Feeling green while the poor starve

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Of all the insanities committed in the name of green politics, one of the most insane is the production of biofuels from food crops.  In pursuit of increased proportion of energy from renewable sources, governments have realized that wind and solar power cannot make sufficiently large contributions.  They have therefore turned to biofuels, a move that hugely delights their farming lobbies.

Left at that, this might not have done too much damage outside of a massive misallocation of resources, but in a move that compounds insanity with thoughtless wickedness, they have chosen to do so out of food crops, rather than push forward the development of fuels from biological waste products such as husks, stalks and other cellulose surplus.  

Now Robin Pagnamenta reports in the Times that "Britain's self-sufficiency in wheat will end next year because a giant new biofuel refinery needs so much of the staple crop that home-grown supplies will be exhausted."  Yes, we are now buying wheat on world markets to turn into fuel that is more expensive than that we can buy elsewhere or pump out of North Sea wells.  That puts upward pressure on world prices, forcing up the price of foodstuffs.  To affluent people this will be an inconvenience; to the poor it might mean starvation.

We have, in effect, reintroduced the Corn Laws which were abolished in 1846, ensuring that the poor have to pay more for their bread as landowners and farmers benefit from higher prices.  Well-to-do ladies driving their children to school in 4x4s can feel good that they are driving on 'green' fuel, even as people in poorer countries go hungry.  Already there have been pasta protests in Italy and tortilla riots in Mexico, as poor people protest as the higher prices.

Why in the name of sanity and decency did governments not do the obvious thing and offer huge prizes to rush forward the development of biofuels from waste products instead?  It has been achieved on small scale, and all it needs are the incentives and investment to roll it out on a larger scale.  Biofuels from food crops is a profligate waste of precious food to satisfy green consciences, and the next government should pledge itself to stop it.

Check out Dr Madsen Pirie's new book, "101 Great Philosophers."

The Tyndale Centre: not knowing what they're talking about

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The latest little report attempting to scare the bejabbers out of us:

The centre, a partnership of seven universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester, says that the economies of developed nations will have to shrink and consumption of almost all types of goods will have to fall “in the short to medium term".

...

“It’s a very uncomfortable message but we need a planned economic recession. Economic growth is currently incompatible with reductions in absolute emissions."

Ah, no, I'm sorry, but that argument just doesn't work I'm afraid. And it doesn't matter what the climate models say, nor whatever new gremlins you've found within them. For this is an economic argument and that's not one that a bunch of atmospheric physicists, however eminent, are going to win. Especially as they seem not to understand it in the first place. Assume, arguendo, that everything they're saying about their models, emissions, warming etc is correct: they're still wrong.

For the real argument, after we've accepted their part about the physics and chemistry, is what do we do next? Our aim is, of course, to maximise human utility, to make ourselves and those generations coming after us as rich as is humanly possible (properly rich, not just in cash). This is the very basis of the argument of the Stern Review. Indeed, despite the Stern Review making a few desperate contortions to get to the desired conclusion, the essence of his argument is entirely sound. What balance of spending money now, of investing, of curtailing consumption, will maximise human welfare in the future while causing the least cost to us now? Should we be pushing adaption? Should we be trying mitigation, reducing emissions? Simply let rip, grow the economy as fast as possible and let the rich people in the future deal with it? Stern's answer is that in order to avoid a possible loss (yes, "possible") of 20% of GDP in 2100 we should be willing to give up 1-2% of GDP now. This is through a mixture of both adaptation and mitigation.

As I say, Stern contorts quite a lot to be able to justify that conclusion but let's again accept it, arguendo.

Now the Tyndale Centre says no, this isn't enough. We must be giving up much more than 1-2% of GDP now: but we are still avoiding only that 20% of future GDP cost. That is, Stern's carefully worked out cost benefit analysis tells us that the cost of the 20% of GDP benefit is 1-2% of GDP. This is a good idea. However, if someone comes along now and says, no, the cost of avoiding that 20% of GDP hit in the future is 5% (or whatever) of GDP now then it becomes, by Stern's very arguments, a bad idea. Thus we shouldn't do it for we will be making the future poorer than it need be.

This is what the Tyndale Centre doesn't seem to understand. By insisting that we must cut GDP now in order to avoid climate change they're actually telling us that we shouldn't bother to try stopping climate change. Forget mitigation altogether, we should just let rip with the economy and let those vastly richer than us people in the future sort it out for themselves. Let them adapt, not us mitigate.

In other words, the more people tell us we have to restrain the economy now in order to avoid climate change the less we should actually restrict the economy: for our descendants would be better off with the climate change but with the wealth we can bequeath them.

Car scrappage scheme extended

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The government funded car replacement scheme in the UK has now been extended. The program is one of many that have been instituted throughout many countries to help stimulate the auto industry. But are the programs actually worth the money? To help with this question let’s examine the U.S. model since the program did spur large amounts of auto sales and since the program has ended we can look at some solid numbers.

Using average numbers from America - given that an average “clunker” or older car is getting 15 mpg and travels an average of around 12,000 miles per year it would use about 800 gallons of fuel. If the owner of the car took advantage of the government program and traded in for a vehicle that got 25 mpg they would use 480 gallons of fuel less each year. That adds up to a large amount of savings for the consumer so far, and that’s where the politicians would want the analysis to stop.

As reported by the New York Times nearly 700,000 vehicles were traded in during the program which means the total fuel consumption in the United States would be reduced by nearly a quarter of a million gallons which equals out to a little less than 11.5 million barrels (there are 19.5 gallons to a barrel). The problems start to become apparent in these numbers, the U.S. uses 20 million barrels of fuel everyday so the actual savings in fuel are just over a half a day’s worth. Although that isn’t that impressive, it’s still something. However, the real predicament is in how much that fuel is worth compared to the amount of money spent to save it. If there was 11.5 million barrels of oil saved, as of 11/09/09, it would be worth just over 816 million dollars, but the government spent 2.87 billion dollars to save that money. That means that for every dollar saved in the “cash for clunkers” program the government spent around $3.50 which is far from impressive.

Yes there may have been jobs saved, and increases in demand, but I am more than confident in saying that any short term benefits will soon be eclipsed by inflation and even worse by massive decreases in demand over the long run.

Piling on the guilt

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Across the steaming bitumen the tyres' tread whispered. Atop this charging mechanised steed sits the lumpen mass of a middle-aged, doe eyed, lycra clad enviro-warrior. Safely cocooned within their bubble of immunity they fly through red lights, relentlessly ignore no entry signs and attempt to run down the slow and stupid on pavements. A vision of the not to distant future if government proposals are to be believed. Life on the streets will be subject to a cycling blitzkrieg; the non-cyclists amongst us will be forced to flee or dive into the nearest government building for sanctuary.

Following on from the pronouncement on cyclists being permitted to ignore no entry signs, comes this consideration: a plan to blame all drivers in accidents with cyclists. Why do we wish to contemplate such a policy? Because of 'climate change'. If we don't take up the mantra that, 'two wheels good, four wheels bad' then we shall all suffer the ill effects of the supposed harmful warming planet.

This idea is counter to the car scrappage scheme. This encourages people to drive, through government sponsored car purchasing. (Mainly introduced at the behest of the influential UK car manufacturers). If they'd have thought it through properly they could have nationalized bicycle production in the UK and regaled us with the factory output figures on an annual/monthly/weekly or even daily basis. These government designed bicycles could then have been foisted upon us, 'for free'. This announcement is yet another clear indictment of a government that doesn't know it's saddle from it's disc brake.

Tractor production in the Soviet Union

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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just published a 48-page strategy document called Safeguarding our Soils. The driving concern behind the document, as Hilary Benn explains, is that: “good quality soils are essential to achieve Defra’s goals of a thriving farming sector and a sustainable, healthy food supply".

The government plans to sort things out by “improving our evidence base, providing information and guidance to those who are actively managing our soils, and using regulation and incentives". Rarely will you find a worse example of governmental idiocy, arrogance, meddling and incompetence.

It is idiotic because farmers do not need regulation and incentives to encourage them to look after their soil. They have a pretty good reason to do so already – because they have to grow stuff in it.

It is arrogant because the government feign to know more about soil than farmers themselves. Farmers are in the best position to determine the optimal usage of their land, bearing in mind the costs and benefits of different strategies in particular circumstances. If further research is needed, then the farmers who stand to benefit will fund it.

It is meddlesome because the government have no right to tell landowners what to do with their land. If I want to dig up all the fertile, healthy soil in my field and replace it with salty, lifeless dust then that’s my business alone.

And it is incompetent because the farming regulations are an insanely complicated bureaucratic muddle. This new strategy comes on top of the EU Thematic Strategy on Soil Protection, CAP cross compliance, Environmental Stewardship, the England Catchment Sensitive Farming Delivery Initiative and the new Code of Good Agricultural Practice.

Central planning of food production failed in Soviet Russia, it failed in Maoist China and it fails today in Stalinist North Korea. The best thing the government can do to safeguard our soil is to do nothing at all, and in the words of Arthur Young, let “the magic of property turn sand to gold".

The green economy's assault on our natural landscape

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The basic assumptions of the Obama administration, as well as many other G20 countries, that a possible non-nuclear, renewable energy contribution of 20% by 2020 has been dismantled by a new study. Published by the venerable environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy, “Energy Sprawl of Energy Efficiency" focuses on the impact of climate policy in the US on the natural habitat.

The foremost concern is the amount of land required for the switch to renewable energy. They make it very clear that nuclear renewables are the least land consuming. It requires just one square mile for the generation of one million megawatt-hours – the electricity needed for 90,000 homes. How much land will be consumed for other energy sources?

• Geothermal (natural heat of the earth): 3sq. miles;
• Coal (mining and extraction): 4 sq. miles;
• Solar (thermal heating fluids): 6 sq. miles;
• Natural gas and petroleum: 18 sq. miles;
• Wind farms: 30 sq. miles;
• Biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel): 500 sq. miles.

This does not even include tens of thousands of new miles of high voltage transmission lines. These types of problems are rarely discussed in the renewable debate. Here is another nuisance detail:

Solar collectors must be washed down once a month or they collect too much dirt to be effective. They also need to be cooled by water. Where amid the desert and scrub land will we find all that water?

No wonder even green activists are starting to oppose solar projects in the western United States – the most suitable sites for solar panel fields. Finally some environmentalists are beginning to understand unintended consequences and externalities.

You're a what?

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I love Jeremy. I love fast cars. I love progress. But I learnt some things and those things terrify me. I learnt that climate change will make my future unrecognisable. I know that I’ll not have the same choices that Jeremy has now. If we keep on loving the fossil-fuelled lifestyle then by the time I hit 49 the world will be too busy coping with the impact of climate change to bother about how big an engine is possible. I’m the biggest libertarian of them all – I’m dumping dung at Clarkson’s gates so he might understand that his attitude will land us all in [it].

So said Tamsin Omond after dumping a load of manure on Jeremy Clarkson's lawn. Oh dear. This graduate seems to be using words she doesn't understand. Perhaps she should go back to university and find out what it means to be a libertarian.

Libertarians certainly wouldn't dump manure on the gardens of those who held views that were opposed to their own. They adapt to their surroundings and/or compensate others who they impose upon. What they don't do is run amok based upon some perceived future that may or may not actually occur. They found their beliefs in fact based upon a thirst for knowledge. Libertarians change their own lives so that they can live happily with themselves. They refrain from imposing their views on those around them recognising, maturely and respectfully, that they have no ownership over others. This is undertaken so that they themselves do not have their way of life infringed.

Sorry Tamsin, but you are not a libertarian. You're an enviromental-fascist. Please leave us alone so that we can avoid having our progress hindered and our futures' ruined via inhibitive enviromental legislation aimed at saving mother Earth.

Good-for-nothing government?

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I was interested – but not at all surprised – to read in The Times last week that cycle lanes actually make cyclists less safe. According to a study by the universities of Leeds and Bolton, cars drive far closer to cyclists where there are cycle lanes, putting them at a much greater risk of being hit. It's a classic example of the law of unintended consequences at work: when motorists sense that cyclists have their own designated lane, they don't go to such trouble to give them space.

This is just the latest indication that government-inspired "road clutter" designed to make us safer on the roads often ends up having the opposite effect. The Dutch are probably the pioneers of this: the town of Drachten famously removed all traffic signals, and found that traffic flowed more smoothly and that accidents were reduced, not least at Laveiplein, a 22,000-vehicle-per-day junction next to a bus terminal.

But the technique has also been applied in London. As the Telegraph reported back in 2006: "Kensington High Street has been decluttered by removing barriers and simplifying road markings. Pedestrian accidents in the affected area have been reduced by more than 40 per cent." More recently, Ealing has followed suit, announcing that traffic lights would be removed from up to seven junctions leaving drivers to fend for themselves.

What this illustrates, ultimately, is the way in which spontaneous orders based on voluntary co-operation tend to be more efficient and effective than coercive ones based on government planning. Or to put it another way – letting people take responsibility for themselves usually works out better than having government take responsibility for them.

It also suggests that even in policy areas that seem so naturally the preserve of government planners, like traffic management, approaches based on individual freedom are well worth considering.

Norman Borlaug has died

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On Saturday, Norman Borlaug died aged 95. The man who saved more lives than any other person who ever lived.

The green revolution that Mr Borlaug initiated irradiated the temperamental humanitarian "ship-to-mouth" sustenance for much of humanity. A consummate entrepreneur, his life is proof of the wondrous contribution one individual can have on the course of human history.

Beloved by many in the countries whose lives he saved, the Nobel Peace Prize winner lost favor among many in the West as politics trumped science and the environmental cause turned in on itself. It is beyond a travesty that so many environmentalists have retarded the progress that technology offers for feeding the world. Their lobbying of the Ford Foundation and World Bank to shun Mr Borlaug's work is a stain upon the environmentalist movement.

Mr Borlaug never gave in to their questionable priorities, and these and other institutions could learn a great deal from his courage and commitment to the evidence. In a rare reply to the armchair environmentalists who criticized his work, he retorted:

They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists were trying to deny them these things.

Here’s a selection of obituaries to the great man:

The Times of India 'Norman Borlaug, India's 'annadaata', dies at 95'.

The Times 'Norman Borlaug, scientist who 'saved 245m lives', dies aged 95'.

The Telegraph:'Norman Borlaug'.

A rubbish idea

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Yesterday saw the start of a new trial in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead designed to encourage recycling.

Under this scheme, households will ‘earn’ vouchers to be used in local stores with each kilogram of waste that they recycle. 3,800 bins have been fitted with microchips in order to weigh household trash. There are several reasons why this trial seems somewhat idiotic.

Firstly, the council is trying to encourage its occupants to act in a ‘socially useful’ way, yet the scheme could well promote the opposite. By rewarding people for recycling as much as possible, it lowers the incentive for people to choose goods with less packaging. This distorts the market signals sent to shops and manufacturers that prompt them to cut down on unnecessary wrapping. If this were adopted nationwide, it would limit the way in which society reduces waste directly.

Such a system can be easily exploited by the placement of heavy, non-recyclable objects inside the chipped bin. While a spokesman for the trail claimed “rewards are much more effective than fines, which are complicated and expensive to administer", the council still needs to monitor the programme, which it proposes to do with on the spot checks and the withdrawal of access to vouchers - which is likely to be costly and unproductive.

This leads on to another issue: the cost of it all. Where is the funding for this scheme coming from? Landfill tax stands at £40 a tonne and a household can earn up to £130 a year through this trial, and so the setup, maintenance and payouts of the scheme can hardly be achieved through the reduction in rubbish arriving in landfill.

No, the answer is that the money will be coming out of council tax, so in effect households will be rewarding themselves for their own good behaviour. In fact, some will be rewarding the daily life of others; those with less recycling to be done such as the elderly will be subsidising payouts to families who inevitably consume and therefore throw out more.

Once you add this to the fact that the scheme forces the residents of Windsor & Maidenhead to have their recycling movements stored on an online database (what will we have monitored next, the frequency of our showers to reduce water consumption?), it can be seen that this scheme basically stinks.