The Times Higher Education newspaper published its annual ranking of the world’s top two hundred universities this last week. The top five Universities in the world remain relatively constant – Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, University College London, Imperial College London, Oxford. What is more interesting is the position of Canadian Universities and the rapid emergence of Universities from Asia.
Canada’s top university, according to the list, is McGill (18th) followed by the University of Toronto (29th) and the University of British Columbia (40th). Dalhousie, which was on the list last year, no longer makes the top two hundred. Alberta has two universities of the list – the University of Alberta (59th) and the University of Calgary (149th), both of whom have made substantial gains over the last year, with the University of Alberta gaining fifteen places and the University of Calgary twenty one places, mainly due to their scores from students and employers.
Asian institutions are gaining ground. Japan has two in the top thirty – University of Tokyo (22nd) and the University of Kyoto (25th) - and China’s University of Hong Kong is also in this group. The National University of Singapore (30th) also ranks highly. This top thirty is dominated by the United States with thirteen and the United Kingdom with seven.
The lists are broad indications of the performance of institutions and only tell us a little about actual performance. The Times Higher Education list is largely about perception and experience. Other lists focus on actual performance and research – using measures of activity as opposed to staff, student and employer ratings as the basis for the ranking.
But such a list is timely. It reminds us to consider the quality of our Universities when making tough choices about funding, as Governments across Canada are now doing.
Strange things have happened in the world of Universities. We have the top five Universities in the country arguing that, due to their importance in terms of research and innovation, they should be treated and funded differently from other Universities. We have the growth of private universities offering undergraduate and graduate programs in a variety of modes – Meritus University, part of the group that also owns the University of Phoenix, Lansbridge, Yorkville, University Canada West, Quest and the University of Fredericton – all competing for students on pure market conditions with no funding from government. We have established private, non for profit university colleges, such as Concordia University College in Edmonton, offering quality undergraduate and graduate degrees. Then various Governments, but notably British Columbia and Alberta, have converted former community colleges to Universities. Two such conversions occurred in September, when Alberta converted Mount Royal College and McEwan College to universities.
It’s a confusing scene. What is actually happening is that being a “university” has been confused in the minds of politicians and administrators with being granted the right to award degrees. The result is a growing plethora of degree granting institutions competing for a declining population of students and demanding more from a shrinking pool of funding.
In all of this rush to upgrade our institutions, we are in danger of losing sight of three things. The first is the fundamental nature of a university – a place where scholarship and imagination is nurtured and research enabled, with the discovering minds of academics helping the growing minds of students come nearer to the frontiers of knowledge. Not all of the “new” universities and none of the private’s are engaged in research as a core of their beings as institutions. When this is absent or minimized, then the meaning of the “university” is devalued.
The second thing that is in danger of being lost is the conception of quality. Most quality assurance processes in Canada, and I am directly engaged in several, focus on student protection and the assurance that the institution is capable of sustaining the offering of quality programs to students, thus giving emphasis to teaching and minimizing (and, in some jurisdictions, ignoring) the role of a University in terms of research or the engagement in community service.
The third thing we are in danger of losing sight of is our academic standing in the world. As we diversify the offering of degrees through a range of different institutions and de-emphasize research, we lower Canada’s profile in the world. While a few institutions make modest gains on the league tables, such as the Times Higher Education ranking, the “new” and private universities operate knowing that they will never make the ranking process, never mind the list.
Universities are complex places. They have a teaching function, a research function and a community building and service function. In the rush to have a better educated work-force for the knowledge economy, we may be in danger of diluting our resources and creating several different leagues of institution that compete for resources, students, faculty and research funds. We are in danger of lowering our sights and missing the target: excellence.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
Ireland Decides Tony Blair's Future
Ireland votes today on whether or not to approve the Lisbon Treaty agreed by twenty six other member nations of the European Union. It is likely that they will say yes. The result will be known on Saturday evening, Irish time.
Ireland is in serious trouble. Unemployment is at thirteen percent, the government is creating a “bad” bank to adopt the toxic assets of Ireland’s indebted banks so as to ease the flow of credit. Large corporations, once part of Ireland’s “roar” as a Celtic Tiger, are now leaving Ireland for less expensive and friendlier nations, many offering incentives for moving. They need the support of the European Union to get to the other side of the real crisis that Ireland faces. That support depends, in some measure, on how the people of Ireland vote today.
The “no” campaign has focused on the loss of sovereignty they see inherent in the Lisbon Treaty, which cedes powers to the European Union and unelected bodies within it. They also claim that the European Union will force social policy changes, especially about abortion, on Ireland which the Irish people do not want.
The “yes” side focus on the economic benefits that will be derived from the European Union and the potential of the Union for strengthening Ireland’s infrastructure as a knowledge based economy. They also point out that there have been concessions, both in terms of the Treaty itself and other matters, which support Ireland’s economic future and social development.
Ireland is the only nation bound by a referendum and most of the remaining nations have approved the Treaty, despite the fact that the Treaty was rejected by referenda is both France and the Netherlands. Two countries – the Czech Republic and Poland – have still to sign the treaty, though both of these countries are in a position to do so. The Treaty creates new institutions, formalizes majority decision making and creates the post of President of the European Union. It also permits a strengthening of the co-decision powers of the European Parliament, working collaboratively with the European Council of Ministers.
Watching the Irish vote anxiously is former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, widely thought of as the front runner for the Presidency of the European Union, a post the EU wants to fill before the British general election, expected in May 2010. Several reports appeared this week suggesting that, if the Irish vote yes, Blair would be named President at the next meeting of the EU heads of government within a month. While there are other candidates - Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister; Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg; Felipe González, the former Spanish Prime Minister; Mr François Fillon, Prime Minister of France; and Wolfgang Schüssel, the former Austrian Chancellor – Blair has the formal support of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister, President Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany. It looks like a done deal.
The Irish people are in a very powerful position: they will determine some key elements of the future of the European Union, the fate of the present Irish government and the career prospects of Tony Blair. Much will depend on turn-out and the mood of the people of Ireland. There is a lot at stake. The announcement of the vote will be watched with interest.
Ireland is in serious trouble. Unemployment is at thirteen percent, the government is creating a “bad” bank to adopt the toxic assets of Ireland’s indebted banks so as to ease the flow of credit. Large corporations, once part of Ireland’s “roar” as a Celtic Tiger, are now leaving Ireland for less expensive and friendlier nations, many offering incentives for moving. They need the support of the European Union to get to the other side of the real crisis that Ireland faces. That support depends, in some measure, on how the people of Ireland vote today.
The “no” campaign has focused on the loss of sovereignty they see inherent in the Lisbon Treaty, which cedes powers to the European Union and unelected bodies within it. They also claim that the European Union will force social policy changes, especially about abortion, on Ireland which the Irish people do not want.
The “yes” side focus on the economic benefits that will be derived from the European Union and the potential of the Union for strengthening Ireland’s infrastructure as a knowledge based economy. They also point out that there have been concessions, both in terms of the Treaty itself and other matters, which support Ireland’s economic future and social development.
Ireland is the only nation bound by a referendum and most of the remaining nations have approved the Treaty, despite the fact that the Treaty was rejected by referenda is both France and the Netherlands. Two countries – the Czech Republic and Poland – have still to sign the treaty, though both of these countries are in a position to do so. The Treaty creates new institutions, formalizes majority decision making and creates the post of President of the European Union. It also permits a strengthening of the co-decision powers of the European Parliament, working collaboratively with the European Council of Ministers.
Watching the Irish vote anxiously is former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, widely thought of as the front runner for the Presidency of the European Union, a post the EU wants to fill before the British general election, expected in May 2010. Several reports appeared this week suggesting that, if the Irish vote yes, Blair would be named President at the next meeting of the EU heads of government within a month. While there are other candidates - Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister; Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg; Felipe González, the former Spanish Prime Minister; Mr François Fillon, Prime Minister of France; and Wolfgang Schüssel, the former Austrian Chancellor – Blair has the formal support of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister, President Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany. It looks like a done deal.
The Irish people are in a very powerful position: they will determine some key elements of the future of the European Union, the fate of the present Irish government and the career prospects of Tony Blair. Much will depend on turn-out and the mood of the people of Ireland. There is a lot at stake. The announcement of the vote will be watched with interest.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Posturepedic Politics
There is a lot of unhealthy posturing on parliament hill in Ottawa. The Liberals have tabled a “no confidence” vote and the NDP are threatening to bring down the Government on a softwood lumber “ways and means” motion. No one really knows where the Bloc stands, but it is likely that they will support the Government. But posturing continues.
One should never look at politics on the surface – there are always other layers to the reality. One layer is simple: the Liberals and the NDP would loose an election if it were held today. Any calculation suggests that an election before Christmas would provide either an extension of existing minority arrangements or a small majority for Stephen Harper. Ignatieff and Layton must be calculating that their postures and moves will not lead them into an election.
Another layer is also clear. Stephen Harper must realize that if he faces an electorate angry at going to the polls for a second time in less than a year and secures only a majority, he is starting a process of exiting from the leadership of the party and the work of the Prime Minister: he needs to win a majority to sustain his leadership.
A third layer is that the electorate look at Canada in comparison to others and, while they recognize that we have some problems, the country is in a strong position to move from staving off the depths of recession and starting a recovery. Many also recognize that it will be a tough journey and austerity will be key to restoring Canada’s fiscal health. The electrorate isn’t stupid. They know that the Liberals demanded more public sector spending and more “stimulus” and fiscal easing – they got it. They can hardly complain that stimulus spending leads to debt. Unlike almost every other nation, we had room in our economy to take on debt and did so. Now show us the plan to get us out of debt over time and the electorate will buy it if it makes sense. Such a plan will involve a combination of cuts to public service and higher taxes – so get used to it.
The final layer is people. As Rick Mercer, a seasoned political observer, noted, none of the leaders of the three major national parties are people you would throw a rope to if they were drowning in the harbour. They are not exciting or dynamic and in many ways are as dull as Angela Merkel of Germany or Gordon Brown of Britain. But the reality here is simple: they are all we have. So get used to this too.
Stephen Harper will never be dynamic, never have physicality and only rarely will “let himself go” and actually laugh out loud. Ignatieff is never going to appeal to your average worker and will only ever appeal to a small number. Jack Layton is, well, Jack. Nothing sexy about any of these white middle aged men. Worse, the people behind them are not as much fun as these three – it just gets worse. So voting in Canada will not be on the basis of personality – it cant be.
“We live in interesting times” is not the mantra we should apply to this situation. Rather we should simply observe that “the times in which we live are of interest to some”. Most people couldn’t care less. That’s the other reality.
One should never look at politics on the surface – there are always other layers to the reality. One layer is simple: the Liberals and the NDP would loose an election if it were held today. Any calculation suggests that an election before Christmas would provide either an extension of existing minority arrangements or a small majority for Stephen Harper. Ignatieff and Layton must be calculating that their postures and moves will not lead them into an election.
Another layer is also clear. Stephen Harper must realize that if he faces an electorate angry at going to the polls for a second time in less than a year and secures only a majority, he is starting a process of exiting from the leadership of the party and the work of the Prime Minister: he needs to win a majority to sustain his leadership.
A third layer is that the electorate look at Canada in comparison to others and, while they recognize that we have some problems, the country is in a strong position to move from staving off the depths of recession and starting a recovery. Many also recognize that it will be a tough journey and austerity will be key to restoring Canada’s fiscal health. The electrorate isn’t stupid. They know that the Liberals demanded more public sector spending and more “stimulus” and fiscal easing – they got it. They can hardly complain that stimulus spending leads to debt. Unlike almost every other nation, we had room in our economy to take on debt and did so. Now show us the plan to get us out of debt over time and the electorate will buy it if it makes sense. Such a plan will involve a combination of cuts to public service and higher taxes – so get used to it.
The final layer is people. As Rick Mercer, a seasoned political observer, noted, none of the leaders of the three major national parties are people you would throw a rope to if they were drowning in the harbour. They are not exciting or dynamic and in many ways are as dull as Angela Merkel of Germany or Gordon Brown of Britain. But the reality here is simple: they are all we have. So get used to this too.
Stephen Harper will never be dynamic, never have physicality and only rarely will “let himself go” and actually laugh out loud. Ignatieff is never going to appeal to your average worker and will only ever appeal to a small number. Jack Layton is, well, Jack. Nothing sexy about any of these white middle aged men. Worse, the people behind them are not as much fun as these three – it just gets worse. So voting in Canada will not be on the basis of personality – it cant be.
“We live in interesting times” is not the mantra we should apply to this situation. Rather we should simply observe that “the times in which we live are of interest to some”. Most people couldn’t care less. That’s the other reality.
Monday, September 28, 2009
The G20 Big Yawn - More to Come
The G20 summit in Pittsburgh was essentially a bust. The big decision is that the G20 will replace the G8 as a mechanism for coordinating the response of the major economies of the world to development global challenges – the economy, climate change, global health issues and terrorism. This is something that Canada’s former Prime Minister, Paul Martin, was promoting some time ago. Now, five years later, the G20 agrees.
Other than that, the agreements reached were modest:
1. Most but not all banks, but not other financial institutions, will be required to increase their capital. Specifics are left to a Working Committee. Monitoring and enforcement is left to the national governments.
2. Bank salaries and bonuses are to be restricted and made to conform to performance over a three year period. Specifics are left to a Working Committee. Monitoring and enforcement is left to the national governments. These prospective rules will not come into force until 2013 – after the next US Presidential election and the British general election. Britain is likely to lead the way with reforms to be announced this week in the run-up to the British general election.
3. Leaders agreed to work to reduce the economic imbalance between those countries that have large balance of trade surpluses and rely heavily on export trade (e.g. China, Germany) and those who have large, chronic deficits and consume too much, i.e. the United States and Great Britain. Specifics are left to a set of Working Committees and the goodwill of the governments involved.
4. Some adjustments will be made in the voting quotas of the IMF to give greater weight to Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations). The U.S. retains its veto and the power shifts only modestly.
Not much to boast about here, though more than most finance ministers thought possible when they met two weeks before the summit itself. These decisions come after three meetings of the G20 (and close to $500 m spent on organizing them).
Noticeably absent were any substantive agreements on the link between economic recovery and the economic response to climate change. Each of the Presidents and Prime Ministers present had lauded “green jobs” as the cornerstone of sustainable recovery as well as the focused response to climate change. Yet the communiqués from the G20 said nothing, despite the fact that the world leaders are working to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto Accord, which expires in 2012.
The fact that climate change and the economy were not a substantive focus for this meeting is significant. It indicates what many have been saying for some time, namely that progress towards a global climate change treaty is stalled and that the US Government is backing off – lowering expectations for the Copenhagen meeting of over one hundred governments in December. In the US, given the furor over health care reform, climate change legislation is now very much on the back burner.
If this is the level of G20 decision making, then we have little to fear from the emergence of the G20 as a new mechanism of global governance. Just as the United Nations demonstrates its impotence on a daily basis, the G20 now does so quarterly. All of the issues they “decided” in Pittsburgh were also decided in principle at each of the past three meetings. This is the one “green” thing they are doing – recycling old press releases, reusing old rhetoric and reducing their significance. I bet you can’t wait for the next meeting in Huntsville, Canada in 2010.
Other than that, the agreements reached were modest:
1. Most but not all banks, but not other financial institutions, will be required to increase their capital. Specifics are left to a Working Committee. Monitoring and enforcement is left to the national governments.
2. Bank salaries and bonuses are to be restricted and made to conform to performance over a three year period. Specifics are left to a Working Committee. Monitoring and enforcement is left to the national governments. These prospective rules will not come into force until 2013 – after the next US Presidential election and the British general election. Britain is likely to lead the way with reforms to be announced this week in the run-up to the British general election.
3. Leaders agreed to work to reduce the economic imbalance between those countries that have large balance of trade surpluses and rely heavily on export trade (e.g. China, Germany) and those who have large, chronic deficits and consume too much, i.e. the United States and Great Britain. Specifics are left to a set of Working Committees and the goodwill of the governments involved.
4. Some adjustments will be made in the voting quotas of the IMF to give greater weight to Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations). The U.S. retains its veto and the power shifts only modestly.
Not much to boast about here, though more than most finance ministers thought possible when they met two weeks before the summit itself. These decisions come after three meetings of the G20 (and close to $500 m spent on organizing them).
Noticeably absent were any substantive agreements on the link between economic recovery and the economic response to climate change. Each of the Presidents and Prime Ministers present had lauded “green jobs” as the cornerstone of sustainable recovery as well as the focused response to climate change. Yet the communiqués from the G20 said nothing, despite the fact that the world leaders are working to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto Accord, which expires in 2012.
The fact that climate change and the economy were not a substantive focus for this meeting is significant. It indicates what many have been saying for some time, namely that progress towards a global climate change treaty is stalled and that the US Government is backing off – lowering expectations for the Copenhagen meeting of over one hundred governments in December. In the US, given the furor over health care reform, climate change legislation is now very much on the back burner.
If this is the level of G20 decision making, then we have little to fear from the emergence of the G20 as a new mechanism of global governance. Just as the United Nations demonstrates its impotence on a daily basis, the G20 now does so quarterly. All of the issues they “decided” in Pittsburgh were also decided in principle at each of the past three meetings. This is the one “green” thing they are doing – recycling old press releases, reusing old rhetoric and reducing their significance. I bet you can’t wait for the next meeting in Huntsville, Canada in 2010.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Lost in Translation
Gerard Hoffnung was a raconteur and wit on the BBC in the 1950’s. His speech to the Oxford Union, available on iTunes, is a classic piece of period of humour – a must listen to recording. Amongst the gems on that CD is a selection of letters received after inquiring about hotel accommodation in the Dolomites, contributed by readers to The Spectator. Wonderful comic material – “we are poor in bath, but good in bed” or a brochure which said “Standing among savage scenery, the hotel offers stupendous revelations. There is a French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects”. Another refers to the manager on the telephone saying “I can offer you a commodious chamber with a balcony imminent to the romantic gorge, and I hope you will want to drop in”. But my own favourite from The Spectator collection, as recited by Hoffnung, is the motto posted at one hotel which simply said “Our motto is 'Ever Serve You Right'”.
The good news is that the tradition of mangling English persists in restaurants, hotels and public places, as a recent tour of France confirms. A sign in a hotel in Nice made clear that “Being dressed well is compulsory in the dining room” – French fashion week is obviously a constant. In another hotel, this time in Monte-Carlo, offered different room rates for different times of the year, with extra charges for “manifestations”. I had two, one with tonic. It in fact refers to public holidays. Outside a small hotel in Menton was a clear and illuminated sign, “Parking in the Back Side”, which I am not sure was all that feasible, unless you were driving a small car.
In Paris, at the Hotel des Academies, there was a simple sign saying “please leave your values at the front desk”, suggesting that this was the place that many European politicians stayed at. A dress shop on the Montparnasse had a sign that enticed some, but not many, to enter: “dresses for street walking”. I am still trying to understand the sign in our rented apartment in the Luberon: “please avoid coca watering, cream cleaning, wet towels wrapping, and ironing drying” – but we complied to the best of our ability. In the Super-U supermarket in a small French town where many English tourists spend time, we spotted a sign that said “For your convenience, we recommend courageous, efficient self-service” and they were not kidding. This supermarket has given rights to people with disabilities to go directly to the front of any line-up and all French people we met appeared to have one or more disability, or at least felt they had. In a laundry in Gordes there is a sign that says (in French) “Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time”. Its nice to see that old French traditions die hard.
Menu translations are also a source of great entertainment. Once in a restaurant, the waiter explained that one dish was of pigeon, another or rabbit and a third of rat (meaning ratatouille). In a Chineese restaurant we saw the main items as “sheep leg, cowboy leg and local steaks” – the cowboy leg came with sides (also known as chaps). The same eatery had a menu item that simply said “juice of steams the fish mouth”, which we couldn’t be talked into.
In a street-side café the menu included a special cocktail for “Ladies with nuts”, which I feel sure was warranted. The same café also made clear that the water was safe to drink – “the manager has personally passed all the water here”.
A friend suggested to me that there should be an international centre for translation where any organization can send their menu, street sign or draft brochure and have it translated into a version of English that more of us could understand. I disagree. In a hot day after a long walk and many museums, such translations lift the spirit and encourage recuperative laughter, and I am all for that. That’s why I am still laughing at the sign in the taxi we took which said “We take your bags and send them in all directions” – a skill they probably learned in an Air Canada workshop.
The good news is that the tradition of mangling English persists in restaurants, hotels and public places, as a recent tour of France confirms. A sign in a hotel in Nice made clear that “Being dressed well is compulsory in the dining room” – French fashion week is obviously a constant. In another hotel, this time in Monte-Carlo, offered different room rates for different times of the year, with extra charges for “manifestations”. I had two, one with tonic. It in fact refers to public holidays. Outside a small hotel in Menton was a clear and illuminated sign, “Parking in the Back Side”, which I am not sure was all that feasible, unless you were driving a small car.
In Paris, at the Hotel des Academies, there was a simple sign saying “please leave your values at the front desk”, suggesting that this was the place that many European politicians stayed at. A dress shop on the Montparnasse had a sign that enticed some, but not many, to enter: “dresses for street walking”. I am still trying to understand the sign in our rented apartment in the Luberon: “please avoid coca watering, cream cleaning, wet towels wrapping, and ironing drying” – but we complied to the best of our ability. In the Super-U supermarket in a small French town where many English tourists spend time, we spotted a sign that said “For your convenience, we recommend courageous, efficient self-service” and they were not kidding. This supermarket has given rights to people with disabilities to go directly to the front of any line-up and all French people we met appeared to have one or more disability, or at least felt they had. In a laundry in Gordes there is a sign that says (in French) “Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time”. Its nice to see that old French traditions die hard.
Menu translations are also a source of great entertainment. Once in a restaurant, the waiter explained that one dish was of pigeon, another or rabbit and a third of rat (meaning ratatouille). In a Chineese restaurant we saw the main items as “sheep leg, cowboy leg and local steaks” – the cowboy leg came with sides (also known as chaps). The same eatery had a menu item that simply said “juice of steams the fish mouth”, which we couldn’t be talked into.
In a street-side café the menu included a special cocktail for “Ladies with nuts”, which I feel sure was warranted. The same café also made clear that the water was safe to drink – “the manager has personally passed all the water here”.
A friend suggested to me that there should be an international centre for translation where any organization can send their menu, street sign or draft brochure and have it translated into a version of English that more of us could understand. I disagree. In a hot day after a long walk and many museums, such translations lift the spirit and encourage recuperative laughter, and I am all for that. That’s why I am still laughing at the sign in the taxi we took which said “We take your bags and send them in all directions” – a skill they probably learned in an Air Canada workshop.
The New German Politics
Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, won more than a second term today in a general election – she also defeated her left-leaning former coalition partners, the Social Democrats, and helped the more conservative and pro-business Free Democrats. Merkel and the Free Democrats will now form a Centre-Right coalition for the next four years. The Social Democrats experienced their worst political defeat in sixty years. Merkel continues, but there is a real and radical change of government.
The new coalition can begin to scale down the stimulus spending demanded by the Social Democrats, the scale of which Merkel did not fully approve, and begin to refocus and redefine the role of Government in German society. A period of spending cuts and a reinvention of Government can be expected.
In her first election, Merkel talked of “radical economic reform”, but compromised so as to secure the Chancellorship and some stability in the coalition. But now she has more freedom of action with like-minded partners. She is a pragmatist, but she is also a fiscal conservative. She also wants to strengthen the position of Germany in the EU.
At the top of her agenda is the economy. Germany has experienced high unemployment and an exodus of manufacturing jobs to other countries, notably in Asia. Also key to her strategy is the greening of Germany’s economy, something already well under way. This is important for Merkel, who is a conservative environmentalist, not just because “green jobs” may help grow the economy but also because the Green Party improved their standing during the election.
Her second priority is the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of German troops. It is most unpopular war and the strategy she wishes to pursue mirrors that of Canada – shifting the mission to one of development and social support and away from military action. She is also concerned about the widespread corruption within the Afghan government and the absence of the rule of law. Germany has over 4,500 troops in Afghanistan and, during the election, there were hints of a pull out by 2013. Merkel and Gordon Brown have called for a rethink of the Afghan mission – something American President, Barrak Obama, is now having to consider.
Merkel’s election is bad news for Gordon Brown. It shows a major European ally dissatisfied with left leaning political and economic strategies and more interested in economic and fiscal responsibility, smaller government and a smaller role for the State in daily life – precisely the strategy the British conservative party is pursuing in the run up to the election in Britain.
Projecting the image of a global leader, Merkel has overcome an image of a pragmatist and policy “wonk” to be a quiet, but confident leader of the German people. She appeared surprised at the scale of her success in the election, having stumbled a little in the last few days before polling. Her victory signals a period of stability in German politics, as the left will now spend time diagnosing its failure and reorganizing for the future, possibly with a new leadership team. Merkel will savor her victory.
The new coalition can begin to scale down the stimulus spending demanded by the Social Democrats, the scale of which Merkel did not fully approve, and begin to refocus and redefine the role of Government in German society. A period of spending cuts and a reinvention of Government can be expected.
In her first election, Merkel talked of “radical economic reform”, but compromised so as to secure the Chancellorship and some stability in the coalition. But now she has more freedom of action with like-minded partners. She is a pragmatist, but she is also a fiscal conservative. She also wants to strengthen the position of Germany in the EU.
At the top of her agenda is the economy. Germany has experienced high unemployment and an exodus of manufacturing jobs to other countries, notably in Asia. Also key to her strategy is the greening of Germany’s economy, something already well under way. This is important for Merkel, who is a conservative environmentalist, not just because “green jobs” may help grow the economy but also because the Green Party improved their standing during the election.
Her second priority is the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of German troops. It is most unpopular war and the strategy she wishes to pursue mirrors that of Canada – shifting the mission to one of development and social support and away from military action. She is also concerned about the widespread corruption within the Afghan government and the absence of the rule of law. Germany has over 4,500 troops in Afghanistan and, during the election, there were hints of a pull out by 2013. Merkel and Gordon Brown have called for a rethink of the Afghan mission – something American President, Barrak Obama, is now having to consider.
Merkel’s election is bad news for Gordon Brown. It shows a major European ally dissatisfied with left leaning political and economic strategies and more interested in economic and fiscal responsibility, smaller government and a smaller role for the State in daily life – precisely the strategy the British conservative party is pursuing in the run up to the election in Britain.
Projecting the image of a global leader, Merkel has overcome an image of a pragmatist and policy “wonk” to be a quiet, but confident leader of the German people. She appeared surprised at the scale of her success in the election, having stumbled a little in the last few days before polling. Her victory signals a period of stability in German politics, as the left will now spend time diagnosing its failure and reorganizing for the future, possibly with a new leadership team. Merkel will savor her victory.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Gordon Brown's Last Stand
Amidst scandal, plots and anxiety, the British Labour Party begins its annual conference this week in Brighton. It will be its last as the governing party, unless some major upset occurs between now and the general election, expected in May. Things are so serious that a tribute evening for Gordon Brown, to be held during the conference, has just three hundred people attending in a venue booked to seat eight hundred.
The scandal concerns the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland. Using a law she herself developed, she was fined £5,000 ($8,740) for hiring someone not entitled to work in Britain as her cleaner. Despite this offence, she continues in office. The tradition is that the Attorney General should be “beyond reproach”. Gordon Brown, Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister, is standing by his Dominican born Minister, elevated to the peerage in 1997. This scandal, which many have already dismissed as minor, comes at the same time as another Minister, Baroness Vedera, steps down as Business Minister to pursue a non-paid role as advisor to the G20.
The plotters are led by “the usual suspects” – former Ministers under Tony Blair and those in the party concerned about the potentially devastating loss in the coming election and the likely loss of their own seats in parliament. The focus of the revolt is on seeking to retain power or, second best, secure credible opposition party status at the next election. They fear a massive defeat at the hands of David Cameron’s Conservative Party, which is some thirteen points ahead in polling – enough for a landslide win. These same polls show that some seventy one percent of voters are unhappy with Gordon Brown’s performance as Prime Minister.
The plotters have three problems. The first is that Gordon Brown has demonstrated that he is unwilling, no matter what the carrion calls are, to leave office unless its due to terminal illness. Second, the plotters cannot find a champion willing to take on the task of David slaying Goliath. The plot has no credible leadership. The third problem is that, even if Brown went, there is no time for a new leader of the Labour Party to turn around this dying political tug boat which, in the minds of the British public, is a tired and worn-out boat in need of a long period in dry dock.
John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair, rightly observes that there is a need for caution when looking at opinion polls. In 1970 the Labour Party went into the election with a sixteen point lead and lost to the Conservatives. In the 1992 election, Neil Kinnock as Labour Leader was clearly winning until he began to behave as if the election was over – the public rapidly turned on Labour and the Conservative’s won. So much can happen between now and May.
But it all now depends on Gordon Brown. John Prescott described him this week-end as a “global giant” who pulled the world back from recession. Others are seeking to position him as a global statesman – a fitting man to lead Britain. They contrast his global statesmanship with the youth and inexperience of David Cameron and posit that Britain needs a steady and proven captain to the steer the ship of state through troubled times. The reality is that Britain is in trouble. It has massive deficits and public sector debt, it has a growing set of issues of education and schools which Labour has failed to tackle in its twelve years in power and there is a social malaise and sense of political alienation which permeates all regions of the country. Britain needs change – it is almost tangible in any conversation about politics.
Gordon Brown, despite his public commitments, will not change. He is what he is and cannot change. He has been at the heart of the Labour party for twenty years and at its head since the early 1990’s. He thinks what people want is action. In an interview at the end of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last week, he said "I think what people are saying is that until they can see the results of all the action we have taken in getting the economy back to recovery, they have suspended judgment. I accept that I have got to show people that the action that we have taken is bringing results and will bring greater results in the months to come." He thinks results will “speak for themselves”.
The Conservative Party is leading the charge for a new era of austerity – demanding cuts in this fiscal year so as to lower the expected budget deficit of £175 billion ($305 billion). They claim that the fiscal stimulus, coupled with the increase in the supply of money in the system, will lead to massive debts which will burden the British economy for years to come. They also claim that public spending and the role of the State under labour are becoming out of control and that less, not more, government is what the people want. Their double digit lead in the opinion polls, consistent since the beginning of 2009, suggests that they may well have captured the mood of the British people. Brown’s counter is that the Conservative proposes massive cuts to public programs which will ride roughshod over peoples’ needs and expectations – Labour’s traditional response to austerity measures.
It will be an ideological election as well as an election about Gordon Brown. Unless David Cameron makes a major blunder, Brown will lose and the Labour Party will wonder why it did not act to forestall both the defeat itself and the scale of the defeat. While its true that “a week is a long time in politics”, the eight months between now and May is even longer and a lot can happen. But it will take a miracle to save Labour now.
The scandal concerns the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland. Using a law she herself developed, she was fined £5,000 ($8,740) for hiring someone not entitled to work in Britain as her cleaner. Despite this offence, she continues in office. The tradition is that the Attorney General should be “beyond reproach”. Gordon Brown, Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister, is standing by his Dominican born Minister, elevated to the peerage in 1997. This scandal, which many have already dismissed as minor, comes at the same time as another Minister, Baroness Vedera, steps down as Business Minister to pursue a non-paid role as advisor to the G20.
The plotters are led by “the usual suspects” – former Ministers under Tony Blair and those in the party concerned about the potentially devastating loss in the coming election and the likely loss of their own seats in parliament. The focus of the revolt is on seeking to retain power or, second best, secure credible opposition party status at the next election. They fear a massive defeat at the hands of David Cameron’s Conservative Party, which is some thirteen points ahead in polling – enough for a landslide win. These same polls show that some seventy one percent of voters are unhappy with Gordon Brown’s performance as Prime Minister.
The plotters have three problems. The first is that Gordon Brown has demonstrated that he is unwilling, no matter what the carrion calls are, to leave office unless its due to terminal illness. Second, the plotters cannot find a champion willing to take on the task of David slaying Goliath. The plot has no credible leadership. The third problem is that, even if Brown went, there is no time for a new leader of the Labour Party to turn around this dying political tug boat which, in the minds of the British public, is a tired and worn-out boat in need of a long period in dry dock.
John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair, rightly observes that there is a need for caution when looking at opinion polls. In 1970 the Labour Party went into the election with a sixteen point lead and lost to the Conservatives. In the 1992 election, Neil Kinnock as Labour Leader was clearly winning until he began to behave as if the election was over – the public rapidly turned on Labour and the Conservative’s won. So much can happen between now and May.
But it all now depends on Gordon Brown. John Prescott described him this week-end as a “global giant” who pulled the world back from recession. Others are seeking to position him as a global statesman – a fitting man to lead Britain. They contrast his global statesmanship with the youth and inexperience of David Cameron and posit that Britain needs a steady and proven captain to the steer the ship of state through troubled times. The reality is that Britain is in trouble. It has massive deficits and public sector debt, it has a growing set of issues of education and schools which Labour has failed to tackle in its twelve years in power and there is a social malaise and sense of political alienation which permeates all regions of the country. Britain needs change – it is almost tangible in any conversation about politics.
Gordon Brown, despite his public commitments, will not change. He is what he is and cannot change. He has been at the heart of the Labour party for twenty years and at its head since the early 1990’s. He thinks what people want is action. In an interview at the end of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last week, he said "I think what people are saying is that until they can see the results of all the action we have taken in getting the economy back to recovery, they have suspended judgment. I accept that I have got to show people that the action that we have taken is bringing results and will bring greater results in the months to come." He thinks results will “speak for themselves”.
The Conservative Party is leading the charge for a new era of austerity – demanding cuts in this fiscal year so as to lower the expected budget deficit of £175 billion ($305 billion). They claim that the fiscal stimulus, coupled with the increase in the supply of money in the system, will lead to massive debts which will burden the British economy for years to come. They also claim that public spending and the role of the State under labour are becoming out of control and that less, not more, government is what the people want. Their double digit lead in the opinion polls, consistent since the beginning of 2009, suggests that they may well have captured the mood of the British people. Brown’s counter is that the Conservative proposes massive cuts to public programs which will ride roughshod over peoples’ needs and expectations – Labour’s traditional response to austerity measures.
It will be an ideological election as well as an election about Gordon Brown. Unless David Cameron makes a major blunder, Brown will lose and the Labour Party will wonder why it did not act to forestall both the defeat itself and the scale of the defeat. While its true that “a week is a long time in politics”, the eight months between now and May is even longer and a lot can happen. But it will take a miracle to save Labour now.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Cooling on Climate Change
The UN are pulling out the “big guns” in an attempt to create a climate of urgency about climate change, so that the meeting of over one hundred world leaders in Copenhagen some seventy five days from now can produce an agreement to replace to failed Kyoto accord.
Nature, however, is not co-operating. Average global temperature is rising at 1.40C per century, not the 3.90C indicated by the IPPC models. We are in the seventh year of global cooling. Sea levels, despite messages to the contrary, are rising at normal rates – eight inches per century – much less than the IPPC models suggested. There has been no significant rise in sea levels over the last four years. Arctic sea ice, currently in its summer state, is more extensive in 2009 than it was in 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice is at record high. Global sea ice shows relative stability over the last thirty years. While CO2 levels are rising, the rate of growth has slowed considerably – the IPPC suggested that CO2 levels would grow at around 468 ppm per century, when in fact the observed growth in CO2 is 204 ppm per century – less than half of the IPPC model suggestion.
Hurricane activity, which does not appear to be connected to CO2 emissions, is at the lowest level since satellite monitoring and observation began in 1979. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane activity is currently one of the quietest in a decade. Reefs off the Keppel Islands on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown rapid recovery of coral dominance, despite repeated coral bleaching events that many ascribe to CO2-induced global warming. All in all, nature does not seep to be co-operating with Ban Ki Moon and the climate change negotiators.
Neither is China. Despite high expectations that they would enter into a global agreement which involves a commitment to curb green house gas emission by an agreed targeted amount, China indicated that they see this issue as a national one, requiring balance between China’s need to continue rapid development and manage its environmental conditions. It will not be told what to do by the international community. Neither will India.
The United States is ambivalent. While President Obama clearly sees climate change as a clear and present danger, legislatures are deeply divided about the appropriate response. The House of Representatives has approved a bill that provides for a cap and trade for carbon credits, the free allocation of a large number of carbon credits to polluting companies and regulation of vehicle emissions. The Senate, however, is delaying consideration of the issue and is not likely to pass any legislation before Copenhagen.
The current US proposals will not have any substantial impact on either carbon emissions in the US or on global temperature. They will, however, have an impact on the economy – higher energy prices, changes in transportation systems and in consumer behaviour. They may also help to stimulate the creation of green jobs, at the expense of jobs in other sectors. What will certainly happen is that the emerging financial services (carbon trading, carbon offsets) and climate research will expand and grow. The carbon trading industry is currently worth $100 billion worldwide and research on climate change is a $7 billion industry worldwide.
Most committed are the member states of the European Union. Collectively they have determined emissions targeted, new transportation standards and have been operating a cap and trade system for a number of years. They are also now considering the scale of technology transfer and financial aid to developing countries. They have also enacted, through EU regulation, constraints on consumer behaviour – making it illegal to sell certain kinds of light bulbs, creating incentives for smart energy purchases and smart grid technologies.
It will be a long meeting in Copenhagen and it looks unlikely that the meeting will be able to conclude the kind of comprehensive agreement Ban Ki Moon is seeking – the fractures between the parties and the challenges of securing agreed targets are likely to be significant. The G8 summit showed that this was the case with just eight nations – there will be over one hundred in Copenhagen.
Some climate change scientists are becoming concerned that the momentum for Copenhagen is already fading and that the possibility of agreement is looking more unlikely than it was at the beginning of the year. They are beginning to use science to argue the polemics of the case rather than just draw attention to the science – the lines between scientific inquiry and political action are becoming blurred.
It will be an interesting time between now and December, with the voices of concern already becoming shrill. What is needed are some calm, reflective and realistic minds focused on what is possible and the consequences of the possible actions for both the environment and the economy. They may well be in short supply and will almost certainly find themselves castigated for not being committed to environmentally sound change or as “deniers” – but we need such objective analysts to provide support the general public in their attempts to assess the work of their governments.
Nature, however, is not co-operating. Average global temperature is rising at 1.40C per century, not the 3.90C indicated by the IPPC models. We are in the seventh year of global cooling. Sea levels, despite messages to the contrary, are rising at normal rates – eight inches per century – much less than the IPPC models suggested. There has been no significant rise in sea levels over the last four years. Arctic sea ice, currently in its summer state, is more extensive in 2009 than it was in 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice is at record high. Global sea ice shows relative stability over the last thirty years. While CO2 levels are rising, the rate of growth has slowed considerably – the IPPC suggested that CO2 levels would grow at around 468 ppm per century, when in fact the observed growth in CO2 is 204 ppm per century – less than half of the IPPC model suggestion.
Hurricane activity, which does not appear to be connected to CO2 emissions, is at the lowest level since satellite monitoring and observation began in 1979. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane activity is currently one of the quietest in a decade. Reefs off the Keppel Islands on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown rapid recovery of coral dominance, despite repeated coral bleaching events that many ascribe to CO2-induced global warming. All in all, nature does not seep to be co-operating with Ban Ki Moon and the climate change negotiators.
Neither is China. Despite high expectations that they would enter into a global agreement which involves a commitment to curb green house gas emission by an agreed targeted amount, China indicated that they see this issue as a national one, requiring balance between China’s need to continue rapid development and manage its environmental conditions. It will not be told what to do by the international community. Neither will India.
The United States is ambivalent. While President Obama clearly sees climate change as a clear and present danger, legislatures are deeply divided about the appropriate response. The House of Representatives has approved a bill that provides for a cap and trade for carbon credits, the free allocation of a large number of carbon credits to polluting companies and regulation of vehicle emissions. The Senate, however, is delaying consideration of the issue and is not likely to pass any legislation before Copenhagen.
The current US proposals will not have any substantial impact on either carbon emissions in the US or on global temperature. They will, however, have an impact on the economy – higher energy prices, changes in transportation systems and in consumer behaviour. They may also help to stimulate the creation of green jobs, at the expense of jobs in other sectors. What will certainly happen is that the emerging financial services (carbon trading, carbon offsets) and climate research will expand and grow. The carbon trading industry is currently worth $100 billion worldwide and research on climate change is a $7 billion industry worldwide.
Most committed are the member states of the European Union. Collectively they have determined emissions targeted, new transportation standards and have been operating a cap and trade system for a number of years. They are also now considering the scale of technology transfer and financial aid to developing countries. They have also enacted, through EU regulation, constraints on consumer behaviour – making it illegal to sell certain kinds of light bulbs, creating incentives for smart energy purchases and smart grid technologies.
It will be a long meeting in Copenhagen and it looks unlikely that the meeting will be able to conclude the kind of comprehensive agreement Ban Ki Moon is seeking – the fractures between the parties and the challenges of securing agreed targets are likely to be significant. The G8 summit showed that this was the case with just eight nations – there will be over one hundred in Copenhagen.
Some climate change scientists are becoming concerned that the momentum for Copenhagen is already fading and that the possibility of agreement is looking more unlikely than it was at the beginning of the year. They are beginning to use science to argue the polemics of the case rather than just draw attention to the science – the lines between scientific inquiry and political action are becoming blurred.
It will be an interesting time between now and December, with the voices of concern already becoming shrill. What is needed are some calm, reflective and realistic minds focused on what is possible and the consequences of the possible actions for both the environment and the economy. They may well be in short supply and will almost certainly find themselves castigated for not being committed to environmentally sound change or as “deniers” – but we need such objective analysts to provide support the general public in their attempts to assess the work of their governments.
Obama, The Turtle and the Hare
The next three months will define the Obama Presidency. Right now, the potential for failure is high.
First the economy. Obama rushed into office with a massive stimulus package which was intended to lessen the impact on the recession on workers and communities. A lot of these funds are yet to be spent, but the recession is already “officially over” and the economy is beginning it long journey back to its new start point. However, unemployment remains high and the recovery looks increasingly jobless at this point. Unless unemployment declines, Obama’s stimulus package will not have succeeded on one critical litmus test.
The next economic test for Obama will relate to the handling of regulatory reform and the potential dangers of bank indebtedness. Obama is sensitive to the nuances here and is using rhetoric and his powerful communication skills to steer the financial services culture away from its “greed and feed on the weak” modus operandi to one of careful and cautious capitalism. In short, Obama has to find a pathway between encouraging risk taking (the core of capitalism) while at the same time moderating the rewards capitalist secure from taking these risks. He needs to do so in a culture that is still dominated by Milton Friedman rather than Milton Keynes.
Not an easy task. Underlying this is the fact that many of the needed regulations are in place, just poorly executed. The Bernie Madoff scandal and others like it show this to be true, as does the continuing struggle to track down where all the TARP money went.
Bank indebtedness – the bad debt sitting on the books of banks and financial services organizations which has to be managed if banks are to meet their corporate and legal obligations – pose a significant threat to the stability of the US financial system over time. Obama, working with Bernanke and others, needs to find the path to reduce the risk of these debts unduly slowing the recovery and affecting confidence without resorting to the socialist solution some European governments have pursued.
His final economic challenge is the rapidly growing scale of US budget deficits and debt. The Republicans are right to be concerned that his legislative agenda is likely to significantly increase public sector borrowing, raising interest rates and taxes while leading to cuts in government programs and services. Obama needs a convincing strategy to leave office after two terms with a manageable level of debt. Right now, this plan does not appear to exist.
His two other flagship activities –climate change and health care – are in serious trouble. The Democratic leadership in the Senate signaled recently that they are to postpone serious consideration of the climate change legislative until 2010 or, more likely, 2011. Meantime, legislators are looking to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do its work for them and use its existing powers to regulate CO2 emissions. There is growing speculation that climate change legislation will not pass the Senate in Obama’s fist term.
Health care reform, as is obvious to all, is showing the extent to which congressional governance is dysfunctional. Obama trusted congress to work out a reform package that would meet the need to extend health care coverage, reduce the burden of health care costs on families and companies, while improving the quality of life for Americans. What we have seen over the last four months is the lack of alignment even within the Democratic party on the nature of such reforms. Obama needs a convincing victory in this field – not just a rhetorical one – for his Presidency not to be damaged by the process and the paucity of reform. The loss of the automatic majority in the Senate following the death of Ted Kennedy puts the final outcome of the health care reform process in doubt.
Obama faces another challenge: overexposure. There is no doubt that, in comparison to several other US Presidents (Carter, both Bush’s, Nixon), Obama is a powerful orator and excellent communicator. But every day? Each time he appears in an interview, on Letterman or Conan or on the White House lawn he uses up some glitter. All Presidents have a certain amount of glitter to use and over use exhausts the supply quickly. He needs to learn the power of silence and patience if he is to be effective.
Obama has several opportunities to deliver on the promise of “change” he offered during his campaign for the Presidency, but boldness and brashness often do not lead to sustained change over time. When he says good night to his daughters on Pennsylvania Avenue one night, he might usefully pick up the story book of the turtle and the hare and remind himself that the turtle won. Its time for Obama to learn to be a better turtle.
First the economy. Obama rushed into office with a massive stimulus package which was intended to lessen the impact on the recession on workers and communities. A lot of these funds are yet to be spent, but the recession is already “officially over” and the economy is beginning it long journey back to its new start point. However, unemployment remains high and the recovery looks increasingly jobless at this point. Unless unemployment declines, Obama’s stimulus package will not have succeeded on one critical litmus test.
The next economic test for Obama will relate to the handling of regulatory reform and the potential dangers of bank indebtedness. Obama is sensitive to the nuances here and is using rhetoric and his powerful communication skills to steer the financial services culture away from its “greed and feed on the weak” modus operandi to one of careful and cautious capitalism. In short, Obama has to find a pathway between encouraging risk taking (the core of capitalism) while at the same time moderating the rewards capitalist secure from taking these risks. He needs to do so in a culture that is still dominated by Milton Friedman rather than Milton Keynes.
Not an easy task. Underlying this is the fact that many of the needed regulations are in place, just poorly executed. The Bernie Madoff scandal and others like it show this to be true, as does the continuing struggle to track down where all the TARP money went.
Bank indebtedness – the bad debt sitting on the books of banks and financial services organizations which has to be managed if banks are to meet their corporate and legal obligations – pose a significant threat to the stability of the US financial system over time. Obama, working with Bernanke and others, needs to find the path to reduce the risk of these debts unduly slowing the recovery and affecting confidence without resorting to the socialist solution some European governments have pursued.
His final economic challenge is the rapidly growing scale of US budget deficits and debt. The Republicans are right to be concerned that his legislative agenda is likely to significantly increase public sector borrowing, raising interest rates and taxes while leading to cuts in government programs and services. Obama needs a convincing strategy to leave office after two terms with a manageable level of debt. Right now, this plan does not appear to exist.
His two other flagship activities –climate change and health care – are in serious trouble. The Democratic leadership in the Senate signaled recently that they are to postpone serious consideration of the climate change legislative until 2010 or, more likely, 2011. Meantime, legislators are looking to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do its work for them and use its existing powers to regulate CO2 emissions. There is growing speculation that climate change legislation will not pass the Senate in Obama’s fist term.
Health care reform, as is obvious to all, is showing the extent to which congressional governance is dysfunctional. Obama trusted congress to work out a reform package that would meet the need to extend health care coverage, reduce the burden of health care costs on families and companies, while improving the quality of life for Americans. What we have seen over the last four months is the lack of alignment even within the Democratic party on the nature of such reforms. Obama needs a convincing victory in this field – not just a rhetorical one – for his Presidency not to be damaged by the process and the paucity of reform. The loss of the automatic majority in the Senate following the death of Ted Kennedy puts the final outcome of the health care reform process in doubt.
Obama faces another challenge: overexposure. There is no doubt that, in comparison to several other US Presidents (Carter, both Bush’s, Nixon), Obama is a powerful orator and excellent communicator. But every day? Each time he appears in an interview, on Letterman or Conan or on the White House lawn he uses up some glitter. All Presidents have a certain amount of glitter to use and over use exhausts the supply quickly. He needs to learn the power of silence and patience if he is to be effective.
Obama has several opportunities to deliver on the promise of “change” he offered during his campaign for the Presidency, but boldness and brashness often do not lead to sustained change over time. When he says good night to his daughters on Pennsylvania Avenue one night, he might usefully pick up the story book of the turtle and the hare and remind himself that the turtle won. Its time for Obama to learn to be a better turtle.
The UN and Climate Change Negotiations
The political conviction that man is causing global warming and that concerted political action on a global scale can “halt” such warming continues to shape an agenda for the post-recession economy. The world’s airlines have committed to reducing their carbon emission by fifty percent by 2050 and car manufacturers are pushing electric cars and working on alternative energy sources for transport systems. The race to be green is on.
At the UN this week, world leaders will all proclaim that the science is settled and that the actions called for “by the science” demand a rethink of key aspects of the economy. In particular, there will be pressure to either pursue carbon taxes directly, as President Sarkozy is seeking to do in France, or to pursue carbon caps and a mechanism for trading carbon emission certificates, as the EU has done for some time and President Obama would like to do, though congress has postponed a decision on cap and trade till 2010 “at the earliest”. China and India are indicating a willingness to take some modest action, but they need major investment support in the billions to do so.
Expect a lot of rhetoric and also expect the UN to push for new monitoring and governance roles for itself – the UN sees the challenge of climate change as an opportunity to expand its scope of operations and enhance its role in the day to day affairs of nations and people around the world.
What is at stake in this conversation is the fabric and structure of the economy. Current drivers of economic growth – transportation systems, consumer spending, energy systems – all need to change to reflect a commitment to lowering emissions. From how we heat and light our houses, how we use transport, what food we buy and where we can buy it are all likely to change. Day to day living will become more expensive and poverty in the developed world will increase, as energy and food prices rise. Only fundamental changes in behaviour, led by changes in the cost of regular and routine activities, will lower emissions in a radical way.
Estimates of the likely impact of policies such as cap and trade suggest that the impact of major changes in the lifestyles of citizens of the developed world will have only a modest (if any) impact on carbon emissions and even less impact on climate, which is also impacted by the actions of winds, the sun and the oceans. What is more, the cost of achieving a less than 0.11 degree change in average global temperature will exceed $300 billion annually in North America alone. While many citizens are concerned about climate change, the personal economic impacts are beginning to create a climate of doubt and uncertainty about the actions which governments want to take. Many citizens are yet to be convinced that the actions government plan make sense.
The negotiations leading up to Copenhagen in December, when over one hundred nations will start the work of negotiations for a post Kyoto agreement, are already very fraught. Under Kyoto, greenhouse gas reductions are subject to an international system that regulates the calculation of emissions, the purchase of carbon credits and contribution of sectors such as forestry. The US is pushing instead for each country to set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its own target. The US is yet to offer full details on how its scheme might work, though a draft "implementing agreement" submitted to the UN by the Obama team in May contained a key clause that emissions reductions would be subject to "conformity with domestic law". Legal experts say the phrase is designed to protect the US from being forced to implement international action it does not agree with.
Meantime, the carbon trading and offset market is already a $100 billion a year business and growing. Climate change research has secured funding of some $7 billion each year over the last decade – a big business. Money is a major driver of the climate change alarmist movement. The skeptics, on the other hand, don’t have much money (despite claims that they are funded by Exxon, who have given less than $25million over the last decade) but they do have observational data on their side. The world is cooling, CO2 emissions are falling (mainly due the recession) and the ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic is expanding. The UN meetings and the Copenhagen meeting in December will take place against a backdrop of scientific measurements which suggests that the alarmist climate models are, at best, overly pessimistic and at worst just plain wrong. We live in interesting times.
Perhaps we should all heed Prince Charles’ advice and give up using our cars and private jets. Maybe we should all start buying carbon offsets, despite the fact that some of the leading providers of this service have recently been found to be supporting projects which do little, if anything, to offset carbon. Perhaps we should simply ignore the rhetoric of politicians about reducing emissions and instead start to plan for adapting to climate change. Whatever we do, we should not depend on our politicians to do the “right thing”, whatever “right” is.
At the UN this week, world leaders will all proclaim that the science is settled and that the actions called for “by the science” demand a rethink of key aspects of the economy. In particular, there will be pressure to either pursue carbon taxes directly, as President Sarkozy is seeking to do in France, or to pursue carbon caps and a mechanism for trading carbon emission certificates, as the EU has done for some time and President Obama would like to do, though congress has postponed a decision on cap and trade till 2010 “at the earliest”. China and India are indicating a willingness to take some modest action, but they need major investment support in the billions to do so.
Expect a lot of rhetoric and also expect the UN to push for new monitoring and governance roles for itself – the UN sees the challenge of climate change as an opportunity to expand its scope of operations and enhance its role in the day to day affairs of nations and people around the world.
What is at stake in this conversation is the fabric and structure of the economy. Current drivers of economic growth – transportation systems, consumer spending, energy systems – all need to change to reflect a commitment to lowering emissions. From how we heat and light our houses, how we use transport, what food we buy and where we can buy it are all likely to change. Day to day living will become more expensive and poverty in the developed world will increase, as energy and food prices rise. Only fundamental changes in behaviour, led by changes in the cost of regular and routine activities, will lower emissions in a radical way.
Estimates of the likely impact of policies such as cap and trade suggest that the impact of major changes in the lifestyles of citizens of the developed world will have only a modest (if any) impact on carbon emissions and even less impact on climate, which is also impacted by the actions of winds, the sun and the oceans. What is more, the cost of achieving a less than 0.11 degree change in average global temperature will exceed $300 billion annually in North America alone. While many citizens are concerned about climate change, the personal economic impacts are beginning to create a climate of doubt and uncertainty about the actions which governments want to take. Many citizens are yet to be convinced that the actions government plan make sense.
The negotiations leading up to Copenhagen in December, when over one hundred nations will start the work of negotiations for a post Kyoto agreement, are already very fraught. Under Kyoto, greenhouse gas reductions are subject to an international system that regulates the calculation of emissions, the purchase of carbon credits and contribution of sectors such as forestry. The US is pushing instead for each country to set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its own target. The US is yet to offer full details on how its scheme might work, though a draft "implementing agreement" submitted to the UN by the Obama team in May contained a key clause that emissions reductions would be subject to "conformity with domestic law". Legal experts say the phrase is designed to protect the US from being forced to implement international action it does not agree with.
Meantime, the carbon trading and offset market is already a $100 billion a year business and growing. Climate change research has secured funding of some $7 billion each year over the last decade – a big business. Money is a major driver of the climate change alarmist movement. The skeptics, on the other hand, don’t have much money (despite claims that they are funded by Exxon, who have given less than $25million over the last decade) but they do have observational data on their side. The world is cooling, CO2 emissions are falling (mainly due the recession) and the ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic is expanding. The UN meetings and the Copenhagen meeting in December will take place against a backdrop of scientific measurements which suggests that the alarmist climate models are, at best, overly pessimistic and at worst just plain wrong. We live in interesting times.
Perhaps we should all heed Prince Charles’ advice and give up using our cars and private jets. Maybe we should all start buying carbon offsets, despite the fact that some of the leading providers of this service have recently been found to be supporting projects which do little, if anything, to offset carbon. Perhaps we should simply ignore the rhetoric of politicians about reducing emissions and instead start to plan for adapting to climate change. Whatever we do, we should not depend on our politicians to do the “right thing”, whatever “right” is.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Looking for a Fat French Person? Dream On
The search for an obese French man or woman began in Paris, travelled to Nice, Monaco, Menton and then various locations in Provence, focused largely on the Luberon. While occasionally distracted by other things, such as menu translations (“try our big balls” referring to ice cream or “our special hand made paste” referring to pasta) and signs in hotels (“it is compulsory to be dressed well in the dining room” and “extra charges for manifestations”), we were relentless in our search during our three week journey.
We thought it was all over on the first day in Nice when we saw a large girthed man with man-boobs bigger than any of the topless women on the same beach. Turned out to be a Texan trying to get to grips with the etiquette of the private beach, he ended up kissing everyone on each facial cheek. Another sighting of a large person, this time female, in Beaulieu turned out to be a Welsh woman from Llangollen desperately looking for faggots and peas. She had to make do with caillette’s and petit pois –the French version of the same thing.
One reason it is so difficult to find an obese French person is that there are so many ways in which they burn up calories. Just watch them speak – they get upper body exercise through the use of the hands and their body language overall uses 30 calories a sentence. Then there is the weight loss during driving and the even greater weight loss while seeking, finding and then securing (against determined opposition) a parking space. I myself lost over five pounds just from these activities, most in Monaco and Apt.
Other activities also eat up calories: daily shopping for bread (50 calories), arguing and then choosing an appropriate wine (30 calories), trying to find other ways of insulting the English and Germans (70 calories) and finally playing boules (between 100 and 500 calories, depending on the intensity of the game, the age of the players and the gullibility of their opponents – the more gullible, the less calories used).
Systematic observation of the French during the last three weeks also tells me that the French actually lose weight while eating. Take dinner, which starts late and ends close to the next day, is an elaborate affair usually involving up to seven courses. The arguments about the quality of the food, the right wine parings, the best combination of food on the fork, the argument about what’s in the sauce, the choice of cheeses, the decision about which desert best compliments the meal and finally what alcoholic digestive best finishes the meal all burn up so much calories that those consumed during the meal are outweighed by those used up in the process of consumption.
We passed and observed thousands of French people – almost none were fat and absolutely none were obese. The largest people we saw and talked to were Americans and British. Spend enough time in France and lose weight!
We thought it was all over on the first day in Nice when we saw a large girthed man with man-boobs bigger than any of the topless women on the same beach. Turned out to be a Texan trying to get to grips with the etiquette of the private beach, he ended up kissing everyone on each facial cheek. Another sighting of a large person, this time female, in Beaulieu turned out to be a Welsh woman from Llangollen desperately looking for faggots and peas. She had to make do with caillette’s and petit pois –the French version of the same thing.
One reason it is so difficult to find an obese French person is that there are so many ways in which they burn up calories. Just watch them speak – they get upper body exercise through the use of the hands and their body language overall uses 30 calories a sentence. Then there is the weight loss during driving and the even greater weight loss while seeking, finding and then securing (against determined opposition) a parking space. I myself lost over five pounds just from these activities, most in Monaco and Apt.
Other activities also eat up calories: daily shopping for bread (50 calories), arguing and then choosing an appropriate wine (30 calories), trying to find other ways of insulting the English and Germans (70 calories) and finally playing boules (between 100 and 500 calories, depending on the intensity of the game, the age of the players and the gullibility of their opponents – the more gullible, the less calories used).
Systematic observation of the French during the last three weeks also tells me that the French actually lose weight while eating. Take dinner, which starts late and ends close to the next day, is an elaborate affair usually involving up to seven courses. The arguments about the quality of the food, the right wine parings, the best combination of food on the fork, the argument about what’s in the sauce, the choice of cheeses, the decision about which desert best compliments the meal and finally what alcoholic digestive best finishes the meal all burn up so much calories that those consumed during the meal are outweighed by those used up in the process of consumption.
We passed and observed thousands of French people – almost none were fat and absolutely none were obese. The largest people we saw and talked to were Americans and British. Spend enough time in France and lose weight!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Where Is The Premier of Alberta When We Need Him?
Where is the Premier of Alberta? Why is he absent from our consciousness and allowing our anxieties and worst fears to fester? Why is he not communicating powerfully and effectively with the people of Alberta?
The Province is facing a deficit in this fiscal year of $7 billion and is planning to make cuts to public expenditure in the next budget of $4billion, including cuts to education, health and social services. The Province is planning, largely through inaction, significant increases in electricity costs due to its support for the unproven carbon sequestration program with an already firm commitment of $2 billion we cannot afford and an ask for another $1billion a year which is definitely beyond the scope of this Government. Health care cuts are coming and people are getting anxious.
The key problem is not the recession, though this is clearly not helping. The key problem is a fundamental change in the way in which the natural gas price is behaving and this is dramatically affecting government revenues. This problem is structural – it will challenge the base economic model of the Government – and will not go away. The dynamics of the natural gas market have changed in a way that will reduce revenues for the Government for some time to come.
The Premier has mused about the dangers of the US Climate Change Bill, which contains a clause that would permit the US Government to impose tarrifs at the border on commodities entering the US which were produced with a higher footprint than other similar goods coming from US sources and he is right to do so. But his comments weren’t backed up by a briefing document showing the impact such a scheme could have on oil, gas, coal, lumber and other industries and on the Alberta economy. Too vague and too mute.
The Premier did make a rare public statement to make clear that “while he was Premier” there would be no new taxes and no tax hikes. An unwise commitment, especially in the light of the ongoing economic challenges the Province faces. Albertans enjoy their low tax regime, but would prefer to pay more taxes to sustain many health, education and social services than to cut them as severely as now seems planned. Now the only way in which tax hikes can occur is if the Premier resigns and a new Premier takes his place. Some saw the Premiers tax statement as a veiled resignation offer to the party.
The last two months, at least amongst the bloggers and journalists in Alberta, there have been rumours of a coming cabinet shuffle, triggered in part by the resignation of the Deputy Premier, Ron Stevens, and by a growing concern about the strength of the finance and treasury team now challenged, according to some, beyond their competence. The furor that surrounded Bill 44 was also taken as a sign that things need shaking up and the Premier needs to show that he is in charge and stop the next action equivalent to a Bill 44 mistake. Firing one MLA showed some metal, but then the sword was put back in its sheath and the Premier appeared to go back to sleep.
One would expect a Premier, who is no intellectual slouch and a very down to earth kind of guy, to be on camera helping Albertans understand what is happening in and to their Province, how he sees the future and laying out his options for change. Creating the right context and climate for action is one of the things required to make change work. Instead he is absent, leaving the talking to others, not all of whom know what the message is or should be.
It is time for a clear statement of the challenges we face as a Province – we need an interim financial statement, a context statement and a set of options. We need these to come from the Premier and we need these statements now. As confidence in the Premier erodes – he is already concerned about the November Red Deer leadership review and he should now be more concerned, as anxiety grows and confidence in the ability of this Government to act also declines.
Maneuvers are going on behind the scenes on budget, on change and on other challenges Alberta faces – quiet meetings are being held and briefings given. Put the public is left out of the conversation, which is not smart.
Its time to meet the people. To be transparent. To share the challenges. To make clear that the future isn’t what it used to be. Alberta needs a Premier it can see, hear and talk to.
The Province is facing a deficit in this fiscal year of $7 billion and is planning to make cuts to public expenditure in the next budget of $4billion, including cuts to education, health and social services. The Province is planning, largely through inaction, significant increases in electricity costs due to its support for the unproven carbon sequestration program with an already firm commitment of $2 billion we cannot afford and an ask for another $1billion a year which is definitely beyond the scope of this Government. Health care cuts are coming and people are getting anxious.
The key problem is not the recession, though this is clearly not helping. The key problem is a fundamental change in the way in which the natural gas price is behaving and this is dramatically affecting government revenues. This problem is structural – it will challenge the base economic model of the Government – and will not go away. The dynamics of the natural gas market have changed in a way that will reduce revenues for the Government for some time to come.
The Premier has mused about the dangers of the US Climate Change Bill, which contains a clause that would permit the US Government to impose tarrifs at the border on commodities entering the US which were produced with a higher footprint than other similar goods coming from US sources and he is right to do so. But his comments weren’t backed up by a briefing document showing the impact such a scheme could have on oil, gas, coal, lumber and other industries and on the Alberta economy. Too vague and too mute.
The Premier did make a rare public statement to make clear that “while he was Premier” there would be no new taxes and no tax hikes. An unwise commitment, especially in the light of the ongoing economic challenges the Province faces. Albertans enjoy their low tax regime, but would prefer to pay more taxes to sustain many health, education and social services than to cut them as severely as now seems planned. Now the only way in which tax hikes can occur is if the Premier resigns and a new Premier takes his place. Some saw the Premiers tax statement as a veiled resignation offer to the party.
The last two months, at least amongst the bloggers and journalists in Alberta, there have been rumours of a coming cabinet shuffle, triggered in part by the resignation of the Deputy Premier, Ron Stevens, and by a growing concern about the strength of the finance and treasury team now challenged, according to some, beyond their competence. The furor that surrounded Bill 44 was also taken as a sign that things need shaking up and the Premier needs to show that he is in charge and stop the next action equivalent to a Bill 44 mistake. Firing one MLA showed some metal, but then the sword was put back in its sheath and the Premier appeared to go back to sleep.
One would expect a Premier, who is no intellectual slouch and a very down to earth kind of guy, to be on camera helping Albertans understand what is happening in and to their Province, how he sees the future and laying out his options for change. Creating the right context and climate for action is one of the things required to make change work. Instead he is absent, leaving the talking to others, not all of whom know what the message is or should be.
It is time for a clear statement of the challenges we face as a Province – we need an interim financial statement, a context statement and a set of options. We need these to come from the Premier and we need these statements now. As confidence in the Premier erodes – he is already concerned about the November Red Deer leadership review and he should now be more concerned, as anxiety grows and confidence in the ability of this Government to act also declines.
Maneuvers are going on behind the scenes on budget, on change and on other challenges Alberta faces – quiet meetings are being held and briefings given. Put the public is left out of the conversation, which is not smart.
Its time to meet the people. To be transparent. To share the challenges. To make clear that the future isn’t what it used to be. Alberta needs a Premier it can see, hear and talk to.
Monday, August 17, 2009
A Health Care Challenge for Canada?
Canadians watch the health care debate in the US with mixed emotions. The Americans, who spend more per capita on healthcare than any other nation in the world, clearly have many challenges. Some forty six million are not covered by health insurance, seniors pay for prescriptions after the first $2,500 and life expectancy is amongst the lowest in the developed world. Clearly, a lot needs to be changed.
The trouble is debating change in a health system is always very emotional, as we can see from coverage of the town hall meetings taking place across the United States. We each have stories of good and poor experience of health, of family members who struggled through the system and of things going terribly wrong. Serious discussion about change becomes clouded in emotional conversations about pain, disease and problems.
Many Canadians appear satisfied with the basics of Canada’s health care system, despite the rising costs of securing universal health care coverage and the growing waiting list for a range of basic procedures. Yet an OECD study, just published, uses poll data to show that sixty per cent of Canadians are seeking fundamental change in the way Canada’s publicly funded health care system operates. More people in Canada seek such change than in Britain, the US, Germany or Australia. A further twelve per cent think that our health care system needs to be completely rebuilt. Put simply: most Canadians don’t think the current health care system is sustainable.
There are several issues. The first is that the costs of the system are growing faster than Provincial governments can afford. When health care reaches half of all Provincial spending, as it will within the next decade in British Columbia and Alberta, what cuts to other government services will be made to permit this cost to be covered?
The second challenge is our over-reliance on professional health care workers to help us manage such things as diet, exercise and minor health issues – cuts, bruises, and colds. Self-reliance and personal responsibility has been ceded to an ever growing list of professional workers seeking to manage more aspects of our daily life.
The third major problem is the growing cost of technology for health. Expensive equipment can now produce powerful images and deep understanding of physical conditions and doctors and patients rely on expensive technology to make decisions. Technology changes and improves frequently at great cost to us all.
Linked to the growing costs of technology is the growth of sustaining the prescription drug culture – “there’s a pill for that”. A diabetic with hypertension will spend close to $5,000 a year on prescription drugs, only seventy per cent of which is recoverable through most insurance policies. It is this that drives up the costs of insurance.
Finally, the accountants are taking over. While some of them used to health care workers – doctors and nurses – their preoccupations are now costs. Whether it is staff costs or the cost of procedures, cost not outcomes are driving key decisions in the health system.
Whenever discussions of health care occur in Canada, the passions engendered are similar to those seen in town hall meetings in Wyoming or Chicago. Emotion replaces rational conversation about options.
One option is for Canada to retain a single payer, but to permit private companies to offer health care and health insurance from which the single payer can purchase services. The private providers would focus on high volume, profitable activities – hip and knee replacements, treatments for diabetics and obesity, rehabilitation services, chiropractic - and sell their services to local health authorities. Competitive private insurers would provide coverage which “filled the gaps” of the provincial system, including drug and dental coverage.
A second option is to require every citizen to hold a health insurance policy for which they pay their provider (the provincial government or a private insurer), with rates depending on life-style. Smokers pay more. People who are obese pay more. These policies may cover more than the “approved list of services” under the Canada Health Act, depending on the premium paid. Connecting health to cost for the end-user would be a major change.
Whatever happens, Canada needs to have a serious discussion about health care. Most Canadians think we need a significant change. They are right.
The trouble is debating change in a health system is always very emotional, as we can see from coverage of the town hall meetings taking place across the United States. We each have stories of good and poor experience of health, of family members who struggled through the system and of things going terribly wrong. Serious discussion about change becomes clouded in emotional conversations about pain, disease and problems.
Many Canadians appear satisfied with the basics of Canada’s health care system, despite the rising costs of securing universal health care coverage and the growing waiting list for a range of basic procedures. Yet an OECD study, just published, uses poll data to show that sixty per cent of Canadians are seeking fundamental change in the way Canada’s publicly funded health care system operates. More people in Canada seek such change than in Britain, the US, Germany or Australia. A further twelve per cent think that our health care system needs to be completely rebuilt. Put simply: most Canadians don’t think the current health care system is sustainable.
There are several issues. The first is that the costs of the system are growing faster than Provincial governments can afford. When health care reaches half of all Provincial spending, as it will within the next decade in British Columbia and Alberta, what cuts to other government services will be made to permit this cost to be covered?
The second challenge is our over-reliance on professional health care workers to help us manage such things as diet, exercise and minor health issues – cuts, bruises, and colds. Self-reliance and personal responsibility has been ceded to an ever growing list of professional workers seeking to manage more aspects of our daily life.
The third major problem is the growing cost of technology for health. Expensive equipment can now produce powerful images and deep understanding of physical conditions and doctors and patients rely on expensive technology to make decisions. Technology changes and improves frequently at great cost to us all.
Linked to the growing costs of technology is the growth of sustaining the prescription drug culture – “there’s a pill for that”. A diabetic with hypertension will spend close to $5,000 a year on prescription drugs, only seventy per cent of which is recoverable through most insurance policies. It is this that drives up the costs of insurance.
Finally, the accountants are taking over. While some of them used to health care workers – doctors and nurses – their preoccupations are now costs. Whether it is staff costs or the cost of procedures, cost not outcomes are driving key decisions in the health system.
Whenever discussions of health care occur in Canada, the passions engendered are similar to those seen in town hall meetings in Wyoming or Chicago. Emotion replaces rational conversation about options.
One option is for Canada to retain a single payer, but to permit private companies to offer health care and health insurance from which the single payer can purchase services. The private providers would focus on high volume, profitable activities – hip and knee replacements, treatments for diabetics and obesity, rehabilitation services, chiropractic - and sell their services to local health authorities. Competitive private insurers would provide coverage which “filled the gaps” of the provincial system, including drug and dental coverage.
A second option is to require every citizen to hold a health insurance policy for which they pay their provider (the provincial government or a private insurer), with rates depending on life-style. Smokers pay more. People who are obese pay more. These policies may cover more than the “approved list of services” under the Canada Health Act, depending on the premium paid. Connecting health to cost for the end-user would be a major change.
Whatever happens, Canada needs to have a serious discussion about health care. Most Canadians think we need a significant change. They are right.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Four Months to Save The Planet, Or...?
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has said that there is less than four months to save the planet. Referring to the December negotiations in Copenhagen when the world community will seek to create global governance so as to manage climate change and develop agreements to replace Kyoto, he said that the situation is both urgent and dire. A failure to act will lead to the loss of several Pacific islands, over twenty eight million climate change refugees and further challenges to the developed and developing world.
Senator Kerry, Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, echoes these kinds of concerns in his urging of his fellow senators to act on the climate change bill now before it. Citing pandemics, drought, an increase in natural disasters, famine, the rise in sea level and a fall in water supplies in the Middle East and Asia, he claimed that all of these had their root cause in climate change.
These statements, and others like them, are the prelude to the multilateral talks in Copenhagen. These talks already look likely to fail, with India and China not playing ball with the US and Europe on specific cuts in emissions or on a technology transfer fund to move technology quickly and at low cost from the developed world to the developing world. Australia, seen at one point as a deal maker, cannot secure its own legislation and Canada remains skeptical about the rhetoric. The US, with a climate change alarmist as President, is still struggling to pass modest legislation on emissions and is focusing instead on the economic mechanism of cap and trade – something unlikely to have any significant impact on emissions. We can expect more rhetoric, both from politicians and stealth campaigners masquerading as scientists in the next three and half months as the prospect for a significant agreement in Copenhagen receed and the likelihood of the environmental lobby being disappointed again.
They were deeply disappointed by the G8 summit held in July. Expecting a significant commitment to 2020 emissions targets and an agreement to a post-Kyoto framework, all that Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth secured was a statement that the G8 leaders agreed, in principle, that the climate should not be allowed to heat up more than 2 degrees above its current levels. No suggestion as to how temperature increases may be constrained and no commitments, other than those already made, to any new mechanisms for the management of climate change strategy.
Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that the $78 billion spent by the US government on climate change research and mitigation technologies may not be a wise investment. Recent data shows that the IPCC projection of CO2 concentrations reaching 836 ppmv by 2100 are exaggerated and are unlikely to rise much beyond 570 by 2100; seal level is not rising at anything like the levels the IPCC projected and are in fact stable around the Maldives, Tuvalu and other Pacific islands; sea ice in the Antarctic is expanding and the sea ice in the Arctic is within normal ranges at this point in the sea ice cycle; the polar bear population is stable and large and, as a final straw, the earth continues to cool. Actual data do not follow the alarmist levels anticipated by the computer models on which the IPCC makes most of its scenario statements.
Given the economic slow-down and other factors, the G8 target of no more than a 2 degree rise in temperature is within our reach – current projections are for the global mean temperature to rise by app. 2.5 degrees by 2100, with no warming taking place for a decade and a half since 1995, this may be a pessimistic estimate. The oceans are not warming, hurricane activity is the lowest since satellite monitoring began and wind caused catastrophes in North America show no upward or downward trend since the 1950’s.
Since real data suggests that there is an exaggerated sense of alarm, fuelled by those receiving much of the $78 billion in climate change cash from the US Government and a further €100 billion from the European Union (Exxon Mobil has spent less than $2.25 million a year on climate change science, despite the claim that it is fuelling skepticism), it is likely that a failure in Copenhagen will be of little consequence, except politically. Reputations have been built on fear, but when the emperor is shown to have no clothes, fear has a habit of going away. There will be some kind of statement in Copenhagen, but it will not be the one envisaged two years ago when work on this global summit began.
Senator Kerry, Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, echoes these kinds of concerns in his urging of his fellow senators to act on the climate change bill now before it. Citing pandemics, drought, an increase in natural disasters, famine, the rise in sea level and a fall in water supplies in the Middle East and Asia, he claimed that all of these had their root cause in climate change.
These statements, and others like them, are the prelude to the multilateral talks in Copenhagen. These talks already look likely to fail, with India and China not playing ball with the US and Europe on specific cuts in emissions or on a technology transfer fund to move technology quickly and at low cost from the developed world to the developing world. Australia, seen at one point as a deal maker, cannot secure its own legislation and Canada remains skeptical about the rhetoric. The US, with a climate change alarmist as President, is still struggling to pass modest legislation on emissions and is focusing instead on the economic mechanism of cap and trade – something unlikely to have any significant impact on emissions. We can expect more rhetoric, both from politicians and stealth campaigners masquerading as scientists in the next three and half months as the prospect for a significant agreement in Copenhagen receed and the likelihood of the environmental lobby being disappointed again.
They were deeply disappointed by the G8 summit held in July. Expecting a significant commitment to 2020 emissions targets and an agreement to a post-Kyoto framework, all that Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth secured was a statement that the G8 leaders agreed, in principle, that the climate should not be allowed to heat up more than 2 degrees above its current levels. No suggestion as to how temperature increases may be constrained and no commitments, other than those already made, to any new mechanisms for the management of climate change strategy.
Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that the $78 billion spent by the US government on climate change research and mitigation technologies may not be a wise investment. Recent data shows that the IPCC projection of CO2 concentrations reaching 836 ppmv by 2100 are exaggerated and are unlikely to rise much beyond 570 by 2100; seal level is not rising at anything like the levels the IPCC projected and are in fact stable around the Maldives, Tuvalu and other Pacific islands; sea ice in the Antarctic is expanding and the sea ice in the Arctic is within normal ranges at this point in the sea ice cycle; the polar bear population is stable and large and, as a final straw, the earth continues to cool. Actual data do not follow the alarmist levels anticipated by the computer models on which the IPCC makes most of its scenario statements.
Given the economic slow-down and other factors, the G8 target of no more than a 2 degree rise in temperature is within our reach – current projections are for the global mean temperature to rise by app. 2.5 degrees by 2100, with no warming taking place for a decade and a half since 1995, this may be a pessimistic estimate. The oceans are not warming, hurricane activity is the lowest since satellite monitoring began and wind caused catastrophes in North America show no upward or downward trend since the 1950’s.
Since real data suggests that there is an exaggerated sense of alarm, fuelled by those receiving much of the $78 billion in climate change cash from the US Government and a further €100 billion from the European Union (Exxon Mobil has spent less than $2.25 million a year on climate change science, despite the claim that it is fuelling skepticism), it is likely that a failure in Copenhagen will be of little consequence, except politically. Reputations have been built on fear, but when the emperor is shown to have no clothes, fear has a habit of going away. There will be some kind of statement in Copenhagen, but it will not be the one envisaged two years ago when work on this global summit began.
Misinformation and Public Policy
Much is being made of misinformation and organized disinformation in the health care debate in the US. The Sarah Palin “death panel” that will determine who lives and who dies, the government “take over” of health care as the new socialism and the threat to seniors from $500 billion cut to Medicare are all examples of misinformation.
Yet those of us who take a rational, measured approach to climate change are used to this. One side – in this case the climate change alarmists like Al Gore, James Hansen and the IPCC – use carefully selected “evidence”, exaggerate it, ignore actual data and then proclaim truth.
One example of this is the claim that many locations in the world will be under water due to rising sea levels, caused by melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. Sea levels will rise, according to the IPCC models and other projections, covering islands like Tuvalu (“the first casualty” according to most accounts) and the Maldives.
But the actual measurement of sea levels at all of the normal locations mentioned by the alarmists show no significant sea rise since 1992. In fact, the sea level is virtually constant. In the Maldives, a reconstruction of sea level data for the past 2,600 years show that, at various times, the sea level has been some 20cm higher than it is at the present time and that, since it fell in 1970, there has been no significant rise in sea levels in the Maldives.
Another location for Gore-like catastrophe is Nederlands – lowland Holland. In the past century the sea level in Nederlands has risen 20cm but there is no evidence of an accelerated rise in sea level since the mid 20th century and sea defenses continue to be constructed – something which the Dutch are very good at.
Sea levels rises are not a threat. Polar bears are thriving. The earth is cooling. When is actual evidence going to be used and policy is based, not on misinformation, but on established facts and a commitment to climate adaptation?
Yet those of us who take a rational, measured approach to climate change are used to this. One side – in this case the climate change alarmists like Al Gore, James Hansen and the IPCC – use carefully selected “evidence”, exaggerate it, ignore actual data and then proclaim truth.
One example of this is the claim that many locations in the world will be under water due to rising sea levels, caused by melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. Sea levels will rise, according to the IPCC models and other projections, covering islands like Tuvalu (“the first casualty” according to most accounts) and the Maldives.
But the actual measurement of sea levels at all of the normal locations mentioned by the alarmists show no significant sea rise since 1992. In fact, the sea level is virtually constant. In the Maldives, a reconstruction of sea level data for the past 2,600 years show that, at various times, the sea level has been some 20cm higher than it is at the present time and that, since it fell in 1970, there has been no significant rise in sea levels in the Maldives.
Another location for Gore-like catastrophe is Nederlands – lowland Holland. In the past century the sea level in Nederlands has risen 20cm but there is no evidence of an accelerated rise in sea level since the mid 20th century and sea defenses continue to be constructed – something which the Dutch are very good at.
Sea levels rises are not a threat. Polar bears are thriving. The earth is cooling. When is actual evidence going to be used and policy is based, not on misinformation, but on established facts and a commitment to climate adaptation?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Reforming Health Care in the US - Lessons in How Not to Manage Change
Sarah Palin is promoting the strange idea that the Obama health care reform includes a provision for Government agents to visit the elderly and determine when and how they should die. The so called “death panel” does not exist, has never existed nor could it ever pass a vote in any legislature in North America. Yet some seemingly smart people are convinced it is in the Bill now before congress.
One reason there is so much passion and anxiety about health care reform is that we can all imagine ourselves needing care, especially those of us who have needed care in an emergency. When someone threatens to change what we think we have as a right or service, we naturally get concerned. When the changes are not well understood, all that happens is that anxiety increases, passions are inflamed and rumours replace information as the basis of public concerns.
We see this is spades in the debates now raging across the US. In addition to the death panel rumour, there are also concerns that the bill will lead to the US Government being the single payer in health care – what some call socialized medicine, which is also not true. If the bill that passes congress continues to include a public insurance option – the Government offering a plan which individuals can opt into – it is also unlikely to significantly impact the private health care insurance business, which has profits last year of $30 billion.
The bill before congress contains the intention to limit the type of medical procedures that the government would fund in a government program and through Medicare and Medicaid (both government runs programs, along with the Veteran health programs). Opponents of the plan don't want the government to fund any procedures. So, how is restricting the procedures funded through a government plan rationing? Anyone who wants to is entirely free to buy as much health care as they want outside of the government-subsidized plan. However, many of the supporters of the Bill have signaled a willingness to drop the public insurance option.
Another compromise that the White House has already agreed to is a back-room deal with the pharmaceutical companies to limit the extent of cost cutting for drugs – one of the fastest growing costs of health care – to no more than $80 billion. Also included is an agreement to ban the import of lower costs drugs from Canada. These arrangements limit the extent to which reforms will reduce health care costs over time.
There is a claim, this time by the proponents of the Bill, that doing nothing is not an option, since the costs of health care are running “out of control”. The projected $1 trillion cost over the next decade is equal to about 0.5 percent of US GDP, less than half of the cost of Iraq-Afghanistan wars at their peak. The $250 billion ten-year shortfall that Congress is struggling to fill is a bit more than 0.1 percent of GDP - a rounding error in the total budget approved by the US congress.
The focus, at least during the Presidential campaign, was on ensuring that the 46 million Americans who do not currently have access to health care insurance would do so as a result of the changes Obama and the congress propose. The bill now before congress would help some people have access, but would not reach all of these disenfranchised health seekers – at best it may help an additional 10 million. Obama claims that an additional 36 million may benefit, but few support the math behind this claim.
When we watch the town-hall meetings, we can see the passion and the concerns. We can also see the division between the right and left, the informed and the ignorant and the hysterical and the calm. Anyone wanting to secure real change in health care will need to do a much better job of explaining, without seeking to score political points, what it is they wish to change, why they wish to change and what the implications of that change will be on different groups in the community. Until this happens – and it is not happening yet in the US – decisions will be made on the basis of rumour, innuendo and guesswork. A responsible media would help to improve the quality of debate.
In Canada, we will also need to look at changes in health care over the coming decade. We should watch with interest what happens when reforms are attempted and how vested interests seek to manage and control the debate. It makes for entertaining news, but is also disturbing.
One reason there is so much passion and anxiety about health care reform is that we can all imagine ourselves needing care, especially those of us who have needed care in an emergency. When someone threatens to change what we think we have as a right or service, we naturally get concerned. When the changes are not well understood, all that happens is that anxiety increases, passions are inflamed and rumours replace information as the basis of public concerns.
We see this is spades in the debates now raging across the US. In addition to the death panel rumour, there are also concerns that the bill will lead to the US Government being the single payer in health care – what some call socialized medicine, which is also not true. If the bill that passes congress continues to include a public insurance option – the Government offering a plan which individuals can opt into – it is also unlikely to significantly impact the private health care insurance business, which has profits last year of $30 billion.
The bill before congress contains the intention to limit the type of medical procedures that the government would fund in a government program and through Medicare and Medicaid (both government runs programs, along with the Veteran health programs). Opponents of the plan don't want the government to fund any procedures. So, how is restricting the procedures funded through a government plan rationing? Anyone who wants to is entirely free to buy as much health care as they want outside of the government-subsidized plan. However, many of the supporters of the Bill have signaled a willingness to drop the public insurance option.
Another compromise that the White House has already agreed to is a back-room deal with the pharmaceutical companies to limit the extent of cost cutting for drugs – one of the fastest growing costs of health care – to no more than $80 billion. Also included is an agreement to ban the import of lower costs drugs from Canada. These arrangements limit the extent to which reforms will reduce health care costs over time.
There is a claim, this time by the proponents of the Bill, that doing nothing is not an option, since the costs of health care are running “out of control”. The projected $1 trillion cost over the next decade is equal to about 0.5 percent of US GDP, less than half of the cost of Iraq-Afghanistan wars at their peak. The $250 billion ten-year shortfall that Congress is struggling to fill is a bit more than 0.1 percent of GDP - a rounding error in the total budget approved by the US congress.
The focus, at least during the Presidential campaign, was on ensuring that the 46 million Americans who do not currently have access to health care insurance would do so as a result of the changes Obama and the congress propose. The bill now before congress would help some people have access, but would not reach all of these disenfranchised health seekers – at best it may help an additional 10 million. Obama claims that an additional 36 million may benefit, but few support the math behind this claim.
When we watch the town-hall meetings, we can see the passion and the concerns. We can also see the division between the right and left, the informed and the ignorant and the hysterical and the calm. Anyone wanting to secure real change in health care will need to do a much better job of explaining, without seeking to score political points, what it is they wish to change, why they wish to change and what the implications of that change will be on different groups in the community. Until this happens – and it is not happening yet in the US – decisions will be made on the basis of rumour, innuendo and guesswork. A responsible media would help to improve the quality of debate.
In Canada, we will also need to look at changes in health care over the coming decade. We should watch with interest what happens when reforms are attempted and how vested interests seek to manage and control the debate. It makes for entertaining news, but is also disturbing.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Peak Oil ? - Nonsense
Several reports circulated in the last two weeks about “peak oil” – oil production in established fields now declining, not just because of OPEC constraints on production, but also because the quantity of oil available from these sources has passed peak production and will decline steadily. Some predicted that there was less than a decade of oil left.
Nonsense. According to most established analysts, there are some forty years of conventional oil supplies available from proven reserves, New fields are now coming on stream, including the new Kuharis field in Saudi Arabia, which contains about half the oil that has been pumped from the North Sea. New discoveries of conventional oil occur all the time, the most recent of which is in Uganda which, according to one observer, is almost as large as the Saudi oil fields. Then there is the oil sands – Alberta has the equivalent of 175 billion barrels of oil tied up in tar and there are other oil sands and oil shale operations globally.
From a fuel point of view, there is also a need to look at coal and gas. With new technologies liberating natural gas from shale, gas production has grown exponentially – up 48% in the US alone last year. Coal is also abundant.
So talk of peak oil is nonsense and some have recently argued that we will be entering a period of significantly lower energy costs until, that is, the climate change levies are applied.
Nonsense. According to most established analysts, there are some forty years of conventional oil supplies available from proven reserves, New fields are now coming on stream, including the new Kuharis field in Saudi Arabia, which contains about half the oil that has been pumped from the North Sea. New discoveries of conventional oil occur all the time, the most recent of which is in Uganda which, according to one observer, is almost as large as the Saudi oil fields. Then there is the oil sands – Alberta has the equivalent of 175 billion barrels of oil tied up in tar and there are other oil sands and oil shale operations globally.
From a fuel point of view, there is also a need to look at coal and gas. With new technologies liberating natural gas from shale, gas production has grown exponentially – up 48% in the US alone last year. Coal is also abundant.
So talk of peak oil is nonsense and some have recently argued that we will be entering a period of significantly lower energy costs until, that is, the climate change levies are applied.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Economic Recovery Will Be Slow
There are some limited signs that some key aspects of our current economic challenges are beginning to shift. Car sales, especially in Western Canada, are again growing but are not back to the boom levels of 2008. Shipbuilding is stimulated by a major purchase from the Government of Canada. Houses are selling and mortgages are being offered. Some areas of retail – especially fast food and cinema going – are also recovering. Oil prices are settling at around $65 a barrel, though are subject to fluctuation. But, as the Canadian Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty observed, this is not a recovery, these are just “green shoots”. Economic bears can trample green shoots.
There are signs of the bears trampling around the Canadian economy. Manufacturing, especially in Ontario, continues to be troubling. Protectionism, which world leaders condemned at the April G20 summit, continues to grow and is impacting steel and lumber. Some industries face permanent structural change – the forest industries, car manufacture, technology and financial services. There are new regulatory and tax issues facing business – significant new restrictions and controls on banks and financial services, carbon taxation and environmental regulations, new reporting requirements, such as carbon footprint labeling or life-time tracking of animals in the food chain.
It is also likely that other actions of government, required to respond to their growing indebtedness, will have an impact on the economy. Cuts to government services and tax increases, labour disputes over contracts and a significant attempt to raise new funds in the bond markets will all take their toll on the economy. One key outcome of government action is likely to be inflation. The more bonds being sold to pay for the debts and deficits incurred in the attempt to “stimulate” the economies of the world, the more bond buyers will be able to demand better rates of return. As bond rates increase so do base rates and inflation follows. Interest rates for mortgages and borrowing will then rise. As this cycle continues, inflation occurs. Inflation will show or, worse, stall the recovery.
Another possible development is what is known as a jobless recovery. Companies have laid off workers to survive the recession. As the economy recovers and firms begin to see profits return, they realize that they can operate without having to incur the same labour costs they incurred during the 2007-8 boom. The unemployed remain jobless while companies grow. This is especially the case in some service sectors and in manufacturing. As some sectors consolidate – companies merge or acquire their rivals in an effort to grow their way out of difficulties – fewer jobs are required as duplication and inefficiencies are removed from the market.
Banks are cautious and need to continue to be cautious. They have some toxic assets on their books and need to restore their margins and manage their loan portfolios carefully. They should not be lending to people or businesses who have less than a strong opportunity to meet the conditions of their loans. This is a good thing, despite the pressure from governments to increase lending. Responsible lending is the hallmark of sound banking.
It will take time for the economy to rebalance itself, though it is already recovering faster than many predicted in the early months of 2009. What is clear is that recovery does not mean going back to the way it was before the recession. We are seeing is a major correction of the economy and the industries and firms within it. When the next shoe drops – paying for all of the government actions to stimulate the economy – there will be further adjustments. We are likely to see a period of austerity before we see the return of the good times. This is why savings are growing and why the recovery will be slower than many hope for.
There are signs of the bears trampling around the Canadian economy. Manufacturing, especially in Ontario, continues to be troubling. Protectionism, which world leaders condemned at the April G20 summit, continues to grow and is impacting steel and lumber. Some industries face permanent structural change – the forest industries, car manufacture, technology and financial services. There are new regulatory and tax issues facing business – significant new restrictions and controls on banks and financial services, carbon taxation and environmental regulations, new reporting requirements, such as carbon footprint labeling or life-time tracking of animals in the food chain.
It is also likely that other actions of government, required to respond to their growing indebtedness, will have an impact on the economy. Cuts to government services and tax increases, labour disputes over contracts and a significant attempt to raise new funds in the bond markets will all take their toll on the economy. One key outcome of government action is likely to be inflation. The more bonds being sold to pay for the debts and deficits incurred in the attempt to “stimulate” the economies of the world, the more bond buyers will be able to demand better rates of return. As bond rates increase so do base rates and inflation follows. Interest rates for mortgages and borrowing will then rise. As this cycle continues, inflation occurs. Inflation will show or, worse, stall the recovery.
Another possible development is what is known as a jobless recovery. Companies have laid off workers to survive the recession. As the economy recovers and firms begin to see profits return, they realize that they can operate without having to incur the same labour costs they incurred during the 2007-8 boom. The unemployed remain jobless while companies grow. This is especially the case in some service sectors and in manufacturing. As some sectors consolidate – companies merge or acquire their rivals in an effort to grow their way out of difficulties – fewer jobs are required as duplication and inefficiencies are removed from the market.
Banks are cautious and need to continue to be cautious. They have some toxic assets on their books and need to restore their margins and manage their loan portfolios carefully. They should not be lending to people or businesses who have less than a strong opportunity to meet the conditions of their loans. This is a good thing, despite the pressure from governments to increase lending. Responsible lending is the hallmark of sound banking.
It will take time for the economy to rebalance itself, though it is already recovering faster than many predicted in the early months of 2009. What is clear is that recovery does not mean going back to the way it was before the recession. We are seeing is a major correction of the economy and the industries and firms within it. When the next shoe drops – paying for all of the government actions to stimulate the economy – there will be further adjustments. We are likely to see a period of austerity before we see the return of the good times. This is why savings are growing and why the recovery will be slower than many hope for.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What's Next for Labour ?
In late September, Gordon Brown will face the Labour Party in Conference in Brighton, England. The following week David Cameron will face the Conservative Party in Conference in Manchester. Both will be interesting events.
Gordon Brown has survived several attempted very British attempts to oust him as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party. He survived through a variety of means, including threats, bribery through the offering of positions and promises. The key promise he has made several times in his career is that he will be changed and chastened by “recent events”. The most recent event was the loss of a parliamentary seat in a by-election in Norwich. Formerly a safe Labour Seat with a 7,000 voter majority, it is now a Conservative seat with a 5,000 voter majority – a significant loss. Brown has again vowed to change. No one expects him to do anything different. He is a lost cause.
David Cameron, who was careful not to gloat over the Norwich victory, has won a lot of support for his commitment to increase taxes and reduce public expenditure by cutting programs. The strategy is simple: tell the truth about debt, deficit and excess in government and then offer to be the guide to a more responsible and austere future. He has already identified several ways to reduce the size of government – reducing the number of quasi-governmental organizations (Labour created over 1,000 of these since coming to office), reducing duplication and inefficiency and then cutting programs that do not enhance the quality of life or are not valued by their “customers”. There is a strong appetite for “responsible, lean government” and Cameron has become the champion of this message.
Labour continues to believe that the next election will be fought over a simple ideological battle. Labour will position itself as a caring government that will continue to invest in public services, while they brand the Conservative as a mean bunch of business men who are in in politics to line the pockets of their business friends. The Conservatives will label Labour as not working and is profligate in public spending. They will point to a slow recovery from recession, 20% unemployment for people aged 18-24 and the largest debt load since the end of the second world war and point to the facts. Provided no serious gaffes occur, the Conservative Party will form the next government.
In July, the Conservatives are some fifteen points ahead of Labour in the latest survey of voting intentions – a lead that would give them a 72 seat majority. Some polls have the Tory lead much stronger. The election will be held sometime between this coming October and May 2010. The Norwich by-election suggested that voters would show their distaste for politics by either not showing – less than 50% of voters participated in the election – or by voting strategically, including voting for “other parties”. In the most recent polls, Labour may have to fight for second place with the Liberal Democrats, who are just five points behind Labour.
A lot can happen in ten months – Harold Wilson, a former British Prime Minister, observed that “a week is a long time in politics”. There are likely to be events which will permit Gordon Brown to show his skills in making difficult decisions under pressure – as he showed on a number of occasions early in his Premiership. There will also be dangerous moments for David Cameron – a slip of the tongue, dissent within his party, a wrong-footed policy can all quickly create what has come to be known as “reverse momentum” or “slippage”. But the die is cast. It’s a
Conservative victory that is now theirs to loose.
One development could help Labour. If the European Union finally manages to secure its constitution – known as the Lisbon Treaty – after forcing the Irish to vote again and Tony Blair becomes the first President of the EU, then he would have a pulpit to support the ailing “New” Labour Party which he re-launched with Gordon Brown and Peter (now Lord) Mandelson in 1994. Blair is an eloquent, charismatic leader and could do much to revive the fortunes of the governing party in Britain. He would need to take care not to be seen to interfere, but there are ways in which this could be done.
But this is a long-shot. Brown is done and his party recognize that their days of power are numbered. A number of senior figures have already indicated that they will not be running in the next election and many others are looking at the back-benches as a place of respite from the tribulations of governance. Some are considering when to begin their run at the leadership, vacant already in all but name. Most of all, Labour politicians are settling their financial affairs and considering life after politics. Gordon Brown is probably polishing his resume. If he isn’t, he should be.
Gordon Brown has survived several attempted very British attempts to oust him as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party. He survived through a variety of means, including threats, bribery through the offering of positions and promises. The key promise he has made several times in his career is that he will be changed and chastened by “recent events”. The most recent event was the loss of a parliamentary seat in a by-election in Norwich. Formerly a safe Labour Seat with a 7,000 voter majority, it is now a Conservative seat with a 5,000 voter majority – a significant loss. Brown has again vowed to change. No one expects him to do anything different. He is a lost cause.
David Cameron, who was careful not to gloat over the Norwich victory, has won a lot of support for his commitment to increase taxes and reduce public expenditure by cutting programs. The strategy is simple: tell the truth about debt, deficit and excess in government and then offer to be the guide to a more responsible and austere future. He has already identified several ways to reduce the size of government – reducing the number of quasi-governmental organizations (Labour created over 1,000 of these since coming to office), reducing duplication and inefficiency and then cutting programs that do not enhance the quality of life or are not valued by their “customers”. There is a strong appetite for “responsible, lean government” and Cameron has become the champion of this message.
Labour continues to believe that the next election will be fought over a simple ideological battle. Labour will position itself as a caring government that will continue to invest in public services, while they brand the Conservative as a mean bunch of business men who are in in politics to line the pockets of their business friends. The Conservatives will label Labour as not working and is profligate in public spending. They will point to a slow recovery from recession, 20% unemployment for people aged 18-24 and the largest debt load since the end of the second world war and point to the facts. Provided no serious gaffes occur, the Conservative Party will form the next government.
In July, the Conservatives are some fifteen points ahead of Labour in the latest survey of voting intentions – a lead that would give them a 72 seat majority. Some polls have the Tory lead much stronger. The election will be held sometime between this coming October and May 2010. The Norwich by-election suggested that voters would show their distaste for politics by either not showing – less than 50% of voters participated in the election – or by voting strategically, including voting for “other parties”. In the most recent polls, Labour may have to fight for second place with the Liberal Democrats, who are just five points behind Labour.
A lot can happen in ten months – Harold Wilson, a former British Prime Minister, observed that “a week is a long time in politics”. There are likely to be events which will permit Gordon Brown to show his skills in making difficult decisions under pressure – as he showed on a number of occasions early in his Premiership. There will also be dangerous moments for David Cameron – a slip of the tongue, dissent within his party, a wrong-footed policy can all quickly create what has come to be known as “reverse momentum” or “slippage”. But the die is cast. It’s a
Conservative victory that is now theirs to loose.
One development could help Labour. If the European Union finally manages to secure its constitution – known as the Lisbon Treaty – after forcing the Irish to vote again and Tony Blair becomes the first President of the EU, then he would have a pulpit to support the ailing “New” Labour Party which he re-launched with Gordon Brown and Peter (now Lord) Mandelson in 1994. Blair is an eloquent, charismatic leader and could do much to revive the fortunes of the governing party in Britain. He would need to take care not to be seen to interfere, but there are ways in which this could be done.
But this is a long-shot. Brown is done and his party recognize that their days of power are numbered. A number of senior figures have already indicated that they will not be running in the next election and many others are looking at the back-benches as a place of respite from the tribulations of governance. Some are considering when to begin their run at the leadership, vacant already in all but name. Most of all, Labour politicians are settling their financial affairs and considering life after politics. Gordon Brown is probably polishing his resume. If he isn’t, he should be.
The Truth About the IPCC
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is seen by some as an independent, scientific body which provides objective analysis of the climate and offers predictions about the future – predictions which then inform government policies around the world. This perception, carefully fostered over many years, is false.
The IPCC is a political agency, directed by politically supported bureaucrats who selectively use science to promote a political agenda.
Let us outline how the IPCC works. First, a small select group of bureaucrats define the agenda for the work of the panel. The focus for this work has always been on the human causes of climate change – they have never been in the business of systematically reviewing all of the causes of climate variation. Second, having defined the agenda – in 1990, there were three lines of inquiry determined by the panel. For each agenda, a team of scientists are asked to coordinate a review of the available evidence. Each “chapter” is directed by a lead author, supported by a small group of five or six lead members. Some 2,500 people are involved in this work. While some are experts in their field, others are not. For example, in the 1996 report on health and climate, one lead author was an expert in the impact of motorcycle helmets on accidents rates. Some are environmental activists with no science background and others are scientists whose interest are narrowly defined and in line with the views of the lead author.
So, scientists review evidence and the lead authors shape this evidence into so-called scientific chapters. It is commonly said that 2,500 scientists wrote the last IPCC report. In fact, there wee 1,190 who contributed and not all of them were scientists – many were political appointments, environmental activists or individuals with a vested interest in the outcomes. The actual texts we read were written by 35 scientists and not all of those whose work they summarized agree with the summaries.
The document most people see and read – especially government officials and Ministers – is known as the Summary for Policy Makers. This document is not written by scientists but by bureaucrats, aided by lead authors. The draft of this document is submitted to UN member governments who can insist that changes be made. Scientists who write the bulk of the final report do not see these drafts and have no avenue to correct errors that creep in during this governmental review process. And errors and misrepresentations do occur. For example, the 2007 Summary for Policy Makers contains errors of substance, for example in the way it represents the threat of malaria resulting from climate change. There is also poor and shoddy work in several reports, including the discredited “hockey stick diagram”.
Many assume that the Summary for Policy Makers is a summary of the consensus view of the scientists who have chosen to associate themselves with the IPCC. It is not.
Indeed, several IPCC authors have resigned as a result of the Summary misrepresenting their views and the views of others. The Summary for Policy Makers is the consensus view of Governments who have a variety of socio-economic and political agendas.
It is also assumed that the IPCC makes predictions. It does not. What they do offer is a set of scenarios based on climate computer models which, as the IPCC themselves admit, are limited in their ability to model climate. These scenarios provide speculative views of the future, based on certain key assumptions. These assumptions do not include any weighting for human adaptability, any significant role of sunspots, the earth’s orbit and tilt and several other factors which are known to impact climate. They also give undue emphasis to certain phenomenon – CO2 emissions, for example – over others. The climate models are a work in progress. They are also flawed.
In Plimer, in his book Heaven and Earth, also cites examples of data being fabricated to support global warming alarmism by IPCC authors (see especially pages 481-483). In one cases, legal measures to secure access to the data had to be used so that the claims made by the IPCC authors could be subject to peer review. In this peer review, where the data was subject to scrutiny, the evidence showed that urbanization has a significant impact on temperature data – something the IPCC said was not the case. Integrity and normal scientific processes are not the norm in many IPCC supported studies.
A great many peer reviewed scientific studies contradict the IPCC’s view of climate, climate change and its consequences and these are summarized in the report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). The existence of these studies, and the different implications they give rise to for governments, speaks to the selective use of scientific work by the IPCC.
The view that the IPCC represents the consensus of science is not an established fact. The view that the IPCC is an independent science-driven body providing “neutral” evaluative assessments is a naïve view of the work of this United Nations governmental body. The view that this organization offers a thoroughgoing review of the current state of the science of climate change is contradicted by many different sources. The view that the IPCC uses process which are imbued with integrity and the best practices of science is laughable. We should see the IPCC for what it is – a politically motivated and supported UN organization.
The IPCC is a political agency, directed by politically supported bureaucrats who selectively use science to promote a political agenda.
Let us outline how the IPCC works. First, a small select group of bureaucrats define the agenda for the work of the panel. The focus for this work has always been on the human causes of climate change – they have never been in the business of systematically reviewing all of the causes of climate variation. Second, having defined the agenda – in 1990, there were three lines of inquiry determined by the panel. For each agenda, a team of scientists are asked to coordinate a review of the available evidence. Each “chapter” is directed by a lead author, supported by a small group of five or six lead members. Some 2,500 people are involved in this work. While some are experts in their field, others are not. For example, in the 1996 report on health and climate, one lead author was an expert in the impact of motorcycle helmets on accidents rates. Some are environmental activists with no science background and others are scientists whose interest are narrowly defined and in line with the views of the lead author.
So, scientists review evidence and the lead authors shape this evidence into so-called scientific chapters. It is commonly said that 2,500 scientists wrote the last IPCC report. In fact, there wee 1,190 who contributed and not all of them were scientists – many were political appointments, environmental activists or individuals with a vested interest in the outcomes. The actual texts we read were written by 35 scientists and not all of those whose work they summarized agree with the summaries.
The document most people see and read – especially government officials and Ministers – is known as the Summary for Policy Makers. This document is not written by scientists but by bureaucrats, aided by lead authors. The draft of this document is submitted to UN member governments who can insist that changes be made. Scientists who write the bulk of the final report do not see these drafts and have no avenue to correct errors that creep in during this governmental review process. And errors and misrepresentations do occur. For example, the 2007 Summary for Policy Makers contains errors of substance, for example in the way it represents the threat of malaria resulting from climate change. There is also poor and shoddy work in several reports, including the discredited “hockey stick diagram”.
Many assume that the Summary for Policy Makers is a summary of the consensus view of the scientists who have chosen to associate themselves with the IPCC. It is not.
Indeed, several IPCC authors have resigned as a result of the Summary misrepresenting their views and the views of others. The Summary for Policy Makers is the consensus view of Governments who have a variety of socio-economic and political agendas.
It is also assumed that the IPCC makes predictions. It does not. What they do offer is a set of scenarios based on climate computer models which, as the IPCC themselves admit, are limited in their ability to model climate. These scenarios provide speculative views of the future, based on certain key assumptions. These assumptions do not include any weighting for human adaptability, any significant role of sunspots, the earth’s orbit and tilt and several other factors which are known to impact climate. They also give undue emphasis to certain phenomenon – CO2 emissions, for example – over others. The climate models are a work in progress. They are also flawed.
In Plimer, in his book Heaven and Earth, also cites examples of data being fabricated to support global warming alarmism by IPCC authors (see especially pages 481-483). In one cases, legal measures to secure access to the data had to be used so that the claims made by the IPCC authors could be subject to peer review. In this peer review, where the data was subject to scrutiny, the evidence showed that urbanization has a significant impact on temperature data – something the IPCC said was not the case. Integrity and normal scientific processes are not the norm in many IPCC supported studies.
A great many peer reviewed scientific studies contradict the IPCC’s view of climate, climate change and its consequences and these are summarized in the report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). The existence of these studies, and the different implications they give rise to for governments, speaks to the selective use of scientific work by the IPCC.
The view that the IPCC represents the consensus of science is not an established fact. The view that the IPCC is an independent science-driven body providing “neutral” evaluative assessments is a naïve view of the work of this United Nations governmental body. The view that this organization offers a thoroughgoing review of the current state of the science of climate change is contradicted by many different sources. The view that the IPCC uses process which are imbued with integrity and the best practices of science is laughable. We should see the IPCC for what it is – a politically motivated and supported UN organization.
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