Sziasztok, Kornyeszek!

Tobbszor szo esett a megujulo energiaforrasokrol, mint lehetseges 
alternativarol.Felmerult bennem egy kerdes ezzel kapcsolatban es 
szivesen vennem hozzaertok valaszat:
Mint tudjuk az energia (meg az anyag) nem vesz el csak atalakul. 
Illetve elvesz (szamunkra) annyi, amennyit a Fold kisugaroz a vilagurbe. 
Ugyanigy nem is keletkezik energia (csak amit a Nap a Foldre sugaroz), 
igy mikor energiaforrasokrol beszelunk, akkor igazaban valamilyen meglevo 
(felhalmozott) energia felhasznalasarol van szo. 
A hagyomanyos energiaforrasok altalaban a napenergiara vezethetok 
vissza es az un. megujulo energiaforrasok nagy resze is (szel, hullam, 
a tengerviz homerseklet-kulonbsegebol nyerheto energia, stb).
Kulon kategoria a nuklearis energia, melynek eredete gondolom a mult 
kodebe vesz es az anyag eredetevel illetve a Fold kialakulasaval van 
kapcsolatban (kovetkezeskepp nem ujul meg meg olyan lassu formaban sem, 
mint ahogy pl. a szenkeszlet megujulna, ha hagynank).
A kerdesem arra vonatkozik, hogy a Nap energiajabol levezetheto 
energiaforrasok felhasznalasa tulajdonkeppen a napenergia felhasznalasanak 
a fokozodasat eredmenyezi, vagy mas (negativ) hatasa is lehet a Fold 
energiamerlegere. Konkretan, ha pl. rengeteg szeleromuvet epitunk, akkor
elnyeljuk es atalakitjuk a szelenergia jelentos reszet. Vajon ez a nagativum 
hol es hogyan jelentkezik a Fold energiamerlegeben?
Meg erdekesebb kerdes, hogy a Fold magneses terenek megcsapolasaval nyert 
energianak hol es hogyan fizetjuk meg az arat (ugyanez vonatkozik a 
geotermikus energiara is). Vagy ezek a folyamatok emberi leptekkel merve 
nem erzekelhetoek es ezert nem is kell figyelembe venni oket? Esetleg van-e, 
lehet-e hatasa a termeszetes megujulo energiaforrasok megcsapolasanak a 
Fold eghajlatara? 
Varom hozzaszolasotok!

Gubicza Laszlo

SUCCESS TO THE SUCCESSFUL

I don't know how any parent could stand to send his or her child off to a
crumbling, dirty school with underpaid teachers and hostile, possibly armed,
classmates.  If it were my kid, rather than do that, I'd exert some "school
choice," whether the government sanctioned it or not.

That's why the push toward state-supported school choice is so insidious.  The
"choice" it gives every parent -- do what's best for society in the long term
or for my kid right now -- can only be made one way.  My kid right now.

School choice promoters don't think they're creating that dilemma.  They
believe that giving every child a voucher worth a fixed amount to be used at
any school would force bad schools to shape up.  I think it would drain away
from bad schools most of the resources necessary for shaping up.  It would
swamp good schools with applicants, so they could pick out the best students. 
It would subsidize rich families who already send their kids to expensive
private schools, and it would encourage intolerance as parents pick schools
that accept only Their Kind.  The poorest families would be left to bestow
minimal-value vouchers on the poorest schools.  For them there would be no
choice.

This kind of school system would set up a vicious circle that systems thinkers
call "success to the successful."

If you've played Monopoly, you've experienced "success to the successful." 
Everyone starts out equal.  By chance some players land on and buy up valuable
"properties" for which they can charge rent.  They use the rent money to build
"hotels," with which they can extract even more rent.  The game is supposed to
end when one person has bankrupted everyone else, but most adults quit long
before that.  The game gets too predictable and boring when "hotels to the
hotel-owners" kicks in.

Once our neighborhood offered a $100 reward for the most impressive display of
Christmas lights.  The winning family the first year spent the prize money on
more lights.  After they had won three years in a row, the contest was
suspended.  

"Success to the successful" is no fun.

To him that hath shall be given.  Lower electric rates for big users than for
small ones.  Lower postage rates for bulk mailers than for ordinary folks. 
Lower taxes on capital gains than on earned income.  Incinerators, dumps and
polluting factories located disproportionately in low-income neighborhoods. 
The poorest kids get the worst health care and the worst schools.  

"Success to the successful" is not fair, though the successful work hard to
believe that they deserve the favors the system accords them.

Bill Gates's awful Windows software dominates the superior Macintosh system,
because IBM has more marketing muscle than Apple.  Big companies can afford
more advertising, investment, researchers, tax accountants, lawyers.  They can
lean on distributors, suppliers, workers, communities, politicians.  The
politicians create a political system in which no one can run for office
without being rich or courting the rich.

"Success to the successful" can destroy both market competition and democracy.

The problem is the structure of the system, not the morals of the people in it.
 

"Success to the successful" rewards the winner of a competition with the means
to win again.  It is especially perverse if it also penalizes losers.  Such a
system produces inefficiencies and injustices not because people are bad, but
because people are smart enough to see that in this game altruism is fatal.  It
only takes parents who want the best for their children to ensure that other
people's children will be Monopoly losers for life, always paying rent, never
collecting it, never seeing the board cleared or the opportunities opened,
until finally things get so predictable, hopeless and degrading that they
either drop out of the game or kick over the board.

To avoid such explosions and to keep games interesting the world of sports has
hundreds of devices for interrupting the "success to the successful" cycle. 
Literally leveling the playing field.  Handicaps for weaker players.  Switching
sides so the wind doesn't always blow against you and the sun isn't always in
your eyes.  Loser chooses.  Starting new games with the score even.

Societies also have ways to break the cycle.  Private property and democracy
were invented to escape the terrible "success to the successful" traps of
feudalism and monarchy.  In modern times we have come up with such leveling
devices as progressive income taxes, inheritance taxes, anti-trust laws,
securities trading laws, social safety nets, competence testing for jobs,
affirmative action, and, the best invention of the lot, high quality, universal
public education.

Good schools everywhere, funded collectively, open to all, doling out
opportunity by merit rather than by a lucky history of past opportunity.  Our
public school system has been one of the centerposts of democracy and fairness
in America.  It was never as equitable as it should have been, but at least we
honored it in concept and worked at it in practice.  We had a shared commitment
to each other's children.

Now something has snapped.  "Success to the successful" is hailed as high
wisdom.  We refuse to pay for the education of other people's children. 
Parents must choose between the best education for their own children right now
and a future in which all children have grown up well educated.

That's a choice no one should have to make.

(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)