RE: Environmental Justice/Biodiversity

[daniel ziskin <ziskin@jote.org>]

Tom Chao writes:
>Mr. Michael Glaab, physicist, sent myself an e-mail writing that >he was 'uncertain as to the[intent] of [my] use of the world >"entropy."

They way I've been interpretting the use of the word "entropy" in  the context of this discussion is in terms of containment of chemical contamination.

Having a high concentration of some chemical in one place and low in some other place describes a state of low entropy. Whereas, having relatively uniform concentrations of that chemical is a state of higher entropy. Therefore, by the laws of thermodynamics we should expect contamination to spread. This way the entropy is increased. That's why we get toxic plumes and leaching into aquifers and other examples of stuff not staying where we put it.

That's why I share the skepticism and scorn for "solutions" such as capping of sites to allow for natural attenuation. For persistant stable contaminents I read this to mean: if we leave the mess alone for long enough it will spread itself out so that a huge area is mildly contaminated. That's entropy.