Newspaper Page Text
The Mercer Cluster
"Part Of The News That's Fit To Print"
Volume LV
Mercer University, Macon, Georgia
February 12. 1974
No. 12
ENERGY RETREAT STUDIES
TWO ENERGY CRISES TONIGHT
Nationally recognised experts and
authorities on the energy crisis and
environmental questions will partici
pate in a retreat which Mercer Uni
versity's Alternate Freshman Pro
gram is sponsoring today and tomor
row at the FFA-FHA Camp at Cov
ington.
Dr. Lawrence Rocks and Dr. Rich
ard P. Runyon, authors of "The Early
Crisis." the textbook which* the AFP
Is using, will attend the retreat and
appear on panels and in discussion
groups.
A nationally known writer and
Middle East oil specialist, formerly
with Standard Oil of California, Chris
topher Rand of San Francisco, Calif.,
will talk on the oil situation in the
Middle East, as will other experts
who were mentioned more hilly in
last week's "Cluster."
The AFP has been discussing the
energy crisis this quarter in various
ways. Dr. Theodore Nordenhaug of
the Philosophy Department has been
especially interested in the topic and
prepared the following comments in
order to facilitate discussion at the
retreat.
TWO ENERGY CRISES
There are two energy crises: the
current energy crisis in the indus
trialized West and the ultimate, es
chatological energy crisis toward
which the world v is heading.
I. The ultimate energy crisis is an
aspect of the Environmental Crisis
(F.e., the conflict of social organization
with the biological base), and it con
sists simply in the fact that growing
world energy demands threaten to de-
Dr. Mead Discusses
Youth In Society
One of the world's foremost cul
tural anthropologists, Dr. Margaret
Mead will speak tomorrow night,
Wednesday! February 13 at the Grand
Opera House here in Macon. The lec
ture is sponsored by the Macon Jun
ior College Artists and Lectures Com
mittee and is open to the public free
of charge. Entitled "Youth in Socie
ty", the lecture will begin at 8:00 p.m.
Dr. Mead is known primarily for
her early work among the various
tribes in the South Pacific at a time
when little was known of their cul
tural traditions. Recently, she has
begun to study the relationship of
youth to society. Authof^nT numerous
books and hundreds of scholarly arti
cles, Dr. Mead’s most current publi
cations are her autobiography, Black
berry Winter, and Culture and Com
mittment a detailed discussion of the
youth dilemma. She is also the author
of a regular column in Redbook, a
magazine for women.
Now living in New York, Dr. Mead
is currently serving as the Curator
Emeritus of Ethnology at the Ameri
can Museum of Natural History in
New York City. She is also a special
lecturer in Anthropology «*t Columbia
Vaivusity. „
plete the supply of natural resources
required for the production and dis
tribution of energy.
It is very difficult to provide a time
table for the ultimate energy crisis.
All forecasting depends on two sets
of estimates: energy producing nat
ural resource reserves estimates (how
much oil, gas, coal, uranium, etc., is
there) and growth of demand esti
mates (at what accelerating rates will
we use the resource up). This can be
illustrated by the oil reserves prob
lem : generous geological estimates
suggest that up until now the world
has used up approximately 1/7 of all
the oil in the earth. If there were no
increase in the rate of usage, or some
decrease, this supply might last well
over one hundred and fifty years. If,
on the other hand, the world demand
grows at rates that are project!^,
(generally rate* that would keep*
economists hippy about the GNP), the
remaining oil could be gone by the-be*, f , j
ginning of the next century. - Similar
illustrations can be given for all other
natural resources.
Now some natural resources are
practically infinite. Solar power, nu
clear breeding, arid nuclear fusion are
examples. With these resources we
face other problems. Solar power is
diffuse. Harnessing it and converting
it to other usable mechanical forms of
energy, however, drains other natu
ral resources: aluminum, steel, cop
per, nickel, cadmium. Nuclear breed
er reactors will make more fuel than
they use up. They require, however,
great initial quantities of enriched
uranium, a scarce and costly re
source. Moreover, apparently the
amount of energy required to enrich
the uranium is great compared to the
energy produced. It might require
thirty years lead time to begin to show
real benefits from this process. (At
the moment the AEC uses more elec
tricity producing fuel for nuclear
reactors than the reactors now operat
ing produce). Also, cooling large
capacity nuclear reactors is a prob
lem of incredible dimensions. A 25,000
megawatt reactor would also require
the entire annual river flow of the
United States to cool it. Nuclear fus
ion is not e^en in the experimental
stages as an alternative, so no one
can even guess whet ..atural resource
and environmental drains it would be
responsible for.
One important equation in estimat
ing the potential of any new energy
technology is the energy input-output
ratio. This figure is not mentioned
much, but it could conceivably place
absolute limits on new technologies.
It takes energy to get energy. Every
energy source should be evaluated in
terms of how much energy it will take
to produce energy. Nuclear energy
and the production of oil shale would
appear to be examples of energy tech
nologies where the ratio is very high.
Economics deal with the cost of ener
gy production, but so far it is not ob
vious that costs reflect the energy in-
\put. because up until now most forms
/of energy have been cheap.
Continued or* page 4
Black Poet Alice Walker will be the featured speaker February 22 at 10:00
a. m. A former SNCC associate, her latest book is called "Revolutionary Petunias."
English, Black Studies Present:
Alice Walker: Blooming Gloriously
I write aLthe old men I knew
Andi the young.men
I loved
And of the gold toothed women
Mighty of arm
Who dragged us all
To. church.
<.
This poem, “In These Dissenting
Times," opens Alice Walker’s most
recent volume of verse, Revolutionary
Petunias and Other Poems, and sets
the theme for the initial section of
the book, a series of reflections
stretching back to childhood and early
family memories of Eatonton, Geor
gia. On February 22 Ms. Walker re
turns to her Middle Georgia environs
as the featured speaker at 10:00 a.m.
in the Chapel, sponsored by the Eng
lish Sc Black Studies Departments.
In addition to Revolutionary Petun
ias. Alice Walker has published an
earlier collection of verse. Once: a
novel. The Third Life of Grange Cipe-
land; Langston Hughas. a biography
for children, and, most recently. In
Love and Tr ruble, -a collection of
short stories about the lives of black
women. Ms. Walker, bom in 1944 the
youngest of eight children of shar''-
cripping parents, attended Spelman
College in Atlanta and received a B.A.
in 1965 from Sarah Lawrence College,
where she is now a member of the
Board of Trustees. She hos taught at
Tougaloo College, Jackson State Col
lege, Wellesley and the University of
Massachusetts. She now resides in
Jackson, Mississippi.
Describing Revolutionary Petunias
in >a brief preface, Alice Walker says,
“These poems are about Revilution-
aries and Lovers; and about the loss
of compassion, trust, and the ability
to expand in love that marks the end
of hopeful strategy. Whether in love
or revolution. They are also about
(and for) those few embattled souls
who remain painfully committed to
beauty and to love even*while facing
the firing squad." Dedicated "humbly
for George Jackson,” “for Winson
Hudson and Fannie Lou Hamer whose
strength and compassion I- cherish,"
and “for my heroes, heroines, and
friends in early SNCC whose courage
and beauty burned me forever,” Rev
olutionary Petunias combines bitter
sweet recollections of the beauty and
anguish of growing up black in rural
Georgia with poems of fierce and gen
tle loves, tears and sad smiles, and
the simultaneous magnificence and
spitefulness of “the movement."
In Love and Troubla searches the
lives of southern black women,
wrenched by the non-life of those
livq£, whipped by the violence done
daily to their womanhood and their
humanness. In these tales the mun
dane stands transfigured, becoming
grotesque; the outrageously funny
leaves one sobbing. The book is lov
ing and hurtful, and, as June Jordan
writes, describes ". . . the hour-by
hour agony of not knowing and so not
loving. It is the pain of never being
able to say; Here I Am and Therefore
Love Me: child to poMpt, man to wo
man, black to white, poor to hateful,
hating powerful."
Alice Walker, black, woman, Geor
gian, says it all in a self-portrait
which concludes Revolutionary Pe
tunias:
“The Nature of This Flower I* to
Bloom”
Rebellious. Living.
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes:
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self, y
Revolutionary Petunia.