Quotulatiousness

October 20, 2012

Instead of electric cars, how about nitrogen-powered cars?

Filed under: Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:03

The Economist looks at the performance of electric cars, fuel-cell cars, and nitrogen-powered cars:

As long as its storage container is well insulated, liquid air can be kept at atmospheric pressure for long periods. But on exposure to room temperature, it will instantly boil and revert back to its gaseous state. In the process, it expands 700-fold — providing the wherewithal to operate a piston engine or a turbine.

Liquid nitrogen does an even better job. Being considerably denser than liquid air, it can store more energy per unit volume, allowing cars to travel further on a tankful of the stuff. Weight for weight, liquid nitrogen packs much the same energy as the lithium-ion batteries used in laptops, mobile phones and electric cars. In terms of performance and range, then, a nitrogen vehicle is similar to an electric vehicle rather than a conventional one.

The big difference is that a liquid-nitrogen car is likely to be considerably cheaper to build than an electric vehicle. For one thing, its engine does not have to cope with high temperatures — and could therefore be fabricated out of cheap alloys or even plastics.

For another, because it needs no bulky traction batteries, it would be lighter and cheaper still than an electric vehicle. At present, lithium-ion battery packs for electric vehicles cost between $500 and $600 a kilowatt-hour. The Nissan Leaf has 24 kilowatt-hours of capacity. At around $13,200, the batteries account for more than a third of the car’s $35,200 basic price. A nitrogen car with comparable range and performance could therefore sell for little more than half the price of an electric car.

A third advantage is that liquid nitrogen is a by-product of the industrial process for making liquid oxygen. Because there is four times as much nitrogen as oxygen in air, there is inevitably a glut of the stuff — so much so, liquid nitrogen sells in America for a tenth of the price of milk.

August 13, 2012

Did China peak in 2008?

Filed under: China, Economics, Environment — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:53

Walter Russell Mead wonders if the Chinese economy actually hit its peak in 2008 and will not be able to get back to that level of performance:

According to The Diplomat, the long term outlook is even more depressing. China will have to confront a series of structural challenges if it is to continue to achieve the kind of dynamic growth that lifted the country from economic backwater to emerging great power in just three decades.

The most obvious challenge is demographics. A RAND study observed that the proportion of the Chinese population of working age peaked in 2011 and began slowing this year. The share of the elderly population is rising. Healthcare and pension costs will soar as a result. So will labor costs. Investment and savings will diminish. In short, China may face the prospect, unknown in human history, of growing old before it gets rich.

The environment presents another dilemma. Like many rapidly industrializing economies, China sacrificed environmental protection at the altar of economic growth. But the effects of this approach have taken a toll: already, argues The Diplomat, ”Water and air pollution today cause 750,000 premature deaths and around 8 percent of GDP.” And as Via Meadia recently pointed out, the political costs of this approach are starting to mount as well. An outbreak of NIMBYism has forced many local officials to cancel major industrial projects as ordinary Chinese citizens demand an end to environmentally unsound development.

Of greater concern is that China has backed away from market reforms in the last decade and embraced a version of “state capitalism” that emphasizes the state far more than it does capitalism. But as state-run entities have become more powerful, their political backers — and financial beneficiaries — have an even greater stake in blocking attempts at reform.

H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, for the link.

August 2, 2012

The real reason behind the war on the humble plastic bag

Filed under: Environment, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:54

Tom Bailey explains that the reasons we’ve been given for the renewed attacks on plastic bags are not the real reason for the ongoing struggle:

Individually, a plastic bag weighs about eight grams. In total, we use about 10 billion of them a year, adding up to around 80,000 tonnes of plastic bags. A large number, perhaps, but not when compared with total municipal waste. The total amount of household waste produced each year is 29.6million tonnes. This means that plastic bags make up a mere 0.27 per cent of what we all throw away every year. This percentage would become even smaller if we were to include commercial and industrial waste in our calculations.

The total amount of oil used to produce plastic bags is also exaggerated, considering that most plastic bags are made using naphtha, a part of crude oil that isn’t used for much else and would probably be burnt away otherwise.

So what’s going on here? Why the panic about a simple little bag? The assault on plastic bags is really an assault on consumerism. There is a prevailing view among the green and mighty that consumerism is bad. It is portrayed as being a modern-day vice, devoid of meaning, something which atomises society, corrupting us through crude materialism and distracting us from more important issues.

Plastic bags are an outward reflection of the ease with which people can buy goods and take them home. People now have the disposable income to enter a shop unexpectedly and buy a load of stuff, and plastic bags mean they can rest assured they they will have the means to carry their purchases. How often do people returning home from work decide, on a whim, to make a quick stop at Tesco Express to buy a few items of food? How frequently, perhaps on a journey past Oxford Street, are we drawn into a sale by a piece of attractive clobber? Such nonchalant consumption would be made more difficult, perhaps more expensive, without shops’ provision of handy, free plastic bags.

I guess I must be a puppet of “Big Plastic”, as I’ve posted about this issue a few times already.

May 26, 2012

Reason.tv interviews Robert Zubrin

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

“We have never been in danger of running out of resources,” says Dr. Robert Zubrin, “but we have encountered considerable dangers from people who say we are running out of resources and who say that human activities need to be constrained.”

In his latest book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, Zubrin documents the history of dystopian environmentalism, from economic impairment inflicted by current global warming policies to the Malthusian concern over population growth. “Just think how much poorer we would be today if the world would have had half as many people in the 19th century as it actually did. You can get rid of Thomas Edison or Louis Pasteur, take your pick.”

Zubrin sat down with Reason Magazine Editor Matt Welch to discuss his book, the difference between practical and ideological environmentalism, and how U.S. foreign aid policy encourages population control.

April 22, 2012

Earth Day: 42 years of crying “wolf”

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Health, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

Peter Foster piles on the scorn for the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day:

For more than 40 years, Earth Day has both reflected genuine environmental concern and mirrored the UN’s attempted eco power grab. Sunday’s Earth Day comes two months ahead of the vast, but significantly brief, UN Rio+20 conference. Both are pale reflections of their original radical aspirations. Earth Day is still celebrated, but 42 years of crying wolf have inevitably had an effect. The event has also been corporatized, greenwashed and taken over by such announcements as that of the “50 sexiest environmentalists.” Rio+20 will represent the graveyard of aspirations for all prospective — and inevitably less sexy — Captains of Spaceship Earth, Global Saviours, and High Priests of Gaia.

That Earth Day has gone Happy Face, and Rio+20 will be a farce, reflects the fact that their apocalyptic assumptions have turned out to be so wrong. In Canada, as in other developed countries, we can celebrate significant improvements in air quality, and success in coping with industrial impacts on water. The Great Lakes have been cleaned up, forest cover has been maintained, and the amount of “protected” land doubled. The use of toxic chemicals in industrial production has been slashed. Some credit must obviously go to activism, but the more radical end of the movement has always had a lot more than just the environment in mind.

[. . .]

That misunderstandings and misrepresentations were at the root of radical environmental thinking was exemplifed by an “equation-of-doom” hatched in the 1970s by two prominent radicals, Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren (President Obama’s current senior science and technology advisor). The equation was I=P x A x T: Human Impact (I) equals Population (P) times Affluence (A) times Technology (T). The formula was vague, but it clearly suggested that population, wealth and technology were all “bad” for Mother Earth.

Such thinking was based on a primitive, static, zero-sum view of economic development and a demonization of business. Since resources were “finite,” all development was claimed by definition to be “unsustainable.” Advancing technology merely chewed up resources faster and accelerated us down the road to exhaustion. All this came with biblical overtones. On the first Earth Day, Prof. Ehrlich thundered that “In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.”

April 20, 2012

Building High Speed Rail won’t do much to cut carbon dioxide emissions

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:11

Brad Plumer at the Washington Post on the latest straw that high speed rail enthusiasts have been grabbing to justify their expensive toys:

… Brown’s administration has proposed using money raised by California’s new climate law. Under the state’s cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, power plants and factories will have to buy permits to pollute. Brown has suggested diverting this money into high-speed rail. But there are two problems here. For one, this might be illegal, as the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded on Tuesday. But second — and more broadly — high-speed rail turns out not to be the most effective use of money that’s meant to combat global warming.

Paul Druce at Reason & Rail offered up a few numbers on this topic last year. The California High Speed Rail Authority claims that by 2030, if the train ran entirely on renewable energy, then it would reduce the state’s carbon emissions by about 5.4 million metric tons a year. If you ignore all the energy used to build the system, that means the rail network would reduce California’s emissions at a cost of $12,506 per metric ton of carbon dioxide.

That’s a pricey way to cut carbon. To put this in perspective, research has suggested that you could plant 100 million acres of trees and reforest the United States for a cost of about $21 to $91 per ton of carbon dioxide. Alternatively, a study by Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley found that it would cost somewhere between $59 and $87 per ton of carbon dioxide to phase out coal power in the Western United States and replace it with solar, wind and geothermal. If reducing greenhouse gases is your goal, then there are much more cost-effective ways to do it than building a bullet train.

April 19, 2012

The Limits to Growth scorecard, 40 years on

Filed under: Books, Economics, Environment, Food, History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:00

Ronald Bailey tots up the hits and misses from that 1972 dystopia manual, The Limits to Growth:

Industrial development: World GDP stood in real 2010 dollars at about $19 trillion in 1972 and has tripled to $57 trillion today. Average per capita incomes rose in real dollars from $5,000 to $8,100 today. Just to explore how incomes might evolve between 1972 and 2000, the researchers simply extrapolated the current growth, investment, and population growth rates to calculate GDP per capita for 10 large countries. They stressed these were not “predictions” but added that if one disagreed then one was obligated to specify which factors changed, when and why. A comparison of their extrapolations with actual GDP per capita (in 2010 dollars) finds U.S. GDP per capita $56,000 versus actual $44,000; Japan’s per capita GDP was projected to be $120,000 versus actual $46,000; the now defunct USSR would be $33,000 versus Russia’s $2,200; and China’s per capita income was supposed to grow to $500, but was instead $1,200.

Population: The Limits researchers noted, “Unless there is a sharp rise in mortality, which mankind will strive mightily to avoid, we can look forward to a world population of around 7 billion persons in 30 more years.” In addition, they suggested that in 60 years there would be “four people in the world for everyone living today.” In fact, average global life expectancy rose from 60 to nearly 70 years. On the other hand, the global fertility rate (the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime) fell from about 6 per woman in 1970 to 2.8 today and continues to fall.

[. . .]

Food supplies: According to the data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, global food production has more than tripled since 1961, while world population has increased from 3 billion to 7 billion. This means that per capita food has increased by more than a third. The latest figures from the United Nations show that as world population increased by a bit over 10 percent between 2000 and 2009, global food production rose by 21 percent.

[. . .]

Nonrenewable resources: Probably the most notorious projections from the MIT computer model involved the future of nonrenewable resources. The researchers warned: “Given present resource consumption rates and the projected increase in these rates, the great majority of currently nonrenewable resources will be extremely expensive 100 years from now.” To emphasize the point they pointed out that “those resources with the shortest static reserve indices have already begun to increase.” For example, they noted that the price of mercury had increased 500 percent in the last 20 years and the price of lead was up 300 percent over the past 30 years. The advent of the “oil crises” of the 1970s lent some credibility to these projections.

To highlight how dire the situation with nonrenewable resources was, the MIT researchers calculated how quickly exponential consumption could deplete known reserves of various minerals and fossil fuels. Even if global consumption rates didn’t increase at all, the MIT modelers calculated 40 years ago that known world copper reserves would be entirely depleted in 36 years, lead in 26 years, mercury in 13 years, natural gas in 38 years, petroleum in 31 years, silver in 16 years, tin in 17 years, tungsten in 40 years, and zinc in 23 years. In other words, most of these nonrenewable resources would be entirely used up before the end of the 20th century.

[. . .]

Environment: In most of the Limits model runs, the ultimate factor that does humanity in is pollution. In their model pollution directly increases human death rates and also dramatically reduces food production. In fact, as the world economy has grown, global average life expectancy has increased from 52 years in 1960 to 70 years now. It must be acknowledged that globally, pollution from industrial and agricultural production continues to rise. But the model assumed that pollution would increase at exponential rates. However, many pollution trends have not increased exponentially in advanced countries.

Consider that since 1970, the U.S. economy has grown by 200 percent, yet the levels of air pollutants regulated by the federal government have fallen by nearly 60 percent. For example, in both the U.S. and the European Union sulfur dioxide emissions have dropped by nearly 70 percent since 1990. Recent data suggests that sulfur dioxide emissions even from rapidly industrializing China peaked in 2006 and have begun declining. Earlier studies cite evidence for a pollution turning point income threshold (purchasing power parity) of around $10,000 for demands to reduce this form of air pollution.

December 7, 2011

Beijing’s “smog blog” at the US Embassy

Filed under: China, Environment, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

The official line is that the smog in Beijing is merely inconvenient, while the US Embassy’s Twitter account sends out regular readings that conflict with the official story:

It was a contest over smog that was being fought across two social networks in two completely different languages between two contenders separated by the world’s biggest firewall. At stake was the authority to define “unhealthy air” and, as a result, to shape public perceptions and expectations.

On one side was an automated air quality monitoring station set up by the US embassy in Beijing that issues hourly updates via Twitter on the @beijingair account. It states the date, time, pollutions readings for ozone and PM2.5 and a terse English summary of the health implications. At 8am, it read “very unhealthy” — an improvement on the “hazardous” level of the previous day and the alarming “beyond index” of last Friday.

On the other side was the personal microblog of Du Shaozhong, the deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Administration, who has taken his passionate defence of the city’s policies onto China’s most influential website, Sina Weibo. One of his most recent posts read: “It is understandable if people hate bad weather, but venting your emotions is not helpful.”

September 14, 2011

Broken CFL? “The four-page document that followed read more like reactor-core meltdown protocols than simple reassurance”

Filed under: Environment, Health, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:49

As the compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) becomes the only readily available replacement for boring old incandescent bulbs, more people are discovering that cleanup after breaking a CFL is not child’s play:

Not long ago, Dan Perkins was in his New Haven home when his wife told him that she’d broken a lightbulb. She’d been cleaning in the attic bedroom of their seven-year-old son when she knocked over a lamp. The bulb, one of those twisty compact fluorescents, shattered onto the carpet next to their son’s bed.

Perkins, who draws the political comic This Modern World under the name Tom Tomorrow, was vaguely aware that a broken compact fluorescent bulb might be more problematic than a broken conventional incandescent.

“I knew that they had some mercury in them,” Perkins says. “That had been kind of a propaganda point for the right wing in the debate over bulb efficiency, so that was on my radar.”

To learn what kind of risk the broken bulb posed and what he ought to do about it, Perkins turned to Google, which sent him to a fact sheet put out by the Connecticut Department of Public Health entitled “Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: What to Do If a Bulb Breaks.”

“Stay calm,” the fact sheet instructed. But the four-page document that followed read more like reactor-core meltdown protocols than simple reassurance. It cautioned that small children, pregnant women, and pets should be sequestered from the breakage site and called for an immediate shutdown of any ventilation systems.

Here’s a post on the incandescent bulb ban and CFL breakage from earlier this year. Tom Kelley posted an informative comment to that post, addressing several issues including the energy efficiency of CFLs:

I don’t use enough of the CFLs to notice a difference in the electric bill, but in a straight-across, lumen for lumen, hour for hour comparison, these bulbs should lower one’s kW/hr electricity consumption (so says the Mythbusters tv show).

BUT, and this is a real big BUT, that does not translate into a reduction in the raw energy needed to create the electricity, due to a small detail known as “power factor.” While resistive loads like an incandescent bulb (typically) have a power factor of 1.0, the CFL bulbs have a 0.5 to 0.6 power factor rating, meaning that the CFL consumes as much as twice the raw “energy” (VA (Volt Amps) at the generator), as the electric meter measures in W (Watts).

So, one can go ahead and buy CFLs if one thinks the bulbs may lower one’s electric bill, but one should not be under any illusion that the CFLs are saving any consumption of coal, oil, gas, etc.

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.

April 12, 2011

Bolivia to pass laws giving “nature” equal rights with humans

Filed under: Americas, Environment, Law — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

I had to check the date on this Guardian article, just to be sure it wasn’t an April Fools’ Day posting:

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.

I don’t know where the government is planning on moving all the Bolivians, because just by occupying the country, they’ll be violating these new rights on a moment-to-moment basis.

January 24, 2011

Occasional repost: Be careful with those compact fluorescent bulbs

Filed under: Australia, Environment, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:59

Reposted from 2009, but still valuable information:

Andrew Bolt wonders why the Australian government — which has banned the sale of old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs — is not being more pro-active about handling and disposing of the replacement compact fluorescents:

Tens of thousands of Australians will next month be forced to buy these new greenhouse-friendly CFLs without the Government warning them that, unlike normal light bulbs, they contain mercury and are dangerous when broken. What’s more, they shouldn’t just be thrown out with the rubbish.

How many consumers know this?

How many of them have looked up the Environment Department’s website to find what its bureaucrats falsely describe as the “simple and straightforward” precautions to take against poisoning should one of these lamps smash:

– Open nearby windows and doors to allow the room to ventilate for 15 minutes before cleaning up the broken lamp. Do not leave on any air conditioning or heating equipment which could recirculate mercury vapours back into the room.

– Do not use a vacuum cleaner or broom on hard surfaces because this can spread the contents of the lamp and contaminate the cleaner. Instead scoop up broken material (e.g. using stiff paper or cardboard), if possible into a glass container which can be sealed with a metal lid.

– Use disposable rubber gloves rather than bare hands.

– Use a disposable brush to carefully sweep up the pieces.

– Use sticky tape and/or a damp cloth to wipe up any remaining glass fragments and/or powders.

– On carpets or fabrics, carefully remove as much glass and/or powdered material using a scoop and sticky tape; if vacuuming of the surface is needed to remove residual material, ensure that the vacuum bag is discarded or the canister is wiped thoroughly clean.

– Dispose of cleanup equipment (i.e. gloves, brush, damp paper) and sealed containers containing pieces of the broken lamp in your outside rubbish bin – never in your recycling bin.

– While not all of the recommended cleanup and disposal equipment described above may be available (particularly a suitably sealed glass container), it is important to emphasise that the transfer of the broken CFL and clean-up materials to an outside rubbish bin (preferably sealed) as soon as possible is the most effective way of reducing potential contamination of the indoor environment.

“Simple and straightforward”? Peter Garrett’s department not only deceives you about global warming, but about the ease of this useful “fix”.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to foresee a lot of lawsuits down the road, as the majority of folks who need to change lightbulbs won’t have read these instructions, and will try to handle them the same as the ordinary light bulbs they’ve used forever.

A more recent (May 2010) source indicates:

. . . 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.

January 12, 2011

Another eco-panic? Must be Wednesday, then.

Filed under: Britain, Environment, Government, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:27

James Delingpole falls for the latest cry of ecological doom:

The Zoological Society of London has drawn up a hit list of the 10 attractive coral species most likely to die quite soon. Well, of course it has. Nothing suits the ZSL’s spirit of misanthropy and catastrophism better than another mournful litany of all the species loss which is bound to occur as a result of mankind’s ongoing crime of having the temerity to exist.

Look: those of us on the other side of the argument like corals too. The difference is, we see them as something to celebrate and enjoy rather than things to be regarded solely through a prism of guilt, self-hatred and apocalyptic despair. Naturalists never used to talk this way. Until the Nazis — and, before them, the German romantics — started poisoning the wells, nature was something we could all happily appreciate without being made to feel by yet another eco-fascist that we were personally going to be the cause of its imminent demise.

If the ZSL wants to make a list of pretty corals, why can’t it just distribute it with facts about their habitats and their formation, maybe with lots of nice shiny pictures for us all to wonder at? Why must they lace their message with doom and misanthropy?

I suppose their excuse will be that these corals ARE endangered and that something must be done by YESTERDAY at the latest. But is this another of those overblown eco-panics in the manner of the floating island of plastic bags twice the size of Texas which in fact turned out to be 1/100th the size of Texas?

It’s an unfortunate fact that in order to get media attention to their cause du jour, the situation not only has to be defined as simply as possible, it also has to be positioned in such a way that the media want to get the message out. The easiest way to accomplish this is to go apocalyptic: doom, Doom, DOOM!

September 29, 2010

Austin Bay summarizes the demographic problems China is facing

Filed under: China, Economics, Environment — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:11

This is all old hat if you’ve been reading the blog for a while, but it’s always good to see a good summary of key points, like this list by Austin Bay:

Internal Disorder: China’s primary threat is not the United States, or any other foreign power, but internal disorder. There are more angry people in China every day, and the government knows that this could blossom into widespread uprisings. It has happened so many times before in Chinese history. Protesting factory workers are an indicator.

Corruption: Corruption is the biggest complaint among China’s discontented; government officials, who are more interested in enriching themselves than in taking care of “the people” are particular targets. Many of the demonstrations and labor disruptions are the result of corruption among local officials, including the police.

The Communications Dilemma: In 2007, Chinese Internet use grew to over 210 million users. Cell phones are also increasingly available. China is the world’s largest cell phone market. The Internet is an economic and educational tool. However, it also undermines an authoritarian government’s ability to control (deny and spin) information. China’s 2010 “war with Google.com” illustrated this dilemma.

Ethnic Minorities and Language: China has a population of 1.4 billion. Han Chinese (“ethnic Han”) constitute approximately 92 percent of China’s population. China also has 55 “minority nationalities,” however, amounting to 100 million people. The 2009 Uighur riots in Xinjiang province (western China) and resistance in Tibet are symptomatic of the problem. They are resisting “Hanicization.”

Pollution and Water: In early 2008, China began shutting down “high pollution” factories. The reason? To clear the air for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The growing wealth of the Chinese people is causing enormous pollution problems and water shortages. Effective pollution controls mean more expensive production methods. That makes Chinese goods less competitive.

The Marriage Gap: China’s “one child” policy crimped population growth, all right. More boys were born than girls; Chinese culture “favors” sons. As a result, there is a serious imbalance between men and women. In some places, there are 120 men per 100 women. Marriageable daughters are, reportedly, going largely to the upper social groups within each village or district. The sons of the poorest families are, to an extent, not finding wives. This is an indicator of future social trouble.

As I’ve said several times before, I’m not anti-Chinese: China has accomplished economic marvels in amazingly short time spans . . . but not without serious costs. Urban and coastal dwellers have benefitted disproportionally from the growth: rural and inland Chinese have suffered to provide the means for that growth. China is still not a free economy, and still represses dissent, imprisons critics, and controls far too much of the country’s economy both directly and indirectly. Corruption is rife, despite the savage punishment meted out to (some of) the (accused) perpetrators.

China’s miracle can’t continue for much longer unless the government starts to address these problems with the same kind of single-mindedness that they’ve brought to other problems. Introducing the rule of law would be an excellent first step, but it would directly challenge too many powerful men, some of whom (literally) have armies.

August 31, 2010

Commercial hypocrisy, oilsands edition

Filed under: Environment, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:03

Ezra Levant isn’t amused by some US businesses trying to make political statements by slagging Alberta’s oilsands while being less than clean themselves:

Walgreens is the largest pharmacy chain in the U.S.

It’s also corrupt.

For years, they secretly altered their customers’ prescriptions, without their doctor’s knowledge, in a giant insurance scam across 42 states. They targeted Medicaid, the program for low-income Americans. So they were stealing from taxpayers and the poor at the same time. That kind of big thinking is why Walgreens is number one.

Walgreens replaced inexpensive drugs with drugs that were up to four times more costly. Only when an honest pharmacist finally blew the whistle on them were they stopped — and fined a whopping $35 million.

Are you ready to take moral lessons from Walgreens? Because they’ve just announced that they’re switching their trucks to fuel that doesn’t come from Canada’s oilsands — as an ethical statement.

Taking ethical guidance from Walgreens is sort of like taking abstinence lessons from Hugh Hefner.

I’d call for a boycott of Walgreens, but they don’t have any stores in Canada (and, despite their name, they are no relation to Walmart).

But Walgreens isn’t the only moral hypocrite to come out against Canada. So did The Gap, which also owns Banana Republic and Old Navy.

Do yourself a favour: Don’t buy their clothes.

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