Simon Jenkins had an interesting article in Friday's Guardian, discussing the Royal Institute of British Architects' campaign to 'save' the Robin Hood Gardens estate from demolition.
Robin Hood Gardens (pictured above) was designed by Peter and Alison Smithson, and was an 'icon of 1960s New Brutalism' – which is why architectural luminaries like Lord Rogers and Lord Foster want it preserved. But I'm with Jenkins' on this one: if they want it preserved then they should put up the cash to buy and restore it. Otherwise, tear it down.
The residents would certainly welcome such a move. As Aktar Hussain, the Vice chairman of the residents' association, said: "All these high-minded people who want these flats to stay should actually try to live in them - it's not fun, it's tough. They don't know what they're talking about, it's hell..."
Which really points to the problem with these buildings. They were built according to the tastes of town planners and architects, with little or no regard for the people who would actually have to live there. They were both an expression and a symptom of socialist ideology. Or as the East London Pevsner guide puts it: "ill-planned to the point of inhumane."
One of my little fantasies over the years has been that there really is a solution to this fossil fuel and climate change problem. There's enough insolation (in many parts of the world, at least) onto the roof space of an average suburban house to provide the energy needs of that house. The major problem is always how to store the energy so that it can be used when the sun isn't shining: nights or in winter.
So I'm interested to see that someone has actually built a house which does this. Solar PV on the roof powers the house when there is indeed sunshine, the excess going into batteries. When those batteries are full then the power is used in an electrolyser to separate the hydrogen and the oxygen in tap water. The hydrogen is then stored for when it might be needed, being used to power a fuel cell stack and produce electricity. The hydrogen is also used to run a fuel cell powered car or two (and can, in theory, be burnt in an internal combustion one too).
Now no, this isn't a "solution" to anything at all in fact. The system cost $500,000 to install and that's not counting the actual labour costs. But then he prototypes of anything always cost a lot: the engineer thinks he could replicate his system now for some $150,000, as he is on another house, given the steeply falling costs of many of the components. That again is still too expensive for more general use: however, it's worth remembering something about this capitalism shtick.
It might be that the system doesn't invest enough in basic research, which is the justification for government involvement in funding much of that. But what we do know about it is that when something has been shown to work, capitalism is extremely good at making it cheap. I would not be at all surprised (indeed, I would be rather surprised if it didn't happen) to see the costs of such a system come down to $50,000 or less within a decade.
Yes, £25,000 is still a serious sum of money but when you think that you're getting a couple of decades worth of domestic utilities plus your petrol bill out of it, it might indeed be a rational purchase.
We've been told often enough in this climate change discussion that technology won't save us, that only a radical change in lifestyles will. But as the above at least allows me to surmise (if not quite prove) that could be wrong: that technological advance driven by enlightened self interest and the profit motive will indeed do so.
It’s official; after an embarrassing flub the first time around (they forgot 34 pages… oops!), the U.S. Congress has resoundingly overridden President Bush’s veto of the Farm Bill, a protectionist omnibus measure that had broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. The bill covers everything from food stamps to environmental protection.
The most ironic thing about the bill is its provisions for both massive subsidies to American farmers and, a few pages later, its provisions for food aid to third world countries. There’s a brilliant, productive solution to global poverty if I’ve ever heard one: make it impossible for farmers in the third world to compete on a global market, then inefficiently deliver more expensive American food to save the day. With this sort of policy, all America (and the EU, which has strikingly similar policies) does is continue a cycle of dependency while subsidizing unprofitable enterprises within her own borders.
The sponsors of the bill, among other things, express concern about the cost of rising food prices for the poor. If the goal is lower food expenses for poor workers, then let’s stop taxing workers in cities to pay for subsidies to farmers and start importing food from the places where it can best and most economically be grown.
One good thing to come out of the bill is a small-scale trial of a new policy for foreign aid, in which $60 million worth of food aid will be bought in Africa, rather than being imported from the U.S. at a higher price. Hopefully, the semblance of intelligence represented by this experiment will take hold, and the U.S.A.’s foreign aid will at least be efficiently delivered and actually support farmers in these regions. With so much for the farm lobby to lose, however, it seems unlikely that this initiative will ever make much progress.
At present the UK government regulates genetically modified food out of the market. This was done following an ill-informed scare campaign backed by environmental lobbyists, encouraged by a complicit media and left unchallenged by weak-willed politicians. With the global food crisis, it is surely time for politicians in this country to lead the way by embracing biogenetic food, the latest development in the Green Revolution.
It is telling that the term "Green Revolution" is now often used counter to its original meaning. Instead of the agricultural revolution beginning around the middle of the last century, it is increasingly being used as synonym of the confused ideas behind organic and sustainable agriculture. Such backwards thinking will not meet the increased demand and consequent rising cost of food. It will not be to the benefit of the farmers and consumers in this country, nor those living in abject poverty in the poorest countries of the world.
As Norman Borlaug – the geneticist and plant pathologist responsible for saving the lives of over a billion people in countries such as Mexico, India and Pakistan – said in addressing those on the other side of the argument:
They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.
The GM debate needs to be had again. This time those in favour of GM food should have the loudest voice and those against it in the past should be contrite in the face of the obvious falsity of their doomsday predictions.
Biotechnology is very likely to dominate the second half of the 21st century, just as computer technology dominated the second half of the 20th century. This is why the former Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson reckons that the solution to growing GHG emissions will come from genetic manipulation of our vast Northern forests.
His hope is based on the famous Keeling graph to be found here. It shows that about 8 percent of atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed and returned in a yearly cycle by the earth's vegetation. This means that the average lifetime of a carbon molecule is just 12 years. This rapid exchange is of fundamental importance because:
In the unlikely event that human-induced global warming were to prove a real problem, we’d have far more time up our collective sleeve to finetune the preferred level of atmospheric CO2…
Freeman thinks in the next 20 to 50 years scientists might be able to create carbon-eating trees, which could absorb most of the atmospheric carbon, convert it into a stable form and bury it into the ground. He suggests:
If one-quarter of the world’s forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced by half in 50 years.
Over on Comment is Free, Mark Lynas has mapped out three scenarios for future policies regarding climate change. The first is that the world will maintain the status quo. The second is that the world’s great nations will come together, set and keep high standards that will eventually solve the problem, and then we can all hold hands and sing We are the World. The third, which is a bit more apocalyptic, foresees massive climate disasters in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden sense of urgency worldwide. Then the UN works its magic, carbon emissions are capped, and temperatures rise less than they would otherwise.
The lack of critical thinking is mind boggling—reminiscent of the many doomsayers before Y2K. The argument that storms are increasing because of global warming is not only fallacious (relying on correlated statistics to imply causation and being emotionally, not empirically based), but its conclusion is also incorrect.
Katrina would have been remembered much like Hurricane Andrew if the levee system in New Orleans had not failed—horrible and destructive—but not at the same level of catastrophe. In Myanmar, the problem was not so much the strength of the storm as it was poor infrastructure—no evacuation system, poor housing, and horrible emergency services. This is why the ten deadliest hurricanes ever happened over one hundred years ago (when engineering was less advanced) or in third world countries.
The sad thing is that in 15 years when everyone realizes the world will be ok, Al Gore will look back and say, "Ah, it’s because we cut our CO2 emissions." To think… he could have been the president. Instead, he's the saviour.
Good news for those who support ethanol production as a means to reduce greenhouse gasses. You can get a beautiful mahogany table and chairs set, made from rainforest land converted to farmland to grow crops for ethanol.
According to Time Magazine, ethanol production isn’t just raising food prices:
An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.
Worse yet, ethanol is increasing food prices, which in turn has significantly increased the demand for soybeans. Hmmm… where could soybeans grow? Northern Brazil. On land formerly known as the Amazon. Remember the 1980s and 1990s when saving the rainforest was all you talked about in science class? The last great environmental cause is being destroyed by the current one. In fact: “Bio-fuels now look less green than oil-derived gasoline."
So please, Congress, Parliament, EU, Gordon, George: just stop. Like always, your mandates, regulations, and subsidies are doing the reverse of their supposed intentions.
So that’s it, the government has spoken. One high speed rail (HSR) is all we are to be allowed. Rail companies can’t promise their customers future developments to improve capacity and journey times. This is due to the increased energy consumption by high speed trains. It looks like we will only have the rail link from St. Pancras to the Channel Tunnel for some time. As the rest of Europe embraces HSR we are being left behind by a short-sighted and economically illiterate administration.
In a letter obtained by The Times, Tom Harris, the Rail Minister, said: “The argument that high-speed rail travel is a ‘green option’ does not necessarily stand up to close inspection. Increasing the maximum speed of a train from 125mph – the current maximum speed of domestic trains – to 220mph leads to a 90 per cent increase in energy consumption.”
The Rail Minister is unaware of the fact that with trains travelling at higher speeds they in fact increase capacity on the line, so energy consumption per passenger is only slightly higher than at lower speeds. Moreover, without increasing speeds or capacity the UK rail network will reach capacity sometime around 2015, at that point more people will switch to travel by air or roads, thus increasing carbon outputs and energy consumption via these two higher polluting forms of transport.
We find ourselves in the unfortunate state where the government of the day can dictate what is done to the infrastructure of the rail network, as well as the companies that use it. All they can really promise us are delays every weekend from now until 2014. Imagine where we’d be now had the railways never been nationalised. Perhaps not at the level of quality that the Japanese do, but I suspect we’d be able to travel to Scotland in just over 2 hours...
The Commons vote on 42-day detention will without doubt make the headlines this week - but it is tactically overshadowing another bill that will have a far greater impact on both our liberty and bank balances. The UK Climate Change Bill is going through its second reading in the Commons and will see government propose 80 per cent cuts in Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Over at CCNet, Julian Morris of the International Policy Network, has put together a concise analysis of the Climate Change Bill. His conclusion?
The Climate Change Bill as it currently stands presumes that knowledge concerning the most cost effective means of reducing carbon emissions can be acquired and utilised effectively by planners in central government. This is the same fatal conceit that underpinned the fantasy of socialist central planning. The consequences cannot be but ill for the people of the UK and of the world.
Indeed, from the goal of avoiding global mean temperatures rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, to the choice of the year 2050 and 80 per cent reduction - these targets are all completely arbitrary. Once again, the government has decided that it knows best - without having even looked at the economics of different carbon reduction strategies.
Clever politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Vaclav Klaus sensed it early on, comparing the mitigation schemes to halt global warming with state socialism of old. The unfolding US Senate debate on 'cap and trade' legislation proves them right, for it reveals what’s really all about: the largest income redistribution since the introduction of the income tax.
The two bills for carbon regulation currently under discussion will generate windfall revenue of $6.7 trillion by 2050, which is half the present US economy's output. Half of that, $3.32 trillion, will come from auctioning carbon allowances to polluters. The other half will be handed out free to favoured supplicants such as Indian tribes or 'green' states such as California, which coincidently is represented by Senator Barbara Boxer who also happens to be a sponsor of the more radical bill. As an editorial in the Wall Street Journalput it:
In the Boxer plan, revenues are allocated down to the last dime over the next half-century. Thus $802 billion would go for ‘relief’ for low-income taxpayers, to offset the higher cost of lighting homes or driving cars. Ms. Boxer will judge if you earn too much to qualify.
Another $190 billion is earmarked for 'green collar-jobs', and on it goes with pork barrelling all over the place. What one now gathers is this: the failure of 'cap and trade' to achieve its stated objectives appears to be well anticipated, with 'social justice' as the fall back position. By the time the greenhouse gas bubble bursts, the gigantic redistribution of wealth will be irreversible – or so the stratagem goes – and government will be permanently bigger.
Perhaps that explains the hurry politicians are in to 'do something' about climate change.
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One of my little fantasies over the years has been that there really is a solution to this fossil fuel and climate change problem. There's enough insolation (in many parts of the world, at least) onto the roof space of an average suburban house to provide the energy needs of that house. The major problem is always how to store the energy so that it can be used when the sun isn't shining: nights or in winter.
It’s official; after an embarrassing flub the first time around (they 
At present the UK government regulates genetically modified food out of the market. This was done following an ill-informed scare campaign backed by environmental lobbyists, encouraged by a complicit media and left unchallenged by weak-willed politicians. With the global food crisis, it is surely time for politicians in this country to lead the way by embracing biogenetic food, the latest development in the Green Revolution.
Biotechnology is very likely to dominate the second half of the 21st century, just as computer technology dominated the second half of the 20th century. This is why the former Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson 
Over on Comment is Free, Mark Lynas has 
Good news for those who support ethanol production as a means to reduce greenhouse gasses. You can get a beautiful mahogany table and chairs set, made from rainforest land converted to farmland to grow crops for ethanol..jpg)
So that’s it, the government has spoken. One high speed rail (HSR) is all we are to be allowed. Rail companies can’t promise their customers future developments to improve capacity and journey times. This is due to the increased energy consumption by high speed trains. It looks like we will only have the rail link from St. Pancras to the Channel Tunnel for some time. As the rest of Europe embraces HSR we are being left behind by a short-sighted and economically illiterate administration.
Clever politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Vaclav Klaus sensed it early on, comparing the mitigation schemes to halt global warming with state socialism of old. The unfolding US Senate debate on 'cap and trade' legislation proves them right, for it reveals what’s really all about: the largest income redistribution since the introduction of the income tax.