Quotulatiousness

March 31, 2012

Ross McKitrick: Earth Hour, a dissent

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Environment, History — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:26

I don’t observe Earth Hour, and Ross McKitrick explains some of the reasons far more eloquently than I can:

In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour.

Here is my response.

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.

Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.

Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.

Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity.

Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.

People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.

I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.

If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.

No thanks.

I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.

Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph

Botched investigation into GCHQ staff member’s mysterious death

Filed under: Britain, Government, Science, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:17

This sounds particularly bad:

Forensic investigators have apologized for the bungling of the inquiry into the mysterious death of a codebreaker employed by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

In August 2010, Gareth Williams, described as a mathematical genius by his peers and employed at GCHQ since leaving university, was found dead in his flat in London. Williams, who had recently qualified for deployment with MI6 — Britain’s version of the CIA — was found naked and partially decomposed in a sports bag that had been locked from the outside and placed in the bath.

In the pre-inquest hearing on Friday, the court heard that the investigation into Williams’ death had been botched from the start. LGS Forensics said that DNA found on Mr Williams’ body was investigated, but later turned out to have been transferred there from one of the forensic scientists investigating the death, and a search of the apartment turned up no clues as to his death.

March 30, 2012

Reason.tv: Remy explains health care mandates

Filed under: Economics, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:06

March 29, 2012

Ontario grape growers’ current worry

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:01

Michael Pinkus summarizes the situation for the grape growers in Ontario who supply our wineries with much of their fruit:

Just this past Monday grape growers and winery owners lost a few hours of sleep … and that condition will continue until at least May. What pray-tell has our wine industry shaking in its collective boots so badly that they are willing to forego their already mutilated sleep pattern. Well I can tell you it’s not the usual stuff like taxation, health care and wild cat airline strikes. It’s also not the more specific things that haunt the wine industry like the price of grapes, LCBO involvement and VQA regulations … nope the winery owners and grape growers are once again in fear of Mother Nature — more specifically her henchman: Jack Frost.

[. . .]

The latest recorded frost in Niagara-on-the-Lake — according to one growers records — is May 15 … frost would essentially kill off a large number of buds, thus killing the potential of a long growing season with lots of grapes to choose from. “It’s either going to be a beautiful full crop with lots of options, or if we get frost, we’re looking at a very short crop season,” one winery principal told me. For Ontario wine lovers we’d better hope Jack doesn’t decide to make a last appearance, or we’ll all be drinking Chilean and Australian for our 2012. It’s gonna be a scary couple of months … Welcome to Ontario grape growing.

March 28, 2012

Speaking of science, here’s a new development in “thermal cloaking”

Filed under: France, Science, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:42

Lewis Page at The Register walks us through the high points of a new development from France:

Top boffins in France have come up with a radical new take on the “cloaking” and invisible-shed physics breakthroughs of recent years. They have designed a technology which instead of bending microwaves or light can shield an object from heat — or concentrate heat upon it.

“Our key goal with this research was to control the way heat diffuses in a manner similar to those that have already been achieved for waves, such as light waves or sound waves,” says Sebastien Guenneau, of Aix-Marseille uni and France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CRNS).

“Heat isn’t a wave — it simply diffuses from hot to cold regions,” Guenneau adds. “The mathematics and physics at play are much different.”

For now designed only in two dimensions, Guenneau and his colleagues’ approach involved shaping isotherms — lines showing density of heat flux transferring from point — so as to make heat travel around a given area rather than into it.

“We can design a cloak so that heat diffuses around an invisibility region, which is then protected from heat. Or we can force heat to concentrate in a small volume, which will then heat up very rapidly,” Guenneau says.

Science and journalism, two flavours that have uneven results when mixed together

Filed under: Environment, Health, Media, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:54

James Randerson on the intersection between science and popular journalism:

Just to be clear, we are talking here about standard news stories based on a single journal paper — the science hack’s bread and butter. For me, the answer is straightforward. Of course a good science/health/environment journalist should read the paper if possible. It is the record of what the scientists actually did and what the peer reviewers have allowed them to claim (peer review is very far from perfect but it is at least some check on researchers boosting their conclusions).

Without seeing the paper you are at the mercy of press-release hype from overenthusiastic press officers or, worse, from the researchers themselves. Of course science journalists won’t have the expertise to spot some flaws, but they can get a sense of whether the methodology is robust — particularly for health-related papers.

In any case, very often the press release does not include all the information you will need for a story, and the paper can contain some hidden gems. Frequently the press release misses the real story.

The tricky question is whether you go ahead and write the story if you can’t get hold of the paper. I think a blanket ban would be going too far. Sometimes, it is not possible to get hold of the research paper in the time available.

I’m not scientifically trained, so the odd time when I post something with a link to a recent scientific paper, you can be pretty sure that I’ve only read the summary — but I’m not being paid to present my readers with scientific information. I’d expect professional science journalists to at least do a bit more due diligence than I expect bloggers to do…

March 26, 2012

I’ve thought this might be the case for years

Filed under: Environment, Health, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:13

So it’s nice to find that the science seems to be pointing in the same direction:

Maybe it’s okay to let your toddler lick the swing set and kiss the dog. A new mouse study suggests early exposure to microbes is essential for normal immune development, supporting the so-called “hygiene hypothesis” which states that lack of such exposure leads to an increased risk of autoimmune diseases. Specifically, the study found that early-life microbe exposure decreases the number of inflammatory immune cells in the lungs and colon, lowering susceptibility to asthma and inflammatory bowel diseases later in life.

The finding, published today (March 21) in Science, may help explain why there has been a rise in autoimmune diseases in sterile, antibiotic-saturated developed countries.

“There have been many clues that environmental factors, particularly microbiota, play a role in disease risk, but there’s very little information about when it’s critical for that exposure to take place,” said Jonathan Braun, chair of pathology and laboratory medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the research. “This is one of the most compelling observations to pin down that time frame.”

Debating “granny tax” and generational warfare

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Government, Health, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:38

In the Guardian, Patrick Collinson looks at the media’s response to the British government’s recent “granny tax” moves:

In case you missed every newspaper front page (the Telegraph went for “Granny tax hits 5m pensioners”, the Daily Mail said “Osborne picks the pockets of pensioners”, but Metro won with “Gran theft auto”), at issue is the decision to freeze and then scrap the higher personal allowances for people over 65.

But let’s first ask why people in retirement are awarded better income tax breaks than those who are working? There was a fascinating analysis in the Financial Times last weekend of the economically “jinxed generation” — and they’re not pensioners. It found that today’s adults in their 20s will be the first generation who won’t be better off than their parents. What’s more, the disposable income of people in their 60s is now higher than people in their 20s, for the first time ever. We’ve created a society where the non-working retired earn more than working people — and that’s before adding up the largely unearned wealth tied up in the houses of those in their 60s.

It wasn’t like this when the welfare state started. Before the second world war, retirement was for most people short and miserable. It was entirely right that as a rich society we found a way to improve the lot of the elderly with better state pensions and free healthcare. Along the way, we added better personal allowances, fuel payments, free bus passes, free TV licences, free prescriptions and so on.

March 25, 2012

Reason.tv: 3 Reasons to End Obamacare Before it Begins!

Filed under: Economics, Government, Health, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:36

March 24, 2012

“When you change the meaning of words to suit your purposes, you can ‘prove’ anything”

Filed under: Britain, Health, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:17

Sam Bowman discusses the injustice of minimum alcohol pricing at the Adam Smith Institute blog:

I’ve struggled to write something about minimum alcohol pricing today. It’s a hugely important issue, and one I care deeply about. But I can’t help but be angry at the people who’ve proposed it, and the government made up of supposed “conservatives” and “liberals” who plan on implementing it. It’s anti-individualism at its worst.

The “evidence-based” arguments made for minimum alcohol pricing are, in fact, based on distortion and bad science. The policy is paternalistic, indiscriminate, and only hits people who are frugal or on lower incomes. Slippery slope arguments are common, for good reason. But they’re especially appropriate here.

The idea that there should be a price floor for alcohol is well-loved by public health types, and often supported unthinkingly by middle class voters, often due to the media coverage of “binge drinking” among the young. It disproportionally hurts the poor, by increasing the cost of buying the cheapest forms of alcohol (which the poor are more likely to buy). To many, this is seen as a feature rather than a bug, as they assume that it will act to decrease alcohol consumption. Instead, it’s more likely to force poor drinkers to pay less for other things (like food and clothing) and will not measurably decrease alcohol consumption — how is it compassionate to make poor people even more poor?

The politics of this are straightforward but effective: target the most marginal, “problem” group – in this case, binge drinkers – with a low minimum price to pass an apparently-trivial law.

[. . .]

The justifications for this are completely, utterly bogus. Britain does not have a drinking problem: as ASI fellow Chris Snowdon has pointed out, we drink less today than ten years ago, less than a hundred years ago, and far less than we did before that.

Internationally, we are in the middle of the table in the European rankings, behind France, Germany and Spain, and far behind the Czech Republic and Luxemburg.

But what about binge drinking? In fact, the definition of “binge drinking” has been warped beyond all recognition. Four pints in a day counts as a “binge” for an adult man, according to official definitions. A woman drinking three standard (175ml) glasses of wine is “binging” as well.

As Chris points out, the number of diseases defined as “alcohol related” has tripled in the last 25 years. When you change the meaning of words to suit your purposes, you can “prove” anything.

March 23, 2012

New evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was not local to Europe

Filed under: Environment, History, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:25

AntarcticaLewis Page summarizes some recent findings published in the peer-reviewed Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal:

More peer-reviewed science contradicting the warming-alarmist “scientific consensus” was announced yesterday, as a new study shows that the well-documented warm period which took place in medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere: it reached all the way to Antarctica.

The research involved the development of a new means of assessing past temperatures, to add to existing methods such as tree ring analysis and ice cores. In this study, scientists analysed samples of a crystal called ikaite, which forms in cold waters.

[. . .]

A proper temperature record for Antarctica is particularly interesting, as it illuminates one of the main debates in global-warming/climate-change: namely, were the so-called Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age merely regional, or were they global events? The medieval warmup experienced by northern Europeans from say 900AD to 1250AD seems to have been at least as hot as anything seen in the industrial era. If it was worldwide in extent that would strongly suggest that global warming may just be something that happens from time to time, not something caused by miniscule concentrations of CO2 (the atmosphere is 0.04 per cent CO2 right now; this figure might climb to 0.07 per cent in the medium term).

March 21, 2012

Learn another language to boost your intelligence

Filed under: Cancon, Education, Health — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:32

My son bitterly resented being sent to French Immersion after kindergarten (many of his friends were not entering FI and he wanted to stay with them), but recent studies back up our decision:

Most people would already describe someone who knows multiple languages as a smart person, but there’s new research that shows learning and knowing more than one language can have a deeper impact on the way your brain works than previously believed. In reality, people who know multiple languages are able to monitor their surroundings better and switch between mental tasks faster, and those benefits extend from the early years to old age — and you can harness them even later in life by picking up a new language.

In its examination of the topic, the New York Times points to a trio of studies, one from 2004 and published in the journal Developmental Science from researchers at the York University Department of Psychology that indicated bilingual individuals are more adept at certain mental challenges and tasks than people who only know one language.

However, it’s still true that the best time to learn a second language is early in life.

Converting teachers into pre-grief counsellors

Filed under: Britain, Education, Health, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:51

Dennis Hayes on the recent trend in teaching: preventing children from having “best friends” because the emotional pain of losing a best friend is too much for kids to bear.

In some English schools, having best friends can now get you in serious trouble with teacher. At the weekend, it was reported that primary school children in certain areas are being discouraged from having best friends to avoid the ‘pain of falling out’. Gaynor Sbuttoni, an educational psychologist working with schools in south-west London, told The Sunday Times, ‘I have noticed that teachers tell children they shouldn’t have a best friend and that everyone should play together… They’re doing it because they want to save the child the pain of splitting up from their best friend.’ Sbuttoni is not the first to speak out against this trend in the UK, and ‘no best friend’ policies have been in place in some US schools for quite a while.

Reading the reports, it might seem like this is just a silly intervention by meddling teachers, which simply needs to be stamped out. But that underestimates what is going on in our schools. The teaching profession is being reformed as a therapeutic profession, often prioritising the delivery of therapy over education to ‘vulnerable’ children and young people. As this new therapeutic profession develops, more and more interventions like ‘no best friends’ will arise, either spontaneously in classrooms or as a result of conscious intervention by school heads, local authorities, government and, of course, Ofsted, which runs with every fad and fashion.

Meddling in young children’s emotional lives is the worst feature of contemporary schooling. Children are now trained to have ‘appropriate’ emotions through emotional literacy classes and so-called subjects like SEAL — the ‘Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning’. The training on offer in such sessions is nothing short of emotional manipulation. Children are taught to be moderate; empathy is good, anger is bad. They are taught to be emotionally dead, out of touch with all the emotions that make up human relationships, passion, anger, jealousy, hatred and even love, which is sentimentalised and sanitised. This is the anodyne therapeutic ethos that now dominates education at all levels.

March 20, 2012

New Zealand facing “Marmageddon”

Filed under: Australia, Food, Health, Pacific, Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Oh, the Marmanity!

An announcement by New Zealand’s leading manufacturer of the black sandwich spread, Marmite, has sparked “marmageddon” fears among Kiwis.

Food company Sanitarium said on its website that supplies “are starting to run out nationwide” after “our Christchurch factory was closed due to earthquake damage”.

Even Prime Minister John Key said he is rationing his personal supply.

[. . .]

“Supplies are starting to run out nationwide, and across the ditch in Australia. We know that we will be off shelf for sometime but we are doing everything we can to minimise how long,” the company said.

“Don’t freak. We will be back soon!”

Of course, the announcement set off a buying-and-hoarding frenzy, making the situation all the more dire. But not to worry: supply and demand has already set in — prices are rising to help even out the distribution of the remaining stocks.

Australian billionaire claims Greenpeace accepts CIA funding to fight coal exports

Filed under: Australia, Economics, Environment, Pacific, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:41

Australian bush hats can apparently be made of tinfoil:

Australian Mining Magnate Clive Palmer has declared the CIA is behind a Greenpeace campaign that aims to slow the growth of Australia’s export coal industry.

[. . .]

The Greenpeace campaign centres on a document titled Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom (PDF) which explicitly states that “Our strategy is to ‘disrupt and delay’ key projects and infrastructure while gradually eroding public and political support for the industry and continually building the power of the movement to win more.” Greenpeace hopes to do so in order to build support for fuels other than coal, in order to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions.

The Greenpeace document says it is “… based on extensive research into the Australian coal industry, made possible by the generous support of the Rockefeller Family Fund.”

That statement is Palmer’s smoking gun, as he said at an event today, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Commission and other outlets, that “You only have to go back and read the Church Report in the 1970s and to read the reports to the US Congress which sets up the Rockefeller Foundation as a conduit of CIA funding.”

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