Solving environmental problems
The Extinction Rebellion protesters say the world is in crisis, and that emissions must be reduced to zero by 2025. To achieve that would mean we’d have to drive much less, eat much less meat, and use much less energy. We’d rise with the sun and go to bed at sunset. We wouldn’t heat our homes in winter or cool them in summer. We probably wouldn’t fly at all, and certainly not take cruises. We’d have to stop using fossil fuels almost straight away, since their target date is just over 5 years away. Most shipping and freight would have to stop. We’d be eating locally grown turnips instead of mangoes from afar. Most people would never travel abroad.
Fundamentally it’s a programme to abandon the Industrial Revolution and the growth that has lifted most of humankind out of subsistence and starvation. At heart it’s a rejection of the modern world, of its growth, its wealth, its aids to comfort and convenience as well as to survival, and above all to its progress, its science and technology. It is as foolish and misguided as it is unattainable.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of thousands of scientists from across the world, had recommended that we reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to net zero by 2050. This would enable us to limit any warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than the billions of dead and the extinction of human life forecast by the current protesters.
There is every chance we can achieve the IPCC goal, and we are already taking steps to do so. We are rapidly phasing out coal for power generation, and replacing it with renewables, using natural gas as a bridge between the two in order to speed up the replacement of coal and oil by renewables. Last year UK electricity was one-third produced by renewables, and the proportion is climbing as solar and wind power become cheaper.
The proportion of electric vehicles increases each year, making it highly likely that petrol and diesel cars, trucks and buses will all be replaced by electric ones well before 2050. We are steadily reducing the energy demands of domestic appliances, and phasing out incandescent bulbs for LED ones.
New methods of carbon sequestration are being developed, and more and more trees are being planted as part of a process of active carbon extraction. Moves are under way to introduce a carbon tax based on emissions, as recommended by the IPCC, and the UK already has a fuel duty set above the recommended level.
Several genetically modified crops are already being grown, ones that increase yield per acre and require fewer pesticides and fertilizers to leach into the environment. New ones are being developed that can grow in otherwise infertile areas, ones currently unavailable because of excess salinity or drought. These developments reduce the pressure on rainforest land, as does the development of hydroponic ‘vertical’ farming that uses minimal land.
It is predicted that within months cultured ‘lab-grown’ meats will be as cheap as those from animals. Their taste and texture are now said to be very good, meaning that mass production can go ahead. Cultured meats do not emit methane, and do not require forests to be cleared to produce animal feed. The same is true of the non-meat alternatives that give vegetable products the taste and texture of animal products.
The plastic problem is being tackled by the increased use of recyclable plastics, and of biodegradable ones. And microorganisms are under development that can feed on the non-recyclable plastic that is already out there.
In short, there is no crisis of extinction. Instead there is a pollution problem, one that is well on the way to being solved. Science and technology have proved more effective than hysteria at achieving this. We do not need to turn our back on the modern world and its prosperity, but can instead continue to drive, to fly, to move humans and freight around, and to eat meat. We do not have to stop doing what we are doing, we just have to do it in different ways.
Thirteen October days of missile crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 16th 1962 when US President John F Kennedy was shown photographs taken by a U2 spy plane that gave proof that the Soviet Union was building missile launching sites in Cuba from which it could launch a nuclear attack on the US. This began a 13-day tense confrontation that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
A U2 spy plane took photos that showed that the Soviets were constructing launch sites in Cuba for medium and intermediate range missiles targeted at US cities. The significance was that they could reach that targets in only a few minutes, giving the US no time to launch a counter-strike before they hit. The Soviets were this about to acquire a first strike capability and upset the balance of forces. Evidence suggested they were planning 40 launchers. Ground-based intelligence had alerted the US, and led it to conduct the spy flights that confirmed the Soviet plans. Intelligence from Oleg Penkovsky, a Western agent within the Kremlin, about Soviet missiles enabled the CIA to identify the types of missile and confirm their offensive capability.
The USSR disastrously miscalculated the US response. They thought that President Kennedy’s lukewarm response after the failed Bay of Pigs incursion would lead him to avoid confrontations and accept the missiles as a fait accompli. In fact there was no chance that the US would accept so aggressive a move so near to its territory.
The US military wanted either an attack from the air to destroy the bases before they became operational, or a full-scale invasion of Cuba to eliminate the threat. There is no doubt that they had overwhelming superiority in firepower, both in missiles and in warheads. Kennedy opted, however, for a more cautious response, declaring a quarantine around Cuba that would intercept any Soviet ships bringing missiles or supplies, and demanding that missiles already there be shipped out and the launch sites dismantled.
The Cuba-bound Russian cargo ships drew closer each day to the US-declared exclusion zone, and the world awaited a confrontation. The US fleet prepared to fire warning shots to make the cargo vessels turn back, and to board them or sink them if they failed to respond. Khrushchev backed down when he realized that the Americans meant business. An agreement was reached under which the missile sites would be dismantled in return for a public US pledge not to invade the island. Under a secret clause the US agreed to dismantle intermediate range missiles it had based in Turkey. In fact these were already past their usefulness since they had been a stop-gap until the US had acquired intercontinental missiles, which it now had deployed.
The world watched as the Russian ships turned back, and as missiles loaded onto freighters were shown on the decks of their cargo ships leaving Cuba. The crisis was a victory for the US and a setback for the USSR. Fidel Castro was furious that Russia had backed down, and had been quite ready to see a nuclear war if it meant the destruction of capitalism and the subsequent victory for communism.
The lesson was that there would be no appeasement of Soviet aggression, and this fact tempered their subsequent actions. Khrushchev was fatally weakened by the affair and deposed within 2 years. Ronald Reagan took note, and when he was elected President, initiated an update of US military power that the Soviets could not compete with. The missiles of October almost precipitated a world nuclear war, but the success of the firm US response led it to pursue policies that ultimately won the Cold War.
President Putin no doubt regrets that Khrushchev backed down just as he regrets the fall of the Soviet East European puppet tyrannies, but there is no doubt that he takes on board the major lesson of the Cuban Missile crisis. If you push too hard against the West, they will push back.
If only Extinction Rebellion actually understood matters
An interesting report in The Guardian:
The world’s rising reliance on fossil fuels may come to an end decades earlier than the most polluting companies predict, offering early signs of hope in the global battle to tackle the climate crisis.
The climate green shoots have emerged amid a renewable energy revolution that promises an end to the rising demand for oil and coal in the 2020s, before the fossil fuels face a terminal decline.
The looming fossil fuel peak is expected to emerge decades ahead of forecasts from oil and mining companies, which are betting that demand for polluting energy will rise until the 2040s.
But energy experts are adjusting their forecasts as clean energy technologies, including wind and solar power, emerge faster than predicted and at costs that pose a direct threat to coal-fired electricity and combustion-engine vehicles.
We don’t insist that this is actually true, only report what is being, umm, reported.
The thing is this isn’t compatible with the insistence from all those climate change campaigners, Greta, Extinction Rebellion and the rest. That nothing has been done therefore we’ve got to do everything right now.
If it is true that renewables are all ready to replace fossil fuels, as claimed here, then we’ve already dealt with climate change, haven’t we? We’ve already put in the effort required, all we’ve got to do now is sit back and allow markets to chew through the costs and benefits of the varied technologies and see that bright new dawn being built.
No, really, if renewables are already replacing fossil then we’re done, we’ve solved the problem.
We can even talk in more detail. Those predictions of doom rely upon RCP 8.5, that model of the future in which we use ever more fossil fuels, ever more coal in fact, to power civilisation. If we’ve already designed, tested and are beginning to install, preferentially purely on cost grounds, renewables then we’re over in that other casting of the runes about the future, RCP 2.6, where climate change itself is something that doesn’t happen. Because we’ve dealt with it.
Right here right now we’re not stating that either or any of those points are actually correct. That renewables are taking over, that they’re not. We’re only insisting upon the underlying logic here. If it is true that we’ve already created the renewables that solve the problem then, well, we’ve solved the problem, haven’t we? And if we’ve not created those usable technologies then we’d be better off not installing them right now. But working rather more to create them before roll out.
As the PM has pointed out, we must always be aware of cakeism. It is not possible that renewables are both solving the problem and also that the problem remains to be solved.
The 1987 storm before the stock market storm
The storm hit the UK on the night of October 15th 1987. Earlier on television, weather presenter Michael Fish had reassured viewers: “Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she'd heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn’t."
I suppose that technically, hurricanes cannot reach this far North, but the UK certainly had hurricane force winds, the most violent since 1703. Winds reached 120 mph, causing major damage, with trees and power lines brought down. Britain lost an estimated 15 million trees, and hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity, some for up to two weeks, as the National Grip suffered heavy damage.
Buildings were damaged in London, and falling trees smashed onto parked cars and blocked roads. I was woken up in the night, not only by the howling winds, but also by a huge crash of masonry onto the street just outside my window, which I discovered next morning was caused by chimney pots being blown off the roof of my building. Public transport in London and the Southeast was mostly out of action the next morning as trees were strewn across roads and railways, and people were advised not even to try to go into work.
It was described as “a violent extratropical cyclone,” as a major depression in the Bay of Biscay headed Northeast. It hit Britain, France and the Channel Isles, leaving 18 dead in Britain, and with damage estimated by the insurance industry to be upwards of £2 billion. As happens with most disasters, lessons were learned, and major improvements were put into effect to improve atmospheric observation, relevant computer models, and the training of forecasters. This may have included Michael Fish, who might otherwise have had a relatively undistinguished career, but was immortalized by that one major forecasting error.
There was a further consequence. Few City traders and dealers managed to make it into work on Friday 16th, and market trading was suspended twice, with the market closing early at 12.30 pm. This meant light trading, with the City unable to react adequately to the late dealings on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded what was then its biggest-ever one-day fall, in a major market correction. After a weekend spent clearing up after the storm, UK City dealers came in on the Monday, Monday 19th, known as Black Monday, to a sea of red as markets collapsed. It was a reaction to the exuberance of the 80s boom and bull run. The bears had a field day as over-valued stocks plunged South, and screens remained red for weeks afterwards.
The events of the Great Storm and of Black Monday still bring shudders to those old enough to remember. Britain recovered from the physical damage and repaired it, and trees were planted to replace those lost. The markets recovered from the psychological damage, and stocks recovered from their losses within two years. Some of the crash was put down to automated trading, so new regulations were put in place to limit the degree to which this might happen in future.
It was a correction, and a major one, but they happen, and the markets resumed their steady upward climb until the next one. I still sometimes wear a bow tie a friend gave me, a pink one with black printing featuring a section of the Financial Times stock prices for October 19th 1987. Occasionally I wear it when I attend City functions and receptions to remind my friends in the finance sector that all men are mortal.
It's a happy, but incorrect, thought
If only this were true:
Free-market capitalism is supposed to be hard-wired into Tory DNA; the Conservative constant in an ever-changing world.
There’s nothing either conservative nor Tory about free market capitalism. Obviously not conservative, for rather the point of the free market part is that the old must be open to being destroyed by the new. We’d also hesitate to describe capitalism as being dear to Tory hearts, given the social opprobrium so long aimed at those in mere trade.
It was, after all, the Liberals - back that century and more - that were the party of trade and industry rather than land and reaction.
Another way to look at much the same point is to note the battles Maggie Thatcher had with the Wets. Wet being rather the definition of not in favour of free market capitalism.
Thus the task before us all, that reminding the Tory Party that free market capitalism is the method of gaining the desired goal, a rich and free people and nation. There being far too many who forget that point thus the necessity of continually reminding them.
Speakers' Corner still has free speech
On October 14th, 1855, a carpenter set up a soapbox in Hyde Park, near Marble Arch in London, and made a speech to onlookers complaining abut high food prices. Thus was born the tradition that became known as Speakers' Corner, the place where free speech is exercised by anyone who wishes to.
The place had a grimmer history, in that it was the site of the Tyburn Hanging Tree, where prisoners were hanged. Crowds would gather to be entertained by the spectacle, and it was the tradition that the condemned were allowed to address the crowd in a final speech. They would often argue with members of the crowd as they denounced the State, or the Church, or in some cases vainly protested their innocence.
Following the Speakers' Corner tradition, the Chartists held mass protests there in the mid-19th Century to demand the rights of working people, such as the right of assembly, and the Reform League held rallies there to demand the widening of the franchise. The government tried to suppress such marches by locking the park, but the crowds tore down hundreds of yards of railings to gain access. When 150,000 defied a further ban on meeting there, police and troops declined to intervene, and the Home Secretary, Spencer Walpole, resigned next day.
The Times editorialized in July 1866, that “it is against all reason and all justice that motley crowds from all parts of the metropolis should take possession of Hyde Park, and interfere with the enjoyments of those to whom the Park more particularly belongs”. The tradition had taken root, however, and in 1872 Parliament's Parks Regulation Act granted the Park Authorities the right to permit public meetings and Speakers’ Corner was formally established. There is no legal immunity from prosecution there, and the police reserve the right to act if laws are broken, but in practice they do not intervene unless complaints are made.
Writing in the 1940s, George Orwell called it "one of the minor wonders of the world," and said that he had listened there to "Indian nationalists, temperance reformers, Communists, Trotskyists, the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), the Catholic Evidence Society, freethinkers, vegetarians, Mormons, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and a large variety of plain lunatics." More often than not the "plain lunatics" seem to be in the majority, and many who attend do so for the entertainment value.
It does, however, enshrine the very important freedom of speech that is one of the essential props of a liberal democracy. In the US it is written law as the First Amendment to the Constitution, but with a largely unwritten constitution in the UK, the right is proving harder to protect. We now have 'hate crimes' in the UK, where a punishable crime becomes deserving of a more severe sentence if motivated by hatred of the victim's race, religion or sexual orientation. This runs rather counter to the legal tradition that looked at the crime, not the criminal. Motivation is more difficult to establish than are observable events because there are no windows into the soul.
"Hate speech' is a disturbing idea. Of course it should be castigated and opposed, but there is a view that it should not be illegal and punishable by law. The liberal case is that while incitement to violence should of course be illegal, the expression of objectionable views is part of free speech. No less a threat to that free speech is the prevention of views regarded as objectionable by extra-legal means of suppression. Meetings are disrupted, sometimes by violence, sometimes by the use of threatened violence to bully authorities into denying a venue to speakers. Universities are becoming notorious for banning speakers who do not toe the woke line of politically correct and 'acceptable' views. They were once regarded as places of light, liberty and learning, but this is no longer the case. You can stand on a soapbox and say what you like at Speakers' Corner, but if you try to do that at most UK universities, people will stop you.
On this day as we celebrate 164 years of free speech in Hyde Park, we might do well to take steps that will ensure its survival elsewhere. Some have suggested that institutions that fail to protect it should not have access to public funds. It might be a start, but what is really needed is a culture change away from snowflakes who feel "unsafe" when they hear views they disagree with, and to a more robust readiness to allow controversial views to be aired, and refuted, and maybe ridiculed. Speakers' Corner does that very well.
Mumsnet and Flora - in favour of consumer boycotts
We should note that we’ve no particular favourites in this race. Trans or anti-such, butter replacements or websites. We do insist though that this is how a liberal society works.
The makers of Flora face a furious backlash after the company stopped advertising on Mumsnet because campaigners claimed the parenting website was transphobic.
Mothers across Britain are now boycotting the firm that owns the margarine brand, which had responded to complaints by a 'handful' of transgender activists.
As we say, we’ve no specific rider in the race but this is how the sport should be conducted.
If you disagree with the morals, the stance, the activities or speech of some provider of whatever then you should indeed stop spending your money there. Mumsnet is a supplier of advertising services to Flora, if Upshot (the owners of Flora) disagree then they should cut off that cash spigot.
If the readers of Mumsnet disagree with Flora’s actions then they too should flash their cash according to their own moral take on the universe.
Consumer boycotts are an excellent thing. For they are exactly the exercise of the liberty that a market system gains us. Our money, our direction of it, is exactly what bends the surrounding world to our wishes. This is how we exercise our moral authority even - along with that tolerance of everyone else having exactly that same right.
This is true of the 1% of the population who flock to Fairtrade, the 20% who happily kill the High Street by shopping online. We not only can but should express our preferences by the way we deploy our assets.
Which is also, of course, why liberals are always in favour of markets. Any planned system requires a decision on those moral issues before the system can be deployed. Meaning, obviously enough, the imposition of moral choices on those without the power to influence the planning. Markets allow us all to pursue our own visions of the good life - liberals thus support that liberty to do exactly that.
International Day for Disaster Reduction
Ten years ago, on October 13th, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly designated October 13th as the International Day for Disaster Reduction. The aim was to have annual observance of the day as a means to foster a worldwide culture of natural disaster reduction. Natural disasters happen, but the aim was to promote measures that would include prevention, mitigation and preparedness, and to encourage private citizens and organizations, together with governments, to participate in creating more disaster-resilient communities and countries.
Obviously there will be floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes and typhoons, and we do not yet have the technical means to prevent them or to reduce their severity. But there are measures we can take, sensible measures, that can lessen the impact they have on people's lives. Some lessons have been learned the hard way. It is not good planning to site nuclear reactors in areas prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. It is not sensible to allow low-lying buildings to proliferate on flood plains. There might be fertile soil on the slopes of dormant volcanoes, but villages located there will be at risk from subsequent eruptions. All of these require a certain amount of common sense combined with intelligent analysis.
We can also plan ahead, and make our structures less prone to the effects of such natural disasters as do occur. When I built a house in the Florida Keys, it had to be on concrete stilts 13 feet about the century's mean flood level. I sold it long ago, but was gratified to see from satellite imagery that it had survived more or less intact after a nearly direct hit from Hurricane Irma in 2017.The great Japanese earthquake of 1923 had a magnitude of 7.9 and devastated Tokyo, killing 100,000 people. Frank Lloyd Wright's recently built Imperial Hotel survived among the rubble around it, largely because the extra steel in the frame prevented a roof collapse. He had sought to make it earthquake-proof.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed nearly 500 city blocks, killed 3,000 people, and left 400,000 homeless. The earthquake there in 1989 killed 63 people. Hurricanes and typhoons that kill hundreds of thousands in poor countries might kill dozens, or perhaps hundreds, in developed countries. Part of this is down to preparedness, to having tested rapid-response systems, with personnel and vehicles at the ready. Developed countries have the wealth and the infrastructure in place to bring this into play. This is one reason why storms that destroy communities in the Caribbean tend to cause damage in the US that can be contained and rapidly rebuilt.
We have early warning systems in place, constructed by developed countries, but of benefit to poorer ones, too. We can see hurricanes forming and track their probable course, alerting those in their path to board up or evacuate. We often can anticipate volcanic eruptions by monitoring increases in activity a few days in advance. We are not yet adept at having the same success in predicting earthquakes, but the seismic sciences are advancing. And following the Boxing Day tsunamis of 2004 that killed an estimated 228,000 people in 14 countries, we now have sensors out at sea to detect earthquakes and are able to issue tsunami alerts that send people to seek higher ground away from shores.
The lesson we take from all of this is that the greatest factor in aiding prevention, mitigation and preparedness is wealth. Rich countries do not suffer the catastrophic consequences that blight poorer ones when natural disasters occur. As poorer countries become richer, as most are now doing, they become more able to cope with disasters. People in rich countries can help, of course, with aid and supplies, medical assistance and food, but this is dealing with disasters after the fact, rather than putting in place the infrastructure that makes them less disastrous in the first place. The single biggest step a poor country can take to make it resilient to disasters is to become a rich country. And the way to do that is through trade and exchange, as the rich ones did.
Even The Guardian can't be this ill-informed, can it?
It would appear that, yes, The Guardian can be this ill-informed. Ill-informed to the point of idiocy:
With their huge monopoly markets and guaranteed rates of return, California utilities are attractive businesses for investors.
They’re talking about PG&E here. They also mention:
PG&E made shutting down its grid in dry, windy weather a core part of its wildfire management strategy in 2018, after the company faced $30bn in liabilities for their role in sparking two of the deadliest and costliest fires in California history. PG&E filed for bankruptcy shortly after.
Bankruptcy is not normally thought of as attractive to investors. We could also note that PG&E was bust between 2001 and 2004 as well.
Bankruptcy twice in two decades is attractive to investors? Seriously Guardian, get a grip.
Landfall in the Bahamas
Christopher Columbus changed the world when his ships made landfall on October 12th, 1492. It is hard to appreciate how dangerous his voyage was, sailing in small, flimsy ships out into the great ocean we call the Atlantic. He had no idea of how long it would take or what he would find. He had to endure the storms and hardships of the journey, without knowing if he would find land at all.
He’d set sail from Spain on August 3rd at 8.0 am, with the patronage of the King and Queen, but within 3 days the rudder of the Pinta broke. Securing it with ropes, they all limped into the Canaries for repairs. After 29 days out in a landless sea, they saw “immense flocks of birds” which they followed, identifying them as land birds. At 2.0 am on October 12th they sighted land, and put into a place the natives called Guanahani, which Columbus renamed San Salvador, in the Bahamas.
They thought they had reached Asia on the other wide of the world. Indeed, the purpose of the trip was to open up a new route to the spices and silks of the Far East, since the overland route had become more difficult since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. They had in fact discovered the New World, and thought they were the first Europeans to do so. It was not widely known until later that Leif Erikson had led Vikings there in the 11th Century, and had established temporary settlements.
Columbus didn’t even know if he’d found an island, an archipelago, or part of a continent. He described the place as “very flat, with very green trees,” and with “a very large lake” in the middle. That description fits hundreds of islands in the area, and there is still uncertainty as to which one he made landfall upon. He went on to explore the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola, where the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day, 1492, and had to be abandoned.
His voyage home was more perilous than the outward trip, but at least he had a destination in mind. He reached the Azores, and then was forced into Lisbon by a storm that destroyed a fleet of 100 caravels, but miraculously spared the Pinta and the Niña. A hero’s welcome awaited him in Spain, where he gave the monarchs gold, jewelry, flowers, the as yet unknown tobacco plant, pineapples and the turkey, plus a few natives he’d kidnapped.
Thus began the extended contact between the Old World and the New, a contact marked by conquest, war and the spread of disease, as well as the introduction of European weapons and the horse. The psychological effect on Europe was electrifying as the news of his voyage spread. Their world was suddenly expanded into vast unknown reaches. The Old Worlders plundered the new to enrich themselves with its fabulous wealth of precious metals and resources, and they brought with them their learning and their technology.
It was an heroic age, as intrepid sailors such as Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan and Amerigo Vespucci braved uncharted waters and extended Europe’s reach around the globe. It began an age of discovery, not just of physical lands, but of intellectual and scientific frontiers. It expanded the minds of men and women as well as their physical reach.
It is an age that is with us still. This week a Nobel Prize was awarded to the first discoverers of a planet orbiting another star; now we know there are thousands. Each year we make new discoveries, we invent new materials and new technologies, and we create new organisms. It’s a helter-skelter world which leaves some gasping for breath and calling for a halt, wanting us to content ourselves with life’s richness instead of breaking beyond its current boundaries. It is unlikely that we will. There will always be intrepid souls like Columbus, and if some countries put a brake on their progress, they will do it in others. Columbus released a genie from its bottle, and it isn’t going back in.