmentalist movement. Their only last
hopes are the claims that nuclear plants might explode (like nuclear
weapons) or burn like Soviet plants (with no containment buildings).
The explosion claim is inconsistent with basic physical laws it just
cannot happen and nuclear plants without containment buildings
could only be built by communists who, as Petr Beckmann used to say,
decided that people were cheaper than concrete.
All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a low radiation
level and sprinkle it over the ocean or even over America after hor-
mesis is better understood and verified with respect to more diseases.
We leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess how long it will take
the failure of the no-threshold hypothesis to reach your television set.
TAX FINANCED RACISM
Solid Evidence to Support Home Schooling by Michael P. Far-
ris in The Wall Street Journal, March 5 1997, p A18, reports that on a
battery of tests in reading, listening, language, math, science, social
studies, and study skills, where public school students average, by defi-
nition, 50th percentile, home schooled students average between the
80th and 87th percentiles with an overall score of 85th percentile.
On reading tests, the home schooled whites, hispanics, and blacks
all scored at the 87th percentile, while in math home schooled whites
were at the 82nd percentile and the minorities at the 77th percentile.
In the tax-financed public schools, however, in reading tests
whites were at the 57th, while the blacks and hispanics were both at the
28th. In math, whites were at the 58th, while hispanics were at the 29th
and blacks were at the 24th. Imagine the howls of racism and child
abuse that would be heard from the public schools and their unions if
these numbers for home schools and public schools were reversed.
The cost? Public school costs are $5,325 per student year compared
with $546 per student year in home schools (excluding, in both cases,
the capital costs of the buildings in which the students are taught). Us-
ing the 22 CD-ROM self-teaching home school curriculum developed
by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, this cost drops to $49
per student year plus the cost of a personal computer (already present
in about half of American homes) and requires very little teacher time.
 Rodionov has said that, Russia might soon reach a threshold beyond
SAN DIEGO MEETING
Bykov, who served in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces for 33 years,
In last months Access to Energy, we reported that the San Diego
meeting on the weekend of June 13-15, 1997, will include presenta-
tions by Sallie Baliunas, Bernard Cohen, Michael Dowe, Gordon Ed-
wards, Robert Jastrow, Cresson Kearny, Stanford Penner, Michael
Sanera, Edward Teller, and Robert Zubrin. The program for the meet-
ing has now been completed with the following additional speakers:
Jeff Cooper, the worlds foremost authority on the defensive use of
firearms, will speak about this subject. Jeff Cooper is not only a world
champion (the hotel facilities will, unfortunately, not accommodate a
demonstration) and distinguished representative of the best traditions
of American military and civilian defense, he is also an accomplished
author whose practical and intellectual insights have had a greater im-
pact upon firearms use than those of any other living American.
Donald D. Derr, a colleague of Michael Dowe, will co-deliver the
presentation on electron-beam irradiation for preserving food.
Lou Guzzo, veteran reporter, editor, and radio and television com-
mentator, will speak about environmental matters from the point of
view of the two books that he co-authored with Dixy Lee Ray, Envi-
ronmental Overkill and Trashing the Planet.
Martin Kamen, discoverer of carbon 14 and 1996 winner of the En-
rico Fermi Award, will provide a few words of wisdom as he did at last
years meeting. Dr. Kamen may, in fact, be brought to us through the
benefits of radiation hormesis. He received very large doses during the
years that he operated the Berkeley cyclotron for E. O. Lawrence and
carried out his famous work on carbon 14 and the use of radioactive
tracers in biochemistry. He has enjoyed a long life in good health.
Bruce Kimball, principal research scientist and colleague of Sher-
wood Idso at the U. S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix,
Arizona, will speak about his extensive experimental work on the ef-
fect of increased carbon dioxide levels upon the growth of plants.
Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, will speak about growing government im-
pediments to the ethical practice of medicine. Dr. Orient led AAPS ef-
forts to defeat the Clinton socialized health plan and is widely credited
with having been instrumental in its demise.
Myron Pollycove, Emeritus Professor of Radiology at the Univer-
sity of California at San Francisco, will speak about radiation hor-
mesis, the beneficial health effects of low-level ionizing radiation.
Frederick Seitz, past President of the United States National Acad-
emy of Sciences and Chairman of the Board of the George C. Marshall
Institute, will speak about politicized science and the IPPC report. Dr.
Seitzs analysis of unethical actions in the preparation of this 1996 re-
port was published in The Wall Street Journal. As a result of this
analysis and Dr. Seitzs great personal stature within the international
scientific community, efforts by the IPPC and others to promote the
global warming hypothesis regardless of its lack of experimental veri-
fication were significantly exposed and politically damaged.
Hans Sennholz, President of the Foundation for Economic Educa-
tion and greatly respected expert on free-market economics, will speak
about The Bull Market and the Bubble Phenomenon. Carlos Hathcock. Hathcock was recently featured on the front page of
I will have the privilege of introducing the speakers and am also
listed as the final speaker on Sunday afternoon. Since the program in-
cludes world-class authorities on virtually every topic that we have fea-
tured in Access to Energy, I suspect a new form of censorship. These
people are going to leave me with absolutely nothing further to say.
Registration is $95 for the meeting, which includes two luncheons
and the banquet dinner. Details were given in last months Access to
Energy. Telephone DDP at (520) 325-2680 for registration.
STARK RAVING MAD
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
l Russias Big Bang by James T. Hackett in The Wall Street $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
Journal, March 28, 1997, p A16, gives a chilling report of the break-
down of command and control systems governing the launch of Rus-
sian nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Even Russian Defense Minister Igor
which its rockets and nuclear systems cannot be controlled. Col. R.
describes an incident in which a smart aleck in a missile regiment
figured out how to bring the launch contact points together without the
launch code. Meanwhile the Clinton Administration refuses to deploy
technology to intercept even one ICBM fired at the United States.
Robert Jastrow will discuss this at the San Diego meeting.
l A Nuclear Waste Firm is Sued For Paying a Regulator Too
Little by Bill Richards in The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 1997,
p 1, reports that a Utah environmental regulator supplemented his
$60,000 annual income with payments in cash, gold coins, and real es-
tate valued at $600,000 from the nuclear waste company he was regu-
lating. (Utah law sets a maximum of $50 on such payments.)
When the regulator retired, the payments stopped. Now, the regula-
tor is suing the company because, he claims, the company orally
agreed to pay him an additional $5 million dollars.
l Over the Top by K. Kemm in Green & Gold (P.O. Box
74416, Lynwood Ridge, Pretoria, 0040, South Africa) reports that the
Alar apple scare was based on human equivalent doses to animals of 5
tons of apples or (another study) 23 tons of apple juice per person per
day. The Alar was harmless, but fruit at these doses is definitely lethal.
GOOD READING
l Low Level Radiation Health Effects: Compiling the Data, pub-
lished by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc., P. O. Box 843, Need-
ham, MA 02194 is an excellent review by numerous scientists of
experimental research invalidating the no-threshold linear hypothesis.
Even Japanese atomic bomb survivors show radiation hormesis.
l Policy Controversy in Biotechnology: An Insiders View by
Henry I. Miller, published by Academic Press (1997). This is a de-
tailed, well-informed and documented account of the negative impact
of government on the advance of science and technology.
l A 60s Radical Mugged by Reality by Joel Kotkin in The
Wall Street Journal, March 24, 1997, p A18, about the travails of Tom
Hayden, who began his political career disrupting the Chicago Demo-
cratic National Convention and is ending it at the hands of Los Angeles
voters uninterested in no-growth pseudoenvironmentalism. Hayden is
quoted as saying, I guess this means that the 60s are really over.
l Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos, published by Little,
Brown and Company (1994), the remarkable true story of engineers
who preserved American air superiority regardless of foolish and in-
hibitory bumbling by their governmental customers.
l Executive Orders by Tom Clancy, published by G. P. Putnams
Sons (1996), in which Clancys conservative recommendations for im-
provements in the U. S. government pace the action and the only
person mentioned under his real name is Jeff Cooper (an officer trained
in Coopers methods saves the life of the Presidents daughter). Or, if
you prefer non-fiction, try Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson, pub-
lished by Berkley Books (1986) about the life of U. S. Marine Sergeant
The Wall Street Journal because his killing of an enemy soldier at a
range of 2,500 yards in Vietnam has inspired a new sport. Then for a
reality check, read We Were Soldiers Once and Young by H. G. Moore
and J. L. Galloway, published by Random House (1992) about the
bravery and deaths of American soldiers forced by their government to
fight in Vietnam with no-win constraints.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
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 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MAY 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 9) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Science and Humility
Near the end of his life, Isaac Newton wrote: I do not know
what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been
only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now
and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Even though Isaac Newtons pebbles and shells formed the basis
for the scientific and industrial revolutions which created our civiliza-
tion and Newton was undoubtedly able to foresee at least some of
their implications and potential, he never lost the humility with which
he placed himself and his discoveries in universal perspective.
During the subsequent 300 years, many remarkable things have
been accomplished in science and technology. Still, when one looks
outward at those parts of the incredible vastness of the universe or
inward at those parts of extraordinary microscopic, submicroscopic
and subatomic universe that we can now see, it is self-evident that the
minds of men have still just barely started to understand or compre-
hend the physical world.
This is a perspective that is shared by most real scientists and was
once ingrained in the general ethics governing their publications. Un-
til recently, for example, it was not acceptable to include assertions in
elementary science text books that had not been rigorously proved.
Professional research publications made a clear distinction between
hypotheses, theories, and facts. Equation-embodied laws, such as
those of thermodynamics, were applied only within the frameworks
of the boundary conditions inherent in their derivations.
During the past 50 years, tax-financed science has steadily dimin-
ished these standards. The number of people calling themselves sci-
entists has markedly increased in order to spend the enormous
tax-financed bonanza, and the ethics of science have concomitantly
decreased to that level desired by those who control this money.
Objective review of, for example, current scientific work on the
origins of life and of the universe leads to the conclusion that there are
various hypotheses and numerous experimental observations, but
these studies are barely in their infancy and will probably require cen-
turies if not millennia of work before they are reliably understood if
they are indeed understandable at all by the mind of man.
Yet, science textbooks and popular publications are filled with as-
sertions that leave their readers with the impression that these prob-
lems have been largely solved. (The work, however, is not quite
finished, so be sure to keep the money flowing.) The advertised solu-
tions are, of course, those that enhance the standing of the secular
government institutions that collect tax money and forward a part to
the scientists. Hypotheses that favor institutions that the government
perceives as competitors are much less popular.
Environmental science now has an especially virulent case of this
disease. Global weather is a very complex problem. Science is not at
all close to ab initio understanding of weather phenomena, and the
great amount of experimental data required for even an empirical un-
derstanding is just beginning to be collected. Yet, primitive computer
models based on woefully inadequate data and theory are being
touted as weather predictors capable of reliable forecasting centuries
Sometimes, the student will reply by asking how far it is to Mexico
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
be worked without this information. In fact, a surprisingly good answer
A useful problem to add to your 10-year-old home-schooled stu-
dents math lesson is: How long will it take a turtle to walk to Mexico
City? (You can ask a public school student, too, but the answer is
likely to be, the teacher didnt show us how to do that problem.) more than 500 miles (still in the United States). Already we have
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
into the future. Similarly, the global sources and sinks of carbona-
ceous compounds have been largely identified, but are not yet well
understood qualitatively and certainly not quantitatively. Neverthe-
less, our government is pushing ahead with global controls on carb-
on usage under the claim that all of this is so definitively understood
by scientists that literally trillions of dollars in restrictive economic
changes in the world economy should be based upon it.
Scientists are, of course, ordinary people with all of the usual hu-
man faults and foibles. It is unsurprising that some of them, especially
those whose abilities are below average, would pander to the wishes
of those who pay their bills. It is also not surprising that confiscatory
government would parade those particular scientists before the public
while ignoring those who are not so easily manipulated.
There is, however, also something deeper and more pervasive tak-
ing place. Scientists and technologists are losing an essential anchor
to reality humility. This is not justified by their accomplishments.
As human knowledge has increased over the past 300 years, the
observable frontiers of the universe have also increased. As we have
begun to understand more fully the things close to us, the extent of
things we can see has expanded so much that we are no closer to
comprehending our observable universe than we were in Newtons
day. Why then are we justified in discarding the humility that he ex-
pressed? The answer is that we are not justified in doing so.
Moreover, this failure cannot be simplified by dividing scien-
tists into those who have been bought and those who are intellectu-
ally honest. Each person carries within him the potential for both.
For example, Linus Pauling carried personal aggrandizement and
pseudoscientific assertions not justified by experimental evidence to a
high art, yet simultaneously he performed outstanding work on the
nature of the chemical bond. Eventually his nonscientific claims
reached absurd levels, but still, right up to the time of his death at age
93, he was publishing excellent valence bond calculations.
Paul (population bomb) Ehrlich and Steven (global cooling and
global warming) Schneider continue to publish ridiculous claims
about global resources and climate regardless of the complete and
spectacular failures of their earlier predictions. Somewhere, however,
in their personnel files at Stanford there must be at least some evi-
dence of acceptable scientific work justifying their professorships.
Science and technology require rationalism and intellectual rigor,
while scientists and technologists are ordinary humans whose minds
and lives are also affected by many irrational, self-serving digres-
sions. The ethics that provide an essential barrier between these two
characteristics of human beings have required several centuries for
development. These ethics are endangered today by formidable
forces within human nature and power-hungry human institutions
the same enemies that they have battled for hundreds of years.
It is obvious that, to protect science and technology, we must pre-
serve honesty, integrity, objective experimental observation, rational
thought, and the general scientific method. One very important and
essential part of that protection is humility. Without humility, our
egos tend to lead us to discard the ethics essential to our science.
City and how fast a turtle walks and by saying that the problem cannot
can be calculated if the student comprehends orders of magnitude.
First, how far is it to Mexico City (from, for example, Oregon)?
Well, it is less than 10,000 miles (about half-way around the earth) and
narrowed the distance to within about an order of magnitude. Mexico
City is at the far end of Mexico, approximately twice the distance to
the California-Mexico border, so 2,000 miles is a reasonable estimate.
Now, consider the turtle. A man comfortably walks about four
miles per hour. (A world-class four-minute-mile athlete manages to
run 15 miles per hour for a total of four minutes, so this upper limit
keeps us within the right order of magnitude.) Obviously a turtle walks
more slowly than a man.
An ordinary land turtle (perhaps your students pet turtle providing
he is willing to risk imprisonment from some, as yet obscure, federal
law) can, however, escape from his captor if left alone in the back yard
for an hour. If it is 50 feet to the yards edge, this would be about 0.01
miles per hour. Allowing the man and the turtle to rest, eat, and enjoy
the scenery during their trip, the turtles speed is, therefore between
two and three orders of magnitude slower than the man.
To ask the turtle to go the 300 foot length of a football field in one
hour is clearly too much. This sets an upper limit much closer to the
escape from the yard. Lets allow our turtle to average 20 feet per hour.
So, (2,000)(5,000) / 20 = 500,000 hours. (Notice that we use 5,000
rather than 5,280 for the feet per mile. This is close enough for our
purposes and easier to calculate, since the student is expected to solve
this problem mentally, without use of pencil and paper.) Dividing
500,000 by (24)(365) or about 10,000 equals approximately 50 years.
Do we now need to know how long a turtle lives? Not really, our
answer is probably correct to within about a factor of two and certainly
within one order of magnitude, which overlaps with a reasonable dis-
tribution of turtle longevities. A turtle can probably walk from Oregon
to Mexico City providing he devotes most of his life to the effort.
Since we have not specified a particular turtle, this estimate of about
50 years is certainly a good order-of-magnitude estimate and much
better than might have been expected from a first glance at the vagaries
of the formally stated problem.
For convenience, every third order of magnitude in the decimal sys-
tem has been given a common prefix: 1012 is tera, 109 is giga, 106 is
mega, 103 is kilo, 10-3 is milli, 10-6 is micro, 10-9 is nano, 10-12 is pico,
and 10-15 is femto. The most common range is further enhanced by
10-1 which is deci and 10-2 which is centi.
Most people comprehend only the few orders of magnitude within
their common experience. Except for specialized scientists and tech-
nologists, this is usually between 106 or mega and 10-6 or micro. The
remarkable advance in computer technology is, however, causing a
bulge in this range at the high end, since gigabyte disk drives are now
being delivered at low cost to the general public.
Facility with orders of magnitude and mental arithmetic is more
common among scientists and engineers in the older generations be-
cause they did not have calculators and personal computers. Each slide
rule calculation required simultaneous mental calculation of the order
of magnitude of the answer, since a slide rule does not preserve the
position of the decimal point. This is, however, not an obsolete skill.
Everyone, regardless of his ultimate occupation, should be taught to
perform mental arithmetic, calculate in orders of magnitude, and think
quantitatively. Since a calculator cannot be inserted into a students
brain, his ability to think quantitatively depends upon his ability to per-
form mental arithmetic. Access to calculators during the early years of
training tends to diminish the development of mental arithmetic.
Many of the pseudoscientific hoaxes that are perpetrated on the
general public depend upon the widespread inability to comprehend
problems in quantitative terms. A thing is classed as bad or
good or higher or lower without asking how much?
As the tax-financed socialist schools have degraded the teaching of
mathematics, they have substituted the claim that they are teaching stu-
dents concepts and the ability to see the big picture rather than
drilling on mere problem solving and boring calculations that are eas-
ily done by computers. In fact, without a good education in mental
arithmetic and quantitative thought, which requires years of individual
problem solving, a student is unable to evaluate concepts or pictures.
This leaves him at the mercy of the canned opinions in media propa-
ganda opinions that are often quite different from the truth.
MOLECULAR CLOCKS
The most accurate time pieces available today are based upon an
electronic transition between two energy levels in the cesium atom.
With appropriate electronic tools, this transition is utilized to produce
clocks that are accurate to 3 parts in 1015 or three femtoseconds per
second. Clock precision is especially important in navigation, astron-
omy, and various studies in theoretical and experimental physics.
Time to Trap an Ytterbium Ion by Pauline Rigby, Nature 386, p
225 (1997), reports that a new electronic transition has been measured
in atoms of the element ytterbium that will make possible the construc-
tion of clocks that are three orders of magnitude (1000 times) more
accurate than cesium clocks.
These clocks depend upon fluorescence, the tendency for some of
the excited states of atoms to have long lifetimes before decaying into
lower energy states. Electrons in these atoms become temporarily
trapped in higher energy levels.
A result of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is that the longer
the lifetime of an electronic transition, the more precisely its energy
can be measured. Molecular clock precision depends upon this meas-
urement. The newly observed transition in ytterbium has a lifetime of
about ten years, making it difficult to detect but also ideal for high pre-
cision time measurement.
Scientists are excited about this development because, after the nec-
essary engineering has been completed, it may extend their ability to
measure a fundamental parameter by three orders of magnitude a
very great improvement.
RADON AND EARTHQUAKES
Radon is causing intellectual earthquakes within the health physics
community as a result of Cohens work showing decreasing lung can-
cer incidence with increasing radon exposure. There is also increasing
evidence that radon is useful in the prediction of actual earthquakes.
Anomaly in Atmospheric Radon Concentration: Possible Precur-
sor to the 1995 Kobe, Japan, Earthquake by Y. Yasuoka and M. Shi-
nogi, Health Physics 72, No. 5, pp 759-761 (1997), reports that the
concentration of radon 222 (which has a half-life of 4 days) in air sam-
pled 16 feet above the ground became markedly higher two months
before the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated Kobe Japan on 17
January 1995. These air samples were continuously measured between
1984 and 1996 at a site near a major fault and 12 miles from the earth-
quake center. Figures 1 and 2 are from the Yasuoka and Shinogi paper.
During the 10 years preceding the earthquake, a careful record was
made of diurnal and seasonal variations in atmospheric radon 222 lev-
els. These measurements were used to calculate the smoothed mean
Figure 1
radon concentration and the standard deviations of that mean. These
deviations were those caused by all variables that occurred during that
ten year period. Figure 2 summarizes these calculations and actual
measurements during a two-year period that included the earthquake.
The difference between the smoothed radon concentration and the
smoothed mean radon concentration is plotted as the residual value peratures are claimed to have increased by 0.10 C per decade. The
in Figure 2. The UCL and LCL lines represent the 95% and 99% con-
fidence levels for expected fluctuation from line FIT which is the pre-
dicted line.
Figure 2
Based upon the ten-year historical record, there is only one chance
in one hundred that the residual radon concentration will drift outside
of the UCL 99 or the LCL 99 range during the time interval of this
graph. Yet, the figure shows that this value drifted above UCL99 at the
end of November 1994 and remained higher than UCL99 until the
earthquake took place two months later.
Moreover, H. Wakita et al, Science 269, pp 60-61 (1995), reported
that radon concentration in ground water increased for several months
prior to this earthquake. The ground water samples were taken three
miles east of the air sampling station.
Earthquakes are especially dangerous to human life because they
strike quickly before emergency action can be taken. People are
trapped under falling structures without having an opportunity to es-
cape. With warning, most earthquake deaths, like most deaths from
hurricanes and floods, could be avoided. These experiments indicate
that ground release of radon 222 can provide warning.
Figure 3
GLOBAL THERMOMETERS
shows that this value of 0.1 C is so low as to probably be irrelevant to
A continuing source of national embarrassment in the United States
should be our inability to produce politicians, bureaucrats, and news
commentators who are capable of truthfully reading simple graphs of
temperature vs. time. Instead, the country is rushing headlong toward
global warming treaties that will sharply reduce hydrocarbon use and
thereby cause trillions of dollars in economic dislocations and great
concomitant human suffering and death.
Figure 3, republished in Global Warming Costs for the U.S. and to claim that any such rise will be harmful to the environment. If
Brief No. 213 (September 1996) by the National Center for Policy
Analysis, 12655 N. Central Expy., Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243-1739,
from a 1990 Oak Ridge National Laboratory report, shows the range of
average annual temperatures in the U. S. during the past century. The
range from high to low is approximately 2.4 C. Omitting extremes,
most of these averages lie in a range of about 1.5 C. The global warm-
ers claim that temperatures during the past decade may have been
warmer by 0.1 C. The evidence for even that change is questionable.
Spurious Trends in Satellite MSU Temperatures from Merging
Different Satellite Records by J. W. Hurrell and K. E. Trenberth in
Nature 386, pp 164-167 (1997), shows the current state of this debate.
Satellite measurements since 1979 have shown a gradual decrease
in atmospheric temperature of - 0.11 C per decade, while surface tem-
satellite data is more reliable, since ground measurements are suscepti-
ble to the local effects of human activity.
Ordinary variations in temperature are, however, so much greater
than either of these measurements that the only sensible conclusion is
that no significant temperature change has been detected. Even though
the dreaded atmospheric carbon dioxide level has already risen sub-
stantially, the only apparent effect of this rise has been increased
growth rate of trees and other plants surely not an undesirable result.
Hurrell and Trenberth suggest that the discrepancy between atmos-
pheric and ground measurements can be attributed to satellite calibra-
tion errors during transitions between satellites. Specifically, they
conclude that a + 0.23 C adjustment in the atmospheric record should
be made before July 1981 and a - 0.12 C adjustment should be made
after August 1991. This would give an atmospheric temperature
change of (0.35 - 0.18) / 1.6 = + 0.10 C per decade. (The authors state
that these changes produce a small positive trend in atmospheric
temperature, but they do not give a value for this trend. We have as-
sumed that the signs of their suggested adjustments should be thusly
interpreted, although they seem to suggest an opposite result.)
Comparison with the U. S. temperature fluctuations in Figure 3
human affairs and environmental quality. Moreover, it has not been
shown that this tiny change is any more than an ordinary natural vari-
ation that is unrelated to human activities.
It is reasonable to suggest that rising carbon dioxide levels might
cause an increase in temperature and that a few one-hundredths of a
degree rise may already have taken place as a result. It is unreasonable,
however, to assume that this is true without experimental verification
0.10 C were added to the graph in Figure 3 between the years 1990
and 2000, would you consider that alarming?
IODIDE DISTRIBUTION
France Distributes Iodine Near Reactors by M. Balter, Science
275, pp 1871-1872 (1997), reports that the French government has de-
cided to distribute potassium iodide to 600,000 citizens who live
within six miles of Frances 59 nuclear reactors or four other nuclear
installations. This will enable them to protect themselves from thyroid
cancer caused by increased ingestion of radioactive iodide in case of
accident. As described in detail, including dosages and methods of ad-
ministration, in Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny, pp
111-116 and 152-154, published by the Oregon Institute of Science
and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, OR 97523,
saturating the thyroid gland with oral doses of potassium iodide pre-
vents the further uptake of iodide by that gland. This is particularly im-
portant to children, since they are especially susceptible to thyroid
cancer induced by radioactive iodide.
The only significant long-term radiation-induced disease docu-
mented to date from the Chernobyl accident has been an increased in-
cidence of thyroid cancer in children living in the Ukraine. Few deaths
have resulted because treatment is usually successful, but this is cer-
tainly a condition that can and should be avoided. M. Balter states, er-
roneously, that the increase in thyroid cancer after Chernobyl was
many times higher than had been predicted. The 70 extra thyroid
cancer cases (see Access to Energy 22, No. 11, p 3 (1995)) seven years
after the accident (probably more by now) was not unexpected.
Civil defense experts have warned for decades that potassium io-
dide and suitable instructions for its use should be stored for the protec-
tion of the American people in case of nuclear accident, terrorism, or
war, but this has not been done. Instead, under the Clinton Administra-
tion, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, has now
completely ended all of its programs for nuclear preparedness.
At the present time, as a result of Clinton Administration actions,
even the approximately 200,000 radiation survey meters and two mil-
lion radiation dosimeters that have been maintained for radiation meas-
urement by Americans in case of nuclear emergency are being sent to
landfills with the exception of those few that are being saved by pri-
vate civil defense groups and some state government workers.
l Our Radiation Policy is a Hazard to Public Health by Theo-
SAN DIEGO
Data Recharge Debate on Low-Level Radiation Risk by Joby War-
Speaking to the June 13-15 meeting in San Diego will be Sallie
Baliunas, Bernard Cohen, Jeff Cooper, Donald Derr, Michael Dowe,
Gordon Edwards, Lou Guzzo, Robert Jastrow, Martin Kamen, Cres-
son Kearny, Bruce Kimball, Jane Orient, Stanford Penner, Myron Pol-
lycove, Art Robinson, Michael Sanera, Fredrick Seitz, Hans Sennholz,
Edward Teller, and Robert Zubrin. See the past two issues of Access to
Energy for more information about these presentations.
If this remarkable group of speakers is not inducement enough, San
Diego in June is an extraordinary place. Meeting registration including
two lunches and the banquet dinner is a total of $95. Telephone DDP at
(520) 325-2680 for registration and information concerning rooms at
the Bahia Hotel on Mission Bay where this conference is being held.
size the word consensus, and rehearse your sound bites.
STARK RAVING MAD
John L. Plaster, Simon & Schuster (1997). This is a remarkable true
l Showdown at Gender Gap by Diane Ravitch, Forbes, p 68,
April 7, 1997, reports that the Center for Women Policy Studies in
Washington, DC, has called for the College Board to eliminate all
questions from the college entrance Scholastic Aptitude Math Test on
which boys regularly do better than girls. Math scores for boys, even
after the tests were dumbed down two years ago, are still averaging 35
points higher than for girls. A majority of students entering and gradu-
ating from college are, however, girls.
An example of a gender-biased question that should be elimi-
nated according to CWPS (Forbes gives several examples):
Pat made a total of 48 pottery plates and cups. If she made twice
as many plates as cups, how many plates did she make? On average,
12% more boys than girls gave the correct answer.
As Ravitch suggests, Why stop at dumbing down the SAT? Why
not eliminate math altogether? Then we can be sure of equal results.
l Perhaps it is the boys who should complain. The Wall Street
Journal, p A16, January 30, 1997, quotes Nicholas von Hoffman, in
the New York Observer as saying that while between 1980 and 1995,
four-year college tuition rose 256 percent three times the rate of infla-
tion .... academic standards continued to slip. In terms of equivalencies,
a bachelor of arts degree in 1997 may not even be the equal of a gradu-
ation certificate from an academic high school in 1947.
In a course required for university graduation with a BS in chemis-
try, my son Zachary Robinson is currently being taught that farm-
ing is an environmental scourge because it allows too many people to
live and pushes out the tribes of hunter-gatherers.
l The Commentary page of the journal Nature has come out in
support of the Oakland, California tax-financed school program for
ebonics. (See Nature 386, p 321, 27 March 1997.) The Nature article
by G. K. Pullum prefers African American English, AAE to the
term ebonics. Pullum treats us to a language lesson illustrating that
the sentences You aint goin to no heaven and Couldnt nobody
say what colour he is are grammatically perfect in AAE.
Nature is published in England, home of Oxford and Cambridge
and setting for the musical My Fair Lady (which was derived from
Pygmalion by Shaw). Poor Liza apparently had her grammar right.
She was just unable to teach it to Professor Higgins.
Whether it is called ebonics or AAE, this new fad effectively pro-
motes racist efforts to put black Americans in positions of ridicule and
keep professional agitators permanently in business.
GOOD READING
l The Low Pressure Paradigm by George Gilder, Gilder Tech-
nology Report, April 1997, available from P. O. Box 660, Housatonic,
MA 01236, or by telephone at (888) 484-2727. Our individual worlds
are all going to be changed dramatically by essentially free information
transfer. This will be especially traumatic for schools and universities
that depend upon an information monopoly which is rapidly disap-
pearing. It could not happen to a more deserving group.
dore Rockwell, The Scientist, p 9, March 3, 1997 and Atomic Split:
rick, Washington Post, p A3, April 14, 1997. Low level radiation re-
search including the rise of hormesis and the death of the no-threshold
linear hypothesis is finally making its way into the popular press.
When we see these facts discussed in the Readers Digest, the 50-year-
old antinuclear industry will be finished.
l Media Wars: SSI Tactics by Jane Orient in Doctors for Dis-
aster Preparedness Newsletter 14, No. 2, pp 1-2 , March 1997, avail-
able from 2509 N. Campbell Ave., Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719. This
is a revealing look at a media manipulation update from the propa-
ganda group that calls itself Union of Concerned Scientists. For exam-
ple, they advise, Dont confuse them [reporters] with doubt. In other
words, dont talk like a scientist with caveats and error bars. Empha-
l SOG. The Secret Wars of Americas Commandos in Vietnam by
account of American soldiers who operated entirely behind enemy
lines in Vietnam and provided crucial intelligence about enemy activi-
ties beneath the jungle canopy even though most of of their opera-
tions for eight years were compromised by spies in Saigon.
l Another Sure Bet on Earth Day by Julian Simon in The Wall
Street Journal, p A22, April 22, 1997. Technology just keeps lowering
the real cost of natural resources, thereby turning Simons opponents
Stephen Schneider and Paul Ehrlich into perpetual losers.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JUNE 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 10) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Preserving Energy Technology
While it is much more enjoyable to write about the extension of
technology into new frontiers, it is of even greater importance to pre-
serve the technology that we already possess. This is one of the pri-
mary factors that has caused us to work for many years in advocacy
of the building of a national civil and strategic defense.
Reasonable estimates suggest that life in the United States after a
major nuclear war would be comparable to that in the late 1860s after
the War Between the States in population density, technology, and
quality of life. Aside from the tragic loss of life, why should we allow
the unscrupulous machinations of politicians, bureaucrats, and their
elitist bosses, who have left America without any national strategic
and civil defense whatsoever, to permit the destruction of the technol-
ogy that has already been built by six generations of Americans?
Our unconscionable vulnerability to this threat not only worsens
the damage in the event, it increases, through weakness, the prob-
ability of disaster, and it raises the probability that Americans can be
blackmailed into giving up their national sovereignty and freedom.
There is, however, another danger to our technology that is much
closer to our homes and more likely to destroy our way of life.
Yesterday, I attempted to order some rubber boots for my son
Noah. He has outgrown his size 15s. The lady in charge of the store
explained that the markup would be 35% over wholesale for this spe-
cial order. With the aid of her calculator, she then informed me that,
since wholesale was $43, the price would be $78.
When I tried to tell her that she had made a mistake (suggested
retail was $60 and 135% of 43 is 58), she became agitated and told
me, What you dont understand is, is that the price is high cause
youre wanting one pair. She had calculated a 35% markup by add-
ing $35 to the price. After more futile discussion, I went to another
store to order the boots. (There the salesman was unwilling to attempt
to estimate the price at all.)
The day earlier, a mother telephoned about the self-teaching as-
pect of our curriculum. She said that she had graduated from college
with a degree in education, but had learned nothing. She found herself
unable to help her 10-year-old son with his arithmetic. It was essential
that she find a school curriculum requiring no teacher help.
Recently, the chairman of a university chemistry department said
to me, It is much worse than you realize. More than 90% of our
students cannot read a book with enough understanding to apply the
knowledge in it in even simple ways. A few weeks earlier, a famous
professor of mathematics at a major university told me that the most
pressing educational problem is teaching the students to read.
Two days ago, in a call about our curriculum, a mother told me
that her public-schooled son was very brilliant, especially in math, so
he had been put in a special education, advanced class in mathemat-
ics. In this class, at the age of 14, he is just beginning to learn algebra.
The campus newspaper at a nearby high school with about 2,000
students recently carried an article in which the principal of ten years
listed, as one of his most important accomplishments, the expansion
of AP courses at the school to specifically prepare the students for
Advanced Placement exams. These are given once each year in May
arctic Ice Sheet Collapse? by Charles R. Bentley, Science 275, pp
SEA LEVEL AND ANTARCTIC ICE
sea level with drainage to the ocean cannot, of course, cause the sea
As global warming propaganda oozes out of government schools
(remember the Statue of Liberty drowning in the Atlantic Ocean?) and
gushes from public radio, some scientists do have the courage to
respond. An example is Rapid Sea-Level Rise Soon from West Ant-
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
by the College Board. High scores permit students to skip the corre-
sponding college courses. When, however, Noah and his sister
Arynne took AP tests at that high school this year, in some subjects
they were the only students taking the test. Between the two of them,
they took as many exams as all the other 2,000 students combined.
Geniuses? No. The first two years of university instruction are
now roughly equivalent to a good high school education in the United
States in the 1950s. Skipping all of those first two years indicates only
that the student has obtained a reasonably good basic education.
About one-half million American families are now teaching their
children at home. Though few of these parents have any training or
experience in education and most of the texts they use are at public
school grade levels, their children average in the 80th percentiles (see
Access to Energy 24, No. 8 p 3) as compared with public school chil-
dren, who average 50th percentile (by definition). Moreover, black
and hispanic home school students are as high as white students,
while in public schools these children average in the 20th percentiles.
Public education (tax-financed socialism) has become the most
widespread and devastating form of child abuse and racism in the
United States. Moreover, people who have been cut off at the knees
by public education are so mentally handicapped that they cannot be
responsible custodians of the energy technology base or other ad-
vanced accomplishments of our civilization. These ignorant people
vote, and their votes are beginning to destroy our way of life.
Can this problem be corrected? Yes. Can it be corrected by im-
proving the public schools? No only by abolishing them. There are
over 2 million reasons (aside from the fact that socialism does not
work) why public education cannot be improved two million edu-
cation bureaucrats and educators who belong to the powerful teachers
unions. These people are firmly ensconced on the over-taxed backs of
the nations property owners and have no intention of changing.
(Surely there are some good and dedicated teachers in this group, but
they have long since been overwhelmed by the others.)
Now, this educational establishment and the federal Administra-
tion they did so much to elect propose Goals 2000, which will re-
quire that every worker in America have a license from the public
schools a certificate of mastery for his particular occupation. He
may not be able to read, write, or do arithmetic, but he will have a
license from the state and a thorough indoctrination in its propaganda.
Regarding our Version 2.0 self-teaching home school curriculum,
we have been receiving over 50 letters and calls per day primarily
from poorly educated parents who desperately want something better
for their children and who hope to learn along with their children.
I know that most technologists think that elementary education is
boring so did I. The effects of the current nationwide system of
diseducation are, however, not boring. The resulting ignorance in our
body politic diminishes our progress and threatens the technological
base upon which we stand. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Free enterprise made possible our energy technology. Unless,
however, we return free enterprise to our educational system, social-
ism there will destroy all that we and our predecessors have built.
1077-1078 (1997). Ice that is already floating in the ocean or is below
level to rise whether it melts or not as Petr Beckmann explained in
Access to Energy years ago. There is, however, ice in Antarctica that
is above sea level and is not floating. Known as the West Antarctic ice
sheet, it rests on a bed on the Antarctic continent and melts continu-
ously at the bed-ice interface. Current melting, according to Bentley,
would be sufficient to raise sea level by 1 millimeter per year (about 4
inches per century) were it not for the fact that snowfall adds about
the same amount of water each year to the top of the ice. Therefore,
there is no net addition of water to the ocean. Correcting for the ice
below sea level and assuming that snowfall remains the same, Ben-
tley estimates that this melting would have to increase by about six-
fold to cause a rapid rise in sea level.
He estimates that there is enough such ice in Antarctica to raise
world ocean levels by about 20 feet if it were all melted. At present,
there is no net melting at all, but this does not impress the global warm-
ers who wail that future warming will cause it all to melt. That hypo-
thetical future is, however, much more distant than they claim. other than trading for a living and then trade the opposite direction
Bentley points out that it would require thousands of years for
warming at the ice surface to penetrate the greatly insulating ice mass
and raise the temperature at the bottom, which is the only place that
melting can occur. Even if global warming should eventually happen
(it has not been observed and may never occur), humanity would have
thousands of years to adjust coastal installations to sea level rise.
There remains the theoretical possibility that sea water could run
under the ice mass or that the ice could slip off into the sea. Based upon
geological records, Bentley estimates the chance of this at about once
every 100,000 years and points out that, since the thickness of the ice
insulates it from surface effects, such an event would be entirely of
geologic origins and could not be affected by human activities.
At its ocean interface, the expulsion of Antarctic water and ice into
the ocean is continually changing in location and character but not in
extent. According to Bentley, measurements demonstrate that the total
outflow has been approximately constant for 1,500 years and that there
has been no drastic change for 30,000 years. This outflow is balanced
by snowfall, and there is no evidence of any recent net addition of
water to the ocean. (See Bentley article and its included references.)
This month, I was required to drive two, 12-hour round trips to
Portland, Oregon, and pay about 5-fold more than necessary to have
one low temperature laboratory freezer repaired thanks to the ozone
scam. Local refrigeration people were afraid to fix it because they
lacked special freon handling equipment now required by federal law.
If the Clinton-Gore Administration gets the international global
warming treaty that they advocate, the next time this freezer requires
repair we may have to take it to Portland with a horse and wagon
unless we can afford to buy carbon credits from the United Nations.
Actually, this is unlikely. The freezer will never wear out after the
treaty shuts down the coal-fired power plants that supply its electricity.
the atmosphere shows no measurable significant net warming except
FREEZING IN THE DARK
Mankind does, in fact, face a highly probable and catastrophic man-
During the years that Laurelee and I supported ourselves and our
work by trading commodities, I sometimes thought about starting a fi-
nancial newsletter. A possibility was to start two newsletters under dif-
Figure 1
ferent titles. One would predict that the markets would go up, and the
other would predict that they would go down. After an appropriate in-
terval, the newsletter that turned out to be wrong could be closed and
the other advertised on the basis of its track record.
For one person to do this would be, of course, unethical. The mar-
ket place, however, spawns a great many such oppositely predicting
sources of information. Many of the advertised successful track re-
cords are no more than those that chance has favored.
[While we are on the subject of commodities, I will mention one
unethical, probably illegal, and virtually certain-to-succeed method of
trading. Simply have a friend at a large brokerage house compile a list
of current trades by small, amateur traders who work at occupations
from this compilation. This group, averaged together over time, always
loses. All large brokerages have this information in their computers,
but none would take advantage of it now, would they?]
Stanfords Stephen Schneider, who gained fame as a global cooler
and now is in the forefront of the global warmers, is well hedged.
Green & Gold 7, p3, available from P. O. Box 74416, Lynnwood
Ridge, Pretoria, 0040, South Africa, quotes Schneider as warning in
Science, July 9, 1971, that we may be close to triggering an ice age. His
colleague Lowell Ponte is quoted as writing in 1976, The cooling has
already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations .... if it
continues and no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling
will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably World War, and
this could all come by the year 2000. Global warming is faltering, but
global cooling may once again become a growth industry.
Figure 1, from Ecologic pp 1 & 5, March/April 1997, available
from P. O. Box 191, Hollow Rock, TN 38342, gives the infrared satel-
lite temperature data for the lower atmospheric troposphere updated to
1997. Ecologic quotes Robert Balling, Director of the Office of Cli-
matology at Arizona State University, as saying that the most recent
satellite measurements of global temperature are among the most inter-
esting in the 19-year history of the record. These measurements show
that January 1997 was the coldest January ever measured by the satel-
lite system. You, of course, did not hear about these measurements on
the evening news. Had January 1997 been the warmest month, this
would have been reported as a major crisis. Since global temperatures
fluctuate up and down as a result of natural processes, there will always
be recent data for at least one doomsday scenario.
After half a century of substantial human release of carbon from
coal, oil, and natural gas, and a very large increase in atmospheric carb-
on dioxide levels (not necessarily cause and effect), the temperature of
for the period of time preceding most of the carbon dioxide release.
made environmental crisis of enormous proportions. This crisis does
not arise from global warming. It arises from the false propaganda
about global warming that is being used to justify a mad, international
plunge into global controls on carbon release.
Most intellectuals, scientists, and successful technologists are not
alarmed by this possibility. They currently live at the economic apex of
society and assume that they will be able to afford power at any cost.
They are also not alarmed by the DDT ban that permits 2 million an-
nual deaths and 100 million new cases of malaria each year in the third
world or by the plight of the family in Grants Pass, Oregon, who were
forced to turn off their wood stove during below freezing weather and
fined because they had used it on a no burn day.
Individual fortunes also fluctuate, however. Today, one may have
plenty of money and a good position. Tomorrow, during a new age of
global carbon controls, anyone could find himself and his family
among the less fortunate members of society freezing in the dark.
OIL REFINERIES DISAPPEARING
Gas Pumps Ring Up Environmental Costs in The Wall Street
Journal, p A19, May 7, 1996, reported that increasing environmental
rules and regulations drove 130 U. S. oil refineries out of operation
between 1981 and 1996, with 33 going under after 1988. In 1995 there
remained only 162 operating oil refineries in the United States. Im-
proved efficiency from new hydrocarbon cracking technology has
managed to keep American refinery output about constant since 1988.
Regulatory costs of operating a refinery are 25% lower in Western
Europe and Canada and almost zero in much of the developing world.
Is it not wonderful! They refine our oil in exchange for printing press
money and in admiration of our environmental superiority.
exposure has dropped 30%; accidents resulting in one or more days
THE SUN IS HOT
away from work have dropped 60%; and annual volume of radioactive
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun .... (Mad
Dogs and Englishmen by Noel Coward), but most people do not think
about the fact that it is warmer when the sun shines and that most natu-
ral phenomena fluctuate. Two people who do are Sallie Baliunas and
Willie Soon, as evidenced by their article The Sun Climate Connec-
tion in Sky & Telescope, December 1996, and their research.
Figure 2, adapted from their publications, illustrates the close corre-
Figure 2
lation between changes in the surface temperature of the Earths
Northern Hemisphere and variations in the Suns magnetic activity.
(The smooth line is the solar magnetic cycle length. The rough line is
the Earth temperature deviation from its mean.) This correlation has
been extended to the 11th century by means of measurements of carb-
on 14 and beryllium 10 in ancient trees and ice cores in comparison
with recorded historical events. Increased solar activity is associated
with strong magnetic fields that deflect cosmic rays away from the
earth and thereby reduce production of these isotopes.
Moreover, Baliunas and Soon and their colleagues and predeces-
sors have made measurements of magnetism and brightness fluctua-
tions of other stars similar to our sun. These measurements show that
the suns fluctuations are not unusual among stars of its type. They
conclude that solar-brightness variations can explain most of the past
record of terrestrial global temperature fluctuations.
So, the sun changes in brightness by about one-half of one percent,
and our global betters use this as an excuse to turn our power off.
The pseudoenvironmentalists ask that we make gods of men nota-
bly of themselves as leaders of the new world order. Alas, it is turning
out that the sun (and not men) is setting the temperature of the Earth.
They are hedged, however, by their insistence that we also worship
plants and animals and mother gaia. From there it is only a short step
further to worship of the sun god under their guidance.
The Aztecs worshiped the sun god. One of their religious dogmas
required that a stone at the top of their worship pyramid be kept con-
tinually wet with human blood as desired by the sun god. Pseudoenvi-
ronmental laws and regulations are already killing enough human
beings worldwide to supply materials for the maintenance of many
such pyramids. (In a required course for chemistry majors at Oregon
State University, my son Zachary is learning that the Aztecs and
their quaint customs were far superior to present day Americans.)
NUCLEAR POWER IMPROVEMENTS
Nuclear Issues 19, No. 4, pp 1-2, April 1997, available from 8 Ru-
vigny Mansions, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LE, summa-
rizes a report by the World Association of Nuclear Operators about
performance indicators of the 436 operating nuclear power plants.
Since 1990, the fraction of maximum energy the plants are capable
of supplying to the electrical grid has risen 10%; collective radiation
waste has dropped 50%.
Nuclear Issues in the same issue on page 4 summarizes the 1996
International Atomic Energy Agency report of nuclear power plants
subdivided by country, capacity, operating experience, and percentage
of total electric power supplied. In percentages, Lithuania leads with
83.4%. Among large producers, France is still overwhelmingly domi-
nant with 76.1% of its electricity supplied by nuclear power.
In 1996, France produced 378.2 TWh(e) of electricity from nuclear
power. The only country producing more was the United States, which
made 674.8 TWh(e). Others over 100 TWh(e) were Japan at 287.0,
Germany at 152.8, and Russia at 108.8.
As nuclear power generation expands worldwide, especially in
Asia, not all of the news is good. American nuclear power develop-
ment remains stalled and hopefully will be able to tread water until we
are rid of the Clinton Administration. In Sweden (See Nuclear Issues
19, No. 2, pp 1-3 (1997)), voters approved a measure freezing con-
struction of new nuclear power plants, but the envirocrats in the Swed-
ish government are interpreting this to mean that they are authorized to
close the 12 plants now operating and currently generating 52.4 % of
Swedens electric power. It is to be hoped that cooler heads will prevail
before these people go too far.
Russia reports that electricity from nuclear power is costing about
one-half of that generated from coal, oil, and natural gas. This is, of
course, the reason that the worlds rapidly developing economies are
enthusiastically installing more nuclear power plants.
American politicians and bureaucrats expect to continue to con-
sume the technological accomplishments of prior generations while
not allowing sensible installation of the best new technology. In dec-
ades to come, we will then hear even greater calls for trade barriers so
that Americans can live in their own internally produced dark age,
while the rest of the world moves forward. Already worldwide compe-
tition is lowering the real wages of American workers who are over-
taxed, over-regulated, and often work with obsolete machinery
because needed replacement capital has been seized by government.
Energy is the currency of technological progress. The May 9, 1997
information release by Business Communications Company, 25 Van
Zant Street, Norwalk, CT 06855, gives as the projected annual in-
creases in electric power generating capacity during the next decade:
North America - 1.1%, Central and South America - 3.6%, Western
Europe - 1.9%, Eastern Europe - 1.0%, Middle East - 5.5%, Africa -
4.2%, Far East and Oceania - 6.9%. They point out that the United
States is strong in energy research and development that it can sell to
these markets. The ultimate bottom line, however, is that he who has
the electricity can support the industry to do and make things of value.
INTERACTIVE PROPAGANDA
Access to Energy has called recycling (except for that which arises
spontaneously in the free market such as for silver and copper) inter-
active propaganda. Every salesman knows that a sale is more likely if
the customer can be convinced to do something with his own hands for
or with the salesman. Forced recycling never made sense and, in many
cases, was counterproductive as in paper recycling which raises pa-
per costs while diminishing forest quality by undermining the market
for scrub trees that need to be removed. Recycling has primarily been a
contrived tool whereby the enviro industry gets Americans to mind-
lessly participate in an enviro project thereby diminishing resistance
to other items on the pseudoenvironmentalist agenda. l The Enemy Within: The High Costs of Living Near Nuclear Re-
Finally, word even came to The New York Times see Recycling actors by Jay M. Gould, reviewed by Dade W. Moeller, Priorities 9,
is Garbage by John Tierney, The New York Times Magazine, June No. 1, pp 32-34, (see source below) states that low-level radiation has
30, 1996. Then New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared recy- made bacteria resistant to antibiotics; mutated the spirochete re-
cling is not a religion (New York Times, July 3, 1996 Giuliani sponsible for Lyme disease; is responsible for AIDS; has increased the
Assails Recycling Goals in Law). He was wrong. A religion is just incidence of breast cancer, prostate cancer, pneumonia, and blood poi-
exactly what the enviros want recycling to be. At that point, it was soning; and has caused a decrease in infant birth weights, a decrease in
costing New York City taxpayers $50 million to $100 million annually SAT scores, and an alarming decline in the number of species in
to recycle 14% of their garbage, not counting household labor. tropical rain forests.
Now, Recycling Craze Litters Nation With Failing Programs by There is, of course, not a shred of evidence in support of any of
David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, Citizen Outlook 12, No. 2, pp 1-3, these claims. Goulds purpose is to induce fear in people who are not
available from CFACT, P. O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035 wise enough or well-trained enough to require evidence. Tax-financed
(read also Our Stolen Future: A Reckless Use of the Precautionary schools are doing their best to provide him with such people.
Principle by Elizabeth M. Whelan in this same issue), reports that l The Pennsylvania Landowner, April 1997, reprinted an article
New Yorks experience has been repeated across the country. City af- from Liberty Matters News Service, January 13, 1997 (information
ter city and several states with ambitious recycling plans are coming to available at (518) 725-1900) reporting that both parents of a New York
the conclusion that recycling wastes resources rather than saving them. family have been sentenced to 6 months in prison and a $136,000 fine
One estimate puts the U. S. loss at about $4 billion per year. by acting State Supreme Court Judge David F. Jung in Essex County,
The enviros, of course, are using the courts to damage landfill and NY. They were caught with a leaky septic tank system.
incineration projects and to force state and local governments to mas-
sively subsidize recycling not to preserve the Earths resources, but GOOD READING
to preserve their own power and propaganda campaigns.
The free market very efficiently recycles everything that is eco- l Poisons of the Mind by Jon Franklin, Priorities 9, No. 1, pp
nomically sensible, while the huge enviro recycling programs waste 10-23 (1997), available from ACSH, 1995 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New
resources. If they were not wasteful, tax subsidies and competition- York, NY 10023-5860. Reprinted from an address by two-time Pulit-
limiting regulations would not be required to keep them in business. zer Prize winner Jon Franklin to the American Society of Animal Sci-
ence, this essay is an extraordinarily effective indictment of the
FEWER ELECTRIC CARS pseudoenvironmentalist industry and their allies in the media. Be cer-
tain to read this and to obtain a copy from ACSH for circulation to
Electric Vehicle Today, March 13, 1997, available from 119 South others. Many articles contain more facts and figures, but Franklins tal-
Fairfax Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, reports that deliveries of the ent makes this an extraordinarily convincing article.
General Motors EV1 electric vehicle marketed by Saturn Corporation l Early Warning Report by Richard Maybury, May 1997, p 1,
are declining. Only 155 of these vehicles have been leased in three available from Henry Madison Research, P. O. Box 84908, Phoenix,
months and deliveries last month dropped to 31, leaving GM with a AZ 85071. Maybury states that Civilization grows from two funda-
240-day supply. The lease price is $480 to $640 per month and, al- mental laws: (1) Do all that you have agreed to do and (2) Do not en-
though the specifications claim that the range between rechargings is croach on other persons or their property. He has a remarkable ability
70 miles, some customers report that it is actually about 45 miles. to predict world events based upon analyzing the stability of nations
Electric cars will be fine when engineering advances make them with respect to their adherence to and enforcement of these two laws.
practical. Until then, they will continue to be hobby toys and wasteful l A Bridge Back to Liberty, The New American, pp 21-27,
sinks for taxpayer subsidized studies and demonstration projects. April (1997) reprints an excellent address to Congress by Congress-
man Ron Paul M.D. This is the sort of Congressional debate that could
PLENTIFUL HYDROCARBON SUPPLIES repair the American government.
l Why Do We Americans Submit to This?, available from New-
Flawed Reasoning About Oil and Gas by M. B. Dusseault, Na- comb Publishers, 1307 Dolley Madison Blvd., Room 203, McLean,
ture 386, p 12 (1997), reviews facts about world supplies of oil and VA 22101, is a collection of articles by Dr. Susan Huck that have been
natural gas and points out that these supplies are not inherently fixed or previously published in Conservative Review between 1990 and 1997.
limited with respect to human use. These are excellent articles on a wide variety of subjects.
He concludes that limitations on oil use are therefore more logi- l Kasparovs Brain, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, p
cally related to environmental issues such as global warming and urban A22, May 13, 1997, is a very well-written tribute both to the genius of
pollution; resource limits do not, for practical purposes, exist. Oil Garry Kasparov and to the advance of human technology. It also
shortages are actually short-term shortfalls in cheap conventional crude places these remarkable achievements in perspective to one another
oil supplies, and have little to do with the actual long-term hydrocar- and with respect to the climate of medieval spookiness about science
bon supplies. and technology. In this country, it destroyed the nuclear power indus-
Just as with nuclear power, our potential limitations with respect to try and turns courtrooms into cauldrons of scientific superstition;
hydrocarbon supplies are measured by how much the ignorance of our across Europe people cower at the hobgoblin of bioengineered foods.
fellow citizens can be exploited by antitechnologists and not by real l An Effective Antimissile Strategy by Senator Jon Kyl in The
physical aspects of supply. Wall Street Journal, p A14, May 22, 1997 concerning immediately de-
ployable defenses and the need to abolish the outdated ABM treaty.
STARK RAVING MAD
ACCESS TO ENERGY
l In Cancer Risk of Low-Level Exposure, Science 271, p 1821
(1996), Marvin Goldman points out that current government-utilized Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
cancer risk analysis leads to the conclusion that a 1-inch lift to shoes Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
would result in 1,500 deaths from cancer worldwide over the next 50 $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
years. The no-threshold linear hypothesis now in use by our enviro- for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
crats makes no allowance for radiation hormesis at low radiation lev- Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
els. Therefore, since cosmic ray dose doubles for every 6,000 feet in 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
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 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 11) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Socialized Hypocrisy
Many years ago, when sex education was first being introduced
into the socialized schools, there was a joke going around to the effect
that this might help reduce the rate of population increase. If the gov-
ernment taught these classes with the same effectiveness that it taught
other subjects, the students would be unable to reproduce.
Well, the birth rate in America is now below replacement rate, but
we hesitate to attribute this to tax-financed education. School-based
destruction of the beauty of sexual awakening within marriage has
helped to weaken American families and has contributed substan-
tially to the soaring rate of sexually transmitted diseases both tend-
ing to reduce births. On the other hand, non-family births have greatly
increased, so sex-ed may have accomplished nothing more than a
diminution of American moral standards and quality of life.
The unabashed and rapid expansion of government financial inter-
ests in the promotion of general vice, however, has been astonishing
indeed. We are wondering when mobsters will start publishing news-
letters complaining about socialism and the destruction of free enter-
prise in their chosen fields of expertise.
Throughout America until quite recently the citizenry was pro-
tected by strict laws against gambling a vice that our government stration threatened tobacco companies with draconian controls that
betters told us was destructive of individual, family, and societal
moral fiber. (Gambling was also engaged in occasionally and without
great ill effects by a large percentage of our most conservative citi-
zens.) Now, of course, government is in the gambling business.
Not content with their take from taxes on horse track betting and
Nevada casinos and their occasional sanctimonious raids on unap-
proved bingo games, our governments have plunged enthusiastically
into the lottery business and encouraged proliferation of casinos
throughout the land - casinos that pay large sums of protection money
to government. Who among us has not experienced an uplifting sense
of pride as he waits in line at the grocery store behind a strong, able-
bodied American who first pays for his groceries with food stamps
and then buys his daily allotment of lottery tickets with cash?
This is, of course, understandable. Those who work hard are fined
by high taxes, which are needed to pay rewards to those who prefer
not to work. Idleness, however, creates boredom. So, government bu-
reaucrats come to the rescue with unemployment forms and lottery
tickets to help fill the empty moments between TV commercials.
Government involvement in the gambling industry pales, how-
ever, in comparison with the new partnership it is now forging with
the cigarette industry.
The epidemiological science here has been well-established since
the 1960s. Each pack of cigarettes habitually smoked per day dimin-
ishes life expectancy about 8 years. A two-pack-per-day smoker can
expect to live, on average, 16 fewer years than a nonsmoker. The bio-
chemistry of this phenomenon is still not completely understood, but
the effect is unequivocal. Smokers age more rapidly and die sooner
from the degenerative diseases of aging. Increased probability of lung
cancer is only one of the ill effects.
Outlawing cigarette smoking is held to be an unacceptable en-
croachment upon human freedom. I agree. In any case, attempted
use during the coming centuries and the amount of energy he expects
FUTURE ENERGY SOURCES
mands, Resources, Impact, Technology, and Policy, S. S. Penner and
In his June 14 presentation to the San Diego conference (audio
tapes available from DDP, 2509 N. Campbell Ave. #272, Tucson, AZ
85719 - telephone (520) 325-2680), Professor S. S. Penner quantita-
tively summarized the known sources of energy available for human
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
prohibition of alcohol taught our government a memorable lesson
about the futility of laws against a widely popular vice. This does not
mean that government should be in the cigarette business.
The long-standing hypocrisy of tax-financed agricultural subsidies
to tobacco growers was bad enough. This was offset, we were told,
by heavy taxes on cigarettes, which were justified as discouraging
consumption. Now, as ably exposed in A Tobacco Settlement in
The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 1997, p A14, the actual nature of
the partnership between government and tobacco is more apparent.
The laws of economics being beyond government control, it had
become clear that further large increases in cigarette taxes really
would reduce consumption, to the detriment of both the tobacco com-
panies and the tax collectors. Moreover, class action lawyers were be-
ginning to horn in on the entire enterprise. (I do not intend to express
support for lawsuits brought by people who knowingly harm them-
selves, but that is another issue.) This has threatened to split the take
from the cigarette businesses with an additional mob.
Therefore, for the past year or so we have been treated to the sof-
tening-up phase of a new protection racket. First, the Clinton Admini-
would be damaging to their businesses. Second, government courts
permitted more progress in gigantic class action lawsuits against to-
bacco companies. There were white hats for everyone the Food and
Drug bureaucrats, the politicians, the courts, the lawyers, and the
press all of whom claimed the high ground against the evil, black-
hatted cigarette producers. Now that the marks (partners) have been
sufficiently softened up, we are seeing the protection deal.
Tobacco companies are agreeing to pay a substantial share of their
profits (hundreds of billions of dollars over future years) to govern-
ment bureaucrats and politicians in return for guarantees that they will
not be mugged by class action suits in government courts or by busi-
ness-destroying government regulations. Class action suits and puni-
tive damages will be prohibited in cigarette litigation but will be
permitted for other products, including medicines and toys.
In essence, the government is going into the cigarette business. A
transparent veil of justification has been manufactured by claiming
that governments need this money to pay for the increased costs of
illness due to cigarette smoking. As The Wall Street Journal points
out, however, tobacco-related deaths probably cost less, not more.
Everyone suffers one terminal disease. Tobacco users tend to die
sooner and more quickly with fewer overall medical expenditures and
also less burden to the old-age pension systems.
How do the stockholders of cigarette companies feel about shared
ownership with government? Well, in response to the expected
deal, stock prices of cigarette companies have sharply increased.
As the endless struggle between freedom and tyranny free enter-
prise and socialism continues, it is disconcerting to notice the busi-
nesses that our governments have chosen to enter in their pursuit of
the public welfare alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and protection.
Perhaps prostitution will be next after a few more years of prepara-
tory work in sex-ed classes and school-based health clinics.
to be required during the 21st century. (See also Energy, Vol 1: De-
L. Icerman, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1981.) Dr. Penner gives
1995 commercial worldwide energy use as 4 x 1027 ergs/year and sta-
bilized demand in the next century, assuming a world population of
10 billion, as 2 x 1028 ergs/year a fivefold increase over 1995.
Normalizing, therefore, to a worldwide human requirement for 2 x
1028 ergs/year and assuming all of the worlds energy is produced
from the single tabulated source (for simplicity he does not predict
this), his estimates of nonrenewable known reserves (worldwide ex-
cept where noted) for energy production can be given as:
1. Deuterium fusion 5 billion years
2. Breeder reactors (including thorium and U-233) 20,000 years
3. Coal, oil (including shale and tar), and natural gas 1,000 years
4. Water-moderated uranium fission reactors 100 years
5. Fusion from Lithium 6 100 years
6. United States coal, oil, and natural gas 50 years
7. Hydrothermal to 6 miles depth (partially renewable) 20 years
8. United States water-moderated uranium fission 10 years
9. Hydrothermal to 2 miles depth 4 years
For renewable energy sources, his estimates expressed as excess of
available energy over 2 x 1028 ergs/year can be given as:
1. Solar at the boundary of the earths atmosphere 2,500 fold
2. Wind energy 1,000 fold
3. Geothermal (flow of heat from earths core) 0.4 fold
4. Hydroelectric 0.05 fold
5. Tidal energy 0.05 fold
The amount of energy from each source that will actually be used de-
pends, of course, upon marginal cost and place utility, measures of the
values of the specific cost and location of each increment of energy.
These sorts of considerations lead to the conclusion that energy in the
21st century will be generated from a mixture of sources.
Obviously, energy from nuclear fusion and energy from solar radia-
tion (directly or indirectly) are appealing from the point of view of es-
sentially limitless supply. This appeal is, however, only a theoretical
advantage until they can be supplied at economically competitive
prices. An age of low-cost energy from fusion for large industrial
needs and solar panels on the roofs of homes for personal requirements
may be just ahead or it may lie in the distant future, depending upon
the speed with which the relevant technological problems are solved.
The free market, if it is allowed to operate, will take care of this.
In the meantime, these estimates are reason for great optimism with
regard to the centuries immediately ahead. Coal, oil, and natural gas
technologies are well-developed, and hydrocarbon fuels are clearly
abundant in supply. There is adequate fuel for fission reactors for the
near future, which gives plenty of time to bring in breeder reactors be-
fore uranium supplies are limiting.
Overall, it is obvious from these numbers that the human race has
an abundance of available energy from a great variety of sources,
which will last far into the distant future. After that, new energy
sources will be available. Energy is the currency of technological pro-
gress, and we have all that we will need for the relevant future.
This is, of course, the root cause of current political maneuvers.
During the 1970s, the antitechnology population controllers attempted
to convince uninformed people that there was an energy crisis and
that industialization and energy use should be curtailed to save the rap-
idly dwindling supplies. This campaign was made possible by tempo-
rary, politically caused dislocations in petroleum supplies.
During the energy crisis, the usual collection of enviros, aca-
demics, and trust-and-parrot media outlets wailed the baleful message
that mankind had created his own end by profligately wasting the pre-
cious reserves of Planet Earth. Free-market forces spoiled their party,
however, as energy prices dropped and their constituents in the public
gradually became aware that the crisis had passed.
The reserves listed above are not, of course, all immediately avail-
able at a low price. It is unlikely that humans will ever extract all of the
solar energy colliding with the earth, fuse every last deuterium atom in
the oceans, or extract even the most inaccessible hydrocarbon reserves.
(The reservoir of known reserves continues to rise, and hydrocarbons
can also be synthesized using energy from other sources.)
In any case, fission and breeder reactor technology is already with
us as is hydrocarbon technology. Moreover, on these time scales, it is
clear that solar energy can be captured when needed. Should humans
begin to exhaust their nuclear and hydrocarbon reserves, higher energy
prices would turn on solar sources such as the burning of renewable
biomass and the use of solar collectors.
Energy needs for the projected 10 billion people can obviously be
met. To help visualize this number of people, consider that 10 billion is
one person per 700 square feet of Texas or, divided into families of
four, a 2,800 square foot, two-story home for each family if the
homes covered half of the surface area of Texas and housed all 10 bil-
lion people. Alternatively, each four-person family could occupy a
3,200 square foot, two-story home with those homes covering five per-
cent of the area of the United States or one house per 1.5 acres. If they
were housed in cities, the United States alone could accommodate all
10 billion people with less than one percent of its land devoted to hous-
ing and much of the rest devoted to very high intensity agriculture.
One acre of Iowa farm land currently produces enough grain to feed
about 15 urban adults, while a typical acre of Great Plains wheat land
provides for about 5 such adults. If 10 adults are fed per acre, then de-
voting one percent of the United States to housing and half of the re-
maining land to agriculture would accommodate 10 billion people.
The United States covers 6% of the land on the earth, so spreading
these 10 billion people out over earth and allowing them all to live as
families of four in suburban 3,200 square foot two-story homes re-
quires 0.3% of the land for housing and 3% for intensive agriculture
(or about 15% if half of their food is grain and the other half beef). This
is one family of four and one luxurious home per 13 acres.
Now, of course, not all 13-acre plots are as lush and livable as those
in Southern Oregon, so, setting aside 60% of the earth as wilderness,
each family still gets 5 acres the generally preferred amount for rural
retired families in Southern Oregon.
Moreover, the natural beauty of the earth is increasing rapidly as
coal, oil, and natural gas are turned into plants and animals through
carbon release as carbon dioxide. Even at current release rates (an or-
der of magnitude below those required to exhaust world hydrocarbon
supplies in 1,000 years), it is estimated that the plant and animal popu-
lations of the earth will double during the next century (see Access to
Energy, 21, No. 3, pp 2-3 (1993)). Bruce Kimballs presentation in San
Diego showed the enormous impact that rising carbon dioxide levels
will have upon the productivity of agricultural crops alone.
The 10 billion people of the 21st century could have essentially un-
limited energy, a vast, increasingly beautiful planet upon which to live,
and the technology to make their lives wonderful indeed with no re-
source or technology limitations on the bequest of these blessings to
their descendants for centuries and millennia in the future.
History teaches, however, that the political machinations of human
governments often cause terrible deprivations and suffering for great
numbers of people regardless of circumstances. Fortunately, with
many sovereign nation states, it is unlikely that all will err at once. This
is one compelling reason to oppose world government.
As an ignorant, self-serving elite continues to immobilize Ameri-
cans in a tar baby composed of antinuclear, global warming, antitech-
nology, antiscience, antidefense, and prosocialist myths, other nations
are adopting and extending our technology for the betterment of their
people. In Senators Warn Global-Warming Pact Is At Risk if Devel-
oping Nations Dont Act, The Wall Street Journal, p A20, June 20
(1997), it is reported that Timothy Wirth, the Clinton Administration
undersecretary of state for global affairs, was questioned about plans to
limit hydrocarbon use in the United States while projections of Asian
economies do not include restrictions and predict far more total use
than the United States. His reply? Wirth said that China eventually
would decide that such controls would be in its self interest to help
curb rising sea levels and rising temperatures that dry up farm land.
Since there is not a shred of credible scientific evidence that human
hydrocarbon use will lead to significantly increased sea levels or dried
up farm land, this is nonsense. Chinas primary national interest in the
Global-Warming Pact is in the severe crippling effect that it would
have upon the economic productivity of Chinas competitors. If the
Clinton-Gore-Wirth sleaze trio manages to cut Americans off at the
knees with this treaty, it is the American people who will suffer while
Asian people thrive.
 able from the same address. These publications by Patrick J. Michaels
DISHONESTY IN SCIENCE
Santers finding of a strong positive correlation between tempera-
With the rapid decay in moral values in our society, it is not surpris-
ing that this has spread to science. The advent of big-time, tax-financed
science during the past 50 years has served to sharply accelerate this
trend by filling the ranks of scientists with legions of people whose
abilities and ethical standards are not compatible with this subject.
Consider Richard Feynmans statement that a scientists highest
obligation is to prove himself wrong against the backdrop of tax-fi-
nanced schools and universities in which cheating, lying, stealing and
generally immoral behavior are practiced by a large proportion of the
students and faculty. We have descended so far that polls show that a
majority of those who
voted for the current
President of the United
States and approve of
his performance do not
believe that he is an
honest man.
Still, raw dishon-
esty in the reporting of
scientific results is
shocking. It is impor-
tant not to lose our in-
dividual moral sense of
outrage at this sort of
behavior.
My first experience
with this was in 1979
when Linus Pauling at-
tempted to publish, un-
der his own name, Figure 1
research that I had car-
ried out. Linus wanted
to advertise the finding that very large doses of Vitamin C (near lethal)
decreased the rate of growth of cancer in mice, but he did not want to
report that the same experiments showed that Vitamin C at ordinary
doses increased the rate of cancer growth. So, he plotted the data with a
distorted horizontal axis that pushed the offending points so close to
the origin that the reader would not notice them.
When this was revealed, the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences rejected his paper (although he managed to publish part of
it later in the proceedings of an unrefereed Brazilian symposium).
Even so, Linus put in all of the data. He just arranged his graph so that
part of it would be effectively concealed.
My next experience was in 1992 regarding an endangered species
filing through which several large enviro organizations attempted to
seize control of Southern Oregon farms, logging, and mining by alleg-
ing harm to Steelhead fish in the streams and rivers.
The centerpiece of this filing was a claimed correlation between the
amount of logging and the number of Steelhead in the streams. This
correlation had a strong statistical significance. When, however, I
looked at the original data, I found that about half of the available data
had simply been left out of the calculation. When all of the data were
considered, the correlation disappeared. A similar attempt was made
with stream flow data in order to implicate farmers. There too, when all
of the data were considered, there was no correlation at all.
Most recent, however, is the remarkable case illustrated in Figure 1
and displayed by Dr. Sallie Baliunas during her presentation in San Di-
ego. The relevant literature references are: A Search for Human In-
fluences on the Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere, by Santer, B.
D., et al, Nature 382, pp 39-45 (1996); Human Effect on Global Cli-
mate? by Michaels, P. J. and Knappenberger, P. C., Nature 384, pp
522-523 (1996); and Human Effect on Global Climate by Santer,
B. D., et al, Nature 384, p 524 (1996). See also World Climate Report
1, No. 21 and 2, No.1 available from P. O. Box 455, Ivy, VA 22945,
telephone (703) 907-6160, and State of the Climate Report 1997, avail-
and his colleagues are excellent.
ture and time in the Southern Hemisphere troposphere between 30
and 60 S latitude (a region where confounding atmospheric influences
are less, so that greenhouse gas warming might be expected to be more
easily and accurately observed) played a substantial role in the delib-
erations of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, IPCC, which has been influential in the push for treaties plac-
ing global controls on hydrocarbon use. The solid points inside the
oval in Figure 1 are those reported by Santer, et al.
The open circles in Figure 1 are those added by Michaels and
Knappenberger, who looked up the rest of the data. Since Santers pa-
per was published in
1996 and was used
prior to publication to
influence the IPCC re-
port, there can be little
doubt that he and his
co-authors deliberately
omitted data points to
create the trend that
they reported.
It is inconceivable
that even the most in-
competent scientist,
finding such a pro-
nounced trend to sup-
port his hypothesis in
the data between 1963
and 1987, would not,
when writing in 1995
(published in 1996),
look at the data be-
tween 1987 and 1995
to see if the trend continued. These data do not support the hypothesis.
So, Santer clearly faked the result, circulated it during IPCC pro-
ceedings in order to influence world global climate policy, and later
published in Nature. Michaels and Knappenberger caught him, but
their paper was published several months after his long after the cor-
rection could undo the bias introduced by Santer into the IPCC report.
If a graduate student in science tried to pull a stunt like this, even
once, he should be dismissed from graduate school and denied a de-
gree. Had an undergraduate at Caltech when I was there in the early
1960s taken an action equivalent to this, the governing body of the stu-
dent honor system would have recommended to the Dean that he be
expelled from Caltech, and the Dean would have immediately expelled
him. The proper response to Santer and those of his co-authors respon-
sible for this lie is dismissal with prejudice from their professional po-
sitions. They should never be permitted to work in science again.
Ah, but this is a new age. Santer will probably continue to wheel
and deal in environmental science and spend your tax dollars for his
scientific work. Worse, he has done and will continue to do damage
to billions of people whose lives may be seriously harmed by mis-
guided global climate policies.
The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 1997, reported on page 1 that
More than 2,400 scientists urged Clinton to take early domestic ac-
tion to reduce carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause global
warming. A Harvard professor said the statement shows unusual
agreement that scientific questions surrounding the issue have been
largely resolved and that quick government action is needed. That is
the entire article not even a reference. Carbon dioxide is not a pollut-
ant; it has not been shown to cause global warming; and there are sev-
eral hundred thousand scientists in the United States alone. The 2,400
is less than 1% (and probably most of the 2,400 are simply trusting and
parroting the IPCC report). Moreover, truth is not determined by polls.
There is no room for dishonesty in science - none. A discipline that
tolerates dishonesty is not a science at all. It is beneath contempt.
 worship, and government worship taught throughout our schools and
REGULATORY GENOCIDE universities and reinforced by incessant media propaganda. Why not
astrology? These madnesses have taken over other notable civiliza-
The Human Costs of EPA Standards by Wendy L. Gramm and tions in human history with uniformly catastrophic results.
Susan E. Dudley in The Wall Street Journal, p A18, June 9, 1997, re- l Boys Used to be Boys, But Do Some Now See Boyhood as a
ports that the Environmental Protection Agencys own analysis shows Malady? by G. Pascal Zachary one page 1 of The Wall Street Jour-
the new EPA ozone regulations will cost more than the economic nal, May 2, 1997, reports that 5.4 million American children were
value of the benefits. Moreover, human deaths caused by the regula- classified as disabled in 1995. Of these, Attention Deficit Disorder,
tions exceed human lives saved. Additional deaths from lost personal ADD, diagnoses have doubled during the past five years. From 80% to
income of Americans are estimated by the authors as approximately 90% of ADD diagnoses occur in boys with most then given psy-
7,000 per year. These deaths will be among poorer Americans those choactive drugs. Other classifications include learning disabilities
for whom the Clinton Administration continually cries crocodile tears. and speech and language impairments.
Meanwhile, Will Minivans Become an Endangered Species? by Tax-financed schools employ armies of counselors, administrators,
Eric Peters and H. Sterling Burnett in Brief Analysis, No. 232, June 4, and psychologists who team up with teachers to hide socialized educa-
1997, published by the National Center for Policy Analysis, 12655 N. tions failures behind contrived pathological designations and treat-
Central Expressway, Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243-1739, reports that ments that now involve about 10% of American children.
the next advocated ratchet in federal Corporate Average Fuel Econ- l Its Time for U. S. Leadership to Stop Global Warming
omy, CAFE, regulations may clear American roads of minivans and screams an advertisement by The Natural Resources Defense Council,
sport utility vehicles. This will increase further the number of Ameri- NRDC, in the New York Times of June 13, 1997. This ad brings word
cans killed by their government each year on the nations highways. that no credible scientists dispute that global warming is causing eco-
Automakers are required to continually reduce the size and weight logical change, human disease, and economic dislocation a quote it
of automobiles in order to comply with CAFE regulations. Interest- credits to the Los Angeles Times.
ingly, these standards have not increased transportation efficiency or In the ad, the NRDC bills itself as a national non-profit organiza-
reduced fuel use. First, driving has increased as cost decreased, com- tion of scientists, attorneys, and environmental specialists with
pletely erasing the lower fuel costs per mile. Second, smaller vehicles 350,000 members. The ad states that 2,000 scientists agree that
are used to carry fewer people, so, the tiny cars are less efficient per global warming poses a severe threat. Apparently the other 348,000
passenger mile. Presently, minivans get 64.8 passenger miles per gal- members are attorneys and environmental specialists.
lon, luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles get 70.2 passenger miles The global warming hypothesis predicts a large atmospheric
per gallon, and the subcompacts get 60.8 passenger miles per gallon. temperature increase. Since even a small human-caused warming is, so
The subcompacts are much more effective, however, at killing their far, undetectable in any of the global temperature data, it can hardly be
occupants. Academic research has estimated that between 440 and 780 causing ecological change, disease, and economic dislocation. NRDC
American motorists are killed per year per 100 pound reduction in auto must have an unusually creative definition for credible scientist.
weight for a current 2,200 to 3,900 deaths per model year. The Na-
tional Highway Safety Administration admits to 322 additional deaths

GOOD READING
per year per 100 pound reduction in auto weight. That is one unit
equivalent of an Oklahoma City bombing every couple of weeks. l Why Fund Science? by Fred L. Smith, Jr. in CEI Update 10,
No. 4, p 2, April 1997, available from Competitive Enterprise Institute
DECENTRALIZATION OF INFORMATION at telephone (202) 331-1010. This article relates to tax funding of sci-
ence, a practice that is increasingly seen as unethical and counterpro-
Beyond the TV Temptation by George Gilder, Gilder Technol- ductive except for research directly related to national defense.
ogy Report 2, No. 5, May 1997, is an excellent article on market forces l Global Warming: Unfinished Business by S. Fred Singer, which
and the nature of corporations as applied to the advance of communi- will soon be available from The Science & Environmental Policy Pro-
cations and computer technology. ject, 4084 University Drive, Suite 101, Fairfax, VA 22030-6812. We
Gilder reports that, in the United States, personal computers are have only seen the table of contents of this forthcoming book. Every-
now in 40% of all households, 50% of households with children, and thing, however, that I have read by S. Fred Singer on this subject is
60% of households with annual income over $40,000. In one year, be- excellent. This book will be very good reading.
tween February 1996 and February 1997, the average selling price of l Supply-side Politics by Thomas Sowell in Forbes, May 19, p
personal computers declined from $1,872 to $1,584. 145 (1997). The section on public schools and the fundamental reasons
As text files, more information than any human being can read in an that these institutions are not able (and not likely to be able in the fu-
entire lifetime can now be delivered to his PC on less than one pound ture) to do their jobs is superb. As long as the government is in educa-
of plastic CD-ROMs. Soon, even image files and audio and video en- tion, alternative education will be a growth industry.
tertainment will be so accessible that a lifetimes worth will be deliver-
l Malaria by Jane Orient in Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
able in a small box. Gilder sees an ocean of information flowing into
Newsletter, May 1997, available from 2509 N. Campbell Ave., Box
each home through fiber optic cables. I think that, during the transition,
272, Tucson, AZ 85719. Environmental Protection Agency malaria
a surprisingly large part of this may roll in on plastic.
policymakers have knowingly killed tens of millions of people.
Either way, the media and academic monopolies on entertain-
l Yellowstone Ecological Malpractice by Charles E. Kay in
ment and information (the quotes are necessary in view of current
PERC Reports 15, No. 2, June 1997, available from 502 South 19th
standards) are as dead as the no-threshold linear hypothesis of radiation
Avenue, Suite 211, Boseman, MT 59718.
health effects. With the death of these monopolies, the minds of men
will no longer be controllable by central authorities with monopolistic
resources. This is great news for freedom and free enterprise. ACCESS TO ENERGY

Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
STARK RAVING MAD Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
l Astrology Rising is the cover article in the July 1997 issue of $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
Life magazine. It seems that astrology and related forms of mysticism for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
are enjoying rapidly increasing popularity among Americans. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
We now have animal worship, earth worship, self worship, human of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
AUGUST 1997 (Vol. 24, no. 12) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Aztecan Science
Priests of the Aztec Empire were early global environmentalists.
They convinced the Aztec people that severe weather changes and the
death of many species of plants and animals would occur unless ap-
propriate rituals were performed.
At the top of those cute pyramids that they prevailed upon the peo-
ple to build were sacrificial altar stones. The Aztec people were
taught (by their religious and governmental leaders) that these stones
must be kept wet with human blood. If the stones were allowed to dry
out, the sun would cease to shine.
We do not know the fate of any Aztec scientists who proposed to
make an experimental test of this theory. We suspect, however, that
they were allowed to make a positive contribution to the global envi-
ronment directly upon the altar stones.
It is most gratifying to contemplate the advanced developments of
our ancestors. For many centuries, humanity has been stifled by the
scientific methods advanced by Western Civilization. These methods
require experimental observation, hypotheses that are tested by direct
observation, and a rigorously rational analytical methodology that de-
pends upon demonstrable truth at each step.
This scientific method is deficient, however, in that it does not al-
low for proactive conclusions based upon the wishful thinking of
politically correct scientists, politicians, new world order bureau-
crats, and their retainers in the new environmental elite. Fortunately,
this deficiency is overcome by Aztecan science.
With Aztecan science, any possible global environmental disaster
that can be imagined can be immediately overcome before its poten-
tial effects are allowed to harm the planet. There is no need to wait for
experimental verification of the hypothesis.
Moreover, with Aztecan science, potential disasters can be tai-
lored to meet special needs. When the elite decides, for example, that
world government is needed, catastrophes that can be prevented by
weakening of national laws in favor of global laws are made avail-
able. When the elite decides that there are too many people, catastro-
phes that require cutbacks in the energy and chemical technologies
that permit large numbers of people to live are invented.
The primary theoretical advance of Aztecan science over its
predecessor lies in its recognition that the value of a hypothesis rests
not upon experimental test of its validity but upon its political value to
the ruling elite. Like other profound human insights, this advance has
roots far back in history. Although we are crediting the Aztecs, we
expect that many ancient Asian and European pagan leaders warned
their people of dire environmental consequences that would occur if
they stopped worshiping graven images of Baal.
The Aztecs were conquered by Cortes with about 200 men in
1519. At Oregon State University, students are taught that the 200
Spaniards were able to prevail over the large, virtuous Aztec nation
because these Europeans were religious fanatics, which caused
them to fight more energetically. Gunpowder helped, too. Most use-
ful, however, were the tribes of Indians living near the Aztecs, the
blood of whose women and children had been used to prevent envi-
ronmental catastrophe. These tribes allied themselves with Cortes.
and 620 healthy control children published in the New England Jour-
EXORCISING POWER LINE DEMONS
report, is quoted as saying, The risk [of leukemia from magnetic
No Evidence Is Found Linking Leukemia In Children and Elec-
tromagnetic Fields by Robert Langreth in The Wall Street Journal, p
B6, July 3, 1997, reviews a new National Cancer Institute and Univer-
sity of Minnesota epidemiological study of 638 children with leukemia
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
Now, Aztecan science is back! Blood is flowing more copiously
than ever before, and new treaties and laws that are nearing imple-
mentation will turn this into a veritable river of human sacrifices.
The greatest sacrifice is currently being made by the millions of
people who are suffering and dying each year from malaria. The ban-
ning of DDT is probably the largest act of genocide in human history.
The National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT saved 500
million human lives before it was banned. Since the banning, tens of
millions have died and hundreds of millions have suffered horribly
from this disease. Why? They have died and are continuing to die
because predictions of environmental disaster from DDT predic-
tions that were never based upon experimental verification allowed
population control fanatics to ban the chemical.
Most recently, we have the ban of refrigeration chemicals and the
ongoing attempt to ban halogenated compounds (those containing
chlorine, fluorine, bromine, and iodine) of all sorts. Here the flow of
blood is less obvious. This ongoing ban has already wasted tens of
billions of dollars and is expected to cost hundreds of billions more. It
is estimated that each $2 million to $10 million wasted results in the
loss of one human life. In any case, the poor are getting poorer be-
cause of the CFC ban and are living shorter, more miserable lives.
Why? to prevent an increase of ultraviolet light due to destruction of
atmospheric ozone. Yet this UV increase has not taken place, and, so
far, no significant change in ozone has been observed.
Now, the Clinton administration, Aztecan to the core, is promot-
ing the largest technological genocide program ever implemented
the forced reduction of world hydrocarbon use by means of global
carbon controls implemented by international treaty. This, we are
told, is to prevent global warming and the concomitant inundation of
coastal cities, vast weather changes, and global environmental catas-
trophe caused by rising atmospheric temperatures.
Yet, we have been releasing carbon into the atmosphere in very
large quantities for over 50 years and atmospheric temperature is
going down (see previous issues of Access to Energy). For the last
two decades, we have even had sophisticated thermometers on orbit-
ing satellites. These thermometers have recorded a decrease in at-
mospheric temperature during the past two decades.
The temperature of our planet, like the shining of the sun, is a phe-
nomenon that is apparently still too large for human activity to influ-
ence to a significant extent. This, however, is no impediment to the
Aztecans. Public opinion can be influenced by propaganda espe-
cially propaganda that elicits fear of the unknown. This is the central
component of Aztecan science.
The global warming bandwagon has one central purpose popu-
lation control. If energy availability can be curtailed, a lot of people
are going to die. This is genocide by international treaty with an enor-
mous propaganda campaign to permit its implementation and to keep
people ignorant of its intent and effects.
DDT is banned; CFCs are banned; and carbon must be restricted
and catastrophe will not occur. Our new Aztecan priests will then
take credit for saving us while the river of blood continues to flow.
nal of Medicine. Leslie Robison, one of the authors of the research
fields] doesnt exist. This statement implies that Robison has knowl-
edge that the risk of childhood leukemia from power lines is zero.
As previous Access to Energy articles have shown, it is very un-
likely that electromagnetic fields from power lines can increase the
probability of cancer to a significant extent. Nevertheless, the Ro-
bison statement illustrates a special problem encountered when hon-
est science is mixed with sound-bite journalism.
The reported experiment cannot possibly prove that the risk is zero.
With a finite number of subjects, the proper statement is something
along the lines of: We can state with 95% confidence that the chance
of power lines causing leukemia in a single individual is less than X,
where X is computed from the experimental results and the percentage
reliability (95% is chosen here only for illustration) is chosen arbitrar-
ily. The higher this reliability cutoff, the higher will be X.
The burden of proof in the endless stream of enviro myths should
rest on the originators of the myths. Instead, the media place that bur-
den upon the targets of the myths. Had Robison made an accurate
statement of the results instead of offering an exaggerated sound bite,
we might have seen headlines like Leukemia Study Scientist Admits
That Power Lines May Cause Cancer in Some Children.
Do not worry, however, that our tax financed schools will improve
public ability to understand quantitative truth. President Clintons
Mandate for Fuzzy Math by Lynne V. Cheney in The Wall Street
Journal, p A22, June 11, 1997, reports that the chairman of Clintons
new committee to develop a national eighth grade math test, John A.
Dossey, is a principal originator of the current whole math fad.
Whole math does away with drill in mathematics and teaches
students that getting the right answer is less important than having a
good rationale for a wrong one. A few years ago, Mr. Dossey proposed
that national math tests have a scoring system wherein the student
would get only half credit for a right answer unless he made clear his
method of calculation, while the student would get full credit for a
wrong answer if it was accompanied by an appropriate strategy.
The first part of this system has already been implemented in College
Board Advanced Placement math exams for college entrance where
the right answer to the problem is not sufficient for full credit.
American tax-financed schools are now teaching math by encoun-
ter group wherein teachers stay on the sidelines while groups of stu-
dents develop committee-based conceptual approaches. This is also
a rapidly growing fad in university science programs where peer re-
view and group work is replacing individual study and achievement.
anti-science, anti-technology, anti-free enterprise, anti-human New
Age mythology that is promoted by of much of the American elite.
Why has the truth about their many scandals not ended the Clinton-
Gore administration? Why is the truth about science and the environ-
ment not influential in environmental politics? Why are we even
having to defend the value of teaching the truth about simple arithme-
tic to elementary students? Why do our better conservative politicians
decide to fight our enemies with a weak argument based upon the poli-
tics of envy rather than the truth?
The answer may be that we have allowed such a large part of our
civilization to be owned and operated by central government rather
than free enterprise that political power is now ascendant over personal
strength. That political power is now in the hands of people in govern-
ment, business, and the media who do not respect the truth, so our soci-
ety is being dominated by lies whereby they seek additional power.
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY
Nuclear Technology in Agriculture and Nutrition by J. L. Du-
pont, et al in Nuclear News 40, No. 7, pp 58-62 (1997), discusses the
use of nuclear technology in pest control, food irradiation, and studies
of human physiology and metabolism.
In pest control, for example, the nuclear mass production and re-
lease of sterile male screw worms has permitted the eradication of
screw worms in the United States, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Sal-

GLOBAL DISASTER

The world is moving rapidly closer to an enormous environmental

disaster the global warming treaty that the Clinton Administration is
planning to sign in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. The mandated
large reduction in world energy use required by this treaty will bring
suffering and death to a very great number of people . Moreover, by
sharply diminishing world-wide wealth, the treaty will also destroy the
resources available for sensible environmental programs.
There is political opposition as evidenced by A Treaty Built on
Hot Air . . . by Jack Kemp and scientific opposition as illustrated by
. . . Not Scientific Consensus by S. Fred Singer both in The Wall nutritious food by reducing losses in transport and storage. Figure 1
Street Journal, p A14, July 25, 1997. There is also political support as
the front page of this same Journal issue reports that President Clinton
held a White House symposium to kick off a campaign to promote the
treaty to the American public.
Unfortunately, opponents of the treaty in the United States Senate
are basing their opposition to the treaty on a campaign of political envy
rather than upon the scientific evidence that this treaty is entirely un-
necessary and will not improve or preserve the global environment.
The highlighted text in the Kemp article reads The drastic cut in
energy use this treaty would require would not be legally binding on
developing nations, including three of the biggest carbon-dioxide pro-
ducers. (These are India, South Korea, and China.) The argument is
being made that the treaty places the United States at a competitive
disadvantage to other countries. While true, this is an irrelevant and
dangerous argument. Suppose that these countries should agree to con-
form or, at least, pretend to conform to the treaty. Then the opposition,
which should be based on science rather than envy, will melt away.
In this treaty, we are seeing an order of magnitude worsening of the
Figure 1
vador, and Honduras. Fruit flies have been eradicated in California,
Florida, Australia, The Marianas, Japan, and Guam.
Food irradiation permits the consumption of less expensive, more
shows the extraordinary effectiveness of this technique. (Since our
sympathies do not lie with the E. coli and Salmonella, we will forgive
the lack of possible hormesis near the origin of the graph, which has
obviously been extrapolated to zero.)
Several studies of human biochemistry are described that use either
radioactive or stable isotopes as tracers. For example, tracer experi-
ments show that heavy people consume more food and expend more
energy to maintain body weight than do people with lower weight.
This may seem self-evident, but poorer studies based on reports of
food intake and activity have reached an opposite conclusion.
MICROMACHINES
Macro Power from Micro Machinery by A. H. Epstein and S. D.
Senturia, Science 276, p 1211 (1997), is a fascinating summary of ad-
vances and advantages of micromachinery.
Engineers have now built a gas turbine that is 4 mm in diameter.
(There are 25.4 mm per inch.) The authors report that, with current
technology, a gas turbine generator, complete with compressor and
combustor, can be built that is less than one cm3 (10 mm on a side) and
delivers 50 watts of electric power.
Interestingly, the power-to-weight ratio improves as the size dimin-
ishes, so the thrust-to-weight ratio of these micro turbines is 10 times
greater than that of modern aircraft engines.
fact, the results are often not even reproducible within the same labora-
COLD FUSION
equipment can give results varying by two orders of magnitude, it is
Access to Energy has carried only occasional mention of research in
the subject known as cold fusion because it is so far out of our field some would fail to observe a positive result at all. One such failure was
of expertise (even though it is very close to our area of interest) that we
are just not qualified to evaluate it.
Cold Fusion: The Miracle is No Mistake by Eugene F. Mal- Bartlett, the scientist who discovered the compounds of xenon and
love in Analog , pp 53-73, July-August 1997, gives a current review.
This article includes 91 references most of them to the scientific lit-
erature and authored by serious scientists. It begins, however, with a
long section denigrating skeptics and declaring that the end is near for
the value of virtually all current energy technology. This does not help
readers to keep open minds.
While it is certainly true, as Mallove points out, that many revolu-
tionary technological advances have been initially opposed by closed-
minded critics, it is equally true that large numbers of intelligent and
well-educated people have sometimes participated in delusions and
manias that turned out in retrospect to have been foolish indeed. Oppo-
sition to a new idea is not evidence that it is a good idea (although such
opposition can be reason for optimism).
Cold fusion research is expanding because an increasing number of
laboratories are reporting excess energy production at levels believed
to be too high for chemical processes and are also finding residual
changes in elemental composition during the reactions changes of
some elements into others as evidence of nuclear reactions.
There are two primary difficulties. First, these devices (and there
are now many different designs) tend to be unstable with widely vari-
able quantitative results from experiment to experiment. For example,
Mallove reports that the Patterson Power Cell has generated as much
as 1,300 watts output for 1.4 watts input, but usually generates 5 to 10
watts output from between one-third to one-thirtieth as much input.
Second, there is not yet an accepted theoretical basis for this phe-
nomenon even among its strongest proponents. Hypotheses vary from
chemically assisted nuclear reactions of a sort never before recognized
to the inadvertent release of universal zero point energy. The term
cold fusion originates from the hypothesis that energy is being pro- to New Age mystics is dancing with increased vigor. We anticipate
duced by the conversion of mass into energy through fusion of hydro-
gen atoms to produce helium atoms. This explanation does not,
however, explain all of the experimental results.
A trick question sometimes placed on examinations in courses on
equilibrium thermodynamics involves the rate of chemical reactions.
The student is given detailed information which allows the calculation
of the amount of energy that will be produced by two chemical reac-
tions. He is asked to predict which reaction will proceed with the
greater rate. The trick is that equilibrium thermodynamics does not
provide information about reaction rates as a function of energy. Not
recognizing this, many students try to give a prediction.
A bottle containing a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen can sit safely
on the shelf for many years with no change even though the potential
energy release is very great. The bottle will explode if a spark is intro-
duced to initiate the reaction. Many much less energetic reactions oc-
cur spontaneously.
Against cold fusion, it is argued theoretically that nuclear reac-
tion rates at low temperature are too slow to be measurable and that the
expected amounts of specific nuclear reaction products have not been
observed. It cannot be proved, however, that nuclear reaction rates can-
not be increased by some heretofore unknown catalytic mechanism.
Nor can it be shown that there are not undiscovered new types of nu-
clear reactions.
With the additional possibility of some process (zero-point energy
release is almost the province of science fiction, but serious physicists
say it is there and potentially usable) other than a nuclear reaction, it is
just not possible to prove theoretically that the reported energy release
in cold fusion experiments cannot happen. These experiments might
turn out to be misnamed, but the name is not the essence of this issue.
Against cold fusion, it is argued experimentally that the observa-
tions have not proved to be observable in some other laboratories. In
tory and same apparatus from experiment to experiment. If the same
not surprising that, with several laboratories operating independently,
at Caltech and has been widely quoted to discredit cold fusion.
I recall many years ago attending a wonderful lecture given by Neil
fluorine. Prior to his work, most chemists thought that no chemical
compounds could be made between the noble gas xenon and other at-
oms. It happened, however, that in 1933, the year Bartlett was born, the
existence of xenon fluorides was predicted at Caltech by Linus Pauling
on the basis of theoretical calculations.
Paulings prediction was immediately tested by outstanding experi-
mental chemists working with Pauling at Caltech. They completely
failed in these experiments (although, in retrospect, it appears that they
actually may have made the compounds, but failed to recognize that
they had done so). Twenty-nine years later Bartlett succeeded. Failures
by prestigious laboratories are not evidence of impossibility.
Cold fusion is a field of inquiry without a unifying theoretical basis
and without quantitative experimental reproducibility. This does not
mean that it is bogus. In the early stages of investigation, many areas of
science have had similar problems. It does mean, however, that this
work is very hard to evaluate by scientists outside of the field. Unless
one has actual personal experience with these experiments in the labo-
ratory, it is difficult to form a reliable impression.
If you are especially interested in this subject, read the Analog arti-
cle by Eugene Mallove and especially some of the publications he ref-
erences. Try not to trust and parrot either cold fusion proponents or
cold fusion critics. The Seventh International Conference on Cold Fu-
sion will be held in Vancouver, Canada from April 18-23, 1998, where
the best efforts of the proponents will be on display.
YEAR 2000 COMPUTER TRANSITION
As the year 2000 approaches, everyone from One World globalists
increasing activity in all sorts of nuttiness as the date nears. We did not
expect, however, that this would include computer technology.
Now the merchants of fear are telling us that Western civilization
will terminally collapse on 1 January 2000 because some older com-
puter software that is still in use was not written to roll its date forward
properly into another century. We are being told that government ac-
tivities will abruptly stop (this is a disaster?), trucks and trains will not
roll, financial institutions will cease activity, and we shall all find our-
selves in post-Civil War America without the necessary survival skills.
Although I have used computers very extensively for over 30 years,
I cannot claim to be an expert on this subject. I do think, however, that
some humility is appropriate. The vast computer industry is made up
of hundreds of thousands of our most talented technologists. During
the past twenty years they have transformed digital technology so com-
pletely that they have managed to place a veritable engineering miracle
in a small, inexpensive box in more than half of American homes.
Now, we are expected to believe that this entire industry is going to
fall flat on its face and take Western civilization down with it because
of bugs in older software that were known to be present many years in
advance. Most disaster scenarios are, of course, based on real factors
amplified beyond reason. The year 2000 bugs do exist. A sub-industry
of computer programmers is currently prospering by fixing these bugs.
Some ill-managed enterprises will probably fail to fix this problem ap-
propriately. (We could hope that this includes government computers,
but then the taxpayers would just have another failure to finance.)
Those enterprises may be temporarily disadvantaged as a result. in Cascade Update 4, p 4 (1997), available from Cascade Policy Insti-
If all of our computers stopped tomorrow, there would be a period tute, 813 SW Alder, Suite 707, Portland, OR 97205, reports that
of disruption while we reverted to the previous, less efficient pre-com- spending in the Oregon tax-financed schools is now over $7,000 per
puter methods with which most of our essential technology was built. student per year after passage of a property tax limitation measure that
A nuclear attack might stop a large fraction of those computers through has school bureaucrats crying about claimed slashes in their budgets.
EMP. An obsolete software bug is very unlikely to do so. The average home school budget is about $500 per student per year.
The self-teaching home school curriculum available from the Oregon
FREE ENTERPRISE EFFICIENCIES Institute of Science and Medicine reduces this to about $50 per student
per year or $25 if there are two students in the home (or $10 for five).
Electrifying Possibilities, by E. Carson in Reason, p 13, June As George Gilder keeps saying in the Gilder Technology Report,
1997, available from 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Ange- available from P. O. Box 660, Housatonic, MA 01236, the digital
les, CA 90034-6064, reports a Brookings Institution study of the price revolution is dropping the cost of information transfer essentially to
of American industrial goods and services following deregulation and zero. Information itself, of course, will remain as costly as the market
conversion to free enterprise markets. The study included natural gas, justifies. Information that is old enough or public enough to be beyond
long distance telecom, airlines, trucking, and railroads. copyright or is distributed widely enough to have a negligibly low per
Prices decreased gradually over time until, ten years after deregula- unit copyright value is becoming essentially free. This includes virtu-
tion, the real price of natural gas had fallen 27-57%; of long distance ally all of the information taught to students before the age of 18 and
telecom had fallen 40-47%; of airlines had fallen 29%, of trucking had nearly all of the information taught in universities.
fallen 28-56%, and of railroads had fallen 44%. The monopolies on information held by schools and universities
The Brookings authors, Ellig and Robert Crandall, estimate that de- have been largely based upon place utility. Faculties and administra-
regulation of industries in the late 1970s and 1980s is now saving tors of those institutions controlled the dissemination of information to
Americans about $60 billion per year. The article does not estimate, students because they controlled the repositories. The microcomputer
however, American losses since then from new regulations. revolution has destroyed those institutional monopolies.
This technological deregulation of the market for information is go-
STANDARDIZATION ing to reduce the cost of education far more than the 50% reductions
seen in industries like trucking because underlying real costs are negli-
Some Things Live Forever, reprinted by Jim Dean in Bills gible. Standardized testing of students and accreditation of their de-
Soapbox, RR1, Box 69-A, Bangs, TX 76823 and originally published grees will be an industry with very low fixed costs. We expect
in MenSA as quoted in Wake-Up Call America, for March-April 1997, university educations to drop in real cost by at least a factor of ten.
P. O. Box 280488, Lakewood, CO 80228, gives a history of the U.S.
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches. GOOD READING
Dean says that the U.S. gauge was copied from the English gauge
by English immigrants. That gauge came from English tramways l Audio tapes of the DDP annual meeting in San Diego are on sale
which were built with the jigs and tools that were used for building for $99 for the complete 16 tape set.. They can be ordered from DDP,
English wagons. 2509 Campbell, Box 272, Tucson, AZ 85719. Soon to be available
The wagon spacing was standardized so that the road ruts would will be a CD-ROM of all annual DDP meetings from 1992 through
match the wheels and produce less wear on the wagons during long 1997. This will include audio of all of the presentations and the slides
distance hauls. The standardized ruts were derived from those in the and manuscripts of those speakers who provided them.
Roman roads which were built in Europe and England. The ruts were The CD-ROM will be manufactured after the 1997 presentations
initially made by Roman chariots that were all alike in wheel spacing. have been added to it. Initial price will be $199. DDP is accepting or-
The Imperial Roman wheel spacings for war chariots were made ders now. Delivery will be later in 1997.
wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses a l Does Nature Know Best? Natural Carcinogens and Anticar-
width of 4 feet, 8.5 inches. cinogens in Americas Food (1996) from the American Council on
Science and Health, 1995 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
STARK RAVING MAD 10023-5860. This booklet is filled with information countering the
New Age dogma that natural is best and that avoidance of techno-
l Time to Put Malaria Control on the Global Agenda by D. But- logical advances in food production will improve human health. Given
ler, Nature 386, pp 535-536, reports that Malaria is already estimated the great reductions in food costs and therefore improvements in nutri-
to kill between 1.5 and 2.7 million people each year several times as tion made possible by food technology, the truth is actually opposite.
many as died in the recent genocide in Rwanda. Another 300 to 500 l Energy Conservation Is a Waste by Herbert Inhaber in The
million people have the disease, and one-third of all humanity lives in Wall Street Journal, p A18, July 28, 1997, which summarizes the fail-
zones where they risk catching it. Malaria kills one person often a ure of energy conservation programs to save energy. Thanks to tech-
child under five every 12 seconds. nology, of course, we will have enough for thousands of years. See
Now scientists and administrators are calling for a 30-year pro- Future Energy Sources, Access to Energy 24, No.11, pp 1-2 (1997).
gram of research, control, and therapy to save these children. Says l Chips Ahoy by John Travis in Science News 151, pp 144-145
one Richard Feachem, director for health, nutrition, and population at (1997), which reports about the new technology of microchips with as
the World Bank, We are in no hurry, we want to get it right. By all many as a million separable DNA probes on their surfaces poten-
means, lets not do anything rash like resuming the use of DDT. After tially a great advance in biological and medical analysis.
all, whats a human life every 12 seconds compared to the careers of
politicians and bureaucrats? ACCESS TO ENERGY
l It is only a joke that has been going around, but the social phe-
nomenon underlying it definitely qualifies for Stark Raving Mad. Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
It seems that two social workers were walking along a street when Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
they came upon the victim of a mugging lying in the gutter. Covered $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
with bruises from a horrible beating, the unconscious and profusely for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
bleeding victim was near death. Said one social worker to the other, Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
Oh my. This is terrible! Whoever did this certainly needs our help! 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
l K-12 Spending Stable Since Measure 5 by Martin Buchanan of issues and index $145. CD-ROM and printed 21 years of issues and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 1997 (Vol. 25, no. 1) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Earth, Physics, and Chemistry
In the new era that has been brought to us by the Clinton Admini-
stration and its predecessor, scientific truth is determined by polling
data. The Administration and its retainers are now in full swing with
their propaganda campaign to make polling data conform to the
global warming treaty that is to be signed in December.
Meanwhile, the United States Senate, comprehending little be-
yond the politics of envy, has proclaimed that our country will not
perform partial technological suicide on the sword of hydrocarbon ra-
tioning unless enough other countries agree to do so also.
All that stands now between the Republic and a giant global
warming step downward toward an abyss of irrational mysticism and
mass murder (if energy rationing is instituted, a lot of people are go-
ing to die) is the knowledge and wisdom of its citizens. The 2 million
member union that calls itself the National Education Association,
NEA, with the approval and help of many (but not all) of its mem-
bers, has done its best to remove that knowledge.
One example is the General Educational Development (GED)
Exam that is passed by 500,000 Americans each year. Passage pro-
vides a High School Equivalency Certificate which is equivalent to a
High School Diploma. Some colleges require this examination for
admission of home schooled students. Noah Robinson recently took
the 1992 exam for practice and then the 1997 exam.
The GED informational materials state that the science exam con-
sists of 66 questions, of which 50% are Biology and 50% are
Physical Sciences: Earth, Physics, and Chemistry.
Earth? The NEA has created a new physical science that super-
sedes physics and chemistry and is called Earth.
The 1997 exam consists (by Noahs estimate) of about 56 ques-
tions on biology and earth and about 10 on physics and chemistry.
The risk that the student will actually have independent knowledge
concerning these subjects is eliminated by the test. Fewer than 10 %
of the 66 questions require any prior knowledge by the student other
than the ability to read. The answers are clearly given in the reading
passages preceding the questions.
In order to pass, the student must give politically correct answers
concerning rain forests and other earth matters including the
looming shortage of hydrocarbons. (This last indicates that the NEA
is still fighting the previous propaganda war. The free market long
ago drove a stake through the heart of the 1970s shortage myth.
Global warming was then invented to take its place.) These required,
politically correct answers are clearly stated prior to the questions, so
a reading student knows exactly what to say.
In keeping with the ongoing NEA lowering of American educa-
tional standards, the 1992 exam was more difficult than the 1997
exam. Noah found that he could work the 90 minute mathematics
exam for 1992 in 60 minutes in his head with no use of pencil or
paper. The 1997 exam required only 40 minutes. Too much knowl-
edge is, however, dangerous.
Noah managed to give a wrong answer to one of the math
questions. The question involved a hexagon (a polygon of six angles
and, therefore, six sides). Unless one assumed that all of the angles
Americas Nobel Prize winning scientists during the past few decades
50 MILLION WASTED MINDS?
versity-based academic scientists.
It is, of course, not difficult to find outstanding scholars and out-
standing teachers within the tax-financed school system. Nor is it diffi-
cult to find skilled doctors in the government health care system or
outstanding research scientists in tax-financed research. Most of
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
and sides were equal a regular hexagon (regular was not stated
in the problem) the only correct answer was cannot be deter-
mined from the given information. This answer was counted
wrong. The mathematicians and astrologers of the NEA no longer
distinguish between hexagons and regular hexagons, so all hexagons
are supposed to be assumed to have equal angles and sides.
Those who end their education with the GED or its inferior
equivalent 12 years in a tax-financed NEA propaganda mill only
comprise, however, 75% of the American population. The other 25%
goes on to college. Many colleges offer satisfactory educations in
physical science. For example, Zachary Robinson recently graduated
with a BS in chemistry from Oregon State University where he re-
ceived an excellent education in chemistry from very good chemistry
professors. He was one of seven students of chemistry in his graduat-
ing class out of 14,000 students at Oregon State. If we add physics
and mathematics and allow for four classes, the total is less than 1%.
What are the other 99% of the students studying in college?
Most of them are in the clutches of humanities faculties that are
churning out degrees that have essentially negative value to those in-
terested in facts and independent, truthful rational thought. Even the
science students are forced to take some of these ridiculous courses
many of which are little more than sick humor for a well-prepared
mind. The required health class at Oregon State became so ob-
scene that many students simply walked out in the middle of some of
the raw lectures that were being given by a woman professor.
In any case, it is clear that the future of America is being deter-
mined by an electorate wherein most of the voters have little or no
knowledge of science or engineering beyond that learned between the
ages of six and eighteen. In the tax-financed schools, this usually
means earth and biology (more enviro propaganda) with
mathematics, physics, and chemistry reduced in importance except
for a small minority of students. (The success of a few, regardless of
adversity, keeps hope alive in the hearts of the diminishing number of
dedicated teachers of science.) In this vacuum of knowledge, telling
the people what to think and then polling them to see if they think
it yet is perfectly sensible even if it is morally and ethically bankrupt.
These are the reasons that the 1.5 million home schooled children
(soon to be 3 million at current growth rates) are so important to the
future of American science and technology and to freedom. These
children are all outside of the NEA propaganda mills. They are free to
learn mathematics (the language of science) properly and then go on
to first-rate science texts. Every one of them, even the least talented,
can be taught to properly read a graph of atmospheric temperature or
atmospheric ozone concentration vs. time and to draw an individual,
independently determined conclusion.
Earth is not a physical science; wrong answers in mathematics
are not made right by good reasoning or group consensus; atmos-
pheric chemistry is not determined by polls of television viewers; and
there are plenty of people in the world ready to take Americas place
as a leader of science, technology, and free enterprise, if American
minds continue to be destroyed by tax-guzzling propagandists.
have received tax-financed research grants, as have most other uni-
When government moves in on a valuable human activity and buys
control with tax money, it does not automatically destroy the talent and
productivity of all of the participants. Even under the most autocratic
and repressive totalitarian regimes, outstanding scientific work is often
accomplished. There are two arguments against government control.
First, it is inherently immoral, and, second, it is counterproductive.
I have never known of any non-defense research project that justi-
fied the confiscation of the property of men, women, and children by
force or threat of force. Tax money consists of private property that is
seized by government under the claim that politicians and bureaucrats
are more skilled in using it than are those who earned or otherwise
honestly received it. Even if this claim were true, the seizure would be
inherently immoral because the right to economic freedom from theft
is a self-evident part of the inherent human rights to life and liberty.
A proper function of government is the protection of its citizens
from theft not participation in their mugging. Even if government
programs were better than private programs, it would be immoral to
steal from the citizenry in order to support them.
It happens that government programs are inherently counterproduc-
tive as compared to private ones. People are not, however, completely
repressible. They will get some valuable work done regardless of their
circumstances. It is said that there is an immense positive return from
government-funded research. This is misleading. There is instead an
immense positive return from research government has merely
horned in on the credit by forcing itself on the research community as
an unnecessary, inefficient, and immoral middleman.
Nowhere in America today is this effect more obvious than in the
educational system. Funded by the most pernicious sort of taxes the
threat to throw families out of their own homes if they do not pay prop-
erty taxes regardless of their current income over two million bureau-
crats and teachers have created schools that, regardless of the best
efforts of the remaining outstanding teachers and students, have a net
negative value to the education and development of young Americans.
With about 20,000 students now using our self-teaching home
school curriculum, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine has
been receiving between 100 and 250 letters and calls from parents each
day. There are numerous varied sorts of requests and questions, but the
following unedited letter that arrived recently from an American
mother summarizes many of them:
Dear Dr. Robinson:
I am the mother of two children (11 and 12 years old) who have
been public school educated. I asked questions, raised concerns, and
did everything I was told to do by the teachers. I participated in damag-
ing my own children even though every step of the way I had strong
feelings that something was wrong.
My children had good grades but they are functionally illiterate,
have very small vocabularies, could barely do addition, had nightmares
because we are going to die from over-population or global warming
or some such nonsense, and they know graphically how homosexuals
have sex.
I removed my children from the public school a year ago and be-
gan homeschooling them. They can now add, subtract, multiply, and
divide. I am having a terrible time teaching them to read because they
cant get past the method they had in school skip or guess words. I
have noticed that homeschooled children who have never attended
public school consistently do much better than homeschooled children
who have attended public school.
Homeschooling my children has been most frustrating because
they have developed habits and traits in the public school that are diffi-
cult to overcome. Such as they expect me to somehow put knowledge
into their heads without their participation. I have come to believe that
accusing the schools of doing nothing is inaccurate they are actively
damaging the children.
Your homeschool curriculum sounds great for kids who have
never been damaged by the public school system but can it work for
mine? Sincerely,
There is no shortage in America of truthful voices raised in opposi-
tion to the anti-science, anti-technology, anti-free enterprise message
preached by the demagogues who are seizing control of our nation.
There is, however, a shortage of citizens who have the ability and
inclination to listen to the truth. For the cause of that shortage, you
need look no further than socialist schools. Your tax dollars at work.
LIMITED BY LIGHT
At 186,000 miles per second, the speed of light usually seems to be
a nonlimiting quantity affecting only space vehicles and other objects
that manage to be so far away that their signals are noticeably delayed
in transmission. We do not often encounter speed of light limitations
within our own rooms. I still recall my surprise 30 years ago when I
learned that some of the sections of our DEC PDP/11 computers could
not be located more than a few feet apart because the speed of light
controlled and restricted their communications.
In the Gilder Technology Report, August 1997, pp 2-7, available
from Monument Mills, P. O. Box 660, Housatonic, MA 01236,
George Gilder points out three aspects of current technological devel-
opment that are currently being constrained by the speed of light
which he converts to nine inches per nanosecond in a vacuum and
about four inches per nanosecond in typical electronic circuits, where
information transfer is slowed by resistance and capacitance.
It turns out that microprocessor computer chips in the newest per-
sonal computers are spending most of their time waiting for light-lim-
ited communications with direct access memory. This limit also slows
communications within the memory itself. As the requirements for
memory access grow beyond the capabilities of cache memory on the
processor, the main memory must move closer and closer to the proc-
essor. Gilder predicts that the entire memory and central processor will
soon be forced onto the same chip. [As business advice he further pre-
dicts that the current manufacturers of memory will therefore take over
the production of central processors (rather than vice versa) because
the subsystem they are now making is larger than the central processor
and so comprises most of the ultimate product.]
Moreover, another effect of this limitation is continued decentrali-
zation of information processing. The speed of light causes computers
to remain physically small and limited in capability, so their distribu-
tion to hundreds of millions of separate locations around the world to
meet local needs is more practical than centralized computers. Central-
ized computers are limited in capability by the light-determined size
restriction and, also, by external communication rates.
A third effect that Gilder points out is in the nature of communica-
tions satellites. Geosynchronous satellites with rotation rates matched
to the Earths rotation are constrained by physics to be 23,000 miles
above the Earths surface. This causes a significant light-limited delay
in communications with them. Low earth orbit satellites are placed,
however, 60 times closer to the Earths surface. Only a minor factor in
current voice communications, the 60-fold decrease in communica-
tions delay has very great importance for digital computer-based com-
munications. For this reason, extensive low earth orbit satellite systems
are to be constructed. [As investment advice, he compares the compa-
nies engaged in this work.]
So, it is likely that, with current technology, computer processors
and memory are going to merge in assemblies that become inexorably
smaller; information processing will continue to decentralize to hun-
dreds of millions of computers spread all over the earth; and these
computers will talk to each other through fibre optic cables and a rotat-
ing shell of hundreds of satellites just a few hundred miles above the
Earths surface. The primary constraint determining this overall design
is the unfortunate fundamental slowness of the speed of light, which
moves at only 700 million miles per hour.
FOSSIL FUELS?
Much of the knowledge that each of us retains actually consists of a
collection of assumptions. Life is too short for every person to follow
every fact through to rigorous proof. It is for this reason that an open
mind is so important. We base our conclusions on the best information
available, but we must always be ready to alter our assumptions on the
basis of new information.
Doubt, however, need not dominate our lives. On one occasion, I
was told that a conclusion I had reached was wrong and that additional
information was available. Further, I was told that if I would travel
2000 miles and participate in a closed, secretive meeting with people
who were not permitted otherwise to individually discuss the facts with
me, these additional truths would be revealed. As would be expected,
the demanded arrangement reinforced my original conclusion. If there
really were new information, it could be imparted by free individuals
communicating by telephone or letter.
In rigorous science, assumptions cannot always be avoided, but
they need to be clearly stated in each instance. Perhaps the most re-
markable occurrence of assumptions in science concerned Sir Isaac
Newtons second law of mechanics. Newton wrote, The change of
momentum is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made
in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. As
Newton defined momentum: The quantity of momentum is the
measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter
conjointly. In the symbolic representation of calculus: F = d (mv) / dt.
Newton did not know whether or not mass is constant, so he put it
inside the differential. He did not assume that it is constant.
During the following 200 years, however, physicists found it con-
venient to assume that mass is constant. It became customary to write:
F = [m] [d (v) / dt] or F = ma, where only the velocity and acceleration,
d (v) / dt, were assumed to vary.
Albert Einstein put an end to this when he demonstrated that mass
is not constant a finding that has been widely and erroneously re-
ported as Einstein having found that Newton was in error. It was, in
fact, the physics community after Newton that made the erroneous as-
sumption. Newtons law, as he stated it, allows for variable mass.
One modern assumption that has worried me for many years, for
several reasons, is contained in the term fossil fuels which is widely
used to refer to coal, oil, and natural gas. It is so universally assumed Figure 1
that these substances are entirely derived from the decomposition of tures and pressures permit microbial life and where oxides of iron and
previously living plants and animals that fossil is used in their short- sulfur provide the oxygen needed for life. These microbes are the
hand name. You may have noticed that, in Access to Energy, I use the source of the biological compounds that have led to the belief that pe-
terms hydrocarbon fuels or, simply, coal, oil, and natural gas, troleum is fossil in origin.
and do not use fossil fuels. Gold discusses this hypothesis in the context of the search for life
An Unexplored Habitat for Life in the Universe by Thomas on other planets. He points out that this search should not be limited to
Gold in American Scientist 85, No. 5, pp 408-411, September-October planetary surfaces, which are generally very hostile environments. If
1997, available from P. O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC hydrocarbons are of nonbiological origin, then pools of hydrocarbons
27709, summarizes, with appropriate references, the current arguments below the surfaces of planets may be the most universal and most
opposed to the fossil in fossil fuels. promising environment in which to look for life.
Hydrocarbons are very widely distributed. They are found in the At the San Diego meeting, S. S. Penner estimated that all of the
atmospheres of giant gaseous planets, on asteroids, on interplanetary energy required for a world population of 10 billion people could be
dust grains, and in meteorites. They are believed to exist deep in the provided for 1,000 years by means of known reserves of coal, oil, and
earth where great pressures and temperatures actually increase their natural gas alone. (See Access to Energy 24, No. 11, pp 1-2, July
stability. They may be the source of carbon in diamond, which forms at 1997.) Allowing for the lower, gradually rising current population and
pressures reached only at depths of 100 miles or more in the Earth. the use of other energy sources as well, the reserve is much greater than
Since hydrocarbons are less dense than rock, they rise toward the 1,000 years. Moreover, there is some research which indicates that cur-
surface. In volcanic regions, they are partially oxidized by rocks, but in rent oil fields are refilling from oil and gas fields below them. (See Ac-
nonvolcanic regions, there is less oxidation. Methane is, therefore, cess to Energy 23, No. 3, p 4, November 1995.)
most abundant in nonvolcanic regions. The estimated amount of meth- In any case, it is obvious that the occasional shortages of hydrocar-
ane hydrate exceeds the total for all coal, oil, and other natural gas. bons during this century have been politically caused and that, given
Commercial helium is produced from oil and gas wells, since this is world reserves, any shortages arising for many centuries (probably
the only place that helium is found in sufficient quantities for commer- millennia) in the future will also not be caused by inadequate supplies.
cial extraction. Gold suggests that helium, which is formed by radioac- This has been implicitly admitted by the enemies of technology and
tive decay of uranium and thorium, is pumped to the Earths surface their mentors, who advocate reducing world population by an order
and concentrated by hydrocarbons rising from their places of origin of magnitude by limiting technology. (Is it not wonderful that seman-
deep in the Earth. He quotes Mendeleev, who concluded that petro- tics so facilely obscures impolite words like murder and geno-
leum is formed nonbiologically, very deep in the Earth. cide?) This is the reason that they shifted the focus of their efforts
Gold also quotes Sir Robert Robinson as writing, Actually it can- against hydrocarbons from the myth that we are running out of hydro-
not be too strongly emphasized that petroleum does not present the carbons to the new myths of global cooling and, now, global warming.
composition picture expected from modified biogenic products, and all The notion that hydrocarbon use must be reduced because of dimin-
the arguments from the constituents of ancient oils fit equally well, or ishing supply rested on two tenets very small known reserves and the
better, with the conception of a primordial hydrocarbon mixture to fossil fuel hypothesis, which implies very slow ongoing production
which bio-products have been added. and minimal undiscovered reserves. The free market has destroyed the
Golds hypothesis, summarized in Figure 1, is that hydrocarbons first of these two tenets for at least the next 1,000 years. If research
are formed by ordinary chemical processes in a region where they are destroys the fossil idea, even our very distant descendants will not
very thermodynamically stable, deep in the earth. They then rise up- be limited. (Given the rate of technological advance, they will also
ward. Near the surface, they pass through a region in which tempera- likely be able to make any petroleum they need by other means.)

TEMPERATURE 101
While such authorities as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in its page 3A
article on July 17, 1997, entitled Animals, Plants, Glaciers Sending
Warming Signals, continue to beat their Aztecan drums of global
warming, and as the Clinton Administration runs headlong, like the
Biblical demonized hogs, toward a cliff of international carbon con-
trols, sophisticated thermometers on orbiting satellites still find no in-
dication at all that atmospheric temperature is increasing. Less reliable
ground measurements show no temperature fluctuations outside of the
normal range of variability that long predates significant human release
of carbon dioxide. This should at least be understandable by all college
graduates who have passed a course in Thermometer Reading 101.
The new game is looking for changes that can be blamed on tem-
perature rises, since temperature rises themselves are not occurring.
Apparently forgetting that environmental and biological phenomena
are inherently variable, the enviros now blame virtually every fluctua-
tion on global warming regardless of the indisputable fact that the
globe is not getting unusually warmer. Apparently, we need (this will
get the Administrations attention) a new national program to teach
thermometer reading to the American people. Additionally, it must be
explained that in cause-and-effect arguments, it is unacceptable to ar-
gue that the effect has arrived before the cause has occurred.
Meanwhile, The Global Warming Treaty: For U. S. Consumers 34%. That 24% difference represents the savings and investment capi-
All Pain, No Gain Brief No. 238, based on a presentation by F. B.
Smith, and The Global Warming Game Brief No. 239 by E. M. workers to compete favorably with those in China. America was built
Trisko and H. S. Burnett, published by the National Center for Policy
Analysis, 727 15th St. N.W., 5th floor, Washington, DC 20005, sum-
marize estimated economic effects of current global warming treaty
proposals. For the United States, these include:
1. A drop in Gross Domestic Product of $150 to $250 billion.
2. Electricity and household fuel cost rise of 50%.
3. Gasoline price rise of 60 cents per gallon and gasoline rationing.
4. Sharply increased prices for food, medical care, police and fire
protection, air travel, and most other goods and services.
5. Major reductions in industrial production.
6. Sharp increases in the cost of homes and fewer homes con-
structed. Those constructed would be substantially smaller.
Implicit in these effects are very large increases in federal and state
taxes to pay for increases in government expenses and for transfer pay-
ments to the estimated 500,000 to 1 million people who would lose
their jobs each year as a result of diminished economic activity.
In addition to job loss, suffering will be most severe for the poorest
American households because the poor pay much larger percentages of
their income for essential services such as heat, electricity, and trans-
portation. These are the American poor who will probably be saved
from starvation by depleting American capital and savings.
Elsewhere on Planet Earth, the poor will have no safety net. Espe-
cially in Africa and Asia, a lot of people are going to die. They will lose
energy, food, and markets for their labor. The global human carnage
that will ultimately result from this insane program of energy rationing
will be far greater than the mass killing from the DDT ban (currently
running at one human death mostly children every 12 seconds) and
the genocidal nightmares of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot.
There have been many terrors and insanities during recorded his-
tory. Power hungry maniacs have caused so much human suffering
over the past 6,000 years that the study of history is largely devoted to
analyses of their activities. Never before, however, have so few people
had such awesome power to impose suffering and death on so many
and to cloak their activities in a guise of assumed virtue.
Make no mistake about this, however. Their power is American
power derived from American technology and financed by Ameri-
can taxes. Carbon rationing is being cloaked in a disguise of interna-
tionalism, but the raw economic and military power for its imposition
is American. It cannot be imposed without American participation. If
we let this happen, we shall be guilty of a crime beyond forgiveness
and that crime will not be forgotten by the survivors.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Wall Street Journal reported on page 1, August 1997, that
The U. S. will pay more than 1,000 teaching hospitals nationwide not
to train doctors in some specialties in an effort to reduce a glut in those
areas, according to the Washington Post. The program, which is con-
tained in recent budget legislation, expands a $400 million New York
experiment. Lets see they are reducing the amounts paid to farmers
to not produce food, while they are starting a new program to pay hos-
pitals to not produce doctors who keep people alive to eat food. Per-
haps next will be a program to pay Teamsters to not deliver food to
prevent a predicted glut from more food and fewer people.
l Our local UPS driver retires next year. Under the rejected UPS
plan, his pension payment would have been $3,200 per month. Under
the victorious Clinton Administration and Teamsters plan, his pension
will be $2,400 per month. The union victory on behalf of UPS drivers
has cost this one man $9,600 per year (or an over 30% increase in his
pension) for the rest of his life. During the strike, the Teamsters Union
did not allow UPS employees to vote on the UPS offers because the
primary issue was the continued looting of their pension fund.
l The Great Tax Cut of China by A. Rabushka in The Wall
Street Journal, p A14, August 7, 1997, reports that the current overall
tax burden in China is 10% of GDP while in the United States it is
tal left over after functional expenses that would allow American
by free enterprise during a period of low taxation. With economic free-
dom confiscated by high taxes, Americans are losing their way of life.
GOOD READING
l Facts Versus Fears by Adam J. Lieberman, published in May
1997 by The American Council on Science and Health, 1995 Broad-
way, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10023-5860, is a review of the 20
greatest unfounded health scares of recent times. From DDT to as-
bestos, this is excellent reading.
l Chemical Properties of Element 106 (Seaborgium) by M.
Schadel, et al., Nature 388, pp 55-57 (1997), and the laymans sum-
mary Oddly Ordinary Seaborgium by R. Lougheed, Nature 388, p
21, (1997). These experiments show that the chemistry of Seaborgium
is essentially the same as that conventionally predicted from the peri-
odic table. The research paper has 18 authors who conducted their en-
tire series of chemical experiments with just 7 atoms of Seaborgium.
l Schools Ponder New Global Landscape by D. Normile, Sci-
ence 277, p 311 (1997). He lists 11 Asian and European universities
averaging 260,000 students in each university. These universities teach
students remotely not on a central campus. Their costs range from
5% to 50% of the cost of equivalent on-campus instruction.
The off-campus CD-ROM home school curriculum for ages 6 to 18
produced by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine now has
20,000 students with this number currently rising at the rate of 3,000
per month. The cost of the OISM curriculum is 10% of that for other
equivalent educational programs and its academic quality is higher.
The electronics revolution will turn tenured professors and NEA
unionized educators into the vacuum tubes of the 21st century.
l Flying on Sunlight, Science News 152 p 75 (1997) reports that
the airplane, Pathfinder, flew to 71,500 feet using solar power alone.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. E-mail subscriptions: same prices or $15
for E-mail to postal mail subscribers. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
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 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
OCTOBER 1997 (Vol. 25, no. 2) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Shrinking to One Point
The ongoing technological revolution in information transfer and
storage was vividly demonstrated at the George Gilder Forbes Tele-
cosm Conference that was held September 14-16 in Palm Springs. At
this meeting, George Gilder assembled a large percentage of the re-
markable individuals who are responsible for this revolution. Their
insights provide outstanding guidance regarding information technol-
ogy. Transcriptions of the Palm Springs meeting and subscriptions to
the Gilder Technology Report are available from Monument Mills,
P. O. Box 660, Housatonic, MA 01236, or from (888) 484-2727.
Microelectronics, fiber optics, earth-orbiting satellites, and free
enterprise are allowing a collection of the best engineering and busi-
ness minds on our planet to build technology that will be able to in-
stantly interconnect by text, audio, and visual images all currently
living human minds with one another and with all recorded human
knowledge from the present and from the past.
We are all familiar with ways in which this technology has already
touched our lives. These have been just a beginning. The advances of
the coming decade will astonish even the technologists.
Our libraries will disappear, as virtually all recorded knowledge
becomes available at every human location by means of electronic
networks and, where preferred, on low-cost plastic disks. Transmis-
sion of audio, visual, and textual information will become essentially
instantaneous as the bandwidth of this electronic miracle increases far
beyond our individual abilities to utilize it.
With the collapse of their monopolies on knowledge stored in li-
braries and information delivery, educational institutions from ele-
mentary school through college will be transformed. Most will die.
The remainder will be engaged primarily in testing and accreditation.
As far as information and communications are concerned, all hu-
man minds are going to be electronically connectable and effectively
relocatable to a single point in time and space. Even those minds that
are no longer living will be able to occupy this point to the extent that
their knowledge has been recorded and retained.
While these changes will transform most aspects of our lives, they
will not substitute for all of our activities. A popular myth is spread-
ing that we are moving into the information age and a post-in- tity of human life, as determined by the vote of the free marketplace,
dustrial society. It is claimed that, in this mythical new age, even
pseudoenvironmentalist energy rationing will be harmless because
information technology requires very little energy. This is nonsense.
The maintenance and enrichment of human lives still require steel,
concrete, fuel, and all of the other commodities and manufactured
goods upon which we depend. We must have food, shelter, clothing,
transportation, medicine, and other necessities to survive; and we
must have literature, art, music, and the tools to explore new frontiers
in the microscopic worlds and in outer space in order to fulfill higher
human objectives and needs. Better information can make us more
effective in these works, but it cannot substitute for the works.
There is no such thing as a world post-industrial society. Post
industrialism can be tried on a local or national level, but the risks are
great. The United States is, for example, the current world leader in
information technology, but it is rapidly losing its leadership in most
We have now endured three campaigns against the use of coal, oil,
ENERGY RATIONING
commodities. World use of hydrocarbons must be sharply reduced im-
If a child asks his parents several times for the same dispensation
but each time gives a different reason for the request they may justifi-
ably conclude that it is the dispensation that the child desires. Obvi-
ously, the reasons are merely means to an end. So it is also with adults.
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
other technologies especially heavy industry. Confiscatory taxa-
tion and out-of-control regulation and litigation are driving produc-
tive industry out of America and into more favorable environments.
It is astonishing that Communist China, while still under the control
of a terrible tyranny, is rapidly overtaking American industry be-
cause China has lower taxes and less regulation and litigation.
Also, advances in information technology do not stand alone as
unalterable advantages because not all information is true and
even true information is not useful unless it is intelligently utilized.
What good does it do for us to have enhanced access to tax infor-
mation, for example, if we just stare blindly at the numbers and con-
tinue to destroy the savings and capital of our country through very
high and debilitating taxation? Of what value is better scientific infor-
mation about our environment, if we continue to ignore that informa-
tion in favor of politically correct but scientifically incorrect
regulations whose net effect is actually to damage our environment?
One result of the decentralization that is inherent in the informa-
tion revolution is the breaking of monopolies both government mo-
nopolies over their own citizens and industrial monopolies. The
future will belong to those who thrive in this new decentralized free-
enterprise environment because they are able to effectively distin-
guish useful and true information from the useless or false. Countries
that try to continue their monopolies over their citizens by stifling free
enterprise and promoting false information will gradually die.
The monopolies will, of course, resist. Publications will attempt to
maintain their copyrights only to find that authors and readers move
to other publishers. Educators will try to maintain their monopo-
lies through government testing and other politically controllable
standards only to find that students and employers discard them.
Governments will try to continue the surveillance of their citizens
through laws against encryption technology only to find their
brightest and best citizens relocating to other countries.
Where are the new opportunities in this revolution other than in
the information technology itself? They are where they have always
been. Any activity that demonstrably improves the quality and quan-
will thrive all activities that provide for the necessities and desires
of human beings. These include also those activities that separate
truth from fiction, myth from reality, and useful facts from nonuseful
that sort through information in quest of facts with the most value.
With the enormous increase in the amount of deliverable informa-
tion, this latter activity will be more important and more difficult. We
might say that wisdom will be in increased demand electroni-
cally extracted and communicated wisdom. There will be approxi-
mately the same number of facts (both true and false) in each
human mind, since mental capacity is not increasing. With so many
more facts available, however, which ones should each of us retain?
The information revolution and its concomitant benefits cannot be
stopped. It will occur. It will not necessarily, however, occur in any
particular place. Misused government power can spoil it. We must
have the wisdom to not let that happen in the United States.
and natural gas. First, it was claimed that we were running out of these
mediately, we were told, because supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas
were soon to be exhausted, leaving us without them even for uses
where there are no substitutes. This first excuse was a sort of endan-
gered species argument casting the continued users of hydrocarbons
as poor stewards of the Earths rapidly diminishing resources. As it
turned out, the world is awash in hydrocarbons with an approximately
1,000-years supply, even assuming a doubling of world population,
high living standards for everyone, and the generation of all energy
from burning hydrocarbons. (See Future Energy Sources, Access
to Energy 24, p 1-2, July 1997.) This has been reflected by steadily
diminishing free market hydrocarbon costs, with the occasional price
increases clearly being the result of political and not natural causes.
Second, it was claimed that global cooling was being caused by the
burning of hydrocarbons in human activities. This claim was made
during an unusually cold period of global weather, although that period
began long before there was significant human use of hydrocarbons.
Immediate and sharp reductions in hydrocarbon use were advocated
by environmental scientists in order to curtail this disastrous global
cooling. Not only was there not a shred of evidence to support this hy-
pothesis, but temperature records showed that, in the early part of the
20th century, the atmosphere was actually becoming a little warmer.
Third, it was claimed that global warming was being caused by the
release of carbon dioxide during the human burning of coal, oil, and
natural gas. Remarkably, this claim was made by many of the same
people who had warned about global cooling. We must, we have been
told, immediately and sharply curtail our use of hydrocarbons in order
to prevent catastrophe from global warming even though there is not
yet a shred of credible evidence that human release of carbon dioxide
is significantly warming the atmosphere.
Three excuses one demand. Moreover, the demand parallels other
similar demands. Increased nuclear energy use in the United States has
been blocked as the result of claims (from many of the same people
who are demonizing hydrocarbons) that nuclear power plants are dan-
gerous. The dangers described have not been scientifically credible,
but the political agitation has been effective indeed.
In addition, we now have environmentalist organizations in
many localities that are agitating for the removal of dams from Ameri-
can rivers. Many of these dams generate hydroelectric power as well as
providing farm irrigation water and flood control. Several dams in the
Northwest, including two within 50 miles from where I am writing, are
nearing political decisions that will result in their demolition.
Five excuses three energy sources one result. The only energy
sources not currently under attack are those that are, as yet, impractical
for the generation of substantial amounts of electric power. The ines-
capable conclusion is that these political children want energy ration-
ing by whatever excuses it may be obtained.
Why? Consider The Sky is No Limit in Green & Gold 7, p 3,
July 1997, available from P. O. Box 74416, Lynnwood Ridge, Pretoria
0040, South Africa, which quotes The Energy Outlook 1997, publish-
ed by the Energy Information Administration, EIA, of the U. S. De-
partment of Energy. EIA predicts that world energy demand will rise
54% between 1995 and 2015. It is predicted that, by 2015, the devel-
oping countries of Asia alone will use 9% more energy than the United
States. Electricity consumption is predicted to rise 75% between 1995
and 2015, which will require the equivalent of 5,000 additional 300-
megawatt electric power plants.
These large increases in energy use are partly the result of increas-
ing population and partly the result of increased world-wide economic
development, especially in Asia. Fortunately, there are several practi-
cal methods for generating this energy, plenty of industrial and finan-
cial resources to build the necessary facilities, and proven fuel reserves
to power them for the next 20,000 years (See again Access to Energy
24, p 1-2.) methods, means, and fuels that we have been told, five
times for five different reasons, not to use.
Moreover, even conservationism on a 20,000-year time scale can-
not explain these demands, since solar energy at the Earths boundary
is more than 2,000 times our projected 21st Century needs. In 20,000
years we shall surely learn to use that and fusion power besides.
Energy rationing for this is the obvious intent of these reasons
will have two large effects. It will reduce the world population of
human beings (substitute genocide if you prefer more literal truth),
and it will perpetuate economic slavery as a way of life for large pro-
portions of the worlds people, who cannot better themselves without
access to energy the currency of technological progress. These are
the effects of energy rationing. It is obviously not being advocated for
the excuses. We must assume that it is being advocated for its effects.
It is no longer politically correct to say things like there are too
many people lets kill them until their numbers please us or there
are too many potential competitors lets be sure they never have the
chance to rise above the level of economic slavery to us. Instead, the
new and acceptable way is to cry crocodile tears for the earth and
predict doom for the planet and make any other excuses that the press
will trust and parrot in order to get world energy rationing.
If an energy rationing system can be established, no matter how
mild its original provisions, then it can be tightened until it is used to
reduce world population and control the economic well-being and per-
sonal freedom of every individual on Earth.
Energy rationing is a new means to political power, and it is ever so
much nicer than war. People can be controlled and killed at will while
the perpetrators posture as benign lovers of Planet Earth. World energy
rationing is now very close as close as the treaty that Clinton and
Gore intend to sign in Japan this December. This must be stopped.
If the energy rationing treaty passes, a lot of people are going to die.
DEMOCIDE
With regard to killing as one purpose of energy rationing, we have
used the word genocide. Murder by the State by Gerald W.
Scully, NCPA Policy Report No. 211, September 1997, available from
the National Center for Policy Analysis, 12655 N. Central Expwy.,
Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243, distinguishes genocide, the murder of
minorities, from democide, the murder of the general population by
their own government. Those on the bottom of the economic ladder,
the first to be killed by energy rationing, might be considered a minor-
ity and, in any case, are often constituted more of recognized minori-
ties, but the difference is merely semantic.
Scully documents the fact that 7.3% of the worlds people have
been murdered by their own governments during the 20th century vs.
8.9%, 4.7%, and 3.7% for the 13th, 17th, and 19th centuries respec-
tively. These numbers do not include deaths by war or by abortion.
Nor have these murders been carried out by only a few evil govern-
ments with which we are all familiar. He lists 74 countries that have
conducted democides during the 20th century, including 19 commu-
nist countries and among noncommunist countries 19 in Africa, 15
in Latin America, 13 in Asia and the Middle East, and 8 in Europe.
Scully thinks that democide will diminish as governments realize
people are more valuable alive than dead. He supports this hypothesis
with graphs of democide vs. productivity. Worldwide, however, the
century by century decline in democide has been sharply reversed dur-
ing the 20th century a century of rising per capita productivity.
The lesson is that governments do not hesitate to kill their own peo-
ple when those in control decide that this is in their personal interests.
We like to believe that the United States is different (except for occa-
sional small incidents which have been rising in frequency recently),
but world energy rationing is a planet-wide program. We cannot ex-
pect its morals and objectives to be any better than the the lowest com-
mon denominator of the many governments involved most of which
have engaged in democide during the 20th century.
Scully concludes that democide is associated with about a 20% loss
of national wealth and is the result of dominant group and authoritarian
rule. A 20% loss not personally affecting the rulers is a small price
to pay for power. Moreover, world energy rationing is obviously a pro-
gram associated with authoritarian rule on an international scale.
As always, our technology coexists with the character of man and
has no meaning separate from its effects upon mankind. We build for
fun and for usually noble reasons, but we must never forget to watch
our backs. The ignoble characteristics of man are always there.
It is wrong to knowingly kill a child every 12 seconds from malaria
by banning the use of DDT as we are doing now. It is even worse to
increase this killing by orders of magnitude through energy rationing.
 3. Reducing pesticide residues is an effective way to prevent diet-
CONSTITUTIONAL TECHNOLOGY related cancer. Plant-produced pesticides constitute most of the pesti-
cides in fruits and vegetables and are generally harmless anyway.
Six Ships That Shook the World by Roger Archibald in Inven- 4. Human exposures to carcinogens and other potential hazards
tion and Technology 13, Number 2, pp 24-36 (1997), available from are nearly all to synthetic chemicals. An estimated 99.9% of the
American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Forbes Building, chemicals humans ingest are natural and these natural chemicals have
60th Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, is a fascinating account of the same overall cancer-causing potential as synthetic chemicals.
the ships designed by Joshua Humphreys and his later coworker Josiah 5. Cancer risks to humans can be assessed by standard high-dose
Fox technology that permitted George Washington to build an animal cancer tests. These high dose experiments are erroneously ex-
American navy that effectively blocked the British fleet in 1812 and trapolated to ordinary dose levels by means of a linear, no-threshold
turned the United States into a world naval power.
British ships of the
line had enormous fire
power but they were
very slow approxi-
mately 5 knots. They
needed to be short and
massive in order to
hold the weight of
large numbers of very
heavy guns. Longer
and lighter ships were
more maneuverable,
but lacked cannons
and strength that could
compete with the
heavier ships.
Humphreys princi-
pal innovation, called Figure 1
by a recent captain of
the USS Constitution the stealth technology of its day, was massive hypothesis that is not consistent with biological facts.
oak beams inside the ship that evenly distributed the weight of the guns 6. Synthetic chemicals pose greater carcinogenic hazards than
onto the keel of the ship. This permitted the construction of a heavily- natural chemicals. In fact, half of all chemicals tested in the standard
armed, long, light ship that was fast 13 knots. Humphreys ships high-dose animal tests are found to be carcinogenic half of the
could outmaneuver and outrun any other man-of-war in existence and synthetic chemicals and half of the natural chemicals. Of the 28 tested
could match their cannon range and weight of projectiles. See Figure 1. natural compounds from coffee, 19 have been classed carcinogenic.
In addition, Humphreys used a very hard variety of oak growing 7. The toxicology of synthetic chemicals is different from that of
only in the Americas and a special design that made the ships sides natural chemicals. This myth not scientific evidence showing envi-
particularly resistant. In all forty-two of her battles, the hull of the USS ronmental harm or health dangers, since none exists is at the heart of
Constitution (Old Ironsides) was never penetrated by a cannon ball. enviropropaganda for the ban of DDT. Ames and Gold quote the 1970
Her overall design was so new that it would have been rejected except National Academy of Sciences report which concluded that In little
for the fact that America had no navy and therefore no peer review. more than two decades DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to
The USS Constitution is the only one of the six original ships that malaria, that would otherwise have been inevitable. (Ames and Gold
remains. It is possible to walk on her decks in ignorance of her history give this reference as National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., The Life
and see only an old wooden ship. It is impossible to read Archibalds Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs, the
article without deeper feelings and perhaps a mist in your eyes. World of Biological Research, Requirement for the Future, 1970,
Committee on Research in the Life Sciences, Washington, DC, p 526.)
CHEMICALS AND CANCER Today (see Access to Energy 24, No. 12, p 4 for references), hun-
dreds of millions of people suffer unnecessarily from malaria and one
Fear is the stock in trade of the antitechnologists, and lack of person (usually a child) dies every 12 seconds from this disease. Most
knowledge exacerbates fear. The myth that there is an epidemic of can- of these deaths are the direct result of the baseless rationing of chemi-
cer caused by industrially produced chemicals has proven, therefore, to cal technology by the United States government the ban of DDT.
be a gold mine for pseudoenvironmentalist propagandists. If you are in The children we are killing, however, do not vote in our elections.
their business, however, one Bruce Ames can spoil your whole year. 8. Pesticides and other synthetic chemicals are disrupting hor-
Ames and his colleagues and coworkers just keep churning out re- mones. The hormonal effects of ordinarily ingested natural chemicals
search data that discredits this myth the principal myth that keeps the are millions of times higher than for synthetic chemicals.
Environmental Protection Agency in business. 9. Regulation of low, hypothetical risks is effective in advancing
In Environmental Pollution, Pesticides, and the Prevention of public health. Besides costing, by the Environmental Protection
Cancer: Misconceptions by B. N. Ames and L. S. Gold, to be pub- Agencys own estimate, about $140 billion per year, the regulation of
lished in the November issue of the FASEB Journal, Ames and Gold, low, hypothetical risks has raised the cost of healthful foods, dimin-
list nine myths (misconceptions) and demolish them all. These are: ished access to life enhancing and life saving technology, and caused
1. Cancer rates are soaring. Overall mortality (excluding smok- the deaths of millions of people through rationing of needed chemicals.
ing induced lung cancer) from cancer has decreased 16% since 1950. The greatest contribution to public health that could be made by the
2. Environmental synthetic chemicals are an important cause of EPA would be for it and its regulations to be abolished.
human cancer. The percentage of cancers induced by such chemicals The 86 references and 5 tables in this article by Ames and Gold
is so low that it cannot be measured reliably enough to verify, while the (both of whom can be reached at the National Institute of Environ-
cancer-causing effects of banning chemicals, such as diminished con- mental Health Sciences Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA
sumption of fruits and vegetables, are high and easily measurable. 94720) are all the ammunition needed to demolish the myths about hu-
man environmental pollution and cancer.

DEMON NITROGEN?
Cool Cars: Running Clean on Liquid Nitrogen by I. Peterson in
Science News 152, p 119 (1997) reports that two vehicles have been
built that use evaporating liquid nitrogen as a steam substitute to drive
their motors. This is lauded as a new approach to nonpolluting auto-
mobiles for California and also as a way of cleaning the air of carb- ters stopped at a local school. While they were there, students stole a
on dioxide and airborne particles during liquid nitrogen manufacture.
The featured automobile is stripped to just enough frame and tires
to hold one human, the motor, and the fuel. This car can travel 15
miles at 20 miles per hour on 48 gallons of liquid nitrogen. At current
prices in Southern Oregon, this is $125 worth of liquid nitrogen.
Reducing this price by half to allow for economies of scale, I calcu-
late four dollars per mile or approximately 80 times the fuel cost for
my 1983 GMC diesel Suburban. Compared to a current model auto-
mobile of weight comparable to the test car, the fuel cost is about 150-
fold higher (300-fold at current prices).
Even if they give the fuel away, however, there is another small
problem. In order to drive the same distance (1,000 miles) that my
Suburban travels on 40 gallons of fuel, the test car will require 11 tons
of liquid nitrogen. Eleven tons of fuel (on a very large trailer) will drop
my fuel efficiency to at least a factor of four below the test car, so now
I need 40 tons of fuel. This is approximately the capacity of the tractor-
trailer trucks that are used to distribute fuel to service stations. These
trucks require even more fuel. Let us assume a factor of two.
So, we estimate that this new technology will give us a range of
about 500 miles if we all travel in tractor-trailer fuel trucks and pay
about 1000-fold more for our fuel. Not to worry they are tinkering
with ways to make it better probably by means of lubrication with a
fat tax-financed research grant.
As to the ancillary advantage of cleaning the atmosphere of carbon
dioxide, it will be necessary to liquefy about 50% of the atmosphere of
the entire Earth to reduce carbon dioxide levels to those of the 1940s.
The energy for this liquification and for storage of the resulting carbon
will need to be produced without the use of hydrocarbon fuels.
The only advantage of this method of propulsion is that its develop-
ment will not lead to peudoenvironmentalist demonization of nitrogen.
The only technologies selected for demonization are those that do cost-
effective and practical work. This one does not.
l CO2 Increases Oceanic Primary Production by M. Hein and
RADIATION DANGERS
but significant stimulation of primary production (15-19%) [of plank-
On March 1, 1954 a thermonuclear bomb test named Bravo Shot -
Operation Castle in the Marshall Islands accidentally exposed about
300 Marshall Island residents and U. S. military personnel to danger-
ously high levels of radioactive fallout. Unprotected by potassium io-
dide supplements (now available to French citizens, but not to most
Americans) many of the exposed individuals, especially the children,
developed thyroid tumors and other thyroid abnormalities.
These people have been studied extensively during subsequent
years as summarized in Historical Events Associated with Fallout
from Bravo Shot - Operation Castle and 25 Y of Medical Findings by
E. P. Cronkite, R. A. Conrad. and V. P. Bond, Health Physics 73, No.
1, pp 176-189 (1997).
Although some of these people suffered short-term depression of
blood production, beta burns on their skin, and measurable internal
contamination by fission products in addition to thyroid damage, the
authors found, Survival curves for the people exposed on Rongelap,
Ailinginae, Utirik, and Rongelap unexposed people show there is no
significant difference. Actually of those exposed on Rongelap and Ail-
inginae, there was a slightly higher fraction alive in 1986.
Now that America is safe from nuclear attack because most foreign
arsenals of nuclear weapons are in the hands of the peace-loving lead-
ers who burned the Russian Parliament, leveled Chechnya, and
cleansed Tiananmen Square, we seem only to need potassium iodide
to protect us from the odd terrorist or accident. Radiation hormesis will
apparently at least cancel fallout radiation effects on lifespan.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The United States Marine Corps is now being used to chase mari-
juana growers in Southern Oregon. We know this because unmarked
Marine helicopters have been circling low over our house and fields
and because our newspaper reports that two of these Marine helicop-
$1,200 radio from one of the helicopters which has still not been re-
covered. Maybe the CIA and FBI should investigate this theft.
The armed forces of the United States should not be used against
American citizens. We have police agencies for this. Moreover, it is
degrading and ridiculous for our most accomplished and elite armed
service to be chasing potheaded hippies through the Oregon woods.
l Attention Deficit Disaster by John McGinnis in The Wall
Street Journal, p A14, September 18, 1997, reports that U.S. Ritalin
prescriptions have increased to 11.3 million in 1996, up nearly 400%
just since 1990. Most of this Ritalin is being prescribed through tax-fi-
nanced schools to treat Attention Deficit Disorder an epidemic new
disease that has recently descended upon Americas children.
Afflicting mostly boys, ADD is no more than an all-purpose excuse
to put children who are rebelling against the institutionalized child
abuse we call public schools on psychoactive drugs. It also helps
teach the kids that temper tantrums are excusable, since they just re-
flect organic illness. If I were required to attend a public school, I
would have an attention deficit, too.
GOOD READING
l Dont Crush Wireless Innovation by George Gilder in The
Wall Street Journal, p A22, September 16, 1997. The dead hand of
government monopoly has been trying to catch up with the microelec-
tronics revolution. Bungling the licensing of electromagnetic spectrum
and moving to outlaw encryption are their latest efforts.
l No Quarter for Kyoto by Marlo Lewis, Jr. in CEI UpDate 10,
No. 8, p 2 (1997), available from the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036.
This is an excellent, concise call for a rational, moral, and effective op-
position to the global warming treaty as opposed to the weak, politics-
of-envy opposition now emphasized in the U. S. Senate.
K. Sand-Jensen, Nature 388, pp 526-527 (1997). They find a small
ton] in response to elevated CO2 concentrations that simulate the CO2
rise in surface waters that will occur over the next 100-200 years.
Rising carbon dioxide levels are producing more trees and other
vegetation, more animals, and more ocean biomass. If human use of
hydrocarbons is causing this CO2 rise by releasing the carbon in coal,
oil, and natural gas (not yet entirely certain), then humans are causing a
wonderful enrichment of global plant and animal life. A little warmer
winters and longer growing seasons would be nice, too, but there is as
yet no evidence that human activities are raising global temperatures.
l The EPAs Dirty Little Secrets by H. Sterling Burnett, NCPA
Brief Analysis No. 236 (1997) available from National Center for Pub-
lic Policy, 12655 N. Central Expy., Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243-1739.
These are that: EPA clean air standards do not help asthmatic
children; are not supported by EPA scientists; are based on secret data
that not even the EPA has seen; and actually have the net effect of cost-
ing more lives than they are claimed to save.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1997 (Vol. 25, no. 3) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Rationing Technology
The revolution in science and technology during the past 300
years has made enormous contributions to the quality, quantity, and
length of human life. Billions of people are enjoying life today whose
existence would have been impossible without modern technology.
For those fortunate to live in the more developed countries, lifespan
has doubled. As the 21st Century dawns, large numbers of people in
the underdeveloped countries are beginning to lift themselves out of
poverty, while population increases are slowing. Even using the high
estimate of an eventual world population of 10 billion, there are
clearly sufficient wealth and resources to provide long, enjoyable, and
productive lives for all of these people.
An indication of the pace of this development is energy usage,
since energy is the currency of technological progress. Food, cloth-
ing, shelter, transportation, and most of the other necessities and con-
veniences of life are energy dependent. The Energy Information
Administration of the U. S. Department of Energy predicts that world
energy demand will rise 54% and electricity demand will rise 75%
between 1995 and 2015. By 2015, the developing nations of Asia
alone are expected to require more energy than the United States.
Against this backdrop of a need for more energy energy that at
present must be provided primarily by burning coal, oil, and natural
gas and by nuclear fission, it is particularly troubling to note the po-
litical progress being made by those who call instead for world-wide
energy rationing. Proposals under consideration for Kyoto in Decem-
ber would roll back energy production by as much as 20% at a time
when human needs require increases in production by 50%. The
Kyoto treaty would leave the world with about half as much energy
as it will require early in the 21st Century.
The more moderate proposals for rollbacks by 5% or 10% in this. Political power and population reduction are understandably not
energy usage that President Clinton has now announced are almost as
severe because the world needs 50% more energy not 5%, 10%, or
20% less. Moreover, after mandatory global controls on energy pro-
duction are in place, they can be gradually expanded to any level.
Although the buzzword of the present is global warming, it is we should instead be talking about rolling back the DDT ban and
evident that this is just an excuse for rationing. Hydrocarbon fuels
have endured three major campaigns claimed looming shortages re-
quiring rationing, claimed global cooling requiring rationing, and
claimed global warming requiring rationing with most of the of global warming. Each of these has dealt with one aspect of this
same people making these three different claims. Energy opponents,
again many of the same people, have also caused the rationing in the
United States of nuclear energy. In each case, the science did not sup-
port the claims. Each, however, involved an apocalyptic scenario
deemed to be so terrible that consideration of moderating facts or
waiting for experimental evidence was characterized as irresponsible.
Ancient Aztec rulers and priests were also merchants of disaster
scenarios. They taught the Aztec people that, if their altar stones were
not kept continuously wet with human blood, the sun would cease to
shine a major environmental disaster. Modern day Aztecans have
provided us with many new imagined disasters. Curiously, most of
these seem to have only one solution energy rationing which also
means the rationing of all technology that is energy dependent.
estimates indicate that this level may eventually rise as high as 600
GLOBAL WARMING
Transition, IBR Press, Tempe, Arizona, 1989.) This rise in atmos-
There is no doubt that the carbon dioxide concentration of the
Earths atmosphere is rising. From levels of about 290 parts per mil-
lion, ppm, at the beginning of the 20th century, atmospheric carbon
dioxide has risen now to about 360 ppm. Moreover, reasonable
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
Even dabbling with small aspects of technology far less perva-
sive than energy can have disastrous consequences, as we have
learned in the case of DDT. In 1970, the U. S. National Academy of
Sciences stated that, In little more than two decades DDT has pre-
vented 500 million deaths due to malaria, that would otherwise have
been inevitable. The science underlying the claimed environ-
mental disasters that could result from continued use of DDT was so
poor that even the Environmental Protection Agencys own review
board would not recommend that it be banned. Ah, but when dealing
with disaster scenarios it is necessary to err on the side of caution.
After all, DDT is just another noxious chemical. Right?
So, the EPA banned the use of DDT in the United States and did
an effective job of reducing its use all over the world. Today, several
hundred million people are afflicted with malaria, and one person,
usually a child, dies every 12 seconds from this disease. Most of these
deaths are directly attributable to the EPA ban of DDT. Just this one
instance of rationing technology has killed several children while you
have been reading this article.
If decreasing world energy supplies by 20% instead of expanding
them by 50% reduces the human carrying capacity of the earth by
only 10% pushing people off the lower rungs of the ladder of eco-
nomic existence and these people die over a period of 20 years, then
the carnage will be 100 people every 12 seconds.
Energy rationing looks great if your primary interest is political
power. Control of energy supplies in a technological world bestows
the power of life or death over most of the worlds people. Energy
rationing also looks great if your interest is in population control
through population reduction, although there are less polite terms for
very popular, so fad and fashion dictates that they be cloaked in
crocodile tears for the environment and concern about global disaster.
For the malaria victims, disaster is already here. Instead of talking
about ways to increase the present killing rate by orders of magnitude,
other regulations that ration technology which is essential to the pres-
ervation and enhancement of human life.
Access to Energy has carried many articles about the nonscience
subject. These various articles usually summarized by a graph or
chart with the essential elements are more understandable when
they are all considered as a whole. Therefore, this issue of Access to
Energy is largely devoted to a summary of the data about this subject.
All of the people on earth now face an imminent environmental
catastrophe that, if it is not prevented, will probably cause more suf-
fering and loss of life than all other recorded disasters combined. That
looming disaster is the expected signing and possible ratification of a
mandatory hydrocarbon rationing treaty in Kyoto, Japan, next month.
Sometimes it is not enough to say, I did not do it; I was not re-
sponsible; or I was distracted by other things. Sometimes the human
stakes are so high that all of us are responsible whether we want to
be involved or not. This, unfortunately, is one of those times.
ppm. (See S. B. Idso, Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in
pheric carbon dioxide is probably a result of human burning of coal,
oil, and natural gas, although this has not been established for certain.
Carbon dioxide in the oceans and other natural reservoirs totals 50-
fold more than that in the atmosphere, and movement between these
reservoirs is poorly understood. The observed rise corresponds, how-
ever, with the time of human release and is equal to the rise expected
from about one-half of the amount known to have been released. Fig-
ures 1 and 2 show levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide vs. time. (See
the book by Idso previously referenced and also Trends 93: A Com-
pendium of Data on Global Change published by Oak Ridge Na-
tional Laboratory.)
Figure 1
On the scale of Figure 2, the seasonal variation is also evident.
Plants use carbon dioxide, so levels tend to fall in the daytime and in
the summer and tend to rise at night and in the winter.
Figure 2
It happens that carbon dioxide, water, and a few other substances in
the atmosphere are greenhouse gases. This means that, for reasons
explainable from their physics and chemistry, they tend to admit more
solar energy into the atmosphere than they allow to escape from it. Ac-
tually, things are not so simple as this, since these substances interact
among themselves and with other aspects of the atmosphere in com-
plex ways that are not quantitatively understood.
Nevertheless, it was reasonable to suggest that rising atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels might cause rising atmospheric temperatures.
Some people went so far as to predict global warming, which has
come to mean greenhouse warming of the atmosphere by large
amounts accompanied by catastrophic environmental consequences.
It turns out that scientists have been able to carefully test the hy-
pothesis of global warming during the past 50 years without relying
on arguments that are based on other hypotheses or on incompletely
understood calculations. During the past 50 years, atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels have risen by a large amount, while, simultaneously,
precise measurements of atmospheric temperature have been made.
These measurements have definitively shown that major atmospheric
greenhouse warming of the atmosphere as predicted by proponents of
global warming is not taking place and is unlikely ever to take
place. In other words, global warming has failed experimental test.
Figure 3
Figures 3 to 8 illustrate these results. Figure 3 provides a long-term
perspective. (See L. D. Kegwin, Science 274, 1504-1508, 1996.) This
graph of sea surface temperatures in the Sargaso Sea (a region of the
Atlantic Ocean) was derived from isotope ratios in the remains of tiny
marine organisms that are deposited as sediment at the bottom of the
sea. At the left, labeled Station S, are recent direct measurements
at the same location. As is illustrated, the Earth has been warming dur-
ing the past 300 years as it recovers from a cool period known as the
Little Ice Age. Also seen is the period 1,000 years ago during the
Middle Ages when temperatures were warmer than today and
weather was generally milder.
Figure 4
The more jagged line in Figure 4 shows temperatures during the
past 250 years. The smoother line in Figure 4 records solar magnetic
activity during the same period. (See S. Baliunas and W. Soon, Sky
and Telescope, December 1996.) The close correlation between these
two parameters strongly suggests that the gradual warming since the
Little Ice Age and the fluctuations during that warming have been
caused by solar activity. In other words, when the sun is more active,
the Earth is warmer and vice versa.
Figure 5 gives annual 20th century temperatures in the United
States. As can be clearly seen, current temperatures are not at all un-
usual even when compared with the recent past. (See Brief No. 213,
National Center for Policy Analysis, quoting from the original 1990
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Report.)
Figure 6 shows global temperatures measured in recent years by
 tures will rise significantly indeed catastrophically if atmospheric
carbon dioxide rises. During the past 50 years, a definitive experimen-
tal test of this hypothesis has been performed on the entire earth. It has
completely failed this test. Not only have temperatures not risen sig-
nificantly with carbon dioxide, they have not detectably risen at all.
Moreover, the historical record of global temperatures over periods
ranging from as long as 3,000 years to as short as 18 years tempera-
tures measured with several different, reliable, and mutually consistent
methods shows that current temperatures are not unusual and would
not be unusual even if they were to rise much more than can be caused
by an experimentally reasonable (in view of the experience of the last
50 years) carbon dioxide greenhouse effect.

Figure 5

means of modern instrumentation. Notice that the longer record of

weather balloon measurements corresponds very closely to measure-
ments during the past two decades made by orbiting satellites. This Figure 7
correspondence helps to mutually confirm the accuracy of these read-
ings taken by entirely different methods readings that show no sign
of global warming. (See R. A. Kerr, Science 267, 612, 1995.)

In science, the ultimate test of any hypothesis is experiment. If a

hypothesis fails experimental test, then the hypothesis must be dis-
carded. There is no other rational and honest alternative.
Why then is there continuing discussion of atmospheric global
warming? What possible support can it find even among scientists
who are willing to compromise their integrity in order to report results
that the politicians and bureaucrats who fund them want to hear?
It turns out that there is a field of inquiry in which scientists are
trying to use computers to predict the weather even global weather
over very long future time periods. This is valuable research. Even
Figure 6 though global weather is so complicated that current data and com-
Figure 7 gives an amplified view of the most sophisticated meas- puter methods are insufficient to permit such predictions, it is reason-
urements available those made by orbiting satellites since 1979. able to hope that these methods will eventually improve and become
When the fluctuations are averaged, these measurements show that useful in many ways. At present, however, computer climate models
global temperature has actually been trending slightly downward dur-
ing the past 18 years a period with the highest global carbon dioxide
levels on record. (See Eco logic, 1-5, March/April 1997.)
Finally, Figure 8 compares the temperature record of the 20th cen-
tury with the temperature record expected if atmospheric carbon diox-
ide had caused the 0.6 degree Centigrade or 1.0 degree Fahrenheit rise
during this century. The calculated line is proportional to the carbon
dioxide rise. The temperature rise occurred prior to 1940, while most
of the carbon dioxide rise occurred after 1940. (See Two Environ-
mental Issues, George C. Marshall Institute, 1991.)
Even if the two curves were correlated, it would not prove the
global warming hypothesis, since correlation does not prove causality.
It is necessary, however, for a cause either to precede or occur simulta-
neously with an effect. Since the temperature rise occurred before the
carbon dioxide rise, it is impossible for the carbon dioxide rise to have
caused the temperature rise. As shown in Figure 4, it is likely that this
temperature rise was caused by the increase in solar activity that corre- Figure 8
lates well with it. This also agrees very well with common sense.
Therefore, the scientific method requires that the global warming
hypothesis be rejected. This hypothesis predicts that global tempera-
 Figure 11
easy to estimate the relevant parameters in such a way as to obtain
whatever result the computer operator wishes to find. When the opera-
tors funding depends upon government committees that have vested
Figure 9 interests in a particular outcome, that outcome is likely to appear.

are very unreliable, as is clearly seen in Figures 9 and 10. (See The
Global Warming Experiment, George C. Marshall Institute, 1995.)
In the Arctic, where the computer models are supposed to be espe-
cially accurate, their predictions are even worse than those for the
whole Earth. Whereas the models predict warming, actual measure-
ments have shown cooling. This is not surprising. The weatherman
still has difficulty predicting weather in a small locality for even a few
days in advance. Global predictions over very long time periods are
entirely beyond current capabilities.

Figure 12
This phenomenon is illustrated in Figure 12. (See S. Baliunas, Is
Global Climate at Risk?, DDP, 1996.) As resistance to the global
warming hypothesis has grown in the scientific community and as
measurements continue to find no warming, the degree of warming
predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, IPCC, has decreased. In other words, the computer models
have been fiddled to predict a lower, more politically acceptable
warming but still enough to keep the global warmers in business.
With greater reliability than the climate models, we could use this
graph to predict that the issue will shift back to global cooling in 2003.
So what do the global warmers do to keep the IPCC ball rolling and
their global warming treaty on track? They lie. This is illustrated in

Figure 10
Figure 11 illustrates one reason the computer models are inaccurate.
The right hand bar shows the size of the effect they are trying to calcu-
late. The three bars on the left show, on the same scale, the uncertain-
ties in three parameters that are required for the calculations. (See S.
Baliunas, Uncertainties in Climate Modeling: Solar Variability and
Other Factors, testimony before the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources of the U. S. Senate, 1996.) Where errors are so great with
respect to the values being estimated, it is not surprising that the calcu-
lations are unreliable.
In fact, when computer models of this sort are so uncertain, it is
Figure 13
Figure 13. (See B. D. Santer et al, Nature 382, 39-45, 1996, who pub-
lished the data in the oval, and P. J. Michaels and P. C. Knappenberger,
Nature 384, 522-523, 1996, who published the rest of the story in the
data outside the oval.) The data in the oval, from a specific region in
the Southern Hemisphere troposphere, was used to influence an IPCC
report on global warming by leaving out the points that would have
led to an opposite scientific conclusion.
Global warmers also try to obscure the issue with further scare sce-
narios such as worldwide flooding from melting of the polar ice. This
scare would be nonsense even if global warming were a reality which
it is not. Floating ice does not raise the water level when it melts.
As far as the nonfloating ice on the Antarctic continent is con-
cerned, that ice melts only at the bottom, where it is warmed by geo-
thermal heat from the Earth. At the top, it is so cold that no melting
would occur even if the temperature were raised substantially. More-
over, the ice cap itself is such a thick insulator that it would require
hundreds of years for any temperature change to be transmitted to the
melting region and even then the energy transferred would be negli-
gible as compared to the geothermal heat that is already present.
Finally, even if, by some magic, unacceptable global warming were Figure 15
to begin to occur, there are several methods of reducing temperature by
injecting small amounts of dust into the atmosphere as do volcanoes, can be calculated from data on tree growth as a function of increased
which cause cooler climate periods. Use of these methods would cost atmospheric carbon dioxide. (See Forest Statistics of the United States,
1987 and Access to Energy, 21, Nos. 3 and 4, 1993.)
Figure 15 shows this same effect measured by tree ring width in
long-lived pine trees. Notice the sharp increase in growth rate during
the past 50 years. (See D. A. Graybill and S. B. Idso, Global Biogeo-
chemical Cycles, 7, 81-95, 1993.)
Carbon dioxide growth enhancement is even greater when plants
are grown under reduced fertilization or other conditions of stress as
often found in nature. Figure 16 is based upon 279 research studies in
which plants were grown under both stressed and unstressed condi-
tions. The mixture of plants in these experiments as compared to that in
the Earths natural environment was such that Figure 16 actually un-
derestimates the natural effect at 600 ppm a doubling of growth rate.
(See K. E. Idso and S. Idso, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 69,
153-203, 1994.) Since animals depend upon plants for food, their num-
bers also rise proportionately with increased plant growth.
Moreover, it has been found that mature Amazonian rain forests are
currently increasing their mass of plants and animals at a rate of one to
Figure 14 two tons per acre per year. (See J. Grace, Science, 270, 778-780, 1995.)
less than 1% of the amount that the first phase of the global warm- Throughout the northwestern United States, trees are expanding the ar-
ing treaty would cost the United States alone. (See E. Teller, The Wall eas in which they grow. This acceleration of tree growth is already so
Street Journal, A22, October 17, 1997.) great that unrestricted human logging could not keep pace.
In any case, there isnt any global warming. Actually, this is unfor- The people now alive on the Earth are going to live in an increas-
tunate because many regions of the globe would benefit from higher
temperatures and longer growing seasons.
There is, however, a pronounced beneficial effect already being
caused by the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide an effect that
is going to accelerate in the years ahead and cause profound changes in
our environment. This is illustrated in Figures 14 to 16.
Plant growth is accelerated by increases in atmospheric carbon di-
oxide. Plants use carbon dioxide as their source of carbon and are,
therefore, fertilized by the atmosphere. For this reason, carbon dioxide
is often added in greenhouses. Also, as carbon dioxide increases, plants
require less water, since they lose less moisture from the pores through
which they respire. This allows plants to grow in drier regions.
The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has stimulated much
research in effects on plants growing in open natural environments.
Sherwood Idso, Bruce Kimball, and their colleagues in Phoenix, Ari-
zona, are especially prominent with their experiments on trees and on
crops growing in open fields. Trees exhibit a very strong effect, while
crops are fertilized to a lesser but still significant extent.
Figure 14 shows the amount of growing timber in the United States.
There are now 120,000 pounds or 60 tons of timber for every man,
woman, and child, and this is increasing at a rate of 600 pounds per
person per year. It turns out that the increase in standing timber be-
tween 1958 and 1993 of about 25% was the same as the increase that Figure 16
ingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of carbon di-
oxide increases already under way. Our immediate descendants will
enjoy an Earth with at least twice as much plant and animal life as that
with which we now are blessed.
The more hydrocarbons we burn, the more our natural environment
will prosper. Coal, oil, and natural gas are turned into carbon dioxide;
carbon dioxide is in turn used to make plants; and part of these plants is
used to make animals. We are moving hydrocarbons from below
ground and turning them into plants and animals a wonderful and
unexpected environmental gift from the human Industrial Revolution.
Living things are made from carbon, and carbon dioxide is the prin-
cipal substance by which carbon is transferred from the environment
into plants and back and forth between plants and animals. Man uses
the energy in hydrocarbons found underground when he burns coal,
oil, and natural gas. He also uses the solar energy gathered by plants
when he burns wood or utilizes other biomass such as food.
The release of this energy from the convenient forms in which it is
stored is absolutely essential to continued progress for the human race.
This energy is needed to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of
people across the globe. If political events permit, it will eventually al-
low all human beings to live long, prosperous, healthy, and productive
lives. There is no other single technological factor more important to
the increase in the quality, length, and quantity of human life than the
continued and expanded use of the Earths hydrocarbons of which
we have adequate proven reserves for more than 1,000 years. (See Ac-
cess to Energy 24-11, July 1997.)
Increased life and prosperity for humans and for plants and animals
will result from continued increases in the use of coal, oil, and natural
gas. Conversely, global death and poverty will result from the ration-
ing of hydrocarbons called for by the international treaty that the Clin-
ton-Gore Administration says that it plans to sign in Japan next month.
If the Senate refuses to ratify the treaty our last line of defense then
the Administration may try to implement it anyway, as they have done
in other instances.
The science of this issue is completely clear, and the consequences
of error are very obvious. If the politicians and bureaucrats ration hy-
drocarbons, it really is quite ridiculous to believe that science, rational-
ism, and common sense any longer have a significant role in world
affairs. How long will it be before they notice that breathing human
beings, too, exhale large amounts of demon carbon dioxide?
See also Access to Energy 21-3, 21-4, 21-8, 22-7, 22-8, 22-9, 24-
2, 24-3, 24-5, 24-9, 24-10, and 24-11 for discussion and references.
problem was solved by John Harrison, who invented a clock that
LIQUID NITROGEN CAR
l Of Mice and Mandates: Animal Experiments, Human Cancer
In the September 1997 issue of Access to Energy, we made some
calculations about the new environmentally friendly car that is Health, 1995 Broadway, Second Floor, New York, NY 10023-5860.
driven by a turbine powered by evaporating liquid nitrogen. We esti-
mated that a similarly powered fuel truck carrying 40 tons of liquid
nitrogen would have a range of about 500 miles and a fuel cost 1,000
times higher than the diesel alternative.
The tubular prototype liquid nitrogen car carries one man and its 48
gallon fuel tank with a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour and a
range of 15 miles. It, therefore, uses 3 gallons of fuel per mile.
In comparison, a Boeing 747 aircraft traveling 575 miles per hour
uses about 6 gallons per mile of jet fuel (on average during a coast-to-
coast trip). Jet fuel costs, however, about one-third as much as liquid
nitrogen, so the 747 fuel cost is less per mile than the one person car.
You may have 500 people traveling in a 747 or one person traveling at
20 miles per hour in a go-cart at 50% greater fuel cost take your pick.
STARK RAVING MAD
l This Missile Defense Program Just Wont Fly by Angelo M. gon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals $35
Codevilla, The Wall Street Journal, A22, October 22, 1997, reports
that the Clinton Administration has committed $11 billion over the
next 8 years to buy 7 Boeing 747-400 aircraft equipped with lasers to
shoot down ballistic missiles early in their trajectories. The plan is that
these airplanes will fly in areas where missiles might be launched and
during times when launches are expected. The Pentagon claims that
the airplanes could defend themselves with a laser that projects through
the airplanes nose. The 747s are expected, therefore, to dogfight.
The Administration continues to cling to the defunct ABM Treaty,
which precludes the construction of any missile defense that works. In
order to be able to claim, however, that they are not leaving Americans
undefended, silly make-work ineffective projects are implemented.
l Scott Peters of the Nuclear Energy Institute, Suite 400, 1776 I
Street NW, Washington, DC 20006, reports that a freshman at Eagle
Rock Junior High in Idaho urged people to sign a petition demanding
strict control or total elimination of the chemical dihydrogen monox-
ide, which: causes excessive sweating and vomiting; is a major com-
ponent in acid rain; can cause severe burns in the gaseous state; can
cause death when accidentally inhaled; contributes to erosion; de-
creases the effectiveness of automobile brakes; and has been found in
the tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Of 50 people asked if they supported a ban of the chemical, 43 said
yes, 6 were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical was water.
The point here is not just that most of these people do not know
high school chemistry nomenclature. More importantly, most of them
believed that it was their right to support this restriction of technologi-
cal freedom even though they knew nothing whatever about the sub-
ject. The global warmers are betting that these same people can be
brainwashed to support severe restrictions of carbon dioxide.
l The Deweese Report 3, No. 9, p 3, September 1997, available
from the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road # 316,
Herndon, VA 20171, quotes the following from the Teachers Man-
ual, Interactive Mathematics for grades 6, 7, and 8, published by
Glencoe Division, Macmillan/McGraw Hill: Traditionally, mathe-
matics tests have questions with right and wrong answers. These
tests reinforce the misleading image of mathematics as a subject with
unique correct answers . . . Poor test scores often lead to students with
poor self-images who believe they arent good in math.
GOOD READING
l Longitude by Dava Sobel, published by Penguin Books in 1995,
is a fascinating account of the history of technological efforts to de-
velop a means of shipboard measurement of longitude. It is not gener-
ally remembered that great difficulties and much loss of life resulted
from the inability of sailors to accurately determine their location. This
would keep precise time at sea.
Risk, and Regulatory Policies, American Council on Science and
This is an excellent article about the misuse of cancer data at very high
doses in rodents to estimate low-dose risks to humans. About half of
such tested substances are thus demonized.
l Happiness Is a Warm Planet by T. G. Moore in The Wall
Street Journal, A22, October 7, 1997. Why impoverish ourselves pre-
venting a global warming that is not occurring and would be good for
the environment even if it did occur? As Moore says, Global change
is inevitable; warmer is better; richer is healthier.
l The Economic Laws of Scientific Research by Terence Kealey,
Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996. This is a comparison between tax funding
of science and technology and free market funding of science and tech-
nology one more instance where freedom is superior to socialism.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor, Ore-
for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations $60,
US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250, Cave
Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3 each.
100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21 years
of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1997 (Vol. 25, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Global Liars
This month, the executive branch of the United States government
led in this case by William Clinton, Albert Gore, Bruce Babbitt, which saved more than 500 million lives before it was banned, is not
and Timothy Wirth will, according to these individuals, agree to a
treaty for mandatory international rationing of carbon dioxide pro-
duction. In order to diminish opposition to this treaty, each of them is
engaged in the dissemination of outright lies in the American media.
Secretary asks: Where have all the glaciers gone? by Bruce global warming probably crazy, and, like Babbitt, falsely blames
Babbitt, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 6, 1997, p 11
B, is a pretended tour of Glacier National Park, where glaciers have
been receding as the earth continues its 300-year warming following
the Little Ice Age a warming correlated in its long and short cycles
with solar activity (see Access to Energy 25-3).
Babbitts tour blames the warming of the Earth that commenced
300 years ago on human carbon dioxide emissions even though he
well knows that virtually all of that warming predated significant hu-
man carbon dioxide production and temperatures have been level to
slightly cooler during the period of maximum carbon dioxide release.
Babbitt says, The carbon dioxide spewed up over Charles Dick-
ens London and spread around the Earth still hovers above. In fact,
the half-life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 15 years as
determined by carbon 14 tracer measurements of atmospheric nuclear
test residues (see Access to Energy 22-1, p 3). Charles Dickens died
in 1870, so about [(100) - (100 / 210)] = 99.9% of the carbon dioxide
released during his life has already been distributed to non-atmos-
pheric locations, such as oceans and the tissues of plants and animals.
Babbitt says, To do nothing is to leave children and grandchil-
dren locked in a car on a hot day with the windows sealed tight.
Even the most extreme of the global warming gurus have not pre-
dicted conditions remotely comparable to this mythical car.
Babbitt compares scientists who oppose this treaty to people who
claim that cigarettes are harmless. He lists tiny countries such as
Bangladesh and Nigeria, which emit less than 1% as much carbon
dioxide as the United States, as examples of countries that the treaty
excludes and makes no mention that it also excludes Red China,
whose emissions will soon exceed those of the United States.
Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior of the United States, is a
liar. He should be dismissed from office.
Meanwhile, Albert Gore says, As far back as we can measure,
CO2 and temperature have gone up and down in lockstep (see The
New American, December 8, 1997, p 14). There is not a shred of evi-
dence to support this claim; moreover, there is a wealth of evidence
showing it to be false. The temperature record of the past 3,000 years
(see Access to Energy 25-3, p 2), for example, shows that the atmos-
phere during about two-thirds of those 3,000 years was warmer than
it is today with five distinct warm eras. Yet, during all of those warm
periods, carbon dioxide was lower than today.
Albert Gore claims that tropical diseases are moving north be-
cause of global warming. He says, A few years ago somebody got
malaria in Detroit a tropical, subtropical disease. In the month he
got malaria, the average temperature was six full degrees warmer
than the 30-year average for that month. Gore failed to mention that
would, in that case, be no more demonstrably wrong. Yet, they be-
A TYRANNY OF WASTED MINDS
the American people with the help of their unscrupulous fellow
How is it possible for Americans to be involved in a nationwide
controversy wherein one side of the debate is populated by such
simplistic liars as those illustrated above? These people might as well
be saying that the earth is flat and that two plus two equals five they
Copyright 1997 by Access to Energy
about two million children die of malaria each year because DDT,
available. He also omits mentioning that all of the warming in the
past 300 years was less than ordinary fluctuations such as the 6 F in
Detroit and that malaria is spread by mosquitoes, not temperature.
Gore calls those scientists who disagree with his claims about
carbon dioxide emissions for glacier melting.
Revealing a little more of his agenda, Gore told a recent White
House global warming conference (see The New American, Novem-
ber 24, 1997, p 9) that fighting climate change will require more
vigorous measures to curb the planets human population.
Albert Gore, Vice-President of the United States, is also a liar and
should be removed from office.
Of Timothy Wirth, his often quoted statement speaks for itself:
Weve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory is
wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and
environmental policy.
President Clinton recently hosted 100 weather forecasters in the
White House, urging them to sell global warming to their viewers.
We suppose the pitch would be something like this: There is an
70% chance of rain tomorrow and a 100% certainty that the President
can forecast the weather 100 years from now. For examples of Clin-
tons lies, just tune in randomly to any speech he makes on virtually
any subject. Even polls of his supporters indicate that the majority of
them know that he is not truthful.
So, this gaggle of liars is going to ration your carbon dioxide emis-
sions. Perhaps Population Reduction Al will want to include the carb-
on dioxide emitted when humans breathe.
In The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 1997, p B7, John J.
Fialka reports that the United States Energy Information Administra-
tion now predicts that the demand for energy will result in an increase
of 34% in American carbon dioxide emissions above 1990 levels by
2010. The world percentage increase is expected to be much higher.
Yet, President Clinton says he will sign a treaty mandating carbon
dioxide emissions no higher (and probably lower) than 1990 levels.
The United States Energy Department predicts that these mandatory
limits will reduce American steel production by 20% and cause 100%
of primary aluminum plants in the United States to close.
Most other American industries are expected to decrease produc-
tion by amounts between these two percentages. The only way that
world economic activity could avoid a devastating depression if this
treaty passes would be for the closed industries in developed coun-
tries to be moved to China, Mexico, and other countries not covered
by the treaty where they will, of course, produce carbon dioxide.
Even if we did not have data thoroughly refuting the global warm-
ing myth (see Access to Energy, November 1997), the flood of lies
emanating from the Clinton Administration would make it obvious
that their position cannot be supported by truthful statements.
The potential worldwide effects of their dishonesty are devastat-
ing. If this treaty becomes law, a lot of people are going to die.
lieve, with reasonable cause, that they will be able to sell these lies to
travelers in the American press and other media.
Timed for release four days before the start of the global warming
treaty conference in Japan (so that refutation will be publishable only
after the conference has ended), the Science section of USA Today for
November 27 reports that Science will publish on November 28 an
article by one Wallace S. Broecker warning that global warming
threatens to make the temperature of Europe 20 degrees colder.
Ocean currents driven by global warming, he says, will do this deed.
Never mind the historical record showing that European weather
was actually milder and more favorable during the Middle Ages 1,000
years ago when world temperatures were warmer by approximately
the same amount as is predicted (incorrectly) by the global warmers
Broecker is selling the claim that warming the atmosphere will, as he
states, give London a climate comparable to Spitzbergen, Norway,
which is 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. One wonders if his goal
is to look so ridiculous that other global liars appear to be moderates.
Analysis of the facts relevant to global warming is so simple that it
hardly even qualifies as science. We need only simple graphs of
temperature vs. time to dispose of the global warming myth graphs
that any 12-year-old child should easily be able to interpret.
We need, however, something more. We need citizens who value
the truth enough to seek it out and to demand it of others to whom they
listen, and we need citizens who are intellectually capable of reading a
simple graph. By this I do not mean intelligent enough to read a graph.
Only the less than one percent born severely mentally retarded lack the
necessary intelligence. I mean minimally educated to the point that
they will apply their brains to independently interpreting a graph or its
textually stated equivalent rather than simply trusting and parroting
whatever propaganda happens to reach their eyes and ears.
The fact is that America increasingly lacks people whose interest in
the truth and whose willingness to think is sufficient to permit the
analysis of a set of data showing temperature as a function of time.
This lack has been primarily caused by tax-financed, socialized gov-
ernment schools. These schools have deteriorated so severely that two
generations of Americans current students and their parents have
sharply reduced moral standards and mental abilities. There are, of
course, some Americans who have managed to avoid these problems
even while attending government schools, but the general effects on
public morality and intellectual performance have been disastrous.
Most Americans today respond to the blessing of children by sim-
ply turning their offspring over to the state to raise. The state then di-
vests them of moral character on the pretext of honoring diversity
and of intellectual ability claiming it must not diminish anyones self-
esteem. Moreover, with the exception of a minority of good teachers,
who are effectively neutralized by the system, the more than two mil-
lion unionized bureaucrats and teachers (about equal numbers of each)
wallowing in this $300 billion-per-year, tax-financed wasteland are
themselves among the least capable members of our society.
We may or may not be able to stop the global warming mania. If we
do not, the worlds people will pay a terrible price. If, however, we are
unable to recognize the problems that the very existence of this mania
reveals and to correct those problems, the descent of mankind into an
age of antitechnological mysticism and irrationalism with concomitant
mass suffering and slaughter of human beings may well occur.
Each of us can do only a small amount toward the defeat of the
global warming treaty, but most of us can do much toward correction
of the underlying problems. Most of us have children, grandchildren,
nieces, nephews, or friends or associates with children who need an
opportunity to be more than future mindless automatons of the state.
Thousands of years of human knowledge including especially
that of recent centuries which have included the rise of science and
technology and the development of inexpensive means for the dis-
semination of knowledge and wisdom in all subjects are now easily
available to us. It is our duty to make an intelligent selection of that
knowledge available to the young people of our immediate acquain-
tance. They must learn to think and to learn what others have thought
and discovered. They must learn not to trust and parrot unscrupulous
manipulators who seek to control and ruin their lives.
Although I personally advocate homeschooling and the abolition of
tax-financed schools, it is not necessary to join the 3% of American
families who are now homeschooling their children in order to help
your young people. Even a child in the socialist schools spends only a
part of his productive time in that environment. Each child should have
available at least for use in his recreational hours a wealth of good
material in science and the humanities.
Enclosed with this Access to Energy is a flier describing the cur-
riculum that the Robinsons have developed with the help of several
colleagues. In addition to our teaching method and support materials
such as exams and exercises, this curriculum includes about 120,000
pages of unedited books in the humanities and science that we have
selected from among the vast storehouses of human knowledge. This
is the very best collection of its kind available. (We have even included
three recent years of issues of Access to Energy not great literature,
but nevertheless a source of truths of current interest.)
Although there are about 20,000 homeschooled students now using
this curriculum and many more expected to adopt it during the coming
months, these books and materials need to be much more widely avail-
able especially to public school children. Please consider making
them available to young people whom you know.
The price is $195 per set, but we also offer a scholarship program.
That program works as follows: If $195 is more than you can afford,
you can send any lesser amount that you can easily afford, and we will
send the curriculum for that amount. This is not a discount; it is simply
a scholarship honor system to which everyone has access. We do not
want anyone deprived of these materials because of finances. So far,
sales of curriculums at the full price have enabled us to provide a large
number of curriculums at scholarship prices.
Consider a young person whom you know. Please help us to give
that student an opportunity to learn the thoughts and thought processes
of many of the greatest minds who have ever lived. It is the legacy of
those minds and the truths which they offer that must stand between
our people and the enemies who seek to brainwash them. Only such
trained minds can protect and extend the legacy of our civilization.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
We received the following letter from Dr. Tatsuo Iwazumi, dated
September 7, 1997: Dear Dr. Robinson:
I have been your subscriber for some years and always admired
your uncompromising efforts to tell scientific truths to the public. I
dont know how many subscribers you currently have but I wish you
have them by the millions. In order to increase the readership, I suggest
to expand the subject matters discussed in your news letters with sto-
ries contributed by the readers. I have been a muscle biophysicist for
over 30 years, and have seen so many researchers who are unbeliev-
ably incompetent in physics and mathematics. Very few biological sci-
entists are trained in abstract and logical thinking by way of
constructing mathematical theories as physicists do. As a result, their
research methods are almost entirely devoted to discovery by shooting
in the dark. In the process of random shooting, it is natural for people
to rely on wild guesses and mysticism. The consequence is excessive
waste of money and efforts, which leads to the need of financing inef-
ficient research by means of federal funding. Another disturbing be-
havior in the majority of researchers is that they seem to believe that
theories are made to be proved. It is of course politically very desirable
to support theories when they are advanced by famous people. Indeed,
most fraud in research is motivated by the desire to support a theory. I
am always amazed by the creativity and zeal of researchers who inter-
pret experimental data to support a theory. This is precisely because
doing so is the most effective way to prolong research and to keep
money coming their way. If every researcher was required by law
either to propose a theory with testable predictions or to disprove exist-
ing theories, waste in research will be drastically reduced.
I think the world of science will be much better place if the fol-
lowing words were posted in every science class in the world.
1. Theories are made to be disproved, and theories without testable
predictions are worthless.
2. Honesty and negativism are the basis of science.
3. Science and politics dont mix.
4. Where politics thrives science is doomed.

CANCER PREVENTION BY RADIATION
Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc., P. O. Box 843, Needham, MA
02194, has been compiling data on the health effects of low-level ra-
diation under the guidance of its Board of Directors, which includes
many prominent researchers in this field. Included in their February
1997 draft compilation are Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 is from Bogen, K. T., A Cytodynamic Two Stage Model
That Predicts Radon Hormesis (Decreased, then Increased Lung-Can-
cer Risk vs. Exposure), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
University of California, Preprint UCRL-TC-123219, and is based
upon the data of B. L. Cohen, Test of the linear-no threshold theory
of radiation carcinogenesis for inhaled radon decay products, Health
Physics 68, p 157-174.
Figure 2 is from Kendall, G. M., et al., Mortality and occupational
exposure to radiation; first analysis of the National Registry for Radia-
tion Workers, British Medical Journal 304, p 220 (1992).
The line labeled BEIR IV in Figure 1 corresponds to the discred-
ited no-threshold linear hypothesis, while the line labeled CD2 con-
forms to the experimental data which shows the hormesis discovered
by Cohen. Up to a level of about 6 pCi/L, residential radon is seen to
lower the risk of lung cancer. Cohen does not provide data above the
levels shown, so this theoretical curve is drawn to conform to the ex-
pected deleterious effects of radon at higher levels estimated here to
be above 10 pCi/L.
Cohens comprehensive work, which we have discussed in several
earlier issues of Access to Energy, shows quite clearly that inhalation
of radon at the levels found in many American homes has a protective
effect against lung cancer. Only when the air concentration of radon
exceeds the levels shown is there an opposite effect.
Figure 1
Figure 2 summarizes studies of leukemia incidence in 95,000 work-
ers in British nuclear weapons plants between 1955 and 1988. Both the
total cancer mortality and the leukemia mortality decreased inversely
with increase in radiation exposure. The higher the amount of radiation
to which the workers were exposed, the lower the cancer rate. Opti-
mum for protection by radiation from death due to all cancers was at a
lifetime dose of at least 20 cSv, while the lifetime optimum for protec-
tion from death by leukemia was between 10 and 30 cSv.
In these 95,000 nuclear workers, those who received sufficient
doses of radiation had much less cancer than those who were exposed
to less radiation. Of course, had the radiation level risen too high, this
effect would have disappeared, and, at sufficiently high radiation lev-
els, cancer incidence would have been increased.
Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc., has compiled a substantial
number of such studies, which all lead to the same conclusion that low-
level radiation decreases cancer, lengthens life, and enhances health.
The most sensible use of low-level radioactive waste is as a con-
crete and insulation additive in residential homes especially in areas
where there is insufficient natural radiation for optimum health.
Figure 2
DESTROYING HYDROELECTRIC POWER
Throughout the United States, the large enviro groups and other an-
titechnologists (spell that antihuman, for it is the humans that tech-
nology supports whom they really wish to eliminate) are attacking any
sort of energy generation that works and claiming to support alterna-
tive technologies which are essentially defined as those that are not
practical for significant energy generation. While nuclear power re-
mains quarantined and attention is focused on the attempt to dismantle
part of the hydrocarbon energy system by means of a global warming
treaty, hydroelectric power, an inexpensive and completely clean tech-
nology bequeathed to us from previous generations, is under attack.
The formula for assault on Americas hydroelectric dams is now
standardized. First, it is claimed that the dam interferes with fish migra-
tion and needs to be modified with updated fish passage devices. Then
the price of the modifications is artificially inflated, so that it exceeds
the cost of tearing down the dam and also exceeds the income from the
dam. After that, discussion moves to who will pay for the destruction.
Long ago all dams were required to be registered and licensed by
government. Now, if the dam owners or users do not pay for modifica-
tions which are deliberately priced as high as necessary to exceed
their ability to pay, then the dams license is not renewed. Many dams
are currently caught in this web of deceit, and now one has succumbed.
In The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 1997, p B4, Neil Ulman
reports the plight of the 160-year old Edwards Dam on the Kennebec
River in Augusta, Maine. Clinton Administration bureaucrats de-
manded $10 million in dam modifications, claiming that they would
help the fish (the opposite may actually be true), while the dam owner
said it could accomplish the same objective with $1.5 million in modi-
fications. Now, this 3.5 megawatt dam has been ordered destroyed.
Gloating over their victory, one Margaret Bowman, director of
hydropower for the enviros that call themselves American Rivers
said, This case goes beyond relicensing. The federal government has
until now viewed dams as permanent structures on the landscape. This
recognizes that they have a finite lifecycle. In support of her demand
that the company pay for the destruction of its own dam, she said, As
a child, I was taught that when youre finished playing in the sandbox,
you should pick up your toys before you go home.
Next to fall may be the 125-foot high, 10-megawatt Project Dam
built in 1913 in Washington State. Once again, fish passage is standing
in for the Spotted Owl as a completely contrived and hypocritical ex-
cuse. Several other western hydroelectric dams are also near destruc-
tion. The Savage Rapids irrigation dam on the Rogue River in
Southern Oregon is also slated for destruction again because farmers
are unable to pay a cost of fish passage modifications that has been
artificially inflated by enviro bureaucrats and antitechnologists.
The envy that drives these haters of humans and human accom-
plishments will never be satiated. It will devour all that it can.
 able from The National Center for Public Policy Research, 300 Eye
SOCIALISM BY CONSENSUS Street, N.E., Suite 3, Washington, DC 20002, and (202) 543-1286.
l The Coming Ice Age Why Global Warming is a Fraud, 21st
Every American property owner should read The Consensus Century Science and Technology, November 1997, from P. O. Box
Process: Developing an appropriate response, Ecologic, May/June 16285, Washington, DC 20041, and (703) 777-7473.
1997, p 14, available from Ecologic, P. O. Box 191, Hollow Rock, l The Costs of Kyoto, from the Competitive Enterprise Insti-
TN 38342, or telephone (901) 986-0099. The so-called consensus tute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N. W., Suite 1250, Washington, DC.
process is becoming the method of choice for enviro and other anti- l The Earth is Fine! Save Yourself! a general antienviro poster
private property groups to compromise property rights, diminish the to lift your spirits, available from The National Anxiety Center, P. O.
freedom of property owners, and seize private property. With money Box 40, Maplewood, NJ 07040, and (973) 763-6392.
provided by the Clinton Administration, these consensus takeovers
are in progress by unelected and often unappointed local and regional
STARK RAVING MAD
bureaucracies throughout the United States.
The formula for these takeovers is now well established. Funded by l Nature 388, pp 699-701, trumpets the funding of a 20-million-
federal executive branch agencies and enviro groups, stakeholder dollar project to sequence the DNA of the malaria parasite. This is sup-
councils are formed in towns, counties, and regions. These supposedly posed to be basic research related to developing a vaccine. While basic
grassroots efforts to address local land use, environmental, and eco- research and eventual vaccines are nice, what about the children who
logical concerns seem to arise spontaneously. are dying at a rate of one every 12 seconds right now, while they are
In fact, these events are preplanned with goals and decisions al- being denied access to a proven mosquito suppressor, DDT? Accord-
ready reached before the first meetings quietly take place. After the ef- ing to the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, DDT saved 500 mil-
fort is carefully populated with community failures and others who lion lives before it was banned and suppressed world wide.
think it offers personal benefit and is firmly controlled by the initiating l The Web site of Environment News Service carried an article on
bureaucrats, public meetings are held to give the enterprise a facade of November 27, 1997, by one Claire Gilbert claiming that the exhaust of
public input. Once it gets rolling, local business leaders often join jet aircraft is causing global warming. No technology is safe from be-
sacrificing honesty and ethics and giving credibility by their presence ing demonized in the global warming feeding frenzy a frenzy based
in order to protect their own self-interests. entirely on claimed atmospheric temperature changes that do not exist.
Consensus enters in because all public meetings of these groups l The Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1997, p 1, says that the
are run with the intention solely of ratifying the socialist objectives of Pentagon has reported that more than 25 nations have or may be devel-
the initiating bureaucracy. No votes are taken or other mechanisms al- oping nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the means to de-
lowed to intervene whereby the community might democratically ex- liver them. The response of the Clinton Administration has been to
press itself or fundamental human rights might be applied. completely terminate all civil defense programs in the United States
The Ecologic article seems a little dry until one recognizes the for- and to stall all workable strategic defense development.
mula as one that is currently plaguing his community. We had such an We suppose that a completely vulnerable American people is ex-
effort here some years ago by an unelected bureaucracy that calls itself pected to be more amenable to global totalitarianism.
the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. The solid citizens of
the community eventually cooperated in dismantling it except for a
GOOD READING
small cadre of community losers who continued an ineffective, hiber-
nating activity. Now, however, it is back with the same RVCOG creat- l Living and Dying in Dirty Air: What the Science Tells Us by
ing a new stakeholder facade to address local land use issues. Robert F. Phalen, published by the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730
This is very dangerous to freedom and to public morality. K Street, NW, Suite 905, Washington, DC 20006-3868. It turns out
Alexander Poniatoff, founder of AMPEX Corporation, began his that the science underlying the Environmental Protection Agencys
career flying a plywood airplane for the Czar in World War I and then new clean air standards is so shaky that these standards may actu-
fought with the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. He told me ally be directly harmful to public heath.
once of his arrival back in his home town from the European front only l The Sky Isnt Falling, and the Ocean Isnt Rising by S. Fred
to find the surrounding region embroiled in the Communist revolution. Singer in The Wall Street Journal, November 10, 1997, p A22. Citing
A Communist commissar for his village had already been ap- the experience of earlier climate periods, Singer shows that global
pointed. The appointed individual had previously held office as the vil- warming (which he does not endorse), if it were to occur, would be
lage bum. Poniatoff said that this was a standard Communist practice. most likely to cause ocean levels to decrease as they did, for example,
The failures of society were appointed to rule over the productive. Fail- during the warming between 1900 and 1940, which is associated with
ures could be counted on for a maximum of envy, a minimum of abil- recovery from the Little Ice Age. Also, other geological factors are at
ity (and therefore were unable to interfere with their controllers), and a work that render human influence on sea levels negligible.
maximum of obedience (since their only status derived from that l A friend writes that, in the latest Batman movie, a mad scientist
awarded by their masters). Consensus bureaucrats likewise populate confronts Bruce Wayne with a proposal to stop production of CO2 and
their efforts as much as possible with the lowest common denomina- halogens with resulting deaths of countless millions, which the scien-
tors of the community for similar reasons. tist says is a small price to pay. Wayne disagrees saying, People
come first. It is good to see Batman still fighting for justice and truth.
GLOBAL WARMING AMMUNITION l Education in Straight Talk, July 17, 1997, p 6 from P. O. Box
960, Pigeon Forge, TN 37868. The typical Japanese high-school
Many organizations are publishing special global warming issues graduate has the equivalent of four full years more than an American.
in hopes of derailing the Clinton Administration intentions in Japan. In
addition to Access to Energy and the many publications that we have
referenced in past issues, the following recent issues are valuable: ACCESS TO ENERGY
l Ecologic for July / August 1997, available from P. O. Box 191,
Hollow Rock, TN 38342, and (901) 986-0099. Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
l Warming? Cooling? Eco-Alarm and the Totalitarian Agenda, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
The New American, December 8, 1997, available from 770 Westhill $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Boulevard, Appleton, WI 54914, and (920) 749-3784. Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
l Earth Summit Fact Sheet Kyoto Information Center, avail- each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Perceived Reality
As any trial lawyer will attest, when push comes to shove in the
courtroom, it is not truth and reality that carry the day. It is instead
perceived reality that determines the future life and fortunes of his
client. It is this fact that has made so many principled citizens peo-
ple to whom truth and justice matter into cynics regarding the law.
It is not truth, but instead what the judge or jury perceives to be the
truth that determines the outcome. Moreover, to far too great an ex-
tent, our courts have become mired in procedures that make truth dif-
ficult to determine and justice unaffordable to many people.
The court room is, however, a Sunday school picnic when com-
pared to politics. Each day brings word of further atrocities. (Today,
for example, we were treated to word that Bob Dole is now soliciting
money from companies that compete with Microsoft in exchange for
his help in influencing the Clinton Administration to expand their so-
called antitrust attack on Microsoft an attack that has been treaty are the ultimate spotted owl. Trees, being carbon dioxide ab-
bought and paid for by political contributions to the Clinton Admini-
stration from other Microsoft competitors. (See The Wall Street Jour-
nal, December 23, p A16 and Conservative Chronicle, December 24,
p 16.) The same Conservative Chronicle carries on page 14 an edito-
rial by William F. Buckley praising the Kyoto global warming treaty
and implying that it will be good for the nuclear power industry. My
dilemma a friend gave me a book by Buckley as a Christmas pre-
sent. Do I read this book, or recycle it as carbon dioxide?
It is in the world of perceived reality that the global warming con-
test will be decided a world in which honest scientists are very
poorly equipped to compete. Yet, this contest is the most important
scientific issue of the 20th and 21st Centuries. If such a massive sci-
entific fraud with so many terrible consequences for human progress
can be politically implemented when overwhelming data, that is un-
derstandable by the simplest of logic, exists to disprove it, then virtu-
ally any lie can be implemented in the future.
If this treaty passes, not only are a lot of people going to die, but
honest science also, in so far as it affects public affairs, will die with
them and the credibility of science will be crippled for generations.
Today, the perceived reality a reality that very well-financed en-
viro, government, and self-interested corporate propagandists are
drilling daily into the public mind is as follows:
A consensus of scientists (2,600 scientists in some incarnations)
agrees that human-caused release of carbon dioxide, methane, and
other greenhouse gases is causing major heating of the Earths atmos-
phere, which will soon lead to global flooding, disastrous disruptions
of weather, and catastrophic climate changes. The only scientist op-
ponents of this consensus view are a few unpatriotic crazy people
and crackpots and a small number of dishonest scientists who have
been paid by greedy capitalists in the oil and coal industries.
Opponents in the United States Senate who have noticed that the
treaty will not cut carbon dioxide emissions just shift them along
with American industry and jobs to countries like China, India, and
Mexico that have refused to sign the treaty are being marginalized
as shills for industrial polluters.
The game plan is simple: The treaty is now in place, but needs
We were very fortunate to have this opportunity.
KILLING GLOBAL WARMING
ten. First, for the past several years and as a part of our monthly work
Enclosed with this Access to Energy is a copy of Science Has
Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth by Arthur Robinson and
Zachary Robinson, The Wall Street Journal, p A22, December 1997,
published during the Kyoto global energy rationing treaty meeting.
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
ratification by the United States Senate. Therefore, the propaganda
campaign will continue and accelerate, while public opinion polls
measure its progress. When those polls show that a large enough
percentage of Americans favors the treaty, the polling figures will be
used to roll the Senate. An old maxim is ascendant: If a lie is
preached long enough, the public will believe it.
The remarkable fact is that there is no scientific consensus at all.
Moreover, the 2,600 IPCC scientists did not agree to any docu-
ment that supports the claims of the global warmers. Further, there is
overwhelming scientific evidence that the global warming hypothesis
is false (see Access to Energy 25-3). This is reality, but it is not per-
ceived reality. Perceived reality is the opposite.
For the enviros, this treaty has it all. Not only is technological pro-
gress debilitated by rationing energy, but forest provisions of the
sorbers, are sacred resources to be counted positively for a nations
carbon dioxide allotment. The unauthorized cutting of a tree on pri-
vate property becomes a crime against global weather. Cows, since
they emit methane, become a greenhouse warming menace. Each
cow will be counted against a nations carbon dioxide allotment.
Forget spotted owls and claims of logging impact on mountain
streams; logging will be damned in any location. Forget claims that
grazing is harmful to public lands; the very existence of cows will
become an environmental atrocity. Forget claims of national sover-
eignty; greenhouse gases affect the whole world, so national interests
become subservient to the whims of international bureaucrats.
Make no mistake about it. The implementation and subsequent
logical evolution of this treaty will kill and debilitate far more people
than World Wars I and II combined and will leave humanity in the
political position of having lost both wars.
If this treaty is implemented, history will record all of the other
political issues of our day as mere distractions that helped divert prin-
cipled, decent, and productive people from the primary issue and
thereby helped set the stage for their overwhelming defeat.
The backs of the American people are already against the wall
and they do not even realize what is happening to them. Their only
hope is that, by some miracle, the currently perceived reality about
global warming can be changed to correspond to actual reality. It
must become common knowledge that the global warming claim is
wearing no scientific clothes that it is an outright lie.
Yet, this lie is being vigorously promoted by a very large and very
well-financed propaganda machine.
The present public debate boils down to the global warmers on
their white horses fighting to save the world vs. greedy capitalists and
their paid shills willing to destroy the world for profit. We may be
certain that the greedy capitalists will lose this debate.
It is imperative that the truth be known. We must convince the
American people that these people are not on white horses of truth
and benevolence. They are instead on black horses of political power
and death. They are riding a monstrous lie into the 21st Century. We
must make sure that they ride this lie alone.
It is instructive to review the way in which this editorial was writ-
on Access to Energy, we have extracted much information about the
relevant science from various referenced publications. These publica-
tions were written by dedicated scientists in many organizations who
have been working to gather and disseminate the truth about this issue.
 Then, for our November 1997 issue, we selected 16 figures and
other data from previous issues that summarized the global warming
facts and arguments and explained them as simply as possible. That
November issue was recommended to The Wall Street Journal by an
especially prominent man who is a reader of Access to Energy. This
led the Journal to ask that we condense these arguments to two figures
and 1200 words. Zachary and I, with the help of an outstanding scien-
tist in this field, carried out this condensation and provided the best text
of which we were capable. Then professional editors at the Journal
enhanced our text and figures, producing a much improved article for
publication as the lead editorial feature of December 4th.
The point is that an editorial like this does not just happen. It is not
the product of a couple of guys with talented pens. It stands instead
upon the shoulders of the work of many remarkable people, and, for
December 4th, it made a portion of the truth into world-wide news.
Perhaps it did some damage to our enemies. Appearing as it did at
the pivotal point of the Kyoto meeting, we would like to believe that it
was a part of the considerations of those more than 100 nations that
refused to sign the treaty. We would like to believe that, at least briefly,
it rattled Al Gores cage. Maybe it did neither, but we like to believe.
Another point, however, is that on December 5th it was yesterdays
news. Quoted for a few more days by various publications and journal-
ists, it then drifted into the background of words with which the world
is inundated. Proudly ensconced in a frame in Zacharys room (and
soon to be similarly ensconced in my room as well), it ceased to be a
factor in the global warming debate. What do we do for an encore? We
cannot state the truth more plainly. How do we convince people to
keep reading it?
As regards this editorial itself, we hope that the readers of Access to
Energy will decide to perpetuate and extend its effect. It would be
helpful if copies of this editorial were to pile up in the offices of Con-
gressmen, Senators, and newspaper editors in sufficient numbers that
they cannot ignore it.
To this end, The Wall Street Journal has given permission for us to
send a copy to every reader of Access to Energy and, more impor-
tantly, has given permission for every reader of Access to Energy to
make all of the copies they wish for further distribution. The Journal
requires only that all copies include the copyright and permission no-
tice printed at the bottom of the enclosed copy.
Since the editorial is an odd size and is most readable if it is not
reduced, we have printed a large number of extras and will send them
without cost to every reader who requests them. Simply send us a note
saying how many you wish to distribute. Return postage will be appre-
ciated but is not required.
We do not represent that this is an earthshaking shot at our mutual
enemies. It is, however, the best shot that we have managed so far, and
we respectfully ask your help in extending its effects.
contract by a total of $3.3 trillion.
IN DEFENSE OF FREE ENTERPRISE
president has gotten himself ensnared are not necessarily about the en-
Sometimes, as we write about the logical effects of the global
warming fraud and the obvious motives of its perpetrators, I begin to
wonder how this could all be true. A background in science is not well
suited to this. Like a civilized man in the street faced with a goblin (we
are indebted to Jeff Cooper for the metaphor) who is about to take his
life, the reaction is, No! This cannot really be happening! a deadly President Gore that global warming results, in part, from too many ba-
reaction that robs him of the chance to save himself.
Read, therefore the words of Jack Kemp in Global Warming
comes to Capitol Hill, published December 10 in The Washington
Times. Mr. Kemp did not become the Republican vice-presidential
nominee in 1996 by taking extreme positions unjustified by events:
As the worlds only remaining super power, the United States has strict family planning techniques as well as abortion are acceptable
a special moral, political and economic obligation to demonstrate deci-
sive international leadership. One area that commands Americas im-
mediate, clear-headed leadership is the environment in general and the
so-called global warming issue in particular.
Many of us who believe deeply in a balanced and market-oriented
approach to preserving our environment are profoundly concerned that
the Clinton administration is abrogating Americas leadership respon-
sibility by ceding authority and control over economic policy to the
United Nations conference on global climate change, now taking
place in Kyoto, Japan. We should not be misled by the administra-
tions rhetoric that we will not be pushed around in the negotia-
tions. The fact that we are negotiating at all is evidence of a clear
misunderstanding of purpose and lack of resolve. The question is no
longer whether we will react out of fear and submit ourselves to the
control of energy and environmental bureaucrats but only how much
and how quickly we will submit to their rationing of hydrocarbons and
economic growth.
Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Robinson and
Zachary Robinson succinctly summed up the state of scientific knowl-
edge on global climate change. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
increasing. Up to 50 years ago, atmospheric temperatures had been ris-
ing from a 300-year low point, probably as a result of the solar mag-
netic cycle. Then, for about 30 years, there was no significant increase
in global temperatures. For the past 20 years, precisely the same 20
years during which carbon dioxide levels have increased the most, the
earth has actually cooled. So, which is it? Global warming or global
cooling? Scientists cannot even agree.
As the authors pointed out, there is not a shred of persuasive evi-
dence that humans have been responsible for increasing global tem-
peratures. But one thing is for sure, increased carbon dioxide
emissions have greatly benefited mankind and the environment. The
industrial and technological revolutions, which have alleviated poverty
and raised living standards world wide, would not have been possible
without fossil fuels and their attendant CO2 waste products. And, far
from harming the environment, the carbon dioxide produced by burn-
ing fossil fuels has actually made the planet more hospitable to plant
and animal life.
How can we even contemplate, much less negotiate, energy ra-
tioning, new energy taxes and more economic regulation, all directed
by some amorphous U.N. bureaucracy, when 1) scientists cannot even
agree on whether the climate is warming or cooling; 2) there is persua-
sive evidence that if the climate is warming, it is unrelated to mans
carbon dioxide emissions and unconvincing evidence to the contrary;
3) there is widespread scientific opinion that absent any harmful cli-
matic effects, increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere are
beneficial to plants, to animals, and even to the environment; and 4) it
is understood that the tax increases, energy rationing and regulations
now being negotiated will slow economic growth and retard the in-
crease in living standards all over the world? A recent Heritage Foun-
dation study of the Clinton administrations proposal to hold emissions
to 1990 levels found that by 2020, energy prices would rise between
50 and 200 percent; average households would pay $1,620 additional
taxes a year (about a 14.5% percent tax hike); and the economy would
One can only conclude that the U.N. negotiations in which the
vironment. Rather, the Kyoto negotiations are the rear-guard effort of
latter-day Malthusians and international central planners who want to
control the workings of free markets and restrict the actions of free
people.
How else can one explain the extreme position taken by Vice
bies being born? He suggests that third-world countries can help re-
duce carbon-dioxide emissions by eliminating the births of 2 to 5
billion babies during the next 20 years. Employing the code words of
the so-called pro-choice lobby the empowerment of women to par-
ticipate in decisions about childbearing the vice president implies that
tools of choice to prevent global warming. Frightening. It is clear that
the real intent of many participants at the conference is to establish a
global regulatory apparatus with real power over the economic and re-
productive decisions of everyone in the world. Make no mistake about
it, this conference is not so much about the natural environment, about
which we all care, but about political and economic power. Who will
be in control, free people acting alone and in concert through their
democratic institutions or regulators acting at a distance through inter-
national bureaucracies?
There is no need to rush to judgment on the global climate ques-
tion. There is no scientific consensus that the world is careening to-
ward a man-made global warming crisis. To the contrary, the empirical
evidence suggests just the opposite. The only basis for the fear that
carbon dioxide levels might induce a global warming crisis comes out
of theoretical computer models which cannot even successfully cap-
ture the climatic effects of clouds or forecast short-term weather pat-
terns.
The president is being misled by ecoextremists and neo-Malthu-
sians who claim to have a monopoly on concern for the environment.
These same extremists are doing their best to confuse and manipulate
the American people as well. Therefore, I do not criticize the president
lightly, nor do I find fault with the 65 percent of those Americans re-
cently polled by the New York Times who said the United States should
take steps now to cut its own carbon dioxide emissions. But I feel I
must speak out when I perceive that the Clinton administration is mak-
ing fundamental mistakes and itself misleading the public in a way that
will harm mankind . . . .
Mr. Kemp then goes on to express confidence that the House of
Representatives and Senate will do the right thing and stop this rush to
error. This is wishful thinking. Notice that the percentage is 65% and
rising. How large a percentage will the Congress resist?
ANATOMY OF A LIE
Public understanding of the truth about global warming has been
made considerably more difficult by the publication of graphs showing
temperatures rising rapidly over the past decade along with statements
that we are now enduring the hottest years and most extreme weather
patterns on record. (Actually, the United States National Climate Data
Center lists 1996 as the 47th coolest year since 1880.) Weather fluctu-
ates, of course, so one can always point to a local extreme somewhere.
Graphs of rising global temperature are, however, more convincing.
Why is it that the temperature curves shown, for example, in Access to
Energy 25-03 are not making new highs of temperature, while those
shown by the global warmers display ever greater temperatures?
One difference is that Access to Energy has shown primarily graphs
of temperatures in the lower troposphere as measured by weather bal-
Figure 1
loons and satellites. These records are in excellent agreement; can be
very accurately measured; and are a fair test of the global warming hy-
pothesis, which actually predicts higher tropospheric temperature in-
creases than surface temperature increases.
Global surface temperature trends are difficult to determine because
many factors of local climate complicate the records. Also, human in-
fluences having nothing to do with global warming affect the surface
records. These complications, however, make surface records ideal for
the global warmers, who can make their graphs go up as steeply as
they like by appropriate selections of data.
Figures 1 and 2 are cited in the new book Hot Talk Cold Science
by S. Fred Singer. They are taken from Christy, J. R. and Goodridge, J.
D. (1995) Atmospheric Environment 29, 1957-61 and Goodridge, J. D.
(1996) Bulletin of the American Meteorlogical Society 77, 3-4. These
figures illustrate the urban heat island effect at 120 temperature meas-
Figure 2
uring stations in California.
The top graph in figure 1 is an average of stations in counties with
current populations over 1 million. The middle graph is for counties
with populations between 1 million and 100,000. The bottom graph is
for counties with populations under 100,000. Notice that the trends for
the 20th century in figure 1 depend upon how many people live near
the thermometers people who produce heat by their activities.
In figure 2, the trends for all 120 stations are shown separately and
in order of increasing trend. The lowest 22 measuring stations actually
show negative trends (even though overall California temperatures
since 1909 have increased). The six arrows designate the six measur-
ing stations in California selected for inclusion in national and global
averages by the NASA GISS, which is funded by the U. S. govern-
ment. This is the same group that brought word about the mythical
ozone hole opening over President Bushs home in Maine and thereby
speeded up the ban of CFCs.
The NASA GISS graph is widely circulated by global warmers.
While it is clear that selection of stations in California is not a trivial
matter, a ten-year-old child can see that the chosen six points will give
an artificial and inappropriately high California contribution to the
trend and be highly satisfactory to the Clinton-Gore Administration,
which funds NASA GISS. If the politically correct path to the taxpay-
ers pocket books were global cooling, NASA GISS would doubtless
show a greater interest in the cooler trends on this graph.
FROZEN PENGUINS
It has been reported that environmentalist publicists planned a dra-
matic display for the global warming meeting in Kyoto, Japan.. They
set up two large sculptured ice penguins which were expected to
gradually melt during the progress of the days of meetings. Unfortu-
nately, the weather turned cold and snowed, so the penguins ungra-

CONSENSUS ECONOMICS
ciously refused to melt.
The global warmers have effectively spread the falsehood that a
consensus of scientists agrees that global warming is a fact and men-
ace. The nations of the world, however, continue to act in accordance
with their own economic self-interests.
When the dust settled in Kyoto, 39 nations with a total population
of 1.136 billion had agreed to limits on their carbon dioxide produc-
tion, while 152 nations with a total population of 4.614 billion had not
agreed to such limits.. Therefore, only 20.4% of the worlds nations
with 19.8% of the worlds population have agreed to the limits.
Notice the nature of the debate. The enviros are the strongest propo-
nents of the treaty, since they want to stop and roll back economic and
technological progress. Europeans are the next strongest promoters of
the treaty, since their economies are mired in socialism and not making
much progress anyway. (Europeans would benefit temporarily from
the controls which would preferentially hurt their competitors who
are racing forward with higher productivity and, therefore, higher en-
ergy needs.) Americans are, at best, neutral to the treaty, but are being
dragged in by socialists and socialist propaganda. The developing
world which is engaged in the great undertaking of lifting 4 billion
people from poverty and providing them with the benefits of the tech-
nological revolution will not agree to CO2 limits at all, except in so
far as they are imposed only on their competitors and thereby provide
themselves with an economic advantage.
Support for the treaty is inversely proportional to interest in increas-
ing productivity. The governments of rapidly developing peoples need
more hydrocarbons. The governments of nations that are stagnating
prefer to limit hydrocarbons, so that the distance between themselves
and the increasingly productive will not widen so rapidly. Americans
are in the middle. If the Senate agrees to this treaty, however, they will
join the ranks of the less productive.
of Soil, Water, and Climate, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
about the wonderful biological effects of increased atmospheric CO2.
Reading Scientific American is distressing for one who remembers
the remarkably good and politically unbiased issues published decades
ago, but how could we pass up the March 1997 issue on the dangers of
sea level rise due to global warming with its lavish cover giving the
readers a perspective view from entirely under water?
The table of contents sets the stage with the inclusion of a small
map showing most of Florida covered by the Atlantic Ocean. This map
is reproduced in larger format in the article, which begins with a disas-
ter story about 1953 floods in Holland during severe storms. So, after
gurgling past the cover, reliving the Dutch floods, and saying good-by
twice to Florida, the reader enters the world of science where, too
late, he learns a little about sea level changes.
Our favorite part was the numerical estimate of sea level rise of 60
centimeters about two feet. When asked about this potential calam-
ity, a Dutch official estimated that adjusting the dikes to allow for this
rise would cost about the same amount of money that Holland now
spends for the maintenance of bicycle paths.
We recently participated in a debate with a global warmer on a call-
in talk radio show in New York. During the show, the warmer, who
billed himself as a physicist, warned a caller who lived 100 feet
above sea level in Florida that he would be flooded by global warming.
l Recycling Revisited: Ten Years After The Mobro by D. Roth-
PAPER SHORTAGE
For over 24 years, Access to Energy has been proudly printed on
unrecycled paper. We now have a very serious problem. With only a
three month supply remaining, we have been unable to find unrecycled
pink paper anywhere in the United States.
Please help! If you can find a source for unrecycled pink paper, let
us know immediately. We do not want to participate in this interactive
propaganda, and besides, the recycled stuff is disgustingly limp as a
STARK RAVING MAD
result of the shorter lengths of wood fiber it contains.
l Welcome to Section 4507 in The Wall Street Journal of Janu-
ary 5, 1998, p A22, reports that Section 4507 of the new Medicare law
makes it illegal for an American doctor to accept payment for services
from any American over the age of 65 unless the doctor has signed an
affidavit that he will see no Medicare patients for two years. Only 4%
of American physicians do not see Medicare patients.
This effectively makes it illegal for most Americans over the age of
65 to receive any medical care at all except for that which the govern-
ment decides to give them.
l Auto Makers, New York Collide on Electric Cars by Rebecca
Blumenstein in The Wall Street Journal, December 16, 1997, p B1 re-
ports that auto makers are required by law to sell 8,000 electric cars in
New York during this model year or else to cease doing business in
that state. So far, they have managed to sell only 300 such cars in Cali-
fornia and Arizona despite already having reduced prices by 20%.
These cars barely perform in warm climates. In New York, they
will be virtually useless. The solution may be for auto makers to give
electric cars away and then add their cost to the prices for ordinary
cars. Thus, this law becomes another tax on the citizens of New York.
GOOD READING
l Hot Talk Cold Science (1997) by S. Fred Singer, published by
The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428.
This book is an excellent source of ammunition about global warming.
l A Scientific Discussion of Climate Change (1997), published by
the George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 K Street, NW, Suite 905,
Washington, DC 20006-3868. More excellent ammunition.
l CO2 and the Biosphere: The Incredible Legacy of the Industrial
Revolution by Sherwood. B. Idso (1995), published by the Department
55108. With 361 research references, this is an outstanding booklet
l The Energy Advocate, December 1997 and earlier issues, written
by Howard Hayden. This is a newsletter in the Access to Energy for-
mat with a great many informative articles. It is available from P. O.
Box 542, Storrs, CT 06268-0542.
l Kyotos Fantasyland in The Wall Street Journal, December
10, 1997, p A22. Also,The Worst Part Is, Al Gore Really Believes
It by Paul A. Gigot in The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 1997, p
A18. Mark Twain said, Never get in an argument with people who
buy their ink by the barrel. This is at least one publication that buys
its ink by the barrel and is helping to defend science and technology.
l Carbon Dioxide and Vegetation by Graham D. Farquhar, Sci-
ence 278 (1997), p 1411. It is a good sign that carbon dioxide fertiliza-
tion of plants is becoming a more frequent topic of popular articles.
l Carol Browner, Master of Mission Creep by Pranay Gupte
and Bonner R. Cohen, Forbes, October 20, 1997, pp 170-177. An in-
troductory journey through the Environmental Protection Agency an
agency, with very little regard for scientific truth, which manipulates
environmental issues primarily for the purposes of political power. The
New American, December 8, 1997, p 6, reports that the EPA operates a
fleet of luxury cars averaging 6.9 miles per gallon, 75% below EPA
standards for the American people.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
FEBRUARY 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 6) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Seadrift
Near the Gulf of Mexico, on the road between Houston and Cor-
pus Christi, is the town of Victoria, Texas one of the oldest settle-
ments in the western United States. Thirty-five miles southeast of
Victoria, rising out of the mists that roll in from the Gulf near the
town of Seadrift, is one of Americas great petrochemical plants, built
by Union Carbide in 1954 and later expanded several times.
I feel that I know this plant well, since I have a large framed aerial
photograph of it on the wall beside me along with a matching framed
artists drawing of the plant before it was built. Under the artists
drawing is the aluminum hard hat of the man who was in charge of
the design and construction of this plant and partially responsible for
its operation during the first four years my father, Edward H.
Ted Robinson. His most trusted and valued co-worker at that time,
Arnold Graham, still lives in Victoria, remembering their efforts.
Ted Robinson went on to lead teams of engineers who designed
and built similar Union Carbide plants in Puerto Rico, Scotland, Bel-
gium, Brazil, Japan, and India. He is buried in an alpine glacier near
the top of Mont Blanc on the border between France and Italy, which
contains the remains of the Air India Boeing 707 that crashed there
on January 24, 1966. The cause of this crash is not known for certain.
It is believed to have been the work of assassins that killed the Indian
physicist Bhaba, who was then head of the nuclear energy program of
India and was also on the airplane.
The original plant at Seadrift produced primarily polyethylene. It
now produces additional products. This plant is a part of the vast in-
frastructure of chemical plants, built by the generation of Americans
now in their 80s and the generations before them, that supplies the
chemicals upon which our technological civilization depends. Along
with the dams, bridges, foundries, mines, wells, mills, factories, rail-
roads, research laboratories, computers, and other technological in-
stallations that have been built by the past several generations of
Americans, these plants form the technological superstructure upon
which our science, technology, and economic freedom depend.
The capital required to build these things was supplied by the sav-
ings of tens of millions of people, who set aside part of the money
they had earned and invested it in the free market in hopes of making
a profit. It was also built by the profits retained by the corporations
themselves. Capital alone did not, however, build the industries
people did. These people were led by unusual individuals whose love
of science and technology dominated their personal lives and drove
them and those around them to ever greater accomplishments.
Archibald MacLeish told me many years ago that the thing that
impressed him most about human beings was their amazing ability to
love and he was not thinking of the shallow phenomenon that
dominates the lyrics in the cacophony of pusic (word invented by
a musician friend) which pollutes most of Americas radio stations.
Each person has an enormous capacity to love in many different
ways. In some individuals, a part of this love is intensely directed to-
ward science and technology. My father, for example, was simply
head-over-heels in love with chemical plants (and with my mother,
but that is another story). He lived and breathed their design and con-
defeat Senate opposition to its ratification. Ratification of this treaty
THE WARMERS ACHILLES HEEL
suffered by science, technology, and freedom at the hands of the envi-
During the past few weeks, I have become more optimistic about
the possibility of defeating the global warming mania even though
the administration has signed the global warming treaty and polls of
public approval are gradually rising toward the levels necessary to
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
struction. When not in use for food, our kitchen table was covered
with blueprints. He had no hobbies or avocations the building of
chemical plants was his vocation and all of his avocations combined.
And, as a result of this all-consuming love, he built superb plants.
I have seen this sort of love in a few other individuals. Mrs. Merri-
field, the wife of R. Bruce Merrifield, who was the first man to syn-
thesize an enzyme, described her husbands love affair with each of
the 20 naturally occurring amino acids a love that enabled him to
link them together in ways never before accomplished.
Linus Pauling, regardless of the low state of his personal and pro-
fessional ethics, was completely in love with the structures of mole-
cules. The incredible joy Linus felt as he pursued three-dimensional,
semi-quantitative explanations for the structures of molecules and,
later, for the structures of atomic nuclei was the greatest of all the sci-
entists I have known. He was supremely happy when calculating or
describing the properties of chemical bonds.
Scientists work largely alone or with a few other people. Those
who build industries work with large numbers of people. These prime
builders, driven by their love for their work, are usually not the most
well-liked, but they are often the most respected. It is their job to
make our industrial world work regardless of the personal foibles of
those whom they must direct in doing this work. Their personal love
for their work is the driving force that motivates them.
All of us are beneficiaries of science and technology. We live lives
that are much longer and are filled with seemingly endless pleasures,
experiences, and freedoms that would not be available without tech-
nology. Even the warmers who gathered in Kyoto to bemoan and
attack the worlds hydrocarbon technology dropped in by way of air-
planes belching demon carbon dioxide.
Now, virtually all of our technology is under serious attack. From
our lumber mills, farms, and ranches to our dams, power plants, and
factories, all are under assault. Our enemies belong to a peculiar form
of pagan religion. Petr Beckmann called it the green religion. This
is not a new religion. The animal, plant, and earth worship ascendant
today (partially at the expense of animals, plants, and the earth, which
are, on balance, actually harmed by this mania) is fundamentally the
same as that which arose periodically among the ancients, as chron-
icled, for example, in the Old Testament.
This religion is now preached in our schools, our press, and our
political institutions. It is, primarily, a religion of death. Technology,
in the view of these zealots, has committed a terrible sin. It has made
possible the lives of billions of human beings human beings whom
they believe to be alive at the expense of worshiped plants and ani-
mals. (The fact that technology enhances the lives of plants and ani-
mals is suppressed by the professional enviro religious agitators.)
It is the moral obligation of every American each living and
benefiting from freedom and technology; each obligated to pass these
blessings on to future generations; and each entrusted with a vote in
the fate of the great American experiment to stop this mania.
Seadrift and the tens of thousands of like accomplishments must
not be destroyed at least not without a terrible fight.
or any agreement resembling it would be by far the worst defeat ever
ros a defeat that would seriously set back human progress and likely
cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
The global warmers are, however, beatable. Consider the current
situation. The propaganda that is gradually convincing the public to
support global warming goes as follows:
1. Most scientists agree that human release of carbon dioxide is
causing the temperature of the Earth to rise and that, if continued, this
rise in temperature will soon lead to catastrophic changes in climate
accompanied by world-wide floods, storms, droughts, and other clima-
tologic nightmares, including such things as Arctic weather in London,
the flooding of most of Florida and other near-sea-level regions, and
widespread starvation as agricultural activities are disrupted. Released
carbon dioxide hovers above for centuries and will continue to wreak
havoc in many ways that are only now being discovered by scientists
who are fighting for the environmental survival of our planet.
2. In order to forestall and mitigate this catastrophe in progress, it is
necessary that mankind immediately curtail the release of carbon diox-
ide (and several other greenhouse gases, although carbon dioxide is the
primary target). The initial step must be a reduction of about one-third
in release by developed countries. Ultimately, as political pressures are
intensified, this reduction must be increased in magnitude and ex-
tended to all people by means of internationally enforced laws. Since
most human release of carbon dioxide is from the use of coal, oil, and
natural gas, it is the use of these that must be sharply reduced.
3. The world-wide catastrophe of global warming is so terrible that
any measure that forestalls it is justified, regardless of the human cost.
In any case, those opposed to ending the pollution of our atmosphere
with carbon dioxide are primarily greedy business people who want to
pursue profit regardless of the environmental consequences. Very few
scientists oppose the global warming treaty. These few are either iso-
lated crackpots or employees of oil and gas companies or other indus-
tries with large economic self-interests in continued pollution.
In short: Virtually all scientists agree that greenhouse gas emissions
must be stopped to preserve the global climate. The enviros on their
white horses are trying to save the Earth by stopping these emissions.
Greedy business people and unprincipled politicians on their black
horses are trying to stop these noble enviro efforts.
Most of the current Senate debate about the treaty is economic in
nature. It is virtually certain that, as things now stand, the people on the
black horses of economic concern will lose to those on the morally
superior white horses who are struggling to save the Earth regardless
of the cost in human well-being. The warmers are winning. When the
polling numbers get high enough, their win will be permanently en-
trenched in international law.
The truth (which is not being heard in the global warming hysteria)
does not, of course, depend upon polling numbers. Scientific truth is
never determined by vote. The eventual triumph of truth in this issue
will be cold comfort, however, to the vast numbers of people who will
suffer the ill effects of technological rationing in the meantime.
But where are the warmers politically vulnerable? They are vulner-
able in point number 1 the assertion that most scientists agree with
them. The fact is that most scientists and engineers are not working on
climatological matters and are not interested in being distracted from
their work by politics. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that a
great many scientists now depend upon funding provided by the ex-
ecutive branch of the federal government a situation that increases
their aversion to politically incorrect matters.
Nevertheless, there is a strong and growing undercurrent of opposi-
tion to global warming within the scientific community. Scientists are
beginning to read the relatively simple research literature on this sub-
ject. Most are astonished by the difference between experimental ob-
servations and public pronouncements in this field where the facts
are overwhelmingly opposite to the claims of the warmers. What will
happen if tens of thousands of scientists and engineers evaluate this
research and sign a document that reads as follows?
We urge the United States government to reject the global warm-
ing agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997,
and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse
gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and
technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of
carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will,
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earths at-
mosphere and disruption of the Earths climate. Moreover, there is
substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon di-
oxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and ani-
mal environments of the Earth.
What will happen is clear. The warmers will be deprived of the cen-
tral pillar that underlies their entire campaign. Only the false premise
of a consensus of support within the scientific community enables
them to keep their horses painted a morally superior white. Remove
their facade of scientific consensus, and they will likely lose if it is
removed it in time to reverse opinion polls that influence the Senate.
There is not much time, but we believe there is enough if we act
as quickly as possible. Will large numbers of scientists sign this state-
ment? We are certain that they will, if they are provided with a reliable
scientific review of the relevant research literature along with appropri-
ate references that give them easy access to the underlying experimen-
tal information.
As you read this newsletter, therefore, the enclosed review article,
petition, note, and return envelope are being mailed to significant num-
bers of scientists and engineers throughout the United States. The note,
urging signature, is signed by Frederick Seitz, Past President of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences of the United States and President Emeri-
tus of Rockefeller University.
This Petition Project is the work of a group of scientists who have
no connections whatever to corporations or other entities with eco-
nomic interests opposed to the warming treaty. Funds for the mailings
now underway were donated primarily by private individuals and none
originated in the coal, oil, or natural gas industries or their subsidiaries.
No specific institutional letterhead has been included with the mail-
ings. This is an issue of scientific fact. Signature of the petition should
not imply endorsement of an organization or institution. Also, of
course, no requests for funding or other solicitations are included with
the mailings.
Considerable personal sacrifices have been made by some scientists
and other individuals in originating and producing these materials and
financing the initial mailings. This petition campaign needs to be ex-
panded as widely as possible. It costs about one dollar to produce and
mail the petition, note, review article, and return envelope to three indi-
vidual American scientists and engineers.
If you or anyone you know is willing to help with this, please
make contribution checks payable to Petition Project and send
them to Petition Project, P.O. Box 1925, La Jolla, California
92038. You may wish to use the enclosed envelope. (These contri-
butions are not tax deductible.)
Also, if you are a scientist or engineer, please sign the petition
and return it. If you are not a scientist or engineer, give these ma-
terials to one whom you know and urge him to sign. More peti-
tions are available by mail from the La Jolla address.
Access to Energy is doing everything that it can to support and ex-
tend this campaign. Petr Beckmann founded this newsletter more than
24 years ago because he was concerned about attacks on science and
technology by means of pseudoscience and propaganda. At that time,
the subject of greatest concern was the smear campaign directed
against nuclear power. Unfortunately for Americans, the enviros won
that contest and largely stopped the further development of nuclear
power in the United States. Fortunately, however, they failed to stop
nuclear development in other countries and, so far, have failed to dis-
mantle most existing American nuclear power plants.
Please understand that this is not just another petition. In this unique
case, a large number of signatures on the petition by scientists and en-
gineers individuals trained and credentialed to evaluate the relatively
simple science involved will demolish the foundation of falsehood
upon which the entire global warming propaganda campaign has been
built. With many signatories to this petition, warmers will no longer be
able to marginalize scientists who oppose them as crackpots or indus-
trial shills. They have lied about their consensus of scientists just as
they have lied about the science. If these lies are exposed to public
view, their support will fade to the substantial benefit of mankind.

COOL RESEARCH
The enclosed review (Environmental Effects of Increased Atmos-
pheric Carbon Dioxide by Robinson, A. B., Baliunas, S. L., Soon,
W., and Robinson, Z. W., January 1998) was written for scientists, al-
though most of it is readable by laymen. The science here is relatively
easy to understand. If you find it difficult reading, concentrate on the
figures which tell the whole story. Figures 1 to 4 below may help.
See the review for captions, details, and references for these figures.
Figure 1 illustrates the nature of the controversy. It is important to
understand that past and projected increases in carbon dioxide cannot
warm the atmosphere significantly even though the overall green-
house effect, especially from water vapor, is an important factor in
maintaining hospitable global temperatures.
The warmers claim that a small increase in temperature from the
radiative effect of increased carbon dioxide will throw the entire tem-
perature control mechanism of the atmosphere out of balance and lead
to runaway warming, largely due to increases in water vapor.
There have been, however, numerous such small increases in tem-
perature over the past 3,000 years many beginning from temperature
levels much higher than today and no such runaway warming has
Figure 1 (review figure 9)
Qualitative Greenhouse Effect
Present Radiative Hypothesis 1
GHE Eff ect of CO2 IPCC
taken place. Moreover, a substantial increase in carbon dioxide in the
latter part of the 20th century has occurred with no sign of temperature
increase at all. The experimental data indicates that the atmosphere
compensates by adjusting itself in opposition to small temperature
changes illustrated as Hypothesis 2. There is also good theoreti-
cal support for this view.
Moreover, atmospheric carbon dioxide equilibrates rapidly with
other reservoirs, which contain more than 50 times as much CO2 as
does the atmosphere. Carbon 14 measurements illustrated in Access to
Energy 22, no. 1, p 3, give a half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere of
about one decade. As documented in the review, the atmosphere annu-
ally exchanges about 20% of its CO2 content with vegetation and the
ocean. The warmers claim that carbon dioxide can remain in the at-
mosphere for centuries. Sure it can in tiny amounts or after cycling
through huge natural reservoirs that dwarf atmospheric quantities.
Each year, mankind is releasing about 5.5 gigatons of carbon (Gt C)
as carbon dioxide, as compared with an estimated total ocean, biologi-
cal, soil, and atmospheric quantity of more than 40,000 GtC which
explains the legitimate remaining uncertainty as to whether or not
mankind is responsible for the approximately 150 GtC increase in at-
mospheric CO2 during the past two centuries (mostly during the sec-
ond half of the 20th century).
The bottom line is, of course, the temperature. It is simple ther-
mometers that have invalidated the global warming hypothesis. In fig-
0.4
0.3
Deviation from 1979 - 1996 C
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4 Figure 2 (review figure 7)
-0.5
1979 1984 1989 1994 1999
Year
ure 2 are shown both the weather balloon measurements and the satel-
lite measurements of total average global temperature in the lower tro-
posphere at an altitude approximately two miles above the earth. The
global warming computer models, upon which the entire global warm-
ing hypothesis depends, predict that temperatures in the lower tropo-
sphere should be rising rapidly with increases in CO2. In fact, during
the past two decades in which the highest CO2 values have been re-
corded, the lower tropospheric temperature has actually decreased.
Of greater interest to most people is, of course, temperatures where
they live on the Earths surface. Figure 3 shows average surface tem-
peratures in the contiguous United States for the past 103 years. Cur-
rent temperatures are now near the 103-year mean. Global averages are
the most relevant to the warming debate, while regional temperatures
are of greatest public interest.
There are two global surface compilations that are used by the
warmers. These two compilations contain essentially the same sorts of
artifacts and uncertainties, which disqualify them as useful information
in evaluating global warming. The research literature comprehensively
addresses this question. The flavor of this is illustrated by the bias that
has been introduced into the NASA-GISS compilation through the ur-
ban heat island effect in California and the obviously biased choice of
measuring stations as shown in figure 4. The California stations alone
cannot account entirely for the large errors in these compilations,
which are continually used in warmer propaganda. They do, how-
Hypothesis 2
ever, illustrate the poor quality of the NASA-GISS work.
Never forget that the global warming debate is not about minor
greenhouse warming. Nor is it about natural temperature fluctuations
as experienced, for example, during the past 300 years while the Earth
recovers from the Little Ice Age. Warmers want the public to believe
that the detection of any temperature increase at all is proof of their
claims. Indeed, the slight drift downward in tropospheric temperatures
during the past two decades is simply fortuitous. With essentially equal
probability, global temperatures could have been drifting upward dur-
ing that period. Figure 2 in the review shows the wide range of tem-
peratures that has prevailed during the past 3,000 years.
Warmers, politically unlucky in the current natural temperature cy-
13
US National Temperature C
12
11
Figure 3 (review figure 4)
10
1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990
Year
 0.8
Figure 4 (review figure 13)
Temperature trend per Decade 1940-1996 C
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
10,000 100,000 1,000,000
Population of County
cle, are trying to convince the public that the first sign of temperature
increase will presage disaster. In the absence of that increase, they are
invoking all sorts of nonsense such as butterfly migrations, on the
premise that butterflies can detect temperature changes that still elude
human thermometers.
Global warming is not about mild changes in temperature up or
down. The definition of global warming which is now seared into
the public mind by the warmers propaganda campaign is: catastrophi-
cally large temperature increases giving rise to global climatological
disasters in the forms of continental flooding, erratic and severe
weather, and massive damage to the Earths biological environment. It
is this claim that has been scientifically invalidated.
Global warming has nothing whatever to do with the minor in-
creases in temperature that will surely be observed eventually, since
the current natural temperature trend cannot, of course, continue per-
manently downward.
productivity for the rest of the century. The second comes from Vice-
UNPRINCIPLED NUCLEAR ADVOCATES
mously that global warming is real and the time to act is now.
Industry groups at Kyoto meeting call for more use of nuclear en-
ergy in Nuclear News, January 1998, p 12, published by the Ameri-
can Nuclear Society, 555 N. Kensington Ave., La Grange Park, IL
60526, is a depressing account of current attempts by the nuclear
power industry to use the myth of global warming to promote their
own economic interests.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Institute ran a full-page four-color
ad in in the January 1998 issue of The American Spectator touting the
reductions in carbon dioxide pollution offered by nuclear power.
Of all industrial groups, one would have hoped that the nuclear
power industry would be the most vocal in its opposition to the use of
pseudoscientific propaganda to cripple technology. Nuclear power
generation, which (as discussed extensively in Access to Energy for
more than 24 years) enjoys great real advantages, has been severely
damaged in the United States during the past three decades by just such
propaganda. Yet, now that the nuclear industry has seen advantages for
itself in promoting enviro propaganda, it is joining the feeding frenzy
right along with the most unprincipled priests of the green religion.
Do these nuclear power executives really think that the enviros are
going to give up the myths about nuclear power that they have so
painstakingly ingrained in the public mind? The only way to remove
those myths from the body politic is by dissemination of the truth. The
public is not likely to be impressed by truths emanating from an indus-
try that simultaneously promotes lies when it perceives that this may
give it a short-term advantage.
We recommend that nuclear power executives read Dam-busting:
Victory for the fishes in The Economist, December 6, 1997, p28,
which describes the destruction of a hydroelectric dam by the enviros.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The state of Oregon is not waiting for international treaties, much
less scientific evidence. Oregon has adopted a benchmark of stabiliz-
ing CO2 emissions at the 1990 rate. The city of Portland, Oregon, has
set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions to 20 percent below 1988 rates
by 2010. We are tempted to remark about the Peoples Republic of
Oregon but are deterred by the fact that even the Peoples Republic
of China refused to sign the Kyoto agreement.
No doubt Oregon hopes to eventually meet its goal by importation
of electricity from coal-fired power plants in other states.
l The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 1998, p1, reports that a new
Roper poll shows that more than 50% of Americans think most elec-
tricity comes from hydropower. Actually, reports the Journal, 12%
comes from hydropower. Most American electricity is generated by
coal and natural gas-fueled power plants.
Is the American media interested in correcting such misimpressions
10,000,000
in minds of our citizens? So far, they have shown a greater interest in
publicizing fear propaganda against coal, oil, and natural gas.
GOOD READING
l Homeschooling: Back to the Future by Isabel Lyman in Pol-
icy Analysis 294, January 7, 1998, published by the Cato Institute,
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20001. This re-
view of the origins and current state of homeschooling in the United
Sates contains much useful information.
l Environmental Scares: Plenty of Gloom in The Economist,
December 20, 1997, p19. This is an excellent review of activities of the
merchants of environmental fear during the past several decades. The
article covers everything from the runaway population growth myth to
the false claims about depletion of natural resources. Our current fa-
vorite is two quotes:
The first comes from Newsweek in 1975: Meteorologists dis-
agree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend . . . But they are
almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural
President Al Gore in 1992: Scientists concluded almost unani-
[Italics added by The Economist.]
l The New Threat of Mass Destruction by Richard K. Betts,
Foreign Affairs, January/February 1998, pp 26-41. This article advo-
cates the installation of civil defense for the protection of American
civilians from terrorist and other use of weapons of mass destruction,
with special emphasis on biological weapons. The author unfortu-
nately uses civil defense to deprecate the installation of strategic de-
fenses, which are also badly needed to protect American civilians.
Biological weapons are receiving increasing attention because their
ease of manufacture and delivery renders deterrent measures almost
useless. A couple of dedicated and moderately well-educated terrorists
with $50,000 worth of surplus laboratory equipment could, for exam-
ple, kill millions of unprepared Americans in a single anthrax attack.
l ecologic 41, November/December 1997, published by the Envi-
ronmental Conservation Organization, P. O. Box 191, Hollow Rock,
TN 38342. This entire issue is excellent reading from the Kyoto Re-
port and the Leipzig Declaration to articles by S. Fred Singer and Hugh
W. Ellsaesser. The global warming issue is covered here in numerous
articles about various aspects of the subject.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MARCH 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 7) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
An unprincipled university professor whom I knew was once
asked why he became a liberal in politics. His reply: I noticed that
liberals were winning most of the elections, and I decided that it was
best to be on the winning side.
There are deeper reasons for much of the anti-technology trend in
academia, but trend following is a strong contributing factor. Lacking
personal courage and ability to succeed as individuals, many academ-
ics simply ride the trends of opinion currently popular at the univer-
sity a ride leading to tenure, an easy life, popularity in their
immediate circle, and an illusion of popularity outside that circle.
Lately, the global warmers in this crowd have been riding two
trends. The first is their usual mindless antitechnology bias, which de-
monizes, among others, the petrochemical industry and its utilization
of coal, oil, and natural gas. This is so trendy in academic circles that
being without it is almost the equivalent
4000
of being without clothing.
Petitions Signed by Scientists and Engineers
The second is actual data from the
physical world which, viewed selec-
tively, appears to support the first. On
3000
the next page we illustrate these popular
trends in figures 1 and 2.
During the oil embargo, when fuel
prices suddenly increased and supplies
2000
were limited, the antitechnologists called
for the rationing of coal, oil, and natural
gas on the grounds that the world supply
was running out. Inconveniently, the 1000
embargo ended, a glut ensued, and real
prices have been trending downward
ever since. Estimated world reserves are
now sufficient for over 1,000 years. 0
Next, the antitechnologists turned to
global cooling the result, they assured 2/24/98 3/1/98
us, of human burning of coal, oil, and
natural gas. This time rationing was required to avoid a man-made ice
age and the environmental destruction of the planet. As shown in fig-
ure 1, a cooling trend was in progress providing that one ignored the
data before 1940. This trend was bottoming in the 1970s when
global cooling became popular.
The coolers overstayed the trend. As the bottom formed, however,
they changed positions. Now, global warming was the problem a
trend requiring immediate rationing of coal, oil, and natural gas in or-
der to avoid man-made global environmental catastrophe.
Alas, this warming trend ended in about 1980. By the time they
organized the first IPCC meeting in 1988, world temperatures were
entering a new cooling trend. With help from the United Nations and
lots of self-interested fellow travelers on board, however, it was too
late to stop the railroad. Cooling throughout the 80s and 90s slowed
warmers progress, but gradually their propaganda machine has built
a worry about global warming in the public mind. Now, the mem-
bers of this mindless cult are dutifully anticipating the long awaited
throughout American society are certainly two of the principal con-
UNPRINCIPLED OPPORTUNISM
also had a pernicious effect. When students start life in an atmosphere
The degree to which science has been perverted in the service of
personal ambitions during recent decades is truly remarkable. There
are many factors and circumstances responsible for this. Government
funding of research and the general deterioration in personal ethics
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
Trend Followers
greenhouse signal. Since, of course, the earths temperature fluc-
tuates up and down, their signal will eventually arrive. Armed
with huge federal research grants to study climate change, they
are planning to spot the trend reversal immediately.
In the meantime, their critics are to be kept at bay by another trend
which may be called consensus science. The idea here is that natu-
ral truth is decided by consensus rather than the scientific method
experimental measurement and rational thought. Moreover, it is not
necessary for a consensus to exist. It is only necessary to create the
illusion of one in the public mind.
On the current Microsoft Weather web site, a warmer claims that
contrarians [scientists who disagree with the warmers] are outnum-
bered by about 2,000 to 20. The 2,000 is the number of scientists,
experts and government officials . . . who participated in the UN
IPCC global warming extravaganza.
Never mind that only 78 of these people
wrote the IPCC report and that even
their offering needed to be carefully ed-
ited and modified before it hinted at sup-
port for the warmers.
Pictured here, however, is another
trend that is definitely not the warmers
friend. Most scientists have been silent
on this issue. They are involved in other
pursuits and, moreover, speaking up has
led to marginalization by the warmers
propaganda machine as a crackpot or
a shill for the oil industry.
Now the Petition Project described
last month is giving scientists and engi-
neers a method of expressing them-
selves on this issue which involves
3/6/98 3/11/98 concepts and data that are easily under-
stood and evaluated by anyone with for-
mal technical training. The claim of a consensus is more discredited
each day.
Based on current estimates, the first phase of the Petition Project
will probably garner between 5,000 and 10,000 signatures. This num-
ber must rise much higher. It already exceeds the warmers claimed
2,000, but we must realize that the warmers have had a free ride for
several years during which, according to polls, they have convinced
about 65% of Americans. Overwhelming opposition is needed.
So far, the Petition Project has been funded and staffed entirely by
private donations and volunteers. It is in need of substantial donations
to pay the printing and mailing costs required to mail this appeal to
many more scientists and engineers. Please help.
At present, the warmers are winning. They say that the sky is fall-
ing, that their goal is to keep it from falling, and that their opponents
are greedy capitalists who are willing to let it fall if they can profit.
The Petition Project destroys their underlying claim that most scien-
tists agree that the sky is falling. Without that premise, the warmers
tributors. Government control of most educational institutions has
where cheating and general dishonesty are the norms, their ethics
often go downhill from there.
Still, we must never lose our outrage concerning these circum-
stances. Too many scientists, honest themselves, have learned to
ignore the decay that allows dishonesty to grow and prosper.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this phenomenon for the case of so-called
climate change research. The data in these figures is not new. It is
available, in the published literature, to every scientist. It is also on the
Internet. The most prominent liars in the global warming industry are
well aware of this information. These graphs are adapted from Envi-
ronmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by Ro-
binson, A.B., Baliunas, S. L., Soon, W., and Robinson, Z. W., which
was included with the February 1998 Access to Energy. The primary
research references and other details are given in that paper.
Figure 1 is the surface temperature record for the United States dur-
ing the past 103 years. Figure 2 is the lower-tropospheric atmospheric
temperature record for the entire earth since 1958 as measured by
weather balloons. The horizontal line in each figure is the mean value
for the entire record. Also shown are slanted straight lines which are
temperature trend lines for the indicated time intervals. These trend
lines illustrate the dishonesty behind both the global warming claims
and the earlier global cooling claims both of which have been used
by the same scientists to call for world-wide rationing of coal, oil,
and natural gas and the technologies that depend upon them.
First, notice that United States surface temperatures and global tro-
13
US National Temperature C
12
11
Figure 1
10
1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990
Year
pospheric temperatures are both currently at about the mean tempera-
tures for the entire records. No sensible scientist, in possession of this
data, would reach any conclusion other than that temperatures have
been stable over the period of the record with shorter term fluctua-
tions and trends occurring as is evident. What, however, have the an-
titechnologists claimed? During the 1970s they became global
coolers who warned of climatological devastation from the short-
term cooling trend that is evident in figure 1. They blamed this cooling
on human use of coal, oil, and natural gas.
When, however, the trend reversed, they changed into global
warmers who warned of climatological devastation from the short-
term warming trend that is also evident in the graphs. They blamed this
warming trend also on human use of coal, oil, and natural gas.
Unfortunately for their claims, the short-term trend reversed again
in the 1980s and entered a new cooling phase. Now, as is evident from
their propaganda, they hope to ride out this cooling period by showing
the public erroneous data and disseminating scare scenarios. At the
first sign of the next warming cycle, they will announce that the long-
awaited greenhouse signal has been received and declare victory.
Meanwhile, a few scientists who would ordinarily never be noticed
have ridden global warming to jet-setting notoriety and government
grants from politicians who also stand to gain from this myth.
A group that calls itself The Union of Concerned Scientists is
distributing propaganda branding anyone arguing against global
warming as a purveyor of junk science. Vice President Al Gore has
stated that all scientists agree with global warming except for a few
crazy people. Meanwhile, Administration hacks roam Montanas
Glacier National Park bemoaning the receding glaciers (which are re-
ceding as the sun-warmed Earth recovers from the Little Ice Age).
Mediocre scientists like Stephen Schneider at Stanford are jostling
for position as leader of the global warming movement with their
eyes riveted on Stockholm and the Nobel committee. This committee
*OREDO7URSRVSKHULF7HPSHUDWXUHIURP:HDWKHU%DOORRQV
0.8
0.6
Deviation from 1979-1996 mean C
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
Figure 2
-0.8
-1
1958 1968 1978 1988 1998
Y ear
has already shown, by its embarrassing awards to the Ozone Three,
that it stands ready to use Nobel prizes to advance the political interests
of Swedish politicians. No doubt the leading global warmers sleep
with visions of a trip to Stockholm dancing in their heads.
It is unsurprising that such dishonesty exists. Mankind has always
been cursed with unprincipled opportunists. Depressing, however, is
the toleration of this dishonesty within the scientific community.
From here, the issue can go either way. If the warmers win, science
will likely enter a long period of decay during which it loses credibility
and is slowed significantly. (We notice that, in its recent headlined re-
view of Americas best graduate schools, U. S. News and World Re-
port did not even list science as a category of interest.)
Alternatively, the community of scientists in which there is rap-
idly growing revulsion against the way in which science has been per-
verted by the global warmers may be aroused enough to toss this
baggage out and, thereby, recover its good name. The enthusiastic
positive comments attached to many of the petitions that are being re-
ceived by the Petition Project indicate that this issue does have the po-
tential to rejuvenate the ethics of the scientific community
CONSENSUAL LIES
While the warmers propaganda machine marches onward with its
lies that only a few crackpots and industry shills disagree with their
claims about global warming, ecollogic, November/December 1997, p
21, available from 1229 Broadway, #313, Bangor, ME 04401, reports:
In a survey of climate scientists conducted by the Meteorologisches
Institut Universitat Hamburg and Forschungszentrium, 67 percent of
Canadian climate scientists rejected the notion that anthropogenic
global warming is already occurring. In Germany, the number was 87
percent. And in America, the number was 97 percent.
They report, however, that a separate survey of the official clima-
tologists employed by the individual states in America revealed that 58
percent rejected the notion that anthropogenic [human caused] global
warming is occurring. Notice the benevolent moderating effect of
employment by a government agency.
CLIMATE ENGINEERING
Amid our disclaimers of the myth that human activities are now un-
favorably altering the climate, we must not forget that humans can al-
ter the climate and may well, by choice, do so in the future.
More than 15 years ago, for example, S. S. Penner pointed out that
global temperatures could be decreased at low cost by modifying the
exhaust composition of jet airliners. The temperature lowering poten-
tial of this method would be more than enough to counteract even the
more extreme predictions of todays global warmers.
Engineers like Penner are people who build things and make them
work. If a machine is misadjusted, they devise a way to fix it. The
global warming battle is, however, ideological. The warmers have no
intention of letting technologists fix anything. They reject technology.
 While it is true that some students still manage to learn in the public
LOSS OF AN IRREPLACEABLE RESOURCE
rather than because of them. The American students still performing
Malthus, Watch Out by Ben Wattenberg in The Wall Street
Journal, February 11, 1998, p A22, reports the death of Julian Simon,
the foremost world expert on industrial resources and the role of free
enterprise and human liberty in expanding those resources. Among his
many publications, Julian Simons book The Ultimate Resource 2,
published by Princeton University Press in 1996, is his most recent and
definitive work.
Julian Simon wrote that the supply of resources is not effectively
finite because resources are created by the minds and efforts of men.
His scholarship proved that this hypothesis is generally correct. It is for
this reason that the real cost of most commodities steadily decreases as
supplies are increased through the knowledge, ingenuity, and efforts of
human beings.
Julian Simons thoughts and writings comprise an absolutely essen-
tial pillar of resistance to the population reducers and pseudoenviron-
mentalists. It may be that the work of this one scholar is the most
important single blow that has ever been directed against the enemies
of technology and free enterprise.
Wattenberg writes, If the real resource was the human intellect,
Simon reasoned, and the amount of human intellect was increasing,
both quantitatively through population growth and qualitatively
through education, then the supply of resources would grow, outrun-
ning demand, pushing prices down and giving people more access to
what they wanted, with more than enough left over to deal with pollu-
tion and congestion. Also, Simon realized that human intellect
could best be transformed into beneficial goods and services in an at-
mosphere of political and economic liberty.
Wattenberg also reports that Julian was a traditionalist. He did not
work on the Sabbath, and the Friday Sabbath dinner at the Simon
house was always a gentle and joyous celebration.
It is a remarkable tribute that just the Wattenburg obituary of Julian
Simon contains more fundamental economic knowledge than the en-
tire published works of many well-known authorities.
In another obituary in the Conservative Chronicle for March 4,
1998, p 15, Donald Lambro quotes Julian Simon as saying, We will
never run out of the resources we need, because knowledge is an inex-
haustible resource.
If you read only one substantive book this year, make it The Ulti-
mate Resource 2. (It is available in most good book stores and is also in
our 22-CD home school curriculum.) Julian Simon is no longer with
us, but the products of his mind, in his 200 articles and 30 books, are
still available as one of our most valuable ultimate resources.
out. Testing, grading, and accreditation can easily be done remotely.
AMERICAN RESOURCES
they can be found among the good teachers now lost in the system.
Julian Simon taught us that our ultimate resource is ourselves that
our countrys resources are proportional to the number of its people
and the quality of education of those people. Unfortunately, American
resources are diminishing instead of increasing.
In population, we are holding fairly steady. Although more than ten
percent of our population has been eliminated by abortionists, this has
been made up largely by immigration. Without immigration, our popu-
lation would be falling. The birth rate is below the replacement rate.
It is in education that we are falling seriously behind.
The Wall Street Journal for February 25, 1998, carried a page 1
note and two articles concerning this. U.S. 12th-Graders Rank Near
Bottom In Math, Science by June Kronholz on p B4 and Why
America Has the Worlds Dimmest Bright Kids by Chester E. Finn,
Jr., p A22, continue the ongoing saga of the educational disaster that
has been wrought by socialism in American education.
Nearly four million unionized educators (half of whom are bu-
reaucrats, not teachers) are ensconced on the overtaxed backs of
American taxpayers. Lost within this group is a much smaller number
of outstanding teachers. These good teachers are largely prevented
from doing their work by the socialized educational system.
schools, in most cases they accomplish this in spite of the schools
best are the 1.5 to 2 million homeschooled students, but they comprise
only about 4% of the total.
How bad is this situation? In recent tests, U.S. 12th graders scored
19th out of 21 countries tested in math ahead only of Cyprus and
South Africa. In science, American students were 16th.
Among the top 10% to 20% of each countrys students, U.S. stu-
dents were second from last in math and were last in science the
worst performance of all 21 countries tested.
The tested countries were those in Western Europe plus Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithu-
ania, Russia, Slovania, and South Africa. Had Singapore, Korea, and
Japan been included, the U.S. would still have ranked at the bottom.
Of special note is the fact that Americas best students are last with
respect to the best students of all other developed countries. This de-
stroys the myth that we are producing a highly educated subset of elite
students even though our overall average performance is poor.
What do union leaders of the 4 million educators and govern-
ment bureaucrats prescribe as a solution? They, of course, want more
money even though their budgets (in contrast to their products) are
already among the highest in the world.
Decades of efforts have been made to fix this failed system of edu-
cation. None have succeeded. If any corporation in America had toler-
ated such a large, complete, longlasting, and comprehensive failure
within its enterprises, that corporation would be bankrupt.
At a meeting in which we participated last year, the question was
asked, Should we try to fix this system or bulldoze it? My immedi-
ate answer was, Bulldoze it! It is just unthinkable to stunt the minds
of yet one more generation of American children while we wait for the
same people who have repeatedly failed in the past and who are wholly
responsible for the current situation to fail once again.
This is doubly true at a time when technology has recently given us
the tools to replace the education monopoly with far superior programs
communicated by CD-ROM and the Internet. Electronics has broken
the monopolies on information which existed earlier as a result of the
cost of information storage and transfer.
We do not need tens of thousands of teachers of mathematics and
physics most of whom are doing such a poor job (not entirely as a
result of their personal efforts) that our children are last in the world.
We need just a handful of the very best teachers brought into our
homes by the new high bandwidth communications systems.
How do we know who are are the best teachers? Let free market
providers make their selections and the market place will sort them
This will require significant numbers of teachers but few enough that
It is unfortunate that the computer industry has shown such hesi-
tancy in approaching the education market. Perhaps most of the deni-
zens of this industry are so busy pursuing new technology that they
have parked all of their children in public schools schools that they
do not want to admit are a negative in their childrens education.
This market is ripe for a revolution. Our 22 CD-ROM home school
curriculum is now used by about 25,000 children and it is no more
than the offering of one family and a few friends with little capital.
Socialized education is a $400 billion-per-year dinosaur. With
modern technology, the cost of education could be reduced and the
quality increased by factors of ten. Within a few years, test scores
would be improved, American productivity would be increased, and a
huge tax burden would be lifted from the American people. Financial
fortunes await those entrepreneurs who have the courage to do this cor-
rectly. (None, however, for companies that bring in education ex-
perts from the failing system to design products to aid that system.)
The most widespread and pernicious form of child abuse in Amer-
ica today is the daily incarceration of most American youths in institu-
tions where their sociological development is distorted and their
intellectual development is permanently retarded.
 and Pasteur. The authors use this comparison to intone that there is no
DEMON HALOGENS middle ground between themselves and technologists. The technolo-
gists, they say, are completely wrong about the expansion of resources
Naturally Occurring Organohalogen Compounds by Gordon W. in proportion to human endeavors. After having been wrong about vir-
Gribble, Accounts of Chemical Research, March 1998, reviews current tually every demographic and resource prediction that he has publish-
research on the natural production of organohalogen compounds ed during his entire career, one would think that Ehrlich would crawl
compounds containing fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and/or iodine. Dr. back into his tenured hole and stop predicting.
Gribble is Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, 6128 As pointed out in The Population Explosion Fizzles by Ben
Burke Laboratory, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire Wattenberg in The Sunday Oregonian, December 7, 1997, Ehrlichs
03755-3564. More information is available directly from him. landmark predictions in The Population Bomb turned out to be 100
He reports that, as of September 1997, 2,900 naturally occurring percent wrong even though he appeared 25 times on the Johnny Car-
halogen compounds had been identified. These are produced by plants son show to sell his ideas. The world-wide fertility rate, 5 children per
and animals and by other natural phenomena such as volcanoes. One woman in 1950, has now fallen to 2.8 and is still falling sharply.
cited paper reports that termites alone account for up to 15% or Europe and America are already below the replacement rate of 2.1.
100,000 tons per year of CHCl3 (chloroform) emissions. One vent of a Meanwhile, Julian Simons ultimate resources have been churning
Kamchatka volcano was found to be producing a CFC in quantities out new knowledge and productivity and thereby forcing down the real
400 times higher than background. cost of most commodities. Even the amount of farmland in production
Demon CH3Cl (methyl chloride) and similar compounds are pro- world-wide has actually decreased steadily for the past 20 years, as
duced in large quantities by the 200,000 annual lightning-triggered for- productivity has increased. (See Access to Energy 23-7, March 1996.)
est and brush fires. Annual natural production of CH3Cl is 5 to 6 Having learned nothing from his mistakes, including the famous
million tons as compared with 26 thousand tons from human activities. commodity price bet he lost to Julian Simon, Ehrlich continues to write
These same fires produce 30% of the CH3Br (methyl bromide) found this nonsense, and mindless magazine editors continue to publish it.
in the stratosphere. Several North American fires were found to be re-
leasing 60 thousand tons of CF2Cl2 (dichlorodifluoromethane).
GOOD READING
The enviros are well along in their assault on the last row of the
periodic table. The banning of freon and other CFCs is their most infa- l The Ultimate Resource 2 by Julian Simon, Princeton University
mous victory to date. HFCs, PFCs, and SF6 are now targeted along Press (1996). Read this not only because it offers a superb education in
with CO2, CH4, and N2O by the Kyoto global warming treaty. the economics of basic resources and free enterprise, but also as a trib-
These things are, of course, not easily explainable to high school ute to a great American.
seniors and young voters who, as products of American public l Gilder Technology Report, available from Gilder Technology
schools, have received the worst education in science in the developed Group, Inc. and Forbes, Inc., Monument Mills, P. O. Box 660, Housa-
world. Is it surprising that propagandists can persuade these people that tonic, MA 01236. This monthly newsletter is a remarkable window to
carbon dioxide is a noxious industrial emission that needs to be re- the expanding world of the telecosm and computer technology.
duced? With 13 million North Americans now shopping on the Internet (a
number that is increasing exponentially), personal computers outsell-
HEALTH HAZARDS ing television sets, and information storage and transfer costs diving
toward zero, this is a world that no one can afford to neglect.
Petr Beckmanns classic book, The Health Hazards of Not Going In the February 1998 issue, George Gilder reports that 13% of re-
Nuclear is still in print in paperback and available from Golem Press, tailers are now offering direct sales on the Internet, while 54% now
Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306 for $7.95 postage paid. It can also be have some presence there. Internet advertising tripled last year.
ordered directly from Access to Energy. l Any book from the Self-Teaching Home School Curriculum for
Anyone who has not read this book has missed a wealth of infor- ages 6 to 18 on 22 CD-ROMs available from the Oregon Institute of
mation about power generation and about the associated relative and Science and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, OR
absolute risks. The book is also a fascinating account of tactics used by 97523, for $195 postage paid.
the antinuclear industry tactics being used today by many of the same Yes, I know that most Access to Energy subscribers are over 18
people against hydroelectric power and coal, oil, and natural gas. years of age. But does this really mean that we must pretend to spend
If you like Access to Energy, you will love this book. all of our reading hours with technical books and related news?
In designing this curriculum, we picked the best 250-plus selections
STARK RAVING MAD we could from the entirety of books published in English during the
past 400 years. About 60 percent of these books are currently out of
l The Great Climate Flip-flop by William H. Calvin in The At- print. They are, however, available on these CDs as 600 dot per inch
lantic Monthly, January 1998, pp 47-64, repeats the new myth that image files. So, when you print one with your laser printer, it has the
global warming will cause a new ice age. Calvin warns, Climate same look and feel as the original.
change is popularly understood to mean greenhouse warming, which, If you insist on feeling intellectual, there are lots of complicated of-
it is predicted, will cause flooding, severe windstorms, and killer heat ferings from the great masters. Truthfully, I like to read myself to sleep
waves. But warming could lead, paradoxically, to drastic cooling a at night with Horatio Alger books. Jules Verne is fine, too.
catastrophe that could threaten the survival of civilization. Seriously, these books were written by many of the greatest writers
The climate record shows that current temperatures are a little be- and most profound thinkers during the past four centuries. No student
low the mean for the past 3,000 years and that temperatures during should miss them, and most adults will find much in them of value,
those three millennia have often been higher sometimes by more
than two degrees Centigrade. No climate catastrophe is recorded in the
ACCESS TO ENERGY
history of those periods. Now the merchants of fear want the public to
believe that global warming will cause global cooling hedging their Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
bets on the future direction of temperatures. Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
l No Middle Way on the Environment by Paul R. Ehrlich, $35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Gretchen C. Daily, Scott C. Daily, Norman Myers, and James Salzman Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
in The Atlantic Monthly, December 1997, pp 98-104, opens with a each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
comparison drawn by the authors between themselves and Copernicus years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
APRIL 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 8) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy

The Consensus is Dead

Prior to the Kyoto extravaganza in December 1997, Access to En-
ergy published its November 1997 issue summarizing the informa-
tion on global warming that we have discussed over the past few taking was quite difficult for us. We needed to: raise enough money
years. Little did we then realize that this summary would turn into a
five-month activist odyssey into the world of Algore and his retain-
ers.
Step one on this slippery slope occurred when a prominent man
who reads Access to Energy recommended the November issue to an
editor of The Wall Street Journal. The editor asked that we compress
the issue to two figures and 1200 words. He accepted the resulting
draft, assigned another editor to work with us on a final text, and pub-
lished that text as the primary editorial the Journal printed against the
global warming myth during the Kyoto meeting.
This editorial was well-received, caused a little trouble for the en-
viros, and was, of course, yesterdays news within a few days. We
were very happy to have had this unusual opportunity.
Then, however, the enviros made an error. They launched a re-
markably strong attack on us for the contents of our editorial. Particu-
larly enlightening was a Union of Concerned Scientists physicist Next month, our format and schedule will return to normal.)
who offered radio listeners in New York the wisdom that Arthur Ro-
binson is a crackpot; only one scientist in America agrees with titions to as great a number of scientists as possible. The exact num-
him (Richard Lindzen at MIT); the Oregon Institute of Science and
Medicine is not qualified to comment on global warming because it
has no mainframe computers; and our secret sources of fund- one who did not sign agrees with them. We are continuing to mail to
ing undoubtedly were oil-industry related. He also lied about the ex-
perimental data, but that is just normal enviro behavior.
This caused us to reread a manual published by UCS on tactics to
be employed with the media. This UCS physicists whole diatribe
was straight out of their book. It also caused us to reflect upon the
plight of our colleagues who have tried to bring the truth about the
global warming myth to public attention only to be personally mar-
ginalized in similar ways. The myth of an overwhelming scientific
consensus that agrees with the global warming hypothesis has been
thereby widely disseminated.
For example, the Microsoft Internet home page recently carried a
long article in the weather section in which the featured enviros, with
Microsoft endorsement, claimed that 2,000 scientists were in agree-
ment with global warming and that there were only 20 scientists printed below). As we write this, these initial results are being
opposed. While not quite so strident, highly politicized Science
magazine has also fed this myth by selective editorial policies that
favor the warmers, while more popularized outlets like Scientific
American have published truly blatant warmer propaganda. It is not
surprising, then, that ordinary news writers parrot this nonsense.
Underlying the entire Kyoto process is the perceived, yet false no-
tion that human-caused carbon dioxide release is warming the atmos-
phere and is going to lead to catastrophic weather disruptions and
that virtually all scientists agree with this. So overwhelming is this
support supposed to be within the scientific community that most
politicians on both sides of the issue are not even asking questions
about the science. The fact is, however, that this perceived consensus
does not exist. The perception of it, however, is giving the enviros all
So, we decided to take away their perceived consensus by circu-
lating a petition among the silent majority of scientists. This under-
to make the effort credible; write a review paper that communicated
the facts and literature references to potential signers in the language
scientists understand; obtain appropriate mailing lists; design, print,
and send the mailing; and receive, computerize, and disseminate the
results all in a short time period with volunteers who were already
occupied with other work. The truth is that we are neither large
enough nor financially strong enough for this sort of undertaking.
Money for printing and postage was provided by Access to En-
ergy readers and their friends. (We still have not had time to send
individual thank you letters. These will be sent soon.) The labor was
largely provided by volunteers at the Oregon Institute of Science and
Medicine who, because of this, have been working almost non-stop
16-hour-per-day schedules since the project began. Access to Energy
readers also paid another price as AtE arrived later each month as we
fell behind with all of our work. (This will be the last unusual issue.
We did absolutely everything we possibly could to mail these pe-
ber we mailed remains a secret because we do not want the enviros to
be able to calculate our percentage return and then claim that every-
additional scientists whose research specialties are of particular politi-
cal value. Moreover, more than 4,000 of the initial signers have asked
for more petitions for their colleagues. We are sending these, too.
The 8-page review we produced could not be published in an ordi-
nary scientific journal before the petition drive because of the long
time required for publication (usually at least several months) and be-
cause acceptance of the manuscript would have transferred copyright
to the journal and thereby prevented its use in the petition project. It
has recently been submitted for publication. The enviros are now at-
tacking it as not peer reviewed. Even in the pages of Science, this
weak complaint is all that they have mustered against us.
The result during a six-week period, more than 15,000 Ameri-
can basic and applied scientists have signed the petition (wording re-
released. A complete account, including lists of the signers, is avail-
able at www.oism.org/pproject/ and at www.sitewave.net/pproject/.
Scientists who are subscribers to Access to Energy were the first
approximately 1,000 signers. They have now been joined by more
than 14,000 of their colleagues throughout the United States.
By contrast, the best effort the enviros have ever made was that by
the group that calls itself the Union of Concerned Scientists,
which gathered a reported 1,558 pro-global warming signatures of
scientists in 1997. Even this is doubtful. I talked with one Nobel prize
winner who signed the UCS petition. The document he signed, how-
ever, only asked that research on climate change not be discontinued.
The enviros perceived consensus is now dead. Furthermore, our
results indicate that their support is very weak among scientists.

on average, vote more tax-financed subsidies for non-defense related

SCIENCE AND ADVOCACY scientific work than do Republicans. This non-defense welfare
program for those with educational degrees in science costs American
Six weeks before the November 1996 Congressional election, Sci- taxpayers $33 billion per year. Science loudly reminded its readers of
ence magazine published a bar graph that explains much about the the identities of their favorite political sugar daddies just before the
nonscience in science today. (See Access to Energy 24-3, November election. The Science editorial policy is similarly structured.
1996, p 3, figure 3.) The graph clearly demonstrated that Democrats, Science, of course, publishes professional papers reporting serious
research work and has done so for many decades. The first research
paper I ever published was in Science in 1965, reporting work that I
had done as an undergraduate at Caltech.
Besides reporting new research, however, Science (along with the
similar British publication, Nature) serves as a gossip column for sci-
entists throughout the world. News of special interest and popularized
summary reports of noteworthy advances in a wide variety of research
fields are also published.
Unfortunately, as tax financing of non-defense research has grown
since World War II, the news in Science and Nature has become
increasingly preoccupied with keeping the welfare payments flowing.
Concomitantly, the editorial policy of these journals has become
slanted. Research reports that imply an excuse for more tax funding are
favored over those that imply the opposite.
In keeping with this slant, scientists who claim that climate
change is a major problem that justifies the billions of dollars of tax
money now being spent each year to study it have found publication of
their reports in Science and Nature to be quite easy and quick. Those
who report, however, that natural factors explain climate variations
and that their research results do not support the expensive global
warming bandwagon find publication much more difficult. One such
prominent scientist told me of waiting two years for review of a paper
by Science only to have the research report then rejected.
[It is important to realize that, while tax funding of research is
wasteful and unprincipled, these adjectives cannot be fairly applied to
all scientists who currently have government grants. Most academic
scientists have such grants including many of Americas most bril-
liant scientists. These people have little choice for support, since gov-
ernment grants have pushed down or out alternative private sources of
funds that would otherwise be available to them.]
In connection with our Petition Project, reporters for both Science
and Nature have telephoned here. Both were professional in their inter-
views although the reporter from Nature was clearly suspicious of a
scientific institution (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine) that
did not solicit or accept tax funding. He actually asked me if I did not
agree with him that tax funding (and the bureaucratic process involved
in awarding government grants) is an important part of the peer re-
view process. The reporter from Science was preoccupied with the
format issue and declined to discuss any aspect of the scientific facts.
Nature has not yet reported about the project, but Science has
with a predictable slant. Their article emphasizes the red herring about
format that the enviros have been using unsuccessfully in their efforts
to counter the Petition Project. Climate Change: Advocacy Mailing
Draws Fire by David Malakoff, Science 280 (1998), p 195 reads:
In early March, tens of thousands of U. S. scientists received a
bulk-mailed letter from Frederick Seitz, a former president of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences (NAS) and of Rockefeller University in
New York City. It invited them to sign an enclosed petition urging
lawmakers to reject the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty (Science, 19 De-
cember, p. 2048), which awaits approval by the U. S. Senate.
The substance of the mailing might have attracted little notice in
the flurry of position papers that the treaty has spawned. But some sci-
entists and environmentalists are crying foul because its centerpiece is
an article that looks like but is not a reprint from the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences. The mailing is clearly designed to
be deceptive by giving the impression that the article, which is full of
half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review. says Raymond
Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Chicago.
The eight-page review article concludes that predictions of global
warming are in error and that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere are a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial
Revolution, because they have produced an increasingly lush envi-
ronment of plants and animals. Its co-authors are chemist Arthur Ro-
binson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine; Robinsons
22-year-old son, Zachary; and astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Wil-
lie Soon of the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington think tank
and vocal critic of any government efforts to curb greenhouse gas
emissions.
Pierrehumbert says he became concerned when a colleague, con-
fused by Seitzs affiliations, called to ask whether the academy had in-
deed taken a stand against the Kyoto treaty. The call moved
Pierrehumbert to post an email harshly criticizing the mailing to sev-
eral scientific mailing lists. He was not the only scientist angered by
the faux reprint. Weve gotten several hundred calls from scientists
asking what we are going to do about this, reports Darren Goetz of the
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Boston, an advocacy group
that last year signed up 1558 scientists in urging the federal govern-
ment to take action on global warming. Officials at the Sierra Club and
the NAS say they, too, have gotten a flurry of complaints. Researchers
are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them, says atmos-
pheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, NAS foreign secretary.
Robinson admits it is no coincidence that the article, which he de-
signed on his computer, looks like one published by the academy. I
used the Proceedings as a model. he says, but only to put the infor-
mation in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into
thinking it is from a journal. He says he plans to submit a version
shortly to a peer-reviewed journal.
Robinson says he didnt want to wait for formal publication of his
article, for fear that the Senate might vote on the Kyoto treaty before he
could distribute his petition. The goal, he says, is to counter the percep-
tion created by the UCS petition and other statements that there is a
scientific consensus in favor of the Kyoto treaty. Scientists who have
spoken out [against the treaty] keep getting marginalized as nuts. I
want to demonstrate that there is no consensus. he says. Critics are
attacking his mailings style, he believes, to sidestep a debate on its
scientific substance.
Robinson says his petition has gathered 15,000 signatures. But
Pierrehumbert and others say that Robinsons views on climate change
are suspect, because he has never published research in the field.
The Malakoff Science article also includes a picture of the first page
of our 8-page article. The photo clearly shows no journal name, no
submission date, no submitting scientist (required by the Proceedings),
and January 1998 printed in a format never used by a journal. The
article is also twice as long as permitted in the Proceedings (in which I
have published several papers) and has other textual and format differ-
ences that I introduced to make it easier to read. It actually never oc-
curred to me that this format complaint would be made probably
because I actually expected more. Even while not agreeing with them,
I could defend the enviros claims far more effectively than they have.
We have received more than 500 requests from scientists for a lit-
erature reference to this article most of them friendly scientists who
want to reference it in their own writings. There have, indeed, been a
few who have mistaken it for a journal reprint from several different
journals that have widely varied formats.
An appropriate version of this article has been submitted for publi-
cation. The journal reference will be sent to all petition signers after it
is published. Until then, the journal name is confidential.
It is remarkable that virtually none of the people leveling attacks
against our petition project attempt to discuss science. With the enviros
apparently unable to attack our science and with enemies like the Un-
ion of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, and Sherwood Rowland,
we must be doing a lot thats right. Rowland, of course, is one of the
Ozone Three the antics of whom in promoting and profiting from
the unnecessary ban of CFCs are an embarrassment to the field of
chemistry. The UCS and Sierra Club, whatever the merits of those
who worked under those names in the past, have become shallow or-
ganizations that are obviously in very poor hands.
Other than complaints from these sources, our only other direct link
to the opposition has been through the 1.4% of negative replies we re-
ceive to the petition. For every 100 scientists who sign the petition, we
receive, on average, 1.4 negative responses. Of the approximately 200
negative comments received in the first six weeks, about 90% con-
sisted solely of profanity scrawled across the petition card, usually
with the name of the writer removed. The other 10% included an occa-
sional reasoned comment usually based on incorrect information.
Global warmer support within the scientific community is turning
out to be much weaker than we had previously thought even though,
through clever use of the press and false representations about their
consensus, they have been winning the public debate. that the news of this directly expressed opinion by more than 15,000
If victory in the global warming wars goes to the warmers a loss
that would ultimately condemn vast numbers of the worlds people to
misery and death as technology is withdrawn, it will not be a win by
the warmers it will be a loss by real scientists and technologists. Our
most dangerous enemies are not the pathetic scientists at the UCS us attacks that only raise awareness of the petition, increase its effec-
and Sierra Club. We have in fact other, more effective opposition.
First, there are unprincipled people in business who are attempting
to profit from the global warming mania. Among these is, for example,
the nuclear power industry, which has been promoting global warming
because nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide. Second, there
are individuals in the press and politicians and bureaucrats who per-
ceive ways in which the global warming mania can be utilized to pro-
mote themselves and their agendas. Third, there are those who actually
oppose the mania but do so in a lukewarm way calculated to serve
their own interests. If, while pursuing their own self-interests, such
people become widely quoted spokesmen but speak in ineffectual,
half-hearted ways, they prevent better spokesmen from being heard.
I am more concerned about people supposedly on our side of this
issue who have been trying to minimize and downplay the more out-
spoken critics of global warming than about the enviros themselves.
We are hopeful that the signatures on this petition will help to over-
come this problem, too. The petition states:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warm-
ing agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997,
and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse
gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and
technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of
carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will,
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earths at-
mosphere and disruption of the Earths climate. Moreover, there is
substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon di-
oxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and ani-
mal environments of the Earth.
During the first six weeks, 16,900 people signed this petition. These
included more than 15,000 basic scientists and applied scientists
(mostly engineers), two-thirds with advanced degrees.
Initial signers include approximately 2,100 physicists, geophysi-
cists, climatologists, meteorologists, and environmental scientists who
are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide
on the Earths atmosphere and climate.
Initial signers also include approximately 4,400 scientists whose
fields of specialization make them especially well qualified to evaluate
the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earths plant and animal life.
Approximately 1,800 individuals have signed the petition who are
trained in fields other than science or whose field of specialization was
not specified on their returned petition.
The costs of the petition have been paid entirely by private dona-
tions. No industrial funding or money from sources within the coal, oil,
natural gas or related industries has been utilized. The petitions organ-
izers, who include some faculty members and staff of the Oregon Insti-
tute of Science and Medicine, do not otherwise receive funds from
such sources. The Institute itself has no such funding. Also, no funds of
tax-exempt organizations have been used for this project.
This project is titled Petition Project and uses a mailing address publish. There are a very large number of journals, however, so most
of its own because we desired an independent, individual opinion from
each scientist based on the scientific issues involved without implied
endorsements of individuals, groups, or institutions.
Today, we received a copy of the Union Of Concerned Scientists
April 17 press release against the petition. Listing offices in Washing-
ton, Cambridge, and Berkeley, the UCS release contains numerous
factual errors and falsehoods of omission. It is, however, interesting in
that it is the enviros who are reacting. Up until now, the enviros have
been acting and everyone else has been reacting. It is encouraging to
see these roles reversed.
We do not expect to see immediate widespread news coverage of
the petition or any sudden change in public attitude. What we expect is
scientists (the number will probably grow more slowly now unless
we find enough money for extensive new mailings, in which case the
number of signatures could easily be raised to 50,000) will gradually
erode the enviros credibility. This is the reason that they are attacking
tiveness, and likely lead to some additional signatures.
While I was writing the previous paragraph, a hostile reporter from
The New York Times called. He refused to talk about science only
format. He also brought news that the National Academy of Sciences
has issued a statement about our project. Apparently, Sherwood Row-
land convinced a majority on the governing council to put out a state-
ment that the petition project is not an NAS activity. No one thought
that it was an NAS activity, but Rowland thinks he can get some nega-
tive political mileage out of this disclaimer.
The enviros must smear the project. They are being drowned in the
signatures of scientists who oppose the global warming mania. With-
out their perceived consensus, years of enviro preparations and many
billions of dollars in propaganda designed to seize control of the
worlds energy supplies and turn down the flow of energy to industry,
technology, and individuals may be lost.
It must be understood that Access to Energy and the Oregon Insti-
tute of Science and Medicine are not going to stop the global warming
bandwagon. If it is stopped, the individual and institutional infrastruc-
ture of opposition to global warming hysteria that has arisen through-
out America will stop it. We have been fortunate to be able to do one
thing for this opposition to lift the burden of implied scientific con-
sensus and to provide a potent political weapon in this list of signa-
tures. The readers of Access to Energy and five months of very hard
work made this possible. We are now beginning to be brutally smeared
by the enviros. Good! This shows that we have definitely hurt them.
PEER REVIEW
The best the enviros are managing to do in reaction to the fact that
they are being buried by a blizzard of signatures by scientists opposed
to their agenda is to carp about the lack of peer review of our review
paper (for reasons of time and copyright).
Actually, reviews are often not peer reviewed at all, since they do
not contain original research and do contain complete references to the
peer-reviewed literature for all of their data as is true of our paper.
The most cited paper that I have ever written was a review article that
stood as the primary reference in a specialized area of protein chemis-
try for more than 20 years. This paper was never peer reviewed.
Peer review arose and still functions as a mechanism for journal
editors to reduce the number of submitted manuscripts to that number
which will physically fit into their journal. It consists of sending each
manuscript to two or three other scientists who give opinions, usually
anonymously, as to its quality. Many manuscripts are objectively as-
sessed in this way. If, however, the editor wants to publish the paper
regardless, he simply selects reviewers known to be friends of the
author or else known to be lenient in their opinions. If he does not want
to publish the paper, he sends it to the authors enemies and competi-
tors or to reviewers known to harshly criticize all manuscripts.
Since new ideas are often less popular, they are more difficult to
worthwhile work is eventually accepted somewhere. For many years,
as a help in ensuring this, the Proceeding of the National Academy had
a policy of accepting any manuscript approved by three members (one
submitter and two others of his choice). Unfortunately, this PNAS pol-
icy was abandoned as a result of an argument over the controversial
submissions of one academy member. Peer-reviewed publication has
actually become very easy, however, because there has been a virtual
explosion in the number of journals in large part as a response to the
need for scientists to accumulate long lists of publications in order to
compete successfully for tax-financed grants.
 In any case, peer review usually consists of opinions by two or Initiative, Pierrehumbert displayed his scientific acumen to one hap-
three other scientists. A paper with four authors and no reviewers has less Internet user who wrote Sorry no formulae. Just a simple obser-
the approval of as many scientists as a single-author paper that has vation that warm water evaporates faster than cold water.
been peer reviewed. Pierrehumberts reply: But it doesnt! Then after describing a con-
Mediocre scientists, when reading the literature, often use peer re- trived scenario in which the warm water is covered with water-satu-
view in an unintended way. They depend upon the reviewers to evalu- rated air and the cold water is not, he finishes with the flourish: You
ate the work, and they read just the abstract and conclusions of the ought to go away and learn some physics and stop making a fool of
paper. They trust and parrot by citing this superficially evaluated yourself. Come back to the card table when youve got the ante.
work in their own papers. Excellent scientists do not do this. They read This worthy is the principal scientist that Science magazine and
the paper, check critical references, and reach their own conclusions. the Sierra Club are quoting in their campaign against the Petition Pro-
Although signature of our petition does not prove that the signer ject. They apparently could not find anyone better.
approves our review paper, there is a partially implied link. In that l Greenhouse Warming Hurts Arctic Ozone by R. Monaster-
case, our paper has certainly passed peer review by more scientists sky, Science News 153 (1998), p 228, reviews a paper in Nature by
than any other scientific paper that will be published in 1998. NASA scientists claiming that global warming is making the Arctic
colder and thereby destroying ozone. We previously reviewed the
FIELD OF SPECIALIZATION similar claims that global warming will cause a new ice age and that
global warming will give London an Arctic climate.
A secondary enviro complaint has been that two of the four authors The real problem is that all of the scary, fried planet scenarios have
of our review article (Zachary and I) have not published research on been advertised. Their originators have reaped the associated funding
climate change that I am out of my field of specialization and there- benefits. New players and old players whose sweatingly hot scenarios
fore should not be believed. The truth is that I should not be believed in are wearing thin need new ways to get attention and more fame and
any case. To the enviros, science is a religion to which converts are fortune. Cold weather from hot weather was a scenario not yet claimed
added by belief. The reason the 8-page review was written was to com- (for obvious reasons), so the race for this new mania is now on.
municate the fully referenced facts on both sides of this issue to scien- We may not need to stop these guys completely only slow them
tists so that they could easily locate the information needed to reach down enough that, in desperation, they overreach into further wild
their own objective conclusions. Criticizing scientists for being out of claims that most people will find ridiculous.
their field is a purely polemical exercise than has been used repeatedly
in science usually by mediocre people who cannot protect their turf GOOD READING
from interlopers of greater ability. The reporter from Nature raised this
issue with me, but retreated when I started listing research fields that l Early Warning Report by Richard Maybury, March-April 1998,
had been revolutionized by scientists from other fields. available from Henry-Madison Research, PO Box 84908, Phoenix,
In this case, we do not even claim to have done original research. AZ 85071, which comments, Politicians acquire power by promising
Climate science is indeed quite simple. Very few parameters have been to defend us against threats. Any threat will do communism, unem-
measured, and, since reliable data are not available with which to study ployment, global warming, global cooling, global freeze drying. Most
the detailed complexities, interpretation is necessarily empirical and of politics is about the cultivation of threats. A healthy government is
uncomplicated. Actually, biochemists are especially appropriate here one with a big inventory of threats, and a threat shortage is a disaster to
because they are practiced in obtaining definitive information about far be avoided at all costs.
more complicated systems than the atmosphere, whereas physicists l Will the EPA Make America Safe for Cockroaches? by Mi-
specialize in much simpler systems. Physicists tend, however, to have chael Fumento in The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 1998, p A22. The
more rigorous standards of intellectual honesty than do biologists. This EPA is on another pogrom against insecticides. Insecticide bans gener-
may be part of the the reason that a disproportionately high number of ally tend to drive up food costs, lower consumption of healthful foods,
physicists are signing the petition. and increase the spread of disease. Then other branches of government
In fact, virtually anyone with a good education in any scientific dis- demand more of our tax money to protect us from the resulting gov-
cipline has more than enough training to evaluate the information rele- ernment-created ill health.
vant to global warming and reach a sensible conclusion if he is not l Shanghaied in Kyoto by Ronald Bailey in The Wall Street
blinded by ideological prejudices as are most of the enviros. Journal, December 15, 1997, p A22. The Clinton Administration
plans to implement the Kyoto global warming treaty whether or not is
STARK RAVING MAD ratified by the United States Senate. Senate refusal to ratify will just be
the first in many actions that will be necessary to prevent energy ra-
l The Sierra club is now screeching that the Bogus Petition Pro- tioning. The Administration will use our tax money to try to ration our
ject has been exposed mostly on the basis of Raymond Pierre- energy, and we will use our after-tax income to try to stop them.
humberts remarks. Pierrehumbert turns out to be the author of no less l Publications by Environmental Education Enterprises, 6011
than 332 epistles of wisdom catalogued by the Deja News Internet Houseman Rd., Ostrander, OH 43061. These are written by Jay Lehr,
browser. There we learn that he opposes: sport utility vehicles, cur- who is a professional speaker devoted to sensible action on environ-
rently installed refrigeration, incandescent lights, short and medium- mental matters. He has been giving speeches about the global warming
distance air travel, nuclear power, strategic defense, logging, private hoax and is available for this purpose.
gun ownership, and fuel-bearing transport. He says that, On balance, l Press relations for the Petition Project are being handled by Dr.
the US doesnt produce ANY [his caps] of the worlds goods. We are a Jane Orient. She has written some excellent materials, which are avail-
net importer of other peoples goods. Can you say trade deficit. able from 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Ste 9, Tucson, AZ 85716.
Therefore, I propose that a large fraction of Chinas CO2 emissions
should be attributed to the US, in the Kyoto discussions. Japans too. ACCESS TO ENERGY
Pierrehumbert also opposes farming: It makes little difference if
you pave over an ecosystem with corn instead of concrete, but you can Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
pave a lot more with corn a lot faster. He proposes that people be Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
moved into dense city environments because suburban living requires $60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
more energy. He also favors population reduction, and has proposed, Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
in his words, a huge tax on energy. each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
A member of the Union of Concerned Scientists Sound Science years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
MAY 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 9) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523 Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy

A Shortage of Adults
As the myth of a global warming scientific consensus crum-
bles around the enviro industry (which is populated primarily by non-
scientists), we are learning more about these people.
First, recall the United Nations 2,000 scientist IPCC meeting
the primary reference quoted in support of the consensus and the
primary authority upon which the Kyoto Treaty rests. It turns out that
only 1,093 scientists are on the IPCC list and, of those, only 382 are
Americans. (In the more careful reports, the 2,000 are referred to as
scientists, experts, and government officials.) Of these, only 85
wrote the summary consensus report which was edited later to
reflect the views of an even smaller group of the participants.
In contrast, the Petition Project petition has now been signed by
more than 16,000 American scientists. It unequivocally states:
We urge the United States government to reject the global
warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December,
1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on green-
house gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of sci-
ence and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of
carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or
will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the
Earths atmosphere and disruption of the Earths climate. Moreover,
there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric
carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural
plant and animal environments of the Earth.
While the IPCC group included 382 American scientists many
of whom disagreed with the final summary report the largest enviro
effort to poll scientists was that by the group that calls itself The
Union of Concerned Scientists. They managed to obtain the signa-
tures of only 453 American scientists (out of a world total of 1,564)
and are very reticent to release information about just what statement
these people signed. (One signer, a Nobel Prize winner whom I
know, told me that the UCS statement he signed said merely that re-
search on this subject should not be discontinued.) This is a consen-
sus? Perhaps so a consensus against the global warming myth.
Some people like to limit the definition of scientist entirely to
those holding the degree of Ph.D. More than 6,000 men and women
holding Ph.D.s in science have signed the Petition Project petition.
It is not surprising that the rules of the Kyoto meeting did not al-
low discussion of scientific matters. The new global energy rationing
emperor has no clothes. He wears instead the fig leaves of raw politi-
cal power, economic self interest, and globalist population reduc-
tion planning a euphemism for genocide through withdrawal of
the energy supplies necessary for life-supporting technology.
So, what have the enviros offered in defense of their consen-
sus? First, they claimed that the 16,000 signatures should be ignored
because the referenced review article that accompanied the petition
and the letter from Frederick Seitz, past president of the National
Academy of Sciences (many members of which have now signed the
petition), were misleading scientists to think that the Petition Project
is an NAS activity. They managed to get articles published about this
in Science and Nature and a news release from the NAS saying the
project is not theirs. The problem was that no one thought it was an
NAS project in the first place, so this strategy failed.
Next, they contended that the project is being paid for by oil and
gas interests and others with large economic self-interests in prevent-
ing energy rationing. The problem here is that not one of the peti-
tions organizers institutional or personal is connected with such
industries, and no funds for the Project came from such sources.
They also tried the claim that the review paper should be ignored
because two of its four authors have not published original research
on climate change. Unfortunately for them, the other two authors
have published extensive such research and the review itself is fully
referenced to the peer reviewed literature anyway.
Now, the enviros are bragging that the petitions 16,000 signers
should be ignored because they managed to place a false name on the
petition signer list. A man telephoned here and talked with my 16-
year-old daughter Bethany saying that he was so anxious to be
counted among the petition signers that he would like to fax rather
than mail his petition. The faxed (falsified) petition claimed to be
from Geri Halliwell, a Ph.D. microbiologist living at an address in
Boston. It turns out that Geri Halliwell is the real name of one of the
Spice Girls (a singing group). She sings under a different name.
The enviros then advertised this in The Washington Times and,
more remarkably, succeeded in disrupting a Congressional hearing
with word of Geri Halliwell and the discrediting of the petition.
They followed this with an Associated Press story (republished in the
San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers) claiming that several
other bogus names had been found. They apparently combed the
published list for well-known names. Their centerpiece was Perry S.
Mason. This scientist, a Ph.D. chemist living in Lubbock, Texas, hap-
pens to have the same name as the well-known television character.
The other bogus signers also turned out to be legitimate signers
with name similarities to personalities who are well-known.
Pranks, of course, are generally harmless. The astonishing thing
about these pranks is that the enviros are now basing their primary
attack upon the petition an attack that they are vigorously pursuing
in the United States Senate and House of Representatives and in such
media organs as the Associated Press entirely upon these pranks.
Not only do they have no significant scientific support, they also ap-
parently have a complete lack of adults in their own organizations.
Next, the attacks may become personal. We are receiving reports
from our friends and associates even some we barely know and
who would be difficult to connect with us that callers they do not
know are telephoning to ask questions about our family.
Not once, in all of this noise, has anyone attacked the science in
our 8-page review or the substance of the statement signed by more
than 16,000 scientists (and about 2,000 others). In all of the enviro
publications, fewer than 10 people with university degrees in science
have actually been quoted in opposition to the petition.
The remarkable truth is that the global warming parade has very
few adult scientist participants. It is a media-created myth.

sis originated 30 years ago by Dr. Judah Folkman who is now a pro-
NUTRITION AND CANCER fessor at Harvard and researcher at the Boston Childrens Hospital.
The idea is based upon the fact that cancerous tumors are fast-grow-
During the first week in May, newspapers such as USA Today and ing tissues that need lots of nutrients. Folkman suggested that the sup-
Internet news outlets such as Microsoft MSBC headlined a new drug ply of nutrients to tumors could be reduced if they were treated with
combination that has been successful in eradicating tumors in mice. anti-angiogenic substances which interfered with the ability to create
This treatment with endostatin and angiostatin is credited to a hypothe- blood vessels necessary to the transport of nutrients into the tumors.
 It is reported that this combination of two anti-angiogenic sub-
stances not only stopped the progress of cancer in mice, but also
caused the tumors to shrink to negligible sizes. This is very important
work. The only depressing news is that human trials of this therapy
will be carried out in the United States under the benevolent regula-
tions and controls of our government. Thus the reports that human
trials are planned, but that use of the therapy for cancer patients (even
if it works) is years away.
It now takes more time to conduct the clinical testing of a new
medical therapy than was required for our nation to fight and win
World War II with all of the extraordinary technology that was in-
vented and utilized in that effort.
Government funding of research means that hordes of brain-dead
bureaucrats stand between scientists and their objectives, while regula-
tions governing anything affecting human lives assure that the work
will go forward at a snails pace. These regulations, in combination
with a litigation industry ready to pounce upon anyone who does
something that can be demonstrated to a jury as unusual, assure that
even work that is not government funded is greatly inhibited.
The result is that only therapies that are very expensive are studied
because enormous profits must be available to pay for the hundreds of
millions of dollars and many years of work required to shepherd even a
simple therapy through the government morass.
So what happens to an excellent hypothesis like Folkmans? Thirty
years later, human trials are being considered. How many people
perhaps someone important to you have suffered and died of cancer
during the past 30 years? Folkmans is only one of many promising
approaches that have been denied to you by your government, its re-
tainers, and the welfare system for scientists that they have created.
So, if you have cancer and want to take advantage of anti-angio-
genic therapy, you are consigned to buying shark cartilage pills at your
local health store. Do these help? I doubt that anyone knows for sure or
that many government-funded scientists will risk their careers propos-
ing to test shark cartilage. Its promoters point out that shark cartilage
has few blood vessels, so an inhibitor may be present.
It is important to first distinguish between cancer prevention and
cancer therapy and, in fact, to understand the realistic objectives of
cancer research. Figure 1, which we have published before with appro-
priate references to Bruce Ames in Access to Energy 21-8, shows the
virtual wall of cancer probability that faces all humans of advanced
age. Figure 2 illustrates the proper objective of most cancer research.
Figure 1
Without advances in knowledge that probably will not be made
during our lifetimes, people alive now are unlikely to live over 150
years. With, however, empirical research methods that are certainly
available today (but not being pursued because they are not trendy with
the bureaucrats paid by your tax dollars who have control of medical
research), it should be possible to push the healthful intrinsic human
Figure 2
lifespan out to about 120 years. With that done, the overall objective
should be to keep people in the best of health for as long as possible
constraining deterioration and death to as short a period as possible
around the intrinsic life span limit (about 80-90 years today and about
120 years if technology were properly applied even in the absence of
seminal advances in understanding the biochemistry of aging).
Preventing cancer and controlling the growth of cancer are very dif-
ferent objectives, as Folkmans hypothesis illustrates. Who would sug-
gest that preventing blood vessel growth was a desirable objective for
well people? Yet, for a cancer victim, this may be life-saving.
Many years ago when Linus Pauling and I were looking for clues in
the alternative health literature clues that might suggest promising
research areas in nutrition we were drawn into the orbit of super
nutrition. With various nuances, the idea here is that the body needs a
good supply of nutrients so, within the limits of apparently nontoxic
doses, why not supply large amounts? Linus liked to call this ortho-
molecular medicine meaning literally the right molecules in the
right amounts but in practice meaning megavitamin therapy.
This made sense with respect to cancer prevention, since it at least
avoided nutritional inadequacies that might weaken the immune sys-
tem and other natural defenses against cancer and other degenerative
diseases. The trouble is that people (even scientists) tend to classify
things as good and then attribute favorable attributes to them under
any and all circumstances. Once a vitamin C guru gets rolling, there is
nothing vitamin C wont cure except for nuclear war (and even this
was talked about regarding vitamin C and mental instability).
High dose multiple vitamins do tend to increase the sense of well-
being, especially in older people, and it is reasonable to suggest (al-
though by no means proved) that this well-being extends to better
defenses against degenerative diseases. But what about people who al-
ready have cancer? Do they need super nutrition? Folkmans hypothe-
sis includes the idea that cancerous tissues should be deprived of
nutrients by cutting off their blood supply.
Twenty-three years ago I designed a series of experiments to look
into this question in mice and, with the help of two technicians, built a
small animal lab for the work. We used a cancer system developed by
Homer Black. See Black, H. S. and Chan, J. T., J. Invest. Dermatol. 65
(1975) 412-414. In Blacks system, hairless mice (they have hair when
born, but it soon drops out) are irradiated with measured amounts of
UV light until they develop skin cancer. We improved Blacks proce-
dures to make them more quantitative and then proceeded to study the
incidence and severity of the tumors as a function of diet. Approxi-
mately 2,000 mice were used during the three years of work. See Ro-
binson, A. B., Hunsberger, A. and Westall, F. C., Mechanisms of
Ageing and Development 76 (1994) 201-214.
The most striking thing about these experiments was that, during
the period of optimum effect, the rate of growth of cancer was varied
over a 20-fold range as a function of diet. The most interesting finding
was that the poorer the diet in overall nutritional content the slower
the rate of cancer growth.
In the first experiment, the results per 50 mice 2 months after the
initial 15 week UV radiation period were as shown in Table 1.
 Diet Table 1 15 Weeks of Lesions Lesions FaV without wheat grass 4 17
Radiation + 2 Months Severity 3-5 Severity 1-5 FaV + extra wheat grass 4 13
Control 11 145 FaV without tomatoes 2 16
Black Mix 2 90 FaV without carrots 2 14
12 g/Kg Vitamin C 12 152 FaV without apples and pears 6 28
0.535 g/Kg Vitamin E 14 178 Enriched Fruits and Vegetables 14 50
20% Seawater 15 164 measurably decrease the rate of cancer growth. Vitamin E, too, en-
Meganutrient Mix 14 203 hanced cancer growth in the amounts usually found in human supple-
ments. The empty calories of sugar, however, decreased cancer
The Black Mix was a mixture of glutathione, butylated hydroxy growth rate. A diet of fruits and vegetables, FaV, markedly reduced
toluene, vitamin E, and vitamin C that Black had used. This and the cancer growth rate. This effect, however, disappeared when the fruits
control demonstrated that our technique was comparable to his. The and vegetables were supplemented with soy protein, seeds, and nuts,
vitamin C and vitamin E groups received equivalent doses to the Black which are popularly thought to be very nutritious. Moreover, in these
mixture, thereby testing the efficacy of these in the Black mixture. experiments, the cancer growth rate was independent of what mixture
Pauling had recently become interested in sea water minerals, so this of fruits and vegetables was being eaten except in the case of apples
was included. The meganutrient mix was a mixture of megavitamins and pears. These are less nutritious per unit weight than the other raw
similar to that which an avid health food fan might take if he tried to foods, so, when they were removed, the diet became more nutritious.
follow all of the advice in Prevention Magazine at once. When the dry weight equivalent of 165 grams per person per day of
Notice the increased cancer in all groups except the Black Mix and vitamin C was added to the raw fruits and vegetables, the suppression
(increased slightly) vitamin C given at the human equivalent of about of cancer growth rate was even more spectacular. These mice were,
12 grams per day per person. Adding a rich mix of vitamins clearly however, in a disastrously poor nutritional state. They were ingesting a
accelerated cancer growth. The Black mixture was beneficial, either as mixture of fruits and vegetables that would barely sustain their lives
a result of glutathione or butylated hydroxy toluene or some synergis- and a nearly lethal daily dose of vitamin C.
tic (cooperative) effect between two or more of its four constituents. Similarly, when mice were raised on control diets modified with
During the second and third experiments, the dietary results became respect to protein content, the maximum cancer growth occurred at
even more remarkable. Vitamin C, in the human equivalent of 3 grams 17% protein. Protein percentages above 17% and below 17% both
per day, sharply increased the cancer growth rate. Only at dose rates lowered cancer growth. In each case, the farther the protein percentage
above the human equivalent of 48 g/Kg per day did vitamin C was from the optimum of 17%, the more cancer growth rate was re-
Diet Table 2 15 Weeks of Ra- Lesions Lesions duced. At both tested extremes, 5% and 60% protein, cancer growth
diation + 2 Months Severity 3-5 Severity 2-5 rate was reduced by a factor of three.
Have you heard of these results (published in a major politically
Control Exp. 2 12 47
correct peer-reviewed journal) in your local newspaper or from your
Control Exp. 3 11 45 friendly oncologist? Will they be subjected to the hundreds of millions
Control No UV Radiation 0 0 of dollars in government approved tests required before that oncologist
would legally dare to mention them? Obviously not.
Diet Table 3 15 Weeks of Ra- Lesions Lesions
3 g/Kg Vitamin C 31 94 diation + 4 Months Severity 3-5 Severity 2-5
6 g/Kg Vitamin C 19 77 Control Exp. 3 85 195
12 g/Kg Vitamin C 16 58
24 g/Kg Vitamin C 8 53 48 g/Kg Vitamin C Exp. 3 38 134
48 g/Kg Vitamin C Exp. 2 3 24 96 g/Kg Vitamin C 14 62
48 g/Kg Vitamin C Exp. 3 2 21 192 g/Kg Vitamin C 32 92
96 g/Kg Vitamin C 0 6
192 g/Kg Vitamin C 0 8 192 g/Kg Sucrose 60 158

192 g/Kg Sucrose 10 37 Fruits and Vegetables Exp. 3 32 82

FaV + 165 g/Kg Vitamin C 1 35
0.16 g/Kg Vitamin E 13 70 FaV + Seeds and nuts 101 236
0.285 g/Kg Vitamin E 23 74 FaV without wheat grass 24 99
0.535 g/Kg Vitamin E 14 57 FaV + extra wheat grass 32 88
1.035 g/Kg Vitamin E 12 30 FaV without tomatoes 27 96
2.035 g/Kg Vitamin E 22 68 FaV without carrots 31 77
FaV without apples and pears 55 171
Fruits and Vegetables Exp. 2 4 12
Fruits and Vegetables Exp. 3 1 14 Enriched Fruits and Vegetables 77 174
FaV + 165 g/Kg Vitamin C 0 6 It turns out that eating a diet restricted entirely to fruits and vegeta-
FaV + seeds and nuts 24 86 bles without staples such as grain, beans, or animal products is a
 there is no difference between Ronald McDonald and Joe Camel. . . .
1998 DDP MEETING
relatively enjoyable way to starve. Even though these foods have a
highly nutritious composition, their high water and fiber content pre-
vents their being eaten in sufficient quantities.
Even the magic vitamin, vitamin C, increases the rate of cancer
growth until the doses are so high they constitute malnutrition. At
doses normally considered healthy, it increases cancer growth.
Yet, there is extensive evidence that good nutrition reduces cancer
incidence incidence, not growth rate once cancer is established. See
Ames, B. N., et. al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 90 (1993) 7915-7922
and Block, G. et. al. Nutr. and Cancer 18 (1992) 1-29.
Optimum nutrition is best unless some part of your body is growing
too rapidly. In this case, until Folkman is able to starve that part selec-
tively, you may want to starve the whole thing. It works for mice.
The annual DDP meeting will be held July 10-12 in Scottsdale, Ari-
zona near Phoenix. As usual, a very remarkable group of speakers will
participate. These and their subjects include:
Sallie Baliunas global warming.
Bonner Cohen the new EPA standards for particulates and ozone.
Joseph Douglass chemical and biological weaponry.
William Dresher pseudoscience, politicians, and the press.
J. Gordon Edwards the Endangered Species Act.
Keith Idso effect of carbon dioxide on plants.
Robert Jastrow strategic defense.
Cresson Kearny war winning and losing equipment.
Jay Lehr ozone depletion and other scares.
Henry Lamb green religion, Kyoto and other treaties.
Lawrence Parks the hazards of fiat money.
JoAnn Stuke-Diethrich effects of the ban on methyl bromide.
Lowell Wood the dangers of biological weaponry.
Ed York when nothing happened: failed nuclear tests.
Each year this conference is so outstanding that it seems that it can-
not be better; but each year it improves. This year promises the same.
The location is the Scottsdale Hilton where reservations for conference
participants will be $59 per night for a single and $69 per night for a
double. The hotel number for reservations is (800) 528-3119.
Registration for the meeting, which includes two luncheons and the
annual awards banquet, is $95 per person. For registration and other
information write to DDP, 2509 N. Campbell, Box 272, Tucson, AZ
85716 or telephone (520) 325-2680.
The conference will also include a tour of the Palo Verde Nuclear
Generating Station and a visit to the laboratory of Dr. Sherwood Idso
and his coworkers along with a presentation there by Dr. Idso. This
laboratory is the foremost laboratory in the world in the study of the
effects of carbon dioxide on plant growth under natural conditions.
This tour will include a visit to the longest running experiment on
tree growth and carbon dioxide that has ever been carried out. When
you see Sherwood Idsos trees, the extraordinary value of increased
carbon dioxide in the biosphere will come spectacularly alive. This
laboratory is also carrying out open field experiments on the growth of
various crops under increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The secret method by which Dr. Jane Orient assembles these ex-
traordinary meetings is this. The speakers attend because they want to
meet the other speakers. Everyone else comes to hear the speakers, to
participate in the tours, and to enjoy the format which gives lots of time
for personal interaction with the speakers and other participants. Actu-
ally, the audience itself usually contains such an accomplished group
of people that they could put on a great extemporaneous meeting even
if none of the scheduled speakers arrived.
This is one meeting that I would not be willing to miss. Each year I
find it an enlightening and rewarding experience.
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
STARK RAVING MAD
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
l Whos Next? in The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1998. p each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
A22 quotes Kelly Brownell of Yale University as saying, To me,
Are we going to have legislation tomorrow? No. But we have to start
thinking about this in a more militant way. Meanwhile Common
Cause is cranking up a campaign against Big Booze. Fat-filled
hamburgers and beer are being groomed as the next targets of those
who have engineered the attack on Big Tobacco.
Cigarette smoking is definitely a serious health hazard. So are over-
eating and alcoholism. The greatest health hazard in America is prob-
ably automobile driving, with casualties on the highways comparable
each year to the total dead and wounded of the Vietnam War. When,
however, pogroms begin, no one is safe. Free people choose their own
risks of which government destruction of freedom is the greatest.
l A Senate aide who was present when the enviros, represented by
a U. S. Congressman, made their revelation about Geri Halliwell at a
Congressional hearing tells me that the participating legislators took
this very seriously and that it substantially disrupted the hearing.
We have already pointed out the shortage of adults in the enviro
organizations. (They seem to be populated largely with warmed-over
professional protesters without scientific training who are still reliving
their glory days on college campuses where everything was O. K. ex-
cept academic work.) Where, however, are the grownups in the U. S.
Congress? Children will be children (even if they are over 30), but are
they really taken seriously by legislators who are considering turning
off one-third of the worlds energy supply and turning over the control
of U. S. technology to the United Nations?
l Global influences on American farming by Henry Lamb, ec-
ollogic 42, January/February 1998, available from P. O. Box 191,
Hollow Rock, TN 38342, reports that all 171 of the nations constitut-
ing the Conference of Parties, COP, to the Kyoto Climate Change
Convention can (by 3/4 vote) change the carbon dioxide limits which
are currently set at 7% below 1990 levels. Yet, 136 of these countries
are not affected by these limits, since they have not agreed to reduce
carbon dioxide production at all.
With 80% of those deciding the limits not being required to con-
form to them and with the energy limits causing the transfer of heavy
industry out of the other 20% and into the 80%, how to you suppose
they will vote? The 80% include China, India, Mexico, and other large
nations, as well as tiny nations with populations lower than Rhode Is-
land each with an equal vote in determining United States energy
supplies. Al Gores signature on this Protocol is not only green religion
nonscience at its core and deliberate technological genocide at its worst
it is economic treason.
This ecollogic article by Henry Lamb describes numerous similar
United Nations enviro controls that have already been placed upon the
United States and also some that are now being instituted. His talk to
the DDP meeting in Phoenix will be very interesting.
GOOD READING
l Let Those Who Can, Teach by Paula Sullivan, The Wall Street
Journal, April 28, 1998, p A18, reports that 36% of public school
teachers have no academic training whatever in the subjects they teach,
while there are very large numbers of people who hold an MS or Ph.D.
in those subjects who would like to teach in the public schools but
are not permitted to do so because they do not have a union card
(teaching credential). Of course, the daily incarceration of American
youth in these institutions has little to due with education and every-
thing to do with political indoctrination and power. Half of those indi-
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JUNE 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 10) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Envy and Technology
We reprint below Rudyard Kiplings poem The Gods of the Copy-
book Headings because it so perfectly describes the well-worn path
down which the American people are being led by their government
and their own foibles and the ultimate consequences of that journey.
While so far the United States has been able to export most of the
tragic consequences of its actions such as its ban of DDT or its mas-
sive fiscal irresponsibility as custodian of the world fiat money sys-
tem, there are signs that the bill for a half century of recklessness may
soon need to be paid.
Paradoxically, this payment may not be extracted first in the ex-
pected ways by economic collapse under monetary debts that obvi-
ously will never be honored or by military defeat with nuclear and
rocket technology that we have exported to our enemies and then re-
fused to defend ourselves against. More imminent seems to be the
possibility of simple self-destruction by the manias that we have in-
ternalized into our body politic in order to rationalize so many selfish,
yet self-destroying actions.
To an increasing extent, our civilization is being washed to and fro
by fear, greed, hatred and envy negative human characteristics that
we have now so clothed in institutions and rationalizations that we
can no longer recognize them for the evil that they represent.
Consider the remarkable squabble that has now broken out about
the construction of light trucks and sport utility vehicles as reported in
Tests Question Whether Light Trucks Are Much Deadlier Than
Cars in Crashes by Gregory L. White in The Wall Street Journal,
June 1, 1998, p A4.
As government regulations based upon mythical claims about en-
ergy shortages and the pseudo-need for forced conservation through
fuel economy regulations and higher fuel taxes have forced the auto
companies to produce smaller and lighter automobiles, the death toll
of people involved in accidents in those cars has risen. This was, of
course, to be expected. Less protective steel around the passengers
and less overall mass in the vehicle obviously puts passengers at a
competitive disadvantage with respect to anything with which they
collide whether it be another vehicle, a tree, or even the ground it-
self as the vehicle rolls over.
The political process, however, has provided an escape hatch that
increasing numbers of Americans have utilized light trucks and
sport utility vehicles which are necessarily larger and more strongly
built. Many people now pay prices formerly reserved for only the
most luxurious prestige autos in order to own pickup trucks. And
what pickup trucks they are! With four doors, complete luxury equip-
ment packages, diesel engines with turbochargers that make them ac-
celerate like sports cars, and great islands of steel, both front and
back, between passengers and the chaos outside, the larger of these
vehicles provide a substantial amount of protection against crash in-
juries and also fires, since diesel fuel is less flammable than gasoline.
Even the smaller sport vehicles provide considerably more pas-
senger safety than the toy cars in which the envirocrats would prefer
to bury us. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it has been observed that when
an ordinary car hits another car from the side the direction from
This is not, however, as wasteful as it may seem. After all, the gov-
TAXING THE HUMAN GENOME
which it spends tens of billions of dollars each year on non-defense
In 1990, the government launched a $3 billion, 15-year project to
sequence the DNA in the human genome. Eight years into the project,
this is now about 3% completed. A reasonable estimate is that they will
manage to finish the job over a 25-year period for perhaps $10 billion.
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
from which its passengers are most vulnerable deaths in the cars
hit are six times higher than in the cars doing the hitting, while, if the
vehicle colliding with its front is a pickup or sport-utility vehicle,
this injury ratio is 25 to 1.
Most of this advantage turns out to be caused by the difference in
protective steel around the passengers and, of course, the relative po-
sitions of the cars in this sort of accident. In fact, in recent tests, gov-
ernment investigators found that the size or type of vehicle colliding
with the side of another car made little difference to injuries to dum-
mies in the side-hit automobile. Enviros have objected, however, that
the test cars were rammed symmetrically, so that the center posts be-
tween their doors offered additional protection. They claim the tests
would have come out differently if the doors alone had been hit.
So far, so good. Clearly we need more steel in the doors, perhaps
stronger center posts, a little more mass in the whole vehicle, a higher
center of gravity and well, a car that looks a little more like a sport
vehicle or even more like a mid-sized Chevy or Ford from the years
before bureaucrats started whittling down the size of our cars.
No this turns out to be completely wrong. The enviros are de-
manding instead that the sport vehicles be made lighter and weaker so
that they will have less competitive advantage. They do not want the
smaller cars to be stronger. After all, there are decades of enviro
propaganda invested in making them weaker. They just want the
sport vehicles to be weakened to the point that their owners are just as
vulnerable to death as are those in the toy cars.
A great deal of time could be saved, however, by a different ap-
proach, since there are scores of other ways in which people act to
reduce their risks as compared to others. What we need here is a
fairness principle applied automatically.
When a crash occurs, all of the participants should be rushed to a
hospital where doctors are ready to inflict on every one of them inju-
ries as severe as those of the most seriously injured in the accident. If
anyone dies in the accident, all participants should be immediately
put to death by means as painful as those that killed the one.
Similarly, all stock investors should be required to buy only a gov-
ernment-managed mutual fund with equal exposure to all stocks in
the market. All computer software companies should be required to
sell a package of their competitors software along with their own
(see the recent Justice department demand that Microsoft Win-
dows include a Netscape browser) and share their profits equally. All
participants in civil and criminal litigation should be identically pun-
ished. (If the lawyers were included, we might support this one.) Why
not give ourselves over entirely to the consequences of envy?
Envy is the terrible companion of milder jealousy. Jealousy only
burns to have the same advantages as ones neighbor. Envy, however,
wishes to see his neighbors blessings destroyed. Jealousy aspires to
better things. Envy aspires to the destruction of everyone.
Envy is everywhere in America today. It is in our politics, in our
schools, in our courts, in our business practices, and in our news me-
dia. It is so common that we no longer recognize it. The Gods of the
Copybook Headings understood it - and soon, again, will we.
ernment is committed to a giant welfare program for scientists in
research dollars seized by force or threat of force from the citizens
who earned them. The genome money was going to be spent on these
welfare cases anyway. Why worry about the way it is labeled?
There is, however, much unhappiness in genome land tonight, since
the Applied Biosystems division of Perkin-Elmer Corporation of
Norwalk, Connecticut, and the Institute of Genomic Sciences of
Rockville, Maryland, have just announced a $200 million project to
sequence the human genome in three years. This was announced on
May 10, 1998. (See, for example, The Sunday Oregonian published
in Portland, Oregon, May 10, 1998, page 1 which also has an article
on the same page about our petition project.)
The beneficiaries of the soon-to-be-obsolete government program
are, of course, scrambling to preserve their money tree. Genome Ef-
fort Still in Need of Support by D. Dickson and M. Wadman, Nature
393 (1998) p 201, provides some examples. Those involved in the
government program are complaining that private enterprise will not
do as good a job. Also, some corporate competitors of Perkin-Elmer
are also favoring the tax-financed project because they want the public
to provide them with free gene sequences, whereas Perkin-Elmer may
gain a competitive advantage from this investment.
This episode serves as an excellent example of the interaction of
science, government, and the free market in a high-tech area of sub-
stantial medical interest.
The human genome is thought to contain about 3 billion base pairs
organized into between 50,000 and 100,000 genes. The base pairs con-
sist of four simple organic compounds linked together in long, usually
paired chains which contain, in their sequences, the genetic code from
which a human being is biologically constructed. The four-letter code
is expressed in three-letter combinations which represent the amino ac-
ids in peptides and proteins. There are also bits of code related to DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid, which is the chemical name of the long paired
chains) function and very large sections of code that are thought also to
be involved in the protein library but may serve as yet entirely un-
known purposes.
With the sequence (order in the chains) of the 3 billion base pairs
known, scientists will have in hand most of the information required to
construct a human being. (Some information is passed by means other
than DNA.) Moreover, in the case of those parts of the DNA code that
determine the structures of proteins (which are the most important
molecules in living things), it is known how to read this code.
This does not mean that scientists will soon be able to build a hu-
man being or any other living thing, however, because the enormously
complicated living systems that read this code and utilize it are only
partially understood. The construction of such systems is far beyond
the capabilities of science today.
Scientists have, however, become increasingly clever at inducing
already existing living systems to work for them. It is, for example,
commonplace to synthesize a section of DNA which codes for a pro-
tein of a particular structure and then induce a living thing to make that
protein either for its own good or for the purpose of production of the
protein for use elsewhere.
While bits and pieces of the human genetic code have been se-
quenced for special purposes, the advantages of having the complete
library available both for medical purposes and for basic research
are substantial. As laboratory procedures and machines were devel-
oped for sequencing sections of DNA developments that were pri-
marily made possible by private corporations, especially Applied
Biosystems mentioned above and LI-COR Corporation in Lincoln,
Nebraska hopes rose that the entire code might be within reach.
It is likely that this project was premature. Although laymen are
often given the impression that science advances by individual gen-
iuses in their laboratories suddenly shouting Eureka! and changing cialty wherein they will need to re-educate themselves and establish
the world, it is rarely this way. While an individual scientist may have
the opportunity to add the last necessary discovery to an important ad-
vance and thereby receive credit for the advance most such people
stand on the shoulders of numerous colleagues who are contributing to
the advance of knowledge along a wide and sophisticated front.
When biological science is truly advanced sufficiently to make
good use of the sequence of the entire human genome, it will also
likely have advanced to the point that sequencing the genome is easy to
accomplish. The Perkin-Elmer announcement indicates that this time
may now be near ten years after the government started pouring tax
money into the genome project with little success.
Several things were wrong with the government program.
1. It was ethically flawed. There is absolutely no way in which se-
quencing the human genome justifies the seizure of the property of free
men, women, and children by threat of force which is, of course, the
way in which the project has been financed. Moreover, as a high-pro-
file do-good project, this effort has been used politically as justification
for the seizure of far more money than required by the project itself.
Our government is always looking for publicity-attracting examples of
its good intentions with which to justify its vast seizure of private prop-
erty and the public is rarely in a position to understand that a very
small part of the governments loot is spent for these causes.
2. It, along with thousands of other unnecessary tax-financed pro-
jects, drained savings and capital from the private sector where they
would have been much more efficiently utilized for the public good,
including for medical and basic research.
3. The project was split up between many different laboratories in
academia and academic-like research laboratories. The last place to
conduct a project that depends upon the organized resourcefulness and
drive of large numbers of people working together is academia. To-
days academic institutions have substantially decayed along the same
lines as are normal for other human institutions that receive large
amounts of money that they have not earned. Ordinary government
welfare has done great damage to the poor whose self-respect and am-
bition it extinguishes. Likewise, academic government welfare pay-
ments have killed the incentives that built and maintained our formerly
great academic institutions.
4. It was premature. The technology to sequence the genome and
use this information productively had not yet arrived.
At this point, we still do not know whether or not even this invest-
ment of $200 million in private capital will yield information of com-
mensurate worth. We do not need to know. Private entrepreneurs are
risking honestly obtained money in the effort. The free market will re-
ward or punish them in accordance with the ultimately demonstrated
wisdom of their efforts.
In a broader sense, while it is good to see molecular knowledge
about living things advancing with respect to the genetic code, it is dis-
heartening to see the selectiveness of this advance. Vast areas of bio-
chemistry some of basic importance and many of medical
significance have been ignored while DNA sequencing has been
pushed up to and even beyond current technological limits. These ne-
glected areas are far more ready to bear fruit for science and medicine
at their current stages of development than have been the forced ad-
vances in DNA sequencing. This is yet another effect of government
seizure of half the earnings of the American people with small por-
tions of the money returned in self-justifying projects that are claimed
to be for the public good.
With literally billions of tax dollars available for DNA work, there
has been a tendency for scientists to gravitate toward this field to the
exclusion of other areas. Fad and fashion is, of course, always a part of
human actions, but the government giant is so flush with our money
that it tends to push its interests to far greater excesses in particular
directions than would otherwise be the case in an economically free
civilization. Moreover, in biochemistry, these unwise extremes can last
for very long times.
Most scientists, especially academics, are very slow to change
fields because they shun the effort required to start over in another spe-
reputations. The army of DNAologists who have now entered sci-
ence will do everything it can to keep the federal spigots of money
open for DNA work and to convince the public that great advances are
just around the corner.
That there will be advances is, of course, quite likely. We will never
know, however, how those advances compare with the progress that
would have been made had the earnings of the American people not
been confiscated and then allotted by federal bureaucrats to those sci-
entific projects that were best mated with their own prejudices and
with the advancement of their own bureaucratic careers.
 The large financial contributions to the Clinton Administration by
KIPLINGS WISDOM some of Microsofts competitors are now being rewarded by more
than just access to the administration through monthly meetings with
Long ago it was customary to teach young students penmanship Algore and White House perks. The rivals of these cheerful givers are
and writing skills by having them copy published texts into their copy- being attacked by Clintons justice department. As Bill Gates says,
books. The texts were selected to also provide useful information Some of our competitors dont want to compete in the marketplace;
about the lessons of life. In our home-school curriculum, we make sub- they want to compete in court.
stantial use of the writings of Rudyard Kipling. His poem The Gods of The computer industry, in which Microsoft and Intel are currently
the Copy Book Headings speaks so eloquently about so many of the the most successful companies, has literally revolutionized personal
topics covered in Access to Energy that we have decided to reprint it access to information. They have placed a technological miracle in a
below. This poem and its companion IF (also reprinted here) should be box within reach of most homes in America. Moreover, competition in
a part of the secular education of every young person. their industry is so intense that prices for these products fall so fast that
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, If You can keep your head when all about you
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. But make allowance for their doubting too;
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: Or being lied about, dont deal in lies,
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, Or being hated dont give way to hating,
So we left them to teach the gorillas while we followed the march of mankind. And yet dont talk too good, nor talk too wise:
We moved as the spirit listed. They never altered their pace, If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place; If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth youve spoken
With the hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch. Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton, they denied she was even Dutch. Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings. And stoop and build em up with worn out tools:
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
They swore if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. And lose, and start again at your beginnings
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And never breathe a word about your loss;
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: Stick to the Devil you know. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life To serve your turn long after they are gone,
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife) And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, Except the Will which says to them: Hold on!
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: The Wages of Sin is Death. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, Or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, If all men count with you, but none too much;
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: If you dont work you die. If you can fill the unforgiving minute
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew, With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true, Yours is the Earth and everything thats in it,
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four-- And which is more youll be a man, my son!
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-- a months absence from the market renders virtually all
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began-- of ones price information obsolete.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, Moreover, the particular success of these companies
And the burnt Fools bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire; has caused a widespread standardization of the market-
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, place that makes many new products by very small enter-
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, prises possible. We could not, for example, have
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, effectively disseminated our home-school curriculum on
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! 22 CD-ROMs had we not been able to depend upon most
users having Windows software. The non-standard soft-
ware from Apple was a major impediment because we were required
MICROSOFT AND INTEL to produce a separate product for the home-school families that are us-
ing MacIntosh computers. The dominance of Microsoft and Intel per-
Were Defending Our Right to Innovate by Bill Gates in The mitted us to compete with the large home-school companies, offer a
Wall Street Journal, May 20, 1998, p A14, and As Goes Microsoft, better product, and, in little more than a year, provide our product to
So Goes the Computer Industry by Thomas W. Hazlett and George over 25,000 homeschooled children and receive a recent rating as the
Bittlingmayer in The Wall Street Journal, May 26, 1998, p A18, make third most popular home-school high school curriculum in America.
the obvious case that Microsoft and the industry that currently depends We are thankful to Microsoft and Intel for providing this opportu-
upon its software should not be subject to government harassment. nity just as we would be thankful to any of their competitors who are
Now Intel, maker of the microchips in most personal computers, is able to replace Microsoft and Intel products with even better ones.
also under attack by the Clinton Administration. Punishment of these companies for political and envy-driven reasons
is unacceptable and unconscionable.

DDP MEETING
There is still time to register for the annual DDP meeting near
Phoenix, Arizona to be held on July 10-12. Rooms at the Scottsdale
Hilton are $59 and $69 per night for single or double, respectively.
Registration for the conference is $95 per person which includes two
luncheons and the banquet.
Just the tours of the Palo Verde nuclear generating station and of
the laboratory of Sherwood Idso, which includes the worlds longest
running experiment on the growth of trees as a function of atmospheric
carbon dioxide, are, by themselves, worth the trip.
We listed the speakers last month except for your Access to Energy
editor who will give a talk about the global warming Petition Project
and the prospects for further such actions. You should also have re-
ceived a special letter from DDP about the event. This is a rare use of
the Access to Energy address list that we permit each year because
the DDP meetings are so extraordinary and include speakers on many
of the topics covered in Access to Energy.
Recently I have been reading more of the writings of J. Gordon Ed-
wards (one of the scientists who will speak at this conference) about
DDT and thinking more about the children who are dying unneces-
sarily from malaria at the world-wide rate of one every 12 seconds.
These children are being killed by pseudoenvironmental genocide.
Wars have been fought to stop atrocities much less severe than this.
Yet, the Clinton Administration ignores these deaths; seeks to add to
them the much greater suffering and death that will accompany world-
wide energy rationing; and then continues to regale us at every oppor-
tunity with crocodile tears over their concern for the children.
The DDP meeting includes 16 such speakers as Dr. Edwards.
movement received its current momentum. Strong said, We may get
PETITION PROJECT
industrial civilization to collapse and, commenting on what is re-
The Petition Project has now received signed petitions from 18,700
individuals, of whom 16,500 have degrees in science. It has become a
permanent stumbling block in the way of those who wish to impose
United Nations controlled world energy rationing with the resulting
world-wide technological genocide. How much of a stumbling block?
This is impossible for us to know now.
From the amount of ammunition the enviros have expended in ef-
forts to discredit the petition, it is clear that they consider it very dan-
gerous. Clintons principal point man for global warming now finds it
necessary to attack the petition in presentations to Congressmen.
Unable to debate the science, the enviros have expended most of
their invective in ad hominem attacks upon the petitions sponsors.
This, however, is not working for them.
Recently, I gave a presentation about global warming to the
weekly science seminar at nearby Southern Oregon University. The
one hour of science was followed by a one-hour planned attack from
about a dozen enviros scattered in the audience of about 150. Remark-
ably, virtually everyone stayed for the whole, two-hour shootout. Dur-
ing the second hour, a wide variety of claims and accusations were
heaped upon me but virtually none had to do with science. When the
dust settled, the enviros seemed to have convinced only themselves.
A video of the first hour has been shown several times on local tele-
vision. Unfortunately, they did not tape the second hour, which was by
far the best and most convincing part. The set of colored 35-mm slides
for this talk are viewable on our Internet site. We will be happy to
make a copy of these slides for anyone who wishes to utilize them.
When the Senate debate on the Kyoto Treaty formally begins, we
expect the petition statement by these scientists to be a significant help.
The more signatures we have at that time, the better. We are continuing
to work on this to the limits of our resources. Please continue to help.
Updated reports of progress are available at www.oism.org/ppro-
ject and www.sitewave.net/pproject. The OISM site has been some-
what unreliable. Our Unix servers here have run for many months with
zero downtime, but our Internet service provider was frequently off-
line. We have now changed to another Internet provider.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Vice President of the United States (do we really have a Vice
President?) has now taken to issuing monthly reports of global tem-
perature from the White House as breathlessly reported by (as Petr
Beckman would have said) The New York Slime.
There is no way of knowing, of course, whether or not the 300-year
warming trend that has brought Earth temperatures up out of the Little
Ice Age and now back to the 3,000-year average will continue. This is
of little interest to pseudoenvironmentalist Algore who blames every
upward temperature fluctuation that government scientists can find or
manufacture upon the sin of too many people on the Earth.
It is truly stark raving mad that the decision on whether we will get
world-wide energy rationing and the mass genocide that will accom-
pany it turns on essentially the flip of a coin whether naturally deter-
mined temperatures happen to rise or fall during the months ahead.
The temperatures for the short period immediately ahead cannot, of
course, change the fact that mankind is just not causing catastrophic
warming of the planet. The enviros have, however, with the help of
unprincipled members of the press, relegated even the sun to a minor
position in determining the weather. Every fluctuation and they char-
acterize all fluctuations as evil is to be blamed on the technological
original sin of allowing too many people to live and prosper.
These are Earth-worshiping human-sacrificing zealots. Their rise to
prominence in the American political process is very dangerous.
l Too Hot? Too Cold? Who is Just Right About Global Warm-
ing by Rob Kremer in Brainstorm, April 1998, includes two quota-
tions by Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the Rio Summit at
which much of the current global pseudoenvironmental world control
to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for the
quired for the future, . . . the deliberate quest of poverty . . . reduced
resource consumption . . . and set levels of mortality control.
GOOD READING
l Misconceptions about Environmental Pollution, Pesticides, and
the Causes of Cancer by Bruce N. Ames and Lois S. Gold available
from the National Center for Policy Analysis, 12655 N. Central Ex-
pwy., Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243. Whether you want to prevent bio-
logical cancer for yourself and family or to slow down the regulatory
cancer oozing out of Washington, DC, the writings of Bruce Ames on
this topic are indispensable. This is well-written in laymens terms.
l Weather Based Business Decisions by Phil Volker, a Portland,
Oregon based meteorologist who has made substantial efforts to edu-
cate the public about the global warming myth. This book is avail-
able from Extended Range Weather Forecasting, 430 North Lotus Isle
Drive, Portland, Oregon 97217.
Oregon politicos still exhibit kneejerk approval for Clinton Ad-
ministration falsehoods about global warming, but this is not the case
for Oregon meteorologists. Even the Oregon State Meteorologist de-
cided to sign the Petition Project petition.
l The Consequences of Kyoto by Patrick J. Michaels in Policy
Analysis, Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washing-
ton, DC 20001. This is an excellent, well-reasoned article in which
Michaels gives the warmers all the latitude they could possibly deserve
and still shows the Kyoto treaty as a very bad and unnecessary action.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 11) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Gilder-Robinson Science and Technology Alert
Some Access to Energy readers have already received direct-mail
advertisements from Forbes Magazine about the new Gilder-Robin-
son Science & Technology Alert A Contrarian Investment Letter many areas translates into a great many more horror stories of unnec-
of Scientific Integrity. All Access to Energy recipients will soon re-
ceive a complimentary copy of the first issue of this new newsletter
along with a subscription form. This new publication will be essen-
tially an expanded, better-researched, better-written, and better-edited
version of Access to Energy that includes the additional feature of in-
vestment analysis based on the science and technology discussed.
Access to Energy will continue as always. Access to Energy has a
25 year commitment to its readers and principles. It may participate in
the raising of additional voices, but its own voice will not cease to be
heard. Actually, Access to Energy will also be improved as a result of
our increased access to excellent research capabilities.
Why are we doing this? Well, financial profit is a good motive,
and, if the newsletter is successful, we will happily receive a profit.
Profits make other projects possible. For example, the Petition Project
against the global warmers now has about 19,000 signatories includ-
ing approximately 17,000 scientists. About half of the funds for this
have been provided by direct donations from readers of Access to En-
ergy. The other half were obtained from profits in this case more
than a year of income from subscriptions to Access to Energy.
Profits are, however, not my reason for participating in this new
newsletter. Even if there were no profits, I would happily write it
without compensation (he says we hope with candor while antici-
pating compensation). I am willing to do this because this effort is
about improving human well-being and saving lives, as illustrated by
some calculations we did in preparation of the first GRSTA issue:
Analysis of results in the medical war on cancer shows that, be-
tween 1950 and 1995, good progress was made. After population ad-
justment, it turns out that cancer killed 25,000 fewer Americans under
the age of 55 in 1995 than it would have killed had 1950s preventive,
diagnostic, and therapeutic conditions prevailed. Since 73,000 such
deaths still occur annually, this is about a 25% improvement.
Taking into account all cancer deaths at all ages (including in-
creases in older age groups caused by general advances that allow
people to live longer), improvements since 1950 are now saving
about 500,000 years of American life or 6,000 lifetimes per year. We
estimate that, world-wide, about 20,000 lifetimes per year are being
saved as compared with 1950. This is a wonderful achievement. It
corresponds roughly to a decrease in highway auto deaths by 30%.
On a comprehensive world-wide basis, however, the number of
saved lives from cancer is less than 1% of the number lost to malaria
as a direct result of the ban of DDT. For every lifetime saved from
cancer, 100 children die of DDT-preventable malaria. Even this 100-
fold difference is an underestimate, since we assigned only two-thirds
of the malaria deaths to the DDT ban.
Yet, malaria is only a beginning. The UNs global warming en-
ergy rationing program, of which Kyoto is just the first step, will kill
at least 10-fold and perhaps 100-fold more people than does the ban
of DDT. Those who do not die will see their living standards reduced.
Just after the dawn of the atomic age and World War II, some of the
JUNGLE SNAFUS . . . AND REMEDIES
and Edward Teller) started serious work on the protection of civilian
Cresson H. Kearny and I first met at a conference of the American
Civil Defense Association in 1986. At that time, Cresson strongly ob-
jected to my public advocacy of government civil defense shelters for
the American people not to the shelters, to the advocacy in 1986.
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
Nor does the killing stop with the DDT ban and energy rationing.
The slowing and, in some cases, reversal of technological progress in
essary human suffering and death.
Suffering and death often results from public ignorance about the
truth ignorance that is the result of poor education, poor distribution
of factual knowledge, and active disinformation by propagandists
who exploit public ignorance and fear.
We are fortunate to have a monthly opportunity to correct some of
this nonscience with Access to Energy. This opportunity is then am-
plified by its use in independent work by AtE readers.
The Gilder-Robinson Science and Technology Report will, how-
ever, reach a mostly different and potentially much larger number of
people. As an investment newsletter, it can sell for a substantially
higher price. This provides funds for more advertising which also
distributes our message. Just the initial advertising of GRSTA exceeds
all such advertising of AtE since it was originated. Moreover, our
message will be substantially enhanced and better communicated by
working with George Gilder, a very talented and experienced tech-
nologist and writer, and his coworkers.
Newsletters are an important aspect of media communications.
Newsletter advertising may, however, be equally or more important.
Direct mail advertisements are typically received by about 100 peo-
ple for each one who subscribes and each of those advertisements is
a powerful means of communication. The pro-nuclear power, anti-
pseudoenvironmentalist message of Access to Energy reached 80-
fold more readers in GRSTA ads than it will reach through AtE itself
this month readers who, for the most part, have less knowledge
about these subjects than do the readers of AtE.
When the stakes are as high in human life as they are with such
issues as DDT and global warming, it is not enough to do any less
than the maximum possible with the skills and opportunities avail-
able. We are fortunate and delighted to have this remarkable opportu-
nity to do much more by working with George Gilder, Forbes
Magazine, and their co-workers.
Should an Access to Energy reader subscribe to both publications?
People with substantial investments should do so. They should also
subscribe to the Gilder Technology Report which has a proven re-
cord of success in telecosm technology. While investment analysis is
inherently difficult and sometimes incorrect even with the best pro-
fessionals, the analysis in both of these newsletters is superior. Even
small bits of good analysis can be very rewarding where significant
investment capital is at risk. For those who cannot benefit from such
analysis, the choice is more difficult. Even at discounted prices, these
newsletters are expensive.
In the 20 years that Petr Beckmann published Access to Energy,
he did much to resist and refute the antitechnology causes of those
who promote ignorance and myth under a facade of pseudoscience.
We do our best to continue his effort. The GRSTA provides an oppor-
tunity to substantially amplify the effects of this work. Just the adver-
tising alone should cause much unhappiness in antitechnology land.
principal scientists who initiated that age (especially Eugene Wigner
populations from the effects of nuclear explosions. This civil defense
research work eventually expanded to include protection from nuclear,
chemical, and biological threats from accidents, terrorism, or war
dangers that have increased along with science and technology.
 This research and development effort was so successful that Presi-
dent Truman became the first United States President to advocate sub-
stantial civil defense protection for the American people. This
advocacy was later strongly supported by both Presidents Kennedy
and Reagan, who tried to implement effective American civil defenses.
Unfortunately, advocacy of civil defense by these Presidents was
not enough. The American government provided very little civil de-
fense protection for its citizens. The small amount that was provided
was completely eliminated by the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
(The adopted Republican Platform in 1988 contained a plank that I
wrote, which called for a strong civil defense one of many planks that
the Bush Administration ignored after it was elected.)
American engineers, particularly at the Oak Ridge National Labo-
ratory civil defense development program, watched as their technology
was installed in Switzerland and some other European countries, in the
Soviet Union, and even in China but never in the United States.
Eventually, after decades of experience and disappointments, they
shifted emphasis to self-help civil defense and developed the tech-
niques reported in the remarkable book Nuclear War Survival Skills by
Cresson H. Kearny originally published by the U. S. government.
This book of tested home-makable defensive techniques and devices,
which, in its updated edition, was widely distributed by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to its personnel during the Reagan
Administration, would have saved many American lives in case of nu-
clear terrorism or war and may still do so. It even contains tested
instructions by which almost any individual with a few hours work can
manufacture a reliable, calibrated fallout radiation meter from a tin can
and other materials found in most American homes.
Julian Simon reminded us that people are the ultimate resource.
And, occasional, unusual individuals are more than resources they
are national treasures. Cresson Kearny is one such individual. His
presence on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory team was essential in
turning self-help civil defense into a practical field of endeavor.
That day in 1986 at the TACDA meeting, Cresson knew something
that I then refused to believe. He knew that American politicians and
bureaucrats would never provide a proper civil defense for the Ameri-
can people. Therefore, he viewed my advocacy as a diversion from
self-help measures. Now, 12 years later, our only effective civil de-
fense work at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine consists of
the distribution of self-help information to American families includ-
ing, most importantly, our role as publisher of Nuclear War Survival
Skills by Cresson Kearny.
Though not generally recognized by academic universities except
by his degrees earned at Princeton and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford
Cresson Kearny is one of the finest experimental scientists that I have
ever known. He is an extraordinarily rigorous experimentalist. In intel-
lect and investigation he is so rigidly honest and candid that, were it
possible, he would be said to carry these two virtues to an extreme. In
innovation he is unsurpassed. Many of Americas foot soldiers in wars
during the second half of the 20th Century owe their lives to the fact
that Cresson Kearny became Americas leading expert in the design of
proven infantry equipment, especially for jungle warfare. When, dur-
ing this distinguished career, he turned his attention to civil defense,
the results were also remarkable.
One aspect of equipment for the foot soldier that has long con-
cerned him is the tendency for military bureaucrats to forget lessons
learned in previous conflicts and then slowly reinvent needed equip-
ment at the expense of many lives. This memory hole for simple life-
saving technology is especially tragic.
For example, it is important for soldiers in wet environments to
float. One day several years ago after Cresson had been telling me
about his frustration over the failure of the U. S. government to provide
proper flotation devices to soldiers in Vietnam many of whom con-
sequently drowned I happened to be rereading the diaries of Julius
Caesar. Caesar and his enemies in the Roman civil war were maneu-
vering with hundreds of thousands of soldiers when very heavy rains
complicated the issue. Caesar writes that his opponents have a great
advantage because it is their custom to supply their soldiers with
breath-inflatable bladders which keep them afloat in streams and riv-
ers. Just in Cressons lifetime, this simple but important lesson has
been forgotten and relearned several times. One wonders how many
times the need of infantry for personal flotation gear has been rein-
vented during the past 2,000 years since Julius Caesar wrote.
Cresson Kearny is now 84 years old. For the past nine years, he has
been working on a project that he hopes will preserve essential infor-
mation about infantry warfare and equipment. The end result of this
work is an entertaining autobiographical book which contains the tech-
nical information needed to reconstruct needed equipment at any time
in the future. He has named his book Jungle Snafus . . . and Reme-
dies. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is fortunate to be
its publisher. This book is scheduled to be printed on July 20. Access to
Energy subscribers may now order a copy from OISM, P. O. Box
1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523 or from Access to Energy, P. O. Box
1250, Cave Junction, OR 97523 for $19.95 postage paid. This is a low
introductory price for this 420-page hard-cover book. The commercial
price to be listed three weeks from now will be substantially higher.
The dust cover of Jungle Snafus . . . and Remedies includes state-
ments by three men John K. Singlaub, Major General U. S. Army
(Ret.), the accomplished commander of American forces in Asia;
Howard K. Smith, the well-known war correspondent; and George C.
Ferguson, who was awarded 12 (thats not a misprint it is twelve!)
Purple Hearts before being made Command Sergeant Major of CON-
ARC, the Continental Army Command of the United States.
General Singlaub writes: Throughout the military history of the
American people, the qualities that have contributed most to winning
battles have been the ability and the willingness of its combat leaders
to innovate and solve unexpected problems with ingenuity and creativ-
ity. Jungle Snafus . . . and Remedies provides an amazing revelation of
first hand stories and anecdotes that enable the reader to gain ideas and
examples of how imaginative thinking by combat leaders can avoid
disasters, save lives, and win battles. The book is a fun read and covers
many areas unrelated to jungles. I strongly recommend that all leaders,
especially those in infantry and Special Operations units, read this fas-
cinating collection of combat wisdom.
Howard K. Smith writes: This is the record of a large part of a
lifetime devoted to detecting things that went wrong, often fatally, for
the foot-slogging soldier in Americas twentieth century wars, and in-
venting canny ways to set them right. This anecdotally rich work is
essential for soldiers who would like a better chance if there is a next
time, and interesting for those who merely enjoy learning new things.
Command Sergeant Major Ferguson writes: This book includes
descriptions of much of the combat-proven equipment, ranging from
lightweight breath-inflated boats and individual flotation devices to
cool, mosquito-protective uniforms, that again should be produced and
issued to American soldiers. Teams from my Jungle Platoon needed
such equipment when reconnoitering some 40 Japanese-held islands
and destroying installations. Nor would all 11 Rangers of the team I
commanded have been drowned off Omaha Beach had they had the
breath-inflated bladders issued late in World War II to many thousands
of our soldiers fighting Japanese invaders.
It is important to realize that, whether in war or in peace, our lives
depend on science and technology of many different types. There is
today too great a belief that simple technological lessons of the past
(which often contain the solutions to very sophisticated problems) are
low tech and out of date. This myth is embodied especially in a
ridiculous and despicable phrase in common use by generally helpless
academics the post-industrial society which generally means
that the efforts of other people will clothe, feed, house, and transport
the intellectual to and from his places of lofty thoughts. Information
is valuable and thoughts are essential. Those, however, who believe
that America can cease to produce and can trade thoughts and informa-
tion for production are due a rude awakening.
To the foot soldier, theory that has not been translated into action
and equipment has little value and technology that is not there might
as well never have been invented. With Jungle Snafus . . . and Reme-
dies, Cresson Kearny has helped ensure that it will be there.
 velopment of National Science Education Standards for a nation
PALO VERDE
education. We are leading the fight to ensure that the teaching of evo-
The DDP meeting in Phoenix included a tour of the Palo Verde Nu-
clear Generating Station nearby. Producing enough electricity to meet
the requirements of Hong Kong, New Zealand, Denmark, Portugal,
and Israel combined, Palo Verde serves about 4 million American cus-
tomers. The electricity output of its three reactors is equivalent to six
Hoover dams. A single Palo Verde fuel load has the same energy ca-
pacity as a railroad train of filled coal cars stretching from Phoenix to
Pittsburgh. Ah, but what do we do with the radioactive waste?
If all of the high-level radioactive waste (all spent fuel and associ-
ated radioactive materials) that has ever been generated by all United
States nuclear power plants combined were placed on one football
playing field, the pile would be only nine feet deep.
Moreover, if the American nuclear industry were allowed by our
government to reprocess its fuel thereby further ensuring that nu- Kyoto plan to ration and severely restrict world energy supplies.
clear power would be the least expensive electric generating method,
then the remaining pile of waste in that singe football field would be
reduced to a depth of only three inches. England, France, Japan, and
most other countries do reprocess their fuel.
With reprocessing, all high-level fuel waste ever produced from all
American nuclear reactors could be stored in one room the size of the
large family room in our farm house. Actually, we would rather have it
in a suitable underground pit nearby, so that we could safely draw off
some heat during the winter and reduce our cancer risk by hormesis.
Palo Verde is required to keep all of its unreprocessed spent fuel
and fuel assemblies at the power plant, since the U. S. government has
reneged on its contract to provide off-site storage for which electric
utilities have already paid more than $10 billion. Each Palo Verde re-
actor has, therefore, a pool of water about the size of an extra deep
backyard swimming pool in which the past decade of waste is stored.
Plans call for this to be eventually transferred to dry storage casks in a
building at the plant.
Each of the three Palo Verde units currently produces 524 mega-
watts of electricity. High pressure hot water from each nuclear reactor
passes through a heat exchanger so that water near the reactor is not
circulated through the turbines. This exchanged heat contained in high
pressure steam drives a turbine-generator that is 200 feet long and pro-
duces as much electricity as two Hoover dams.
And how do the enviros and our government officials show their
thankfulness for this engineering miracle from the past? They demon-
ize it with ongoing propaganda lies and, thereby, prevent the building
of additional such plants in the United States. Asia, however, unaf-
fected by this nonscience, is building dozens of new nuclear power
plants with enough capital left over to buy obsequiousness and trea-
son from these same U. S. government officials.
sea water, it can easily be shown that the atmospheric increases could
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ADVOCACY
We recently received a direct mail solicitation from the National
Academy of Sciences (signed by its treasurer) which is supposed to
be Americas most prestigious scientific organization. We are invited
to contribute $35, $50, $100, or $1,000 by checking one of the conven-
ient boxes on the reply form. If we send $1,000, we . . . will be hon-
ored with membership in The Prometheus Society.
Prometheus was the mythical Greek Titan who gave fire to man. As
punishment for this, he was chained by the gods to a mountain where,
each day, an eagle arrived to eat out his liver which he then regrew in
time for the next days feast of the eagle. Given the National Acad-
emys recent record of actions, we are wondering whether this $1,000
honor would associate us with Prometheus or with the eagle.
In any case, if we cannot afford $1,000, the appeal assures us that
any donation at all will bring us straight from the bastions of the
Academy a mouse pad with Albert Einsteins picture on it.
The letter brags about National Academy of Sciences accomplish-
ments, including help for the threatened Alala crow of Hawaii
(trumpeted in the first sentence of the NAS appeal letter) and the de-
that, with their help, has become last in the developed world in science
lution stays in our classrooms, and creation science stays out no
doubt to encourage intellectual freedom. We are at the forefront of
the debate over whether to use statistical sampling for the year 2000
census a partisan political issue. NAS also brags about the devel-
opment of a 15-year blueprint for a massive undertaking to map and
sequence the human genome which, after wasting billions of tax
dollars, is now being supplanted by private industry with a 3-year plan
at less than one-tenth the cost and no tax dollars.
Missing from the appeal is mention of NAS work on the apparently
less important issues such as the ongoing pseudoenvironmental geno-
cide from the DDT ban, the continuing program to ban all industrial
halogen compounds (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) such as
methyl bromide the indispensable agricultural fumigant and the
Actually, NAS has not been completely silent on these issues. They
managed to issue a one-page press release stating that they were not
involved in our Petition Project to obtain American scientific opinion
on global warming (although more than 70 individual NAS members
did sign the petition) and they have elevated to the position of NAS
Foreign Secretary the august personage of Sherwood Rowland, one of
the Ozone Three whose politically motivated one-third of a Nobel
Prize in return for his support of enviro myths about freon and ozone is
an embarrassment to the scientific community.
The NAS letter says: Many of these [NAS] studies are publicly
[tax] funded, because we are trusted by the government to explore top-
ics in a way that no other organization can. No doubt about this!
TRACING ATMOSPHERIC CARBON
Since the oceans, atmosphere, vegetation, soils, and detritus of the
Earth (mostly the oceans) contain 40,000 gigatons of carbon (Gt C)
and since annual exchanges between these reservoirs are hundreds of
Gt C and are not accurately known, it cannot now be reliably deter-
mined whether or not the 5 to 6 Gt C humans are releasing into the
atmosphere are the cause of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Known resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and shale are about
10,000 Gt C, so human activity could, over a period of thousands of
years, add only about 25% to the Earths easily available carbon diox-
ide. Yet, an increase of about 35% in atmospheric carbon dioxide has
occurred during just the past 200 years (mostly during the past 50).
This increase is either the consequence of human releases which have
not yet equilibrated with the oceans or of release of carbon dioxide by
the oceans as the Earth warms naturally from the Little Ice Age.
From the temperature dependence of solubility of carbon dioxide in
Figure 1
be coming from that source just as more carbon dioxide bubbles out
of a soft drink if the temperature is increased. And, even though in-
creases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, like increases in atmospheric
temperature, would generally be good for the Earths biological envi-
ronment, opponents of world energy rationing would prefer to argue
that the increase in carbon dioxide is of nonhuman origin. This is a
stronger political position but only if it is right. There are three obser-
vations which warn us that it might be wrong.
First, the same uncertainties in carbon balance that prevent reliable
attribution to humans also prevent reliable attribution to the oceans.
Second, the atmospheric carbon dioxide exchange rate with the
other reservoirs, as measured by atmospheric carbon 14 since atmos-
pheric bomb testing was terminated, is slow enough given the uncer-
tainties to be consistent with the human release hypothesis.
Figure 1 from Accelerator radiocarbon dating of art, textiles, and
artifacts by A. J. T. Jull, Nuclear News, June 1998, p 32, gives carbon
14 values from tree rings and seeds that are more precise than earlier
compilations we have seen. Carbon 14, normalized to pre-bomb test
values (1.00), was 1.82, 1.41, 1.2, and 1.1 (given in text) in 1964, 1974,
1985, and 1998 respectively giving half-lives of 10, 11, and 13 years.
Roughly estimating, without calculus, let us assume that 30 Gt C,
40 Gt C, 50 Gt C, and 30 Gt C were released by humans in the 1960s,
1970s, 1980s, and half of the 1990s, respectively, and that there have
been 3, 2, 1, and 0 half-lives of 10 years duration elapsed since each of
these decades. This gives 3 + 10 + 25 + 30 = 68 Gt C.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide rose from 315 parts per million in
1960 to 360 ppm or 750 Gt C total in 1995. [750] - [(315)(750)/(360)]
= 94 Gt C. This, given the many uncertainties of measurement, is close
enough to 68 Gt C to indicate the rise could be from human release.
Third, the tree-ring measurements of very long-lived pine trees
which we have cited earlier (see, for example, Access to Energy 25-3,
November 1997) show markedly accelerated growth from carbon di-
oxide increases of the last century, but they show no such accelerated
growth during the Middle Ages (1,000 years ago). Since temperatures
were warmer then than they are now, ocean outgassing (if it occurred)
should also have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide at that time.
Thomas Moore discusses the weaknesses in the warmers claims and,
VALIDATION
to result from rising carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures.
It is becoming distressingly common for people to speak of scien-
tific models being validated by experiment and of experimental re-
sults being validated by other experiments with similar outcomes.
Validate seems to have become a sort of uncourageous way to im-
ply prove, and it does not properly convey the scientific method.
Hypotheses are invented in the minds of men to explain and cor-
relate experimental observations. Sometimes, hypotheses are invented
even without such observations. A useful hypothesis contains, within
itself, the means by which it can be tested by experiment.
Occasionally a hypothesis is so well-constructed that a definitive
experiment can be carried out that, on its own, either rigorously
proves or destroys the hypothesis. Other, usually poorer, hypotheses
suggest weaker experiments dozens of which may provide mount-
ing evidence for the hypothesis, but none of which is definitive.
A theory is a hypothesis or collection of hypotheses that have
great general utility and have stood either one or more definitive ex-
perimental tests or a great many suggestive experimental tests.
All theories and hypotheses are vulnerable to destruction by just
one definitive experiment regardless of the weight of evidence or of
scientific opinion in their support.
In parallel with the tragic decline of academic standards, morals,
and ethics in our universities, the language and syntax commonly used
in science has also deteriorated. Scientists should state their hypotheses
clearly, marshal the evidence in their behalf with conviction, never rest
in efforts to prove themselves wrong, and responsibly state the ways, if
any, their conclusions affect the lives of other human beings.
Instead, we read endless pusillanimous papers in which the authors
stake out shiftable positions that are so adjustable that they can be
made to fit virtually any later discoveries. The goal seems to be to
place so many caveats in ones publications (in the guise of being oh so
scientific) that you can never be proved wrong and can, regardless
of the ultimate results, show that you were on the right track.
Is becomes may be; proves becomes validates; and a
paper that clearly states its position on a controversial issue becomes
unbalanced and not appropriate.
Where the science in question has significant implications for the
lives of other human beings, this sort of behavior is not just tragic it is
unconscionable. Anyone working in such an area has a moral obliga-
tion to be decisive and clear, and to correct or reverse direction when-
ever he sees that he has made an error. Honorable, decisive men make
mistakes, while indecisive men avoid criticism and also avoid honor.
STARK RAVING MAD
l From the catalog of Earthpulse Press Incorporated we are offered
the book Technologys Curse: Diet for the Atomic Age by Sara Shan-
non, with a foreword by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, Ph.D. Dr. Sternglass
provided Petr Beckmann with a wealth of stark raving mad material,
and he is apparently doing his best for us, too.
The book, we are promised, will tell us about special foods that will
protect us from the effects of this silent threat [low level radiation].
The review ends with the sentence: Technologys Curse: Diet for the
Atomic Age may well become a survival guide to the next millennium
for those willing to listen or those exposed to this creeping toxin.
However ionizing radiation may be described, creeping is just
not quite appropriate and, of course, the best dietary protection would
probably be foods rich in low-level radiation itself that might pro-
vide, therefore, protection through hormesis.
GOOD READING
l Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldnt Worry about Global Warm-
ing by Thomas Gale Moore, published by the Cato Institute, telephone
(800) 767-1241. Atmospheric temperatures and carbon dioxide may
continue to rise together, but not necessarily as causes of one another.
more importantly, the great benefits to human life that would be likely
l Environmental Justice: How the Race Card is Being Dealt into
the Game of Eco-Politics by David Rothbard and Craig Rucker in
CFACT BP # 107, June 1998, Committee For A Constructive Tomor-
row, P. O. Box 65722, Washington, DC 20035. As professional racists
team up with professional pseudoenvironmentalists, the mix becomes
especially repulsive. The white population is, according to them, pref-
erentially polluting the environments of black and hispanic Americans.
l Is Reality Optional and other essays by Thomas Sowell, Hoover
Institution Press, Stanford University, Stanford, California recom-
mended by Jeff Cooper, in whose world of defensive firearms reality is
definitively not optional. This Thomas Sowell book is excellent and
very entertaining.
l The UP Spectrum Paradigm by George Gilder in Gilder Tech-
nology Report, Monument Mills, P. O. Box 660, Housatonic, MA
01236, telephone (888) 484-2727.
We can all use computers, the Internet, and the rest of the micro-
cosm thanks to technologists who have provided us with user-friendly
miracles in inexpensive boxes. For, however, those who intend to go
further to understand or invest in this revolution, the Gilder Technol-
ogy Report contains very valuable information and analysis.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
AUGUST 1998 (Vol. 25, no. 12) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
2000 Manias
With the Dow Jones Industrial Average now falling back from its
first test of the 10,000 level, we are reminded of the many years in
which it repeatedly stalled at the 1,000 level before going through.
Investment markets are quite interesting from a scientific perspec-
tive because they consist of tens of millions of people who pay to
send in quantitative data about themselves. Superimposed upon fun-
damental prices are the greed, fears, hopes, and reason of statistically
large numbers of human beings. To students of numbers, this data is
as fascinating as it is complex with numbers linked to rational
thoughts intermingled with numbers arising from irrational numer-
ologies all mixed together, just as they are in the human population.
In evaluating these numbers, it is important to realize that they
represent human beings as they are not as some might opine that
they ought to be. The Dow after all is a small, statistically insig-
nificant list of common stocks for which there exists no rational basis
for particular numerical price levels. It has, however, a long historical
record (although the list of stocks has been revised many times) and,
most importantly, an almost universal following in the press. This
makes it the market number that most people know.
Magic numbers which arise and are impressed on investment
markets by human decisions are ubiquitous in commodity markets
where traders must deal with them on a daily basis. Stock markets
move much more slowly than commodity markets, so these numbers
express themselves less frequently. Still, they are there. On a numeri-
cal basis, it seemed reasonable that the Dow might bounce downward
from 5,000. When, however, it passed through 5,000, it was logical to
expect the mania to extend itself to 10,000. Past 10,000 is 20,000
unlikely, but, if 10,000 is penetrated, a good possibility.
The legendary commodity trader, W. D. Gann, made a fortune by
means of understanding the magic numbers and ratios with which
human action determines market turning points.
While sophisticated and rational schemes that correct for changes
in dollar purchasing power and incorporate superior systems for de-
termining real values seem more prudent to follow, the mass actions
of human beings with one eye on the numbers on newspaper front
pages more often determine market turning points. Even among the
most sophisticated investors, such as the professional commodity
chartists who drove the markets in which Gann participated, certain
charting techniques and calculation methods gain popularity and be-
come, therefore, self-fulfilling.
It is truly remarkable that even when a great fundamental market
force moves many individual markets in one direction, numerous in-
dividual markets arrange themselves in the preceding weeks and
months so that magic numbers will express themselves when the
overall move takes place. In the current sharp deflationary action, we
see that corn penetrated $2.00 per bushel; gold fell below $300 per
ounce [a little earlier, since it tends to lead]; silver broke $5 per ounce;
and the Commodity Research Bureau Index, a broad average that
would seemingly have no rational link to any special numbers, duti-
fully broke below 200 at just the most critical moment of collapse.
Human action, a partially irrational force, determines prices.
any previous time during this 18 year record. The 18-year trend line
THE SUN IS WARM
corrections) is still slightly negative or, within statistical signifi-
During recent months, satellite temperature measurements of the
lower troposphere have risen from those prevalent in early 1998. The
previous 18-year range was about 0.8 C. The recent rise by about 0.6
C from the approximate mean is to a level about 0.2 C warmer than at
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
So, it is not surprising that the coming calendar change to the year
2000 is giving rise to many predictions of turning points. The market
for books predicting the date of Armageddon has been expected to
sharply expand and, perhaps, the general level of morals will show
some improvement as people hedge their actions against a perceived
increase in the probability of death and judgment. There is, however,
little evidence that this has altered the behavior of our President.
[Probably the best book ever written on this subject is Observa-
tions upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John
by Sir Isaac Newton, first published in 1733 and republished by the
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in 1991 $19.95 postage
paid from OISM, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523. Isaac
Newton was opposed to the use of Scripture in attempts to predict the
future, but he works his numbers out so carefully that his book actu-
ally contains an implicit prediction (not, it turns out, the year 2000).]
Eclipsing all other year 2000 fears, however, is the remarkable
growing belief that Western civilization will collapse as a result of a
single computer bug that inhabits obsolete software systems and
older computer chips. The Y2K mania has now become so wide-
spread that realtors in Southern Oregon have been noticeably busier
serving customers fleeing the cities; survival food companies are seri-
ously backordered (while grain farmers are being devastated by over-
supply and low grain prices); and sales of Nuclear War Survival
Skills, also available from OISM for $12.50, have sharply increased.
Yet, what is the reality? First, nearly all of our heavy industry is
manually operable without computers and is currently managed by
men in their 50s and 60s who grew up computing with slide rules.
Considering our technological society as a whole and omitting the
newer computers that do not have the bug (virtually all PCs); the
computer systems that will be fixed before 2000 (most well-managed
enterprises); the computer applications that are not unusually date
sensitive and are therefore easily correctable by simple date roll-back
(see, for example, www.sitewave.net/y2ksb); applications that can
continue to operate at reduced but adequate efficiency without com-
puters, such as grocery stores that might lose their inventory control
systems; and the wide range of American enterprises staffed by a
hundred million inventive and productive people who are not simply
going to lie down and die but instead will innovate their ways
around problems in numerous different ways there is just too small
a remaining part of our civilization that can be seriously damaged by
Y2K for it alone to cause the widely predicted collapse.
While it is possible to make a straw that breaks the camels back
argument that the Y2K glitch will set off a crisis already waiting to
happen such as overvalued markets or the massive debt pyramid,
there are many such straws available now and our government seems
committed to keeping us plentifully supplied in the future.
Still, human nature makes the year 2000 definitely a magic num-
ber. Who knows how many forms of craziness will converge upon
this date? Emergency preparedness for Y2K alone is silly, but general
preparedness, physically and economically, is sensible. The current
bull market in year 2000 fears is an important indicator.
(even after recent improvements for satellite drift and other minor
cance, essentially unchanged because the recent rise so far covers a
short time interval. The global warmers are, of course, ecstatic. Per-
sonally, if we had predicted chaos, we would be greatly prefer to be
proved wrong but not these people. Only a frying Earth will make
them happy. Actually, since the sharp rises in this record are usually
followed by sharp drops of from 0.4 C to 0.8 C, there is little for
them to crow about. It is possible, however, that this recent rise is part
of a new warming cycle.
Figure 1
As Figure 1 shows (see Figure 4, Access to Energy 25-3, p 2 for this
and related references), the Earths warming trend of during the past
250 years correlates very closely with solar activity. It does not, as we
have shown previously, correlate with human activity.
As reported in Will 1998 be the warmest year on record? in ec- niskis estimate that $350 gold represents the current price level, a con-
ollogic, May/June 1998, available from P.O. box 191, Hollow Rock,
TN 38342, p21, an increase in solar radiation occurred simultaneously
with this recent rise in atmospheric temperature. Solar flares of such
great intensity that they knocked out Telstar 401 Communications in-
dicated a significant rise in solar activity.
It may be that the sun is entering another upward fluctuation in ac-
tivity like the four other such fluctuations shown in Figure 1. Science
News 152, p 197 (1997), reviewed a paper by Richard C. Willson in
the September 26, 1997 issue of Science in which Willson reported
that solar radiation had increased by 0.036 percent between 1986 and
1996. The concomitant increase in energy absorbed by the Earth turns
out to be, according to Willson, 70 times greater than all energy util-
ized by human activities during the same time period.
In any case, conclusions about global warming must be based on
the entire experimental record not upon short-term fluctuations. It
would be equally ridiculous for global warming opponents to an-
nounce, after the next downward fluctuation in temperatures, that this
was evidence of global cooling. To the best of the authors ability, the
relevant data is displayed and referenced in the paper Environmental
Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by A. B. Robin-
son, S. L. Baliunas, W. Soon, and Z. W. Robinson, which was distrib-
uted by the Petition Project. This paper has been expanded somewhat
and submitted for ordinary publication. Also, the original paper has
been picked up by several publishers for republication. The most nota-
ble is the Medical Sentinel 3, No. 5, September/October 1998. It is also
available along with the current list of petition signers (we are now up
to about 19,000 signers, which includes 17,000 with degrees in sci-
ence) at www.oism.org and www.oism.org/pproject.
The hypothesis that human activity is significantly changing the
temperature and weather of the Earth is not supported by the experi-
mental data and is, in fact, rejected by it. Moreover, the data show that
the Earth has been much warmer during recent millennia, for which
there is a substantial human historical record. Those warm periods
were not characterized by environmental disruptions from warmer
temperatures. Therefore, we need not worry about environmental ca-
lamities even if the natural, sun-mediated warming trend continues.
The only warming trend currently affecting the global energy ra-
tioning schemes of the Clinton-Gore administration is moral. Both of
these protagonists are in so much hot water due to their lack of morals
and ethics that they have been unable to promote their enviro agenda.
DEFLATION
As difficult as it is for post-World War II Americans to compre-
hend in the light of economic conditions during the past half-century
(during which government-caused inflation wiped out all dollar de-
nominated technological gains in productivity and 95% of the dollars
purchasing power besides), we are now in a period of deflationary con-
traction, and we are threatened with severe economic deflation.
Two excellent articles about this are The Optimum Price of
Gold by Jude Wanniski, The Wall Street Journal, January 7. 1998. p
A22, and The Coming Bust by James Grant, The Wall Street Jour-
nal, August 28, 1998, p A10.
The summarizing insets of these two articles read: A great boom
is mortal precisely because it is great: It creates its own excesses. A
self-absorbed market becomes its own reason for being, and Golds
price has dropped to a level we have not experienced since 1979,
which suggests the general price level will have to decline in order to
equilibrate with gold.
A glance at commodity prices shows the remarkable breadth of this
contraction, which seems now to be spreading to the stock markets and
will probably soon start to significantly affect general consumer prices.
Corn is under $2 per bushel (less than $0.04 per pound); wheat is
about $2.50 per bushel; copper is $0.75 per pound; and crude oil is
under $14 per barrel. Worse, it is predicted that corn could fall as low
as about $1 per bushel, with many other commodities similarly weak.
How much could the general price level contract? Following Wan-
traction to the current gold price of $275 would be more than 20%
with large individual variations (government will, no doubt, continue
to become more expensive, while farmers are bankrupted).
To those who have no debt, some savings, and an ability to con-
tinue with their ordinary work and personal lives even if their incomes
markedly contract, deflation is tolerable even advantageous, since
correction of economic excesses sets the stage for the next expansion.
For those, however, with debt and highly leveraged lifestyles, deflation
can be very painful. Current farm prices represent negative incomes for
many farmers, and a 20% contraction in real values exceeds the invest-
ment equity of a majority of the American people.
It is important to recognize that people bid for goods and services
on the basis of their own perceived wealth not on the basis of cash in
hand. Regardless of the fact that most stock market investors can never
sell their stocks for prices as high as those quoted in the newspapers
(the quotes are for current trades at the margin, while actual prices
would be much lower if a significant percentage of people were to try
to sell), these investors have been bidding for goods and services on
the assumption that their stocks represent their actual wealth.
If the stock market undergoes a long overdue contraction, literally
trillions of dollars in perceived purchasing power will disappear from
American markets. This would be deflation on a scale that no rational
amount of government money creation could hope to counteract.
How far could the stock market deflate in real terms? There is an
excellent chart of gold price vs. the price of one share of each of the
Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks during the past century at web
address http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_98/jmiller082498.html.
Values of the gold/Dow ratio at the extremes in this chart are 1, 18, 2,
28, 1, 32 in 1897, 1928, 1932, 1966, 1980, and 1998 respectively. This
suggests that the price of gold vs. stocks could reverse by a factor of
about 30 during the next half-cycle. Since the two down half-cycles in
the record were completed in 4 years and 14 years, the potential is for a
fast reversal within the lifetime of most current investors. Reversal of
this ratio could occur with many different values in dollar terms. For
examples, the Dow could be 2,000 and gold $2,000; the Dow 500 and
gold $500; or the Dow 10,000 and gold $10,000.
No one knows, of course, what any of these market prices will
eventually be. We do know, however, that widespread deflation has
begun. If it continues, the consequences will be unusual indeed for the
American people and their activities in science and technology.

COOL IT LIFE-SAVING TECHNOLOGY

Although we do not know which direction the sun will fluctuate To the pseudoenvironmentalists, each new human being is another
over the coming years warmer or cooler, it is clear which direction Earth-destroying demon except, of course, the superior elite group to
we should hope that it will fluctuate. If the Earth becomes warmer than which they and other special people like them belong. Therefore, data
humans think desirable, there are several means by which human ac- like that in Figures 2 and 3 is further evidence of technological evil.
tivity can cool the Earth. If the Earth becomes too cool, however, there These figures are reproduced from The Lost Children by Peter
is no known practical way to generate enough energy to warm it. Brimelow, Forbes, December 29, 1997, p 47. In the United States
S. S. Penner, Journal of Clean Technology and Environmental Sci- since 1700, infant mortality has dropped from 20% to 0.7% while
ences 3, No. 3/4 (1993), who works at the University of California at deaths of pregnant women have dropped from 3.3% of live births to
San Diego and is one of Americas most brilliant engineers, has esti- 0.007%. As recently as 1940, one in 300 pregnant women died. Now
mated that the conversion of about 2% of the jet fuel in commercial jet fewer than one in 10,000 dies. These accomplishments the preven-
airliners during a four-year period into particulate forms similar to tion of 96.4% of infant deaths and 99.8% of maternal deaths as com-
those emitted by volcanoes could cool the Earth by about 3 C. Ex- pared with 1700 are entirely the result of technological progress and
trapolating to expected air transport in the year 2050, he estimates that the energy supply system upon which that progress depends.
this could be done by the same means in one year rather than four. These wonderful improvements in the quality and quantity of hu-
Professor Penner estimates the cost of this cooling method based man life do not just happen because, in some special way, the people of
upon either conversion of ordinary jet fuel or the use of a new jet fuel the 20th Century are entitled to them. They are not provided by gov-
into which coal has been blended. He proposes that the method be de- ernment. They are provided solely by advances in science and technol-
veloped by careful studies of volcanoes which currently cool the ogy the same science and technology that has doubled the average
Earth in the same manner. His rough current estimates are that 1.5 C human life span. Nor are they the products of post industrial activi-
of cooling with coal blended fuel would cost less than $300 million. ties brought to us by the information economy.
The particulates produced would shield the Earth from a part of the Industrial infrastuctures food, steel and concrete, roads, bridges,
suns radiation so small a part that people on the Earth could not see dams, factories of all sorts underlie the medical industries and the
the shield or personally detect its presence. hygiene and nutrition industries that save these lives. All of these in-
Other means of injecting this shield into the upper atmosphere have dustries depend upon energy the energy that Al Gore and his gaggle
also been suggested such as the use of naval guns to shoot it into the of population reduction retainers seek to confiscate by rationing.
atmosphere. In any case, we can be
certain that this method would work
because volcanoes frequently cool
the Earth in the same way.
We can only hope that the suns
activity tends toward the warm side.
In addition, however, mankind can
also bias human activities toward
those that might help in this warm-
ing. Although carbon dioxide release
is apparently not especially promis-
ing in this regard, any effect that it
does have will probably be warming
rather than cooling.
Carbon dioxide release from coal,
oil, and natural gas is beneficial be-
cause it increases the plant and ani-
mal populations of the Earth. It is
also beneficial because any effect it
eventually might have upon Earth
temperatures would be toward
warming the desirable direction if
mankind is to have an opportunity to
tune the Earths thermostat. We have Figure 3
means available to cool the Earth, but
we have no means available to warm
it. If our climate becomes too warm,
human engineers can fix it. If, on the
other hand, natural forces were to
lead us into a new ice age, our engi-
neers have no means available with
which to counteract this.
Human engineers have available
a low cost air conditioning cooler
than can be applied to the whole
Earth. They do not, however, have Figure 2
available a heater. Therefore, we
should bias all of our activities to-
ward warming in case the sun be-
comes cooler.

LIFE EXTENSION BY PLUTONIUM
Enviros assure us and news media parrot their claims that pluto-
nium is the most dangerous substance known to man. American nu-
clear power plants are still not permitted to recycle their high-level
radioactive waste, while most countries do recycle. Recycling auto-
matically disposes of 97% of this waste. Our bureaucrats prohibit re-
cycling largely because of the terrible dangers posed by plutonium
the most demonized material on the planet.
Of interest, therefore, is Fifty Years of Plutonium Exposure to the
Manhattan Project Plutonium Workers: An Update by G. L. Voelz, J.
N. P. Lawrence, and E. R. Johnson, Health Physics 73, No. 4, pp 611-
618 (1997). The subjects (workers at Los Alamos) received, on aver-
age, a three-fold higher exposure to plutonium than the maximum
currently recommended by the National Council on Radiation Protec-
tion (0.01 Sv times age).
Standard mortality ratios of the exposed workers when compared to
the general population and to unexposed contemporary Los Alamos
workers were 0.43 and 0.77 respectively. In other words the number of
exposed workers who have died as compared with the these two
groups is less by 57% and 23%. The second comparison is especially
relevant, since it avoids systematic differences in life style between
Los Alamos workers and the general population.
These results are in agreement with the many other studies of nu-
clear workers and other groups (see previous issues of Access to En-
ergy), which have shown that radiation exposure extends lifespan.
meet them and be entertained by the courses, too. Things like learn-
25 YEARS OF ACCESS TO ENERGY
Said one state educator about Seaborg and his associates, They
This issue of Access to Energy marks the completion of its 25th
year of publication. The readership of Access to Energy is approxi-
mately one-third scientists and engineers and about two-thirds indi-
viduals with no formal scientific training many of whom are,
however, talented and productive self-taught technologists. While
never a large circulation newsletter, readership today stands at a 25-
year high with readers of sufficient commitment that they provided,
for example, nearly all of the funding for the global warming Petition
Project that has now gathered the signatures of 19,000 Americans in-
cluding 17,000 with degrees in science or engineering.
In partial celebration of our 25th anniversary, we are updating the
CD-ROM of back issues and improving its computer interface. We ex-
pect that this fully searchable CD of all 25 years of issues will be avail-
able in the near future. (The price will be $95, but please do not order
until we announce that we have the CDs ready for shipment.)
gallon of ethanol than energy contained in a gallon of ethanol. He
LEIPZIG DECLARATION
l The Green Genocide Agenda: Saving the Earth by Killing Hu-
In the near future, we will be sending to all signers and supporters
of the Petition Project (which includes a large percentage of the readers
of Access to Energy) some information about the Science and Environ-
mental Policy Project headed by S. Fred Singer and including the Pro-
jects anti-global warming petition entitled The Leipzig Declaration
on Global Climate Change.
This is a very valuable Declaration. The more signers they obtain,
the more difficult it becomes for the warmers to propagate their myths.
Also, S. Fred Singer and his co-workers are very energetic opponents
of the global warming myth. Their efforts have contributed quite sub-
stantially to the possibility that the global warmers will be defeated.
ERROR
In Access to Energy 25, No. 11 we erroneously gave the power out-
put of the three Palo Verde nuclear generators as 3x524 MW. The ac-
tual value is 3x1240 MW. Our comparison with the power needs of
several countries which we trusted and parroted from another
source also is in error. Our thanks to those who pointed out this error
(though you are, no doubt, part of a vast, right wing conspiracy. . .).
STARK RAVING MAD
l As the countdown to the Clinton apology continued, The Wall
Street Journal composed a memorable suggested speech for the Presi-
dent. This column entitled Mea Culpa, The Wall Street Journal, Au-
gust 4, 1998, p A18, should be read by every American. That it could
be truthfully written for any federal government employee, much less
the President of the United States, is truly Stark Raving Mad. (Less
than 10% of the speech has to do with Monica.)
l With a river of tax money flowing to NASA, there is apparently
no limit to the nonsense they are willing to provide to their benefac-
tors.Greenhouse Warming Hurts Arctic Ozone by R. Monastersky,
Science News, p 228, April 11, 1998, reports a NASA Goddard Insti-
tute for Space Studies announcement that global warming is cooling
the Arctic and thereby destroying ozone. Never mind that there is not a
single published experimental paper that demonstrates the existence of
recent greenhouse warming. Theoretical (not experimentally ob-
served) warmth makes cold according to their computer models.
The truth is that NASA and their paymasters have invested much
time and money in the ozone scare. They hope the residual public fear
will help them to sell the human-caused greenhouse warming myth.
l When Glen Seaborg, two other Nobel laureates, and their group
of scientists and teachers tried to give free advice to the California pub-
lic schools about the teaching of science, they were rudely rejected and
ridiculed. Instead, the state paid $178,000 to a group that believes edu-
cational standards must be written to make sure virtually all kids can
ing facts and mental arithmetic are no longer politically correct.
wouldnt know a classroom if you put it in front of them.
GOOD READING
l Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy, published by G. P. Putnams Sons
(1998) and available in most book stores. This time Clancys bad guys
are the population reduction enviros. Not only do the bad guys lose,
but super popular Clancys characterizations in this novel will do
much to weaken their public appeal.
l Energy and Dollar Costs of Ethanol Production with Corn by
David Pimentel, Hubbert Center Newsletter #98/2, pp 1-7 (1998),
published by the M. King Hubbert Center, Colorado School of Mines,
Golden, CO 80401-1887. This article documents facts concerning
government-subsidized ethanol production from corn. For example,
Pimentel calculates that about 71% more energy is used to produce a
estimates current real cost of ethanol production as $2.52 per gallon.
mans by Alan Caruba, The DeWeese Report 4, No. 8 (1998), avail-
able from P.O. Box 40, Maplewood, NJ 07040.
Caruba writes, The notion of ridding the earth of people in order
to save it is the core belief of the inner circle of those who determine
national and global environmental policies. We tend to associate
such maniacs with the historical past (even though World War II is
only 50 years behind us). The fact is that they are here today with an
agenda that dwarfs that of their genocidal predecessors.
l Building a Better Future: Contributions of Nuclear Science and
Technology (1998), published by the International Atomic Energy
Agency, Wagramerstrasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 1998 (Vol. 26, no. 1) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Misinformation
At his Telecosm Conference September 15-17, George Gilder
presented one session in which Rich Karlgaard, Timothy C. Forbes,
Michael Medved, Thomas Sowell, and Arthur B. Robinson discussed
the subject Misinformation in an Information Age. In another of their own interpretations and differentiations and to inexpensively
the sessions, Internet technologists spoke about emerging technolo-
gies that are expected to soon expand communications bandwidth so
much that the entire Library of Congress will (after it is scanned) be
transmittable in about 5 seconds.
The amount of information that each person will soon have per-
sonally available through an investment of less than $500 in equip-
ment will be essentially unlimited. Not all information is true, soever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be
however. Falsehoods abound in our environment. Are we soon to be
inundated with misinformation? What filters will be available?
Traditionally, our information has been filtered through those with
monopolies on its gathering and storage. News media spend large
amounts of money gathering information and then disseminate fil-
tered and condensed segments to the public. Unfortunately, the media
have changed from reporting the truth to manipulating the public
mind with falsehoods that enhance media power and the political ef-
forts of those whom they favor. Newsletters and other micromedia
sources partially but only partially correct media bias.
Schools and universities have thrived because they have vast
storehouses of information in their libraries and in the minds of their
faculties knowledge that students and their families pay very large
amounts of money and time to obtain. During the past two genera-
tions, however, American schools and universities have largely aban-
doned objectivity in the filtering and condensing of information
presented to their students. Except in the sciences (and not even there
in fields heavily financed by politically derived tax money), most
educational institutions have become propaganda machines with little
remaining regard for truth and objectivity.
Money, prestige, and power flow to those who control the minds
of human beings. Our traditional information gathering, storage, and
dissemination institutions have gradually become occupied by people
who are primarily interested in mind control and have little regard for
the truth. These institutions are, themselves, the primary sources of
misinformation in our society. They have prospered and have be-
come powerful and fat because they have held monopolies on the
supplies of primary information and can, therefore, bend and hide
the truth to serve their own self-interests.
The Telecosm is now in the process of breaking the monopolies of
our principal sources of misinformation. Recognizing this threat and
also the power of the new electronic means of communication, the
propagandists are engaged in extensive efforts to flood the Internet
with their offerings. So, as bandwidth increases, so does the amount
of misinformation. There is, however, an important difference the
truth is also available. Whereas before the Telecosm, propagandists
with information monopolies could stand between the people and the
primary information, now they can only place their propaganda in the
bandwidth beside the primary information itself. In effect, with
transmission costs dropping toward zero, truth and falsehood now
several students in the class and asking that we all go to the chalk-
BOOKS VS. BOOKS board and write the structures of the amino acids. He then interro-
gated us from left to right, beginning one year with your editor who
At Caltech in the 1960s, Professor Borsook began his introductory
biochemistry course with the suggestion that we should all know the
structures of the amino acids and certain other biologically important
molecules. He reinforced this suggestion soon afterward by pointing to
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
stand in direct competition with one another everyone will have
very low cost access to an essentially unlimited quantity of both.
Hundreds of millions of people will have the means to carry out
disseminate their conclusions and source information to each other.
I am convinced that, in this new circumstance, truth will be the
winner and misinformation the loser.
About 2,000 years ago Paul wrote: Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what-
any praise, think on these things. [Philippians 4-8] This was more
than just good advice. Paul was certain to win with this exhortation,
because the things which he was advocating are naturally ascendant
in the human spirit. That which is true, honest, just, pure, and virtuous
is naturally valued by human beings, while that which is the opposite
is not. In almost all circumstances, even those who promote false-
hood, dishonesty, and injustice must pretend that they advocate truth,
honesty, and justice because the opposites are fundamentally alien
and repulsive to human nature.
Where true information and misinformation stand in direct com-
petition with one another in the presence of hundreds of millions of
human beings with equal and easy access to both, true information
will triumph most of the time. In view of the great volume of infor-
mation, there will be an expanding demand for those who distill and
interpret information but the free market will weed out those who
provide misinformation. They will no longer be able to hide behind
monopolies on the primary information sources and repositories.
For the first time in human history, most human beings will have
unlimited access to the truth to information that is true, honest, just,
pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and worthy of praise. We may
depend upon the natural proclivities for these things in the human
spirit to filter truths from their opposites.
There are those who will say that this optimistic view is unwar-
ranted that human beings are too easy to fool that those with
power and money will remain in control of the public mind. These
pessimists underestimate, however, the fact that propagandists de-
pend upon their versions of the facts having a free ride. They depend
upon the truth being unavailable. They also depend upon those who
do see the truth being unable to communicate their analyses widely
with others. The Internet destroys these shields of misinformation.
We are now in the midst of a transition to truth. Already the effects
can be felt. The misinformationists won the battles over nuclear
power, DDT, and CFCs. They won with lies. Now, however, they are
in danger of losing the battle over global warming and even in
danger of having some of their earlier victories reversed. Why? The
Telecosm which is still in its infancy.
Computer technology can never replace the human mind and
spirit. It can, however, free human civilization from the chains of
false information. There are reasons to be optimistic about the future.
The death of the information monopolies is one of those reasons.
had stationed himself on the far left. Sternly he asked if the structures
I had drawn were amino acids to which I replied, the book says
that they are. This was definitely the wrong answer. Borsook imme-
diately launched into a lecture on the dangers of believing everything
one reads in books. It turns out that proline and hydroxyproline are
imino acids rather than amino acids, although they are often errone-
ously listed as amino acids.
Professor Borsook was concerned about errors. It is difficult to
write a whole book without making some sort of unintentional error,
so the student should be cautious thinking about the meaning and
reliability of each thing that he reads.
Today, however, unintentional errors are the least of the problems.
Materials are being inserted into elementary text books and presented
as facts even though the authors know that these facts are, at best,
unproved assertions and hypotheses.
Traditionally, elementary text books in science and mathematics
contained solely the most reliable knowledge of the time. Only hy-
potheses and theories that had stood the test of definitive experimental
observation or of rigorous mathematical derivation were included.
Where possible, the derivations and experimental observations were
included in the text to encourage the student to evaluate them himself.
As the misinformationists have worked their will on college text-
books, the humanities have been the first to fall. Moral and ethical ab-
solutes right and wrong in human affairs lack anchors in
mathematical derivation. While there is a wealth of experimental ob-
servations in the histories of those peoples that have abandoned moral
absolutes, this information is easily handled by simply not presenting it
to the students. Labeling themselves with pseudoscientific labels such
as social science and political science or with traditional labels the observed increase in the average global air temperature of 0.3 to 0.6
such as history and literature, humanities curriculums have gen- C over the past century. Algore himself could not have said it better.
erally become unfit for human consumption.
Now, the sciences are being dragged down, too. While introductory
chemistry books of the past restricted themselves to teaching funda-
mental physical principles on which a sound understanding of chemis-
try and of the scientific method could be built, current textbooks
include politically correct chapters with contents that masquerade as
facts on the basis of little more than their presence in a science book.
Chemistry: The Central Science: Seventh Edition by Theodore L.
Brown, H. Eugene LeMay, Jr., and Bruce E. Bursten, Prentice Hall
(1997), which is the introductory chemistry text at Southern Oregon
University, provides an example.
Chapter 18 Chemistry of the Environment opens with a glow- one year after this book was written but there has never been a time
ing endorsement of the June 1992 Rio de Janeiro United Nations con-
ference on Environment and Development. The chapter introduction
assures the student that he now knows (from Chapters 1-17) enough
chemistry to apply it to environmental affairs the only caveat being
that unfortunately, the environmental impacts of our decisions are
often very subtle and not immediately evident. This prepares the stu-
dent for politically correct assertions that are not based upon experi-
mental observations. No pseudoscientific enviropropaganda stone is
then left unturned.
After three pages of qualitative statements about atmospheric ozone
chemistry (from which not even the most brilliant of students could
deduce anything quantitative about the atmosphere), the usual colored
representation of annual Antarctic ozone level decreases during the fall
months is shown. This is followed by an ode to the Montreal Protocol
and later agreements banning the production and use of demon CFCs.
Also included is a paragraph crafted to look like concern over the eco-
nomic impact of the ban but actually giving the student an impres-
sion of cost that is at least two orders of magnitude too low.
Nowhere in these pages do we learn that the seasonal Antarctic
ozone reduction was observed and published in the scientific literature
by Dobson (after whom the unit of ozone concentration is named) long
before the human release of CFCs into the atmosphere. Also, there are
no graphs showing world average ozone levels or UV light levels.
These graphs cannot be shown because even the least talented fresh-
man chemistry student might notice that they are in conflict with the
claims made in the text.
Moving quickly through acid rain, again with qualitative, enviro-
friendly statements, the book leaves the student with the false impres-
sion that this is a serious environmental problem but without any data
from which to draw his own conclusions. Then we come to an odd
section on carbon monoxide another demon which, we are told,
comes mostly from automobiles and binds strongly to hemoglobin
molecules. The primary listed hazard is death from carbon monoxide
inhalation. Although again no quantitative data is given, the inquisitive
student may notice that he has not seen many bodies lying beside free-
ways or hulks from accidents caused by the sudden deaths of drivers
behind the wheel. Quantitative information would help in teaching stu-
dents the specific circumstances under which carbon monoxide is dan-
gerous, but this would diminish the desired generalized fear.
Nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons are passed through in a similarly
non-quantitative manner except for a chart listing the National Tailpipe
Emission Standards (and the California standards). All the student can
memorize from this text is that these substances are bad and that our
government has come to the rescue with standards which are appar-
ently endorsed by the authors of his textbook.
Then, of course, comes global warming. A graph of the Mauna Loa
carbon dioxide measurements vs. time is shown to demonstrate that
carbon dioxide is indeed rising. Also, the student is given a brief, quali-
tative explanation of the energy-trapping, greenhouse properties of
water vapor and carbon dioxide. After the stage has been thusly set it
sounds like science, but lacks any information which the student could
use to evaluate the matter for himself the text informs: A consensus
is emerging among scientists that this increase [in carbon dioxide] is
already perturbing Earths climate and that it may be responsible for
A graph of this temperature increase would have permitted the dis-
cerning student to notice that most of the increase occurred before the
carbon dioxide increase and, therefore, could not have been caused
by it. Then there are the graphs of temperature vs. solar activity, the
satellite and balloon measurements, the 3,000-year temperature re-
cords, and numerous other quantitative experiments that negate the
global warming hypothesis. None of this is supplied to the student.
Moreover, the claimed consensus has never existed. True, the best
demonstration of this by our Petition Project [10 to 20 times as many
scientists in each field of specialization rejecting the global warming
hypothesis as compared with those who have endorsed it] was made
when the claimed consensus existed or was supported by docu-
mented studies, surveys, or other techniques. The authors of this intro-
ductory science text book that is supposed to teach verified scientific
information have no data at all to support this claim.
The authors, who were ever so detailed in their description of the
binding of demon carbon monoxide to hemoglobin molecules, neglect,
of course, to mention the photosynthetic benefits of rising CO2, which
increases the amounts of plants and animals in the biosphere.
With all of this, it is hardly a surprise that, in Chapter 21 under the
section on Radiation Doses, we discover a section demonizing ra-
don as a health hazard . . . estimated to result in as many as 10 percent
of lung cancer deaths. The students are told that The U. S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA) has recommended that radon-222
levels in homes not exceed 4 pCi per liter of air. If they were shown a
graph of the research data from Bernard Cohens study of radon con-
centrations vs. cancer deaths, these students would see that there is in-
deed a link between radon and lung cancer a 20% reduction in lung
cancer deaths caused by radon levels of about 6 pCi per liter of air.
This data would, of course, blunt the message that nuclear is dangerous
and radiation is bad, so it is not shown.
If we were permitted to insert graphs of actual research data into
each of the envirofriendly propaganda sections of this book, the effect
of each of those sections on the students would be negated and, in fact,
reversed. Experimental facts are, of course, not wanted by the authors.
It is apparently now acceptable to allow the students to learn pH and
mass action law calculations and other simple procedures that are ordi-
narily taught in introductory chemistry, but, for the really important
things, they are to be taught to trust and parrot.
So, should we lobby for balance in freshman chemistry books?
Should data countering these enviro sections be inserted? No! The en-
viro sections should simply be deleted. Fundamental principles of
chemistry discoveries in this field that have stood the test of experi-
mental observation and which underlie a basic understanding of physi-
cal science are all that should appear in an introductory text.
First, the chemistry in this text has already been diluted too far. If
the students are ever to have an understanding of fundamental science
and therefore an ability to think productively about scientific matters,
their brief time for learning the fundamentals should not be diminished
by political activities.
Second, by mixing the teaching of fundamentals with trust-and-par-
rot propaganda, a false sense of understanding is conveyed. Users of
this text, who have been successfully learning the fundamental infor-
mation, are left with the impression that they are also expert in the en-
viro matters even though they did not quite understand and therefore
memorized the conclusions rather than using their ability to think.
For comparison, consider two texts that are used in our 22 CD-
ROM curriculum for ages 6 to 18. Deflation of academic standards has
been so severe that most college-level freshman and sophomore
courses in American universities now cover material that was routinely
taught in high school a generation earlier. For this reason and also be-
cause our curriculum is designed to provide materials for students with
all levels of ability and perseverance including the most brilliant we
use some seemingly advanced chemistry texts. One of these was writ-
ten by Linus Pauling in the 1960s and the other by the great chemist G.
N. Lewis a generation earlier.
The Lewis text is exemplary. Lewis would not have dreamed of in-
serting into his text anything other than fundamental chemistry. The
text is pure science at its best (for the advanced student who has al-
ready completed introductory chemistry and physics). The Pauling text
(General Chemistry, Third Edition), published a generation later (I
helped a little with this book and taught introductory chemistry with it
in the 1970s), shows the first glimmerings of drift from fundamentals.
The phrase evolution of species appears once, in one sentence.
Pauling can, I think, be forgiven for this. He was so much the father
of the field of inquiry that is called molecular evolution that the unit
of rate of change in protein structure is known as the pauling. Even
so, he sneaks it into his fundamental text so minimally that it is evident
that he realizes it does not belong there. Had I pointed it out at the time,
he probably would have removed it. Without comment on the evolu-
tionary hypothesis itself, it is obvious that hypothetical material which
has not been experimentally verified and is not pertinent to the subject
of chemistry does not belong in the book. The Pauling digression is,
however, one sentence buried in an otherwise impeccable section not
a separate 26-page chapter devoted entirely to trust-and-parrot propa-
ganda as in the book profiled above.
When the freshman chemistry course at Southern Oregon Univer-
sity reaches Chapter 18, students desiring an A grade in the course
are going to do a lot of memorizing. Later they will remember the mis-
information that they memorized in their science course and most of
them will believe it to be true. My 18-year-old daughter Arynne is now
taking this course. Do I suggest that she lie on the exam or do I sug-
gest that she tell the truth and receive a lower grade?
be able to depend upon its momentum. It will compete on a vast, level
GILDER-ROBINSON REPORT
The second force is the moral and intellectual decay of American
Many Access to Energy readers have called or written to ask about
subscribing to the Gilder-Robinson Science and Technology Alert de-
scribed in Access to Energy 25-11. The newsletter was launched with a
mailing by Forbes of 500,000 direct mail letters; two full newsletters
and most of a third were completed along with a 20-page special report
and an article for Forbes magazine; and the first of these newsletters
was mailed to the new subscribers. The text of our AtE 25-11 article
about this project was checked and edited by our coworkers at Gilder
Technology Group.
What happened next is that Forbes received only about two-thirds
as many subscriptions in reply to their first 500,000 appeal letters as
they expected and therefore concluded that the newsletter would not
be as good a business as they had anticipated.
Current plans are to re-launch the newsletter in January 1999. In the
meantime, there is one timely bit of investment advice that I doubt my
coworkers will mind sharing with the readers of Access to Energy (it
was mentioned in the 500,000 letters). Buy uranium.
While nuclear power is stagnating in the United States, it is growing
rapidly in other parts of the world. Moreover, the long lead time for
nuclear power plants makes predictions of future fuel demands espe-
cially reliable. Uranium prices are far below their peaks, show techni-
cal indications of an extended bottom formation, and are much lower
than they will need to be considering predicted supply and demand
over the next decade.
I do not know a convenient way to buy uranium itself (it is not
traded on the major commodity exchanges). If a reader knows a way to
do this, please let us know. There are several large corporations for
which mineable uranium comprises a significant part of assets. With
corporate stocks, of course, one takes business risks and general stock
market direction risks in addition to the commodity price. Consult your
stockbroker about these aspects.
SELL ACADEMIA SHORT
On the subject of investment recommendations, there is one other
recommendation (not covered in the initial issues of Gilder-Robinson)
that everyone should consider. Do not invest in any aspect of the cur-
rent American educational system - elementary or university. If I
knew a way to sell this system short, at least one-fourth of our long-
term investment capital would be doing so.
We wish Bill Gates and all other entrepreneurs who have contrib-
uted greatly to the technological revolution the best. When, however,
you look back on stock market results 20 years from now, among the
most spectacular performers will be the corporations that replaced the
current educational system. As things were two decades ago in Tele-
cosm stocks, most of these corporations have not yet been noticed and,
in many cases, do not yet even exist. Watch for them.
I predict that these will not be companies that are trying to use the
new technologies as adjuncts to the current educational system. Nor
will they be companies currently in the education business. These
companies are too influenced by experts to make a revolution.
At this time, three enormous forces are converging on the education
industry an industry that employs several million Americans at an
annual cost of several hundred billion dollars.
The first of these forces is the advent of true global competition in a
technological age in which education both for the technologists and
for the general public whose consumer and political whims affect the
course of technology has become an essential ingredient of personal
and national survival.
Up until now, the American educational system has controlled this
force, but this control is drawing to an end. At present, American
graduate schools of science and technology are filled with foreign stu-
dents learning from American professors in their 50s and 60s. Soon
these professors will retire and their students will establish world-class
educational programs in other countries. Then America will no longer
playing field with well-educated people in many countries.
tax-financed public schools and American universities. While this sys-
tem still contains small islands of excellence and sanity, most of it is
too far gone to salvage. It exists today largely on social momentum and
lack of competition a lack that will soon be filled by:
The third force, which is the information revolution. There is just no
remaining need for centralized educational facilities. The best intro-
ductory physics professor in the United States can now teach all of the
physics students in the United States. (Actually, we probably will have
a few dozen such professors to allow for students of different abilities
and for competition in teaching methods.)
I have seen one relatively primitive micro example of this future in
our home school curriculum on 22 CD-ROMs. Six children on a re-
mote Oregon farm now teach more than 25,000 students at one-tenth
the cost of other home school curriculums and one-hundredth the cost
of tax-financed schools and with unusually high academic standards.
These three the ascendance of education as an essential of sur-
vival; the irreversible decay within American educational institutions;
and the rise of technology that would make those institutions obsolete
even if they were not in a debilitated state are three massive trends
that cannot be stopped and will soon cataclysmally merge.
Moreover, this revolutionary environment is ideally suited to the
rise of an educational version of Microsoft with a secondary industry
of other companies whirling around its skirts. The current educators
including money moguls who are now buying up education com-
panies on the apparent theory that the more monkeys one has, the
greater the chance that one will write a symphony will not know
what has buried them until it is far too late.
Deflation and unemployment in the education industry will send
millions of educators looking for honest work, while a few compa-
nies that effectively harness the new information technology to educa-
tion will grow spectacularly.
It is popular now in high-tech circles to spawn laws and para-
digms. The successes of Moores Law and Gilder Telecosm para-
digms have generated many imitators. If we had a snappy word for the
revolution we will see in education (Educosom? perhaps readers
have some suggestions) and a large enough audience to establish name
recognition for it, we might have the fun of naming this revolution.
To be sure, it will have a name and it will come and our current
schools and universities will be the slide rules of the future (about
which we tell our grandchildren partially to their disbelief).
GOOD READING
NUCLEAR APPROVAL RATING
l Telecosm by George Gilder. Prepublication manuscripts were
Nuclear News, September 1998, p 12, published by the American
Nuclear Society, 555 N. Kensington Ave., La Grange Park, IL 60526,
reports that a public opinion poll in June 1998 showed that 61% of
Americans favor the generation of electricity by nuclear power.
Each respondent was asked: Do you strongly favor, somewhat fa-
vor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as
one of the ways to provide electricity for the United States? Answers
from the general public were 25% strongly favor, 36% somewhat fa-
vor, 15% somewhat oppose, 19% strongly oppose, and 5% dont
know. Democrats and women averaged only 56% in favor, while Re-
publicans and men averaged 67%. The poll was taken by telephone
and was comprised of 1,000 adults over the age of 18. Errors in the
percentages are reported to be plus or minus 3%.
About half of the respondents agreed that more nuclear power
plants should be built in the future.
This is the highest approval rating for nuclear power since 1983. It
is sad that technologists who want to provide clean, safe, and inexpen-
sive electricity are enslaved to public opinion, but this is the legacy of
the enviro antinuclear propaganda. Let us hope that these percentages
climb high enough to restart the construction of nuclear power plants
in the United States.
significant historical event. Our hero always succeeds at the side of one
AUDIO ON THE INTERNET
braries, these make great bedtime reading for adults, too.
Arnold Jagt, who wrote the Windows interface for the Robinson
Self-Teaching Homeschool Curriculum, also sells the curriculum
through his excellent web site at www.robinsoncurriculum.com. Ar-
nold now has started inserting audio into our various web pages, for
which he is additionally responsible.
Included in www.robinsoncurriculum.com is a talk I gave to a
home school group, and www.oism.org has a lecture on global warm-
ing that I gave at Southern Oregon University, which was videotaped
there for use on local television. (The first part of this tape is a little
confusing, because the video editor thought it was artistic to show the
speaker in video and then gradually bring up the audio with the result
that the introductory sentences are lost.)
Eventually, the bandwidth technologists will probably have us all
standing together in three-dimensional holograms.
STARK RAVING MAD
l Culture of Honor Reveals a Violent Streak by B. Bower, Sci-
ence News 154, September 12, 1998, reviews a paper by by Dov Co-
hen in the August 1998 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Cohen claims to have discovered that areas with stable families and
communities, regular religious participation, and stronger standards of
personal honor have greater amounts of violence. These same areas, he
finds, elect politicians more likely to endorse U. S. military actions, a
strong national defense, and weak gun control laws. The South and
West have culture of honor traditions that encourage aggressive re-
sponses to insults and threats to oneself, ones home, and family.
No doubt Cohen would also find unfortunate streaks of violence
among the soldiers, scientists, and technologists who have fought the
wars and developed the weapons that have maintained the United
States as a country so free and prosperous that she can afford the lux-
ury of pusillanimous psychologists.
l Remarked one of the moguls of Silicon Valley at the Gilder Tele-
cosm conference (who charitably remains nameless here, since it was a
private remark) I like Al Gore. Hes a friend of technology.
No doubt this pathetic multimillionaire is one of those The Wall
Street Journal had in mind in its editorial entitled Silicon Saps,
September 30, p A18, which reported that John Doerr, the Silicon
Valley pal of Vice President Al Gore, raised a tidy sum for Democrats
when President Clinton passed through California last Friday.
distributed at his September Telecosm conference. Gilder Technology
is at P.O. Box 660, Monument Mills, Housatonic, MA 01236. Write to
them for publication information.
No one knows for certain where the Internet and computer revolu-
tion is going, but George Gilder is the best source of sensible predic-
tions provided in an exciting and witty format.
l To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth by Jeff Cooper,
Paladin Press, P.O. Box 1307, Boulder, CO 80306. Buy two send
one to Dov Cohen.
To say that Jeff Cooper is the greatest living teacher of personal
defense with fire arms is only to begin the description. He is also the
most articulate and intellectual living American proponent of the char-
acteristics of personal honor that founded the United States and have
kept her free for over two hundred years.
Even now, at nearly 80 years of age, Colonel Cooper pursues a full
schedule of writing, hunting, and professional events and still finds
time to provide instruction in the use of pistol or rifle to about 100 stu-
dents each year. (Call Tom Russell at (806) 669-7378 for information.)
l Any of the approximately 100 books written by G. A. Henty
about 100 years ago. These are essentially Horatio Alger books for
children with the addition that each is set in the midst of a different
or more great historical figures. Available in used book stores and li-
Henty lived in England during the high point of the British Empire,
so the selection of historical events reflects a strongly British influence.
The most amusing of his books is that set in the American revolution-
ary war. The British win all of the battles, enjoy overwhelming popular
support, and accidentally surrender in the last few pages of the book.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
OCTOBER 1998 (Vol. 26, no. 2) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Truth, Science, and a Free Nation
The United States now faces a very serious looming national crisis
(and it surely is not Y2K). Until recently, although the signs of
trouble were gradually increasing, we did not have solid proof of the
seriousness of our situation. Now, the evidence is inescapable.
No civilization based upon freedom and free enterprise can exist if
its people do not insist upon truth, justice, and common decency as
essential elements of public morality. That is not to say that all of its
citizens must always be truthful and just. Public morals the mores
that dominate public discussion, laws, and action must, however,
demand honesty, justice, and decency. Without these mores, freedom
does not work. Without them, a country drifts, of necessity, into tyr-
anny and slavery its people controlled by force alone.
Sound public morals have prevailed in America during most of its
history. Our laws, while not always equitable or equitably enforced,
have generally mirrored these morals. Lesser transgressions have
been codified in our laws as misdemeanors, while very serious
transgressions have been designated felonies.
During recent weeks, however, it has become evident that public
mores in the United States have collapsed. Most Americans now
know that the President of the United States the head of our national
armed forces and of our national law enforcement agencies is guilty
of several felonies and of actions that were untruthful, unjust, and in-
decent. Moreover, these actions were taken repeatedly and deliber-
ately, over many months during business hours, inside the physical
office of the President, and at tax-financed expense. Further, the
President spent millions of dollars in tax money directly on efforts to
prevent the discovery of these actions.
It is not, however, the Presidents actions that are evidence of a
national crisis it is the response of the American people to those
actions. It should be entirely unnecessary for the Congress to even
consider impeachment. Simple resolutions in both the Senate and
House asking Bill Clinton to resign passed virtually unanimously,
since no legislator would dare face his constituents otherwise
should be enough. Actually, even these resolutions should be unnec-
essary. The Congressional leadership both Democratic and Repub-
lican should have explained to Mr. Clinton that these resolutions
would be unanimously passed if he did not immediately resign.
The truth, unfortunately, is otherwise. It is apparent that many
Americans possibly even the majority of Americans think that
Clintons actions were consistent with his remaining in office as the
President of the United States. To be sure, not everyone feels this
way. Disgust, for example, in the American armed forces has become
so prevalent that our soldiers and officers have been ordered by their
commanders (who report to Bill Clinton) to stop making derisive
public comments about the President. The fact is, however, that Mr.
Clinton is still the President of the United States. This fact provides
inescapable evidence that our public mores requiring truthfulness,
justice, common decency, and even reasonable fiduciary responsibil-
ity have collapsed. Without these mores, we can only be governed by
tyranny and raw force. Unless the degradation of public morality is
reversed, our free republic may soon cease to exist.
They do so, unfortunately, in spite of the schools rather than because
IMMUNIZING YOUNG ADULTS
ence. On the other hand, they have developed some acquired immu-
About 3% of American children are now being home schooled
which gives them a chance to develop into decent adults with their
minds intact and useful. Also, a small percentage of those who are at-
tending tax-financed schools are emerging still rational and decent.
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
Is there a way back? Perhaps. Last month in Misinformation
we discussed the positive contribution that will be made by the com-
munications and information storage revolution. At least, it is becom-
ing impossible to hide the truth which places liars at a disadvantage.
Another bright spot is the continuing collapse of tax-financed edu-
cation. Tax-financed education is one primary means by which the
destruction of public morality has been brought about.
When a child studies mathematics and real science (as opposed to
trust-and-parrot propaganda masquerading as science), each assign-
ment is a subliminal lesson that the world contains right answers and
wrong answers black and white truth and falsehood. When he
studies classical literature and history written by the best minds of the
past two millennia, he also finds scholars striving to learn and com-
municate the truth in difficult, complex subjects.
In our tax-financed educational institutions, however, mathemat-
ics has been dumbed down and right answers are now de-emphasized
in favor of grading the students method rather than his results. The
scientific method and thought problems have been cast aside in favor
of descriptive memorization. The student starts by memorizing true
superficial facts and then is easily led into the memorization of propa-
ganda. In essence, we now have new subjects masquerading under
the names math and science but with truth, reason, and the essence
of rational thought removed as much as possible.
In the humanities, the tax-financed institutions have simply re-
placed classical works of literature and history with new-left propa-
ganda. A review of the humanities curriculum and required books of
almost any university (much less those of the schools for ages 6 to
18) shows that this process is nearly complete. If an author uses
enough foul language, portrays morality as relative rather than abso-
lute, describes sufficient indecency, and dogmatically adheres to the
current politically correct propaganda lines, he has a good chance of
being read in these curricula in preference to classical authors.
To a mind that has been adequately trained in math, science, and
classical humanities, Bill Clinton is simply a pathetic degenerate who
should not occupy any position of serious responsibility. To a mind
that has been trained in the new pseudomath, pseudoscience, and po-
litically mutated humanities, everything is relative, so Clinton is O.K.
Hes one of us, and maybe he can be induced to give us a little more
of someone elses property. In any case, we need not worry that right
and wrong or common decency will deter him from favoring us.
Most typical American children are now in the clutches of these
tax-financed propaganda institutions for several hours per day. Sev-
eral more hours are then spent with television and other media which
reinforce the new morality.
Judeo-Christian morality built the United States and allowed it to
flourish. Math, science, and classical humanities reinforced this mo-
rality so much so that even those who departed from their religious
heritage were able to comfortably coexist with it. The way back to
that morality is by the same path we followed in the first place - relig-
ion, math, science, and classical humanities. The revolution in elec-
tronics will make it much easier for us to follow this path.
of them and most of them retain emotional scars from the experi-
nity which may serve them well in todays society.
A large percentage of 18-year-olds entering college today have the
following superficial and fundamental debilities: They are unable to
think analytically; they have very little ability to extract information
from books by reading; they have poor study habits; they generally
lack a productive work ethic; they have defaced their bodies in vari-
ous ways as with rings and tattoos; their chances for fulfilling per-
sonal lives have been reduced by moral and sexual debasement; they
are very profane in speech; and they have little knowledge of or inter-
est in the great legacy of literature, history, and thought that forms the
base of our civilization.
In college, they typically find a peer group that reinforces the bad
habits they acquired in tax-financed schools and a humanities faculty
that encourages and extends these habits. Science faculties, except for
the soft sciences which receive lots of tax money, tend to be much
more conservative both personally and in the content of their courses
but political correctness has made substantial inroads there, too.
An astonishing argument often leveled at home schooling is that the
children will not develop necessary social skills like, apparently,
nose rings, profanity, dishonesty, and sexual promiscuity. Sending a
well-brought-up young person to one of these educational institutions
is roughly equivalent to sending him to the zoo.
So, American young people score last on average in the developed
world on virtually all academic tests and enter society so morally
drained that they think Bill Clinton is a suitable President. The mo-
mentum of the accomplishments of previous generations of Americans
then feeds, clothes, and houses them as they enter the work force. aged companies which are often later destroyed by them.
I know too much about this now because I have recently released
three Robinson children into the American university system and will
soon release three more. After a brief period in which they vainly
search for evidence of rational human life, each of my students simply
reverts to form, goes to work studying, and seeks out those faculty
members who are sensible and knowledgeable. Most universities still
have some of these, but they are definitively in the minority. The chil-
drens most frequent continuing complaint is about the language. In
the classrooms and laboratories they are unwillingly immersed in a lit-
eral sea of profanity. This is, of course, only a superficial indicator of
more serious problems, but, since they see the other students only in
the classrooms, they are not fully aware of the rest.
A rough estimate of the percentage of really productive, decent
adults emerging from this morass those who are homeschooled,
those who survive the public schools, and those who are whipped into
shape by the real world after they emerge from school might be 20%.
That is not high enough to maintain a free society. This is the reason
we are in danger of losing ours.
This educational system cannot be fixed. It already includes an technology obtain a great advantage, so that late entering competitors
astonishing 3 million union member employee force that is entirely en-
trenched in its ways led by people who advocate an agenda for the
future that is even worse than the present. This force is protected by a
credentialing and accreditation system that would prove almost impos-
sible to dismantle. Most importantly, the system is protected by the
fact that a large part of the voting public is comprised of its products.
Fortunately, there is a solution. A disruptive technology (see ar- advantage. Moreover, the mainstream companies are continually striv-
ticle about Clayton Christensens book The Innovators Dilemma be-
low) has arisen. In its initial form, it has the standard weaknesses of a
disruptive technology while low cost, it lacks many conveniences of
the present system and has a small market because most consumers are
not aware of its potential. No general market has yet been developed.
Electronic education CD and Internet based is currently only a
niche market, primarily for age 6 to 18 home schooled students and
post-graduate continuing education. It is, however, set to explode into
the mainstream marketplace.
Regardless of whether or not they recognize the social nightmares
present on university campuses, parents and students will enthusiasti-
cally buy the idea of university educations at less than one-tenth the
current price and without leaving home. Then, as it becomes increas-
ingly obvious that students schooled in this way even before college
have a great competitive advantage, the pre-college market will grow
so rapidly that, before long, tax-financed public education will die.
Too few voters will be making use of it.
If you are responsible for the education of a young American, do
him and your country a service. Do not send him to a public school.
DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY
The Innovators Dilemma - When New Technologies Cause Great
Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School
Press (1997), is a very perceptive analysis of the dynamics of techno-
logical advance especially the introduction of radically new products.
Christensen defines two types of technology sustaining technol-
ogy and disruptive technology.
Sustaining technology is that with a developed market. In well-
managed companies which supply this technology, the products ad-
vance as rapidly as improvements in science and engineering permit
along the lines desired by the customers of the company. Managers
carefully determine the desires of their customers and plan engineering
development projects to satisfy those customers as quickly and cost-ef-
fectively as possible. These companies develop and infuse their work
force with ethics, procedures, and goals consistent with this process in
their respective industries.
Disruptive technologies, on the other hand, are usually simpler and
cheaper than the sustaining technology, but also offer less capability.
They do not fit the sustaining market and, typically, provide lower
profit margins. For this reason, they are usually shunned by well-man-
Christensen illustrates these ideas with real examples from different
industries including those producing computer disk drives, earth exca-
vators, motor bikes, insulin for diabetics, and (as an illustration of a
possible future case) automobiles conventional vs. electric cars.
Figures 1, 2 and 3 (adapted from numerous excellent figures with
which his book is illustrated) show some of his primary ideas.
In Figure 1, the dotted lines represent the range of performance re-
quired by consumers. For example, in disk drives this could be drive
capacity, where the sustaining technology was, at the time, the 5.25
inch disk, while the new disruptive technology was the 3.5 inch disk.
During the first part of the illustrated time interval, performance of
the 5.25 disk satisfies the market, while the capacity of the 3.5 disk is
too low. In the course of time, however, improvements in the 5.25
move its capacity beyond that desired in the market, while the 3.5
gradually achieves capacity sufficient to enter the large market.
The critical time is before this happens when the disruptive tech-
nological innovation cannot yet satisfy the requirements of the main-
stream market. During this time, those who are developing the new
cannot catch up. At the same time, the new technology must be mar-
keted for alternative applications (that may not even be known at the
time of its introduction), at low profit margins, and in relatively minor
markets. This makes it unattractive to the mainstream companies
whose customers are not asking for it and whose profits are so large
that the emerging technology would be a nuisance without economic
ing for innovations that will increase the capabilities of their product
and, thereby, allow them to enter markets above them where profit
Figure 1
 technology into the sustaining
market. Therefore, for good rea-
sons, automobile companies are
resisting electric cars. Those auto
companies that are wise, however,
should set up small autonomous
companies to deliver electric car
technology to whoever will buy it
for whatever use arises. Then they
will be well-positioned if electric
cars do eventually start to disrupt
their market.
If instead, the only market en-
tries are forced upon the large auto
companies by government regula-
tion and subsidy, these entrenched
malinvestments could prevent the
advance of electric car technology
Figure 2 and deprive consumers of a prod-
uct that would eventually prove
beneficial to them.
margins are greater not below them where margins are less.
The result of this phenomenon is that most mainstream companies
even though they are very well managed, increasing in profits, and
very responsive to their customers wishes are unable to adopt dis-
ruptive technologies which eventually drive them out of business.
Christensen, by means of real examples, shows that the most effective
strategy is for large companies to start small, independent companies
which they control financially but not otherwise to establish bases
in disruptive technologies.
Figure 2, illustrating some of the same points, also shows (illustrat-
ing with computer disk drives) the evolution of a product from a high-
margin item to a commodity.
When the disruptive technology (a smaller disk drive) improves to
the point that its capacity is adequate, competition then shifts to size
and then to reliability. Ultimately, when both technologies have outrun
the technological needs of the market, competition shifts to price alone
a commodity market.
Notice that throughout these steps, the established company must
keep engineering its products downward and competing in markets
with decreasing profit margins while the disruptive company engi-
neers upward and finds higher margin markets. This and the lead from
early entry assures the demise of the established company.
The understanding of these phenomena can affect the actual emer-
gence of new technologies. Science and engineering are not enough.
Many wonderful technological products are not available to us because
industrial managers have not effectively brought them to market.
In a final chapter, Christensen applies these lessons to the electric
automobile. Clearly, as has been discussed in previous issues of Access
to Energy, electric car technology cannot now produce a product that
competes with the internal combustion engine. Is the electric automo-
bile, however, a disruptive technology? Perhaps. The answer to this
question depends upon whether or not electric cars can reach consumer
standards. Figure 3, giving Christensens estimates for these standards
and the rate of development, suggests that they will.
Meanwhile, as a beginning disruptive technology, the electric car
must seek alternative markets that will value its disadvantages, and it
must enter (and develop) those markets with a cheap, simple product.
These markets will sustain its development.
One such market suggested by Christensen is the potential for run-
abouts for teenagers. Parents might like the idea that their teenagers are
driving cars with low range, poor acceleration, and low maximum
speeds. If these cars were also much cheaper than conventional cars,
this market might develop. As far as government forcing (with refer-
ence to Californias rule that car companies must sell 2% electric cars
in that state) and subsidies are concerned, Christensen observes that
these merely distort the market and delay technological development.
What cannot be accomplished is premature entry of the disruptive Figure 3
 SAT, GRE, and AP exams himself. I challenge Professor Groose to
HIGHWAY CARNAGE
along side those of Zachary and Noah scores that we will be happy to
Highway Death Toll Hits All-Time Low says USA Today for
October 27, 1998. United States traffic deaths in 1997 were 41,967;
2.46 million people were injured. This was almost the same as 1996,
but the National Highway Safety Administration says that more miles
were driven. It gives fatalities for 1996 and 1997 as 1.7 and 1.6 per 100
million miles, respectively.
United States deaths and injuries during the whole of the Vietnam
War were 57,700 killed and 153,300 wounded. So, the carnage on our
highways is the approximate equivalent of a Vietnam War every
year. Put another way, an American is killed on our highways every
12.5 minutes and a highway injury occurs every 12.8 seconds. (En-
viro-caused deaths of children from DDT-preventable malaria in under
developed countries occur once every 12 seconds.)
Assuming that my six children have life expectancies of about 80
years, there is currently an 8% chance that one of them will be killed in
a traffic accident. On average, four of the six children will be injured in
a traffic accident at some time in their lives.
The chance that one of my sons will be killed in an auto accident is
roughly half the chance that he would have been killed had he served
as a combat soldier in Vietnam. Since only men served in Vietnam, the
lifetime highway death rates for boys and girls vs. Vietnam soldiers are
about equal.
Government is, of course, not interested in individuals. It is inter-
ested in the size of the pool of individuals which it controls and the
income that it can derive from that pool.
The wonderful safety of our highways is now being trumpeted by
federal spokesmen as a success of its public safety campaigns. states in 1998, in proportion to the number of children seized by
Does anyone really believe that the vast, tax-financed transportation
system of the United States is bringing consumers the safest and most
beneficial means of transportation technology available? Who knows
what our railroads would have become if they had not been first subsi-
dized and then bludgeoned with regulations and taxes by our govern-
ment. Automobiles are wonderful, but are a trillion dollars worth of
interstate highways really the best way to move them over long dis-
tances (as opposed to, for example, flat bed rail cars with passenger
accommodations)?
The shapes of our cities have been determined by dead-between-
the-ears government planners working hand-in-glove with the tax-fi-
nanced government transportation monopoly. Then the government
complains about smog and blames free enterprise.
2. Do not encroach on other persons or their property.
WYOMING PROFESSING
political situation in those countries has worked remarkably well and
The Casper Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming, published a pro-
global warming editorial by one Robin Groose, associate professor at
the University of Wyoming, who became so disturbed about our Peti-
tion and the editorial that Zachary and I wrote in The Wall Street Jour-
nal that he included an attack on Zacharys home school education in
his editorial. In reply, I submitted the following letter to the editor:
In his editorial of May 10, Robin Groose, billed as a monthly col-
umnist for your newspaper and as associate professor at the University
of Wyoming, denigrates the academic achievements of my son
Zachary Robinson whom he labels as the first victim of our
homeschooling program.
It happens that, after completing his home schooling, Zachary
scored 1480 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and received college Ad-
vanced Placement in calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, and so
many other subjects that he entered Oregon State University as a junior
and received his BS in chemistry in two years. He then scored in the
95th percentile on the Graduate Record Exams prior to entering gradu-
ate school. The second victim, his brother Noah, scored 1400 on the
SAT and received Advanced Placement in calculus, physics, chemis-
try, biology, and several other subjects, so he also is expected to com-
plete his degree in chemistry in two years.
Since he is a professor, Robin Groose has no doubt taken the
publish his own personal scores on these exams in your newspaper
provide in certified copy.
Professor Grooses article also contains numerous false and mis-
leading statements about our Institute and about global warming a
subject concerning which he obviously has little knowledge, but many
prejudices. The true victims here are actually your readers who are
being subjected to junk science and smear rhetoric masquerading un-
der Robin Grooses academic affiliation.
We have not heard from Robin Groose or the Casper Star-Tribune.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The National ID Card in The Ron Paul Freedom Report 2,
No. 8, September 1998, published by the Foundation for Rational Eco-
nomics and Education, P.O. box 1776, Lake Jackson, TX 77566, states
that we may soon be required to show our government papers in order
to move from place to place, conduct business, or even receive medical
care. This is being pushed by both Democrats and Republicans.
Congressman Ron Paul points out that freedom requires privacy.
An ID card destroys that privacy. Is it surprising that both parties tried
to keep Dr. Paul from returning to Congress in 1996?
l Child Welfare or Family Trauma by Elna Neuman, Insight,
May 9, 1994 reports that each year the children of 700,000 American
families are investigated for child abuse including strip searches; in-
terrogation by social workers, police officers, and prosecutors; psycho-
logical testing; and sometimes placement in foster homes and then
released for lack of evidence of abuse. Federal tax money transfers to
authorities, (people paid with this money) is over $2 billion.
Essentially, state government social service workers are now in the
kidnaping-for-pay business under the guise of protecting children.
GOOD READING
l Early Warning Report by Richard Maybury, October 1998,
available from Henry-Madison Research, P.O. Box 84908, Phoenix,
AZ 85071. In this issue, Maybury repeats his two laws, which he ar-
gues must be implemented for a free economy to exist and which are
not implemented in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe,
which are, therefore, unable to make freedom work. These laws are:
1. Do all you have agreed to do.
Richard Mayburys Chaostan model by which he explains the
has made lots of money for subscribers who followed his advice.
l Educational Decarceration by Daniel Hager in The Freeman,
48, No. 7 (1998), published by The Foundation for Economic Educa-
tion, 30 South Broadway, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533.
The irreversible collapse of tax-financed public education is accel-
lerating and becoming widely recognized.
l The Police State of Medicine: Reflections on a Case of Regula-
tory Abuse by William E. Hurwitz in the Medical Sentinel 3, No. 4,
available from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,
P.O. Box 13648, Macon, GA 31208-3648.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for American physicians to
prescribe pain killers even for patients who badly need them. Govern-
ment regulation is gradually depriving us of medical science.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
NOVEMBER 1998 (Vol. 26, no. 3) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Science 1999
As 1998 nears its close, I notice that the word science does not
have the same meaning that it did when I first encountered it as a
freshman at the California Institute of Technology in 1959. To be
sure, it is still possible to define science in the same way as previously
and to insist that pure science remain as before, but it is increasingly
difficult to find evidence that this pure science still exists to a sig-
nificant extent in the real world.
Pure science, as I learned it, is a rigorous search for truths about
temporal subjects. The hypotheses of science have significance only
in so far as they are tested by physical experiments. Since many quan-
titative experiments are possible, the language of science has become
mathematics and its ethical component rests upon the philosophical
requirement that there be truth vs. falsehood, right vs. wrong, correct
vs. incorrect with only the former properties deemed acceptable.
So, what has happened to the science of my youth? Why do I find
myself writing a newsletter founded by another scientist 25 years
ago who foresaw the trend of dissolution in science that has oc-
curred largely devoted to exposing and reducing false science?
The principal reason is that the United States government has ex-
tended tax-financed welfare payments to a large fraction of American
scientists, including most scientists who reside in academic insti-
tutions where pure science was once emphasized. Welfare socialism
does not work, and it has had the same general effect on science as it
has when applied to other human endeavors. In fact, given the ethics
necessary to the conduct of good science, government welfare pay-
ments are even more harmful to it than they are to other endeavors.
With the Buenos Aires United Nations global warming shindig
now in progress for example, the world has returned to its annual be-
wailing of the sin that coal, oil, and natural gas are being used to make
possible long, productive, and enjoyable lives for billions of people.
This is a sin because science has shown that this human activity is
warming the planet which, of course, science has not shown at all.
Yet, in the midst of all the furor and the very dangerous risks that
this global warming myth poses for those who depend upon hydro-
carbons, Americas scientific institutions are silent.
They are, of course, not silent on all matters. As an alumnus, I will
soon receive another request from Caltech for a donation. Unfortu-
nately, if I give them a donation, I will actually be giving this money
to the government. Caltech, like virtually all American universities
and other institutions of higher education with significant scientific
components, receives substantial payments of tax money money
extracted by force or threat of force from those who earned it and
given to Caltech by the executive branch of the U. S. government,
which is directed by William Any President who lies to the Ameri-
can people should resign 1992 Clinton.
Caltech has a very large endowment. With that endowment (to
which its alumni are frequently admonished to add), it could and does
fund a part of its activities. It also has, however, a large annual in-
come from tax-financed research grants that are given out by
agencies headed by Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Caltech is, therefore,
silent, as are its faculty members who understand their self-interests.
and Arynne, who are now university undergraduates with Noah also
GLEANING AMERICAN SCIENCE
in graduate school. The graduate schools of science in America
Now that my son Zachary has completed his B. S. degree in chem-
istry (in two years) and gone on to graduate school, Access to Energy
readers have lost this source of humor from within the walls of under-
graduate academia. This source has, however, been replaced by Noah
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
The tax money essentially captures the private money at these in-
stitutions and forces its expenditure under constraints imposed by po-
liticos in the United States executive branch of government. Once a
large part of the activities and salaries of a university campus are tax-
financed, then 100% of the campus activities must please the govern-
ment in order not to offend the source of welfare payments for the
tax-financed part. There are, of course, rare exceptions in which indi-
vidual scientists risk their careers through independent activities, but
these occasional exceptions do little to correct the overall problem.
In addition to suffering the debilitating effects of welfare, our uni-
versity humanities departments now teach primarily New-Age, New-
Left, politically correct psychobabble, and our college graduates
suffer personally and professionally as a result. In fact, the new trend
(as at Southern Oregon University near here) is toward rules that pro-
hibit the presence on the campus of students who do not enroll in
these brainwashing courses even if they wish to take other courses
and do not seek a degree. This forced religious training in pseudoin-
tellectual nonsense is, of course, not helpful to young scientists.
In the 1960s, the trend toward ostentatious political activities
among humanities faculties began to become evident. I recall think-
ing then that the general problem was that these people did not have
productive activities to keep them occupied and happy, so they
sought notoriety in one-upping each other each seeking to write
or teach a little more outrageously than the others.
This process has now run its course. One indicator is the age of
authors now forced upon university students in their humanities
courses. Having expunged most of the mores of Western civilization
from their courses, these teachers cannot use works of the great
writers and thinkers of the past. Most of the assigned authors, there-
fore, are still living and are engaged in political activities.
Science thrived in the atmosphere of honesty, integrity, and the
work ethic that previously prevailed in the United States. This atmos-
phere still exists in some pockets of productivity, both in America and
abroad. It is, however, faltering in American society as a whole as
the moral atmosphere in that society is degraded.
The rigorous integrity that prevailed on the Caltech campus of my
youth was not taught in courses. It was taught in the only way such
principles are really learned by example. Children learn primarily
by example as do most adults. The only way to effectively teach
and lead scientists in the laboratory is to out-work and out-think them
side by side at the laboratory bench. Even this, however, may not be
enough when their time outside the laboratory is spent in a moral and
ethical atmosphere that is alien to the truth.
When science, in addition, depends for its funding upon welfare
payments from a government that no longer is interested in the truth,
the ethics required for reliable scientific work gradually disappear.
Science, technology, and true free enterprise are in decline in the
United States. With that decline will come the gradual withdrawal
from American society of the fruits of these activities. Already, real
living standards are decreasing. Ironically, our political masters now
blame this decrease on science, technology, and free enterprise.
expecting to complete his B.S. in chemistry in two years. Zachary is
are still quite good. They are in the hands of men in their 50s and 60s
and the best younger scientists that these older teachers can find.
Of interest, however, are the students studying in these graduate
schools. Having passed half of his undergraduate courses by Advanced
Placement examinations and three-fourths of his graduate school
courses by examination (under the rules, the other fourth could not be
passed without taking the courses because they are in organic chemis-
try, which is his field of specialization), Zachary is used to doing well
on exams. In a recent organic chemistry exam, however, he was only
5th highest out of 18. The competition is serious. This is so because
more than half of his fellow graduate students at this Midwestern uni-
versity are foreign. The toughest competition in his class comes from
students from Communist China. These students are well trained and
capable, and they have a very strong work ethic.
This is generally true throughout America. In most science graduate
schools the majority of the students are foreign. While our science
graduate schools retain the quality of the generations of scientists who
still control them, the students taking advantage of this quality come
largely from other countries. These students, moreover, are often the
very best that these countries have to offer.
American undergraduate universities are not generating many stu-
dents with the ability, interest, and work ethic necessary to take advan-
tage of American graduate schools. So, foreign students are receiving
these opportunities. It is certainly good that these foreign students are
being educated properly in the methods and traditions of science.
Somewhere in the world these things will be perpetuated. This trend,
however, bodes ill for the future of the United States.
As I reflect upon the paths that all three of my university students
have followed, I realize that all three have intuitively chosen a similar
way. In each case, the student has had no interest in the humanities
faculty and little interest in his or her fellow students. Each of the three
has sought and maximized contact with the professors of science and
mathematics. Most of these men and women (but not all) have been
from the one or two generations before the current one.
As America decays and one need only look at the pathetic trash
whom the people of the United States now tolerate as President to see
the extent of this decay other peoples are transferring the remains of
American quality into their own cultures. To be sure, they have prob-
lems, too, but the trends do not look promising for the United States.
As to more exact timing, note that there are only two intermediate
SOLAR BEAR MARKET ?
that we have been experiencing since the Little Ice Age. The previous
There are recurring patterns of behavior in commodity markets and,
on much longer time scales, stock markets, that have striking regular-
ity. The speculative traders who provide liquidity in these markets
make much of their money by being students of these patterns.
One classic sort of cycle includes up-and-down phases upon which
are imposed three or four well-defined smaller cycles. This sort of be-
havior has been evident in, for example, the silver market for more
than 20 years. It still provides very profitable trading opportunities.
While some traders (including very good ones) contend that these
cycles are facts of nature that can be derived from mathematical princi-
ples alone, most professionals think that they are the manifestations of
self-fulfilling coordinated actions by the tens of thousands of people
who trade in these markets and anticipate (thus create) these cycles.
The truth may well lie somewhere in between. Certain sorts of ex-
perimental results do arise automatically from inanimate systems and
impress themselves on biological ones. For example, it can be rigor-
ously proved mathematically that a variable that is determined by a
large number of similarly sized independent effects will be distributed
as a Gaussian distribution. Hence, we see Gaussian distributions in
measurements of phenomena throughout the biological world.
Similarly, there are patterns of behavior among inanimate objects
that seem to arise by magic, but are actually the result of the cyclical
nature of some physical systems. When these arise in complex systems
that are still beyond detailed human understanding, they can be meas-
ured but not easily explained.
In an interesting interplay between these two worlds human ac-
tion in the investment markets and empirical cyclic behavior in inani-
mate systems Bob Bronson of Bronson Capital Market Research,
6191 S. Creftbrook Drive, Morrison, CO 80465-2223, telephoned me
to point out the strong similarity of the 3,000-year temperature record
in the Sargasso Sea (figure 2 of our paper Environmental Effects of
Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide) and the market cycles with
which he makes his living. Figure 1 shows the Sargasso Sea data to
which has been added the trend lines and cycles that Bob Bronson
pointed out. Note the remarkably regular behavior of this graph in
slope and timing of intermediate cycles during the two down cycles.
Note also that both of the first half-cycles one up and one down
have four intermediate cycles (assuming the first is complete).
This curve is primarily a reflection of cycles in solar activity, which
are not now well understood. It is in our paper to illustrate two points.
First, the temperature of the Earth has fluctuated over a wide range
during the past 3,000 years without ill effects on global climate. Sec-
ond, global temperatures today are about average and not unusual.
Figure 1
Still, if this were a stock or commodity market chart as studied by
those who make their livings betting on the world as it is and as it is
reflected in charts of its activities we would be expecting two more
down cycles in temperature before the cooling trend that began in the
Middle Ages runs its course.
uptrends lasting more than 200 years in the chart, including the one
one terminated after about the same duration as our current cycle. The
entire record includes ten previous cycles of rising temperature. Only
the one that corresponds to our present time in the earlier downtrend
(peaks numbered 3) was as long as the one we are experiencing today.
Enviro pseudoscientist Stephen Schneider of Stanford would prob-
ably rush this into print as proof that there is a 90% chance that man is
warming up the planet with carbon dioxide. [He has published a simi-
lar paper on century-long trends.] It then would be necessary to point
out to unlistening politicos that most of the current warming occurred
before humans released much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and
that a similar cycle occurred 2,000 years ago.
The correct interpretation is that, based on this record, there is a
greater than 90% probability that the current warming trend will end
sometime within 100 years. If one takes into account the long cycle
similarities in this graph, that chance is much higher than 90%. The
satellite and balloon measurements showing that atmospheric tempera-
ture has not increased for the past 20 years may be an indication that
this next down cycle in temperatures is beginning to take place.
The professional trader reading this graph would not, however, be
worried about deflation a harmfully cold period of Earth tempera-
tures. The first large trend indicates that, by the end of the second down
cycle, most of the cooling has taken place. He would trade the tem-
perature from the short side until temperatures were a little lower than
those of 300 years ago and then go long.
The obvious criticism of this analysis would be that our data set is
limited to only 3,000 years and about 10 short cycles within two partial
long ones. In the investment markets, there is often much less data than
this and there are some very wealthy people who have read that data
and made fortunes as a result. In any case, this sure beats the tax-guz-
zling global warmers, who ignore even the data that are available.
 that scientists involved in climate modeling are trying to develop.
MATHEMATICAL POLITICS
have lots of adjustable parameters. The models are partially based on
It is not at all unusual to attempt to predict future events from cur-
rent and past ones and to do so quantitatively with mathematics and
experimental measurements. This is the primary professional activity
of those who trade stocks and commodities with charts and other quan-
titative technical indicators.
I have carried out many studies of this sort in my scientific work
and some in non-scientific areas. One of the simplest yet most unusual
was during President Nixons first term of office when troops were
gradually being withdrawn from Vietnam. After several phases of the
withdrawal had been completed, I drew a graph of the number of
troops remaining in Vietnam vs. time. This turned out to be a perfect
straight line which, when extrapolated into the future, passed through
zero in November of the year that Nixon would run for re-election.
It was evident that President Nixon realized that the electorate
wanted the troops home but also wanted a victory. He then determined
that the troops must be out before the next election but should stay as
long as possible. This could have been done in more sophisticated
ways, but apparently the bureaucrats in charge used a simple straight
edge and constructed a line like mine. A straight line has two adjust-
able parameters, which determine its slope and location. One parame-
ter was adjusted to make the line fit the current troop deployment
number and the other to give a slope such that this number would be
zero at the time of the next election.
Some theoretical studies in science involve so-called ab initio
calculations. This means from first principles. These calculations
are required to fit theoretical principles but are not constrained to ex-
perimental values. They are the most rigorous test of a theory. If the
end results of the calculations conform to experiment without the cal-
culations themselves being adjusted to experimental values then the
theory is remarkably good.
Ab initio calculations usually are restricted to problems in physics
and chemistry that are so simple that they can be rigorously described
in quantitative terms such as bonding in a molecule with only two
atoms. This was especially so in the era during which scientists had to
do calculations by mathematically solving the actual equations. With
the advent of computers, problems that could not be solved rigorously
could be undertaken much more easily.
One of the first such applications was during the development of
the atomic bomb. Calculations were necessary (not entirely ab initio,
but partially so) that could not be performed with exactitude. Iterative
procedures were necessary wherein a solution is guessed, a compli-
cated calculation evaluates the guess, a new guess is made, and the
process repeated over and over until a satisfactory solution is reached. I
have heard Richard Feynman, Joseph Mayer, and Edwin York each
describe the computer that was used.
The scientists had a large room full of desks at which were seated
people with the ability to carry out simple arithmetic operations. Each
person was a logic element in the computer. IBM punch cards were
passed through the room in a predetermined pattern. Each person car-
ried out his calculation, punched the card, and sent it on to the next
computer element. This computer was designed and built by Klaus
Fuchs, who later confessed to being a spy. The computer worked so
well that Richard Feynman, who had been assigned to check it, found
himself with little to do and moved on to other problems. Ed York told
me that, as late as 1965, he was still using the results of calculations of
the propagation of hydrodynamic blast waves in air that were made
with this computer.
Extrapolations of current data to predict future values can be carried
out with or without a theoretical scientific basis. For example, meas-
urements of the Earths atmospheric temperature could be fitted by a
simple polynomial equation with enough adjustable parameters to as-
sure that the fit was a good one. Then, predicted future temperatures
could be calculated from this fitted polynomial equation.
Better results would be expected by fitting the temperature data
with equations that reflect natural processes. These are the equations
Since the Earths climate is a very complex system, these models must
theory, but, since theory here is quite poorly developed and imperfect,
they must depend largely upon experimental measurement.
In a case such as this, the calculation is constrained to fit the experi-
mental data. Adjustable parameters are set, by calculation, such that the
model is always in agreement with the known data. Then the resulting
solution is used to predict additional experimental results. If, when
those experiments are performed, the model is right, it is considered to
be a good model. Alternatively, the model may be constrained to some
of the data and evaluated with respect to other data.
[For example, when we were trading in the copper market, we de-
veloped a computer model of that market that called about 50 long and
50 short trades per year. Each trade was of about four hours duration.
At the time (1981), we had our computers connected to the Comex by
wire and had recorded three years of data including every tick in the
market. Our model had about 10 adjustable parameters. We therefore
optimized those parameters on the 200 trades in the second and third
years back. The results were evaluated on the 100 calculated trades
from the most recent year which had not been used to optimize the
model. Then, we used the model to trade to predict market action
four hours ahead twice a week in real time. This worked quite well. ]
Since temperature measurements are among the most reliable
measurements that have been made on the atmosphere, all climate
models should be constrained to them. Yet, we see that the global
warming models adopted by the United Nations in calling for inter-
national rationing of energy do not even agree with the past tempera-
ture record of the atmosphere as measured by balloons and satellites.
By definition, any good climate model should be forced by calculation
to agree at least with past atmospheric temperatures.
Apparently one of two possible errors has been made. Either the
U.N. climate models have not been fitted to the known temperatures at
all or else they have been fitted to the NASA surface record which
has obviously been selectively compiled to show rising temperatures
that are not occurring in the atmosphere or to some other biased re-
cord that rises with time. (See, for example, the section on heat island
effects in the NASA-selected measuring stations in California in Ex-
perimental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.) In
either case, this sort of fitting would be a political activity, not a scien-
tific one. It makes no scientific sense at all to construct a computerized
model of the atmosphere and not constrain the adjustable constants in
the model to conform to the known past temperature record of the at-
mosphere. Temperature is such a fundamental variable that it would
never be used to test such a model except by prediction of future
temperatures, which is not the case at issue here.
If the U. N.-endorsed climate models are fitted to a biased record
that shows rises in atmospheric temperature with time (not what the
recent record shows), then there really is no need for a fancy climate
model. The same result would be obtained by fitting to a simple poly-
nomial that does not contain any climate science at all. The result
would be the same but the political effect would not be the same! No
one could represent the polynomial as climate science, and its link
to the flawed temperature record would be impossible to conceal.
Instead, the world is being told that very complicated computer
models have been designed by experts (who happen to receive large
welfare payments from the Clinton Administration). These models are
represented as so sophisticated that mere mortals even other scientists
cannot hope to understand them.
In common parlance, this is a scam. The computer models do
not fit the past atmospheric data because they have been designed, for
political reasons, to predict that future temperatures will rise. Were
that not the case, they would agree with the past experimental data.
Since atmospheric temperatures for the past 20 years have not risen,
the modelers are unable to get both the politically correct warming
prediction and agreement with the immediate past record simultane-
ously. To please their masters, they have chosen to get the politically
desired result rather than to appropriately constrain their models.

FOOD AND DEGENERATIVE DISEASE
Many thousands of different diet recommendations have been
made with respect to the problem of preventing or curing degenerative
diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and the general loss of well-be-
ing with age. While we cannot review or evaluate even those with
which we are closely familiar in this limited space, the impending holi-
day season may be an appropriate time to comment on one.
Most affluent middle-aged or older Americans are at least health-
ily plump. As we age, our faces become more full and our waistlines
more poorly defined. A sedentary lifestyle exacerbates this, but it
seems to be characteristic of most people even those who do signifi-
cant amounts of physical work.
It has been shown in laboratory rats that lifespan can be increased
by about 25% if the rats are fed very well during the first half of life
but underfed during the latter half of life.
The experiments on cancer and nutrition in mice that my coworkers
and I carried out as described in Access to Energy 25-9, May 1998 in
which the growth rate of cancer was reduced 20-fold by means of diet
alone were carried out at the suggestion of Arnold and Edie Mae
Hunsberger. Mr. Hunsberger was the founder and President of U. S.
Elevator Corporation. They suggested we try a diet of raw fruits and
vegetables on which they had been living. This diet sharply reduced
the growth rate of cancer and it had another effect as well.
Since it is virtually impossible to obtain a normal intake of calories
from fruits and vegetables, which are mostly fiber and water, people
who live on this diet have markedly restricted nutrient intakes. Their
diet is roughly equivalent to filling your plate with about half the
amount you would ordinarily eat and eating that and no more.
In photos of the Hunsbergers taken before they adopted this diet,
they are seen to be typical, slightly plump, affluent Americans. After
they adopted this diet, however, they became wiry, energetic, spar-
kling, bouncy people of a sort rarely seen in the 50s age group. Al-
though Mrs. Hunsberger is dead as the result of an accident, Arnold
Hunsberger continues this diet today and in his 70s is still a
bouncy, energetic, wiry, unusually intelligent and productive man.
This is merely an anecdote, but it illustrates a point that, on the basis
of many bits of knowledge I have gathered, is useful. Each of us (at
least those over 40 years of age) would be better off if our weight were
at or (better) a little below our weight when we were 18 years old.
Most Access to Energy readers will not try pure raw fruit and vege-
table diets at least not until cancer or some other problem scares them
into self-experimentation. Most, however, can perform a simpler ex-
periment. As a Christmas gift to those who are willing (and in hopes
that this will not dampen your holiday), I suggest the following:
For a period of one month, fill your plate with about half to two-
thirds the amount that you usually eat. Eat that amount only and then
leave the table. Do your best not to compensate with between meal
snacks. (Two meals a day is best, but I know most of you are accus-
tomed to three.) If you become too hungry with this, eat more, but you
should at least try to leave each meal a little hungry.
You will likely experience an immediate and sharp improvement in
your energy and sense of well-being except that you may be hungry
during part of each day. Eventually the hunger will lessen, but the im-
proved health will probably continue.
Motivated by this sense of well-being which we hope will out-
weigh the concomitant sense of hunger it is to be hoped that you will
continue in this way until your face and midline return to the approxi-
mate dimensions of youth.
The suggestion here is not that any of our readers are overweight
by the usual standards. Instead, we think that the usual standards are
too high for optimum health. Like the rats, we should be underfed dur-
ing the second half of life.
Mr. Hunsberger would confirm this, but he would also add that raw
fruits and vegetables are an especially nutritious way to diet. In this, he
is likely to be right but, if one cannot give up normal food, it is at
least best to eat less of it.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Tax Man is Stealing Our Savings by Brian S. Wesbury in
The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 1998, p A22, shows that the
United States government is now sucking dry the last remnant of real
capital available for technological advancement.
American savings as a percentage of personal income have fallen
from a rate of 5% in 1992 to a current rate of about 0%. Meanwhile,
taxes as a percentage of personal income have risen at a rate of 9.9%
per year for the past five years. With personal consumption staying ap-
proximately constant, Wesbury shows that Americans have kept their
standard of living approximately level by using all of the money they
previously saved to pay increased taxes.
The 5% savings rate down from 8% in 1982 was already far too
low to provide the capital required to maintain and improve American
industry and to ensure the continuation of American living standards.
l Clinton employee J. Brian Atwood, head of the U.S. Agency for
International Development, stated on the CBS The Morning show
that Central Americans experiencing hurricane destruction were suf-
fering classic greenhouse effect. This is reported in Classic Politi-
cal Effect in The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 1998, p A22.
Not only do the facts show that Atlantic storm frequency and inten-
sity have been decreasing since 1945, but also there is not a shred of
evidence that carbon dioxide or the greenhouse effect had anything
whatever to do with the storm that damaged Central America.
The Journal correctly points out that this push to to demonize coal,
oil, and natural gas is largely a prelude to taxes levied to ration hydro-
carbons. The government needs new demons to protect us from in
spite of ourselves by means of new taxes to enhance its power.
GOOD READING
l Jeff Coopers Commentaries published monthly from Gunsite
Ranch, P. O. Box 401, Paulden, AZ 86334. Two months ago, we rec-
ommended Jeff Coopers book To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the
Truth. His ongoing commentaries add to this.
Honor, self-reliance, integrity, absolute morals, and civilized ethics
are fast disappearing from American culture. It is essential for all of us
to read the thoughts of those who exemplify these characteristics and
continually remind us of their applications in todays society.
l Killing Kyoto Without Regrets by Jonathan H. Adler and
Climate Science Briefings Debunk Greenhouse Scares by Paul J.
Georgia in the Competitive Enterprise Institute Update 11, Number
10, October 1998, available from CEI, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.
W., Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036.
Dr. Paul Reiter, chief of entomology at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, stated in a CEI-sponsored lecture that claims
that higher global temperatures will cause the spread of insect-borne
tropical diseases are false. Vice-President Al Gore has been making
this claim, as have many enviros.
At a recent meeting where I spoke, a University of Washington en-
viro claimed that insect increases would be so severe that all of the ex-
tra plant growth from carbon dioxide would be gobbled up by them.
l Mixed Blessing by Peter Brimelow in Forbes, October 5,
1998, pp 58-59, shows that poverty (now defined as before-welfare in-
come of less than $16,000 for a family of four) has not decreased in the
United States since 1973 even though the seizure of American prop-
erty through taxes in order to fight poverty has risen enormously.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
DECEMBER 1998 (Vol. 26, no. 4) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
State Sponsored Religion
My daughter Arynne was very nearly thrown out of Southern Ore-
gon University (SOU), a tax-financed school near here, midway
through her first quarter as a college student this past month. After a
serious argument with University officials, she is being permitted to
complete the academic year but has been told, in no uncertain
terms, not to return as a student next year.
Arynne is a shy 18-year-old girl who enrolled in September and is
taking calculus, physics, chemistry (all at the 200, sophomore level)
and organ classes. She made the honor roll first quarter with grades of
A in calculus, physics, and organ, and B in chemistry. It is true that
Arynne lacks the drugs; alcohol; sexual promiscuity; nose, ear, and
tongue rings; tattoos; arrogant lack of respect for older adults; dishon-
esty; and profanity of speech that are characteristic of many of her
fellow students. Her demeanor is recognizably different as a result.
Arynnes lack of these social graces is not, however, the reason that
university officials first demanded that she leave after one quarter
and ultimately agreed to allow her to finish the year (she is taking
three-quarter courses) before departing.
Arynnes sin is that she has refused to take the Universitys three-
quarter, four-unit per quarter (out of 15 units in the usual course load)
total-immersion indoctrination course in the Oregon State Religion.
This course is a mandatory requirement for any student to be on
the campus and take courses regardless of whether or not he seeks a
degree. (It is, of course, required for graduation, too.) Arynnes
brother Noah attends the same university, but he skipped the course
with advanced placement. Arynne entered taking a full load of sci-
ence and math. An apparent mistake by university officials allowed
her to do so without taking the religious indoctrination course.
When a priestess in the Student ACCESS Center discovered
this, she initiated an investigation. Arynne was told to drop one of her
science or math courses and take the religion course or else be ex-
pelled from the University after one term. Actually, the priestess
wanted Arynne to drop calculus and enroll in the religion course in
the middle of the first term at the time Arynnes sin was discovered.
Arynne and Noah are attending this university for two reasons. It
is close to home (one and one-half hour drive), and it has an excellent
undergraduate science program. The science faculty is devoted to un-
dergraduate education (they do not have a graduate school) and has
developed a four-year program that provides first-class courses in all
of the necessary subjects. SOU also has an excellent music program.
As in most universities today, however, the humanities departments
and administrators not the scientists control the campus.
Imagine the outcry if a tax-financed state university required every
student to take, as a condition of being on the campus, a full-year
course in Christianity and Biblical studies that included giving
speeches, writing essays, participating in discussion groups, and de-
veloping critical thinking skills (SOUs terminology) necessary to tion courses as a condition of being physically on the campus at all
understand and appreciate the value of being a Christian.
To be sure, SOU bills this course as a speech, writing, and criti-
cal thinking course. SOU does not, however, allow any of its better
(and far more value-neutral) courses involving speech and writing to
inordinate fear. It is interesting, however, that this product arose pri-
YEAR 2000 PREPARATION
government attention. The government stays in business largely by
As Access to Energy readers know, we consider the Y2K com-
puter-date mania now sweeping America to be very exaggerated in
comparison with the actual problem as we have discussed in past is-
sues. This is becoming a textbook example of the successful sale of
Copyright 1998 by Access to Energy
be substituted for it.
The course text for Colloquium, the mandatory course, is a col-
lection of articles chosen by the SOU humanities faculty and printed
specially for this course. It is devoted primarily to the teaching of the
universitys own brand of atheistic secular humanism including
radical feminism, non-absolute morals, situational ethics (if it feels
good, do it), and atheistic existentialism.
Aha, you say, just a philosophy course not a bad idea for stu-
dents to be familiar with different philosophies. No, the text does not
contain a single work by any significant philosopher. Nor does it con-
tain even one article by a significant historian, author, or educator.
Several of the essays are about education, but the only immediately
recognizable author among them is Malcolm X. Students are asked to
write and speak about the educational philosophy of Malcolm X.
Malcolm X qualified for the text, no doubt, because he was a rac-
ist, advocate of violence, and felon. Booker T. Washington a truly
great black educator who overcame personal challenges of race that
were orders of magnitude more severe than those encountered by
Malcolm X is not mentioned, but then Booker T. Washington was
not a racist, did not advocate violence, and was not a felon.
Arynnes real sin, of course, is that she is a Christian. She is quite
tolerant of people with all sorts of views, but she is not willing to take
a total-immersion, one-year course in atheism and its currently popu-
lar, politically correct manifestations. This is not a survey course. In
order to receive a passing grade, she would be required for a full
academic year to read, write, give speeches, engage in indoctrina-
tion discussions, and answer correctly examination questions
primarily devoted to religious beliefs entirely opposite to her own.
Moreover, this brew of New-Age, New-Left, politically correct
psychobabble is not conducive to her study of science. Speech and
writing experience is helpful in many pursuits but not when it is
obtained at the expense of forced pseudo-rational indoctrination.
The Oregon State Religion being promulgated here is indeed dif-
ferent from other religions. A great religion emphasizes the higher
human traits. The Oregon religion is based primarily upon the lowest
aspects of human nature. (The course text opens with a 13-page arti-
cle on rape, including detailed descriptions of actual rapes which
sets the stage for teaching feminism and goes downhill from there.)
It is not unusual to have all sorts of courses on a college campus.
Increasingly, some particularly objectionable ones are being required
for graduation. (Zachary was forced to take, as a graduation require-
ment at Oregon State University, a health class that was so raw his
45-year-old male chemistry advisor was too embarrassed to discuss
its contents with him. Zachary and some of his fellow students simply
walked out of some degraded presentations by the woman profes-
sor teaching this course.) It is new, however, to require indoctrina-
as a student regardless of the question of receiving a degree.
As science, technology, freedom, and the mores of Western civili-
zation are increasingly ripped apart in American society, it is evident
that our tax-financed universities are doing their best to participate.
marily in the private sector and is only now beginning to attract real
promoting fear and envy, and it is usually out in front on new manias.
We are, however, pleased to see the renewed interest in personal
self-sufficiency that Y2K is generating. The world is a dangerous place
for all sorts of reasons, and it is always wise to have available means of
providing water, food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities for
ones self, family, and friends without outside help at least for lim-
ited periods of time. It is interesting to see human nature at work. For
example, we are currently selling the book Nuclear War Survival
Skills an excellent book about self-sufficiency (and specialized top-
ics related to nuclear weapons survival) which we published as part of
our civil defense work beginning 12 years ago at a rate several-fold
higher than it sold during the Cold War. The danger from tens of
thousands of nuclear weapons does not worry Americans nearly so
much as does the prospect of losing some of their computers.
Personal survival insurance should not, however, become a reason
for being. Nor should the dangers of the modern world instill such pes-
simism that one is precluded from pursuing the positive goals of life.
Some people sell their vision of a fearful future so vehemently as to
convince listeners that the end is near, so anything except survival
preparations is pointless, and the normal pursuits of life are useless.
Survival preparations should be viewed in the same way as life in-
surance. The insured does not visit the bank deposit box weekly to ad-
mire his life insurance policy and then attend frequent meetings where
self-appointed gurus reassure him that the policy will soon be needed
perhaps, if all goes as expected, in the very near future. He buys the
policy to protect his family; puts it away; and then pursues life posi-
tively as though it will never be needed.
Stepping beyond Year 2000 personal survivalism both sensible
and overdone there is an additional consideration that is, however, a
serious cause for concern. We pursue the benefits of science, technol-
ogy, and free enterprise with physical resources. Therefore, an essen-
tial part of our positive pursuits must involve resource management
the large resources of corporations in which we may be involved and
also our own personal resources, which give us the individual eco-
nomic freedom to choose our work in accordance with our own goals.
Year 2000 fears whether or not they are justified are beginning
to pose a significant threat to the resources with which we work. Con-
sider, for example, the current economic scene. Deflation in basic com-
modities has become a rout, with oil selling at all-time low real prices,
base metals at or below the prices of production, and agricultural com-
modities beginning to resemble the 1930s with Iowa corn near $2 per
bushel and Iowa hogs selling between seven and ten cents per pound.
Meanwhile, the stock market is averaging about 30 times earnings
with many of the hottest stocks having no earnings at all, so their price-
to-earnings ratio is essentially infinite. The unwinding of these ex-
tremes without severe economic dislocations will be a balancing act
requiring extraordinary wisdom in both the private and public sectors.
Enter the Year 2000. What prudent investor, in view of current ma-
nias, will not consider lightening his market exposure at least a little as
the magic date approaches? Yet, what will be the effect if investors, on
average, decide to reduce their holdings by, say, 10% and postpone
purchases until after the date change? This sort of concerted, coordi-
nated action could easily set off an uncontrollable deflation in the stock
market. It is not the realities of the Year 2000 change that we have to
fear it is, instead, the effect of coordinated human fear upon reality.
How does one preserve liquid assets across such a discontinuity?
One conventional conservative answer to this question is to park assets
in Treasury Bills and Bonds until the dust settles. In other words, loan
your money to the U. S. Congress and President. One advantage of this
choice is the daily televised opportunity to see your funds at work as
the guarantors of those funds struggle through their continuing soap-
opera battles with such questions as whether or not adultery, perjury,
and obstruction of justice are O.K.
At the other end of the investment spectrum is the purchase of basic
commodities and gold hoping (without real justification) that some-
how these substances are nearing the bottom of their deflationary cliff.
After all, gold and silver are real money. Just ask any American but
try to pick one over 60 who appears to have a very long memory.
Access to Energy is mostly about science and technology. We make
no pretense of knowing the answer to the resource management ques-
tions posed by Year 2000 fears. Each of us will make his own guesses.
We hope many of you are right. One thing seems certain, however.
Our abilities to pursue advances in science and technology in future
years will, to an unusual extent, depend critically upon how we man-
age our liquid resources during 1999.
The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 1998, p A10, carried a fas-
cinating editorial by David Schoenbrod discussing this subject with
reference to the American monetary debate a century ago. Entitled
The Yellow Brick Beltway, this article contains a wealth of infor-
mation related to Year 2000 decisions. It reads:
The release this month of The Wizard of Oz in a digitally juiced-
up film format should prompt more people to read the even more won-
derful book. Their reading pleasure will be enhanced by understanding
that L. Frank Baum wrote the book as a parable whose point is more
poignant today than when it was published in 1900 that the wizards
of Washington are a bunch of charlatans running a scam on the little
people of America.
Baum drew the books symbolism from William Jennings
Bryans campaign for the national government to back its paper money
with silver as well as gold. Bryans opponent in the 1896 and 1900
presidential elections was William McKinley, who supported the gold
standard. Bryan argued that the gold standard depressed the economy,
thereby crucifying America on a cross of gold. The hard times are
represented by the bleakness of the Kansas in which Dorothy finds
herself at the beginning of the book.
Dorothy represents everywoman, and the cyclone that carries her
to the land of Oz is a silverite victory at the polls, according to the his-
torian Richard Jensen. The land gets its name from the silverites want-
ing 16 ounces (oz.) of silver to be the monetary equivalent of one
ounce of gold. Her own house lands on the wicked Witch of the East
(the Eastern bankers), killing the witch and freeing the Munchkins (or-
dinary people) from bondage. The good Witch of the North (the
Northern electorate) tells Dorothy that the Wizard of Oz may be able to
help her get home. To reach him, she must travel the yellow brick road
(gold ingots), which may be done only with silver slippers (the movie
changed them to ruby for better contrast). She meets Bryans support-
ers along the way the Scarecrow (the farmer who thinks he has no
brains) and the Tin Woodsman (the industrial laborer who thinks he
has no compassion) and Bryan himself represented as a Cowardly
Lion.
This ragtag electoral coalition gets to the national capital, the Em-
erald City, whose greenish hue is an optical illusion, just as the green-
back dollar is illusory money. The wizard proves to be a complete
charlatan. As he confesses to himself, How can I help being a humbug
when all these people make me do things that everybody knows cant
be done? It was easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the
Woodsman happy, because they imagined I could do anything. He
blames his actions on the polls, but at least he is honest with himself.
To get Dorothy back to Kansas, he suggests a hot air balloon, but his
hot air carries him away, leaving Dorothy behind.
The book is in the end about political and human truths of far
broader import than the elections of 1896 and 1900, both of which
McKinley won. The Scarecrow learns that he always had brains, the
Woodsman that he always had a heart, the Lion that he always had
courage. Dorothy too learns that with her silver shoes she always had
the means to return home. The message is that ordinary people can
take care of themselves if they realize their full potential, work together
and do not put themselves into the thrall of self-professed experts
wielding the powers of government.
This populist message was uncongenial to E. Y. (Yip) Harburg,
the socialist and New Dealer who had the most to do with scripting the
movie. The movie makes the wizard a force for good. Although he is a
fast talker and overpromiser, he is not a complete humbug, because he
instills Dorothy, her companions and his own people with the confi-
dence needed to succeed. He gives them, however indirectly, what the
New Deal promised to the American people brains, heart, and cour-
age. The wizards farewell address was readily identifiable to the
movie audiences of 1939 as in the style of Franklin Roosevelt.
This subtle respinning of the story turns its meaning on its head. In
the book, Dorothy seeks the security of home in the national capital,
but finds there nothing but trickery and discovers in the process that
she and her fellow citizens already have what it takes to live the good
life. In the movie, Dorothy and the rest of humanity find that they
need charismatic and expert leaders. They are bound to keep electing
wizards.
The books perspective is needed today more than ever. Our mod-
ern wizards are far more sophisticated than the original at deceiving the
people. The original wizard simply stayed in his palace, required the
wearing of tinted glasses and promised only what might happen any-
way. Our modern wizards of both parties have tricks to avoid responsi-
bility that Baum could not have dreamed of. They use unfunded
mandates and unfunded entitlements to give to Peter without appearing
to take from Paul. For the same reason, they delegate to agencies and
the courts the power to regulate and to tax. Their secret is the same as
the original wizards they have nothing to give us that we do not al-
ready have in ourselves. Yes, we do need some government, but, no,
we dont need the aggrandizement of government that comes from all
the tricks.
Which reminds me, Dorothy, stay away from the White House. the public to determine the perceived truth after the public has
Gold, silver, other commodities, paper money, computer entries
take your pick. Transferring liquid resources to the other side of the
Year 2000 mania may require more than ordinary wizardry.
sity the curricula are designed to twist the truth in order to encourage
FROM TECHNOLOGY TO MYSTICISM
now beginning to overtly teach that reality is only an illusion that
At the 1995 meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (CD-
ROM available from DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Ste. 9, Tucson, AZ
85716), Lowell Wood spoke about the manned exploration of Mars.
Dr. Wood, a protege of Edward Teller, led the group that developed
the Brilliant Pebble strategic defense devices. These inexpensive satel-
lites should now be protecting Americans from missile attack.
Strategic defense technologies have, however, a fundamental flaw
their deployment would mitigate the fear with which the American
people are controlled by their government and the liberal media com-
plex with which it shares power. Lowell Wood is now working on the
defense of Americans from biological weapons and making little
progress. (The problems here are entirely political, not technical.) Civil
defense (nuclear, biological, chemical, and natural disaster protection
for civilians) also mitigates fear while fear and envy are the primary
means by which our government maintains and extends its control.
Even for natural disasters, pre-positioned civil defense (which is
more effective and less costly than centralized disaster response) is ig-
nored in favor of enormously costly disaster response efforts launched
after the events. The government wants its citizens to believe that they
are protected only by bureaucrats who will ride to their rescue.
The military campaigns against Iraq alone justified largely by
Iraqs alleged weapons of mass destruction have cost more than who will be hurt most by it but science cant answer those ques-
would a sound defense for the United States against such weapons
from any source. Whatever the goal in Iraq, it certainly is not primarily
the defense of the American people.
Many years ago, Lowell Wood and his colleagues developed an in-
expensive plan for the manned exploration of Mars. Robert Zubrin
(also a DDP speaker) and his coworkers developed a similarly inex-
pensive Mars plan using a different approach. Neither system has been
of interest to NASA bureaucrats, however. They prefer a plan ten times
as expensive and requiring more than a generation to implement be-
cause it provides permanent jobs for NASA planners.
Dr. Wood opened his speech with a prelaunch photograph of one of
the moon rockets (vintage 1969) and the comment that it was the finest
piece of space hardware that had ever been built before or since. He
then calculated that the money spent on NASA, in the 25 years since
the manned missions to the moon, would have paid for a manned
moon mission every six weeks during the entire 25 years. That
money has instead bought us three shuttle planes that run back and
forth to Earth orbit and a vast network of NASA welfare cases so
unprincipled that they now make regular, false pronouncements about
human effects on weather in order to keep climate change money flow-
ing to NASA from the Clinton Administration. Instead, it should have
purchased the manned colonization of the moon and Mars.
Only the integrity of Richard Feynman, who was accidentally ap-
pointed to the commission charged with covering up the cause of the
Challenger shuttle disaster, allowed the public to know that an O-ring
problem well-known to the rocket engineers who strongly warned
against launching the shuttle in such cold weather caused the crash.
The NASA tragedy (not that they have failed to accomplished re-
markable things but that they have accomplished so much less than
was possible) stands in the middle of a philosophical battle that is rag-
ing now throughout our society. One of the issues in this battle is the
question of whether or not our future will be determined by truth or by
propaganda-disseminated falsehoods.
The outrageous events of the past few weeks in Congress, where
Clinton supporters and retainers have lied with an abandon unprece-
dented in American public life, are not an aberrant side-show. They are
reflective of the degree to which actual truth has been downgraded
with respect to perceived truth. The propagandists claim that the is-
sues of perjury and obstruction of justice should be decided by polling
been subjected to appropriate propaganda campaigns. In tens of thou-
sands of college humanities courses throughout America courses
similar to the one Arynne refuses to take at Southern Oregon Univer-
politically correct perceptions. In fact, some of these courses are
there are no such things as facts or truths.
In New Light on Edisons Light by Robert Friedel in Great In-
ventions, a supplement to American Heritage of Invention and Tech-
nology published by Forbes (1997), we read about the entirely different
situation that prevailed a century ago when Thomas Edison and his
colleagues combined their high-voltage, high-vacuum carbonized fila-
ment light bulb with new devices for power generation, metering, fus-
ing, switching, and insulating in order to give the world practical,
low-power electric lights. Regardless of his great prior accomplish-
ments, Edison was held rigorously to the truth by the investors and
news media (government was not involved), who closely followed
progress in his small laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
By contrast, Heating Up by Royce Flippin in the Princeton
(New Jersey) Alumni Weekly, December 2, 1998, pp 12-19, begins
with the entirely false statement that carbon dioxide is far and away
the most important of the greenhouse gases (it is actually classed as a
minor greenhouse gas water is the most important) and goes down-
hill from there. Meanwhile, the featured scientist at Princetons Geo-
physical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (funded entirely by the federal
government) poses beside his Cray T-90 supercomputer saying: Peo-
ple want us to tell them exactly how bad global warming will be, and
tions. The truth is that science does not have a shred of evidence that
anyone will be hurt by it, but that will not keep the money flowing.
The perceived truths that have prevented real space exploration,
prevented the strategic and civil defense of the United States, and are
now threatening the worlds hydrocarbon-based technology are rapidly
forming a mystic pseudoreality that has more effect on human affairs
than reality itself. It is as though those who teach that reality doesnt
really exist are winning by simply replacing reality with perceived
reality and enforcing these perceptions with government power.
Polls are publicized more frequently than facts because it is public
perception that becomes established reality and the value of any
statement is measured not by its truth but by its effect on public percep-
tion. Perceived reality is then enforced by government power. This is,
of course, an environment wherein mathematics, science, engineering,
and technology cannot thrive.
At present, information technologies are still flourishing in America
because they are changing so fast that government planners have
been unable to catch them. Much of our technology is, however, stag-
nating or being spun off to workers in other countries. Eventually, real-
ity with catch up with perceived reality with, perhaps, the
Republican impeachment of William Clinton an important first step.
 all to the basic arguments presented in the petition or its underlying
POPULATION IMPLOSION?
childish nonsense about oil industry machinations and bogus names.
Stanfords Paul Population Bomb Ehrlich has compiled an es-
sentially perfect record in his predictions concerning human resources
and the environment all of his predictions have been wrong. Increas-
ingly, it looks like the last threat to his unblemished record of failure
catastrophic rises in world population will be removed.
21st Century, Fall 1998, p 8, reports that U. S. Census Bureau data
shows that the 20-year decline in world population growth rate acceler-
ated in 1997 and the first half of 1998. Of the 157 countries included,
17 had falling populations a year ago. Now 30 have falling populations
and 16 more have zero population growth.
World population stands at 5.9 billion. The world population
growth rate in the 1980s was 2%. In 1992 it was 1.7%; in 1997 it was
1.4%; and now it is 1.3% per year.
This moderated growth and the spread of farm technology has
caused a continuing 20-year downtrend in the worldwide number of
acres of farm land under cultivation. Meanwhile, the people who are
working continue to perform as Julian Simon predicted producing
more and more resources at lower prices. Do not, however, look for the
enviros to reduce their howls that overpopulation is depleting earth of
its remaining resources with doomsday just ahead. Perceived reality is
their stock-in-trade. Facts do not matter.
published in The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, November
PETITION PROJECT
steam power plants that were built by the administration of California
During December, Access to Energy mailed a letter to the 19,500
(including 17,500 scientists) signers of the Petition Project petition,
which urges the United States government not to ratify the global
warming energy rationing treaty. The letter asked signers to support
the Science and Environmental Policy Project (which is working ac-
tively and effectively against the warmers), to support the Petition Pro-
ject, and to subscribe to Access to Energy. Earlier, we donated a use of
this list to the Marshall Institute and the Greening Earth Society, who
used it to raise funds for their own antienviro, protechnology efforts.
About half of the resources used for the Petition Project so far have
come from individual donations and about half were obtained by the
profits from subscriptions to Access to Energy. None were provided by
the hydrocarbon industries or others with related economic interests.
We hope now to finance a campaign to increase the scientist signers
to over 20,000 before the Senate considers ratification of the global
warming treaty that the Clinton Administration signed last month.
Judging by the frequent mention of the petition in antiglobal warm-
ing treaty articles and by the many attacks upon it by pro-global warm-
ing propagandists, it is still doing a good job of depriving the enviros of
their perceived consensus on this issue. That is, of course, the point
of the project. Scientific truth is never determined by polls, petitions, or
votes. The global warming scam rests, however, on the false percep-
tion that most scientists agree with the warmers. We have definitively
proved that this perception is fallacious. It is entirely a self-serving
myth created by the pseudoenvironmentalists.
As in so many other issues, our enemies attack the petition with
outright lies, since the truth is not favorable to them. We are routinely
said to be secretly financed by the oil industry and to have created the
list from bogus names of people who have not signed. This latter refers
to one false name that was planted on the list by a faked petition sub-
mitted by the enviros and to a word search they conducted for common
names in the list. We have verified more than 95% of the signatories
and checked each common name advertised by the enviros without
finding any errors. For example, the enviros crow that Perry Mason
(the well-known TV investigator) is on our list of signers. He is in the
person of Perry Mason, a Ph.D. chemist who resides in Texas.
Honesty is just not of interest to these people. In the case of the one
false name, Ozone Action, the enviro group that planted the name,
immediately disrupted a Congressional hearing, bragging that they had
found this bogus name on the petition.
Remarkably, the enviros have not managed to offer any rebuttal at
scientific support. So, the only opposition to which we can reply is this
We have taken away their perceived consensus (which, of
course, never existed except in their own propaganda). This has al-
ready hurt them severely. As the Senate focuses its attention on the
global warming treaty, this effect will continue to increase.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Week That Was by S. Fred Singer, December 22, 1998, pub-
lished by the Science and Environmental Policy Project, 4084 Univer-
sity Drive, Suite 101, Fairfax, VA 22030, reports that Canadas
Minister of the Environment, Christine Stewart, speaking about
global warming to editors and reporters of the Calgary Herald said,
No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environ-
mental benefits . . . . Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to
bring about justice and equality in the world.
This sort of non-thought binds much of the enviro movement to-
gether. Each group (they rarely think as individuals) is convinced that
enviro measures will serve whatever social purpose provides their cur-
rent reasons for self-justification. Truth being irrelevant to them, they
all climb together on each antitechnology bandwagon that passes by.
l As reported in Dream Ran Out of Steam Geysers Goose Egg
29, 1998, p B1, California has lost $600 million in the failure of two
governor Jerry Brown. One of the plants never operated at all, and the
other ran at about 10% of capacity for a few years before it was closed.
California still must repay the bonds issued to build them.
The problem the state built these two geothermal steam powered
plants in locations where there was not enough steam to operate them.
Although this deficiency was known to experts associated with the
project, the Brown administration, enthusiastic to have its very own
alternative energy demonstration project, pushed ahead with the plants
without an independent study of steam availability.
GOOD READING
l The Spirit of Free Enterprise by George Gilder, Simon and
Schuster, New York, 1984, and Recapturing The Spirit of Free Enter-
prise by George Gilder, ICS Press, San Francisco, 1992. (The second
book also contains the first.)
It is said that people are motivated primarily by greed and fear (and
sex if you believe the entertainment industry). While the base mo-
tivations of greed and fear are powerful (look how far the Clintons
have ridden them), these are not the human characteristics that have
motivated those who have built our civilization. It is the higher charac-
teristics of the human spirit to which we owe our way of life as
George Gilder ably sets forth in these books.
l BELLE Newsletter published by NREPHC, University of Massa-
chusetts, School of Public Health, Amherst, MA 01003, issues 6, 3
(1998) and 7, 1 1998). BELLE stands for Biological Effects of Low
Level Exposures. These two issues explore the toxicological and so-
cietal implications of hormesis the biological tendency for radiation
and chemical exposures to be beneficial at low dose levels.
l Environment News published monthly by The Heartland Insti-
tute, 19 South LaSalle, Suite 903, Chicago, IL 60603. The November
1998 issue is typical of this excellent antienviro publication.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.
 A Pro-Science, Pro-Technology, Pro-Free Enterprise Monthly Newsletter
JANUARY 1999 (Vol. 26, no. 5) Box 1250, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Technological Optimism
During a recent trip to Massachusetts, I had an opportunity to visit
the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. The remarkable re-
cord of American life in the Rockwell paintings is wonderful. One
display in the museum featured all of his Saturday Evening Post cov-
ers in chronological order around the walls of the lower floor rooms.
In this display, I noticed a consistent feature Rockwell continu-
ally portrayed the positive aspects of the contemporary culture. As the
covers chronicle the years of the Great Depression, we see ordinary
people vividly displayed but pessimism and suffering are never the
dominant theme. Even the covers during World War II mix patriot-
ism and pathos realistically, but they never depress the viewer.
These paintings reminded me of one of Ronald Reagans great
strengths. President Reagan always projected a positive, optimistic
image and he, like Rockwell, did this with a populist flair that made
everyone feel he was just like them. Neither man seemed to have an
elitist cell anywhere in his brain.
Whether in painters, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists or others,
this is real leadership. It is the art of drawing out the very best in the
human spirit from each person the art of mobilizing the best in men.
This done, the concerted actions of most men, as individuals or as a
nation, take care of themselves. There is always a positive road for-
ward or, in the case of misadventure, a usable road back. The trick is
to recognize those roads regardless of often confusing circumstances.
While human beings can be motivated for short periods of time
by playing to their baser instincts of fear, greed, and envy, dema-
gogues who do this are generally failures who ultimately become
merely unsightly litter along the highways of recorded history. It is
those who bring out the best in us not those who control us by our
faults who deserve recognition as prime builders of our civilization.
Moreover, we never lose many of our childlike characteristics
nor should we, since they include our best instincts. One is that chil-
dren learn by example. We learn academic knowledge from books
and learn to watch our backs in some of the harder schools of life mous increase in human resources will, as Julian Simon would pre-
but it is by example that we are led to emphasize our best features.
Thomas Edison was a great leader not because he held positions
of leadership, not because he had no faults, not because he was an
orator but simply because of the example he set in his work. Within
those generations were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and
Henry Ford each of whom accomplished specific things, but whose
greater contribution to America may well have been the examples
they set as to what could be done.
When men first set foot on the moon, it was not just current tech-
nologists who put them there. It was the examples set within Ameri-
can society by its past generations of great entrepreneurs, inventors,
engineers, and scientists that instilled the individuals and the country
with the leadership by example that made them believe they really
could go to the moon. John F. Kennedy deserves credit for mobiliz-
ing resources and setting a goal, but he could never have convinced
Americans that they could go to the moon regardless of his great
skills of oratory. One cannot convince people of such things by lec-
turing to them. They were convinced by example by Edison,
media, the House of Representatives (previously so weak that they
CONFIRMATION OF THE BOTTOM
to be an isolated action. In Polls Apart, The Wall Street Journal,
An additional reason for optimism is the increasing evidence that a
moral bottom (as opposed to just another new low) has been reached in
American politics. Regardless of unprecedented political pressure and
the incessant squalling by the Administrations fellow-travelers in the
Copyright 1999 by Access to Energy
Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and thousands of other individuals
whose accomplishments set examples for their peers and descendants.
Today free men are seemingly beset on all sides by unproductive
demagogues who are controlling our government and many of our
people by fear, greed, and envy. These sorts of leeches have, how-
ever, always been with us. The enviros will pass. The antitechnolo-
gists will pass. And those who feed upon the worst in human nature
the William Clintons and Albert Gores will also pass. They accom-
plish nothing and inspire no one. Their examples are negative and un-
enduring. They may delay our trips to Mars; they may impede our
technological revolutions in health care and longevity; and they may
postpone our future in which the currency of technological progress
energy becomes, like bandwidth on the Internet, so inexpensive that
supplies are essentially infinite and effectively free but our civiliza-
tion will eventually leave them behind. We will pass them smiling
like Ronald Reagan, living as portrayed by Norman Rockwell, inno-
vating like Thomas Edison, and refusing all goals except the great
ones as did our most magnificent entrepreneurs and industrialists.
While the American stock market is now ridiculously high by any
rational standards and it may, indeed, be driven primarily by the fear
of the middle-aged who have saved little and see their last chance in
the gambling pits of New York, there may be another explanation.
The drift toward decentralization that started in the Soviet Union
is spreading all over the world. The confluence of this trend (which
frees individuals from the heavy hand of centralized government)
with the astounding array of technological miracles that are flooding
into the world from engineering, science, and individual entrepre-
neurs, may mean that the Year 2000 truly is a turning point not
downward into collapse but upward into astonishing progress.
With abundant energy from nuclear power and coal, oil, and natu-
ral gas, 4 billion people in the third world are now lifting themselves
from poverty and joining the technological revolution. This enor-
dict, increase the abundance and drive down the cost of natural
resources leading to an even faster rate of industrial progress.
Could it be that our markets are now discounting these events?
Sharply lower commodity prices can mean deflationary collapse, but
they can also predict rapid technological improvement. High Ameri-
can stock prices can be an investment mania, but they can also por-
tend a nearing period of rapid economic expansion. America, by
example, will be the epicenter of any such technological advance.
Timing is always the difficult part. I am sure that an extended pe-
riod of astonishing technological advance is in our future but when?
Will a period of contraction come before it? The answer is to plan
for both. As I was advised by my mother 40 years ago, Hope for the
best, prepare for the worst, and take what comes.
I think that 6 billion people, the miracles of science and technol-
ogy, and the examples of our great innovators will not be denied.
Having made self-sufficiency preparations as insurance against the
worst, I actually expect the best a technological expansion between
2000 and 2020 that will completely transform human civilization.
seemed powerless) has impeached Bill Clinton. Nor does this appear
December 22, 1998, p A18, reported the results of a national survey
by Rasmussen Research. Unlike other Administration-friendly poll-
sters and reporters, Rasmussen did not stop with the usual question as
to whether the responders wanted the Senate to convict and remove
the President. (As with others, the answer to this question was only At present, between 3% and 4% of the children in America are
37% affirmative.) The Rasmussen poll also found that 61% of Ameri- home schooled a number that is growing very, very rapidly. Even if
cans believe that Clinton deserves to lose his job. Of the 61% - 37% = public schools were not academic and social nightmares, the micro-
24%, 10% have equal contempt for Congress and the President; 10% processor and communications revolution would cause the decentrali-
are worried that removal from office might be bad for the country; zation of education and the destruction of the educational monopoly.
and 4% flatly oppose the elevation of Al Gore to the Presidency. The fact is that academic quality can at least be doubled and the cost
Moreover, 39% think Clinton has committed impeachable offenses of education reduced by more than 10-fold by means of Internet and
worse than those for which he has been impeached. CD-ROM technology. In addition, as children are removed from state
The media spin of this result as a two-thirds approval rating for schools, these schools can no longer be used as centers of indoctrina-
Clinton is as false as Bills testimony under oath. The American peo- tion and social engineering. Future American education will consist of
ple and even their House of Representatives have reached a key moral a mixture of self-taught remote home schools including grade one
reversal point. Whether or not President Clinton is removed by the through college and even graduate school and more conventional
Senate or is left to twist in the wind for the next two years and then group schools run by private enterprise at one-tenth the current cost of
relegated either to retirement or to jail like so many of his cronies the public education. All will have much higher academic quality.
bear market in national morals is over. As the new bull market in per- Public, tax-financed, socialized education will soon disappear.
sonal behavior gets under way, it will augment and amplify the techno- While the tens of millions of personal tragedies that this degraded rem-
logical transformation in prospect for the next millennium. nant of socialism has caused can never be reversed, at least this night-
mare is finally coming to an end. Across America, by 2020, many
TRILLION DOLLAR GORILLA? public school and university buildings will have been converted to
other uses by entrepreneurs who purchased them at auction.
The newsletter Strategic Investment by James Davidson, Lord With this transformation will also come an end to the most oppres-
Rees-Mogg, Jack Wheeler, and their co-workers, available from 1217 sive and pernicious of Americas tax systems. Property taxes, whereby
St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21202, November 18, 1998 issue, re- each home owner must buy his home again from the state, year by
ports that the Clinton Administration has intervened repeatedly in the year, regardless of current income and under threat of seizure of his
U. S. stock market to push the market up at politically convenient home by force if he cannot pay, are an outrage an outrage that has
times. These include particularly the period before the 1998 elections only been possible by self-serving socialist appeals on behalf of the
and instances corresponding to crises during the Clinton scandals. children. The bitter irony is that the schools built for the children
Davidson marshals significant arguments and evidence to support have ultimately become a net destructive force in their young lives.
this allegation. Readers may want to request this issue of his newsletter I have had the privilege of watching an unusual experiment that
and reach their own conclusions. That this would be criminal and ille- demonstrates the pressure building in America for educational change.
gal conduct would, of course, be of no consequence to this Administra- When the six children in our family home school (ages 12, 10, 8, 6, 6,
tion but this does not prove that they have done it. Those who trade and 1) lost their mother 10 years ago, I converted their home school
significant amounts of stocks should look into this possibility because, into a self-teaching school with no teacher at all. I have spent less than
if true, it would markedly degrade the usual trading indicators. 10 minutes per day on this school during the past 10 years and its
Regardless of questions of legality and morality, the existence of graduates are outperforming most of their peers in college and beyond.
such an enormous player in the markets (one whose interests do not Four years ago, these children started putting their school on CD-
respond to the usual profit and loss incentives) would be very disrup- ROMs in such a way that it and all of its books and teaching materials
tive. Perhaps this will be Clintons last gift to his trial lawyer benefac- could be inexpensively communicated to other families. They were
tors. Imagine the investor lawsuits that would inundate federal courts helped in this by several family friends. For the past two years, the
from people who lost money because of federal market manipulation. children have marketed this Robinson Curriculum on 22 CD-
ROMs to the home school community. Their entire advertising budget
AN ELEMENTAL VICTORY has been approximately $150,000 and they now have about 30,000
students. That is $5 to find and sell to each student!
One casualty of the enviros wars against the periodic table is the While public school costs are over $5,000 per student year and av-
fumigant methyl bromide, which has been slated for a ban at the end of erage home school costs are about $500 per student year, teaching with
the year 2000. With farmers struggling under historic low food prices the Robinson Curriculum costs about $50 per student year. It is avail-
and consumer savings reduced to zero percent to offset the cost of fed- able for $195, postage paid, from the Oregon Institute of Science and
eral tax increases, the loss of methyl bromide was going to be an espe- Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523.
cially serious event. It is used very extensively in agriculture. While this story, even when told in detail, is a remarkable one, it is
A provision in the 1998 federal appropriations bill has moved the not a story of geniuses and revolutionary new ideas. It is largely a story
deadline for this ban out four years, to January 1, 2005. There is, as you of an education industry which has become so ridiculously ineffective
might expect, not a shred of evidence that human-produced methyl and costly that six farm kids with a good work ethic and about a year of
bromide has a negative effect on the environment. actual effort can blow a noticeable hole in it. Their school is now
larger in number of students than most American universities.
EDUCATIONAL BOTTOM How does this compare, however, with conventional wisdom? Are
there not numerous reports that computer education products and pri-
Yet another positive indicator for the future is the bottom that has vate education businesses have had very poor financial results? Yes,
been reached in American education. In Wired Schools Are Nice. but the reason is that most of these businesses so far have been de-
Competition Is Better by Jason L. Riley, The Wall Street Journal, signed by educators whose ideas are derived from either the public
December 10, 1998, p A22, Milton Friedman (Nobel Laureate in Eco- school system or the computer game markets. Neither of these works.
nomics) is quoted as saying: Our public school system today is not It is traditional educational methods that work. These were devel-
only a socialist enterprise, its an almost completely unionized enter- oped by scholars during the past two millennia and adopted in the Eng-
prise. Its a monopoly a real monopoly, not a fake one. (A reference lish-speaking world during the past five centuries all before the
to the Clinton Administrations antitrust suit against Microsoft.) recent socialist school failures. Those methods delivered inexpen-
Friedman further said, I have not seen any movement in business sively and effectively by 21st century technology are superb. Bill
in general, until recently, to try and promote an educational system un- Gates dropped out of Harvard and helped bring an information miracle
der which the customer, namely the parent and the child, has final say to every home. Now public school dropouts can extend this miracle
and final choice about the schooling the child gets. using the PCs and Internet to obtain and deliver first-class education.

EROSION OF A LIE
The global warming Petition Project continues to erode the myth of
a scientific consensus spread by the warmers. At the recent Rio de
Janeiro United Nations annual warmer lovefest, the Clinton Admini-
stration signed the global energy rationing treaty. Perhaps the coming
Senate vote on Clintons removal from office should be held simulta-
neously with the Senate ratification vote on this promise to turn off
one-third of Americas energy supplies.
At this U. N. meeting, copies of Petition Project materials, includ-
ing the letter from Frederick Seitz, the 8-page review article, the Wall
Street Journal editorial, the Petition, and a summary of the signatories,
were hand distributed to every official delegate. As a result, Stephen
Schneider (the mediocre Stanford professor who first sought fame as a
global cooler, but has now hit the big time as a global warmer), who
had wangled 15 minutes to address the assembled mob, found it neces-
sary to devote his entire speech to trashing the Petition.
The newest craze among global warming scientists is a cliff
effect. For this, the calculations are jiggered so that little or no hu-
man-caused change of temperature or climate is observable in the early
years (corresponding to the failure to find their beloved greenhouse
signal in real experimental data), but in later years there is suddenly a
catastrophic effect. Since this entire prediction is not testable in the pre-
sent, this hypothesis frees them from experimental refutation.
The warmers are now grousing that we have not given them suffi-
cient detail about the Petition signers and their fields of specialization.
We never will! But when the time arrives that a maximum effect on
the Senate vote is necessary this information (all one thousand pages
of it) will be hand delivered personally to every U. S. Senator.
Pauling debates and the controversy over atomic testing in the atmos-
CHEMICAL HORMESIS
radiation, Pauling demonized Teller (who was working to build Amer-
In a series of articles, BELLE Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 2, Vol 6, No. 3,
and Vol. 7, No. 1, published by the Northeast Regional Environmental
Public Health Center, School of Public Health, University of Massa-
chusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, explores the phenomenon of chemical
hormesis in biological systems. This phenomenon parallels radiation
hormesis, which has been discussed many times in Access to Energy,
especially with respect to the work of Bernard Cohen. Cohen has
shown that low-level radiation from radon actually decreases the death
rate from lung cancer by a very significant amount.
Figure 1 summarizes chemical hormesis in a variety of toxicologi-
cal systems. The general finding is that toxins often have a positive
effect on the health of organisms at low doses. This has serious impli-
cations for Environmental Protection Agency regulations based on lin-
ear extrapolations to zero dose that condemn even the slightest trace
of a toxin in the environment. In many (possibly most) cases, the EPA
actually damages overall human health by these regulations.
As shown in Figure 1, the beneficial effect of a chemical toxin usu-
ally rises to about 150% of control and extends over a ten-fold dose
before falling to the NOAEL (No Observed Adverse Effect Level).
Figure 1
Figure 2
A famous case in point is that of Linus Pauling (an outstanding
chemist) who, after adopting in 1968 the recommendations of health
food advocates that he take Vitamin C and parlaying this interest into
some valuable theoretical work on nutrition, ended his days (which
were extended to the age of 92 probably, in part, by hormesis) in
partial personal and professional disgrace and disrepute.
Ironically, Pauling rose to public prominence during the Teller-
phere. Using a linear extrapolation to zero of the harmful effects of
icas nuclear deterrent to Communism) as a murderer on the basis
that the tiny increases in low-level background radiation from nuclear
weapons tests were killing people especially the children. We
now know that, due to radiation hormesis, Tellers weapons tests were
probably extending human life spans rather than shortening them.
Even then, however, Pauling was practicing life-extension by
chemical hormesis. He consumed one to two alcoholic drinks per day
on the basis of studies showing that this practice extends lifespan. The
NOAEL for alcohol seems to be at about one ounce of ethanol per day
but one must always remember individual biological variation.
When Pauling became interested in Vitamin C, he adopted the
health food industry view that Vitamin C supplements strengthen the
immune system. He refused, however, to accept hormesis. For exam-
ple, he convinced George Fegan, a famous Stanford pathologist and
immunologist, to undertake a study of immune system stimulation in
rabbits by Vitamin C. Fegan did observe an increase in immune sys-
tem activity. He concluded, however, that this effect was the result of
oxidative destruction of biological macromolecules by Vitamin C and
the resulting stimulation of the immune system by biochemical break-
down products chemical hormesis by a substance with (at higher
doses) a toxic effect. Unwilling to accept the idea that Vitamin C was a
toxin, Pauling rejected Fegans conclusion.
Pauling was so upset by the data showing that Vitamin C oxidation
products attacked macromolecules (proteins and DNA) that he deliber-
ately destroyed the career of a young graduate student whose thesis
work had demonstrated this and had examined the reactions carefully.
Later, when my coworkers and I (See Suppression of Squamous
Cell Carcinoma in Hairless Mice by Dietary Nutrient Variation,
Mechanism of Ageing and Development 76, pp 201-214 (1994))
showed that the growth rate of cancer in mice was increased by moder-
ate doses of Vitamin C and then decreased at higher, toxic dose levels,
Pauling became so angry that (even though we had worked together
for 15 years and I was then President and Research Director of the
Pauling Institute) he ultimately spent over one million dollars of the
cancer research funds of that Institute to hire lawyers instructed to
carry out his response to my experiments on Vitamin C and cancer
I will see that you never work in science again. (He and they lost.)
In general, better nutrition probably decreases the incidence of can-
cer by strengthening immune response, but after cancer has estab-
lished itself better nutrition increases cancer growth rate by providing
a richer mixture of essential nutrients.
Vitamin C is a toxin at high doses to cancer cells and to normal
cells. At lower doses, however, it apparently has a hormetic effect
suppressing cancer incidence, but stimulating its growth rate after can-
cer becomes a part of the organism. Humans eat about one kilogram of
food per day, so the doses in Figure 2 roughly correspond to daily hu-
man intakes of 3 to 192 grams per day. The lethal dose of Vitamin C
for mice is a little over 200 grams per kilogram of food.
Notice the close similarity of Figure 2, which displays the growth
rate of squamous cell carcinoma in mice during our experiments, and
Figure 1, which summarizes the general hormetic effect of toxic
chemicals on the health of biological systems. Both qualitatively and
quantitatively, this Vitamin C experiment fits the hormesis hypothesis.
Pauling drank one or two drinks of hard liquor (usually gin) per
day, did not smoke, and increased his Vitamin C intake from 3 grams
per day at the age of 67 to 18 grams per day at the age of 92. By ignor-
ing the possibility of radiation hormesis and falsely demonizing Teller,
he managed to obtain a Nobel Prize for Peace. By practicing chemical
hormesis, however, (whether he recognized it or not) he increased his
chances of living in good health for many years.
Edward Teller told me ten years ago that he was taking Vitamin C,
so that there would be one thing that Linus and he agreed about.
has strangled in the netting. The Journal calculates that this mortality
PETR BECKMANN PUBLICATIONS
time he rides in automobile and asks, Whats next shoe laces?
With the November 1998 issue of Access to Energy, we enclosed
the annual green flier for gift subscriptions and for publications by Petr
Beckmann available from Golem Press, which is operated by Mrs.
Beckmann. These books and booklets are a wonderful supplement to
Access to Energy, which Professor Beckmann founded and edited for
20 years. The CD-ROM of 21 years of Access to Energy (see below)
contains all of Dr. Beckmanns issues.
We are currently completing a CD-ROM that will contain the first
25 years of Access to Energy in a fully searchable format. The price
will be the same. If you recently purchased the 21-year CD, we will
send the 25-year version at no cost when it is ready.
In addition to Petr Beckmanns popular books, the technical books
he published (written by him, and/or by others) are superb. Some of
these are applicable only to scientific specialties and some are gener-
ally useful to scientists. They are not listed on the green sheet because
non-scientists might find them difficult to read. One-third of Access to
Energy readers are, however, scientists.
Therefore, we list these books below. They are available from
Golem Press, Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306, except as indicated. The
sold-out books are also listed, since readers may wish to track them
down in used book outlets.
Elementary Queuing Theory and Telephone Traffic by P. Beck-
mann $5.00.
Elements of Applied Probability Theory by P. Beckmann $10.95.
Orthogonal Polynomials for Engineers and Physicists by P. Beck-
mann $30.00.
Ecohysterics & the Technophobes by P. Beckmann sold out.
The Structure of Language by P. Beckmann - sold out.
Depolarization of Electromagnetic Waves by P. Beckmann - sold
out.
Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Rough Surfaces by P.
Beckmann & A. Spizzichino sold out.
Continuous Transitions in Open Waveguides by V. V. Shevchenko
$30.00.
Statistical Antenna Theory by Y. S. Shifrin $35.00.
Radiation from Apertures in Convex Bodies (Flush-mounted An-
tennas) by I. Zakharyev, A. Lemanski, & K. Shcheglov $30.00.
Einstein Plus Two by Petr Beckmann $40.00.
STARK RAVING MAD
l The Bard, Barred in The Wall Street Journal, November 4,
1998, p A22, reports that drama Professor Jared Sakren has now sued
Arizona State University for racial discrimination. He argues that his
firing resulted from his European descent and his use of works written
by male European playwrights. Professor Sakren was fired by radical
feminists within ASU who objected to his use of the works of a sexist
European canon William Shakespeare.
l The Oncoming Monetary Collapse by Lawrence M. Parks,
Vital Speeches of the Day Vol. 65, No. 1, available from FAME, 211
East 43rd Street, New York, NY 10017-4707, reports that U. S. frac-
tional reserve banking (guaranteed by tax money) has created $5 tril-
lion out of thin air and underwrites $60 to $70 trillion in derivative
speculation by banks (guaranteed, without limit, by tax money). Fed-
eral Reserve Chairman Greenspan (who implements this program) has
called this lender-of-last-resort use of tax money a moral hazard.
Since 1940, the American fiat money system (a system that has
failed hundreds of times in many countries) has reduced the value of
the dollar by 95%. If increases in American productivity stolen by this
system are included, then the value of the dollar has dropped by 99%
during the past 60 years. Americans save very little. Why should they?
l Flagrant Foul in The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 1998,
p A14, reports that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has re-
called more than 10 million toy basketball sets. The sets have been de-
clared a hazard because, since the sets introduction in 1976, one child
rate is one thousand times less than that faced by an American each
GOOD READING
l No Nation Can Survive Cultural Rot by Charley Reese in
Conservative Chronicle, October 21, 1998, p 11, available from Box
37077, Boone, IA 50037. Reese says Im not optimistic, but if there
is a solution to the problem of social gangrene, the first step must be to
shoot the television set. Its difficult for any parent to compete with a
multibillion-dollar persuasion industry employing some of the best
creative talent in the world. Never underestimate the influence of this
pervasive form of communication. It is very good at what it does. It
can sell toothpaste and it can sell cultural rot.
The second step is to get the children out of the government edu-
cational system. It will never be reformed. Control of it will never be
returned to local parents. It is an instrument of the state state-funded,
state-staffed, state-controlled. It preaches the state religion, which at
the time is secular egalitarianism.
l Missile Defense for Populations. What does it take? Why are
we not doing it? by Angelo M. Codevilla, published by the George
C. Marshall Institute, October 15, 1998, 1730 K Street NW, Suite 905,
Washington, DC 20006. The few antimissile systems being developed
by the United States have been deliberately engineered downward by
order of the Clinton Administration so that they will not be able to
defend the people of the United States. This is more serious than per-
jury. It is treason. People who live in fear are easily controlled.
l The Coming Great War by Richard J. Maybury. See
http://www.chaostan.com or write to Henry-Madison Research, P.O.
Box 84908-D, Phoenix, AZ 85071. Maybury describes the downside
potential in Asia and Africa. Codevilla shows how this nightmare
might be averted if the U. S. deploys space-based strategic defense.
ACCESS TO ENERGY
Publisher and editor Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research Professor,
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Subscriptions (first-class mail): individuals
$35 for 12 monthly issues (Canada $37, overseas, by air mail only, $40). Corporations
$60, US tax-subsidized organizations $150. Order from Access to Energy, Box 1250,
Cave Junction, OR 97523. Checks must be in US$ drawn on a US bank. Past issues $3
each. 100 page 21 year index $20. CD-ROM of 21 years of back issues $95. Printed 21
years of issues and index $145. CD-ROM, printed 21 years of issues, and index $195.