Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!alberta!cadomin!andrew
From: andrew@cadomin.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Pollution in space (was Re: Response to Globus ...)
Message-ID: <704@cadomin.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Oct-86 20:22:57 EST
Article-I.D.: cadomin.704
Posted: Wed Oct 22 20:22:57 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Oct-86 01:25:41 EST
References: <2156@mtgzz.UUCP> <505@aurora.UUCP> <2163@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins)
Distribution: net
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 22

In article <410@infinet.UUCP> barnes@infinet.UUCP (Jim Barnes) writes:
[ responding to a comment of mine about lunar industrialization . . . ]
>
>This comment about "land rights, ..., pollution requirements, ..."
>sounds suspiciously similar to the strategy used in the late 1800s
>as industry was expanding in the western United States.  
>No one minded if the forests were cut down, the rivers polluted,
>etc. because no one lived there (forgetting the Indians for a minute).
>Lots of damage was done to the environment that will take
>a long time to repair.  I would hate to see us doing the same
>thing to the environments on other worlds as we expand out into
>space.
>

Yes, maybe it does sound the same, but, last I heard, there *are* no
*ecological* environments on any other planets for us to damage. I
really don't see how you can get upset about strip mining the Moon,
which has been dead in just about every sense of the word for the last
two billion years.  I understand your point of view, and I agree with
it here on Earth, but the Moon?  

Where's my "Save the Craters" button when I really need it?