Let me start off by saying that I have nothing against WORMs (White, Old, Rich Men) per se. I myself am fairly pale, I hope to grow old one day, I have no objection to becoming wealthy, and I am male, so I could be in this category one day.
I am also writing this from an Australian point of view in 2011. In other countries where the majority is non-white (or perhaps Australia in the next few decades), then the class of status quo supporters who've got the game sewn up, so to speak, will likely not be white. They will, however, likely be Old, Rich and Male, so more generically it would just be ORMs, but I like the above acronym better.
In another post I spoke of politicians all singing from the same song sheet on another topic. Today I would like to relate a few instances of business people pushing the same line so identically that you would have to assume it has been fed to them. I'm not talking about a conspiracy theory here, just that perhaps some business representative groups have made press releases with a bunch of incorrect facts on them. However, a quick glance at the Business Council of Australia shows that they're not pushing a climate change denialist line, even if they are, as you would expecting, protecting their own interests.
So why have I seen or heard stories lately of these "Captains of Industry" quoting lines that sound, essentially, as though they come straight from the Gallileo Movement's website, or straight from the parrot's mouth himself (Alan Jones). Some months ago I heard the CEO of some Australian country respond to a question about how his business would handle a carbon tax by spouting off the usual nonsense about what percentage of global emissions humans represent, and then what percentage of the human contribution is down to Australia. I mean, this is basic, basic stuff that has been gone over and over, and the counter-responses to this are easily available from a variety of sources. Just for the sake of completeness, I will repeat them here.
Firstly, the whole world system emits and absorbs carbon, but humans have increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. What we are concerned with is net emissions, because these contribute to the growth in atmospheric CO2 concentration. In fact, the oceans have absorbed half of all the CO2 we've emitted since the beginning of the industrial age. The significant contributors to net emissions are humans and volcanos, and volcanoes emit about 1% as much as we do. Basically, the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is all down to us.
The second part of the argument, that Australia represents only a tiny percentage of the world's CO2 emissions - usually quoted as 1% - listed as 1.32% on the wiki page on the subject. Take a look at that list. The most emissions from a sovereign nation come from China - 23.33% of global emissions. Think about that - China, which is a massive exporter, and has over 1.3 BILLION people, emits 23.33%. We emit roughly 5% of that, but we are only 23 million people - ie., we are roughly 1.7% of their population. Any argument about our contribution being too small is a furphy. We are amongst the world's worst per capita emitters, and when it comes to solving a global problem caused by the emissions that each little human being makes being added together, the worst individual emitters shoulder the greatest personal responsibility for fixing the problem.
Another story of these glorious Captains of Industry comes to me from a friend at a medical devices company in Sydney where the CEO recently held court at an annual meeting for staff. It was meant to be just an update on how the company was going and future changes, etc. Boring stuff, but it happened just one day after the Australian Prime Minister announced the details of the carbon tax package. Now, this particular CEO is Australian, but he lives now in the US. He is a well educated man in the field of chemical engineering, and much of his career life has been spent in the health sciences. You would think he knows how to read a scientific paper, and how to understand simple logic. He has been running a successful company for over 20 years. Not your average bonehead, by any stretch of the imagination. Well, apparently he started with a tirade about the "marxist" government in the US. I guess that's what Barack Obama gets for trying to get semi-decent universal healthcare for his country, even though he inherited a massive screwup as a result of financial deregulation and bailed out the top-end of town with taxpayer money. Notwithstanding that the GFC started while George Bush Jr. was asleep behind the wheel, this certain CEO chose to blame the whole mess on the man who inherited the problem.
At this stage, you might start to doubt his objectivity somewhat...
This marxist topic apparently led him to begin a rant on how marxist the Australian government is, and how they are such a bunch of buffoons. The main focus of his attack was on how ridiculous it was to tax CO2 when CO2 is a crop nutrient. How ridiculous indeed! He gave the chemical formula for photosynthesis and how CO2 was involved. This received a warm response from the audience. He apparently also repeated the above claim about human's contribution to any possible problem, which doesn't exist anyway, as far as he was concerned.
When I heard this from my friend, it was what made me think they were all being fed their information from the same source. This CEO is a seemingly well educated man, and he spouts this sort of nonsense as though it's absolute fact. There's nothing to even disbunk in his statements about photosynthesis, etc. It is just completely illogical and irrelevant. I can't believe that an intelligent person would even think to speak such nonsense in private, let alone in front of his entire company. His entire line of argumentation was: CO2 is involved in photosynthesis. Fact. Therefore, CO2 can't be causing any problems and therefore all this global warming stuff is nonsense too. These two things just aren't linked.
Oxygen is vital for life, but if you have too much of it you will die. That is also a fact. So what? Plants will die if the CO2 concentration is too high. Does that mean it's bad? Only in the wrong concentrations, in the wrong places or at the wrong times. Ozone is vital for all life on earth when it's in the upper atmosphere as it protects us from UV radiation, but down at our level it's a main component of smog.
None of which means anything either way for anthropogenic climate change.
These guys are supposedly well educated, they tell us they're brilliant - that's why they deserve to get paid thousands of times more than their company's average salary, isn't it? They're the Big Thinkers, solving all the hard problems that mere mortals couldn't handle. And yet, on a topic of literally earth shattering importance, they haven't even bothered to do the most meagre of research, or perhaps they even lack the ability to understand it. The next time I hear an Australian businessman complaining about this or that problem that the government should solve for them, I'll continue to believe that they probably could do a lot better in their businesses without needing handouts or preferential treatment, or whatever else they demand from the taxpayers.
I guess I should remember that these WORMs grew up in the post war years. They never had to really struggle - all the machinery of war was turned to helping humanity do less and less actual labour, and fossil fuel slaves and wide-open spaces made it seem like anything was possible. They all made their wealth in a society that based it's very existence upon those classic great lies which modern industry with its capability to reshape the earth, and humanity with its massive population growth, has proven to be false - nature is limitless, we can't make a difference, GDP growth reflects real growth in jobs and prosperity for all, etc. Whether or not they ever fought against the status quo in their youths is irrelevant. Now it is their very lifeblood - it supports their wealth and power. Anything that attacks that is likely to be met with fierce resistance. Add to that the fact that this particular problem that could change our earth for all life in devastating ways, and that the responsibility for this reckless growth in consumption and population lies with them and the policies of governments that support them, and you will realise that it would be basically impossible to convince a WORM of something like climate change.
Should we even waste our breath on trying?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
We can't save the planet now we've got too much else to do!
Good old Gerard Henderson has been at it again. His most recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled "A time for Australia's consolidation, not isolation, on carbon emissions" continues his long history of representing the traditional view of Australia's politicians and business "leaders" that Australia shouldn't do anything if the big boys haven't done it first.
His comments on the recently released Productivity Commission report try to make Australians feel silly for thinking that we should do anything about human-induced climate change because our trading partners aren't doing much more (in his opinion) than us and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) aren't doing anything at all in terms of a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme. And the American economy might experience a "double-dip". Ipso facto, we shouldn't be wasting our time on this climate change nonsense - after all, there's an economy to look after!
I have to assume that Mr Henderson does not understand anthropogenic climate change, because surely no one who understands the science, the risks and the consequences could be so blithe as to ask "but what's everyone else doing?" before asking "what can I do to stop this?". I say "understand" and not "believe" because, unlike the religions of the world (buddhism, catholicism, islam, communism and neoliberalism), it does not require "belief", but rather an understanding of basic physics and humanity's reliance on the "services" nature delivers to us for free.
But I digress. I really want to focus on some specific issues as I see them with his article:
"As followers of the US media know, there is almost no debate on climate change there."
Not so. There's plenty of "debate" (acrimonious gainsaying might be a more appropriate term), which sets the US apart from the picture in Europe where the populous generally seems to have a better grasp of the issue and the debate really is largely "over". The US and Australia are the great bastions and perpetrators of climate denial fictions. Don't compare tweedledum with tweedledee in order to convince anyone of the soundness of your argument!
"It found Australia was in the "mid-range" - along with the US and China - with respect to the electricity generation sector. Germany and Britain are out in front of Australia, but the likes of India, Japan and South Korea are behind."
Remind me again - which of these nations are the worst polluters per capita? From amongst the so-called advanced nations, it's the US, followed closely by Australia. No wonder the US and Australia lead the world in self-interested, professional climate sceptics. China is the world's biggest carbon polluter overal, but, along with India, they are way out in front in terms of population. China and India are 99th and 140th in terms of per capita emissions! Good old Australia though - 15th biggest carbon polluter in total (not per capita) in the whole world, but 50th in terms of population. Like I said, Mr Henderson clearly doesn't understand climate change because, if he did, these numbers which show where we rank in terms of dealing with this issue would make his blood boil for a different reason. Then again, considering his comments about the US in the article ("At the national level, Barack Obama no longer talks much about climate change."), it's pretty clear that whatever the US does ranks very high in Mr Henderson's thinking. This is par for the course for people who see themselves as identifying with a right-wing ideology.
"The EU's scheme does not cover road transport fuels but is scheduled to cover aviation and petrochemicals in 2012 and 2013 respectively."
I'm quite surprised he mentioned this, since it plays strongly against his argument that we shouldn't be doing as much as we are planning to. EU members already pay over AU$2 per litre for petrol, and it only looks so "good" due to the strong Australian dollar. By and large, the price difference is tax. That high level of tax on transport fuels has probably helped the EU achieve a significantly lower level of per-capita emissions than Australia, along with a significantly lower energy usage. Adding a new carbon tax on top of that would be redundant. So, by 2013, two massive carbon emitting industries will also covered under the EU's cap-and-trade scheme. Note that I'm not analysing how well their scheme has worked here, merely that they will have a fairly all-encompassing scheme. In contrast, Australia is only now implementing a carbon pollution tax on 1,000 big polluters, which plays well to the Green's definite anti-business sentiment, and also to the great masses who want to do something but don't want to pay for it. Who knows when an ETS will be implemented? Malcolm Turnbull's old mates over at Goldman Sachs are salivating now at the massive commissions they'll be able to charge on such an abstract market, but again, I digress.
"That's all. In the US, California is the only state that is committed to implementing a scheme by next year."
California being the 8th largest economy in the world. When you put it like that, this move is pretty significant, especially given the US's role as one of the biggest purveyors of anti-science rhetoric and the inventors of neliberalism. Speaking of California, I'm reminded of their power blackouts back in about 2000 which proved that unregulated markets are NOT the cure for all the world's ills. Often quite the opposite in fact.
The concluding paragraphs in Mr Henderson's article are a smattering of random right-wing fears: EU sovereign debt crisis - which doesn't seem to be stopping German energy companies from investing big time in solar thermal reactors in North Africa - the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the Middle East, and fear about the US economy continuing to suffer at the hands of neoliberalism doctrine and cronyism, though that's not exactly how he puts it, admittedly. The idea being to try to create enough fear in the reader's mind to think there are many more important problems to deal with other than trying to save the planet.
Maybe if we make enough money we can buy another planet somewhere instead. Will that be the lowest cost option?
[Edited only to correct some typos - I really should proofread at least once!]
His comments on the recently released Productivity Commission report try to make Australians feel silly for thinking that we should do anything about human-induced climate change because our trading partners aren't doing much more (in his opinion) than us and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) aren't doing anything at all in terms of a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme. And the American economy might experience a "double-dip". Ipso facto, we shouldn't be wasting our time on this climate change nonsense - after all, there's an economy to look after!
I have to assume that Mr Henderson does not understand anthropogenic climate change, because surely no one who understands the science, the risks and the consequences could be so blithe as to ask "but what's everyone else doing?" before asking "what can I do to stop this?". I say "understand" and not "believe" because, unlike the religions of the world (buddhism, catholicism, islam, communism and neoliberalism), it does not require "belief", but rather an understanding of basic physics and humanity's reliance on the "services" nature delivers to us for free.
But I digress. I really want to focus on some specific issues as I see them with his article:
"As followers of the US media know, there is almost no debate on climate change there."
Not so. There's plenty of "debate" (acrimonious gainsaying might be a more appropriate term), which sets the US apart from the picture in Europe where the populous generally seems to have a better grasp of the issue and the debate really is largely "over". The US and Australia are the great bastions and perpetrators of climate denial fictions. Don't compare tweedledum with tweedledee in order to convince anyone of the soundness of your argument!
"It found Australia was in the "mid-range" - along with the US and China - with respect to the electricity generation sector. Germany and Britain are out in front of Australia, but the likes of India, Japan and South Korea are behind."
Remind me again - which of these nations are the worst polluters per capita? From amongst the so-called advanced nations, it's the US, followed closely by Australia. No wonder the US and Australia lead the world in self-interested, professional climate sceptics. China is the world's biggest carbon polluter overal, but, along with India, they are way out in front in terms of population. China and India are 99th and 140th in terms of per capita emissions! Good old Australia though - 15th biggest carbon polluter in total (not per capita) in the whole world, but 50th in terms of population. Like I said, Mr Henderson clearly doesn't understand climate change because, if he did, these numbers which show where we rank in terms of dealing with this issue would make his blood boil for a different reason. Then again, considering his comments about the US in the article ("At the national level, Barack Obama no longer talks much about climate change."), it's pretty clear that whatever the US does ranks very high in Mr Henderson's thinking. This is par for the course for people who see themselves as identifying with a right-wing ideology.
"The EU's scheme does not cover road transport fuels but is scheduled to cover aviation and petrochemicals in 2012 and 2013 respectively."
I'm quite surprised he mentioned this, since it plays strongly against his argument that we shouldn't be doing as much as we are planning to. EU members already pay over AU$2 per litre for petrol, and it only looks so "good" due to the strong Australian dollar. By and large, the price difference is tax. That high level of tax on transport fuels has probably helped the EU achieve a significantly lower level of per-capita emissions than Australia, along with a significantly lower energy usage. Adding a new carbon tax on top of that would be redundant. So, by 2013, two massive carbon emitting industries will also covered under the EU's cap-and-trade scheme. Note that I'm not analysing how well their scheme has worked here, merely that they will have a fairly all-encompassing scheme. In contrast, Australia is only now implementing a carbon pollution tax on 1,000 big polluters, which plays well to the Green's definite anti-business sentiment, and also to the great masses who want to do something but don't want to pay for it. Who knows when an ETS will be implemented? Malcolm Turnbull's old mates over at Goldman Sachs are salivating now at the massive commissions they'll be able to charge on such an abstract market, but again, I digress.
"That's all. In the US, California is the only state that is committed to implementing a scheme by next year."
California being the 8th largest economy in the world. When you put it like that, this move is pretty significant, especially given the US's role as one of the biggest purveyors of anti-science rhetoric and the inventors of neliberalism. Speaking of California, I'm reminded of their power blackouts back in about 2000 which proved that unregulated markets are NOT the cure for all the world's ills. Often quite the opposite in fact.
The concluding paragraphs in Mr Henderson's article are a smattering of random right-wing fears: EU sovereign debt crisis - which doesn't seem to be stopping German energy companies from investing big time in solar thermal reactors in North Africa - the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the Middle East, and fear about the US economy continuing to suffer at the hands of neoliberalism doctrine and cronyism, though that's not exactly how he puts it, admittedly. The idea being to try to create enough fear in the reader's mind to think there are many more important problems to deal with other than trying to save the planet.
Maybe if we make enough money we can buy another planet somewhere instead. Will that be the lowest cost option?
[Edited only to correct some typos - I really should proofread at least once!]
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tree-planting projects for producing carbon credits...
As has been pointed out by several people (a brief summary is available on wiki), tree-planting projects are sometimes a problematic source of carbon sequestration. In theory, they are brilliant, but when we talk about removing carbon from the atmosphere that we have added since the start of the industrial age, we mean to remove it permanently. It wouldn't be much of a solution if we found a way to remove CO2 for, say, 100 years. We could lock up massive quantities of CO2, only to have them returned to the atmosphere with a sudden vengeance in the not-too-distant future.
Of course, this is a problem with all carbon sequestration schemes. The problems for trees basically boil down to fires and the fact that they are so damn useful! In 100 years time, whose to say we won't have decided that we really need a certain forest after all, even if it was planted to soak up carbon emissions. Indeed, we'll hear all the same old arguments - it's only a small contribution to the problem, we have to have jobs, the economy must grow, etc.
The other problem with tree-planting projects, and it's a large problem really, is that, just like most things to do with the world of finance these days, we've let people get away with selling promises based on the future prospects of the trees (just like credit) rather than on what has actually been achieved. Now, I can understand the basis for this. Traders currently buy, for example, a whole crop of, say, fruit from a commodities market before the crop is actually harvested. They are therefore taking a risk - they pay a lower price, but risk losing money if the crop fails or is damaged, or just not the size they expected. The farmer gets capital to run their business, while taking less risk for guaranteed lower income. Sounds like a sensible arrangement, right?
For tree-planting, we are dealing with something vitally different. We are trying to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere that results largely from the burning of fossil fuels, in order to avoid possibly catastrophic consequences due to human-induced climate change. The current practice of planting a bunch of trees and then selling the estimated lifetime carbon capture (known as forward-selling) is just untenable and too prone to error to be valid. Remember, the risk isn't that a crop of wheat won't produce the required quality or quantity over the course of a season, it's the risk that we, human beings, will seriously and perilously alter the world's climate, biodiversity, and ocean chemisty, and effectively bring about the end of our own civilisation in the process. Maybe the effects won't be all that terrify in the end, but that is the risk.
Obviously, the best way to help remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere is to make everyone pay for their emissions as they produce them, from carbon savings already in the bank. The notion of only spending what you've already earnt, rather than relying on the miracle of credit, is rather anathema in the western world, and in particular in the UK, the USA and Australia (Germans, for example, are more restrained in their use of credit). I think that our society should turn back more to relying on savings for our expenditures, rather than promises on future earning power. I'm sure some neo-classical economist could show me just how crazy an idea that is, but sometimes it seems to me that economists live in their own little world of non-dependent, linearly-aggregatable agents which we would be better off eschewing for most practical purposes.
However, carbon-offset schemes from trees don't work this way. They work on the promise of future value. Does this mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater, and not use carbon-credits generated from tree-planting?
No, of course not. It simply means the design of the systems is not adequate. So, here's what I propose:
- Carbon Credits can be sold at the end of every year, based on the estimated growth of the trees in the plantation area over that time. Estimating this sort of quantity in hindsight is certainly much easier than predicting the future value of something.
- The plantation is under a permanent, legally-binding, type of title that recognises the carbon stored therein. The plantation can be freely sold, with the proviso that any trees that are harvested, or destroyed by fire, are offset by the owner with carbon credits bought elsewhere. The harvested/damaged areas could be replanted, of course, with new credits being generated, but it is absolutely vital that any carbon lost from the plantation is offset elsewhere.
- Trees that die and rot into the soil should be offset at the time of falling, but perhaps the full amount wouldn't need to be offset as some of the rotten tree may end up permanently stored as a deep layer of soil. I don't think the reduction should be much though, as the risk would be high that most of the carbon could be returned to the atmosphere.
Would this be expensive? Well, compared to what? Destroying up to 90% of species on our planet, causing massive social upheavals and wars over diminishing and failing resources, and seeing our children's or our grand-children's lifestyles being significantly worse than our own as a result - or, doing something real about the problem now?
But the short answer is yes. Yes, it would be expensive to try to lock up carbon permanently once it's been released from fossil fuels.
You didn't really think you could offset your domestic flight's carbon emissions for just $20 now, did you?
Of course, this is a problem with all carbon sequestration schemes. The problems for trees basically boil down to fires and the fact that they are so damn useful! In 100 years time, whose to say we won't have decided that we really need a certain forest after all, even if it was planted to soak up carbon emissions. Indeed, we'll hear all the same old arguments - it's only a small contribution to the problem, we have to have jobs, the economy must grow, etc.
The other problem with tree-planting projects, and it's a large problem really, is that, just like most things to do with the world of finance these days, we've let people get away with selling promises based on the future prospects of the trees (just like credit) rather than on what has actually been achieved. Now, I can understand the basis for this. Traders currently buy, for example, a whole crop of, say, fruit from a commodities market before the crop is actually harvested. They are therefore taking a risk - they pay a lower price, but risk losing money if the crop fails or is damaged, or just not the size they expected. The farmer gets capital to run their business, while taking less risk for guaranteed lower income. Sounds like a sensible arrangement, right?
For tree-planting, we are dealing with something vitally different. We are trying to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere that results largely from the burning of fossil fuels, in order to avoid possibly catastrophic consequences due to human-induced climate change. The current practice of planting a bunch of trees and then selling the estimated lifetime carbon capture (known as forward-selling) is just untenable and too prone to error to be valid. Remember, the risk isn't that a crop of wheat won't produce the required quality or quantity over the course of a season, it's the risk that we, human beings, will seriously and perilously alter the world's climate, biodiversity, and ocean chemisty, and effectively bring about the end of our own civilisation in the process. Maybe the effects won't be all that terrify in the end, but that is the risk.
Obviously, the best way to help remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere is to make everyone pay for their emissions as they produce them, from carbon savings already in the bank. The notion of only spending what you've already earnt, rather than relying on the miracle of credit, is rather anathema in the western world, and in particular in the UK, the USA and Australia (Germans, for example, are more restrained in their use of credit). I think that our society should turn back more to relying on savings for our expenditures, rather than promises on future earning power. I'm sure some neo-classical economist could show me just how crazy an idea that is, but sometimes it seems to me that economists live in their own little world of non-dependent, linearly-aggregatable agents which we would be better off eschewing for most practical purposes.
However, carbon-offset schemes from trees don't work this way. They work on the promise of future value. Does this mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater, and not use carbon-credits generated from tree-planting?
No, of course not. It simply means the design of the systems is not adequate. So, here's what I propose:
- Carbon Credits can be sold at the end of every year, based on the estimated growth of the trees in the plantation area over that time. Estimating this sort of quantity in hindsight is certainly much easier than predicting the future value of something.
- The plantation is under a permanent, legally-binding, type of title that recognises the carbon stored therein. The plantation can be freely sold, with the proviso that any trees that are harvested, or destroyed by fire, are offset by the owner with carbon credits bought elsewhere. The harvested/damaged areas could be replanted, of course, with new credits being generated, but it is absolutely vital that any carbon lost from the plantation is offset elsewhere.
- Trees that die and rot into the soil should be offset at the time of falling, but perhaps the full amount wouldn't need to be offset as some of the rotten tree may end up permanently stored as a deep layer of soil. I don't think the reduction should be much though, as the risk would be high that most of the carbon could be returned to the atmosphere.
Would this be expensive? Well, compared to what? Destroying up to 90% of species on our planet, causing massive social upheavals and wars over diminishing and failing resources, and seeing our children's or our grand-children's lifestyles being significantly worse than our own as a result - or, doing something real about the problem now?
But the short answer is yes. Yes, it would be expensive to try to lock up carbon permanently once it's been released from fossil fuels.
You didn't really think you could offset your domestic flight's carbon emissions for just $20 now, did you?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The madding crowd of investors...
I read something funny recently, sent to a mailing list associated with the Australian Stock Exchange, usually full of tips and advice for investors. Right there, in black and white, for all the share market investors to see, is a quick overview about why economic theories about markets are, by and large, no better than wishful thinking:
http://www.asx.com.au/resources/201105-why-markets-are-irrational.htm
This isn't news to anyone outside of the profession of economics and has been well known for quite some time. And yet, we still hear the lines about "letting the market sort it out", and how efficient using markets is - for EVERYTHING.
The article above sets out the fundamental reason why anything that economists come up with derived from their perfectly (or even semi-) rational agents maximising their utility (what does this mean in the real world, by the way? It's always taken by economists as, essentially, just money) just cannot be an accurate reflection of the real world.
My own background is in engineering, which is full of complex, non-linear mathematics. The models engineers use are, under the right conditions (which the engineer can usually control to some extent) reasonable reflections of the real-world. However, they always keep in mind the conditions under which the models apply, and the tolerances of how tightly they can fit reality. This is why, in general, buildings don't fall over, planes stay in the air and the electricity network doesn't blow up whenever someone in just the wrong place turns on a light!
Economics, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be burdened in this way. I must admit, first of all, that I am no expert in current economic theory, and that I only studied one economics at university because I had to to get my degree, and since that time I have eyed it very warily, but always assumed that I just don't understand the gory details well enough. However, whenever I have looked into the gory details, I have found them wanting. For example, when looking into how Game Theory is used in economics, my engineering training told me that here, again, were models of seemingly very limited scope and hence very limited usefulness in the real-world. However, it seems that these are the fundamental basis of economics.
The mathematics I was presented in University was hopelessly linear for systems that were obviously highly dependent on multiple variables in complex ways. Even more complex, non-linear mathematics (that might get closer to reality) wouldn't really work because, as has been noted many times before, economics deals with social systems which are characterised by complex dependencies and interactions between agents, many of whom have the same preferences at the same time. From a mathematical point-of-view, there is no "closed solution" to these systems. Worse than that, their behaviour is highly unpredictable and is driven by strong internal dynamics.
In engineering, we would seek to ensure that the system operated in a stable range, usually through negative feedback, and, especially, through avoiding positive feedback which characterises so much of the shenanigans we see in most "markets" these days. Big companies get bigger and bigger, the gap between rich people and poor people continues to widen, and speculative bubbles not only keep appearing, but seem to do so more and more frequently. The government's job should be to engineer the conditions for the system to operate with stable growth. The only aspect of economic policy that seems to be engineered for stabilising swings in the system (in Australia at least), is the macroeconomic setting of central bank exchange rates to keep inflation within controlled bands. It's a crude instrument, with quite a simple goal, but it seems to do the job. If only the government's microeconomic policies were engineered for stability as well!
http://www.asx.com.au/resources/201105-why-markets-are-irrational.htm
This isn't news to anyone outside of the profession of economics and has been well known for quite some time. And yet, we still hear the lines about "letting the market sort it out", and how efficient using markets is - for EVERYTHING.
The article above sets out the fundamental reason why anything that economists come up with derived from their perfectly (or even semi-) rational agents maximising their utility (what does this mean in the real world, by the way? It's always taken by economists as, essentially, just money) just cannot be an accurate reflection of the real world.
My own background is in engineering, which is full of complex, non-linear mathematics. The models engineers use are, under the right conditions (which the engineer can usually control to some extent) reasonable reflections of the real-world. However, they always keep in mind the conditions under which the models apply, and the tolerances of how tightly they can fit reality. This is why, in general, buildings don't fall over, planes stay in the air and the electricity network doesn't blow up whenever someone in just the wrong place turns on a light!
Economics, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be burdened in this way. I must admit, first of all, that I am no expert in current economic theory, and that I only studied one economics at university because I had to to get my degree, and since that time I have eyed it very warily, but always assumed that I just don't understand the gory details well enough. However, whenever I have looked into the gory details, I have found them wanting. For example, when looking into how Game Theory is used in economics, my engineering training told me that here, again, were models of seemingly very limited scope and hence very limited usefulness in the real-world. However, it seems that these are the fundamental basis of economics.
The mathematics I was presented in University was hopelessly linear for systems that were obviously highly dependent on multiple variables in complex ways. Even more complex, non-linear mathematics (that might get closer to reality) wouldn't really work because, as has been noted many times before, economics deals with social systems which are characterised by complex dependencies and interactions between agents, many of whom have the same preferences at the same time. From a mathematical point-of-view, there is no "closed solution" to these systems. Worse than that, their behaviour is highly unpredictable and is driven by strong internal dynamics.
In engineering, we would seek to ensure that the system operated in a stable range, usually through negative feedback, and, especially, through avoiding positive feedback which characterises so much of the shenanigans we see in most "markets" these days. Big companies get bigger and bigger, the gap between rich people and poor people continues to widen, and speculative bubbles not only keep appearing, but seem to do so more and more frequently. The government's job should be to engineer the conditions for the system to operate with stable growth. The only aspect of economic policy that seems to be engineered for stabilising swings in the system (in Australia at least), is the macroeconomic setting of central bank exchange rates to keep inflation within controlled bands. It's a crude instrument, with quite a simple goal, but it seems to do the job. If only the government's microeconomic policies were engineered for stability as well!
The creep of Catholic conservatism...
Just read an interesting article about the sacking of a Catholic priest in Toowoomba. In a lot of ways, this is just the standard process that has been happening ever since Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. Once that happens, power must be maintained, and in organised religion that is through strict control of doctrine. So, this is just more of the same.
The more interesting thing for me from the article was that it reignited a question in me that pops into my head from time to time. To me as an outsider to religion, I have often wondered how neoliberalism, which at its heart is mainly about the concentration of wealth and privilege, got so intimately tied up with neoconservatives in the christian churches (I don't know enough about the viewpoint in other religions to say anything about those). I guess the modern version of it must hark back to the cold war were communism was tied to atheism (only because the churches had historically been complicit in the expoitation of working-class people), and so the most aggressive form of capitalist thought sprung to power in an attempt to differentiate the "west" as sharply as possible from the commies. That seems to have included religion. In this time then, christianity (at least certain extreme/conservative parts of it), which is really not incompatible with the basic economics of socialism or communism (after all, isn't a Kibbutz a somewhat socialist model of a life based around religion?), came to be associated in some ways with values that are quite at odds with the values espoused in the New Testament.
The specifics of this particular argument was about the catholic church's doctrine on female and married priests being questioned. The restriction on female priests is to be expected considering how highly patriarchal the middle eastern tribes that spawned Christianity are. It's completely out-of-step with what's happening in the wider community, and it would be illegal under anti-discrimination laws if the church hadn't got itself exempted, but hey, that's how they like to roll. The question of married priests in the catholic church really is a funny one, if you ask me. I guess, after all this time, and with the whole controlling hierarchy of the church being required to be celibate, they're unlikely to turn around and say "you know what - there was probably nothing wrong with priests being married after all".
Apparently, this isn't a question of doctrine but of "ecclesial law" which means that a Pope could theoretically change it whenever they liked, and exceptions are sometimes made for married protestant priests who want to become catholic priests (returning to the fold, as it were). If that's the case, it's hard to see how what this particular priest, who was pressured into retiring early, did that was so bad, especially, as has often been pointed out, when so many priests who abused children didn't get such harsh treatment, but were instead shifted from parish to parish after they confessed their sin. It seems pederasty is no threat to the church's doctrinal power...
The more interesting thing for me from the article was that it reignited a question in me that pops into my head from time to time. To me as an outsider to religion, I have often wondered how neoliberalism, which at its heart is mainly about the concentration of wealth and privilege, got so intimately tied up with neoconservatives in the christian churches (I don't know enough about the viewpoint in other religions to say anything about those). I guess the modern version of it must hark back to the cold war were communism was tied to atheism (only because the churches had historically been complicit in the expoitation of working-class people), and so the most aggressive form of capitalist thought sprung to power in an attempt to differentiate the "west" as sharply as possible from the commies. That seems to have included religion. In this time then, christianity (at least certain extreme/conservative parts of it), which is really not incompatible with the basic economics of socialism or communism (after all, isn't a Kibbutz a somewhat socialist model of a life based around religion?), came to be associated in some ways with values that are quite at odds with the values espoused in the New Testament.
The specifics of this particular argument was about the catholic church's doctrine on female and married priests being questioned. The restriction on female priests is to be expected considering how highly patriarchal the middle eastern tribes that spawned Christianity are. It's completely out-of-step with what's happening in the wider community, and it would be illegal under anti-discrimination laws if the church hadn't got itself exempted, but hey, that's how they like to roll. The question of married priests in the catholic church really is a funny one, if you ask me. I guess, after all this time, and with the whole controlling hierarchy of the church being required to be celibate, they're unlikely to turn around and say "you know what - there was probably nothing wrong with priests being married after all".
Apparently, this isn't a question of doctrine but of "ecclesial law" which means that a Pope could theoretically change it whenever they liked, and exceptions are sometimes made for married protestant priests who want to become catholic priests (returning to the fold, as it were). If that's the case, it's hard to see how what this particular priest, who was pressured into retiring early, did that was so bad, especially, as has often been pointed out, when so many priests who abused children didn't get such harsh treatment, but were instead shifted from parish to parish after they confessed their sin. It seems pederasty is no threat to the church's doctrinal power...
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Speaking of singing from the same songsheet
I noted last time that the leaders of the western world all seemed to be singing from the same songsheet () as to the highly positive outcome of seeing Osama bin Laden get whacked just as the US President promised he would. Today, listening to Deutsche Welle news I realised something. Yes, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had publicly stated that she was happy to hear that bin Laden had been killed, but that didn't sit so well with other public figures in Germany, and not just her political opponents, but also members of her own party and her church as well. To go along with this, the homepage of Deutsche Welle and FAZ (just as two examples of German news sites) both had a mixture of analysis right there on the frontpage as the big stories, focusing on two ideas mainly - that expressing joy over an assassination doesn't exactly distance you morally from the person being assassinated, and that the killing may not have been legal (and a similar question was raised on FAZ). Looking at LeMonde.fr today, there was more coverage of the actual events, but also some frontpage analysis about how justice was required to heal victims of terrorism, not vengeance, and that the US will struggle to prove its claims without a body. If the reputation of the US government and its secret services hadn't been so thoroughly tarnished since the invasion of Iraq, perhaps that wouldn't be such an issue. The french even give a little time to covering current conspiracy theories!
For comparison, a quick sweep of Australian media coverage, the frontpage of The Australian website, which should be noted updates frequently, currently contains very little coverage of Osama's death except for articles on topics about how the Pakistanis must have been protecting Osama (gross incompetance on the part of all "intelligence" agencies seems to be completely discounted), as well as an entire "in-depth" page on Osama's death which currently lists about 26 articles, with not a single dissenting or alternative viewpoint, as far as I can tell from the headings. The topics range from copying US government press releases, to a vacuous story about using the codename Geronimo for OBL. The world news section of the Sydney Morning Herald is similarly lacking in diversity of opinion. Roughly 10 articles on the OBL killing, or related, and none would appear to offer any kind of alternative narrative. The Australian government broadcaster, the ABC, also appears to be largely devoid of any diversity of viewpoint. In their World news section, the only Osama related article talks about how Barack Obama's popularity has bounced back in opinion polls in the US. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
Funny how all the Australian media has painted themselves into a corner of complete irrelevance as they all fight to copy the same press releases, but with their own reporter in front of a camera somewhere random. I can hope we'll see something better from the ABC's current affairs programs. There are some alternative viewpoints expressed in independent media like this story from New Mathilda which seems to be bemoaning the lack of diversity too. The lack is in the mainstream English-speaking media, it would seem...
Most political leaders in Australia said essentially the same thing, certainly prime minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott with his usual embarassing machismo. I find it irritatingly just how little diversity there is in Australian politics and it shows up again and again. Vote Greens, I hear you say. Good point, but the Australian Greens are quite strange. They're called "The Greens" but what was the first thing our first federal Greens MP did upon entering the new parliament? Was it about saving old-growth forests? Marine reserves? Or, perhaps the "greatest moral challenge of our time": Climate Change and renewable energy sources?
No, it was a private members bill on gay marriage. That's right. Apparently, gay couples make up 0.47% of all couples in Australia. Wow. Earth-shatteringly important stuff! Shit, Adam, how about some federal funding for more bikepaths even? Something small. Legally, gay couples in Australia have de facto all the same rights as married couples (there really aren't that many extra "rights"), they just can't register a marriage officially. That's it.
OK, so, maybe this needed to be talked about at some stage in the future, but isn't there anything more important to talk about?
A bit like the old republican vs monarchist debate in Australia. There's plenty that could be improved about Australia's constitutional makeup but replacing a non-elected figurehead with an elected one doesn't seem that interesting to me. Occasionally, very occasionally, you can find someone else saying something sensible about this, but it's not often!
For another bit of continental contrast, Germany has a lot of "Green" representation spread across the country, and as a result they have very significant wind and even solar power! Drive through Germany and you will see solar farms, solar PV on half the rooves in many small towns, and plenty of windfarms. I'm not saying these are the be all and end all of renewables (I'll be writing on that topic in the near future), but at least it's something. We spend money on solar PV here in Australia, it's a minor cockup, and it is just completely knocked as a stupid idea for all time. Kind of like the way the Decepticons in the Transformers would come up with a great plan and it would almost succeed, but when it was foiled, sometimes through luck, they would abandon it and never try again :-) In further contrast with Australia's Greens, Baden-Wuertemberg now has a Green politician in charge - he's a socially conservative Catholic. Can you imagine an Australian Green being anything other than somewhere between "socialist" and "communist" in their views? They spend all their time worrying about the palestinians, or refugees arriving in Australia by boat, or, as mentioned above, gay marriage. I'm not saying those issues aren't important, but if this is what takes up 90% of the public time the Greens are getting in mainstream media, then who the hell is out there working to protect the environment? They're certainly not selling the carbon tax message well (I think they've left Labor to hold the hot potato there), and they don't seem to be doing much to stop the unfolding lunacy of a NSW government controlled by the shooters party.
For comparison, a quick sweep of Australian media coverage, the frontpage of The Australian website, which should be noted updates frequently, currently contains very little coverage of Osama's death except for articles on topics about how the Pakistanis must have been protecting Osama (gross incompetance on the part of all "intelligence" agencies seems to be completely discounted), as well as an entire "in-depth" page on Osama's death which currently lists about 26 articles, with not a single dissenting or alternative viewpoint, as far as I can tell from the headings. The topics range from copying US government press releases, to a vacuous story about using the codename Geronimo for OBL. The world news section of the Sydney Morning Herald is similarly lacking in diversity of opinion. Roughly 10 articles on the OBL killing, or related, and none would appear to offer any kind of alternative narrative. The Australian government broadcaster, the ABC, also appears to be largely devoid of any diversity of viewpoint. In their World news section, the only Osama related article talks about how Barack Obama's popularity has bounced back in opinion polls in the US. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
Funny how all the Australian media has painted themselves into a corner of complete irrelevance as they all fight to copy the same press releases, but with their own reporter in front of a camera somewhere random. I can hope we'll see something better from the ABC's current affairs programs. There are some alternative viewpoints expressed in independent media like this story from New Mathilda which seems to be bemoaning the lack of diversity too. The lack is in the mainstream English-speaking media, it would seem...
Most political leaders in Australia said essentially the same thing, certainly prime minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott with his usual embarassing machismo. I find it irritatingly just how little diversity there is in Australian politics and it shows up again and again. Vote Greens, I hear you say. Good point, but the Australian Greens are quite strange. They're called "The Greens" but what was the first thing our first federal Greens MP did upon entering the new parliament? Was it about saving old-growth forests? Marine reserves? Or, perhaps the "greatest moral challenge of our time": Climate Change and renewable energy sources?
No, it was a private members bill on gay marriage. That's right. Apparently, gay couples make up 0.47% of all couples in Australia. Wow. Earth-shatteringly important stuff! Shit, Adam, how about some federal funding for more bikepaths even? Something small. Legally, gay couples in Australia have de facto all the same rights as married couples (there really aren't that many extra "rights"), they just can't register a marriage officially. That's it.
OK, so, maybe this needed to be talked about at some stage in the future, but isn't there anything more important to talk about?
A bit like the old republican vs monarchist debate in Australia. There's plenty that could be improved about Australia's constitutional makeup but replacing a non-elected figurehead with an elected one doesn't seem that interesting to me. Occasionally, very occasionally, you can find someone else saying something sensible about this, but it's not often!
For another bit of continental contrast, Germany has a lot of "Green" representation spread across the country, and as a result they have very significant wind and even solar power! Drive through Germany and you will see solar farms, solar PV on half the rooves in many small towns, and plenty of windfarms. I'm not saying these are the be all and end all of renewables (I'll be writing on that topic in the near future), but at least it's something. We spend money on solar PV here in Australia, it's a minor cockup, and it is just completely knocked as a stupid idea for all time. Kind of like the way the Decepticons in the Transformers would come up with a great plan and it would almost succeed, but when it was foiled, sometimes through luck, they would abandon it and never try again :-) In further contrast with Australia's Greens, Baden-Wuertemberg now has a Green politician in charge - he's a socially conservative Catholic. Can you imagine an Australian Green being anything other than somewhere between "socialist" and "communist" in their views? They spend all their time worrying about the palestinians, or refugees arriving in Australia by boat, or, as mentioned above, gay marriage. I'm not saying those issues aren't important, but if this is what takes up 90% of the public time the Greens are getting in mainstream media, then who the hell is out there working to protect the environment? They're certainly not selling the carbon tax message well (I think they've left Labor to hold the hot potato there), and they don't seem to be doing much to stop the unfolding lunacy of a NSW government controlled by the shooters party.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Osama Assassination
As has been widely reported in recent days, the US claims to have finally killed Osama bin Laden. There is plenty being said about it elsewhere in the world, and probably plenty more that will be said, so I'll keep my post brief today.
Several things disturb me about this. First of all is the fact that non-Arab leaders around the world all seemed to be singing from the same sheet. It has been widely lauded as a "milestone in the war against terror" and many non-Arab leaders have claimed "the world is now a safer place". Arab leaders, by and large, predictably either condemned the action or or said as little as possible.
First of all, the uncritical repetition of the claim that we are in a "War on Terror" really irritates me. I'm not the first to object to such an open-ended, Orwellian declaration. The fact that this was allowed to continue in usage, unchallenged, has only continued the stupidity of the whole concept. You can't have a war on an abstract noun, you just can't. It's not pedantic to insist that our leaders only consider military actions with clearly defined enemies and goals.
I should say that I feel sorry for the citizens of the US. Not only did they have to suffer the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil which I watched live on TV and which totally shocked me, but they had to live with the fact that the US government had trained and funded Osama in his fight (as part of the Mujahadeen) against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Actually, equally unfortunately, the second worst attack on US soil was also carried out by individuals who had been trained by the US government (they were actually former US soldiers), but for reasons completely unrelated to the western world's current main bogeyman: "Islam".
So, what disturbs me in all this? Do I feel sorry for Osama bin Laden? No way! An extremely wealthy homicidal, fanatical maniac who lived by the gun. We shouldn't be surprised that he died by the gun. The US would have perhaps better served the goal of international harmony by kidnapping him and subjecting him to that most vital of glue to any community - the rule of law, but they chose a less messy route.
But the thing that disturbed me is that the images of the outpouring of triumphalism in the US looked no different to the same sorts of scenes played out a thousand times on our TVs from the Middle East of unreasoned mobs gathering to shout about how great they are/their leader/their religion. Where's the moral high ground?
This same triumphalism was echoed by leaders around the world. Personally, I find such celebrations extremely distasteful, to celebrate an assassination. Perhaps it was "a just killing" (a phrase I've heard ad nauseum in recent days), but is there really a need for the red-neck chantings of "U-S-A" and celebration of death? Perhaps it could be understood if you accept that the Americans really have felt for the last 10 years that they were at war. This could then be seen as equivalent to celebrations at the end of World War II, for example. They have really been involved in two separate long running wars now - Afghanistan and the highly unnecessary Iraq war - but an end is in sight for neither of these two wars just because the world's most spectacularly successful terrorist leader has been killed. Remember, terrorist leaders derive all their power through influence on the disenfranchised, and this killing does nothing to change the conditions that drive terrorist recruitment and anti-Western sentiment worldwide.
When that realisation sinks in, those who celebrated so wildly will perhaps feel a little silly. Or, who knows, perhaps it will just embolden the US to carry out more assassinations - that Hugo Chavez and Julian Assange have both been troublesome to the US of late, don't you agree?
Several things disturb me about this. First of all is the fact that non-Arab leaders around the world all seemed to be singing from the same sheet. It has been widely lauded as a "milestone in the war against terror" and many non-Arab leaders have claimed "the world is now a safer place". Arab leaders, by and large, predictably either condemned the action or or said as little as possible.
First of all, the uncritical repetition of the claim that we are in a "War on Terror" really irritates me. I'm not the first to object to such an open-ended, Orwellian declaration. The fact that this was allowed to continue in usage, unchallenged, has only continued the stupidity of the whole concept. You can't have a war on an abstract noun, you just can't. It's not pedantic to insist that our leaders only consider military actions with clearly defined enemies and goals.
I should say that I feel sorry for the citizens of the US. Not only did they have to suffer the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil which I watched live on TV and which totally shocked me, but they had to live with the fact that the US government had trained and funded Osama in his fight (as part of the Mujahadeen) against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Actually, equally unfortunately, the second worst attack on US soil was also carried out by individuals who had been trained by the US government (they were actually former US soldiers), but for reasons completely unrelated to the western world's current main bogeyman: "Islam".
So, what disturbs me in all this? Do I feel sorry for Osama bin Laden? No way! An extremely wealthy homicidal, fanatical maniac who lived by the gun. We shouldn't be surprised that he died by the gun. The US would have perhaps better served the goal of international harmony by kidnapping him and subjecting him to that most vital of glue to any community - the rule of law, but they chose a less messy route.
But the thing that disturbed me is that the images of the outpouring of triumphalism in the US looked no different to the same sorts of scenes played out a thousand times on our TVs from the Middle East of unreasoned mobs gathering to shout about how great they are/their leader/their religion. Where's the moral high ground?
This same triumphalism was echoed by leaders around the world. Personally, I find such celebrations extremely distasteful, to celebrate an assassination. Perhaps it was "a just killing" (a phrase I've heard ad nauseum in recent days), but is there really a need for the red-neck chantings of "U-S-A" and celebration of death? Perhaps it could be understood if you accept that the Americans really have felt for the last 10 years that they were at war. This could then be seen as equivalent to celebrations at the end of World War II, for example. They have really been involved in two separate long running wars now - Afghanistan and the highly unnecessary Iraq war - but an end is in sight for neither of these two wars just because the world's most spectacularly successful terrorist leader has been killed. Remember, terrorist leaders derive all their power through influence on the disenfranchised, and this killing does nothing to change the conditions that drive terrorist recruitment and anti-Western sentiment worldwide.
When that realisation sinks in, those who celebrated so wildly will perhaps feel a little silly. Or, who knows, perhaps it will just embolden the US to carry out more assassinations - that Hugo Chavez and Julian Assange have both been troublesome to the US of late, don't you agree?
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