Quotulatiousness

September 7, 2011

A bit more on the Lacey Act

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Environment, India, Law, USA, Woodworking — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:53

The Economist has a brief mention of the Gibson raid:

Agents barged in and shut down production. They were hunting for ebony and rosewood which the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) alleges was imported from India in violation of the Lacey Act, a 1900 law originally designed to protect fauna from poachers. This law has metastasised: it now requires Americans, in essence, to abide by every plant and wildlife regulation set by any country on Earth. Not having heard of an obscure foreign rule is no defence. Violators face fines or even jail. FWS claims the ebony sent from India was mislabelled, and that Indian law forbids the export of unfinished ebony and rosewood.

[. . .]

Guitarists now worry that every time they cross a state border with their instrument, they will have to carry sheaves of documents proving that every part of it was legally sourced. Edward Grace, the deputy chief of the FWS’s office of law enforcement, says this fear is misplaced: “As a matter of longstanding practice,” he says, “investigators focus not on unknowing end consumers but on knowing actors transacting in larger volumes of product.” But Americans have been jailed for such things as importing lobsters in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran rule that Honduras no longer enforces. Small wonder pluckers are nervous.

Original report on the Gibson guitar raid here. Rules like the Lacey Act are tailor-made for petty bureaucrats to exercise immense amounts of judicially unsupervised power. It’s hard to believe that this kind of rule is being enforced evenhandedly, and rather easier to believe that it is being used selectively as a way of paying off scores, providing a “service” to certain firms at the expense of others, and creating lots of opportunities for bribes, “protection money”, and the like.

September 4, 2011

James Delingpole forced to offer an apology

Filed under: Britain, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:45

Yes, it’s true. Delingpole made an error in a recent column and has to make a full apology for the error:

It has been brought to my attention that this blog owes Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt. an apology. In a recent column entitled Green Jobs? Wot Green Jobs? (Pt 242), I carelessly suggested that Sir Reg — beloved dad of the famous environmentalist “Sam Cam”; distinguished father-in-law of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no less — is making nearly £1000 a week from the wind turbines on his estates.

The correct figure is, of course, nearly £1000 a day.

In other words, Sir Reginald is making the equivalent of roughly 1000 looted widescreen plasma TV screens every year from the eight 400 foot wind turbines now enhancing the view for miles around on his 3,000 acre Normanby Hall estate, near Scunthorpe.

There will be those who suggest that my mistake is a resigning matter. I do share their concern. However it is my view that if a journalist is going to resign on a point of principle these days, it has to be over something immeasurably trivial, rather than over something merely quite trivial. What I do nevertheless agree is that I owe Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt, an apology.

A big apology.

UK “will lose 2 to 3 per cent GDP a year for around 20 years” on renewable energy subsidies

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:01

A report in The Register says that the subsidies for green renewable energy will be a big net drain on the national economy:

The UK’s headlong rush into renewable energy — one ignored by the rest of the world — will hit British jobs and then general incomes, an economic study finds.

The report, The Myth of Green Jobs by economist Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, examines the long-term impacts of subsidising expensive “green” renewable energy projects. It says that if the UK continues to do so, it will lose 2 to 3 per cent GDP a year for around 20 years. If reducing CO2 emissions is your goal, says Hughes, your economy really can’t afford renewable energy.

[. . .]

“All forms of green energy tend to be substantially more expensive than conventional energy, so there is a trade-off between higher costs and lower emissions,” writes Hughes. “This trade-off is not specific to green energy, since there are many ways of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Hence, the starting point of any assessment of such programmes should be the total cost per tonne of carbon dioxide saved — or its equivalent — which will be incurred by relying upon different measures or policies to reduce emissions.”

September 2, 2011

Christopher Howse welcomes the new dark (ages)

Filed under: Environment, Europe, Humour, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:20

A welcoming column on the new “lights” of modern Europe:

Normally, to read a book, one turns on the light. I had thought of that, but the numerous light switches in the room only brought a dim glow from various lengths of compact fluorescent lamps, some shaped like paperclips, others coiled like something from the pavements of dog-loving Dijon. You could tell that they were switched on, but it was as if someone had given the lights several coats of opalescent lacquer. It almost seemed as if the lamps attracted light gravitationally from nearby parts of the room, which were consequently left in shadow.

[. . .]

Except for not emitting light, there is little wrong with the new energy-saving bulbs, apart from their causing night-time falls, triggering epilepsy and storing up deadly poisons. But we must expect to make little sacrifices to save energy.

All over Europe, people are tumbling down the stairs in the small hours, snapping their femurs like breadsticks when they venture out of their bedrooms, perhaps to go to the loo – it isn’t unknown. That is because the energy-saving bulbs in the landing light take time to warm up. Those who survive the nocturnal pitfall soon notice that the new kind of bulbs flicker. For some, this triggers migraine; for others, epileptic fits. For me, it merely induces nausea and a sensation that the room is moving backwards and forwards. So I should count my blessings.

As for the mercury that the energy-saving bulbs contain, I have always found it a most beautiful metal, aptly named quicksilver, shining like the moon. Certainly, the effects of mercury poisoning are no fun: shedding of skin, loss of teeth and hair, salivation, sweating and forgetfulness. Yet anxiety about such matters is soon dispelled by the FAQs on the Energy Saving Trust website. “Energy-saving bulbs contain only tiny traces of mercury,” it says soothingly. “Imagine a pellet smaller than the tip of a Biro.” Yes, I’ve imagined that. It sounds ideal for the tip of a blowpipe-arrow or a Bulgarian secret service umbrella.

So remember to be very careful when you dispose of these wonderful new high-tech devices.

     . . . each fluorescent light bulb contains about 5 milligrams of mercury. Though the amount is tiny, 5 milligrams of mercury is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

     Low level mercury exposure (under 5 milligrams) can cause tremors, mood shifts, sleeplessness, muscle fatigue, and headaches. High level or extended length exposure can lead to learning disabilities, altered personality, deafness, loss of memory, chromosomal damage, and nerve, brain, and kidney damage, as stated by the EPA. There is a particular risk to the nervous systems of unborn babies and young children.

H/T to Chris Greaves for the link.

Doubts about Britain’s next proposed high speed rail line

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:12

The Economist is usually pretty gung-ho about high speed rail development in general, so this article expressing some serious doubts is noteworthy:

Earlier this year the coalition government announced details of a £32 billion ($52 billion) super-fast railway line from London to Manchester and Leeds via Birmingham (see map). Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, claims it will be a “fast track” to prosperity. If the project goes ahead—and there is still, just, time to reconsider—the final route, and Stoke’s transport fate, will not be decided until 2012 at the earliest. The first trains won’t reach Birmingham until 2026, and Leeds and Manchester until 2032-3.

There are practical reasons to favour a new north-south line. Good infrastructure lasts a long time: Britain is still enjoying the fruits of Victorian railway investment. At some point in the next 20 years the existing west-coast main line will face a capacity crunch. Upgrading lines is disruptive and expensive, so constructing a new one appears sensible. The vision of a futuristic train scything across Britain at 250mph (400kph) is appealing.

But although the plan has cross-party support, the British public is not entirely convinced. Objections have so far focused on two concerns. First, the environmental damage, particularly to the Chilterns, an area of “outstanding natural beauty” and home to many well-off voters. Second, the business case for the line: the projected doubling of long-distance rail use by 2043 seems ambitious.

September 1, 2011

“It is rather amazing how fast Solyndra wasted over half a billion US taxpayer dollars”

Filed under: Environment, Government, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:34

Mike “Mish” Shedlock looks at the breakneck pace of loss at Solyndra, a solar power company that just went bankrupt:

The federal government should get out of the business of picking technology and “green” winners. Government backing of alternate energy companies has been nothing short of disastrous.

A solar energy firm touted by the administration in 2010 as a as a “gleaming example of green technology” today announced bankruptcy. 1,100+ employees will be fired.

[. . .]

The “seen” math is simple enough. $535 million divided by 1,100 is roughly $486,363 per job saved, now job lost.

That is just the “seen” consequence. The “unseen” consequences are not directly calculable but by giving Solyndra money, other companies that the free market would have preferred have been harmed, perhaps permanently harmed.

Although Obama clearly rushed this pathetic company for a nice photo-op, this is not a simple case of the president failing to do his homework as the GAO implies. The government has no business promoting this kind of crap in the first place.

In this case, it is rather amazing how fast Solyndra wasted over half a billion US taxpayer dollars, so fast I suspect fraud.

August 23, 2011

The value of computer models

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:06

Over the last several years, we’ve been bombarded with advice from climate scientists that in order to slow down global warming, we needed to abandon any hope of economic growth, as their models clearly showed that it was our growth that was causing increased temperatures around the world (except for the last ten years, somehow). In a case like this, we are assured that the models are (practically) infallible and that any delay in cutting our various emissions will invariably doom the planet to runaway temperature increases.

However, when we take the scientific community (or the more outspoken members thereof) at their word, and go with computer modelling, that’s dangerously irresponsible of us:

The current plan for Environment Canada is to monitor and measure less, and to rely more on modelling. Models are computer simulations based on scientific understanding that are applied to problems ranging from weather forecasting to economics. Models of complex systems can easily get it wrong, as the unanticipated economic collapse in 2008 revealed. This is not to say that models are not useful: in economics they give helpful guidance for investments and policy.

Models are, however, no substitute for measurements. No economist would suggest that we stop measuring economic performance, and neither should we abandon monitoring the environment in which we live. New data leads to better models and more accurate predictions.

H/T to Elizabeth for sending me the link and pointing out the models good/models bad case.

August 22, 2011

Ontario town of Goderich hit by tornado

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:46

One man died and nearly 40 others were reported injured in the Sunday tornado which devastated the historic town centre:

Environment Canada confirmed the Southwestern Ontario town was struck by either an F-2 or F-3 level tornado around 4 p.m. Sunday. The rating makes this the most powerful storm to strike Ontario since 1996, bringing winds of up to 300 km/h.

The one fatality, a 61-year-old man, was confirmed by officials as Norman Laberge of Lucknow, Ont. He had been working at a nearby salt mine when the tornado struck. Reports indicate he was working on a crane that collapsed during the storm.

Goderich’s historic square was hit directly by the storm and left completely ravaged. Several buildings had their roofs ripped off, numerous windows were shattered and a number of cars were tossed around. The downtown area, which has classic historic buildings, has been declared a “no-go” zone because of the severity of the damage.

July 22, 2011

The wine industry’s nemesis, Phylloxera vastatrix

Filed under: Environment, Europe, France, History, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:49

The Economist reviews a new book about the devastation to Europe’s wine makers caused by a tiny American invader:

These varieties are a reminder of the battle against phylloxera, a small, root-munching aphid that did incalculable damage to the wine business in the last 35 years of the 19th century. What George Gale, a philosophy professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, calls “the worst of all known invasive species disasters” swept across the viticultural landscape like a biblical plague. It destroyed vineyards from Rioja to Rheingau, Stellenbosch to Sicily. With good reason, Jules-Emile Planchon, the French botanist who helped to subdue the insect, dubbed it Phylloxera vastatrix.

[. . .]

In Europe, Gale’s research is no less assiduous. His coverage of the war between the largely Parisian scientific establishment, which believed that phylloxera was the effect, rather than the cause, of the devastation, and the so-called Américainistes of Montpellier and Bordeaux, who believed the opposite, is commendably detailed. The squabbling between the two sides stretched on into the 1880s, delaying the search for a solution.

Various remedies were proposed: flooding, planting on sandy soils and the use of carbon disulphide (a flammable, toxic chemical that was costly as well as tricky to apply). Growers then tried planting lower-quality American grapes, including Clinton and Noah, before switching, finally, to grafted vines combining phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks with European scions. This is still the practice in most of the world’s vineyards today.

Mark Lynas goes from green activist to “denier”

Filed under: Books, Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

Ben Pile reviews Mark Lynas’s new book:

Since becoming an advocate of genetic modification (GM) and nuclear power, Mark Lynas has drawn increasingly hostile criticism from his erstwhile comrades in the green movement. In turn, he has sharpened his criticism of environmentalists for their hostility to technological and economic development. In his new book, The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, he attempts to reformulate environmentalism to overcome the excesses that have so far prevented it from saving the planet. This book will no doubt provoke debate, but what is this transformation really about, and is it really based on new ideas or merely the revision of old ones?

[. . .]

As a result, there is much to agree with in The God Species. Most importantly, Lynas makes a clean break from deep ecology — the idea that ‘nature’ has intrinsic moral value and a ‘right’ to be protected from our ambitions. He rebukes the environmentalism that imagines a return to a pristine nature, and that shows contempt for development as an attempt to ‘play god’ over nature. We should ‘play god’, he says, for the planet’s sake as well as our own comfort. There is a convincing criticism of green demands for austerity and environmentalists’ unrealistic expectations that people should make do with ‘happiness’ rather than material progress. These are the conceits of well-off, middle-class and self-indulgent whingers, Lynas explains. Some of us have been making similar arguments for a very long time.

In spite of some of his accurate criticisms, Lynas fails to get to the substance of environmentalism. We do not find out what takes environmentalists to their bleak view of the world and their low view of humanity. This is a shame, because Lynas is in a unique position to reflect on it, having once thrust a custard pie into Bjorn Lomborg’s face, with the words: ‘That’s for everything you say about the environment which is complete bullshit. That’s for lying about climate change. That’s what you deserve for being smug about everything to do with the environment.’

A decade on, Lynas now emphasises science and pragmatism rather than… erm… pies. It’s worth remembering that Lomborg started out on mission similar to Lynas’s: as an environmentalist, keen to establish the sensible limits of our interaction with the natural world. Before writing The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg aimed to debunk the works of the economist, Julian Simon, but ended up sympathetic to many of his arguments. Lynas, too, now finds himself sympathetic to many of the ideas from the economic right (he calls for the privatisation of all publicly owned water companies, for instance). And like Lynas, Lomborg never ended up ‘denying’ climate change, but instead sought to bring a sense of proportion to the problem, and to put it into context with other problems in the world. That is all it takes to find oneself called a ‘denier’: merely seeking a sense of proportion about environmental problems will put you in the lowest moral category, as Lynas, the ‘Chernobyl death denier’, has now discovered.

July 20, 2011

UN contemplating “Green Helmet” climate peacekeping forces

Filed under: Environment, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:39

No, this isn’t taken from the pages of The Onion — the United Nations is seriously considering adding “climate change” to its peacekeeping portfolio:

A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.

Small island states, which could disappear beneath rising seas, are pushing the security council to intervene to combat the threat to their existence.

[. . .]

Wittig seems to agree, noting that UN peacekeepers have long intervened in areas beyond traditional conflicts.

“Repainting blue helmets into green might be a strong signal — but would dealing with the consequences of climate change — say in precarious regions – be really very different from the tasks the blue helmets already perform today?” he wrote.

In an official “Concept Note” ahead of the meeting, Germany said the security council needed to draw up scenarios for dealing with the affects of extreme temperatures and rising seas. How would the UN deal with climate refugees? How would it prevent conflicts in those parts of Africa and Asia which could face food shortages?

July 17, 2011

James Delingpole anticipates his heroic progress through Australia

Filed under: Australia, Economics, Environment, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:45

No, really:

Gosh I’m looking forward to visiting Australia later this year. And the reason I’m so excited — apart from the fact that I’ve never been before to the Land of the Taipan, the Sydney Funnel Web, the Box Jellyfish, the Saltwater Crocodile, and the Great White Shark — is that I know I’m going to be given a hero’s welcome.

After all, by the time I arrive in Oz sometime in November to promote the Aussie edition of Watermelons (Connor Court), the Australians will have had a good three months to reflect on the disasters which have been inflicted on their economy in the name of “combating climate change.” They’ll have noticed the $25 billion shaved off the share markets in a spectacular vote of investor confidence in Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s new carbon tax; they’ll have started to feel the effects of the blackouts caused by the needless (and uncosted) closure of 2000 mega watts worth of “dirty” brown coal power stations; and above all, they’ll have done their calculations — as the mighty Andrew Bolt has done — and come to a robust Aussie conclusion:

$24.5 billion is too bloody much, too bloody much by far, for Australia to pay for the privilege of reducing the world’s temperature, by 2020, by 1/4000th of a degree.

Yep, you read that aright. Australian Prime Minister Julia “Toast” Gillard has hit on the ingenious idea of clobbering one of the world’s most thriving — and also one of the most carbon-intensive — economies with a tax on one of its main industrial by-products, CO2, which will punish business, hamstring economic growth, boost unemployment and make life for everyone outside the enviro-rent-seeking professions more difficult and expensive. And all in order to achieve the wonderful goal of ensuring that by 2020 the world’s temperature will be altered with such refinement and subtlety that not even the most sophisticated measuring equipment yet devised is likely to notice the difference.

July 13, 2011

Expanding government-provided flood insurance?

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Government, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:42

It has always amazed me that the US government is the primary insurer for flood damage, but the idea of putting the few remaining private insurace companies out of business is insane:

The House of Representatives is scheduled this week, as early as today, to consider an extension and “reform” of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), administered by FEMA. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the NFIP has been about $18 billion in the hole. And this is from a program that only collects around $2 billion a year in premiums, which barely covers losses and expenses in a normal year. So make no mistake, the NFIP is still on course to cost the taxpayer billions more in the future.

Even before Katrina, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the NFIP was receiving a subsidy of close to a billion dollars a year. Under CBO’s optimistic projections, the House’s reform bill would increase NFIP revenues by about $4 billion over the next ten years, making only a small dent in the program’s current deficit.

If private insurers aren’t willing to offer insurance to people and businesses located on flood plains, isn’t that a strong indication that building a house or a plant on that location is a bad idea? Why should people who chose not to locate in risky locations be forced to subsidize the risk-taking of those who do?

Anonymous decides they’re against Ethical Oil

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:13

I guess all the popular targets have already been hit, so the rumour is that Anonymous is going to be going after companies working in the oilsands:

In related news, Anonymous said it planned to attack oil firms and banks supporting the controversial extraction of oil from sand in Alberta, Canada. Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil, and the Royal Bank of Scotland have been put on notice that they are likely to be targeted in Anonymous’ latest operation, dubbed Project Tarmageddon.

Anonymous began with attacks on the Church of Scientology in early 2008 before it made headline news last year with attacks on financial service firms that blocked donation to WikiLeaks following the release of controversial US diplomatic cables. Another long-running campaign has targeted entertainment industry firms that hassled file sharers or console modders, most notably Sony.

July 7, 2011

QotD: The United Nations has a master plan

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Government, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:13

What’s amazing about this stuff — and believe me, there’s plenty more where this came from — is the unblushing shamelessness with which it advocates this economic insanity. Here is the world’s most powerful intergovernmental institution essentially arguing for the destruction of the global economy, enforced rationing, Marxist wealth redistribution, greater regulation, the erosion of property rights and global governance by a new world order of technocrats and bureacrats. And being so upfront about it they actually issue press releases, telling us what they’re planning to do and encouraging us to write about it.

[. . .]

As economies grow richer, so they have more money to set aside for cleaner rivers, fresher air, as well as to invest in R & D projects for ever more eco-friendly forms of energy. It’s no coincidence that quite the worst environmental damage in the last century was done in those countries behind the Iron Curtain. Free market economies tend naturally to be cleaner and healthier because clean and healthy is what people choose anyway if they can afford it. They don’t need government to step in and take their money in order to spend it inefficiently trying to achieve something which would have happened quite naturally anyway.

What this ludicrous UN report is advocating is the exact opposite of what the world needs if it is to become genuinely greener. All those people in the developing world, if they’re to live healthier, less environmentally damaging lives the very last thing they need is hand-outs from richer economies. What they need is property rights and free trade and the chance to grow their economy to the point where — cf the Kuznets Curve — they can afford the luxury of having to breed fewer children and to heat and light their homes without having to chop down the nearest trees. What they also need for us in the rich West to have thriving economies in order that we can import more of their produce.

Rationing and limits to growth are not the answer. The UN is a menace and we listen to its eco-fascist ravings at our peril.

James Delingpole, “UN reveals its master plan for destruction of global economy”, The Telegraph, 2011-07-07

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