Comments on: From the Big Bang to big bucks

Nobel prize winner Arno Penzias sees the end of farming and recalls when video recorders cost $15,000.

[Tui Pohutukawa]

How awful

that C/net gives a forum to someone telling us that a) organic
agriculture doesn't work, b) wind and tidal energy don't work, c)
nuclear power plants are good for the environment, and should
use up pristine arctic water... the list goes on. How depressing.
If this uninformed gibberish is the best there is on offer,
humanity surely doesn't deserve to survive for another 100
years.

[Rusdude]

Who are you to judge?

While some of his statements could be controversial, who are you to judge? A man of his stature surely does his research before he says anything so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He also isn't against wind energy... He's pro-nuclear power which isn't suprising. Nuclear power might be getting a bad rap because of some incidents but overall it's better & less damaging than coal power (do you have any idea how many thousands of coal miners die every year in the world?).

[sanenazok]

how dare they!

upset you by allowing a person to be interviewed on this site. You don't agree with him? Fine, but that doesn't mean that his viewpoint should be censored. I don't agree with some of what he says either, especially about wind power not being used just due to its bad reputation. (I feel it's not used because it generates unreliable and small amounts of power, is costly and ugly) I also don't agree with his food and water shortage looming argument, I think that's up there with Y2K. That doesn't mean that the interview shouldn't take place. He's entitled to his opinions as much as the next person, especially since he is a recognized scientist.

I also think it's important that "popular" ideas such as whether organic food is desirable, or the feelings against nuclear power be questioned regularly. In the end what he proposes extreme, but he is talking about changes to society over the course of several generations. Imagine how radical anyone talking about the shift to urbanization would have seemed in the 1820's!

[ivanoats]

Organic Agriculture isn't topsoil mining

He sounds like he doesn't know all the facts about organic
agriculture - it is better for topsoil preservation than regular
methods:

"Organic farming enhances soil fertility and biodiversity,
according to findings from a 21-year field trial initiated by the
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in Switzerland."
http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/soil.html

"Soil erosion is an ongoing concern for agriculturists, for without
topsoil cultivation is extremely difficult. The earth's topsoil is
eroding about seven times more quickly than it can be built up.
This is mainly due to inappropriate cropping, especially where
organic matter is low. Studies have shown that organic methods
do not lose as much topsoil as conventional practices. Organic
farmers use crop covers or crop residues to hold down the soil.
Alternating strips of forages and other crops prevents erosion.
Overgrazing of pastures is avoided. Organic farmers use contour
farming?planting slopes with soil-holding crops or trees across
the incline. They do not use highly soluble pesticides and
fertilisers, which break down soil structure."

[Joe845]

Slower mining, but mining

You said : "Organic Agriculture isn't topsoil mining" and "Studies have shown that organic methods do not lose as much topsoil as conventional practices." Still sounds like mining to me. Less destructive than other methods, but still destructive if topsoil erosion is a significant factor.

I believe that the Dr. Penzias is saying that loss of topsoil is significant and that organic methods are not a long term solution to that problem because they still involve plowing. He is not saying that the methods are not better. He is saying that they do not address a critical portion of the problem.

[frugalbrutus]

Nice Interview

I really enjoy hearing the thoughts from "deep thinkers" and hope that CNET continues to print many more such interviews. Whether I agree with them or not, it should help to spur all of us to think big, broadly, and critically. I despise the mindless drivel printed in most newspapers, and am happy to have such outlets as this to get some deeper thoughts.

Thank you CNET.

RE: "Wave Power is Hopeless"

It appear the speaker intended to assert that tidal power is hopeless - given the description that follows. Wave Power has far more potential power than a single power station.
www.windwavesandsun.com

[Tui Pohutukawa]

One might hope

that a Nobel Prize laureate would have carried out some basic
research before making sweeping statements and easily writing
off emerging technologies.
Isn't it obvious to anybody taking an interest in
the environment that we are going to leave a toxic and
overheated wasteland for future generations, unless we
drastically reformulate our priorities? How
can an economy based on the consumption of natural resources
lead to anything but global destruction?
Humanity needs to learn to act in harmony with the natural
world - this is not an option, but a practical necessity.

The solutions to our environmental problems are readily
available, and this since the times of Nikola Tesla. But we need
to look for and nurture those alternatives. And we need to
make a fundamental choice: Do we want to survive as a species
in a world worth living in, or do we want to continue on the path
of making "big bucks" with outdated and discredited
technologies?

"Organic farming doesn't work"??? Strange that, since it did
work very well for the last 20.000 years. Our forefathers were
raised on nothing but organics.

Also, coming back to wave energy, have a look at this:

http://www.epri.com/targethigh.asp?
program=270686&value=05T084.0&objid=297380

http://www.oceanpd.com/Resource/default.html

http://www.oceanpd.com/docs/Camcal.pdf

[sanenazok]

ocean pd

is known vaporware, I remember reading about them getting in trouble for wasting government grants (and that's hard in Europe too). I can't find the article, so it might not be them per se, but I'm pretty sure it was this wave technology.

Anyways he does research that's his job. Don't get fooled by a bunch of computer generated pretty pictures and overblown promises. Especially interesting is their assertion that 30MW powers 20K homes... Even their promises are funny, all you need to power Edinburgh is 20 square kilometers of their products - excluding suburbs Edinburgh covers all of 60 square km. So it's a ratio of 3 to 1 for city size to power generation facility. If only land and seas in Europe were free, then this will work out just fine.

Also if this technology was available since Tesla's time, then why hasn't it been implemented? Mostly because it's not ready is my guess. Society adopts good things in the long run, even in face of attempts to hinder progress (which are rare).