[sustran] RE: SUSTRAN News Flash #26

[RVerzola]

>          outer parts of Jakarta.  Their disappearance would be great
>          for air quality, since they are driven by primitive two-stroke
>          engines, but it will be bad for traffic which is already

May I request a clarification on this? According to Barry Commoner in
his books The Closing Circle and Making Peace with the Planet, the
so-called "primitive" engines are low-compression engines and
therefore produce less poisonous fumes and other pollutants than the
high-compression engines.

He cites this as example (among others, such as the shift from
paper/leather/cotton to synthetics, from organics to chemical
fertilizers, from soap to detergent, from glass bottles to aluminum
disposables, etc.) to illustrate his contention that the main cause of
environmental pollution in the U.S. is the shift from older, more
ecologically-benign technologies to newer, more ecologically
unfriendly technologies.

He also adds that newer technologies can be made more benign, if the
objective for their development is shifted from increasing profit
margins to pollution prevention.

Roberto Verzola