John Sununu was Chief of Staff to President Bush (41). He was approached with respect to climate change issues early in this role. Here is a summary of what happened:
“In 1989/1990 the Global Climate Models were being run on computers very much less powerful than those now available. Models were relatively primitive. They had virtually no inclusion of ocean/atmospheric interactions. When the alarmists came to see Allan Bromley and me, I asked how they could believe results if they were modeling climate without including, in any effective way, the ocean/air heat and mass transfer. That shortcoming was required of the models because of time step limitations imposed by the model elements and characteristics.
They tried to argue the ocean wasn’t that significant because the culprit was airborne CO2. I pointed out that the top couple of meters of the ocean had a thermal capacity greater than the entire atmosphere, and that the top 100 meters of ocean were generally well mixed and that the heat and mass transfer coupling at the interface was truly significant. All this meant the air/ocean interactions were a major driver of reality. When I suggested they could confirm the critical significance of the ocean in a one-dimensional model, they suggested we didn’t understand how complex the issue was. They were still determined to use their faulty models to influence policy. Only in recent years have they been able to begin to model the significant ocean contributions within the models. But they are still far from being able to handle the reality of nature.
Our response to their call for policy change in 1989 was to point out that their models should be supported by good science, and that in order to get good science, we would provide a very substantial increase in funding for global climate research. I believe we raised it from a couple of hundred million dollars to what was then considered a huge level of funding: $1.5 billion. We believed that level would support some serious research to clarify all perspectives of climate change”.
Talking with him after this presentation I asked where the $1.5billion went. He made clear that most of it (as in 90%) went only to those who accepted the Club of Rome line that it global warming was anthropomorphic. The 5% that didn’t went to those whose expertise was model building.
From the start of the climate change alarmist campaign, the outcome was settled - they just wanted science to back up their proposition.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The End is Near...
The Prince of Wales was reported as warning that there only ‘100 months left’ to prevent the catastrophe of climate change.3,000 days. What on earth is the man thinking, so to speak?
What does he think is going to happen in the next 8.3 years? Does he think that the climate is going to get so cold (most reviews now suggest we will experience 10- 30 years of cooling on top of the cooling that has taken place for the last 10 years) - that some 5 billion will die of cold? Does he believe that the climate will get hotter by another 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit - like it did over the last one hundred years? Does he buy the goofy notion that the oceans will rise 20 feet, as Al Gore suggested (and no one believes?).
He is sure that catastrophe is just around the corner - with carbon cap and trade schemes simply buying more time. He wants to return to a low carbon economy, with a stronger reliance on wind, solar and biomass (he never mentions nuclear) on the basis of computer models that are designed with predicting this catastrophe in mind. Thank goodness few believe this stuff.
I had the pleasure listening to the current President of the European Union and the President of the Czech Republic, who knows first had what "green" may mean - he experienced communism for many years. He also knows that the greens are too yellow to confirm that they are really red.
Charles Moore, in this weeks Spectator, is hopeful that this will lead us to further smile in a few years time. Charles says "it means that, in eight years’ time, HRH will have no reason to make any more speeches on the subject. He will be like the leader of one of those small religious sects in places like Wyoming who take their followers up to the top of a mountain to await the end of the world and then, when nothing happens, come rather sheepishly back down and get on with normal life. Unlike such leaders, though, Prince Charles may well be King."
What does he think is going to happen in the next 8.3 years? Does he think that the climate is going to get so cold (most reviews now suggest we will experience 10- 30 years of cooling on top of the cooling that has taken place for the last 10 years) - that some 5 billion will die of cold? Does he believe that the climate will get hotter by another 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit - like it did over the last one hundred years? Does he buy the goofy notion that the oceans will rise 20 feet, as Al Gore suggested (and no one believes?).
He is sure that catastrophe is just around the corner - with carbon cap and trade schemes simply buying more time. He wants to return to a low carbon economy, with a stronger reliance on wind, solar and biomass (he never mentions nuclear) on the basis of computer models that are designed with predicting this catastrophe in mind. Thank goodness few believe this stuff.
I had the pleasure listening to the current President of the European Union and the President of the Czech Republic, who knows first had what "green" may mean - he experienced communism for many years. He also knows that the greens are too yellow to confirm that they are really red.
Charles Moore, in this weeks Spectator, is hopeful that this will lead us to further smile in a few years time. Charles says "it means that, in eight years’ time, HRH will have no reason to make any more speeches on the subject. He will be like the leader of one of those small religious sects in places like Wyoming who take their followers up to the top of a mountain to await the end of the world and then, when nothing happens, come rather sheepishly back down and get on with normal life. Unlike such leaders, though, Prince Charles may well be King."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Al Gore Tells Porkies About Green Jobs
Al Gore, in another clear piece of disinformation, claims that the windpower industry employs more people than the coal industry in the US.
Some observations:
First, this is not correct. The total employment in the coal industry is 1.4 million persons while the total employment in the wind power industry is 85,000 – a major error.
Second, if Gore was correct, it would be a very bad sign for the US. Coal generates some 155 million megawatt-hours of electricity, while wind generates only 1.3 million megawatt-hours. If wind really does employ more people than coal, it is doing so at a huge cost to American efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness.
Third, The Sierra Club and the Teamsters union (among others) are concerned. Their publication “High Road or Low Road?” reveals that, “low pay is not uncommon” in green industries, that “wage rates at many wind and solar manufacturing facilities are below the national average,” and suggests that wages for workers employed in the “green building” industry are also far lower than those of union members in other sectors. Their proposed solution is to unionize these industries, but remember just how unproductive they are even at these low wages. Replacing a coal job with a “green job” is likely to be a net loss to the economy, meaning further unemployment down the chain.
Finally, a forthcoming study from Dr Gabriel Calzada of the Instituto Juan de Mariana in Spain reveals an even greater problem. For every green job created in Spain, 3.9 jobs have been lost as a result throughout the economy. The author calls them “subprime jobs,” with good reason.
Keep an eye on this Al Gore fellow, he tells porkies.
Some observations:
First, this is not correct. The total employment in the coal industry is 1.4 million persons while the total employment in the wind power industry is 85,000 – a major error.
Second, if Gore was correct, it would be a very bad sign for the US. Coal generates some 155 million megawatt-hours of electricity, while wind generates only 1.3 million megawatt-hours. If wind really does employ more people than coal, it is doing so at a huge cost to American efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness.
Third, The Sierra Club and the Teamsters union (among others) are concerned. Their publication “High Road or Low Road?” reveals that, “low pay is not uncommon” in green industries, that “wage rates at many wind and solar manufacturing facilities are below the national average,” and suggests that wages for workers employed in the “green building” industry are also far lower than those of union members in other sectors. Their proposed solution is to unionize these industries, but remember just how unproductive they are even at these low wages. Replacing a coal job with a “green job” is likely to be a net loss to the economy, meaning further unemployment down the chain.
Finally, a forthcoming study from Dr Gabriel Calzada of the Instituto Juan de Mariana in Spain reveals an even greater problem. For every green job created in Spain, 3.9 jobs have been lost as a result throughout the economy. The author calls them “subprime jobs,” with good reason.
Keep an eye on this Al Gore fellow, he tells porkies.
Spain, Wind and Jobs...
Spain has a great many wind farms. By 2010 Spain will have 20,000 megawatts of installed capacity. Even in 2009 at the peak of the winds in February it was able to generate 11,800 megawatts – 29% of the energy requirements of Spain on a particular day (meaning that the turbines were working at 69% of their capacity). Spain ranks third in the world for wind power. Ahead of Spain are Germany, at nearly 24,000 megawatts of capacity, and the United States, at No. 1, with over 25,000 megawatts.
But there is a cost. Wind power has grown in Spain because of subsidy – also the case for solar power. In the case of wind, subsidy is market price (regulated by the Government with a requirement that the energy companies must buy wind power) plus 90% of the market price for a period of fifteen years, when it drops to 80%. In the case of solar power, the subsidy is 575% of the market price for twenty five years, when it falls to 460% above market. Contracts are underwritten by the Government at an annual cost of (app) €28.6 billion. It is not surprising, then, that the Government’s 2008 target for growth in installed capacity for renewable power of 371 megawatts was beaten by the actual new capacity created – 2,934 megawatts. The Spanish government has now capped growth
Obama has already pointed to Spain as an example the US should follow. He may want to be cautious. A recent economic analysis from the Juan Carlos University in Madrid suggests that, rather than creating the 50,000 jobs the Spanish government claimed would be created, the net green jobs created are closer to 15,000. Most of these jobs are associated with construction, since few are required once construction is completed to maintain and manage the wind and solar installed capacity. What is more, renewable energy has led to lost jobs elsewhere (especially when coupled with the impact of the European Carbon Credit Trading System – cap and trade). The study just mentioned suggests that the net costs of creating a single sustainable green job are app. €500 million. It also suggests that, for every green job created, some 3.9 jobs are lost in other sectors – someone has to pay for this subsidy level.
Further, Spain (as is the case in Germany and the US) realize that wind power is unreliable and has to be supported by “firming” – gas powered, nuclear or coal fired power to cover for periods when the wind is low but energy demand is high. As wind capacity increases, so too does the capacity of fossil fuel or nuclear systems to “cover” for low wind periods.
It is inevitable that these developments, which guarantee return on investment to wind power and solar companies of between 12-20% for up to 20 years, will increase energy costs and enlarge the number of people who experience energy poverty. It will also lead to companies being taxed more to pay for this scheme – estimates are that new green taxes cost Spanish companies some €15 billion in direct and indirect taxes over the last five years, some 35 times the original Government estimate of €85 million.
So strong are the new taxes and regulatory challenges for Spanish companies that some are leaving Spain – Acerinox, the Spanish steel maker, is downsizing its operations and looking at whether it should stay in Spain.
No one, it seems, is able to make money selling wind power or solar unless it is subsidized the customer price is regulated. Those looking at renewable energy need to be careful and learn from the experience of Spain.
But there is a cost. Wind power has grown in Spain because of subsidy – also the case for solar power. In the case of wind, subsidy is market price (regulated by the Government with a requirement that the energy companies must buy wind power) plus 90% of the market price for a period of fifteen years, when it drops to 80%. In the case of solar power, the subsidy is 575% of the market price for twenty five years, when it falls to 460% above market. Contracts are underwritten by the Government at an annual cost of (app) €28.6 billion. It is not surprising, then, that the Government’s 2008 target for growth in installed capacity for renewable power of 371 megawatts was beaten by the actual new capacity created – 2,934 megawatts. The Spanish government has now capped growth
Obama has already pointed to Spain as an example the US should follow. He may want to be cautious. A recent economic analysis from the Juan Carlos University in Madrid suggests that, rather than creating the 50,000 jobs the Spanish government claimed would be created, the net green jobs created are closer to 15,000. Most of these jobs are associated with construction, since few are required once construction is completed to maintain and manage the wind and solar installed capacity. What is more, renewable energy has led to lost jobs elsewhere (especially when coupled with the impact of the European Carbon Credit Trading System – cap and trade). The study just mentioned suggests that the net costs of creating a single sustainable green job are app. €500 million. It also suggests that, for every green job created, some 3.9 jobs are lost in other sectors – someone has to pay for this subsidy level.
Further, Spain (as is the case in Germany and the US) realize that wind power is unreliable and has to be supported by “firming” – gas powered, nuclear or coal fired power to cover for periods when the wind is low but energy demand is high. As wind capacity increases, so too does the capacity of fossil fuel or nuclear systems to “cover” for low wind periods.
It is inevitable that these developments, which guarantee return on investment to wind power and solar companies of between 12-20% for up to 20 years, will increase energy costs and enlarge the number of people who experience energy poverty. It will also lead to companies being taxed more to pay for this scheme – estimates are that new green taxes cost Spanish companies some €15 billion in direct and indirect taxes over the last five years, some 35 times the original Government estimate of €85 million.
So strong are the new taxes and regulatory challenges for Spanish companies that some are leaving Spain – Acerinox, the Spanish steel maker, is downsizing its operations and looking at whether it should stay in Spain.
No one, it seems, is able to make money selling wind power or solar unless it is subsidized the customer price is regulated. Those looking at renewable energy need to be careful and learn from the experience of Spain.
Trading Calorie Credits
Childhood and adult obesity are serious problems – not unlike the perceived problems with man made greenhouse gas emissions. So why don’t we borrow the approved EU solution to the latter and apply it to the former?
I propose we initiate a calorie trading scheme. Every living person be allocated an allowed calorie level for daily consumption automatically, based on a series of appropriate measures. They can only buY food anywhere with calorie credits. If they want more food, they have to go to the calorie market to buy additional credits – if they have excess credits, they sell them on the calorie market for those who wish to eat more. There could be calorie brokers who make sure that you can get credits. Also, if you want a specially big meal not only can you buy additional calorie credits, you can buy calorie offsets – a financial payment to an organic farm so that they can grow more carrots and onions.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, ask yourself why this is appropriate for C02 emissions and not for calories!
I propose we initiate a calorie trading scheme. Every living person be allocated an allowed calorie level for daily consumption automatically, based on a series of appropriate measures. They can only buY food anywhere with calorie credits. If they want more food, they have to go to the calorie market to buy additional credits – if they have excess credits, they sell them on the calorie market for those who wish to eat more. There could be calorie brokers who make sure that you can get credits. Also, if you want a specially big meal not only can you buy additional calorie credits, you can buy calorie offsets – a financial payment to an organic farm so that they can grow more carrots and onions.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, ask yourself why this is appropriate for C02 emissions and not for calories!
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Learners, Mindsets, Classrooms and Accountability
This presentation will be made in Edmonton, Grande Prairie and other locations in the next few months. Thanks to Kim Cofino's inspiration and materials.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The USS Incompetence
Obama's budget makes interesting reading. It suggests, as many of us knew, that the Government of the United States is basically incompetent. If his team can find $2 trillion in duplicate, dysfunctional or inappropriate spending in less than two months, just imagine what they will find after a year in office. One example is striking. In education there is, according to Obama, a mentoring program that costs some $50 million which is duplicated or superseded by the services of some thirteen other programs or agencies.
There is a long list, and CNN (amongst others) is digging through budget documents to find examples of waste.
But it is the Congress who writes the budget - the President makes suggestions and then approves (or not) the final draft. All of the spending cuts he proposes have strong advocates in the House and Senate. For example, his proposal to phase out farm subsidies for farms earning more than $500,000 a year is likely to be bitterly opposed.
I enjoy hunting and fishing - both are on the cards with this budget. It will be a battle royale on the good ship of state.
There is a long list, and CNN (amongst others) is digging through budget documents to find examples of waste.
But it is the Congress who writes the budget - the President makes suggestions and then approves (or not) the final draft. All of the spending cuts he proposes have strong advocates in the House and Senate. For example, his proposal to phase out farm subsidies for farms earning more than $500,000 a year is likely to be bitterly opposed.
I enjoy hunting and fishing - both are on the cards with this budget. It will be a battle royale on the good ship of state.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ontario Increases Taxes, Subsidises Industry and Increases Energy Costs
If the headline here sounds surprising, it is because Ontario calls what they are doing something else. Its part of their strategy to go green - promote and encourage energy efficiency, increase green energy development and consumption and reduce CO2 emissions.
What are they doing? Here is the story:
1. Every house seller must have an energy audit of their home. A tax of $150 - $300 depending on the size of the home. Sellers do not have to do anything about the findings, but the assumption is that house buyers will demand action before they buy.
2. Ontario is enabling the growth of the green energy sector by providing subsided pricing regimes for green energy (solar, wind etc) and will so invest in the energy grid to make this possible, This is about picking a winner (or not), making it a regulated requirement and then using tax payers money to make the use of this suoer expensive stuff possible.
3. Eventually, the government will remove the subsidies and then energy bills will go up to about x4 the current cost of power in Ontario - as is thr case in Spain and Germany, which Ontario says it wishes to emulate.
4. To make wind power viable, more coal fired power plants will be need to provide the guarantee of power flow from these sources - notoriously unreliable.
So this is the plan. All masked in saving the planet, going green and creating new jobs....right.
What are they doing? Here is the story:
1. Every house seller must have an energy audit of their home. A tax of $150 - $300 depending on the size of the home. Sellers do not have to do anything about the findings, but the assumption is that house buyers will demand action before they buy.
2. Ontario is enabling the growth of the green energy sector by providing subsided pricing regimes for green energy (solar, wind etc) and will so invest in the energy grid to make this possible, This is about picking a winner (or not), making it a regulated requirement and then using tax payers money to make the use of this suoer expensive stuff possible.
3. Eventually, the government will remove the subsidies and then energy bills will go up to about x4 the current cost of power in Ontario - as is thr case in Spain and Germany, which Ontario says it wishes to emulate.
4. To make wind power viable, more coal fired power plants will be need to provide the guarantee of power flow from these sources - notoriously unreliable.
So this is the plan. All masked in saving the planet, going green and creating new jobs....right.
Political Correctness (Again)
A school in Britain leaves all of its lights on at night in case a burglar comes in. The Head of the school says that he doesn’t want a burglar being injured, since this would have an impact on their insurance.
Has the world gone mad?
Has the world gone mad?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Well, Mr President
In about half an hour from now, Barrack Obama will speak to the world by means of an address to Congress. He will tell Americans that they have to stop relying on others and start relying on themselves and become responsible. He will tell them that he has started on the recovery plan, but that there will be more pain and more investment needed and he will use terrific rhetoric to explain to China and other US debt holders that he will work like Bernie Madoff to pay down the deficits and debts the US is collecting like philatelists collect stamps.
He is charming, articulate, intelligent and sharp – all the things Bush was not. He is also pretty direct and straight – all the things Clinton was not. He is also passionate – all the things the Carter was not. He has a sense of humour – one of the things Gordon Brown had surgery to remove. Most of all, he has the wind in his sails from a popular election win and solid starts on a number of fronts.
But let’s get real. Turning around an ocean liner in dry dock is a tough challenge. Doing it in a dry dock in a graveyard is very difficult, you get no help from the residents. Its pretty much a one man band. He can do a lot to restore the psychological confidence of the American people and to focus on taking personal responsibility – a key task. But many of the “grabonomic” stimulus activities will cost jobs in the long term, raise taxes and narrow the range and depth of government services. They will do so because of the indebtedness they will cause.
But there is more. As Obama pursues traditional socialist/labour party strategies – universal health care, nationalization of banks, industrial intervention in auto and financial services (“loans” to the automotive manufacturing companies – really, how naïve do you think we are Mr. President?) and government regulation of pay and benefits – the debts will get bigger. Despite the fact that some democrat economists, like Peter Krugman, urge more stimulus and more government, these basic socialist responses have consequences. Capitalist America will need to turn socialist to embrace the strategy that Obama is pursuing.
Obama is helped by the intellectual bankruptcy of the Grand Old Party – Republicans. While the media fusses about who will lead the GOP, given the marginal defeat of McCain/Palin in the November election (remember – Obama didn’t get a stunning majority in the popular vote, only in the electoral college – good job the US never really bought into direct elections by the people) – the real challenge is what the GOP stands for.
It is the same challenge in Britain. Brown’s socialistic takeover of the commanding heights of the British economy and the means of production will lead to his defeat if David Cameron, the Conservative Leader, can present a viable policy alternative. Part of the problem that Cameron has is that he is clearly a better communicator and a strong presence, but what is it that he stands for.
Until the GOP in the US and the Conservative in Britain develop a reasoned, rational political agenda which addresses fundamental challenges of responsibility, smaller government, fiscal accountability and management and new organizations for the knowledge economy, Obama will ride the waves and easily win a second term, even if a republican George Cluny or Bradolina ran against him. It’s ideas presented with passion, intelligence and conviction which win elections. Lets face, the GoP is right out of ideas.
He is charming, articulate, intelligent and sharp – all the things Bush was not. He is also pretty direct and straight – all the things Clinton was not. He is also passionate – all the things the Carter was not. He has a sense of humour – one of the things Gordon Brown had surgery to remove. Most of all, he has the wind in his sails from a popular election win and solid starts on a number of fronts.
But let’s get real. Turning around an ocean liner in dry dock is a tough challenge. Doing it in a dry dock in a graveyard is very difficult, you get no help from the residents. Its pretty much a one man band. He can do a lot to restore the psychological confidence of the American people and to focus on taking personal responsibility – a key task. But many of the “grabonomic” stimulus activities will cost jobs in the long term, raise taxes and narrow the range and depth of government services. They will do so because of the indebtedness they will cause.
But there is more. As Obama pursues traditional socialist/labour party strategies – universal health care, nationalization of banks, industrial intervention in auto and financial services (“loans” to the automotive manufacturing companies – really, how naïve do you think we are Mr. President?) and government regulation of pay and benefits – the debts will get bigger. Despite the fact that some democrat economists, like Peter Krugman, urge more stimulus and more government, these basic socialist responses have consequences. Capitalist America will need to turn socialist to embrace the strategy that Obama is pursuing.
Obama is helped by the intellectual bankruptcy of the Grand Old Party – Republicans. While the media fusses about who will lead the GOP, given the marginal defeat of McCain/Palin in the November election (remember – Obama didn’t get a stunning majority in the popular vote, only in the electoral college – good job the US never really bought into direct elections by the people) – the real challenge is what the GOP stands for.
It is the same challenge in Britain. Brown’s socialistic takeover of the commanding heights of the British economy and the means of production will lead to his defeat if David Cameron, the Conservative Leader, can present a viable policy alternative. Part of the problem that Cameron has is that he is clearly a better communicator and a strong presence, but what is it that he stands for.
Until the GOP in the US and the Conservative in Britain develop a reasoned, rational political agenda which addresses fundamental challenges of responsibility, smaller government, fiscal accountability and management and new organizations for the knowledge economy, Obama will ride the waves and easily win a second term, even if a republican George Cluny or Bradolina ran against him. It’s ideas presented with passion, intelligence and conviction which win elections. Lets face, the GoP is right out of ideas.
The End of Journalism and the Death of Science
James Lovelock, the British chemist and alleged expert on climate change, suggests that 80% of mankind will be wiped out by climate change and that the hot planet will last for 100,000 years. So persuasive is his assertion that it was asserted on BBC World’s HARDtalk as a fact today. What ever happened to science and to journalism?
Lets deal with journalism first. Stephen Sackur, who now fronts HARDtalk, is normally no slouch. He has a solid journalistic career behind him – strong history as a tough foreign correspondent for the BBC and then the solid BBC Washington correspondent – a well respected position and he did sterling work, covering the Lewinsky scandal, Clintonomics and the various forms of Clintongate. He also covered the Bush election by the Supreme Court. He has hosted HARDtalk since 2004, when he replaced journalist and novelist Tim Sebastian. Yet here is talking about science and technology and he quotes this absurb claim by Lovelock as if it were a statement of fact.
Journalists have generally given up on seeking to understand science, but instead look for the next scientist who will say something strange so that they have a “story”. This is why we have such a warped view of all sorts of scientific work – climate change, mad cow disease, obesity being good examples. The trick is to take a general position and then find extreme cases which “prove” the position. This is not scientific reporting or indeed journalism. As we lose more and more science trained journalist to be replaced by more and more journalists who have no other education but a degree in journalism (what exactly is that?), then we can expect science reporting to go very strange. This is why people like Dr James Hansen of NASA can get such a strong press coverage – the more outrageous they are (coal trains are “death trains” and coal powered power stations are “factories of death” according to Hansen – see an earlier blog post) the more likely they will be reported, all in the name of science.
Then there is the problem of science, or more accurately, sensationalism masquerading through a person who used to be scientist who has now become a polemicist. Lovelock is today’s example – last week it was James Hansen and no doubt others will follow. Lovelock suggests that some 5 billion will die as a result of global warming and climate change and, because he used to be a scientist, this is then presented as some sort of scientifically based “evidence” when in fact it is total speculation (a.k.a. “bullshit”). Most people have got to the point when they don’t know what to believe, especially when serious journalists report speculation as science. The consequence is that both science and journalism get a bad name and both get exploited by the lunatic fringe who make a living from bullshit.
We need some journalistic standards, like triple sourcing and fact checking, to come back into science reporting. We need scientists to stop pretending to be something they are not. We need rational, evidence based conversations. Otherwise, we will just discredit good science, good journalism and rational, evidence based dialogue.
Lets deal with journalism first. Stephen Sackur, who now fronts HARDtalk, is normally no slouch. He has a solid journalistic career behind him – strong history as a tough foreign correspondent for the BBC and then the solid BBC Washington correspondent – a well respected position and he did sterling work, covering the Lewinsky scandal, Clintonomics and the various forms of Clintongate. He also covered the Bush election by the Supreme Court. He has hosted HARDtalk since 2004, when he replaced journalist and novelist Tim Sebastian. Yet here is talking about science and technology and he quotes this absurb claim by Lovelock as if it were a statement of fact.
Journalists have generally given up on seeking to understand science, but instead look for the next scientist who will say something strange so that they have a “story”. This is why we have such a warped view of all sorts of scientific work – climate change, mad cow disease, obesity being good examples. The trick is to take a general position and then find extreme cases which “prove” the position. This is not scientific reporting or indeed journalism. As we lose more and more science trained journalist to be replaced by more and more journalists who have no other education but a degree in journalism (what exactly is that?), then we can expect science reporting to go very strange. This is why people like Dr James Hansen of NASA can get such a strong press coverage – the more outrageous they are (coal trains are “death trains” and coal powered power stations are “factories of death” according to Hansen – see an earlier blog post) the more likely they will be reported, all in the name of science.
Then there is the problem of science, or more accurately, sensationalism masquerading through a person who used to be scientist who has now become a polemicist. Lovelock is today’s example – last week it was James Hansen and no doubt others will follow. Lovelock suggests that some 5 billion will die as a result of global warming and climate change and, because he used to be a scientist, this is then presented as some sort of scientifically based “evidence” when in fact it is total speculation (a.k.a. “bullshit”). Most people have got to the point when they don’t know what to believe, especially when serious journalists report speculation as science. The consequence is that both science and journalism get a bad name and both get exploited by the lunatic fringe who make a living from bullshit.
We need some journalistic standards, like triple sourcing and fact checking, to come back into science reporting. We need scientists to stop pretending to be something they are not. We need rational, evidence based conversations. Otherwise, we will just discredit good science, good journalism and rational, evidence based dialogue.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Time to Rethink Alberta School Testing Regime
For three years now I have been writing, teaching, speaking about the need to give schools back to teachers.
The argument goes like this:
1. It is not unreasonable for government, which invests massively in compulsory education, to ask for some degree of accountability for how this money is spent. More specifically, to seek to ensure that schools produce the outcomes and that they are “fit for purpose”.
2. But schools are where teachers and administrators seek to transform the minds and lives of students. They are not places where information is transferred and regurgitated. They are places where life-ling frames of mind and skills are developed. What we need our students to be is skilled at disciplined thinking, able to synthesize and synergize across discipline boundaries, be creative and expressive, be caring and show high levels of emotional intelligence, be innovative and entrepreneurial, be able to make evidence based decisions (for example, about the environment or health care) and ethical choices and to be respectful of others. The curriculum is a vehicle for making these minds for the future possible – the curriculum is not an end unto itself.
3. Within schools teachers are required by law to work their way through the specifics of each curriculum area within the Provincial curriculum – now so packed full of “stuff” that there is little room for creativity or innovation unless the teacher is supported by strong professional development and support enablers, such as those available from www.galileo.org – yet we do know that the more the curriculum is delivered through authentic learning task and challenge based learning (where the teacher sets a challenge which engages the students heart and mind and requires them to show the mind sets outlined above) the more students learn and retain and the more often they will startle us.
4. Teachers feel fear and anxiety more than excitement and passion. Why? We have imposed a testing regime on schools which tests all students in Alberta at Grades 3, 6 and 9 and then there are High School Diploma Exams. Schools who do poorly on these PAT’s (Provincial Achievement Tests) may experience a deep intervention by people from Alberta Education (there are app. 800 FTE working in this Ministry) so that they can be put back on track. Results lead to actions at the local level by school boards and superintendents. Teachers, under pressure from the Department and their District as well as parents to perform well on the tests, start to teach to the test and this distorts learning. Further, the tests measure only certain kinds of outcomes and not others.
5. Where does the curriculum come from? It comes from a negotiation (often painful) between teachers, Colleges and Universities about what should be in/out – as if the system was a flow through system from school to post secondary. Yet in Alberta, large numbers of students do not complete high school (the three year completion rate is app. 71% - meaning that 29% of students attending schools do not complete high school). One reason for this (there are many) is that what they are asked to learn does not resonate with them. As Sir Ken Robinson points out in his powerful video Do Schools Kill Creativity? (see it at www.ted.com), this conveyor belt curriculum distorts learning and destroys education for many – in our case some of this 30%.
5. If we could find the right balance between highly desired outcomes and learning as a process, we may do much better in terms of preparing our students for the future we need them to have. This will mean reducing testing – preferably starting with the abolition of testing at Grade 3 (a proposition to do so is currently before the Alberta legislature as proposition 503) – and rebalancing the curriculum to give teachers more room to exercise their own creativity and skill and to take more direct responsibility for the curriculum in their classrooms. It would also enable schools to get back into being a focal point for the community, with learning projects strongly linked to the community in which they are placed.
6. Other jurisdictions are looking very closely at these issues. Ed Balls, the Minister for Children in the UK, has abolished SATs testing for 14 years olds (Grade 9) – he also fired the agency that managed this process after startling levels of incompetence. Some 70,000 students appealed their SATs grading in a single sitting of the SATs. SAT’s will be replaced by teacher based pupil assessments. A new report, published on Friday 19th February, recommends the abolition of all testing for primary school students (elementary schools) in the UK since testing distorts learning and causes high levels of student, parent and teacher anxiety. More specifically the Cambridge review of primary education says:
"The initial promise – and achievement – of entitlement to a broad, balanced and rich curriculum (through the national curriculum) has been sacrificed in pursuit of a narrowly conceived 'standards' agenda. Our argument is that [children's] education and their lives are impoverished if they have received an education that is so fundamentally deficient."
The report authors add that “the curriculum is seen by teachers as "overcrowded, unmanageable and, in certain respects, inappropriately conceived"” – a statement heard time and time again from teachers in Alberta.
7. The diagnosis offered by the Cambridge review of elementary school system in the UK is applicable to the Alberta situation:
* Long-term educational goals have been replaced by short-term targets.
* Curriculum overload – many teachers believe far too much is prescribed for the time available.
* Loss of children's entitlement to a broad, balanced and rich curriculum – with arts, the humanities and science under threat.
* Tests have led to memorization and recall replacing understanding and inquiry as the key goal in the classroom.
* "Politicization" of the curriculum with accompanying rhetoric of "standards".
* Pressure at start of primary school to begin formal lessons too early with tests for four and five-year-olds.
* Excessive prescription has led to loss of flexibility and autonomy for schools.
* Historic split between the "basics" and the rest of the timetable has led to "unacceptable" difference in the quality of provision between the two.
* Mistaken assumption that high standards in "the basics" can be achieved only by marginalizing the rest.
9. The No Child Left Behind strategy adopted by the US pursued a similar rigorous definition of the use of time and curriculum, accompanied by a testing regime. Under the 2001 law, States must test public school students in reading and math every year from third through eighth grade, plus once in high school, and reveal the results for each school or face a loss of federal funds. Just as critical, schools must break out test results for certain groups: blacks, Hispanics, English-language learners, learning-disabled students. The law insists -- with consequences for failure –t hat schools make annual progress toward closing the achievement gap between rich and poor, black and white, and bring all students to grade-level proficiency in math and reading by 2014. Not unreasonable policy objectives set by those distant from the daily life of teaching, of balancing special needs with those of others and of scarce resources. This system has also led, like the UK and Alberta systems, to massive distortions and a “corruption” of real learning – just read the article in Time which documents some of these implications – it is at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625192-1,00.html
10. What needs to be done to recapture the focus on real learning? Here are some suggestions:
* Scrap singling out time for literacy and numeracy strategies and reintegrate them into the national curriculum.
* Restore aim of the original curriculum that children are entitled to a broad and balanced education (giving equal weight to core subjects and elements like the arts and humanities).
* Review assessment and testing arrangements – dubbed "the elephant in the room" – which overshadows the entire curriculum. Abolish Grade 3 testing. Look at the growth model for evaluating school performance. In this approach, schools track the progress of each student year to year. Success is defined by a certain amount of growth, even if the student isn't on grade level. This relies on teacher based evaluations (some investment is needed to prevent inflation of assessments) and on a rigorous look at the competencies/skills to be reviewed, which can be much broader than literacy and numeracy and could include such things as emotional intelligence.
* Devote just 65-70% per cent of time to the Provincial curriculum – with 30 per cent to a locally agreed curriculum (such as learning about local history, tackling local environmental issues as a way of looking at a set of skills and curriculum objectives). See creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship as just as important as literacy and numeracy.
* Rely more on teacher assessments and evaluations, which are shown to be as reliable (if not more so) than so called “standard” multiple choice tests.
11. In Alberta, we need to have a real dialogue about what we need from our schools. Right now, the system is driven by fear and anxiety rather than optimism and excitement about what students can do – and they can do remarkable things. Wouldn’t it be good if they were doing them largely because of the system, rather than despite it?
An earlier blog provides a power point presentation which you may want to look at. I also strong recommend you watch Sir Ken Robinson's Do Schools Kill Creativity. To see what young, impoverished young people can do when inspired and well taught, look at the achievements of the Venezuela youth music program - for example, a concert conducted by Gustavo Dudamel
- if this doesn't inspire this conversation, then nothing will!
The argument goes like this:
1. It is not unreasonable for government, which invests massively in compulsory education, to ask for some degree of accountability for how this money is spent. More specifically, to seek to ensure that schools produce the outcomes and that they are “fit for purpose”.
2. But schools are where teachers and administrators seek to transform the minds and lives of students. They are not places where information is transferred and regurgitated. They are places where life-ling frames of mind and skills are developed. What we need our students to be is skilled at disciplined thinking, able to synthesize and synergize across discipline boundaries, be creative and expressive, be caring and show high levels of emotional intelligence, be innovative and entrepreneurial, be able to make evidence based decisions (for example, about the environment or health care) and ethical choices and to be respectful of others. The curriculum is a vehicle for making these minds for the future possible – the curriculum is not an end unto itself.
3. Within schools teachers are required by law to work their way through the specifics of each curriculum area within the Provincial curriculum – now so packed full of “stuff” that there is little room for creativity or innovation unless the teacher is supported by strong professional development and support enablers, such as those available from www.galileo.org – yet we do know that the more the curriculum is delivered through authentic learning task and challenge based learning (where the teacher sets a challenge which engages the students heart and mind and requires them to show the mind sets outlined above) the more students learn and retain and the more often they will startle us.
4. Teachers feel fear and anxiety more than excitement and passion. Why? We have imposed a testing regime on schools which tests all students in Alberta at Grades 3, 6 and 9 and then there are High School Diploma Exams. Schools who do poorly on these PAT’s (Provincial Achievement Tests) may experience a deep intervention by people from Alberta Education (there are app. 800 FTE working in this Ministry) so that they can be put back on track. Results lead to actions at the local level by school boards and superintendents. Teachers, under pressure from the Department and their District as well as parents to perform well on the tests, start to teach to the test and this distorts learning. Further, the tests measure only certain kinds of outcomes and not others.
5. Where does the curriculum come from? It comes from a negotiation (often painful) between teachers, Colleges and Universities about what should be in/out – as if the system was a flow through system from school to post secondary. Yet in Alberta, large numbers of students do not complete high school (the three year completion rate is app. 71% - meaning that 29% of students attending schools do not complete high school). One reason for this (there are many) is that what they are asked to learn does not resonate with them. As Sir Ken Robinson points out in his powerful video Do Schools Kill Creativity? (see it at www.ted.com), this conveyor belt curriculum distorts learning and destroys education for many – in our case some of this 30%.
5. If we could find the right balance between highly desired outcomes and learning as a process, we may do much better in terms of preparing our students for the future we need them to have. This will mean reducing testing – preferably starting with the abolition of testing at Grade 3 (a proposition to do so is currently before the Alberta legislature as proposition 503) – and rebalancing the curriculum to give teachers more room to exercise their own creativity and skill and to take more direct responsibility for the curriculum in their classrooms. It would also enable schools to get back into being a focal point for the community, with learning projects strongly linked to the community in which they are placed.
6. Other jurisdictions are looking very closely at these issues. Ed Balls, the Minister for Children in the UK, has abolished SATs testing for 14 years olds (Grade 9) – he also fired the agency that managed this process after startling levels of incompetence. Some 70,000 students appealed their SATs grading in a single sitting of the SATs. SAT’s will be replaced by teacher based pupil assessments. A new report, published on Friday 19th February, recommends the abolition of all testing for primary school students (elementary schools) in the UK since testing distorts learning and causes high levels of student, parent and teacher anxiety. More specifically the Cambridge review of primary education says:
"The initial promise – and achievement – of entitlement to a broad, balanced and rich curriculum (through the national curriculum) has been sacrificed in pursuit of a narrowly conceived 'standards' agenda. Our argument is that [children's] education and their lives are impoverished if they have received an education that is so fundamentally deficient."
The report authors add that “the curriculum is seen by teachers as "overcrowded, unmanageable and, in certain respects, inappropriately conceived"” – a statement heard time and time again from teachers in Alberta.
7. The diagnosis offered by the Cambridge review of elementary school system in the UK is applicable to the Alberta situation:
* Long-term educational goals have been replaced by short-term targets.
* Curriculum overload – many teachers believe far too much is prescribed for the time available.
* Loss of children's entitlement to a broad, balanced and rich curriculum – with arts, the humanities and science under threat.
* Tests have led to memorization and recall replacing understanding and inquiry as the key goal in the classroom.
* "Politicization" of the curriculum with accompanying rhetoric of "standards".
* Pressure at start of primary school to begin formal lessons too early with tests for four and five-year-olds.
* Excessive prescription has led to loss of flexibility and autonomy for schools.
* Historic split between the "basics" and the rest of the timetable has led to "unacceptable" difference in the quality of provision between the two.
* Mistaken assumption that high standards in "the basics" can be achieved only by marginalizing the rest.
9. The No Child Left Behind strategy adopted by the US pursued a similar rigorous definition of the use of time and curriculum, accompanied by a testing regime. Under the 2001 law, States must test public school students in reading and math every year from third through eighth grade, plus once in high school, and reveal the results for each school or face a loss of federal funds. Just as critical, schools must break out test results for certain groups: blacks, Hispanics, English-language learners, learning-disabled students. The law insists -- with consequences for failure –t hat schools make annual progress toward closing the achievement gap between rich and poor, black and white, and bring all students to grade-level proficiency in math and reading by 2014. Not unreasonable policy objectives set by those distant from the daily life of teaching, of balancing special needs with those of others and of scarce resources. This system has also led, like the UK and Alberta systems, to massive distortions and a “corruption” of real learning – just read the article in Time which documents some of these implications – it is at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625192-1,00.html
10. What needs to be done to recapture the focus on real learning? Here are some suggestions:
* Scrap singling out time for literacy and numeracy strategies and reintegrate them into the national curriculum.
* Restore aim of the original curriculum that children are entitled to a broad and balanced education (giving equal weight to core subjects and elements like the arts and humanities).
* Review assessment and testing arrangements – dubbed "the elephant in the room" – which overshadows the entire curriculum. Abolish Grade 3 testing. Look at the growth model for evaluating school performance. In this approach, schools track the progress of each student year to year. Success is defined by a certain amount of growth, even if the student isn't on grade level. This relies on teacher based evaluations (some investment is needed to prevent inflation of assessments) and on a rigorous look at the competencies/skills to be reviewed, which can be much broader than literacy and numeracy and could include such things as emotional intelligence.
* Devote just 65-70% per cent of time to the Provincial curriculum – with 30 per cent to a locally agreed curriculum (such as learning about local history, tackling local environmental issues as a way of looking at a set of skills and curriculum objectives). See creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship as just as important as literacy and numeracy.
* Rely more on teacher assessments and evaluations, which are shown to be as reliable (if not more so) than so called “standard” multiple choice tests.
11. In Alberta, we need to have a real dialogue about what we need from our schools. Right now, the system is driven by fear and anxiety rather than optimism and excitement about what students can do – and they can do remarkable things. Wouldn’t it be good if they were doing them largely because of the system, rather than despite it?
An earlier blog provides a power point presentation which you may want to look at. I also strong recommend you watch Sir Ken Robinson's Do Schools Kill Creativity. To see what young, impoverished young people can do when inspired and well taught, look at the achievements of the Venezuela youth music program - for example, a concert conducted by Gustavo Dudamel
- if this doesn't inspire this conversation, then nothing will!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Rethinking Alberta
The Government of Alberta is again living beyond its means. This is clear, not just because of the $1 billion deficit in the current fiscal year and the likely deficits for the next two years to be announced in the coming Provincial budget, but from two other factors. The first is that the government relies heavily for its funds on oil and gas royalty revenues, which are vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of commodities, especially oil. The second is that the Government also depends on lottery funds and interest revenues on endowments to fund base operations. These devices enable the government to spend far more per capita than any other Provincial government in Canada and to tax people far less. It simply can’t go on.
It can’t go on for four reasons. The first is, as we see, the current financial planning model is flawed, since so much of the Provincial budget is subject to risk resulting from market factors. If oil remains at around $40 a barrel for the balance of 2009 and rises to no more than $50 a barrel in 2010, significant cuts in public spending or rises in taxes will result. If oil gets back to around $65 adjustments to spending would still be needed, but would be less severe.
The second problem is that health care – the most significant factor in the current deficit – is on track to eat up fifty per cent of government spending by around 2017. This is unacceptable – it would lead to very significant cuts in other areas of government activity and an increases in taxation. Tackling health care remains the most significant challenge we face in Alberta. The current moving of the deck chairs at the board level does not begin to tackle the real challenge of reducing health care spending and its rate of growth. We need to rethink what services we offer, who they are offered to and how they are provided and to refocus our investments on prevention. This now is becoming more urgent, since this area of provincial expenditure is clearly out of control with a projected over spend of $1.5 billion.
The third problem is that the level of per capita spending is too high for the quality and value of services the public receives. Alberta spends $10,771 per person each year. That’s about one-third more than B.C.’s $8,001, Saskatchewan’s $8,090, and Manitoba’s $8,026. Why? Just because Alberta has access to revenues is not an argument for spending. If public services in Alberta were stunningly more effective and radically different, then we could have an argument that such spending was worth it. However, the most likely explanation is that we don’t want to deal with long term investment and diversification issues or to tackle politically tough issues like health care, so we throw cash at the problem. We need to cut public spending and seed more money into future funds, such as the Heritage fund – now at $17 billion in comparison to Norway’s $400 billion.
The final reason we have a challenged economic circumstance is that we under tax people. The often heralded Alberta Advantage focused on being a low tax location for business and people. This is not smart. What is smart is being a great place to live and being an economy that is growing with a government that is focused, highly efficient, procutive and lean. In 2007, income tax for a family of four with two wage earners in Alberta was app. $8,725 with the average for Canada at $11980 – a difference of over $3,000. We replaced direct taxation with royalty, lotto and interest revenues and disconnect people from the cost of their government. In 2009 we went further and abolished health care premiums.
So what do we need to do ? We need to: (a) cut public expenditure in a significant way – 12-15% over the next two fiscal years; (b) increase taxation by introducing a sales tax in Alberta that matches GST – a 5% Provincial sales tax; (c) start rethinking health care and do so in a significant way; (d) stop relying on both interest revenue from the Heritage Fund and lottery money to fund activity and have a plan to build the Heritage fund to $50 billion, with interest revenues being directed to research and innovation aimed at diversifying the economy; (e) reduce the number of public servants by focusing on e-government developments and substantial increases in productivity; (f) develop a meaningful strategic plan for Alberta.
We can test the Provincial budget statements against these core requirements. Don’t hold your breath.
It can’t go on for four reasons. The first is, as we see, the current financial planning model is flawed, since so much of the Provincial budget is subject to risk resulting from market factors. If oil remains at around $40 a barrel for the balance of 2009 and rises to no more than $50 a barrel in 2010, significant cuts in public spending or rises in taxes will result. If oil gets back to around $65 adjustments to spending would still be needed, but would be less severe.
The second problem is that health care – the most significant factor in the current deficit – is on track to eat up fifty per cent of government spending by around 2017. This is unacceptable – it would lead to very significant cuts in other areas of government activity and an increases in taxation. Tackling health care remains the most significant challenge we face in Alberta. The current moving of the deck chairs at the board level does not begin to tackle the real challenge of reducing health care spending and its rate of growth. We need to rethink what services we offer, who they are offered to and how they are provided and to refocus our investments on prevention. This now is becoming more urgent, since this area of provincial expenditure is clearly out of control with a projected over spend of $1.5 billion.
The third problem is that the level of per capita spending is too high for the quality and value of services the public receives. Alberta spends $10,771 per person each year. That’s about one-third more than B.C.’s $8,001, Saskatchewan’s $8,090, and Manitoba’s $8,026. Why? Just because Alberta has access to revenues is not an argument for spending. If public services in Alberta were stunningly more effective and radically different, then we could have an argument that such spending was worth it. However, the most likely explanation is that we don’t want to deal with long term investment and diversification issues or to tackle politically tough issues like health care, so we throw cash at the problem. We need to cut public spending and seed more money into future funds, such as the Heritage fund – now at $17 billion in comparison to Norway’s $400 billion.
The final reason we have a challenged economic circumstance is that we under tax people. The often heralded Alberta Advantage focused on being a low tax location for business and people. This is not smart. What is smart is being a great place to live and being an economy that is growing with a government that is focused, highly efficient, procutive and lean. In 2007, income tax for a family of four with two wage earners in Alberta was app. $8,725 with the average for Canada at $11980 – a difference of over $3,000. We replaced direct taxation with royalty, lotto and interest revenues and disconnect people from the cost of their government. In 2009 we went further and abolished health care premiums.
So what do we need to do ? We need to: (a) cut public expenditure in a significant way – 12-15% over the next two fiscal years; (b) increase taxation by introducing a sales tax in Alberta that matches GST – a 5% Provincial sales tax; (c) start rethinking health care and do so in a significant way; (d) stop relying on both interest revenue from the Heritage Fund and lottery money to fund activity and have a plan to build the Heritage fund to $50 billion, with interest revenues being directed to research and innovation aimed at diversifying the economy; (e) reduce the number of public servants by focusing on e-government developments and substantial increases in productivity; (f) develop a meaningful strategic plan for Alberta.
We can test the Provincial budget statements against these core requirements. Don’t hold your breath.
Governments and Jobs - How Not to Intervene
Many governments are looking at strategies to impact the labour market, stimulate job creation and get people back to work.
The Labour Party in Britain, when it came to power as New Labour in 1997 under Tony Blair, aggressively pursued just such a scheme. Known as the “New Deal”, the aim was to stop the culture of dependency on social security payments, force the long term unemployed to reskill and use job placements to get back into the workforce. It was a flagship program with cultural aims as well as a specific set of goals focused on training and unemployment. Wage subsidies, tax credits and direct incentives were all used as tools to end long term unemployment. It has cost £75 billion.
Frank Field, a former New Labour Minister, has offered an analysis of this scheme in the London Evening Standard. “The results are derisory," he said, adding that in a decade the number of people doing no work had fallen just 400,000 from 5.7million. Yet at the same time the number of young people not in work or education had actually gone up. Only a third of young people held a job for more than 13 weeks after being on the New Deal - even during the boom. The rest returned to living on benefits. Private training contractors, he said, failed to sanction youngsters who did not turn up, in case they lost their subsidies. Many schemes were unsuitable, he added. For example: putting illiterate people on IT training with too few work stations to go round. There are a growing number of young people who will likely live on benefit payments for life.
£75 billion – or $150 billion to have almost no impact and certainly this big scheme has not lived up to the promises New Labour made for it.
Those now looking to Governments to have an impact on jobs should look very carefully at the New Deal. It tells us a lot about how governments role in the economy is usually very weak and often counter productive.
The Labour Party in Britain, when it came to power as New Labour in 1997 under Tony Blair, aggressively pursued just such a scheme. Known as the “New Deal”, the aim was to stop the culture of dependency on social security payments, force the long term unemployed to reskill and use job placements to get back into the workforce. It was a flagship program with cultural aims as well as a specific set of goals focused on training and unemployment. Wage subsidies, tax credits and direct incentives were all used as tools to end long term unemployment. It has cost £75 billion.
Frank Field, a former New Labour Minister, has offered an analysis of this scheme in the London Evening Standard. “The results are derisory," he said, adding that in a decade the number of people doing no work had fallen just 400,000 from 5.7million. Yet at the same time the number of young people not in work or education had actually gone up. Only a third of young people held a job for more than 13 weeks after being on the New Deal - even during the boom. The rest returned to living on benefits. Private training contractors, he said, failed to sanction youngsters who did not turn up, in case they lost their subsidies. Many schemes were unsuitable, he added. For example: putting illiterate people on IT training with too few work stations to go round. There are a growing number of young people who will likely live on benefit payments for life.
£75 billion – or $150 billion to have almost no impact and certainly this big scheme has not lived up to the promises New Labour made for it.
Those now looking to Governments to have an impact on jobs should look very carefully at the New Deal. It tells us a lot about how governments role in the economy is usually very weak and often counter productive.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Dr James Hansen is a Problem for Science (and NASA)
Dr James Hansen is regarded by many as a guru of climate change. He works for NASA as the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He has, however, done more to discredit science and blur the lines between polemics and scientific study. He uses his position at NASA, despite rules to the contrary, to promote ideological positions with respect to how the world should be, given his view that we are approaching global doom as a result of climate change.
His latest polemic is a an article in The Observer, reprinted in The Guardian (both UK newspapers) in which he claims that Coal Fired Power Stations are Death Factories and that the trains carrying coals to them are death trains. Exactly the kind of language one expects from a careful scientists. His argument revolves around the impact CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants will have on the world and the loss of animal (including some human) and plant life climate change will lead to. He wants all coal fired power plants in the UK to be closed down. He lives in the US – in New York, in fact.
Some of his scientific colleagues, such as Dr. Nicholas Drapela of the Oregon State University Chemistry Department, think he has finally “gone off the deep end” and his former boss says that he should simply “shut up!” The New York Times has also rebuked him, suggesting that his science has been lost in his polemic.
So what’s the problem? I am not against Dr Hansen sharing his views. I am opposed, however, to the way in which this is reported as something to do with science and I am appalled at Dr Hansen’s continued abuse of his position to promote a view of the future which is catastrophic and largely now detached from scientific evidence and debate. Hansen is a politician, masquerading as a scientist. He should be dismissed from NASA immediately and NASA should work hard to restore its credibility, which Hansen is quickly losing it. Science would be helped if he did indeed shut up and seek help for his paranoia.
His latest polemic is a an article in The Observer, reprinted in The Guardian (both UK newspapers) in which he claims that Coal Fired Power Stations are Death Factories and that the trains carrying coals to them are death trains. Exactly the kind of language one expects from a careful scientists. His argument revolves around the impact CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants will have on the world and the loss of animal (including some human) and plant life climate change will lead to. He wants all coal fired power plants in the UK to be closed down. He lives in the US – in New York, in fact.
Some of his scientific colleagues, such as Dr. Nicholas Drapela of the Oregon State University Chemistry Department, think he has finally “gone off the deep end” and his former boss says that he should simply “shut up!” The New York Times has also rebuked him, suggesting that his science has been lost in his polemic.
So what’s the problem? I am not against Dr Hansen sharing his views. I am opposed, however, to the way in which this is reported as something to do with science and I am appalled at Dr Hansen’s continued abuse of his position to promote a view of the future which is catastrophic and largely now detached from scientific evidence and debate. Hansen is a politician, masquerading as a scientist. He should be dismissed from NASA immediately and NASA should work hard to restore its credibility, which Hansen is quickly losing it. Science would be helped if he did indeed shut up and seek help for his paranoia.
Goodbye California?
California’s $1.8 trillion economy is theoretically the eighth-largest economy in the world (just behind the United Kingdom, France, and Italy). But now it is in deep trouble – it is a bankrupt economy, just like several other US States which cannot afford to do what they have always done. It has a looming deficit of some $41 billion and its legislature is unable to agree on an action plan that might tackle this – tax hikes and cuts to public service, the only two primary devices available to a State government (though California, unlike many other US States, is also able to borrow on the market).
How did it get to this? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - who once railed against “economic girlie men” - has allowed California's budget to grow by 40 per cent to a rabidly obese $144 billion since winning office 2004. The State is currently amassing debts at the present rate of $1.7 million per hour. Despite claiming to be a Republican, Schwarzenegger has spent like a liberal democrat and brought about State level bankruptcy – a problem he promised to solve back in 2004.
Part of the problem is that liberals dominate California’s direct ballot democracy, where various propositions find themselves on the ballot paper and can determine spending and government actions. Voters, who care little about cost and more about ideology and services, are responsible for their actions and should pay through taxation. A law change made by ballot should indicate clearly the additional taxation that the change will lead to – but there is no focus on cost in this direct democracy debacle. The constitutional problem is that the budget which Schwarzenegger wants to pass to resolve the current deficit problem requires a two thirds majority of his legislature – a silly rule aimed at preventing change.
What Schwarzenegger proposed was $15.1 billion in budget cuts, $14.4 billion in tax increases and $11.4 billion in borrowing, much of it subject to voter approval. He lost his legislature vote by just one vote. He is now proposing to lay off 20,000 public servants and put an immediately halt to all public works activities, which will lead to a significant number of construction workers for private companies being laid off - some stimulus package.
Meanwhile, the State of Kansas has suspended income tax refunds and may not be able to pay employees on time. A bill, which proposes cuts of $32 million to schools as well as other agency cuts, is being blocked as part of the complex game of Kansas State politics.
When we talk of the collapse of the American Empire, one wonders just how many signs it takes to know that the world as we knew it has changed dramatically.
Yet the response is generally the same. Spending by government is out of control – we need to spend more! A likely solution. Stimulus in California might mean repealing legislation related to direct democracy and enabling the government to work in a sane way – now that is radical.
Watch this space.
How did it get to this? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - who once railed against “economic girlie men” - has allowed California's budget to grow by 40 per cent to a rabidly obese $144 billion since winning office 2004. The State is currently amassing debts at the present rate of $1.7 million per hour. Despite claiming to be a Republican, Schwarzenegger has spent like a liberal democrat and brought about State level bankruptcy – a problem he promised to solve back in 2004.
Part of the problem is that liberals dominate California’s direct ballot democracy, where various propositions find themselves on the ballot paper and can determine spending and government actions. Voters, who care little about cost and more about ideology and services, are responsible for their actions and should pay through taxation. A law change made by ballot should indicate clearly the additional taxation that the change will lead to – but there is no focus on cost in this direct democracy debacle. The constitutional problem is that the budget which Schwarzenegger wants to pass to resolve the current deficit problem requires a two thirds majority of his legislature – a silly rule aimed at preventing change.
What Schwarzenegger proposed was $15.1 billion in budget cuts, $14.4 billion in tax increases and $11.4 billion in borrowing, much of it subject to voter approval. He lost his legislature vote by just one vote. He is now proposing to lay off 20,000 public servants and put an immediately halt to all public works activities, which will lead to a significant number of construction workers for private companies being laid off - some stimulus package.
Meanwhile, the State of Kansas has suspended income tax refunds and may not be able to pay employees on time. A bill, which proposes cuts of $32 million to schools as well as other agency cuts, is being blocked as part of the complex game of Kansas State politics.
When we talk of the collapse of the American Empire, one wonders just how many signs it takes to know that the world as we knew it has changed dramatically.
Yet the response is generally the same. Spending by government is out of control – we need to spend more! A likely solution. Stimulus in California might mean repealing legislation related to direct democracy and enabling the government to work in a sane way – now that is radical.
Watch this space.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Clause 4 Britain
The original version of Clause IV, drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917 and adopted by the UK Labour Party in 1918, read, in part 4:
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."
Despite the fact that this part of the constitution of the party has been removed, Gordon Brown seems intent on pursuing Clause IV in his version of Britain. Nationalizing banks in whole or in part, buying into key industries seems a daily occurrence in Brown’s Britain. Will they ever reverse this? We’ll have to see what the Cameron government does after it defeats Brown at the next election.
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."
Despite the fact that this part of the constitution of the party has been removed, Gordon Brown seems intent on pursuing Clause IV in his version of Britain. Nationalizing banks in whole or in part, buying into key industries seems a daily occurrence in Brown’s Britain. Will they ever reverse this? We’ll have to see what the Cameron government does after it defeats Brown at the next election.
The Declining of the American Expire
The truth is now clear. America is the next major “civilization” which will soon collapse. The signs are everywhere.
First, the nation is so much in debt and at financial risk that its economic decline is inevitable. Debt, as documented elsewhere in this blog, is at app. $11 trillion and unfunded liabilities at another $43 trillion. Personal debt is now around $12 trillion. To survive past the recession, the Government will need to borrow more - probably another $3 trillion by the time we’re all done. To pay this down, the Government will need to both cut government services and increase taxation significantly. This will challenge the rationale of irrational government.
Second, the corruption now evident in the US is substantial – Bernie Madoff, R Allen Stanford rip off investors for close to $100 billion between them. US Military squander and steal large amounts of US government cash as part of their way of rebuilding Iraq (and then complain about corrupt government). The Bush Presidency systematically abuse the law in corrupt ways to meet their own needs – keep an eye on the future of Dick Cheney, former Vice President.
Third, through its self appointed role as a global policeman, the US chastises other nations – Iran, for example – for doing exactly what it does itself. One rule for them, different rule for the US.
Finally, the US is increasingly delusional about the state it is in – for example, believing that a stimulus package full of pork barrel spending will do anything about the recession or that the US can tackle climate change – and is in denial about the decline of its status in the world. The euphoria over Obama’s election will be short lived, as the depth of the recession deepens and key companies (GM and Chrysler, for example) collapse.
So, we will now start to see the steady decline of the American Empire. Watch this space.
First, the nation is so much in debt and at financial risk that its economic decline is inevitable. Debt, as documented elsewhere in this blog, is at app. $11 trillion and unfunded liabilities at another $43 trillion. Personal debt is now around $12 trillion. To survive past the recession, the Government will need to borrow more - probably another $3 trillion by the time we’re all done. To pay this down, the Government will need to both cut government services and increase taxation significantly. This will challenge the rationale of irrational government.
Second, the corruption now evident in the US is substantial – Bernie Madoff, R Allen Stanford rip off investors for close to $100 billion between them. US Military squander and steal large amounts of US government cash as part of their way of rebuilding Iraq (and then complain about corrupt government). The Bush Presidency systematically abuse the law in corrupt ways to meet their own needs – keep an eye on the future of Dick Cheney, former Vice President.
Third, through its self appointed role as a global policeman, the US chastises other nations – Iran, for example – for doing exactly what it does itself. One rule for them, different rule for the US.
Finally, the US is increasingly delusional about the state it is in – for example, believing that a stimulus package full of pork barrel spending will do anything about the recession or that the US can tackle climate change – and is in denial about the decline of its status in the world. The euphoria over Obama’s election will be short lived, as the depth of the recession deepens and key companies (GM and Chrysler, for example) collapse.
So, we will now start to see the steady decline of the American Empire. Watch this space.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Prince Looses the Plot....
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall together with a 14-strong entourage are going to Chile, Brazil and Ecuador on a 16,400-mile round trip. The purpose: promoting environmental stewardship and responsibility.
To get there, he is flying on an air transporter and once there, will fly in a private jet to each location. The maximum number of passengers, according to his office, for any leg of the trip is under 30 – the Airbus plane has room for 134.
See any problem here? Imagine a headline “Gas Guzzling Prince Advises Against Excessive Petroleum Use!”. Its all, well, very sad really…
To get there, he is flying on an air transporter and once there, will fly in a private jet to each location. The maximum number of passengers, according to his office, for any leg of the trip is under 30 – the Airbus plane has room for 134.
See any problem here? Imagine a headline “Gas Guzzling Prince Advises Against Excessive Petroleum Use!”. Its all, well, very sad really…
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Grabonomics
The storyline is clear. This is a serious economic crisis. What we need to cushion the impact of the crisis on key industries and families is significant government spending intended to create jobs and stimulate the economy. We also need to use government funds to support banks, financial institutions and industries since otherwise these may fail, disrupt regional economies and create new welfare burdens for the State or lead to the collapse of essential institutions. Its called “depression economics” and it rarely works as intended.
There are four critical problems with this approach. First, it is expensive. Government has to go into debt to pay for this so-called stimulus and these debt burdens will later lead to higher taxes and lower levels of public service. No one is talking about how we will pay for all of this “stimulus”. Canada is talking about a relatively small debt level – around $65 billion. But the US is talking trillions – total US debt is likely to reach $12-$13 trillion, with 23% of this debt being held by China. Is this really a way to help an economy in the long term?
Second, stimulus leads to capital spending on roads, technologies, hospitals and schools. It does not provide funds for maintaining these new structures or for the operating costs of facilities created. In the case of Canada, the Government requires matching funds from Provinces and Municipalities (where appropriate). The Provinces and Municipalities don’t have such funds, so they borrow too. Stimulus quickly becomes “spread around debt with unfunded future liabilities”.
Third, funds flowing to industries, such as car manufacture, props up companies that would otherwise fail. It also requires Government to cynically chose which companies and which sectors it wishes to support. In the US Larry Flint asked for $5 billion to support a pornography industry which is hit by recession – a lower cost deal that the GM and Chrysler ask which will end up around $120 billion. Larry didn’t get his cash (wonder why? But the car companies got a down payment. What happened to markets and investors here?
Finally, this is a hey-day for liberals. Every goofy scheme you can imagine has found its way into the US stimulus package passed by the House and Senate yesterday. The most obvious is the “green” jobs – claiming that millions of jobs will be created and the planet saved by adopting green technology and curbing CO2 emissions. Its all “holier than thou” stuff. If you go through the various stimulus packages in the US, Canada and the UK you will find lots of “pork” – pet projects that will need constant feeding so that Government can get fat and stick its fingers into people’s business.
Will any of this work? Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economists and journalist and a strong liberal democrat, thinks that what we are seeing so far is the first installment of the stimulus package – expect four of five more about the same size (between $1.5 and $2 trillion of debt). He also thinks that the impact of all this will be slow – 18-24 months, one reason Obama is making clear that there are “no quick fixes” and that the economy will take years, not weeks and months to recover.
What should Government do? It should reduce taxes, cut Government spending, ensure its regulation of financial institutions are strong, provide repayable loans to banks to ensure that the financial system has capital to flow, increase the period of support for unemployment insurance and provide additional funds for education and training. Let the market do the rest.
Some will suggest that letting GM. Chrysler and a few banks fail would be the death knell of key parts of the economy. So too is propping up companies which failed some time ago and increasing debt and reliance on foreign debt-buying aid. Some will suggest that it is cheaper to bail out firms than pay for unemployment benefits. No it isn’t. GM will take 5-10 years to turn around and will likely suck up $500 billion or more in the process. We could give every worker $2 million and be done.
We used the phrase “voodoo economics” to describe trickle down Reaganomics. We need a phrase for the current economic strategy – how about “grabanomics” ? Governments are grabbing at anything and everything and throwing cash at it in the hope it will stick.
There are four critical problems with this approach. First, it is expensive. Government has to go into debt to pay for this so-called stimulus and these debt burdens will later lead to higher taxes and lower levels of public service. No one is talking about how we will pay for all of this “stimulus”. Canada is talking about a relatively small debt level – around $65 billion. But the US is talking trillions – total US debt is likely to reach $12-$13 trillion, with 23% of this debt being held by China. Is this really a way to help an economy in the long term?
Second, stimulus leads to capital spending on roads, technologies, hospitals and schools. It does not provide funds for maintaining these new structures or for the operating costs of facilities created. In the case of Canada, the Government requires matching funds from Provinces and Municipalities (where appropriate). The Provinces and Municipalities don’t have such funds, so they borrow too. Stimulus quickly becomes “spread around debt with unfunded future liabilities”.
Third, funds flowing to industries, such as car manufacture, props up companies that would otherwise fail. It also requires Government to cynically chose which companies and which sectors it wishes to support. In the US Larry Flint asked for $5 billion to support a pornography industry which is hit by recession – a lower cost deal that the GM and Chrysler ask which will end up around $120 billion. Larry didn’t get his cash (wonder why? But the car companies got a down payment. What happened to markets and investors here?
Finally, this is a hey-day for liberals. Every goofy scheme you can imagine has found its way into the US stimulus package passed by the House and Senate yesterday. The most obvious is the “green” jobs – claiming that millions of jobs will be created and the planet saved by adopting green technology and curbing CO2 emissions. Its all “holier than thou” stuff. If you go through the various stimulus packages in the US, Canada and the UK you will find lots of “pork” – pet projects that will need constant feeding so that Government can get fat and stick its fingers into people’s business.
Will any of this work? Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economists and journalist and a strong liberal democrat, thinks that what we are seeing so far is the first installment of the stimulus package – expect four of five more about the same size (between $1.5 and $2 trillion of debt). He also thinks that the impact of all this will be slow – 18-24 months, one reason Obama is making clear that there are “no quick fixes” and that the economy will take years, not weeks and months to recover.
What should Government do? It should reduce taxes, cut Government spending, ensure its regulation of financial institutions are strong, provide repayable loans to banks to ensure that the financial system has capital to flow, increase the period of support for unemployment insurance and provide additional funds for education and training. Let the market do the rest.
Some will suggest that letting GM. Chrysler and a few banks fail would be the death knell of key parts of the economy. So too is propping up companies which failed some time ago and increasing debt and reliance on foreign debt-buying aid. Some will suggest that it is cheaper to bail out firms than pay for unemployment benefits. No it isn’t. GM will take 5-10 years to turn around and will likely suck up $500 billion or more in the process. We could give every worker $2 million and be done.
We used the phrase “voodoo economics” to describe trickle down Reaganomics. We need a phrase for the current economic strategy – how about “grabanomics” ? Governments are grabbing at anything and everything and throwing cash at it in the hope it will stick.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sign of the Times
Dubai is a great place. English, though, is a little strained for some, as this street sign just aorund the corner from where I lived shows.
Praying for the Ill is Offensive
A British nurse has been suspended for offering to say a prayer for a patient who was seriously ill in a National Health Service (NHS) hospital. She was deemed to be in breach of her employment conditions, which required her to ‘demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ at all times. Compassion is clearly not thought of as important. It is interesting that her own rights to be respected are deemed as secondary to the right of the organizational culture of no tolerance for care, which she was clearly trying to display. She is not alone, College of Alameda in California threatened a student with expulsion after she prayed for her ailing professor while on school property, deeming the act "insulting behavior."
It’s part of the “world gone mad” political correctness movement, which is policed by such august bodies as Human Rights Commissions and Commissions for Racial Equality. It is this movement that led the British government to deny freedom of speech to a Dutch MP who was to speak in the House of Lords against the spread of Islam in Europe – he was denied entry to the country.
While one can understand concerns being raised over Carole Thatcher’s repeated use of the term “golliwog” to refer to a black tennis player or with Prince Harry’s use of “rag head” to refer to Taliban fighters (the ones we sent him out to kill), the reaction to even a small infraction of the sensibilities of excessively sensitive people seems, to put it mildly, stupid.
For example, Jeremy Clarkson (never known for being subtle) recently referred to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a one eyed (correct), Scottish (correct) idiot (matter of opinion, but growingly correct) and was castigated for doing so. This is very mild in comparison to the attacks on Churchill or Disreali, but in our every sensitive society it was deemed an almost dismissible offence – Jeremy is the lead presenter on the BBC show Top Gear. So even truthful but harsh criticism is deemed now socially unacceptable.
Other examples that I find amazing:
• Hundreds of schools in the UK have forbidden teachers to mark with red ink for fear of upsetting children.
• A new £4.7million school has opened to controversy after banning the word ’school’ from its title because it has ‘negative connotations’.
• A provincial government in Australia wants to re-name a mountain that has an allegedly offensive name - Niggerhead. Some aboriginals, however, find the proposed new name equally as offensive - Jaithmathangs.
• An inner city marching band that was chosen to march in the Inaugural Parade in Washington DC for President Obama, the first black president in American history. Less than a month before the event, and just as the school is set for Christmas vacation, the band receive a 26-page letter from Religious Americans Against Indian Nicknames and Logos threatening litigation against the school's use of the nickname, The Chiefs. That is exactly what happened to the Wyandotte Roosevelt High School Marching Chiefs, of Wyandotte, Michigan, just outside of Detroit.
The worst of all of this is what we have done to Christmas. We can’t call it Christmas, it’s now officially “the holidays”. Some who display Christmas trees in shop windows in the UK have been cautioned by the police and schools have all but stopped having nativity plays. Meanwhile, Muslims are given ever leeway to pray.
A fellow blogger suggests that political correctness is “a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end”. Maybe he’s right.
It’s part of the “world gone mad” political correctness movement, which is policed by such august bodies as Human Rights Commissions and Commissions for Racial Equality. It is this movement that led the British government to deny freedom of speech to a Dutch MP who was to speak in the House of Lords against the spread of Islam in Europe – he was denied entry to the country.
While one can understand concerns being raised over Carole Thatcher’s repeated use of the term “golliwog” to refer to a black tennis player or with Prince Harry’s use of “rag head” to refer to Taliban fighters (the ones we sent him out to kill), the reaction to even a small infraction of the sensibilities of excessively sensitive people seems, to put it mildly, stupid.
For example, Jeremy Clarkson (never known for being subtle) recently referred to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a one eyed (correct), Scottish (correct) idiot (matter of opinion, but growingly correct) and was castigated for doing so. This is very mild in comparison to the attacks on Churchill or Disreali, but in our every sensitive society it was deemed an almost dismissible offence – Jeremy is the lead presenter on the BBC show Top Gear. So even truthful but harsh criticism is deemed now socially unacceptable.
Other examples that I find amazing:
• Hundreds of schools in the UK have forbidden teachers to mark with red ink for fear of upsetting children.
• A new £4.7million school has opened to controversy after banning the word ’school’ from its title because it has ‘negative connotations’.
• A provincial government in Australia wants to re-name a mountain that has an allegedly offensive name - Niggerhead. Some aboriginals, however, find the proposed new name equally as offensive - Jaithmathangs.
• An inner city marching band that was chosen to march in the Inaugural Parade in Washington DC for President Obama, the first black president in American history. Less than a month before the event, and just as the school is set for Christmas vacation, the band receive a 26-page letter from Religious Americans Against Indian Nicknames and Logos threatening litigation against the school's use of the nickname, The Chiefs. That is exactly what happened to the Wyandotte Roosevelt High School Marching Chiefs, of Wyandotte, Michigan, just outside of Detroit.
The worst of all of this is what we have done to Christmas. We can’t call it Christmas, it’s now officially “the holidays”. Some who display Christmas trees in shop windows in the UK have been cautioned by the police and schools have all but stopped having nativity plays. Meanwhile, Muslims are given ever leeway to pray.
A fellow blogger suggests that political correctness is “a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end”. Maybe he’s right.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Give Schools Back to Teachers
You can find my current presentation on SlideShare at www.slideshare.net - its called Give Schools Back to Teachers. Its also just above this post, but you can download it from the SlideShare site.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Stimulus Creates Job Loss, Higher Taxes and Slows the Economy in the UK
The Spectator is a great British magazine. It is in the tradition of using a high standard of journalism to hold politicians to account. While conservative by design, the magazine can also lay into the conservative leadership (and does so) when it thinks there are grounds to do so.
The magazine has published an analysis of the impact of the stimulus package on the UK economy over the next five years, using the work of the very skilled and respected Oxford Economics company. The conclusion. The stimulus package will increase unemployment over time, be expensive for employers and have a slowing effect on the economy. Why? Because all this public spending has to be paid for.
Gordon Brown, embattled Prime Minister in the UK, claims that his stimulus package will create 100,000 new jobs. It wont. According to this analysis, it may create 35,000 against a background of 2.2 million unemployed in the UK in 2009 – no big deal.
If this is correct, then will giving Viagra to the economy cause side effects which are less desirable than leaving the market to take care of the issues? Probably. Why? Because higher taxes and less government spending – both required to bring borrowing, deficits and government spending back under control – will wipe out any gains.
Its worth reading. Find it at The Spectator.
The magazine has published an analysis of the impact of the stimulus package on the UK economy over the next five years, using the work of the very skilled and respected Oxford Economics company. The conclusion. The stimulus package will increase unemployment over time, be expensive for employers and have a slowing effect on the economy. Why? Because all this public spending has to be paid for.
Gordon Brown, embattled Prime Minister in the UK, claims that his stimulus package will create 100,000 new jobs. It wont. According to this analysis, it may create 35,000 against a background of 2.2 million unemployed in the UK in 2009 – no big deal.
If this is correct, then will giving Viagra to the economy cause side effects which are less desirable than leaving the market to take care of the issues? Probably. Why? Because higher taxes and less government spending – both required to bring borrowing, deficits and government spending back under control – will wipe out any gains.
Its worth reading. Find it at The Spectator.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Economic Crisis as Liberal Fascists Fantasy Come True!
So far the US stimulus package and bail out of its banking system amounts to a $7 trillion attempt by the Government to buy its way out of recession. What is more, it isn’t over yet. Obama is asking for more, the auto companies will need app. $100 billion to survive and other things are in the works. Plus there is no evidence that this is working, which usually fosters demands to do more of the same. It’s a field day for liberal fascists, who simply love the idea of state control and big government. It’s a bad day for people who like evidence based decisions and the idea of small government being good for communities and people (a.k.a. as conservatives or republicans, depending on where you live).
It is a similar story in the UK, where bail outs, tax cuts and other measures are valued at (app.) $1.4 trillion of future debts. There too it’s not working. High street stores are closing, people are being laid off and no one can see any glimmers of optimism. Gordon Brown – once the superhero of the economy in October/November 2008 – is now seen as the Captain of the Titanic (or, more accurately, the Marie Celeste).
Canada is off to the races on spending, tax cuts and other stimulus arrangements – tax credits for house repairs, money for “green projects” and action on infrastructure.
This is an example of groupthink. Where is the evidence that any of this will begin to tackle the fundamental problem>? Why are all behaving as if someone has an answer?
What’s more, what is the problem? Employment is still very high in both the US and Canada at over 94%. Credit is tight, it needs to be in the US where “innovative banking” and “credit without responsibility” were the norm until mid 2008, Firms are “rightsizing” and realizing that constant plans for growth make no sense – as any decent strategic planner will tell them.
What is the problem? One aspect of the problem is the feeding frenzy for gloom and despair fed by politicians, pundits and the media. This is creating anxiety and uncertainty, leading to hesitancy by buyers of goods and services. What’s more, saving money is a bit of a joke. I out $10,000 into two personal savings accounts this week (the Canadian government lets you leverage this kind of cash to gain interest tax free) and got 3% over 24 months. Big deal. So people are sitting on their cash and not spending. This leads employers to cut jobs, since demand for goods and services is down. This in turn feeds the doom and gloom.
The second aspect of the problem is the regulatory mechanisms in the US are about as tight as a the Detroit football teams defense – you can run a cart and horses through them. If you don’t believe me, have a chat with Bernie Madoff who made-off (sorry for the pun) with $50 billion of investors cash, including some from Larry King (who normally only parts with it when he gets divorced). These regulators also permitted the banks to have mortgage backed assets spins and paper which are now so complex that no one really knows who really owns a foreclosed property. As Greenspan said, he never thought that the principle of utility in decision making would be completely abandoned.
The third aspect of this problem is debt. The US Government total debt is $10,629,265,336,062 and rising at $3.2 billion a day, with close to 23$ of this being owned by China. Each US citizen carries a debt of close to $35,000 on behalf of his or her Government. But this is not the full picture. The Government of the US has a number of unfunded liabilities – health and social service payments being two, but there are others. These amount to an additional $43 trillion. So, the American economy is in debt to $10 trillion and has additional risks of a further $43 trillion for a total liability risk of $53 trillion. Serious stuff!
Then there is US personal debt. Household debt reached $13.8 trillion in 2007, with $10.5 trillion of that mortgage debt. It has risen every quartr fothe last fifty years, except the last quarter of 2008 when it fell by a modest 3%. Savings in many countries were not low - for many it was zero. Debt has fuelled the American dream, which turned into a nightmare of foreclosure and job loss.
(It is not much better in the UK, where personal debt at the end of November 2008 stood at £1,456 billion (app. $2,070 trillion US))
The last aspect of this problem is government. In particular, the fantasy that Government can get the country out of recession. It can’t. It does need to do some things, but the last thing it needs to do is to make the problem worse.
One Nobel economists who knows about this stuff if Paul Krugman. He is strongly in favour of supporting banks so as to maintain their ability to manage credit. He is a historian too. In 1933 the Roosevelt administration used the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to recapitalize banks by buying preferred stock—stock that had priority over common stock in terms of its claims on profits. When Sweden experienced a financial crisis in the early 1990s, the government stepped in and provided the banks with additional capital equal to 4 percent of the country's GDP—the equivalent of about $600 billion for the United States today—in return for a partial ownership. When Japan moved to rescue its banks in 1998, it purchased more than $500 billion in preferred stock, the equivalent relative to GDP of around a $2 trillion capital injection in the United States. In each case, the provision of capital helped restore the ability of banks to lend, and unfroze the credit markets. And this is what the Bush administration sought to do.
But this is not enough. They need to prop up spending to some degree, but in a targeted way to quickly create jobs and stimulate spending. This is why some infrastructure spending is needed. But governments also need to focus on fiscal reform (which no one seems to be talking about) and personal responsibility (also very quiet).
It will be interesting to watch all of this unfold, but it looks like a wet dream for liberals. Big public spending, a mood that says that government should do more, a start on wealth redistribution, government role in business (in the UK the nationalization of banks is almost complete). Fascists took years to gain this level of control both of the mechanisms of capitalism and the minds of the people – the current crop of Liberals have done it in months.
It is a similar story in the UK, where bail outs, tax cuts and other measures are valued at (app.) $1.4 trillion of future debts. There too it’s not working. High street stores are closing, people are being laid off and no one can see any glimmers of optimism. Gordon Brown – once the superhero of the economy in October/November 2008 – is now seen as the Captain of the Titanic (or, more accurately, the Marie Celeste).
Canada is off to the races on spending, tax cuts and other stimulus arrangements – tax credits for house repairs, money for “green projects” and action on infrastructure.
This is an example of groupthink. Where is the evidence that any of this will begin to tackle the fundamental problem>? Why are all behaving as if someone has an answer?
What’s more, what is the problem? Employment is still very high in both the US and Canada at over 94%. Credit is tight, it needs to be in the US where “innovative banking” and “credit without responsibility” were the norm until mid 2008, Firms are “rightsizing” and realizing that constant plans for growth make no sense – as any decent strategic planner will tell them.
What is the problem? One aspect of the problem is the feeding frenzy for gloom and despair fed by politicians, pundits and the media. This is creating anxiety and uncertainty, leading to hesitancy by buyers of goods and services. What’s more, saving money is a bit of a joke. I out $10,000 into two personal savings accounts this week (the Canadian government lets you leverage this kind of cash to gain interest tax free) and got 3% over 24 months. Big deal. So people are sitting on their cash and not spending. This leads employers to cut jobs, since demand for goods and services is down. This in turn feeds the doom and gloom.
The second aspect of the problem is the regulatory mechanisms in the US are about as tight as a the Detroit football teams defense – you can run a cart and horses through them. If you don’t believe me, have a chat with Bernie Madoff who made-off (sorry for the pun) with $50 billion of investors cash, including some from Larry King (who normally only parts with it when he gets divorced). These regulators also permitted the banks to have mortgage backed assets spins and paper which are now so complex that no one really knows who really owns a foreclosed property. As Greenspan said, he never thought that the principle of utility in decision making would be completely abandoned.
The third aspect of this problem is debt. The US Government total debt is $10,629,265,336,062 and rising at $3.2 billion a day, with close to 23$ of this being owned by China. Each US citizen carries a debt of close to $35,000 on behalf of his or her Government. But this is not the full picture. The Government of the US has a number of unfunded liabilities – health and social service payments being two, but there are others. These amount to an additional $43 trillion. So, the American economy is in debt to $10 trillion and has additional risks of a further $43 trillion for a total liability risk of $53 trillion. Serious stuff!
Then there is US personal debt. Household debt reached $13.8 trillion in 2007, with $10.5 trillion of that mortgage debt. It has risen every quartr fothe last fifty years, except the last quarter of 2008 when it fell by a modest 3%. Savings in many countries were not low - for many it was zero. Debt has fuelled the American dream, which turned into a nightmare of foreclosure and job loss.
(It is not much better in the UK, where personal debt at the end of November 2008 stood at £1,456 billion (app. $2,070 trillion US))
The last aspect of this problem is government. In particular, the fantasy that Government can get the country out of recession. It can’t. It does need to do some things, but the last thing it needs to do is to make the problem worse.
One Nobel economists who knows about this stuff if Paul Krugman. He is strongly in favour of supporting banks so as to maintain their ability to manage credit. He is a historian too. In 1933 the Roosevelt administration used the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to recapitalize banks by buying preferred stock—stock that had priority over common stock in terms of its claims on profits. When Sweden experienced a financial crisis in the early 1990s, the government stepped in and provided the banks with additional capital equal to 4 percent of the country's GDP—the equivalent of about $600 billion for the United States today—in return for a partial ownership. When Japan moved to rescue its banks in 1998, it purchased more than $500 billion in preferred stock, the equivalent relative to GDP of around a $2 trillion capital injection in the United States. In each case, the provision of capital helped restore the ability of banks to lend, and unfroze the credit markets. And this is what the Bush administration sought to do.
But this is not enough. They need to prop up spending to some degree, but in a targeted way to quickly create jobs and stimulate spending. This is why some infrastructure spending is needed. But governments also need to focus on fiscal reform (which no one seems to be talking about) and personal responsibility (also very quiet).
It will be interesting to watch all of this unfold, but it looks like a wet dream for liberals. Big public spending, a mood that says that government should do more, a start on wealth redistribution, government role in business (in the UK the nationalization of banks is almost complete). Fascists took years to gain this level of control both of the mechanisms of capitalism and the minds of the people – the current crop of Liberals have done it in months.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Proposed New Years Resolution for People in the Media!
An organization called the Business & Media Institute issued a report on how the media have silenced critical views on global warming. They found:
1. For every skeptical voice the TV media presented 13 in favour of the human causes global warming theory. (CBS was a 1:38 ratio).
2. Most of the people talking about global warming on TV are not scientists. In fact, less than 15% of those asked to discuss the issue were any kind of scientist at all and even fewer were climate change scientists. Most of the presenters on the issue were politicians or lobbyists (including environmental lobbyists).
3. When presenting so-called “solutions” (themselves predicated on the man made cause for global warming theory), almost no one discussed the costs of the solutions so far proposed (which are estimated at $6 trillion US for the US alone). Only 11% of the time was any reference made to costs.
4. How the media handle the story is slightly different. CBS does not really tolerate critical voices on this issue (4 skeptics versus 151 proponents during 2007 and none of the skeptics were scientists). ABC, in contrast, included skeptics in app. 36% of its stories. All outlets use words like “definitive” and “unequivocal” when referring to IPCC reports on the issue – a downright denial of the growing skepticism within the scientific community about the value of the IPCC’s claims.
So here is a new years resolution suggestion for the media: Commit to going back to being journalists rather than lobbyists and report this story in a more balanced way – include skeptics, look at the facts not just the claims about the facts and ask what the “solutions” will actually cost and whether this is the best use of the money. Then we can start believing in the media again.
1. For every skeptical voice the TV media presented 13 in favour of the human causes global warming theory. (CBS was a 1:38 ratio).
2. Most of the people talking about global warming on TV are not scientists. In fact, less than 15% of those asked to discuss the issue were any kind of scientist at all and even fewer were climate change scientists. Most of the presenters on the issue were politicians or lobbyists (including environmental lobbyists).
3. When presenting so-called “solutions” (themselves predicated on the man made cause for global warming theory), almost no one discussed the costs of the solutions so far proposed (which are estimated at $6 trillion US for the US alone). Only 11% of the time was any reference made to costs.
4. How the media handle the story is slightly different. CBS does not really tolerate critical voices on this issue (4 skeptics versus 151 proponents during 2007 and none of the skeptics were scientists). ABC, in contrast, included skeptics in app. 36% of its stories. All outlets use words like “definitive” and “unequivocal” when referring to IPCC reports on the issue – a downright denial of the growing skepticism within the scientific community about the value of the IPCC’s claims.
So here is a new years resolution suggestion for the media: Commit to going back to being journalists rather than lobbyists and report this story in a more balanced way – include skeptics, look at the facts not just the claims about the facts and ask what the “solutions” will actually cost and whether this is the best use of the money. Then we can start believing in the media again.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Bleak Christmas for Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe stands as testimony to the failure of the United Nations and the global community to act responsibility in the face of a brutal regime.
Cholera has killed over 1,000 people in Zimbabwe this year, yet Mugabe dismisses the epidemic, which has now infected a further 21,000, as part of a plot by the western powers to create an excuse to “go to war”. The economic crisis in Zimbabwe – inflation is officially running at 231 million per cent and its economic infrastructure has collapsed – is so severe, that over 1 million have fled the country as economic migrants and 80% of those of working age who remain are unemployed. The Central Bank issued new bank notes for general circulation last week - $1 billion, $5 billion and $10 billion.
The political institutions of Zimbabwe are not functioning, following Mugabe’s refusal to honour a power sharing agreement with the opposition. Democracy, once the hallmark of the country, has been replaced by a repressive dictatorship headed by a corrupt regime which lives in luxury while its people starve. Opposition, even from within Mugabe’s own party, is repressed by aggression. Fear, violence and corruption are the basis of the regime.
When Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, it was a model African state. It is rich in agricultural land and, in 2000, was among the world’s leading exporter of tobacco. Mugabe seized the farms and gave them to party supporters, forcing the former farm managers to leave the farms and, in many cases, the country. A farm that once supplied mil to the capital city Harare now has no cows, just a few goats and sheep. The breadbasket of southern African has become an economic basket case.
Last week, the 82 year old Robert Mugabe, made it clear that he would not, under any circumstances relinquish power. “Zimbabwe is mine!” he proclaimed last week. This year alone, the regime killed over 200 opposition members, arranged the abducted of 5,000 of its opponents and created the conditions in which 200,000 left the country during the June election in fear of their lives.
Twenty eight years after Mugabe came to power, he is pursuing the course he laid out in his Maoist-Marxist based party platform during his first election in 1980. Between 1982 and 1985, Mugabe’s crushed armed resistance from the provinces of Matabeleland and the Midlands, leading to claims that he ordered mass murder of 30,000 tribal opponents during this period of his rule. He took Zimbabwe into war in the Congo in 1998 – a war that led to the death of 5.4 million people. All of his domestic views, including his views on land reform and the suppression of opposition, were laid out clearly in his early political life. His views of homosexuality – it is banned in Zimbabwe – emerged later. He has amassed a fortune – said to be in excess of $1 billion – garnered by theft from the public purse. He is not a man who can be dealt with through diplomatic means. Mugabe is a tyrant. A man unfit to govern. A threat to the stability of Africa.
No one appears willing to do anything about it. The UN has passed resolutions. The EU, led by Britain, has placed sanctions on the regime. African states have quietly condemned the regime and attempted to broker a power sharing arrangement between the ruling party in Zimbabwe and the opposition, but it has failed. Consistently strong reporting of the situation by journalists risking their lives to tell the story of a failed African state descending into chaos are met with a shrug by politicians around the world.
Meanwhile, the country falls into chaos. The Times of London reports a visit to a hospital treating child cholera victims. It was staffed by a single nurse trying to look after sixty three children in a hospital with intermittent power, no food and not very clean water. The remaining staff, including doctors, have given up working since there is no money to pay them – the banks have run out of bank notes. Cholera spreads, even though it is treatable, because of the failure of the financial, political and health systems in the country. Now it is spreading to neighbouring African states. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is amongst the lowest in the world – just 34 for women.
The diplomatic mantra is that this is “an African problem that should be settled by Africa”. They have failed to do so. This is a case in which there is a need for a military intervention aimed at regime change. Mugabe has to go and his party, corrupt and violent, has to be disbanded. Mugabe himself, who was given incentives to leave Zimbabwe and an offer of immunity from war crimes indictments, should be tried for war crimes. If the African states do not undertake the task of intervention, then the UN should do so. The time for diplomacy is over. It is time to act. As an incentive to action, the soccer World Cup scheduled for South Africa in 2010, should be postponed until the situation in Zimbabwe is resolved.
Our collective inability to intervene when it is obvious that there is a need to do so, calls into question the veracity of our global institutions. Where is the UN when we need them?
Cholera has killed over 1,000 people in Zimbabwe this year, yet Mugabe dismisses the epidemic, which has now infected a further 21,000, as part of a plot by the western powers to create an excuse to “go to war”. The economic crisis in Zimbabwe – inflation is officially running at 231 million per cent and its economic infrastructure has collapsed – is so severe, that over 1 million have fled the country as economic migrants and 80% of those of working age who remain are unemployed. The Central Bank issued new bank notes for general circulation last week - $1 billion, $5 billion and $10 billion.
The political institutions of Zimbabwe are not functioning, following Mugabe’s refusal to honour a power sharing agreement with the opposition. Democracy, once the hallmark of the country, has been replaced by a repressive dictatorship headed by a corrupt regime which lives in luxury while its people starve. Opposition, even from within Mugabe’s own party, is repressed by aggression. Fear, violence and corruption are the basis of the regime.
When Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, it was a model African state. It is rich in agricultural land and, in 2000, was among the world’s leading exporter of tobacco. Mugabe seized the farms and gave them to party supporters, forcing the former farm managers to leave the farms and, in many cases, the country. A farm that once supplied mil to the capital city Harare now has no cows, just a few goats and sheep. The breadbasket of southern African has become an economic basket case.
Last week, the 82 year old Robert Mugabe, made it clear that he would not, under any circumstances relinquish power. “Zimbabwe is mine!” he proclaimed last week. This year alone, the regime killed over 200 opposition members, arranged the abducted of 5,000 of its opponents and created the conditions in which 200,000 left the country during the June election in fear of their lives.
Twenty eight years after Mugabe came to power, he is pursuing the course he laid out in his Maoist-Marxist based party platform during his first election in 1980. Between 1982 and 1985, Mugabe’s crushed armed resistance from the provinces of Matabeleland and the Midlands, leading to claims that he ordered mass murder of 30,000 tribal opponents during this period of his rule. He took Zimbabwe into war in the Congo in 1998 – a war that led to the death of 5.4 million people. All of his domestic views, including his views on land reform and the suppression of opposition, were laid out clearly in his early political life. His views of homosexuality – it is banned in Zimbabwe – emerged later. He has amassed a fortune – said to be in excess of $1 billion – garnered by theft from the public purse. He is not a man who can be dealt with through diplomatic means. Mugabe is a tyrant. A man unfit to govern. A threat to the stability of Africa.
No one appears willing to do anything about it. The UN has passed resolutions. The EU, led by Britain, has placed sanctions on the regime. African states have quietly condemned the regime and attempted to broker a power sharing arrangement between the ruling party in Zimbabwe and the opposition, but it has failed. Consistently strong reporting of the situation by journalists risking their lives to tell the story of a failed African state descending into chaos are met with a shrug by politicians around the world.
Meanwhile, the country falls into chaos. The Times of London reports a visit to a hospital treating child cholera victims. It was staffed by a single nurse trying to look after sixty three children in a hospital with intermittent power, no food and not very clean water. The remaining staff, including doctors, have given up working since there is no money to pay them – the banks have run out of bank notes. Cholera spreads, even though it is treatable, because of the failure of the financial, political and health systems in the country. Now it is spreading to neighbouring African states. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is amongst the lowest in the world – just 34 for women.
The diplomatic mantra is that this is “an African problem that should be settled by Africa”. They have failed to do so. This is a case in which there is a need for a military intervention aimed at regime change. Mugabe has to go and his party, corrupt and violent, has to be disbanded. Mugabe himself, who was given incentives to leave Zimbabwe and an offer of immunity from war crimes indictments, should be tried for war crimes. If the African states do not undertake the task of intervention, then the UN should do so. The time for diplomacy is over. It is time to act. As an incentive to action, the soccer World Cup scheduled for South Africa in 2010, should be postponed until the situation in Zimbabwe is resolved.
Our collective inability to intervene when it is obvious that there is a need to do so, calls into question the veracity of our global institutions. Where is the UN when we need them?
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Brr or is it Warmer?
Two points of fact that counter the claim that the polar caps are melting at an alarming rate (the scare story of the week):
First, oceans are not rising as quickly as in the past. Satellite altimetry data indicates that the rate at which the world's oceans are rising has slowed significantly since 2005. Before the decrease, sea level had been rising by more than 3mm/year, which corresponds to an increase of about one foot per century. Since 2005, however, the rate has been closer to 2mm/year.
The decrease is significant as global climate models predict sea level rise to accelerate as atmospheric CO2 continues to increase. In the 1990s, when such acceleration appeared to be occurring, some scientists pointed to it as confirmation the models were operating correctly.
Second, an independent analysis of NASA's data suggests something different from NASA's current claims. The data shows that the melting of sea ice trend is basically flat during this time of unprecedented temperatures. It’s clear that there has been no significant change in sea ice area.
So, again. we cant rely on computer models and NASA.
First, oceans are not rising as quickly as in the past. Satellite altimetry data indicates that the rate at which the world's oceans are rising has slowed significantly since 2005. Before the decrease, sea level had been rising by more than 3mm/year, which corresponds to an increase of about one foot per century. Since 2005, however, the rate has been closer to 2mm/year.
The decrease is significant as global climate models predict sea level rise to accelerate as atmospheric CO2 continues to increase. In the 1990s, when such acceleration appeared to be occurring, some scientists pointed to it as confirmation the models were operating correctly.
Second, an independent analysis of NASA's data suggests something different from NASA's current claims. The data shows that the melting of sea ice trend is basically flat during this time of unprecedented temperatures. It’s clear that there has been no significant change in sea ice area.
So, again. we cant rely on computer models and NASA.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Twenty Questions on Climate Change - True or False?
Which of the following statements are correct?
1. Global temperature has risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree C) over the last 100 years.
2. Most of global warming over the last 100 years occurred before 1940.
3. The earths mean surface temperature as measured by satellite has not risen since 1998.
4. CO2 is one reason why temperature of the earth changes, but is not the only reason.
5. The idea that CO2 causes climate change is a theory, not a fact.
6. The total polar bear population is now the largest it has been in 25 years.
7. Hurricanes are not caused by global warming.
8. No reliable earth temperature data exists before app. 1850 – all estimates
of temperature before 1850 are just that: estimates.
9. There is no significant relationship between local temperatures (e.g. the temperature in the United States) and global atmospheric temperature or global earth temperature.
10. CO2 levels are currently lower than they have been in the past.
11. Current earth surface temperatures are cooler now than at several periods in the past.
12. Increases in sea levels are a natural part of nature – current scientific estimates are that the sea level will rise by (app.) 4 inches over the next 100 years.
13. The IPCC does not predict temperatures and ocean levels, it simply provides scenarios of the future based on computer models.
14. The North West Passage has been open to shipping several times in the past. – e.g. 1903-5, 1940-2 and 1944.
15. Measures of the surface of Mars shows a similar rise in temperature to that of the earth – Mars has no man made CO2.
16. 2008 saw the most rapid growth in Arctic ice cover in that same period and Arctic ice cover is now back to the average it has had throughout the period the coverage has been monitored by satellites.
17. Just 52 scientists acted as authors on the 2007 UN IPCC report on climate change – over 650 (including several of the original UN IPCC scientists) have signed a petition objecting to the findings of the 2007 report.
18. The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years.
19. Arctic ‘warmings’ have taken place before, and are recorded for the 1800s, for the 1930s, and for the 1950s. Current warming in Greenland does not appear to have reached the levels of these earlier events
20. Changes in the major ice shelves do not contribute to a rise in sea levels - sea level rises or falls very slowly and completely irrespective of how much warming or cooling is taking place.
All of these statements can be verified as correct.
1. Global temperature has risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree C) over the last 100 years.
2. Most of global warming over the last 100 years occurred before 1940.
3. The earths mean surface temperature as measured by satellite has not risen since 1998.
4. CO2 is one reason why temperature of the earth changes, but is not the only reason.
5. The idea that CO2 causes climate change is a theory, not a fact.
6. The total polar bear population is now the largest it has been in 25 years.
7. Hurricanes are not caused by global warming.
8. No reliable earth temperature data exists before app. 1850 – all estimates
of temperature before 1850 are just that: estimates.
9. There is no significant relationship between local temperatures (e.g. the temperature in the United States) and global atmospheric temperature or global earth temperature.
10. CO2 levels are currently lower than they have been in the past.
11. Current earth surface temperatures are cooler now than at several periods in the past.
12. Increases in sea levels are a natural part of nature – current scientific estimates are that the sea level will rise by (app.) 4 inches over the next 100 years.
13. The IPCC does not predict temperatures and ocean levels, it simply provides scenarios of the future based on computer models.
14. The North West Passage has been open to shipping several times in the past. – e.g. 1903-5, 1940-2 and 1944.
15. Measures of the surface of Mars shows a similar rise in temperature to that of the earth – Mars has no man made CO2.
16. 2008 saw the most rapid growth in Arctic ice cover in that same period and Arctic ice cover is now back to the average it has had throughout the period the coverage has been monitored by satellites.
17. Just 52 scientists acted as authors on the 2007 UN IPCC report on climate change – over 650 (including several of the original UN IPCC scientists) have signed a petition objecting to the findings of the 2007 report.
18. The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years.
19. Arctic ‘warmings’ have taken place before, and are recorded for the 1800s, for the 1930s, and for the 1950s. Current warming in Greenland does not appear to have reached the levels of these earlier events
20. Changes in the major ice shelves do not contribute to a rise in sea levels - sea level rises or falls very slowly and completely irrespective of how much warming or cooling is taking place.
All of these statements can be verified as correct.
The Surreal Garden
Sometimes cameras can produce interesting images - this is a photograph (un retouched) from my back garden - I was just experimenting with different camera setting.
Friday, December 12, 2008
The American Dream is a Nightmare
The American dream turns out to be a nightmare. The economy is in meltdown and the true nature of American management is revealed.
Personal debt in the US in April 2008 was at 133.7% of personal income. This is a significant sum – it is around $2.5 trillion. Worse, core personal assets are declining in value – many families now have negative equity in their property and their savings levels are low. Most families are not managing money at all well. Living the Master Card dream is what most families are doing.
They model their behaviour on the Government of the United States, where debt is now running at $10.6 trillion – with some of these debt being held by China (which owns 15% of US debt), India and emerging economies. Soon, US Bonds will be junk bonds.
American management practices and unions have driven key industry sectors into the ground – banking, automotive and airlines being examples. Their ability to be nimble, responsive and most of all focused on ethical management seems to have disappeared. The combined indebtedness of the auto sector, for example, simply boggles the mind.
Obama’s biggest economic challenge is the change the mind set from debt fuelled management, whether of personal finances or business finances, to a more balanced approach which focused on savings (or profit in the case of business), spending less and using debt judiciously. This is a big cultural shift, especially for the post boomer generation who appear to have difficulty comprehending how the financing of the world works. “No we cant” might be a better mantra when looking at a purchase than “yes we can!”
Personal debt in the US in April 2008 was at 133.7% of personal income. This is a significant sum – it is around $2.5 trillion. Worse, core personal assets are declining in value – many families now have negative equity in their property and their savings levels are low. Most families are not managing money at all well. Living the Master Card dream is what most families are doing.
They model their behaviour on the Government of the United States, where debt is now running at $10.6 trillion – with some of these debt being held by China (which owns 15% of US debt), India and emerging economies. Soon, US Bonds will be junk bonds.
American management practices and unions have driven key industry sectors into the ground – banking, automotive and airlines being examples. Their ability to be nimble, responsive and most of all focused on ethical management seems to have disappeared. The combined indebtedness of the auto sector, for example, simply boggles the mind.
Obama’s biggest economic challenge is the change the mind set from debt fuelled management, whether of personal finances or business finances, to a more balanced approach which focused on savings (or profit in the case of business), spending less and using debt judiciously. This is a big cultural shift, especially for the post boomer generation who appear to have difficulty comprehending how the financing of the world works. “No we cant” might be a better mantra when looking at a purchase than “yes we can!”
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Alberta's X Prize Opportunity: Tailings Ponds
Leaking tailing ponds - the "dirty" water left over from the process of getting oil out of the oil sands projects in Northern Alberta - is a major challenge. The water is heavily polluted by sediment and cannot be put back in the water table. Yet a 1,000 gallons a day are currently leaking from the tailings ponds, which are massive.Just one pond is 540,000,000 cubic litres - the second largest damn in the world (the first is China's Three Gorge's).
Many people are at work on how to "solve" the problem of this dirty water. But it is a slow process.
What Alberta should do here is to offer a prize of $50 million to any organization that can produce a solution which can "clean" this water and return it to the water table. The Province should put up 30% of this prize and the industry should fund the balance. An international expert panel should adjudicate the winner. We should use the X Prize Foundation to manage this on our behalf.
What are the real costs? Zero. This will make a massive difference to the perception of the oil sands world wide and make the oil saleable in those jurisdictions who look like banning its purcgase due to environmental consequences.
Why not just ask the University of Alberta to solve this problem? The problem has been with us for a considerable period of time and has been known about for longer. If they oculd have solved it, they would have done. They can enter for tghe $50 million just like everyone else.
Why use this method to "solve" this problem? We just don't know where the solution is going to come from. By challenging the world to solve it and offering a decent reward, we can really use the talents of the world to get behind this issue and solve it faster with little (or no) upfront costs.
Who would benefit? First of all, Albertan's would - they would see immediate benefits in a reduction in water use by the oil sands companies(the water could be recycled instead of stored) and our oil would be more likely to be sold to more places at a lower cost of production. Second, the world would benefit - if we can clean up these waters, think where else such a solution could be used. Alberta would gain brownie points if we made this solution a low cost solution for Africa, for example.
Will this work? If the incentives are big enough, it will work. $50 million plus ongoing revenue from the use of the "solution" makes it attractive. Look at the success of the X Prize to date.
Why wont this happen? We are stuck with an old model of innovation which sees grand challenges as something you ask teams to work on. Many are just not ready for wikeconomic solutions, which is what this is.
Who could make this happen? A very smart Premier of Alberta.
Many people are at work on how to "solve" the problem of this dirty water. But it is a slow process.
What Alberta should do here is to offer a prize of $50 million to any organization that can produce a solution which can "clean" this water and return it to the water table. The Province should put up 30% of this prize and the industry should fund the balance. An international expert panel should adjudicate the winner. We should use the X Prize Foundation to manage this on our behalf.
What are the real costs? Zero. This will make a massive difference to the perception of the oil sands world wide and make the oil saleable in those jurisdictions who look like banning its purcgase due to environmental consequences.
Why not just ask the University of Alberta to solve this problem? The problem has been with us for a considerable period of time and has been known about for longer. If they oculd have solved it, they would have done. They can enter for tghe $50 million just like everyone else.
Why use this method to "solve" this problem? We just don't know where the solution is going to come from. By challenging the world to solve it and offering a decent reward, we can really use the talents of the world to get behind this issue and solve it faster with little (or no) upfront costs.
Who would benefit? First of all, Albertan's would - they would see immediate benefits in a reduction in water use by the oil sands companies(the water could be recycled instead of stored) and our oil would be more likely to be sold to more places at a lower cost of production. Second, the world would benefit - if we can clean up these waters, think where else such a solution could be used. Alberta would gain brownie points if we made this solution a low cost solution for Africa, for example.
Will this work? If the incentives are big enough, it will work. $50 million plus ongoing revenue from the use of the "solution" makes it attractive. Look at the success of the X Prize to date.
Why wont this happen? We are stuck with an old model of innovation which sees grand challenges as something you ask teams to work on. Many are just not ready for wikeconomic solutions, which is what this is.
Who could make this happen? A very smart Premier of Alberta.
Does the Economy Need Viagra?
There is a lot of talk of a Canadian stimulus package – a kind of Viagra for the economy. The rationale goes like this:
1. The economy is in recession and jobs are being lost, especially in manufacturing, forestry and the service sector.
2. So as to mitigate the implications of this, let’s stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending and other supports for industry so as retain jobs.
3. Other countries are all stimulating their economies, so we should too.
4. Obama sees green jobs as the key to the future, so let’s do the same.
This thinking is known as Keynsian – following Lord Keyne’s response to the economic conditions of the 30’s and the so called Bretton Woods strategy.
The problem with this is clear:
1. The people displaced in the auto sector do not have many of the skills required for the public works infrastructure spending envisaged. While all parties are committed to doubling public infrastructure spending, this is about transport systems, roads, bridges, public works of other kinds and support for public invested activities.
2. The Dancing Coalition (today’s Prime Minister…watch again on Dec 17th for the next one and again in May for the one after that) suggest we should also spend money on culture, bail out forestry and the auto sector so as to “save” jobs. The problem with this thinking, as the US has found, is that the industry sectors needing bail outs is endless. What really needs to happen is the Chapter 11 bankruptcy route for these companies, so that they can restructure, bail out of overly expensive labour contracts and refocus their market activity so that we are not entirely reliant on the US market for our own economy. Bailing out failing industry is a recipe for debt.
What we really need to do is:
1. Cut government spending on as many front as possible, lower the tax and regulatory burden and leave more money in the hands of individuals and firms and make entrepreneurship easier. Rather than bailing our failing firms, we can invest in the recovery strategy by investing in education, innovation and training – re-skill and refocus the economy.
2. Invest in education, especially training and College level education to strengthen the skills base of the economy. This investment should be in paying auto workers to go back to school or paying forestry workers to have new skills.
3. Invest in innovation – strengthen the SR&ED tax credit to make it the most supportive of R&D in the world, increase funding to IRAP and strengthen the commercialization activities of regional commercialization networks.
4. Invest in export development activities to countries other than the US. We spill more beer than we export. Lets become a leading exporter to countries in South America, Russia, China and India – countries which show the potential for growth quickly. Expand NAFTA, do bilateral trade deals with as many countries as possible and creative incentive for firms to get past the US as the “natural market”.
A stimulus that looks just at mirroring what others are doing is likely to be both money down the drain and carry a structural debt implication that we don’t want to have.
So that’s what should happen. Want to bet it wont?
1. The economy is in recession and jobs are being lost, especially in manufacturing, forestry and the service sector.
2. So as to mitigate the implications of this, let’s stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending and other supports for industry so as retain jobs.
3. Other countries are all stimulating their economies, so we should too.
4. Obama sees green jobs as the key to the future, so let’s do the same.
This thinking is known as Keynsian – following Lord Keyne’s response to the economic conditions of the 30’s and the so called Bretton Woods strategy.
The problem with this is clear:
1. The people displaced in the auto sector do not have many of the skills required for the public works infrastructure spending envisaged. While all parties are committed to doubling public infrastructure spending, this is about transport systems, roads, bridges, public works of other kinds and support for public invested activities.
2. The Dancing Coalition (today’s Prime Minister…watch again on Dec 17th for the next one and again in May for the one after that) suggest we should also spend money on culture, bail out forestry and the auto sector so as to “save” jobs. The problem with this thinking, as the US has found, is that the industry sectors needing bail outs is endless. What really needs to happen is the Chapter 11 bankruptcy route for these companies, so that they can restructure, bail out of overly expensive labour contracts and refocus their market activity so that we are not entirely reliant on the US market for our own economy. Bailing out failing industry is a recipe for debt.
What we really need to do is:
1. Cut government spending on as many front as possible, lower the tax and regulatory burden and leave more money in the hands of individuals and firms and make entrepreneurship easier. Rather than bailing our failing firms, we can invest in the recovery strategy by investing in education, innovation and training – re-skill and refocus the economy.
2. Invest in education, especially training and College level education to strengthen the skills base of the economy. This investment should be in paying auto workers to go back to school or paying forestry workers to have new skills.
3. Invest in innovation – strengthen the SR&ED tax credit to make it the most supportive of R&D in the world, increase funding to IRAP and strengthen the commercialization activities of regional commercialization networks.
4. Invest in export development activities to countries other than the US. We spill more beer than we export. Lets become a leading exporter to countries in South America, Russia, China and India – countries which show the potential for growth quickly. Expand NAFTA, do bilateral trade deals with as many countries as possible and creative incentive for firms to get past the US as the “natural market”.
A stimulus that looks just at mirroring what others are doing is likely to be both money down the drain and carry a structural debt implication that we don’t want to have.
So that’s what should happen. Want to bet it wont?
Friday, December 05, 2008
Obama Duped Into Green Nonsense
President Elect Obama has now committed to massive injections of capital and policy shifts aimed at alternative energy, CO2 reduction and climate change management. He has been convinced that, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that the "science is settled" (no science is ever really settled) and that action is now needed.
He said "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we're seen record drought, spreading famine and storms are growing stronger with each hurricane season". He's been seduced by Al Gore.
Some facts:
1. According to the International Commission on Seal Level Changes - many areas of sea level have fallen in recent years, not risen. The Indian Ocean, for example, was higher between 1900 - 1970 than it is now. The biggest concern has been with the islands of Maldives and Tuvalu - where sea levels have fallen. The worst case scenario, according to the UN IPCC, is a rise of between 4 and 17 inches, not the 20 feet claimed by Gore in his wildly inaccurate film An Inconvenient Truth.
2. Coastlines are only "shrinking" where land is subsiding - e.g. the North Yorkshire coast. There is no evidence of shrinking coastlines linked to climate change - only to the loss of wet lands due to over-building.
3. In terms of drought - of the 20th century's 30 major droughts, 22 of these occurred between 1900 - 1960, with only five between 1961-1980. Droughts are reducing, not increasing.
4. There is no known connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The most active hurricane season of all recorded time was in 1955 and there has been a steady reduction in such activity over the last four years, according to the most comprehensive study from the University of Florida.
5. He is pushing wind power - a terrifically inefficient source of energy. The US currently has approximately 10,000 turbines with an installed capacity of 18 gigawatts - yet these produce app. 4.5 gigawatts annually - less power than could be had from a single coal fired power station and much more expensive, since wind power exists only through subsidy.
6. He is also committed to carbon capture and storage, as is the Government of Alberta. The technology for CO2 capture is problematic, and will not capture more than a small % of the CO2 emitted.
I like Obama, but the fact that he has been seduced into being green is worrying. Lets hope some of the dissenting voices around his cabinet table start to challenge a lot of the rhetorical nonsense (Christopher Booker in the UK's Daily Telegraph calls it "clap trap").
He said "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we're seen record drought, spreading famine and storms are growing stronger with each hurricane season". He's been seduced by Al Gore.
Some facts:
1. According to the International Commission on Seal Level Changes - many areas of sea level have fallen in recent years, not risen. The Indian Ocean, for example, was higher between 1900 - 1970 than it is now. The biggest concern has been with the islands of Maldives and Tuvalu - where sea levels have fallen. The worst case scenario, according to the UN IPCC, is a rise of between 4 and 17 inches, not the 20 feet claimed by Gore in his wildly inaccurate film An Inconvenient Truth.
2. Coastlines are only "shrinking" where land is subsiding - e.g. the North Yorkshire coast. There is no evidence of shrinking coastlines linked to climate change - only to the loss of wet lands due to over-building.
3. In terms of drought - of the 20th century's 30 major droughts, 22 of these occurred between 1900 - 1960, with only five between 1961-1980. Droughts are reducing, not increasing.
4. There is no known connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The most active hurricane season of all recorded time was in 1955 and there has been a steady reduction in such activity over the last four years, according to the most comprehensive study from the University of Florida.
5. He is pushing wind power - a terrifically inefficient source of energy. The US currently has approximately 10,000 turbines with an installed capacity of 18 gigawatts - yet these produce app. 4.5 gigawatts annually - less power than could be had from a single coal fired power station and much more expensive, since wind power exists only through subsidy.
6. He is also committed to carbon capture and storage, as is the Government of Alberta. The technology for CO2 capture is problematic, and will not capture more than a small % of the CO2 emitted.
I like Obama, but the fact that he has been seduced into being green is worrying. Lets hope some of the dissenting voices around his cabinet table start to challenge a lot of the rhetorical nonsense (Christopher Booker in the UK's Daily Telegraph calls it "clap trap").
Global Cooling Continues
This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the UK Met Office, reports The Guardian - a British newspaper. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
This confirms the trend we have seen since 1998, when global warming stopped and the average global temperature showed global cooling. This despite, significant increases in CO2 emissions.
Interestingly, the scenario modeling by the IPCC (the UN climate change lobby organization) was for natural variation leading to 0.3C warming. They now suggest that we will experience a period of cooling - probably until 2015 - followed by accelerated warming.
Meanwhile, the organization within the UN that manages the IPCC and other climate change activities of the UN (such as the conference working on Kyoto 2.0 which met in Poznanthis last week) is in trouble. The international agency has been sharply criticized by a U.N. inspection unit in a confidential report obtained by a number of news organizations, for, among other things, haphazard budget practices, deeply flawed organizational procedures, and no effective oversight by the 188 nations that formally make up its membership and dole out its funds. A small number of individuals guide its activities.
Finally, significant and convincing evidence has been presented that the recent worldwide land warming up to 1998 has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Changes in ocean patterns and temperature together with the sun offer a competing explanation and need to be seen as just as viable an explanation for warming between 1945-1998.
This confirms the trend we have seen since 1998, when global warming stopped and the average global temperature showed global cooling. This despite, significant increases in CO2 emissions.
Interestingly, the scenario modeling by the IPCC (the UN climate change lobby organization) was for natural variation leading to 0.3C warming. They now suggest that we will experience a period of cooling - probably until 2015 - followed by accelerated warming.
Meanwhile, the organization within the UN that manages the IPCC and other climate change activities of the UN (such as the conference working on Kyoto 2.0 which met in Poznanthis last week) is in trouble. The international agency has been sharply criticized by a U.N. inspection unit in a confidential report obtained by a number of news organizations, for, among other things, haphazard budget practices, deeply flawed organizational procedures, and no effective oversight by the 188 nations that formally make up its membership and dole out its funds. A small number of individuals guide its activities.
Finally, significant and convincing evidence has been presented that the recent worldwide land warming up to 1998 has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Changes in ocean patterns and temperature together with the sun offer a competing explanation and need to be seen as just as viable an explanation for warming between 1945-1998.
The Harper Dion Strictly Come Ballroom Dance!
Stephen Harper survives, but with Stephane Dion? Looks unlikely. Bob Rae has decided to campaign strongly across the country and Michael Ignatieff is keeping mum. Dion didn’t manage to deliver an effective rebuttal to Harpers national address – the book Hot Air, more visible behind him that he was in front of camera, best reflected this late response (which CTV did not even carry).
Harper screwed up and we all now pay the consequences. But the coalition, such as it is, is not likely to survive – already showing real signs of strain.
What we need is for both Harper and Dion to step aside. A Prentice Premiership with an Ignatieff led opposition – now then we’re back on track.
The most disturbing thing here is the ignorance of Canadians in terms of how parliamentary democracy based on Westminster works. It is absolutely legitimate for the opposition parties to get together to use a confidence vote and topple a government and then offer to form a government without having an election. We do not elect parties or Prime Ministers, we elect a parliament and they sort out how we are then governed. Get used to it!
Harper screwed up and we all now pay the consequences. But the coalition, such as it is, is not likely to survive – already showing real signs of strain.
What we need is for both Harper and Dion to step aside. A Prentice Premiership with an Ignatieff led opposition – now then we’re back on track.
The most disturbing thing here is the ignorance of Canadians in terms of how parliamentary democracy based on Westminster works. It is absolutely legitimate for the opposition parties to get together to use a confidence vote and topple a government and then offer to form a government without having an election. We do not elect parties or Prime Ministers, we elect a parliament and they sort out how we are then governed. Get used to it!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Family Tree
This is the Murgatroyd Tree in Vancouver, just down from the Sylvia. James took pictures of this tree when it was a brilliant red in October and we took this last week.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Birthday Boy
He actually looks handsome, elegant, relaxed and, well, likeable. Happy Birthday Charles!
(Apperently, on his accession, he wishes to be known as King George VII. He could also be Charles III or Ethelred Been Ready for a Long Time II))
What's Gone Wrong with Climate Change?
All is not well with the world of climate science. First, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) – one of the four designated centres in the world responsible for monitoring global temperatures – announced that October 2008 had been the hottest October on record. It then had to recant – significant errors had occurred in its data analysis. October, like several months since 1998, was in fact cooler than usual. In turns out that October 2008 achieved 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th warmest October in 114 years
Second, the Chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , Dr Rajendra Pachauri (a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science), surprised a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever. In fact, as many of his audience of scientists were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped significantly and have been generally cooling since 1998.
Third, in August 2008, the sun failed to produce a single sun spot – a key factor in the warming of the earth. The last time this occurred was in June 1913. Some scientists now suggest that the pattern of sun spot behaviour since 1749 is showing clear signs of change in line with the same patterns seen in the three previous periods of significant earth cooling since records began. Known as the Dalton, Maunder and Spörer Minimums, each was associated with a period of rapid earth cooling, one of which was cold enough to be known as a mini ice age (1450 to 1820). The dominant prediction amongst those scientists that take the view that we are entering a cooling period is that the earth will cool for a period of two decades before returning to a modest warming. Even the Old Farmers Almanac takes this view of the future.
For example, Dr Richard Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress’s scientific committee, challenged the international community to answer a simple question at a recent meeting of the congress in Oslo. The question: “how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand – we politicians and scientists - that the planet is not warming?”. Using a detailed and peer reviewed analysis of climate change data, he observed the current cooling period has been taking place for some time. He reminded his audience of Lord John Maynard Keynes observation that “When the facts change, I change my mind”. “It is time for us to do the same”, he said.
Fourth, the claims that the North Pole could be ice free within the near future are challenged by strong evidence to the contrary. Recent studies, using direct observations rather than computer models, show that the ice in the Arctic is getting thicker – some projections suggest that multi-year ice (perennial ice versus annual ice) will be 200% thicker at the end of 2008 than it was at the beginning. What is more, Arctic sea ice is already 28.7% higher than this date last year. A number of polar scientists have concluded that Arctic warming and cooling in Greenland during the last half of the last century is due almost entirely to natural cyclical changes, perhaps due to multi-decadal oscillations like the Arctic Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the El Niño. We need to remember that for only about 5% of known climate history could the North and South Poles support masses of permanent ice, which is why dinosaur bones have been found at both.
Finally, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville have also challenged the orthodoxy that CO2 causes global warming. Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe for some twenty nine years. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that, while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."
It looks like science is making a come-back in the field of climate change. It is about time. So much of the reporting by both scientists and journalists about climate change is based on flawed computer models, claims which cannot be justified against a rigorous analysis of the data or the elevation of the theory that CO2 is the primary cause of global warming into a cult, despite the evidence. As the number of scientific studies showing both that the earth is cooling and that CO2 is a minor factor in cycles of climate change grow, then the public policy positions of Governments and environmentalists become increasingly problematic. The bottom line is that we are still in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of climate change. It is time to moderate the claim that we can inhibit, slow or prevent climate change by lowering CO2 emissions. Reducing such emissions may be a good thing in an of itself, but it may not have any impact on the climate.
Second, the Chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , Dr Rajendra Pachauri (a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science), surprised a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever. In fact, as many of his audience of scientists were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped significantly and have been generally cooling since 1998.
Third, in August 2008, the sun failed to produce a single sun spot – a key factor in the warming of the earth. The last time this occurred was in June 1913. Some scientists now suggest that the pattern of sun spot behaviour since 1749 is showing clear signs of change in line with the same patterns seen in the three previous periods of significant earth cooling since records began. Known as the Dalton, Maunder and Spörer Minimums, each was associated with a period of rapid earth cooling, one of which was cold enough to be known as a mini ice age (1450 to 1820). The dominant prediction amongst those scientists that take the view that we are entering a cooling period is that the earth will cool for a period of two decades before returning to a modest warming. Even the Old Farmers Almanac takes this view of the future.
For example, Dr Richard Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress’s scientific committee, challenged the international community to answer a simple question at a recent meeting of the congress in Oslo. The question: “how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand – we politicians and scientists - that the planet is not warming?”. Using a detailed and peer reviewed analysis of climate change data, he observed the current cooling period has been taking place for some time. He reminded his audience of Lord John Maynard Keynes observation that “When the facts change, I change my mind”. “It is time for us to do the same”, he said.
Fourth, the claims that the North Pole could be ice free within the near future are challenged by strong evidence to the contrary. Recent studies, using direct observations rather than computer models, show that the ice in the Arctic is getting thicker – some projections suggest that multi-year ice (perennial ice versus annual ice) will be 200% thicker at the end of 2008 than it was at the beginning. What is more, Arctic sea ice is already 28.7% higher than this date last year. A number of polar scientists have concluded that Arctic warming and cooling in Greenland during the last half of the last century is due almost entirely to natural cyclical changes, perhaps due to multi-decadal oscillations like the Arctic Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the El Niño. We need to remember that for only about 5% of known climate history could the North and South Poles support masses of permanent ice, which is why dinosaur bones have been found at both.
Finally, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville have also challenged the orthodoxy that CO2 causes global warming. Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe for some twenty nine years. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that, while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."
It looks like science is making a come-back in the field of climate change. It is about time. So much of the reporting by both scientists and journalists about climate change is based on flawed computer models, claims which cannot be justified against a rigorous analysis of the data or the elevation of the theory that CO2 is the primary cause of global warming into a cult, despite the evidence. As the number of scientific studies showing both that the earth is cooling and that CO2 is a minor factor in cycles of climate change grow, then the public policy positions of Governments and environmentalists become increasingly problematic. The bottom line is that we are still in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of climate change. It is time to moderate the claim that we can inhibit, slow or prevent climate change by lowering CO2 emissions. Reducing such emissions may be a good thing in an of itself, but it may not have any impact on the climate.
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