grygy’s Recent Comments

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  Well Cyber, you asked for it and here goes - I am sick of your arguing. Enough accusing someone of being an apologist for Monsanto, taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, etc. FP is in the industry, you are apparently a dilletante, and on the basis of your vitriol I'd believe him a lot more than you. But perhaps you are more interested in commenting than discussing or effecting real change.On Why are (some) farmers afraid of Michael Pollan? posted 1 month ago 26 Responses

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  A minor point, but having actually seen the movie, what we are talking about is Soylent Yellow or maybe Soylent Blue. The best closing line of any movie belongs to this one: "Soylent Green is..." but to finish that statement would be to ruin the movie, and I do have my standards :-)On Soylent Green is ... toxic algae?, and other not-so-tasty morsels from around the web posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

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  Thank you DrX and WannaBe especially (and Umbra) for your gentleness, this is one hot-button issue! Our family fost-adopted two boys, and I've thought a fair amount about the tradeoffs between raising their socio-economic status (means more impacts), "teaching the children well" (means less impacts, especially if they then go on to teach others well, either their kids or strangers). It's a hard thing to analyze and much harder to imagine quantifying enough to say "every extra kid that a middle-class environmentalist bears will increase CO2 emissions by XXX tons over the next 100 years; every extra kid by a Chicano welfare mom increases by YYY tons, etc." So just two things I know: 1) 2 children per family is BELOW the long-term replacement rate, so if the average woman bears two kids population will rise (because of the current over-representation of child-bearers) and then fall; and 2) the most effective ways to reduce family size in the third and probably first world are education of women, and alleviation of poverty. Both lead to children going to school, which means delayed childbirth, increased security for parents, smaller families.On Ask Umbra on big families posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago 48 Responses

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  Tyler: I agree with some of your points, but you are wrong about the auxiliary engines.  This is not a typical charter-cat crew, they have some serious sailors on board, and serious sailors do not like to motor. Remember Lynn and Larry Purdey (sp?), who have been sailing sans engine for literally hundreds of thousands of miles? 

  This boat will have two electric motors with 2 hrs running time in their batteries, for low-speed manoevering and harbor entry. Having tried an electric motor (Torqueedo) on my 22-foot sailboat, I agree they use a lot of juice. So they will sailing virtually all the time, just like other hard-core sailors do.

  As for the Lagoon cats you mention, rumor has it most of them have had so many problems they are being converted back to regular motors. You can be slmost as efficient by just using one of your two engines in a big cat. See http://www.latitude38.com/letters/200901.html and http://www.latitude38.com/letters/200902.html (search for hybrid in these letters and responses in the Bay Area's sailing mag)

  As for nuclear plants generating as much GHGs as coal - show me a reference, I think you are way off on that one too.

  On David de Rothschild: Saving the world, one adventure at a time posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago 9 Responses

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  OK, I know you wanted to be first at the mike, but next time how about a nice "please" instead of a knee in the groin?

  On Caption needed! UPDATE: Caption found posted 5 months, 1 week ago 22 Responses