I had a typically nightmarish journey into London yesterday after the Bank Holiday. I arrived at Ipswich station to discover that all the trains were stationary (they had nowhere to go) and were running hours behind schedule. The wonderfully unhelpful announcements just said, "passengers for London are advised not to travel today". No replacement bus services were offered. I wasn’t surprised: I can't remember the last time I had a post-weekend commute that wasn't disrupted by overrunning engineering works, signal failures, or some other problem.
The thing is, everyone blames the train companies (i.e. the privatized rail operators) for these sorts of problems. Yet it is actually Network Rail (the renationalized version of Railtrack) that is to blame. And the trouble with Network Rail is that it just isn't accountable to consumers. The only thing Network Rail are accountable to is the Rail Regulator – which is set to fine them £14 million for the mess they made in the New Year, when everyone was trying to get back to work. However, this is a particularly imperfect kind of accountability – it doesn't amount to much more than the government claiming back part of its subsidy whenever things go seriously wrong.
I'm increasingly coming around to the view Iain Murray expressed in this ASI paper, No Way to Run a Railway, that the railways should be vertically re-integrated. That would mean the train companies would take over responsibility for the track, rolling stock and stations in their networks. That would certainly strengthen accountability to customers and increase co-ordination between maintenance and transport (Network Rail did not even tell National Express East Anglia what was going on yesterday). It might also create greater incentives for private sector investment in the railway as well.
P.S. If anyone is interested in questioning the rail regulator, Bill Emery, he's doing an ASI Power Lunch on May 27. Contact Steve (steve@old.adamsmith.org or 020 7222 4995) to request an invitation.
71. "Business is polluting the environment, which we should all enjoy, just for the benefit of the rich."
Most people pollute the environment. Some do it with sewage, some with the smoke from fires or the fumes from petrol or diesel engines. Business which uses energy tends to pollute, and manufacturing tends to pollute more than service industries. For that matter, older industries tend to pollute more than the newer, high tech ones. It is not for the benefit of the rich, but in order that the products can be cheaper that a certain amount of pollution is tolerated.
Production could be totally clean, but it would make goods much more expensive if the clean-up costs were added to production. The rich would be relatively unaffected by this, and the poor would suffer most. Society has to balance the cost of a totally unaffected environment against the cost of producing necessary goods.
Even nature pollutes, with forest fires and natural contamination of air and water. A certain degree of pollution is tolerable in the sense that it lies within the regenerative capacity of the environment. As society grows richer, as a result of wealth-creating enterprise, it becomes more able to afford the luxury of a cleaner environment, and is able to insist on cleaner methods of production. One reason why less developed countries are taking a larger share of manufacturing is that for them, the advantages of prosperity outweigh the costs of pollution.
A clean environment is not something which costs the rich money; it costs everyone money in the increased cost of industrial processes, and the higher prices which have to be charged. As countries grow richer they become more able to afford that price and to produce cleanly. Although some urge us to cut back economic growth to secure a cleaner environment, it is only by becoming richer that more people will be able to afford a clean environment.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, which took place from March 2-4 in New York City, changed the momentum of man-made climate change scepticism. The groundbreaking event at Times Square, with 100 scientists and more than 500 attendees, exposed what were described as "absolute horror stories" with biased reporting, even in scientific journals. Science journalists were accused of "outrageous and unethical behaviour" with regard to the censoring or suppressing critical studies on climate research.
Among the many speakers in New York, three leading scientists presented solid, dramatic and verified new material completely refuting the myth that climate change was caused by mankind's production of carbon dioxide... The number of scientists attending the conference apparently well exceeded the number involved in the IPCC process... I felt touched by 100 scientists with the courage to put their convictions in writing to the United Nations' Bali climate summit. The scientists from 17 nations include internationally eminent climatologists – and authors of the scientific report prepared for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) including some IPCC Lead Authors.
A new 'Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change' was initiated stating "that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life." Senator Inhofe’s register, put together by the USA Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, already contains more than 500 scientists who previously endorsed the IPCC views but have meanwhile changed their mind. The sceptics have reached a consensus on four key points:
1) The Earth is currently well within natural climate variability. 2) Almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions. 3) An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears and, 4) "Consensus" has been manufactured for political, not scientific purposes.
Contrary to expectations the media coverage was excellent – that’s the new momentum.
The UK government wants to ensure that all new fossil fuel plants are prepared for carbon capture. The plan was announced by business secretary John Hutton (pictured) at a packed Adam Smith Institute conference on The Future of Utilities this week. Much to the dismay of the enviro-lobbyists present, Hutton also confirmed that the government was sticking with its plans to boost clean coal technology.
"Fossil fuels will continue to play an important role in ensuring the flexibility of the electricity generation system," Hutton told us. "Electricity demand fluctuates continually, but the fluctuations can be very pronounced during winter, requiring rapid short-term increases in production. Neither wind nor nuclear can fulfil this role. We therefore will continue to need this back up from fossil fuels, with coal a key source of that flexibility,"
Ah well, the penny seems to have dropped there, at least. And it continues: the government has already declared its support for new nuclear power to replace (or even expand) the 20 percent or so of electricity generation that currently comes from Britain's elderly reactors. Which makes sense, given that the government is trying to balance the need for secure energy with its commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions (by 60 percent from 1990 levels, by 2050).
The ASI's latest publication, The Waste of Nations by Gordon Hector (reported here in the Daily Telegraph), calls for the introduction of pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste charges as the best way to encourage less waste and more recycling. Research from the US suggests a move to PAYT would reduce landfill by 16-17 percent, increase recycling by 50 percent, and lead to a source reduction in waste of around 16 percent. That would reduce the need for unpopular landfill sites and incinerators and could prompt emissions savings of millions of tonnes a year.
Importantly, the report stresses that PAYT must not be used as a 'bin tax' and that its introduction must be accompanied by a corresponding fall in council tax. Evidence from Holland, Ireland and Germany suggests that PAYT would not increase household bills – rather, it would offer an opportunity to reduce them.
The report also calls for the full liberalization of the refuse collection sector, so that private companies would have to compete for customers. Such a move would keep prices down and increase customer satisfaction. It would also lead to innovation and encourage refuse collectors to recycle more waste.
The final section of the report argues that recycling should be put on a commercial footing. Recycling facilities and providers should be allowed to merge and consolidate, and the free movement and trade of recyclables should be established. This would allow economies of scale to be established, bringing down the cost of recycling and recycled goods, and ensuring a market for commercially viable businesses in the long run.
In recent days, the government has pulled back from its earlier plans to hold widespread trials of PAYT. But the reason the government's proposals for variable waste charging have run into widespread opposition is that they are half-baked and ill thought out, relying on 'punishing' people who don't recycle. The proposals outlined in The Waste of Nations are very different: liberalizing refuse collection and introducing pay-as-you-throw charging would dramatically increase recycling and help the environment, but it would also be an opportunity to reduce taxes, save money, and increase the quality of a vital service.
It is not well known that wind energy is less environmental friendly than most people like to believe. Not only are lovely views and unspoilt landscapes destroyed. More important is the death toll on some of the world's most precious and protected birds.
The problem is that the same locations that make wind turbines profitable, those were the wind blows strong and steadily, tend to be the major flyways of migratory birds. Sometimes they even attract birds with rats and other rodents, which use the turbine basis to build their nests. At one of these places at Altamont Pass in California, where thousands of wind mills have been installed, a lawsuit by the Golden Gate Audubon Society succeeded a year ago with a settlement aiming to reduce the number of bird deaths. But after a year scientist are reporting the measures failed.
In the lawsuit, environmentalists cited a 2004 California Energy Commission report estimating between 1,766 and 4,721 birds were killed by Altamont wind turbines each year, equalling 47,682 to 127,467 birds over the 27-year life of the wind farm. The Audubon Society…noted among the birds deaths are between 456 and 1,129 raptors and other birds at approximately the same pace as before the settlement.
Romantic environmentalists like to evoke pictures of smooth running wind mills of the past but in fact they have developed into disgusting meat processing engines with unreliable and uneconomic energy output. The revival of wind mills is ill conceived and generates ideologically driven products which the market had already rejected many centuries ago for a good reason .
So: Marks & Spencer says that it is going to make a 5p charge for plastic bags in its food stores. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is getting on the bandwagon, with a speech suggesting that such schemes should be compulsory. Two more examples of high-profile PR preening.
It's true that Britain's supermarkets use billions of plastic bags. Tesco alone dishes out about three billion of them each year (though they do give you a discount if you bring your own). But maybe you hadn't noticed – plastic shopping bags are incredibly thin these days. They actually take up far less landfill space than the waste food we throw out.
Indeed, go to developing countries – or remember back in the UK just a few decades – and look in people's dustbins. They're not full of packaging, like ours, but they're full. They're full of potato peelings, orange skins and much else that in the UK is recycled for animal feed and other useful purposes, without being transported to and thrown out by consumers.
I'd guess that plastic supermarket bags account for less than a hundredth of a percent of the UK's carbon emissions. It's things like cars and home heating that cause the damage. Mind you, on any realistic assessment, UK motorists pay many times more in taxes on their fuel than any damage that their driving causes the environment. While energy (even with oil at $100 a barrel) is sufficiently cheap that most ways of insulating your home wouldn't pay you back for
decades.
So the Prime Minister's down on bags. It's gesture politics. More laws to curb free people, and more regulators and enviro-cops to burden the taxpayer. This policy should be wrapped up and thrown out.
Is the drive to biofuels prejudicing the food supply of the world's poorest people? That was the question addressed by Michael Jack MP, Chairman of the House of Commons Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, at an Adam Smith Institute Power Lunch in Westminster this week.
He pointed out that billions of the world's population live on less than $2 a day, but when people start to earn more than that, say up to $10 a day, their consumption of agricultural products increases – not surprisingly, perhaps. And the fact that increasing numbers of people are at last pulling themselves over that $2 threshold is the main reason why we are experiencing a huge increase in world food demand. Indeed, it's expected to double in just a few years.
Meanwhile, of course, there is concern about environmental issues. As in Brazil: wider agriculture can help satisfy food demand, but if it involved cutting down rainforest trees, a lot of people get worried. It's a paradox. Perhaps the clearest manifestation of it, in my view, is the US government subsidy programme which has prompted 20% of US maize production to go into the production of the biofuel ethanol. That (together with some rotten harvests in Australia) has raised food-maize prices, which in turn led to riots in Mexico, a poor country which is highly dependent on the crop for its staple foods.
It gets worse. Farmers use 70% of the world's fresh water, so if we are to meet the rapid rise in food demand, that resource too will be put under strain.
I'm not sure there are any instant answers to such paradoxes. But I am sure that relying on the market is better than relying on governments. People complain that food, water, oil, gas and so on are all getting more expensive to produce as world demand for them increases. I'd say that's a problem for us all in the short term, but just fine in the long term. The rise in prices will prompt people to use these scarce resources more carefully, look at new ways of producing them, or move to substitutes where they can. It will bring forward new technologies like GM crops and the next generation of cleaner nuclear power. Wait for government schemes to produce these changes, and you'll be waiting a long time.
Kit Malthouse had a fascinating article in The Times on Tuesday, urging us make greater use of the tunnels under London. A couple of the most appealing ideas in the piece were as follows:
We could, for instance, drop the dual carriageway that currently blights the north side of the Thames into a tunnel below, replacing it with a four-mile long riverside park from Blackfriars to Battersea Bridge. Bypassing Parliament Square at the same time would allow it to be pedestrianised on two sides.
Similarly a tunnel could take traffic from the Edgware Road under Hyde Park and the gardens of Buckingham Palace and allow it to emerge south of Victoria station, where most of it is heading in any event.
The entire Hyde Park Corner interchange could be dropped below ground, and the three great parks of Central London could be united. You could walk from Parliament Square to Queensway, about three miles, without crossing a road. Park Lane would be freed up for redevelopment, and a grand new public square could be created at Marble Arch.
Malthouse's ideas sound good to me. As usual though, the ASI was there first. As we said in our 1994 publication 20-20 Vision:
There are many tunnels under London, and even Underground stations, obsolete for existing use. It should be one of our priorities to investigate how many of these tunnels could be restored and extended for use as urban tollways. They would offer motorists the opportunity to cross under London at various points, paying a toll to miss some of the surface congestion.
It seems the likelihood is growing that the Green-House-Gas (GHG) alarmists' political lobbying may result in final overkill. One of the more serious indications of this is the defection of big business, who had previously sought new opportunities in eco-business but not expected stubborn fundamentalism.
With eco-lobbyists raising the carbon cut targets relentlessly, investment in the mitigation industry looks increasingly risky or outright futile. That’s why even some of the most committed international companies behind the scenes are looking for alternatives to mitigation. When ten of the largest US companies and four environmental groups had formed the U.S. Climate Change Partnership (USCAP) early last year it “was seen as a watershed in corporate environmentalism.” Now it seems some of these are getting disenchanted and place investments in policies that clearly undermine carbon cutting efforts:
Three high-profile USCAP members—General Electric, Caterpillar (CAT), and Alcoa (AA)—also sit on the board of the Center for Energy & Economic Development (CEED), an Alexandria (Va.) group formed in 1992 that opposes regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions. In April, 2007, CEED's board unanimously signed a position paper that, in part, described as "draconian" one federal climate bill that would require a 65% reduction in emissions by 2050.
Too much politicization, as has been the case in global warming regulation stampede, rarely pays off:
Other business groups are also stepping up opposition to global warming regulations. At the end of 2007, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a television commercial that lampooned carbon reductions, depicting a family sleeping in full winter garb, a man cooking eggs over candles, and people jogging to work in business suits, while the narrator intoned: "Climate legislation being considered by Congress could make it too expensive to heat our homes, power our lives, and drive our cars."
I had a typically nightmarish journey into London yesterday after the Bank Holiday. I arrived at Ipswich station to discover that all the trains were stationary (they had nowhere to go) and were running hours behind schedule. The wonderfully unhelpful announcements just said, "passengers for London are advised not to travel today". No replacement bus services were offered. I wasn’t surprised: I can't remember the last time I had a post-weekend commute that wasn't disrupted by overrunning engineering works, signal failures, or some other problem.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, which took place from March 2-4 in New York City, changed the momentum of man-made climate change scepticism. The groundbreaking event at Times Square, with 100 scientists and more than 500 attendees, exposed what were described as "absolute horror stories" with biased reporting, even in scientific journals. Science journalists were accused of "outrageous and unethical behaviour" with regard to the censoring or suppressing critical studies on climate research.
The UK government wants to ensure that all new fossil fuel plants are prepared for carbon capture. The plan was announced by business secretary John Hutton (pictured) at a packed Adam Smith Institute conference on The Future of Utilities this week. Much to the dismay of the enviro-lobbyists present, Hutton also confirmed that the government was sticking with its plans to boost clean coal technology.
The ASI's latest publication, The Waste of Nations by Gordon Hector (reported 
It is not well known that wind energy is less environmental friendly than most people like to believe. Not only are lovely views and unspoilt landscapes destroyed. More important is the death toll on some of the world's most precious and protected birds.
So: Marks & Spencer says that it is going to make a 5p charge for plastic bags in its food stores. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is getting on the bandwagon, with a speech suggesting that such schemes should be compulsory. Two more examples of high-profile PR preening.
Is the drive to biofuels prejudicing the food supply of the world's poorest people? That was the question addressed by Michael Jack MP, Chairman of the House of Commons Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, at an Adam Smith Institute Power Lunch in Westminster this week.
It seems the likelihood is