tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36753400464697032242024-03-11T06:56:58.104-07:00Thoughts From a Retired Software IT AnalystWayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.comBlogger247125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-46730968384306779492023-07-13T19:30:00.002-07:002023-07-13T19:30:47.688-07:00Climate Change, July, 2023: Not the Mild Good News I Had Hoped For<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This April (after a long hiatus from blog posting) I hoped
to be able to post a climate change piece with a few bits of good news among
the bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa,
it appeared, had cut its year-to-year growth rate nearly in half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of solar power rather than coal or
oil for energy in homes and cars was slowly growing as price drops for solar
continued and the US passed the Inflation Reduction Act with incentives for
solar and electric-vehicle use, as well as embedding climate change efforts
more deeply in the US government bureaucracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Arctic sea ice appeared for the last six years to have reached a new
equilibrium level, never breaching the 2016 lows.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then, from April to July, several things happened almost
simultaneously:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->James Hansen et al published a paper arguing
that (a) global warming for a doubling of CO2 was most likely to be not 4
degrees C as he had previously estimated, but 4.5 degrees C, (b) this would be
increased by an inevitable decrease in human-caused aerosols starting a few
years ago, and (c) it was now possible to project to some extent the degree to
which this warming would happen over the next century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->“Hothouse Earth”, by Bill McGuire, talks
specifically about what we may expect in the next 30-50 years in particular,
including a halving of global food production.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Monthly CO2 (Mauna Loa) saw a very large rise in
April, to a rate 3 ppm above April 2022, and May and June show similar jumps,
while our best measure of yearly CO2 jumped to 421 ppm in June, more than 50% above
its 1850 280-ppm baseline – implying, together with Hansen et al’s work, that 3
degrees C of global warming above that time period is now “baked in” and
unavoidable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Global sea surface temperatures are now well
into record territory, and sea temperatures around Florida are now around 95
degrees, hot enough to kill coral and some fish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Antarctic sea ice has diverged dramatically from
recorded extents – since it is winter in the Antarctic, this means that warm
winds from an incipient equatorial El Nino have prevented as much as 1/3 of
historical sea ice refreezing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would
seem inevitable that new record lows will continue to be set all the way to
Antarctic sea ice minimum in late January, with follow-on effects on Antarctic
land ice melting and hence ocean level rise.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Dangerous air quality from Canadian wildfires
has affected the northern US, while record heat, often around 110 F, is
affecting the southern US.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->From July 3<sup>rd</sup> to the 5<sup>th</sup>,
global record land temperatures for apparently the last 125,000 years occurred,
reaching above 17 degrees C.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Looking Forward with Great Wariness</h3><h2><o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">All of this is worrying enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is also the case that by all accounts,
a new El Nino is starting, and may well last for a year or more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The past few times an El Nino has occurred,
if I remember correctly, CO2 has spiked upwards at a record pace and global
land temperatures have also risen significantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The prospect of grueling heat waves not just
this summer but next is certainly a cause for major concern.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I should also, I suppose, mention articles suggesting that
the melting of permafrost with attendant methane release is continuing to ramp
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not clear how much this increases
global warming independent of CO2 increases:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>methane (CO4) is more powerful in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas,
but much less prevalent than CO2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
same time, a certain amount of methane breaks down in the atmosphere to CO2,
thus increasing carbon dioxide concentration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Overall</h3><h2><o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">My conclusion from all of the above is that most if not all
of our decrease in CO2 emissions is being “drowned out” by the shift to El Nino,
economic rebound from COVID, decreases in aerosols, and increased permafrost
melting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One good thing is that popular news outlets aside from The
Guardian – including CNN, AP, and the New York Times – are willing to report
that today’s weather extremes are indeed caused by climate change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, I see not only that
150-odd Republican Representatives (a majority of Republicans in the US House
of Representatives) are still classed as “climate deniers”, but also that an
increasing number of people at the other extreme have given up hope of doing anything
about climate change – often because they sense correctly that the 1.5 degree C
target for “avoiding disaster”, and also the 2 degree target for “avoiding catastrophe”
are certain to be overrun.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, this, I must emphasize, is not, in my view, the
proper way to view the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What lies
beyond these targets – the next doubling of CO2, and the next – increases the scale
of the disaster almost tenfold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
true, I think, that once one target is breached, the next is harder to stop
short of, because both of feedbacks from initial warming and increasing sunk
costs of fossil-fuel infrastructure that makes its replacement harder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, those feedbacks decrease over time
to nothing if we succeed in slowing CO2 emissions dramatically, and the success
of solar power shows that green energy can succeed even if it means uprooting
what’s there for a whole new system. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, our initial successes count far more towards preventing
disasters numbers 2 and 3 than they do towards avoiding today’s disaster; and
the consequences of success or failure in our quest are far greater. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think 2 billion lives lost or 8 billion rather
than 500 million and that may give you an idea of what is at stake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, what is happening is a matter for
heartbreak and anger at those responsible, but not for despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the contrary, it is a matter for steadfast
effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As was once said, it’s the only game in town, and you lose no
matter what you do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you do it
right, you won’t go broke before the game ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, to put it another way, humanity and nature will not by and large die
if we try well enough, although we cannot prevent mass murder, both before and
after we die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s the best
obituary we can hope for.<o:p></o:p></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-70463328916271841572022-04-27T19:11:00.000-07:002022-04-27T19:11:53.525-07:00Reading New Thoughts: The Possible Death of Race (Verny, “The Embodied Mind”) <p> <i>Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything. This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thomas Verny’s “The Embodied Mind” would appear at first
glance to have nothing to do with genetics or “race”/ethnicity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, in fact, an interesting attempt to
argue that memory, thought, and even consciousness takes place in other areas
of the body besides the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
as part of its argument that memories can be passed from generation to
generation, it takes a detailed look at recent research in epigenetics –
including both animal experiments and human analyses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
from this, I have concluded that it is reasonable to draw some brief initial
conclusions about the role that epigenetics plays in differential inheritance
of characteristics.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So let me lay out, first, the overall model of inherited or
socially influenced differences that I see as underlying recent research, more
or less, and then discuss how I see this research impacting our whole notion of
race and ethnicity as factors in such areas as intelligence (however defined),
success in life (however defined), and physical skills.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>The Disruptive Effect of Epigenetics in Theory<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">Crudely speaking, I used to sense that the theory of
evolution reduced causes for differences into two:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>genes (which are inherited and are slow to
change because they involve mutations that “crowd out” existing genetic
structure because they are better fitted to a new physical environment) and
society (behaviors and skills learned from others, typically relatives).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, absent concrete knowledge of the
genome, it was possible that all differences between groups could be explained
by differences in genes, and it was possible that none of it could be explained
by genes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first major disruption to the wealth of research trying
to determine how much could be explained by genetics, I think, was the sequencing
of the genome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This and follow-on
research establish that 99% of the human genome is identical, and that while
physical appearance (e.g., eye, hair, and skin color) and a few diseases or
disorders (e.g., sickle-cell anemia) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>still
seemed to be clearly genetically based, almost everything else could not be
explained genetically by less than 10-20 “different” genes or even no matter
how many “different” genes one tried to use as a combined explanation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, when one tried to group by
so-called “race” or ethnicity, then the research tended to show that the
maximum difference in genes was between African and all other groupings, with
steadily decreasing differences between Asian, European, American, and
Polynesian groupings – clearly explained by the fact that Africans had remained
in the same physical environment over the last 50,000 years, with relatively little
cross-breeding, while the others had typically moved at least once to a
different physical environment in the intervening 50,000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So even where differences in genes might be
held to explain performance or skills, for all but the crudest grouping the
differences across groups were much less than the <1% maximum. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then, along came epigenetics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What was different and puzzling about epigenetics can be
encapsulated in one research result:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are two groups of one species of fish in different areas of a
coral reef with absolutely identical genes – but different physical
characteristics (a skin tag in one group, no skin tag in the other).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The explanation for this, it turns out, is that epigenetics
acts like an on-off switch or cap-off/cap-on for a gene or genes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flip the cap off, and the gene “expresses”
itself in physical characteristics in a new way; flip the cap back on, and the
gene goes back to the old “expression”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These “switches” reside in so-called “junk” DNA, in RNA, and in proteins
associated with the workings of the genes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, as the research result cited above indicates, they are inheritable,
down to (as far as studies have gone) the fourth generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What remains unclear is just how a switch
that is turned on gets turned off again; it is still possible that it only does
so via cross-breeding with those whose gene is not so expressed and/or “crowding
out” the inheritors as a smaller and smaller part of the population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So epigenetics appears to disrupt “nature vs. nurture”
discussions, I think, in two ways:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->It appears at first glance to indicate that,
even if some difference in characteristics is not explainable by the action of
genes, it could be explainable by inheritable epigenetic action on genes – “genes
plus epigenetics equals destiny”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Conversely, it suggests that things that have been
ascribed to genes may be explained by epigenetics happening right now – a group’s
intelligence may be improved or decreased right now by moving to a different
physical environment, and that improvement or decrease is inherited (vaguely
similar to an episode of the original Star Trek TV series where exposure to
mine air lowered intelligence and increased aggression).<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, when I look at the research findings up to now as
presented in “The Embodied Mind”, it is apparent that the picture is much more
one-sided than it first seems.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Specifically, every research finding cited is of an
inherited epigenetic trait that is triggered, more or less, by the physical environment,
and applies to all those who are affected by that physical environment state, <i>no
matter what their genetic differences are</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let me restate that:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>no matter
what group (including male or female) I belong to, I am equally susceptible to
proneness to obesity and related disorders if my mother or grandmother
underwent prolonged starvation compared to anyone in any other group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If my mother smoked or drank during pregnancy
not only she but I will be at increased risk for cancers or alcoholism –
because those gene expressions are epigenetically transmitted to the
fetus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, in the last case one
can argue that my “culture” made my mother more or less likely to smoke or drink;
but (a) that’s something that can be mitigated by changing education and social
encouragement, and (b) in most “races” or ethnicities this is not thought of as
part of the core culture. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, these
are just two examples:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in all other
cases cited in “The Embodied Mind”, there is no inherited differentiation based
on society at all, and therefore no role for race or ethnicity in causing
differences.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I must point out that it makes sense that it be so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is logical that if 99% of our genes are
identical, epigenetics should apply equally to genes that are otherwise the
same and genes that are different across individuals and groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, when epigenetics is involved, it
makes sense that 99% of the time, it is the physical environment within the
last 1-3 generations that is my destiny, and that I can very possibly change
that destiny by changing my physical environment, just as I can change things
for the better if I change my individual behavior by changing my “culture” or
social environment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other “theme” of recent epigenetic research is that in
many cases, it involves epigenetic switch-flipping in response to an unusually
stressful environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, starvation
during or near pregnancy is typically happening in response to lack of food
affecting not only oneself but one’s relatives or group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that, in turn, often tends to line up
neatly with whether the group is rich/powerful or poor/powerless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might expect therefore that an increasing
number of the poor of any race or ethnicity who is subjected to this kind of
shock will be at increased risk of diseases and disorders that affect average
intelligence as measured by standardized tests, to be less likely to have the
education that a rich person does, and to be less effective at jobs, all else
being equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, the animal
trained to solve certain puzzles may transmit the memory of solving these
puzzles epigenetically, and therefore looks like a genetically superior animal
in terms of intelligence, and yet, give those same tests to the “poor” animal
and his or her descendants will become equally intelligent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I summarize these two trends in epigenetic research as:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given an initial epigenetic boost, the descendants
of the rich and powerful are increasingly more likely to keep getting richer,
as epigenetic inheritance combines with the social-environment and educational
effects of being around other well-off people, while the poor’s descendants may
very well become poorer, as inherited epigenetics leads to less ability to take
advantage of education, while the social environment dominated by the powerful
rich reduces both access to education and job opportunities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, epigenetic research also suggests
that these trends are reversible, to the point of epigenetic equality between
rich and poor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Interestingly, epigenetics calls into question the seemingly
strongest research studies indicating a role of genetics in things like
intelligence and job success. Take, for example, the study that found that twins
in which one of the two was placed with a different family to grow up in tended
to reflect their birth parents’ rather than their childhood parents’ testing
success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed like an obvious case
of genetic differentiation causing this result (if we assume that the
placements were not causing a child of a rich/educated or poor parent to move
to a physical/social environment in which the child was given different
treatment because of its background).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, epigenetics suggests that it is far more likely the difference
was because of inherited epigenetic differentiation which could be reversed either
by changing the physical/social environment for this generation or by “breeding
the differentiation out”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>Getting Back to That Possible Death of Race …<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">So to explain why I think the research trend is to undercut the
view of individual differences being due to group differences by race or even
by ethnicity, I want to start with what the model of “evolution” of differences
seems to be turning into.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As I see it, adding epigenetics to the picture leads to a
model something like this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the five
causative factors of these differences seem to be genes (inherited),
epigenetics (inherited), the physical environment, the social environment
(culture, society, typically corresponding to ethnic or cultural differences),
and individual variation not caused by any other factor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The physical environment may also cause
genetic and epigenetic inherited differences, in the case of genetics over
thousands of years of time, in the case of epigenetics immediately.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The key question then becomes, how much of these inherited differences
can be explained by genetic differences correlated with physical appearance or
such genetically inherited traits as lactose tolerance, and how much by
epigenetics?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most likely answer, it
appears, is 90-99.5% explained by epigenetics, because if we assume 50% of
those times when we thought genes were to blame it was really epigenetics, then
for the other 99% of the genes the differences are definitely due to epigenetics
and hence if any gene is equally likely to be affected by epigenetics you get
99% x 1 + 1% x 0.5 = 99.5% of the effects of inherited differences explained by
epigenetics. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But race and notions of other group-inherited “permanent”
characteristics are inherently dependent on genetic evolution for their
validity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If inherited differences are
based on the physical environment 1-3 generations back and are easily
reversible by a different physical environment or cross-breeding, then very
little of “racial” or even “ethnic” differences is explainable by genetic or
even epigenetic “destiny”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s easy
visually to class people by physical characteristics; but it now appears that
inherited groupings that do anything more than that – possibly even in the area
of physical skills – will be wrong, at least 9 times out of 10.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What does that leave us with, as a guide to action?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In broad strokes, the levers available to
pull to make things better have to do increasingly with the physical environment
– different exposures to disease, pollution, starvation from poverty, for
example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we take the notion of the
rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer from epigenetics or the
physical and social environment seriously, we should primarily favor policies
that narrow the gap between rich and poor, because other research suggests that
that type of move toward “equality” will lead to a better economy and greater
innovation that drives life improvements of the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the levers that involve making the
physical environment more “equal” in specific ways sound like one place to
start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would also note that tackling group social inequities seems
to me to be a slightly better bet to pursue than before epigenetics arrived on
the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the apparent split
between nature and nurture before epigenetics arrived, it seems clear that
social inequities affect some differentiation between groups, and more so now
that those inequities can travel down to future generations via both society and
epigenetic inheritance – and that such epigenetics-exacerbated social inequities
can be reversed both societally and epigenetically.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ll add one final thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I haven’t touched on the whole notion of individual differentiation
across groups, inherited or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
really don’t think there’s enough research in the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, I’ve seen enough anecdotal evidence to
form the following generalization:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Groups are more similar than you think; individuals
within groups are more different than you think.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That is, there are more men who wouldn’t mind donning a tutu
and doing classical ballet than you think; there are more women who wouldn’t
mind being bricklayers than you think; there are more white folks who like
Afro-pop than you think; there are more African-Americans who like classical
music than you think; on and on.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As I say, there is little research supporting this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, I think it’s a useful thing to remind
oneself of, whatever the passionate issue to which it applies.<o:p></o:p></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-35452340330153045722022-03-27T21:03:00.000-07:002022-03-27T21:03:13.480-07:00CO2 Update: Slightly Less Bad News<p> <i>Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything. This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I continue to monitor the CO2 results measured at Mauna Loa,
as pretty much the best indicator out there as to whether our recent efforts at
mitigating climate change are having any effect at all, or whether the rate of growth
of atmospheric CO2 continues to increase as it has for the last atmospheric
growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">I have been doing this since around 2010, and have only seen
two months’ data over that time that suggested there might be some leveling of the
CO2 growth rate. Of course, that is only
the first step in saving the planet – the second is to start decreasing the
growth rate, the third is to drive the growth rate to zero, and the final step (which
is the point at which we will actually be doing something positive about
climate change) is to pursue decreases in CO2 until it reaches about 280 ppm (a
far harder task than boosting its level). </p><p class="MsoNormal">The first of the two data points was last May. For no obvious reason (and therefore the
likeliest reason was actual effectiveness in cutting CO2 emissions) May was
almost flat compared to April, although April was a normal-growth month and in
all previous years since 2010 May has been significantly above April. Oh well, maybe it was a one-time event.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But then came March of this year. As I have never seen before, March has been significantly
below February. It still appears likely
that May will end up above 420 ppm – an important milestone, since average
yearly atmospheric CO2 was around 280 ppm in the early 1800s before
human-caused global warming began. Each
doubling of CO2 is projected to be associated with 3-4 degrees Celsius of
global warming (perhaps two-thirds of that being directly caused by CO2
itself), so reaching 420 ppm should in the long run be associated with 2-2.67 degrees
of warming. In any event, reaching 420
ppm is clearly unadulterated Bad News.</p><p class="MsoNormal">However, the second downturn from trend in the last year
suggests that maybe, just maybe, we are reaching the point of a level growth
rate in atmospheric CO2. This is
slightly supported by the fact that the last four years of CO2 growth rates
have been in the 2.3-2.5 range – a period which seems to have mixed mild La
Nina (inhibiting CO2 growth rates) and neutral (no effect on CO2 growth rates)
weather. Since this is not too far from
the typical case across history (El Nino being more of an exception than La
Nina), I conclude that there are therefore three possible signs that a leveling
of CO2 growth rates may have been reached.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Thoughts on Implications</h3><h2><o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">I admit that I base my thinking loosely on a draft paper by James
Hansen et al in which he argued that the maximum number of doublings of CO2
would be three or four (somewhere above 2240 ppm).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would be achieved, iirc, if
approximately 60-70% of the fossil-fuel reserves identified at the time of
writing (2013 or so) were burned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
pace at which use was increasing at the time, the appropriate amount of fossil fuels
would have been burned and its CO2 moved into the atmosphere in 50-60 years
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, a continued rise in the
growth rate of CO2 represents this worst-case scenario:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if the last nine years continued the growth-rate
rise trend, then we would have narrowed the time for avoiding the worst-case
scenario to 40-50 years in the future – not to mention drastically decreasing
the chances of avoiding the first and second doublings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, I argue, what we would have achieved by leveling
the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is at least more time to avoid the
worst-case scenario, and at best a major decrease in the probability of
reaching the worst-case scenario. That
is the sense in which I say, this is slightly less bad news. Considering that the worst-case scenario as
described by Hansen involves the death of most of the human race, not to
mention much of the rest of the environment – in this nightmare scenario, if
you go outside in most places to work during the day during most of the year
and stay out more than an hour, you will die of heat stroke – anything that
reduces that likelihood is to be celebrated.
But the first two doublings involve the deaths perhaps of hundreds of
millions to a billion, so we should be clear-eyed about increasing toughness of
the job ahead, even with this news, and recognize that those who seek to
prevent us from decreasing that growth rate for their own selfish purposes may
well be murderers beyond the scale of the Holocaust, or the Holodomor, or WW
II. </p><p class="MsoNormal">But enough of gloom.
Go enjoy the slightly less bad news, he said on his birthday.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-48699636030384447482022-01-18T10:50:00.000-08:002022-01-18T10:50:34.332-08:00Reading New Thoughts: What Do We Want the World to Be When We Grow Up? (Hiss, “Restoring the Planet”) <p> <i>Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything. This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have recently been reading “Restoring the Planet,” by Tony
Hiss, and it has prompted some far more general thoughts about the endgame of
successful climate change efforts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hiss book lays out, more or less, a global if
North-America-centered effort to “set aside” 50% of all land from human use, to
be achieved by 2050 (giving a nice slogan, “50 by ‘50”.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then discusses the ways in which people
are using that effort to identify ecosystems and then as far as possible
preserve or restore them, free from humanity’s touch. In other words, the areas
being saved are then altered if necessary to create, as far as possible,
functioning ecosystems having long-term viability without needing constant
human intervention.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For example, one such effort seeks to “carve out” existing
spaces where animals roam in fixed patterns and connect these via “corridors”
that ensure that humans will not decimate the animals but still allow the animals
sufficient range to be viable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another
seeks to reserve remaining “wilderness” by establishing ownership of the
property involved by entities dedicated to keeping it human-unaffected.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These efforts, and others, seem to me today to follow disparate
ideas of what the endgame is and how to get there, only loosely coordinated if
at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe that what I have seen
can be more or less classified into five approaches, or movements:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sustainability<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Regeneration<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Human-designed ecologies<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->No-human ecologies (more or less the approach
described by Hiss)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Human-included ecologies<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>Terms of Ecological Endearment<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">The approaches I have listed above overlap in some cases – a
human-designed ecology may be aimed at creating a long-term sustainable
ecosystem, or simply at regenerating an area to repair the damages of the
recent past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What matters, I think, is
the goal of the approach, as an exclusive focus on one approach may or may not
lead to the promised land of a low-carbon-emissions steady-state global set of
ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it seems appropriate to
examine each approach in that light.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Sustainability</i>, it seems, it the most-known
approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It explicitly requires setting
up steady-state ecosystems, and only by inference those with low carbon
emissions, since otherwise (one guesses) carbon-emission-induced climate change
will make ecosystems unsustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is an unmistakable air of “whatever works” about the
sustainability approach – it is thus entirely agnostic about regeneration and
human-designed vs. human-included vs. no-human ecologies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Regeneration</i>, by contrast, seems to say that simply
by restoring a previous state of an ecosystem will automagically result in a
steady-state low-carbon-emissions environment, because the previous state of
the ecosystem had this characteristic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
makes this questionable is that one can’t walk through the same river twice: due
to the Columbian Exchange, few ecosystems are the way they were 500 years ago,
before carbon emissions started rising.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Human-designed ecologies</i> is very much, I think, the
province of the “new environmentalists”, those who think that we cannot restore
ecosystems to a previous state and therefore we are forced to design new
ecosystems, using existing tools, that will achieve a steady state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since this is a pragmatic approach, it leans
toward leaving humans where they are and/or accommodating but constraining them
as they continue expanding into the world’s ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the question arises as to who
decides what’s an appropriate end game – clearly, indigenous populations are
not on the priority list of those who advocate human-designed ecologies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>No-human ecologies</i>, by contrast, is the ideological
leaning of the “old environmentalists”, who based on their experiences in the
1970s at the advent of the environmentalist movement tend to worry that humans,
by and large, blight everything they touch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I believe that this approach accords with the effort, in the US at
least, to buy up everything possible not owned by the government (in
Massachusetts, the aim is to acquire 80% of the land area) and turn it into
places where humans go either not at all or only rarely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, the lands involved for the most
part right now are the ones least subject to carbon pollution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would also guess that the main sticking
point in the immediate future is places involved in mining, including those
minerals involved in solar-power generation, not to mention installation of
solar arrays in these areas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I admit that I am fond of the <i>human-included ecologies</i>
approach, because it seems to me more flexible than either the human-designed
or no-human approaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, we make
an exception to the no-humans approach where indigenous peoples have a strong
track record of living sustainably on the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In many cases, these indigenous peoples have been strongly tainted by the
modern economy and nation-state institutions, but there is clearly a case to be
made that they still are the quickest way to restore a low-carbon-emissions
steady state – not to mention the irony of visiting the worst consequences of a
no-human-ecology approach on the worst sufferers from our previous “civilizing”
emissions-hungry system.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>In Which I Vote For All of the Above<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">I look at all of these approaches from the point of view of
a climate-change person who is primarily concerned that we <i>mitigate</i> as
fast as possible – that we reduce carbon emissions as fast as possible, with
the ultimate steady state, if any, a secondary consideration for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Viewed in that light, I believe that each of
these approaches is appropriate in a wide range of particular cases, and thus I
am happy to “let a thousand flowers bloom” – i.e., encourage each of these movements.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the same time, each time one of these movements comes
into conflict with another, I think it is the right thing, not to commit to one
side or another for the long term, but rather to establish rules of thumb for when
a particular approach is most appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I would suggest that among these rules of thumb are:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->When there are vested human interests in an
area, pick the approach that impacts them least (but still minimizes carbon
emissions)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Likewise, pick the approach that involves the
quickest path to a healthy ecosystem (i.e., consider the needs of non-human
animals and plants first)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Focus sustainability efforts on what seems
irretrievably human-dominated – in other words, cities and their irreducible
agricultural hinterland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since, in the
foreseeable future, that comprises much more than half of humanity, but far
less than a quarter of all of the land, that means both a human-designed and
human-dominated ecology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would also bear in mind that each of these approaches,
unlike mitigation, asks and tries to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>answer the questions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do we
want the world to be like if and when we cease our immature destruction of
ecosystems and achieve a low-carbon-emissions world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, how can we ensure that we act maturely
from now on and never again risk ourselves and our planet in this way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For that reason, I would say that, while I
would not prioritize any of these approaches over mitigation, they are every
bit as important as adaptation to climate change’s effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not more so.<o:p></o:p></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-21802426189317745482020-12-31T21:26:00.000-08:002020-12-31T21:26:57.538-08:00The Climate Change of Our Lives: 2020<p> <i>Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything. This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have written almost nothing for almost all of this year
because I have undergone one of those periods where whatever I think of writing
seems to me to contribute nothing – someone else has already said what I might
wish to say, and done it well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
it does seem to me with regard to climate change that, still, no one is consistently
monitoring CO2 emissions and drawing conclusions about what they imply for our success
or lack thereof in preventing global warming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So this piece is a retrospective on 2020 and climate change, focusing on
what’s going on in CO2 emissions as evidenced by measurements at Mauna Loa.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 2020 chapter of our lives at Mauna Loa was marked by a
pretty consistent monthly atmospheric CO2 rise of 2.5 ppm from 2019’s
levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is about in line with the
rises of the last two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To me, this is neither good news nor bad news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I might have expected that the effects of
COVID, which over the first ½ of the year apparently meant a 5-8% reduction in
global CO2 emissions, would show up in the Mauna Loa figures, but an article on
their website noted that it would be difficult to distinguish its effects from
the “noise” of normal variation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Likewise, I might have expected CO2 to increase more rapidly if the
pandemic hadn’t happened, simply from feedback effects like increased albedo
due to some regions like Siberia and the Laptev Sea melting earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the two effects cancelled each other
out. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The point, I think, is that for the first year since I
started worrying about this in 2010, there seem to be positive developments since
the year before that at least match the negative developments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, we don’t know how much of the
clawback of emissions will remain when the pandemic fades some time in 2021,
probably due to comprehensive vaccination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, as in Alice Through the Looking Glass, perhaps we are finally
running fast enough to stay in the same place, even though we are no closer to
the ultimate goal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, we should not forget those negative
developments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s my own list.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>Arctic Sea Ice<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">Every year I come back to this, because in determining the
effects of climate change, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the
Arctic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was indeed another
alarming, unprecedented year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both
extent and volume of Arctic sea ice at minimum were either slightly lower than
ever before or second lowest behind 2012, depending on your measurement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The salient feature of this melting season
was the early and unusually large melt in the Arctic Ocean above Russia, and
its late remelt, so that the Northeast Passage was open perhaps from late June
to early October.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When refreeze
occurred, for the first time since I’ve been following things, it happened “up”
from the Russian seacoast rather than “down” from the North Pole to the
seacoast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears also that at one
point the Northwest Passage was open to quite high in the Canadian Archipelago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What this suggests to me is that rather than reaching a
point of higher stability after 2007 or 2012, two years of precipitous drops,
we are now pushing against the lower bounds established in 2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, the minimum levels in 2013-2019
do not represent a “new normal”, but rather a springback followed by a resumption
of (slow) decline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fully expect,
therefore, to see a clear new record low sometime in the next 3 years, although
I will be deliriously happy to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I won’t repeat, but you the reader should
keep in mind, the fallout when, inevitably, the minimum goes to zero.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>Disasters and Weather<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the fires, hurricanes, and other disasters partially
attributable to global warming were certainly on a par with 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am told that the cost of these disasters
set another record in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
wildfires in California were certainly notable for the record acreage consumed
and for the effect being so widespread in terms of air quality throughout the
state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2020 saw a record number of
hurricanes, true, but to me the important point was the continuation of
unusually warm water, especially in the Caribbean, that made incipient
hurricanes frequently into Level 4 or 5 ones, when in the years before 2019 those
would have almost always been Level 1 or Level 2 hurricanes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, of course, record-matching flooding from
slow-moving hurricanes happened again, as well.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Locally, it was an unusually mild winter overall, with temperatures
in February and early March often in the low 50s, while snow never really
stuck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then summer arrived with consistent
80-plus temperatures around June 20<sup>th</sup>, earlier than I can ever
remember in my 50-plus years around the Boston area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The highs in July and August were around 95,
not around 90 as in years before, and temperatures in the 80s lasted until
mid-October, while the leaves didn’t finish falling until well into November –
all of this was unprecedented as far as I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And at certain times, winds were far more violent than in the past,
although not to the point of hurricane status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I understand, also, that there’s a new weather term:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“thundersnow” – i.e., thunder and lightning
plus snow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>And the New Year<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I look at 2021, I find that for the first time, the
things I foresee that are matters for hope outweigh the negative things that I
expect may come to pass, although the hopes are slender:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->It does appear that President-elect Joe Biden is
serious about embedding consideration of climate change in most of the workings
of the U.S. government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot say
that I can clearly point to a comparable effort in any other country, if it
happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The effects on emissions will
be minimal, at best, for a few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the cumulative effect of the bureaucracy and the “movement” it
creates as it operates on its own momentum could be profound in the medium
term.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->For the first time, it appears that banks may
actually follow through on defunding CO2 emitters, especially in the energy
sector. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because banks are such herd
animals, I view this as a potentially serious investment shift away from CO2
polluter firms that may cause far more drastic CO2 cutbacks (except in China
and Russia) than we have seen before.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bear that in mind as, in 2021, I otherwise anticipate
echoing my sad findings about 2020.<o:p></o:p></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-59025195193781732272020-11-20T12:45:00.000-08:002020-11-20T12:45:56.568-08:00And Now For Something Completely Different<p> For the last week and a half, I have been reviewing and
putting in book-like format a series of blog posts I did at Daily Kos 1 ½ years
ago on different takes on Tolkien, and in particular on Lord of the Rings. This morning, as I was editing one of these
posts, it occurred to me that no one had ever tried looked at what Tolkien had
said about which characters and species in Middle-Earth had beards (including
Dwarven females), and which did not. I
imagined calling it “Barbering in Middle Earth.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just now, I happened upon a news release about a new “treasure
trove” of Tolkien’s writings on Middle Earth, due for publication in June of
2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Near the end, it notes that “[t]<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">he new
collection will even touch upon which characters had beards</span>”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That is
… eerie.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-4612854125384571562019-12-31T13:51:00.000-08:002019-12-31T13:51:21.652-08:00Another Year Older and Deeper in Climate Debt
<br />
As I write this, Australia is burning up.<br /><br />
Reports indicate that due to weeks of unprecedented 104
degree temperatures and drought, wildfires are burning across Australia,
driving those who can’t evacuate into the ocean and creating toxic air in the
major urban centers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These conditions
are, without doubt, due to human-caused climate change – except that Australia
has a large reserve of climate-denier politicians and their allies who apparently
are claiming that “if the Greenies had let us clean up the forests this wouldn’t
be happening.”<br />
<br />In looking over the last year, therefore, I am reminded of
an old coal-miner union song’s refrain:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Sixteen
tons, and what do you get?/Another day older and deeper in debt/Saint Peter don’t
you call me, ‘cause I can’t come/I sold my soul to the company store.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another year older, and what do I get?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A world that’s deeper in climate crisis than
at the start of the year, because we continue to emit not only more carbon than
is needed to stop atmospheric CO2 from rising, but more than in 2018 or any year
before it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
In effect, we are creating more and more “climate debt” that
will have to be paid, by the Australians, by us, and by our descendants.<br /><br />
Let’s go through the latest dreary numbers.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Possible But Not Clear Hope On The Ground</h2>
<br />
An enormous shift occurred in societal terms over the last
year or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the last nine years or
so, efforts in universities, NGOs, individual businesses, and interest groups
have created what might be called a “climate change technology movement” in
which efforts around sustainability, regenerative economics, solar and wind
technology, and the like began, and began to coordinate with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What has happened over the last year has been
the embedding of the movement in society, so that schools, politicians, and
workers feel comfortable making climate change a major part of the discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
What has not happened, as of yet, is the embedding of that
movement in the bureaucracy of government, business, and other
institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I define a bureaucracy, in
one sense, as an organization that operates on its own momentum, driven not by
leaders but by the implications of rules and regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that sense, there is nothing driving
considerations of carbon-emission reduction and measurement on a national, much
less a global scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, there
are some grounds for possible hope in this development.<br /><br />
Another possible ground for hope is the surprisingly rapid
(to some) development of solar power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
someone who experienced the power of Moore’s Law in the computer industry at
first hand, I always believed that similar technologies in the solar field
could lead to reductions in solar cost per watt comparable to computers’ rapid
ongoing increases in computational power per dollar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It now seems to be at the point where,
despite the cost of batteries, building and operating an electricity grid based
on solar is cheaper than doing so based on coal or oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although we may not yet have reached the day where
we are considering replacing operating fossil-fuel systems with their sunk
costs and infrastructure designed for fossil fuels only, such a day may be in
sight.<br /><br />
But despite this fundamental shift in the culture and the
economics, the numbers seem to be telling us that we are not yet clearly making
a dent in “business as usual”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always
look to CO2 measurements (Mauna Loa) as indications of what is happening that
cannot be distorted by our hopes, fears, and self-interest – and there the news
continues to be grim.<br /><br />
Over the last year, for just about every month except
November (2.25 ppm), atmospheric carbon has increased by about 3 ppm since the
same month in 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To put this in
perspective, this high a rate has only occurred, iirc, in 1998 and in three of
the last four years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words,
there is no clear sign in the atmosphere that we have begun to deviate from “business
as usual”.<br /><br />
If we switched to more suspect numbers, there might be some
more local signs of hope:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>US emissions,
for example, are alleged to be more or less flat over the last few years
(although the Trump administration has fueled a slight increase), thereby “decoupling”
economic growth from emissions rises – meaning that while the US may not be
actually reducing emissions, we at least may not be increasing them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some credit for that appears due to
energy-efficiency efforts, and some to the solar/wind revolution, while the
switch to natural gas may or may not be playing a role – there are strong
indications of major methane leaks that may make natural gas just as bad as oil
or coal for carbon emissions.<br /><br />
However, we must bear in mind (a) our local and global
measurements may not capture all sources; (b) local successes may be partly due
to shifting economically to countries with fewer regulations that inevitably
emit more than the US or similar operation that it replaced; (c) because of
feedbacks and feedback loops, areas not under our control may be emitting more
carbon – e.g., the black carbon from wildfires, or carbon/methane from melting
permafrost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Point (c) is especially
important:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scientists talk of “tipping
points” where atmospheric carbon increases and global warming happen even if we
cut our emissions to zero, and so we have to “run harder” (cut emissions more)
to stay in the same place (steady increases in emissions), and even harder than
that to get anywhere (start achieving smaller increases in emissions).<br />
<br />And therefore, I believe, that is where our one small possible
hope in all this gloom lies:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that we may
indeed have reached the point where we would have decreased the rate of rise of
emissions (if those pesky feedbacks were not occurring).<br />
<br />
<h2>
Final Thoughts</h2>
<br />
I would, in sad adieu to 2019, like to note the malefactors
who continue to drive the climate emergency to new extremes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would cite in particular:<br />
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>President Trump, of course, who has effectively
taken a leadership role in driving more emissions of carbon, by letting loose
the fossil fuel industry and its enablers on the US government, leading to a
bureaucracy that is abetting, by its rules and regulations, both increased emissions
and the pollution and food/water problems that make the effects of climate
change worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared to this, trashing
the Constitution is minor stuff.</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Murdoch and Koch, who are driving these policies
into our politics.</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Putin, not only for committing to oil as an instrument
of Russian policy but also for abetting “Mafia government” across the world
that is accompanied by lessened action on climate change, climate-science
censorship, and physical repression of activists.</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Australia’s Conservatives, who seem to be
recreating the denialism of the US Republican party, in a country that is far
more economically involved in coal mining and similar emissions-friendly
activities than most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
That’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe next year will be better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh wait, I said that last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the year before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And …All right, I’ll end in the words
of Flanders and Swann:<br />
“Bloody January again!”<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-7515272788409436142019-09-04T07:07:00.000-07:002019-09-04T07:07:52.859-07:00CLIMATE CHANGE
<br />
I dreamed a dream of golden sands<br />
Where late the sweet birds flew<br />
And at dune’s height a small child’s plastic shovel stood stuck<br />
As if to bid our summer adieu<br />
<br />
Over the crest, the lonely beach stretched endlessly<br />
And, amid its wrack, seen only by me<br />
Seethed the dead, the conquering sea.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-86871803400721587102019-07-04T21:08:00.000-07:002019-07-04T21:08:35.115-07:00REFLECTIONS ON AN AMERICAN CELEBRATION
<br />
This land is not a land<br />
It’s an idea.<br />
<br />
Sometimes we fear that idea, <br />
We spit on it, we trample it.<br />
Then we pick it up, we dust it off, we pat it on the head.<br />
Ideas don’t mind.<br />
People do.<br />
<br />
Today we celebrate our land,<br />
Tomorrow we go back to the fear, the spitting, the trampling,<br />
Or even worse, the indifference.<br />
<br />
But there’s a problem.<br />
<br />
People die; land dies; countries die;<br />
But ideas do not have to die.<br />
But ideas must grow, or they will die.<br />
<br />
Greatness is momentary in the flesh, <br />
But in an idea endlessly growing,<br />
It is immortal.<br />
<br />
So when we celebrate our land today,<br />
We are only picking our idea up, dusting it off, patting it on the head.<br />
We need to do more.<br />
<br />
We need to overcome our fear of our idea, <br />
And right its wrongs, <br />
And help it grow new lofty mansions,<br />
As the seasons roll.<br />
<br />
Else tomorrow, we may find that our idea is dead.<br />
And when our idea is dead, <br />
Our country might as well be dead.<br />
<br />
For why should anyone care any more about our country or us<br />
Than any others?<br />
We will no longer have an idea <br />
To protect us people somewhat <br />
From the fear, the spitting, the trampling.<br />
<br />
This land is not our land.<br />
Because it’s an idea.<br />
People don’t own ideas;<br />
Parents don’t own children.<br />
<br />
And so, today,<br />
Ask not what your country can do for you.<br />
Ask what you can do for your idea.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-50777475720222280492019-06-13T19:21:00.000-07:002019-06-13T19:21:10.529-07:00Reading New Thoughts: Green and Bowles/Carlin Rethink Economics
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.<br /></i>What I am talking about here is a history of West Africa circa
1200-1850 called “A Fistful of Shells”, by Toby Green, and a white paper by
Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin analyzing CORE’s “The Economy”, a new multi-sourced
introductory Economics textbook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both
seem to me to provide different and troubling new ways to view economics as a
whole; your mileage may vary.<br /><br />Let’s start with Green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Imho, his argument runs something like this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a trade in gold (sub-Saharan Africa
providing, North Africa/Europe/Middle East benefiting) sprang up, supplemented
and then replaced by a trade in slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These slaves were a natural outgrowth of previous uses of slaves
(acquired in warfare, or involving criminals and excess population) both in
Africa and Europe/Middle East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>The initial result was positive economic growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The single source of the gold was iirc in
Senegambia, and the people there carefully protected themselves and their
mining from discovery and takeover, so the rest of West Africa began to be
drawn in as middlemen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kings with
control over some aspect of the trade arose, and were able to siphon off some
of the profits to establish and maintain power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus the Mali and Songhay “empires”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>However, the trade relationship was fundamentally
unequal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cowrie shells, especially those
imported from the Maldives, were used locally as currency (as well as cloth and
iron bars), but the fact that cowrie shells were relatively easy to produce
made any currency exchange highly unequal – there are records indicating that
some kings attempting a pilgrimage to Mecca had to pay in gold along the way, finally
running out and then incurring debts that eventually led to the downfall of
their kingdoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the need for slaves
for the New World surged, it effectively acted as a replacement in the economy
for the decreasing demand for gold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
when export of slaves to the New World ended, it was replaced by slavery within
the kings’ domains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>Moreover, the new slave-based economy had its own subtle
traps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carried to an extreme, as it soon
was, it meant the impoverishment of those outside the kings’ and European
traders’ political control, as they moved to isolated and protected communities
to escape the slave raiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even within
the scope of the new polities, the proportion of those in danger of slavery
went up, and hence the economic benefits, such as they were, went to relatively
few compared to the situation north of the Sahara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<h2>
Analysis of Green:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Commodity/Currency-Based Economic Inequality</h2>
<br />
Green’s conclusion is, I think, worth quoting:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“an expansion of trade on the one hand [from
Europe and the Middle East] provoked less access to the wealth of capital on
the other [for West Africa] … growing capital differentials [were] exacerbated
by the trade of currencies that were losing economic value globally – such as
cowries and cloths – for those that were either gaining or producing surplus
value, such as gold and human beings … When currency imports to [West] Africa
were not matched by trade goods, there was inflation of currencies used in
Africa … When trade goods were also imported, these competed with local
production and reduced extensive exports of African manufactures … This declining
export deterred investment … in manufacturing …”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, a strong degree of
participation in the global economy fostered from Europe from 1400 onwards did
not result in comparable or even major improvements in living standards for
most, or even GNP, in West Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
can say of the impoverished societies in East Asia that much of the explanation
might be that they were not included in this globalization; clearly, that
explanation does not hold for West Africa (and, I suspect, for some sub-Saharan
East Africa as well).<br /><br />This also ties in with an observation I have had in much
other recent reading as well:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>countries
that wind up in an unequal economic relationship in which they become “one-trick
ponies” dependent on things such as gold or coffee or bananas typically don’t
fare as well in the long run, as the value of these is much more volatile and
prone to long strings of bad luck, and often is superseded as tastes or
technologies change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Argentina with its
specialization in beef, Latin and Central America with its colonial focus on
gold and silver, Puerto Rico with its history of specializing in whatever the
US felt was its proper commodity, West Africa for slaves, El Salvador with
switching over to coffee production and then finding it could no longer provide
subsistence agriculture for its population, not to mention the great difficulty
in the US before about 1815 in breaking out of its unequal “enforced
commoditization” relationship with Great Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We view countries like Saudi Arabia with its
ability to convert oil into a thriving economy as the norm, whereas they should
perhaps be viewed from a global economic point of view as an exception.<br />
<br />I believe that we should perhaps view this kind of
almost-zero-benefit unequal relationship as a fundamental feature of capitalism
– because in many of the cases cited, the workings of trade and capitalism were
proceeding to some extent independent of government action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have congratulated ourselves on the rising
tide of capitalism floating the boats of all nations willing to participate in
global markets on capitalistic terms – if we are talking about countries producing
computer chips, perhaps this is so; if oil, pace Venezuela, the picture is very
mixed; if coffee, it seems not to be true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And the danger of capitalism is that, once a country commits to a
particular narrowing of its economy, it may become harder rather than easier to
recover from having the wrong product to export.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>I find this to be a sobering thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It suggests that rather than demanding a
country or region fit into the needs of capitalism, sustainable economics will
require that capitalism fit the needs of the country: e.g., diversified,
sustainable agriculture to be enforced as the cheapest long-run product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also suggests that a world economy that is
a mix of governmental technocratic command-and-control and capitalism will
actually do better in some cases than a capitalism-focused economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly Sweden suggests so.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Analysis of Bowles/Cardin:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Economics
as a Branch of Sociology</h2>
<br />
Over the last 10 years, the failures of many economists in
the face of the Great Recession have led to calls to fundamentally rethink
economics as a discipline and as it is taught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The recent white paper by Bowles and Cardin represents a comprehensive
way that strands of economics that are presently treated as patches to economic
models can instead be viewed as the essentials of a different way of looking at
economics and teaching it.<br /><br />Again, it is worth quoting the abstract:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“new problems now challenge the content of
our introductory courses:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>these include mounting
economic disparities [income and wealth inequality], climate change, concerns
about the future of work, and financial instability”; to which I would add that
these also challenge the effectiveness of present macro- and micro-economics in guiding the analyst and decision-maker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I believe the introductory textbook
cited does is to place existing but under-used “tools” at the center of
economic analysis – specifically, “strategic interaction, [operations of
markets in cases of] limited information, principal-agent models, new [real-world]
behavioral foundations [that can determine what economic models best fit
real-world data], and dynamic processes including instability and
path-dependence.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>By using word-frequency analysis, Bowles/Cardin establish
clear differences between this and two previous generations of economics
introductory textbooks as a proxy for the economic linguae franca of our world,
the two previous generations being Samuelson’s post-WW II textbook and the
recent textbooks of Krugman/Wells and Mankiw. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, the new textbook and the new
approach to economics really are in some sense fundamentally different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>I would argue that the differences derive mostly from this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the tone and organization of the new textbook
really treat economics as a branch of sociology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, they start with an analysis of
economic group <i>behavior</i> as it shows up in current issues, not with a
model of economic processes that then attempts to shoehorn in real-world data
by assumptions such as rationality and self-interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result is a stance that asks where
government regulation, command-and-control, operation outside the economy, and
more unfettered markets are appropriate, rather than a treatment of the first
four as patches to assumed (but rarely if ever achieved in the real world!) perfectly
competitive “free” markets.<br />
<br />Here’s a (to me, startling) example of the new
thinking:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“it is impossible to write enforceable
contracts for worker effort in an information-scarce environment,” so “firms
will set wages so that there is always a cost of job loss for workers [i.e., a
little higher than they might, so that workers clearly have an incentive to
work because they care about their relative income when laid off or in another
job] … As a result, there is involuntary unemployment at the equilibrium of the
labor market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not … a deviation …
caused by … wage rigidities, minimum wages, monopsony, or unions … the intersection
of demand and supply functions does not exist and is [replaced] by the Nash
equilibrium of strategically interacting principals (employers) … and agents
(employees).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not on Wall Street
anymore, are we, Toto?<br />
<br />
<h2>
Implications of Both</h2>
<br />
It seems to me that both Green and Bowles/Cardin share one
suggestion about the future of economics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is no longer adequate to see capitalism as the answer to everything,
to view it as everywhere superior to the alternatives, now and in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, both suggest that we are dealing with
a world in which, historically and now, government, capitalism,
command/control, and non-economic activity are necessary parts, all of which must
be viewed as operating in more <i>and</i> less effective ways than the others in
both the short and the long run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span>In particular, I view this as a challenge from economics to
that peculiar libertarian dream, of combining little or no government with “free”
markets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Green and Bowles/Cardin
are saying is that capitalism alone will lead to bad outcomes, if not to a
reinstitution of (poorer) government by the capitalist in his or her own
interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I view bitcoin/blockchain as
a direct confirmation of this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the ideal
of self-regulating contracts, money, and markets simply leads to inefficiencies,
greater imbalances between principal and agent, theft by hackers, and Ponzi
schemes preying on the limited information of investors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>But I also gain hope from both of these texts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there is a hope of sustainable economies
in the future, it begins with placing the cart of capitalism behind the horse
of sustainability, and accompanied by the carts of government, our own personal
and societal efforts, and WW-II-like command/control of parts of the economy, at
least in the short run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>It may not be the Grand Unified Theory of Economics, to
replace what was smashed in 2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at
least, for the first time in a long, long time, we might be beginning to say
that what economics teaches us reflects fairly well what we see with our own
two eyes in the real world – the altruism and its benefits, the
self-centeredness and its costs, less obscured by frantic handwaving and
theories.<br /><br />Final note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in
rereading this, I find I have underplayed the role of innovation/technology in
the “new economics”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those curious
about this, I suggest they sample the CORE introductory economics textbook
referenced above, available online.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-84294383125502758882019-06-04T13:05:00.000-07:002019-06-04T13:05:47.804-07:00Joe Romm’s “Climate Change - What Everyone Needs to Know”, Second Edition: Maybe the Best CC Book Right Now
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.<br /></i>Just a brief note after my previous post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have just finished “Climate Change”, and
imho it may be the best book for the general reader trying to get up to speed
with the latest science and what’s going on with climate change mitigation and
adaptation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>It’s in the format of posing questions and then answering
them, which can clarify what you’re really discussing in a section, but can be
a little confusing when you’re trying to follow the overall argument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not too confusing, tho’.<br />
<br />As can be seen from my previous post, the only really new
things in it for me that mattered were around the latest findings on
permafrost, methane, and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Room
is surprisingly good on energy efficiency and hydrogen-powered vehicles (a
wasted section, since it becomes clear early on in the section that they’re not
worth considering in any real depth unless a technological breakthrough
occurs).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, his cautionary notes
on biofuels, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power go beyond the usual
discussions.<br />
<br />It’s not light reading; but it’s not tough slogging,
either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suggest giving it a try.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-5577224405491802782019-06-03T19:12:00.000-07:002019-06-03T19:12:09.507-07:00Putting an Upper Bound on Climate Change: Permafrost
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.<br /></i><br />
When trying to figure out the most likely rate of global
warming in our “business as usual” society, I always go back to that amusing
quote from the movie version of Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Are you scared?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not scared enough!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason I remember this is that up to now,
all of our scientific models of how climate change will play out over the next
100 years or so have consistently underestimated the rate of warming, not to
mention the rate at which weather extremes have become the “new abnormal”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the reasons for this underestimation in
the scientific community, from what I can tell, are (a) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">conservatism</i> (even though the modeler may know that an effect will
add to global warming, until the effect can be bounded with 95% likelihood in a
positive direction it is assumed to have neither positive nor negative effect)
and (b) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lack of knowledge</i> (for
example, for a long time, the effect of increased cloudiness on global warming
was not clearly understood).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
Over time, these certainties and uncertainties in models
have tended to be sorted out into the categories of Donald Rumsfeld’s
pernicious classification:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>knowns, known
unknowns, and unknown unknowns:<br />
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">knowns</b>
are now, effectively, all those direct effects (e.g., the direct effect of CO2
and methane on global warming) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feedback</i>
or “knock-on” effects (e.g., the effect of release of black carbon by wildfires
on decreasing Arctic albedo, where global warming from CO2 increase causes
increased wildfires, which causes black carbon to fall on snow and ice,
decreasing Arctic albedo and hence causing more Arctic warming).</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">known
unknowns</b> are those effects that we know will play a role, but which are not
incorporated in models because we don’t know the extent of the role they will
play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of these, perhaps the largest ones
are (i) melting permafrost and (ii) methane (CH4) releases other than from
permafrost melting, including methane clathrates, release of methane locked in
land and ocean repositories, and release of methane from human action,
including cow emissions and natural-gas processing emissions.</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">unknown
unknowns</b> are, obviously, effects that we probably can’t anticipate until
they happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can, however, take a
guess at them by looking at the relationship between CO2 atmospheric emissions
and global temperature during the last two major rises in CO2 – 250 million
years ago (mya) and 55 mya (the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, also
known as “hell and high water”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
known unknowns turn into knowns, then the difference between what our models
tell us will happen and what past experience suggests is probably due to
unknown unknowns.<br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
If we can turn the known unknowns into knowns, there appears
to be a reasonable prospect that the revised models will track with past PETM
(and other) experience, which would mean that the unknown unknowns probably
don’t have a significant impact on global warming one way or the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the only remaining known unknown
upside to be accounted for might be the fact that we are accelerating carbon
emissions at a far greater pace than they have ever increased before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The usual thinking is that this may speed up
the process of actual global temperature warming, (e.g., in our case, a
doubling of atmospheric carbon since 1850 should lead to a 2-2.8 degree C
temperature increase in the next 100 years, and a total 4 degrees C temperature
increase over the next 1000 years, rather than a 1200-year gradual doubling
leading to an increase of 1.3 degrees C by 100 years from now, but with the
same total 4 degrees C increase at the end), although it is possible that our
rush to emit carbon will trigger unknown unknowns that will lead to an even
greater rise in temperature at the end of each doubling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a nutshell:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with permafrost and methane accounted for, we
would begin to see a plausible upper bound for the amount of long-term global
warming from increased atmospheric CO2 and related greenhouse-gas emissions.<br />
<br />
In long-ago posts, I said that research seemed to suggest
that increased methane emissions would not deliver a major boost to global
warming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without going into horrendous
detail, I saw the research as suggesting that if even if methane clathrates,
sea-floor methane, and permafrost methane suddenly started rising into the
atmosphere a very high rates over the next 100 years, it was still unlikely
that methane would achieve “saturation” in the atmosphere, which would cause
methane to stay in the atmosphere much longer and therefore have a much greater
warming effect – perhaps as much as 1 degree F while it lasted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing in the second edition of Joe Romm’s
“Climate Change:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Everyone Needs to
Know” (summarizing findings as of early 2018) suggests that this scientific
consensus has changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /><br /></span>And so, I would
argue, getting at the likely effect of melting all the permafrost gives us a
reasonable shot at an upper bound for the most likely effects from “business as
usual” increases in carbon emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, as I like to say, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we may finally know how scared is scared
enough</i></b>.<br />
<br />
<h2>
New Findings on Permafrost</h2>
<br />
Only nine years ago, it wasn’t clear that permafrost melting
was happening yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, it’s not only
clear that it’s happening, it seems to be happening faster than
anticipated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So a plausible upper bound
for global warming is increasingly seeming more like a “middle bound” – the
most likely case – for business-as-usual global warming.<br /><br />
Here’s a back-of-the-envelope SWAG at the effects of full
permafrost melt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to “Climate
Change”, there are 1.5 trillion tons of carbon locked in the world’s
permafrost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Studies cited in CC also
suggest that for each 90 tons of permafrost carbon released, atmospheric carbon
goes up about 60-80 ppm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, total
melt means about 1000-1333 ppm of added atmospheric carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /> </span><br />
The effect on global warming then depends on how fast it
happens and what else is going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More
specifically, if melt is fast, then most of its effect falls within the first
two doublings of atmospheric carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, very loosely, with a 2 degree C direct effect of non-permafrost
added atmospheric carbon on temperatures, we are talking about somewhere around
a 4 degree C direct effect of total permafrost melt.<br />
<br />
But direct effects of carbon are not the only effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A significant proportion of the carbon in
permafrost will almost certainly be emitted as methane (CH4), not carbon
dioxide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While much of this will
eventually turn into CO2 in the atmosphere, the rise in per-decade atmospheric
methane during quick permafrost melt can add up to another degree C to warming
over centuries-to-millenia time periods, because methane can be up to 86 times
as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And the lack of snow cover and increased vegetation associated with the
peat bogs likely to be a result of permafrost melt mean a shift in albedo that,
to my mind, should significantly up global warming as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In sum, aggressive total permafrost melt
seems to me at first glance to result in an average <b><i>4-6 degrees C of
global warming for at least the next 1000 years</i></b> – and, considering the
unknown unknowns, that may be conservative.<br /><br />
It should be pointed out that if we are effective in ending
business-as-usual global warming in the near future, much less of the
permafrost will ultimately melt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
another SWAG, we may have locked in melt of 5% of permafrost already (the
result of non-permafrost feedbacks adding 0.5 degrees C to the temperature henceforward
plus the effects of additional heating from initial permafrost melt).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest is still in play.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Glimpses of an Upper Bound</h2>
<br />
What strikes me about this estimate (4-6 degrees C) is that
it seems to fit in more nicely both with the experience of past catastrophic
global warming and with recent Hansen papers trying to set an upper bound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the PETM, carbon ppm started at about 1000
and apparently went up to about 2000, but the temps seem to have gone up 6
degrees C in the process, 4 degrees more than direct atmospheric carbon effects
can explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One recently raised
suggestion is that elimination of stratocumulus clouds, which should thin out
as air temps get warmer, can add 8 degrees C to global warming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
this is not likely to take effect until well beyond the 1000 ppm level, below
which aggressive permafrost melt plays its major role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
In trying to square the PETM with the likely direct effects
of atmospheric carbon, Hansen conjectured, iirc, that each doubling of
atmospheric carbon would lead, without human interference, to a little more
than 2 degrees C of direct effects plus a little less than 2 degrees C of
feedback effects, for a total of 4 degrees C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the feedback effects he identified only seemed applicable to the
first doubling (to 550-odd ppm), and the temps in the PETM seemed too high,
imho, for a 2000-ppm atmospheric carbon level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some combination of permafrost melt and cloud thinning, with permafrost
melt playing its major role before 1000 ppm (at the time of the late Cretaceous
global warming 11 million years before, with loss of sea ice and therefore
probably loss of permafrost) and cloud thinning after, may therefore explain
some of the PETM warming (whether it played a role in the global warming/mass
extinction 250 mya, which involved a super-continent with no extreme north or
south land, is not clear).<br /><br />
This also squares with another Hansen paper (iirc). In it,
he argues that using up most of our present fossil fuel reserves will lead ultimately
to 16 degrees C/30 degrees F average warming, or 30 degrees C/54 degrees F
average warming in the Arctic and Antarctic.<br /><br />
All of the above statements contain large fudge factors, of
course, and can be and are argued over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, I do now believe it is much more probable now that something
like this upper bound is in store for us, if business as usual continues
indefinitely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<h2>
Implications for Armageddon</h2>
<br />
With all of the above in mind, I like to think of the worst
as four stages – <b><i>horrible, catastrophic, apocalyptic</i></b>, and<b><i>
decimating</i></b>, the first three corresponding to doublings of atmospheric
carbon, and the last comprising only feedback effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aggressive permafrost melt gives the second
and third stages, which have yet to arrive, a similar warming effect over time
to our first stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that arbitrary
classification leads to a couple of assertions:<br />
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Each stage is <i>much worse in its effects</i>
than the previous one; and</div>
<br />
<div style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Each stage becomes <i>harder to prevent or
ameliorate</i> than the previous one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
a sense, each stage adds momentum and size to the downward rolling snowball,
because (a) new feedback effects are triggered, like permafrost melt and
Arctic/Antarctic ice melt, (b) saturation effects start occurring, like
inability of the ocean to store oxygen or saturation of atmospheric methane
leading to longer stays in the air, and (c) our ability to mitigate is increasingly
hindered by having to undo greater<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>amounts of now-inappropriate fossil-fuel infrastructure and optimized-for-the-wrong-temperature
energy-inefficient dwellings.</div>
<div style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
And that is why I disagree with both the optimists and
pessimists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, failure to undo business
as usual is rife in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, we may
well have effectively crossed the boundary into Stage 2, with horrible effects
of climate change already locked in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes,
the ultimate end of Stage 4 may well be the decimation of the human race and
the rest of the natural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But until
100 or 200 years from now, we still have the ability to break utterly the cycle
of business as usual, harder though it gets as time goes by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And therefore every setback in our quest
demands not despair but a fiercer effort, more confrontation of the guilty, and
greater demands for even more to be done.<br /></div>
It’s like a crooked poker game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, right now it’s the only game in town,
and yes, right now you can’t win or fold, just keep on losing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the game will end, and your job is to lose
as little as possible, as the stakes go up and up, so that when the game is
over you may have lost your heart’s desire but you will not be an indebted
slave for life, or killed because you couldn’t pay your debt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or most of the effects may fall on your
great-great-grandchildren; but they’re still the same shattering effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On everybody.<br /><br />
Oh, and one extremely small hopeful note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it seems to me that to avoid business as
usual resurfacing at any time over the next 1000 years, we will have to change
fundamentally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To sustainability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To a method of living that almost certainly
will not destroy the remainder of humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stage 4 will be as bad as it gets.<br /><br />
And so, hopefully, understanding the effects of permafrost
and having a likely upper bound means you are scared enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolutely, totally scared stiff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With decimation staring you in the face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, said the psychiatrist in Portnoy’s
Complaint, now ve may perhaps to begin, yes?<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-27820303112521352452019-05-13T12:40:00.000-07:002019-05-13T12:40:16.419-07:00Reading New Thoughts: The Usefulness of Altruism
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.<br /></i><br />
New books by Alice Roberts (“Taming”) and E.O. Wilson (“Genesis”)
seem to me to deliver a different, nuanced reason to appreciate that old
religious warhorse, altruism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of these
draw on recent advances in genetics that I have written about elsewhere; in
fact, “Taming” specifically attempts to summarize recent advances in “genetic
history” (determining the likely course of events that led to domestication of
animals such as the chicken and flora such as the apple tree).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, both specifically apply their
insights to humans, and to humans’ distinctiveness from our close relatives the
apes, in areas such as altruism.<br /><br />
What I think that both have in common is that they find that
evolutionary strategies that run counter to the apparent evolutionary
imperatives of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individual</i> survival
and reproduction are actually relatively successful strategies for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">group</i> (and hence species) survival and
reproduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, in Wilson’s
assessment, humans are one of the seventeen or so known species (e.g., bees and
mole rats) in which a certain percentage of members of the group set aside
(temporarily or permanently) their own reproduction and/or survival needs and
act to support the survival, reproduction, and success of their group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Roberts’ provocative telling, humans have
been domesticating themselves, compared to apes, by dulling the intra- and
inter-group aggression that would ordinarily prevent us from coexisting in
cities.<br /><br />
Now, both of these books may represent a “bridge too
far”:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>their conclusions in this regard
probably go beyond what we will ultimately see as the true role of altruism in
an effective society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilson in
particular seems to shoehorn humans awkwardly into the “eusocial” category
(defined by a reviewer as including overlap of generations, cooperative
brood-care, and non-reproductive “helpers”) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when most or all of his seventeen other
species offer more clear-cut examples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Likewise, Roberts seems to go beyond the evidence in finding parallels
between the “immaturation” of the dog and the chicken that apparently bred for
a longer nurturing phase so they wouldn’t avoid humans and could take advantage
of our agricultural and hunting largess, and our own long period of growing up.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, I do think that they
present new insights into the advantages of altruism in our daily lives.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Wilson and Milton</h2>
<br />
When I look at Wilson’s thoughts in “Genesis”, I am reminded
of the last line of Milton’s “On His Blindness”:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They also serve who stand and wait.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is that most animals are usually
part of a group, if only a family group, and that group typically has a leader.
But in the species described by Wilson, the “eusocial” members of the group are
not passively accepting the commands of their leader (“Thousands at His bidding
speed”, says Milton) but actively choosing a semi-permanent role as acting for
the good of the rest of the group without waiting for direction, rather than
emphasizing their own reproduction, and, in some cases, their own
survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, “eusociality”
is not enforced servitude, but rather a differentiated role within the group
contrary to the interest of the “selfish gene” within the individual.<br /><br />
This approach to evolutionary success is not common – after
all, we’ve found only seventeen species examples of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, according to Wilson, this is
apparently a relatively successful strategy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the reduced individual breeding is more than countered by the increased
chance of survival and therefore reproduction of the group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, this “division of labor” is
sometimes, as in the case of humans, relatively flexible, and therefore reduces
the risk of population disaster – that is, in times of population strain the
homosexual or celibate can take part in reproduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
And therefore, far from being a threat to humanity,
eusociality argues that the LGBTQ individual or voluntary celibate is a
blessing – in moderation, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
to mention the “nurturers”, “caretakers”, “helpers”, and “defenders” we all see
around us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In evolutionary terms, that
their own reproduction (and sometimes, as well, their own survival) is not the
central meaning of their lives is a good thing, when balanced with the drive
towards individual survival and reproduction of the rest of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eusocial species thrives in the long run,
all else being equal, compared to the rest, because when disaster strikes, the eusocial
individual’s focus is on somebody in the group surviving, rather than on the
safety of oneself or one’s family. <br />
<br />
<h2>
Infantilizing Aggression</h2>
<br />
One of the key points made by Roberts about the process of
“taming” is that in the case of animals (e.g., wolf/dog, chicken/bird, and
boar/pig) it was often a matter of self-breeding to minimize both
aggression/”fight” and avoidance/”flight” in order to cooperate with humans in
activities such as hunting and herding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, wolves in a pack that were less likely to attack or
avoid humans were more likely to share in the benefits of human kills, and
therefore had a survival advantage over their wilder counterparts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These wolves may have tended to have longer
stretches of life in which they were “growing up”, i.e., with less aggression
and less stress on survival by avoidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The end result of this evolutionary process – dogs – therefore show
signs of what we might call “permanent immaturity” compared to their wolf
relatives, including longer maturation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
Roberts then goes on to note that compared to our close
relatives the apes, we likewise have a longer period of immaturity, a “final
state” of the evolutionary process involving less aggressiveness and
avoidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This “infantilization of
aggression” allows adults to behave towards each other as dogs to humans:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with lower-aggression relationships, lower
avoidance of each other (compare that to cats!), and a greater ability to
cooperate and perform services for each other as part of that cooperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, as with dogs, the aggression
towards prey species remains, and spills over into inter-species interactions –
just not as strongly.<br /><br />
Cities – now the habitat of at least half of the human race
– represent the extreme case of that tamping down of aggression and
avoidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the streets of New York
City at rush hour, we are assaulted with the close proximity of thousands of
our fellow creatures every day – and yet almost all of the millions in NYC
manage to avoid either undue aggression or “getting away from it all” over the
course of a long lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />
And in situations like this, I argue, altruism is a useful
strategy for tamping down residual aggression and avoidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, the altruist who “reaches out” across
groups in a very crowded situation can be punished for seeming aggressive or
overly vulnerable; but since the motivation is to provide disinterested
services to the other group, it’s the type of interaction least likely to
trigger “fight or flight” from the opposing group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever we may say of politicians as a
group, on the regional and national<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>level the more altruistic politician does, I think, perform a vital
service by this kind of cross-group altruism.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Of Myss And Altruistic Men</h2>
<br />
But how does this “genetic history” apply today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no good data points, but I have an odd
one:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caroline Myss’ 2001 book, “Sacred
Contracts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a fascinating “New
Age” attempt to combine Jungian psychology with eclectic religion and apply it
to self-help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is shot through
with altruistic archetypes drawn from myth and story, like the Knight and the
Nun, applied to the modern world – as well as, of course, self-interested
archetypes like the Child and the Queen/King.<br /><br />
What I find notable in this book from the point of view of
the practical usefulness of altruism are the extensive case studies of
individuals seeking to achieve meaning in fully modern lives, complete with
concerns about surviving and thriving in work and businesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To a surprising extent, not only women but
also men tackle entrepreneurship and choice of career with a primary motive of
“doing good for others,” as shown by their choice of altruistic rather than
self-interested archetypes to describe themselves. This not only evidences the
first level of empathy, as I discussed in my recent series on <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/24/1829281/-Tolkien-Like-You-Never-Heard-It-Part-XXIX-Pity-the-Fourth-Empathy-Global-Love">Tolkien
in Daily Kos</a>, but also that altruistic motives are more common than I
thought even in the cutthroat competitive worlds of business and lawyering.<br /><br />
This requires a little unpacking, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back in 1980 when I was at business school, a
survey asked us what our primary goal in business was:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>power, money, or altruism (e.g., non-profit
businesses)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interestingly, those
seeking power tended to wind up with a bit more money than those seeking money
directly, according to the surveyers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But perhaps 20%, even in a business school, said they were in it for
altruistic purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what Myss shows
is that even those in the power and money categories aren’t necessarily seeking
to run businesses just to gain power or money, whether for survival or
self-gratification; they also may seek to use that power and money in the long
run for altruistic as well as selfish purposes.<br /><br />
Now, before you think I have gone all soft and mushy, I
freely concede that this is a flawed sample.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, the people in Myss’ book are for the most part predisposed to think
of their goals in altruistic terms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes,
the book is 20 years out of date, and the world by some measures may seem more
self-absorbed than ever.<br /><br />
Nevertheless, I think that the message it conveys is more
true than not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first two books argue
the usefulness of altruism to our species, in the long run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Myss’ case studies suggest, I think, that in
the very short run and in practical terms, altruism, properly balanced, is a
positive benefit to us all in our daily lives.Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-47828030711731465882019-03-27T17:27:00.000-07:002019-05-13T12:53:39.907-07:00A Different Look at Philosophy: Plato/Socrates<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything. This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i><br />
<br />
I want to accomplish something on my birthday (I know, I’m
weird), and so I thought I’d start a series I have thought about for a while on
the true value (imho) of philosophy. The
trigger for this is a very nice book my son James got as a prize a while back
and I found among his leavings when he left home: Bryan Magee’s The Great Philosophers. It provides, I think, a nice overview of the
way that the “main stream” of philosophy has evolved over the centuries, and some
suggestions as to how this should impact us.<br />
<br />
I confess that I read it differently from most, as someone
who read Plato’s early writings “for fun” as a teenager, and then Aristotle and
Locke as part of my undergraduate training in Harvard’s version of political
science (Harvard called it Government), as well as having a nodding acquaintance
with brief descriptions of pragmatism and the like. At the same time, I was getting a very quirky
view of science from my training in computer hardware, as well as a connection
between philosophy and science because of Quine’s formalizations of logic as
presented in an undergraduate course – not to mention the connection of both
science and philosophy to mathematics in the works of Godel and Turing and
their heirs.<br />
<br />
Thus, in reading Magee after all these years, I asked myself
not the typical question – how can philosophy help me in leading a better life
– but rather, how does philosophy still add value in an age where science is
indeed providing a firm foundation of understanding of ourselves and the
physical and chemical world, and increasingly taking the lead in suggesting how
things can be done better. And it seemed
to me, reading Magee, that one theme of the book was that philosophy was needed
because science simply had no answers to many questions about the nature of the
world and ourselves – an answer I disagree with, based on the many scientific
advances in my lifetime on things like what dreaming does, or how our internal
clock works.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Setting the Stage</h2>
<br />
Here’s what I argue:
Along with its role in our internal wrestlings about how to live the
good life, philosophy should also be seen as a counterpoint to the slow
development of what we now call the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scientific
method</i>. Here I note that I am using
the term scientific method in a very broad sense: As not only the techniques of experiment, peer-reviewed
publication and verification, and statistical analysis that have come to be
accepted as individual practices, but also the broader community and
bureaucracy that coordinates and revises the overall model of the
physical/chemical world that science is establishing. Thus, my scientific method is not only an
individual guideline but a community-wide, evolving <i>process</i>.<br />
<br />
Philosophy can be seen as such a counterpoint because one of
the recurring themes of philosophy as per Magee is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“thinking about thinking”</i></b>: examining such questions as, what can we know
for certain, and how can we be sure that what we are thinking is the truth,
e.g., the truth of reality, of the physical and chemical world. And that matters in the history of the
development of the scientific method because what is going on, it appears to
me, is what we call in computer science “bootstrapping”: establishing a certain set of facts, then
using them to establish others, and so on, until we begin to have a
full-fledged, comprehensive model to work with – of a computer, in
bootstrapping a computer operating system, or of scientific reality, in science. And so, in the development of the scientific
method, philosophy could serve a useful role by saying, are you sure of these
facts? Are you sure that the next facts
follow? Are you sure that your
preliminary model captures reality? Is
your logic solid, and does it reflect what is going on?<br />
<br />
I am not sure that I am doing justice to what was a grand
and scary project: To capture reality
when you are sure neither of the validity of what you see in front of you nor
of your own thoughts. In this project, from
the point at least of Plato in “western civilization”, whatever that is,
onwards, philosophy offered at least one lingua franca to the budding
scientist, one common way of thinking across the scientific community about
establishing and testing validity and models.<br />
<br />
But I would also be remiss if I didn’t say what I viewed as
a key flaw of philosophy: its emphasis
on this being an individual or small-group endeavor, the “hard internal
wrestlings of the soul” of Wedgwood’s Oliver Cromwell, or the symposia of Plato
and Julius Caesar. The development of
the scientific method has made it clear that it must be exceptionally broad in
all its doings, in order to capture the very different experiences and
worldviews that allow us to triangulate an approximation of reality. And the obvious example of this is the
demonstrated enormous value of incorporating fully in the scientific method the
female perspective, as has not been done historically in all cultures. Philosophy simply has by its very
individualistic nature failed to adequately detect differences in thinking when
it assumes commonality with the thinking of a Plato or a Nietzsche (we all
desire “the good”, or we are all innately determined by our origins and our
lowest common denominator is pretty pathetic). <br />
<br />
So I want to set forth my viewpoint on what role the
thinking of those philosophers was playing (and should play now) in the
evolution of our understanding of the scientific method – because I feel that
in some ways, far more than being a guide to our behavior, that is the value of
philosophy to us. Or, to put it another
way, the value of philosophy is potentially much more in reassuring us that
scientific truth is indeed truth, than in helping us use that truth to
determine what is the good life we want to strive for; because at this point
science and common sense are better guides to getting at the good life. In any case, I want to start with Plato, and
Socrates as described by Plato.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Plato and Socrates</h2>
<br />
As presented by Magee, Plato has three “periods”: an initial
period of trying to present the thoughts of Socrates (e.g., Symposium), a
second period of elaborating on those thoughts to present positive answers to
the questions that Socrates raised (e.g., Republic), and finally a period of
“academically” analyzing and challenging the results of periods 1 and 2 (e.g.,
Timaeus). Magee summarizes by saying
“Platonism is a philosophy you can use … if you want to see how scientific and
spiritual values can be reconciled.” He
says this because, fundamentally, Plato is an “anti-materialistic” philosopher
who believes that truth goes beyond what can be captured by the scientific
method. Specifically, in his “theory of
Forms”, as interpreted by later generations, Plato argues that in some sense
the general concept of “chairness” or “virtue” exists independent of us. This, in turn, in theology leads to the requirement
the Greeks appear to have imposed on the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions that
God be “perfect”, not flawed by human imperfections, and thus to things like angels,
djinns, and “the Word.”<br />
<br />
At the same time, the program laid out in Plato’s Republic
is a program for eliciting the mathematical symmetries and “order” that Plato
believed were inherent in Nature, and is therefore the fountainhead of Plato’s
school, which led to Aristotle and an attempt at a systematized model of
physical reality as corresponding to those symmetries. <br />
<br />
To me, however, the most lasting contribution of that
philosophy in the area of “thinking about thinking” and the scientific method
is the inculcation in the scientific method of “Socratic questioning”.<br />
<br />
<h2>
The Socratic Method</h2>
<br />
The Socratic method, still used afaik in law schools as in
the Constitutional Law taught by my father or possibly as shown in the Paper
Chase TV series, seems now effectively to be a way of shaking up college
graduates’ thinking by showing how easy generalizations can lead one
astray. Or, as Magee puts it, “They try
to think about it; they produce an answer.
Socrates shows the inadequacy of the answer. You end up not with a firm answer, but with a
greater grasp of the problem than before.”<br />
<br />
There is a striking analogy here to the programmer’s practice
of debugging one’s own or another’s code.
Effectively, you know there is a bug, but you also know that you will
probably not be able to understand the code fully and objectively enough to see
the flaw immediately. Instead, you argue
backwards from a wrong output to a point in the software’s logic that your
experience with code and bugs tells you is a likely reason for the problem, and
then try a different approach at that point.
In the same way, Socrates says, we don’t need to examine in detail your
idea, instead, let’s look at something that doesn’t fit your generalization or
model of reality (causes the wrong output); now let’s examine your logic to see
what the problem might be, and try a new approach.<br />
<br />
Following the analogy with programming further, I would
suggest that Socrates is introducing the notion of “design-time debugging” –
which, programming practice shows, is often more effective at producing
relatively bugless logic than debugging after the program is run through the
compiler (pre-testing) or used at runtime (testing in the real world). But note that this tests not the inputs to
the program or scientific theory (it doesn’t test the validity of the data from
the real world); rather, it tests the logical steps by which that input is
turned into a testable output. Thus,
iirc, Socrates combats the notion that slaves may be incapable of rational
thought by adducing the example of a slave taught to mimic Greek by imitation
of the sounds of a flute; but since no one is communicating in the slave’s
native tongue or considering the possibility that another language is equally
productive of rational thought, the whole exercise is scientifically
useless. You have a greater grasp of the
problem; but in this case you have no better grasp of the solution.<br />
<br />
And this, I would argue, is why the Platonic/Socratic
approach is at once a major advance in and a major limitation on the scientific
method. One the one hand, debugging the
logic of a model of reality as an approach to testing its validity is, even in
our day, an underemphasized skill – hence the usefulness of the “causality
debugging” in Judea Pearl’s work. On the
other hand, focusing on this aspect of the task and ignoring the importance of
materialism, i.e., the problem of the validity of real-world data and our
ability to apprehend it, takes us away from the sort of experimental
carefulness that we now know to be vital to establishing scientific truth. Moreover, the process of like-minded individual
challenge rather than peer review, attractive though it is to thinkers in all
ages, still fails to achieve the quality goals of scientific research because
it fails to bring in a broad enough spectrum of experience. Or, to put it another way, the rogue
scientist must present his (yes, in those days, pretty much universally his)
finding of a fossil as a question about whether this fits under earth, air,
fire, or water rather than as a new category calling for a fundamentally new
model. <br />
<br />
Two steps forward, one step back. Let’s go on, next time, to consider the next
development: Aristotle.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-45675726216689379092019-03-05T20:54:00.000-08:002019-03-05T20:54:27.120-08:00CO2, 2018 – And Its Sad Implications
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i><br />
The results are in for CO2 measured at Mauna Loa (more or
less the real measure of how we’re doing vs. climate change) – and the answer
(no surprise) is, our best efforts are not clearly making a dent in “business
as usual”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add that to recent research
suggesting that another 50 years of “business as usual” may lead to the
ultimate “hell and high water”, by wiping out key cloud types shielding us from
the sun (at about 1200 ppm of CO2) and thus adding another 8 or so degrees C on
top of the 6 or 7 degrees we would achieve at 1200 ppm, and our task becomes
ever more urgent.<br />
<br />
The figure for 2018 is 2.86 ppm increase in atmospheric
CO2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the third increase above
2.6 ppm in the last four years, and the fourth (out of 5 in history) such
increase in the last 7 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other
words, not only is the amount of rise increasing, but the percentage of rise
is, as well – telling us that we are in fact accelerating our carbon “pollution.”<br />
<br />
Nor is this year showing signs of being better than
2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This February is up by 3.4 ppm
over last February, and March has seen several readings above 414 ppm (the “moving
average” of CO2 Mauna Loa readings is now a hair’s breadth below 411 ppm).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basically, this is a rate at which readings
above 420 ppm are two years away, above 430 ppm 5 or 6 years away, and we will
have almost doubled our atmospheric CO2 by 2050 from its level in the
1800s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That in turn, could mean perhaps double
or triple the rise in temperature (2 – 4 degrees C) that we have seen thus far
(thus far, 1.2-1.3 degrees C).<br />
<br />
About the only good news is that Arctic sea ice decrease
seems to be taking a breather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ice
maximum seems to be leveling off and despite the underlying ocean heat-up, melt
season is cloudier and therefore ice minimum seems to be leveling off as well.<br />
<br />
Here in New England, nothing about our unprecedented winter
has surprised me, neither the lack of snow that stuck until Feb. 12<sup>th</sup>
nor the windiness nor the rapid onset of storms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And another extremely hot, humid summer will
not surprise me either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a reason
they call it the “new abnormal.”<br />
<br />
Once, when I was growing up, there was weather you could
count on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, our carbon pollution has
put a stake in its heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lit its
pyre.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-70539462863531289772019-02-28T17:59:00.000-08:002019-05-13T13:03:13.254-07:00It’s Localized Supra-National Organizations via the United Nations That’s Working, Not the Free Market<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i><br />
<br />
I have many things I should be doing rather than writing
this, and many things I’d rather be doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m writing this because I think it needs to be said.<br />
<br />
There is a debate going on between, essentially, Steven
Pinker on the one hand and Jason Hickel the anthropologist on the other about
the nature and extent of poverty, and to what we should ascribe its
effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To support the case for,
essentially, “enlightenment” plus today’s economic system, Pinker points to a
chart showing that extreme poverty has decreased from 95% of the world’s
population to 10% over the 200 years from 1820 to now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hickel challenges that rosy view by pointing
out that (a) extreme poverty is not the right metric, since people in “poverty”
are also struggling to survive, and there the picture is much more mixed, (b)
that because of population growth, while the percentage of people in extreme poverty
has gone down drastically, the actual number of people in extreme poverty is increasing,
and (c) the metric itself (money) is flawed, since a pre-monetary society may
actually become worse off when switching to money, wiping out the gains accrued
once the monetary society is established.<br />
<br />
To my mind, the key takeaway from the chart is none of the
above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What it shows (and other related
charts here and in Sachs’ Age of Sustainability also show) is that there is a
sharp break around 1950.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before, extreme
poverty was headed towards a reduction to about 60% of the world being
extremely poor by now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond that
inflection point, extreme poverty, vaccinations, education, literacy, and
health take a sharp dip or start climbing much more rapidly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
So what’s causing this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We can eliminate Pinker’s main suspect right off the bat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not the Industrial Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not the free market, because that has
not resulted in any faster rise in global productivity and hence GDP from 1950
to 2019 than from 1870 to 1950 – in fact, since the late 1970s productivity improvement
rates in developed economies have been decreasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And “Unruly Waters” makes it clear that the positive
effect of the Green Revolution on India’s and China’s well-being – India and
China are responsible for a major chunk of the improvement in extreme poverty
percentage, partially because of their population sizes – was much less than is
typically portrayed. <br />
<br />
Sachs and “Unruly Waters”, among other sources, paint a
picture in which better health, more education, and potentially empowerment of
women (two of which slow the growth rate of population that can undercut
improvements in individual living standards) directly impact extreme
poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These seem to be far more persuasive
immediate reasons for the dip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But where
do these improvements come from? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
have certainly been efforts at improved literacy and better global health before
1950, and free-market products that promised both, and even individual and
government efforts in the same direction.<br />
<br />
<h2>
It’s the UN, NGOs, and Local Governments Working Together, Stupid</h2>
<br />
The history especially of U.S. foreign aid is very clear on
this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>US foreign aid has typically
been driven both by internal political considerations and by the needs of US
corporations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its ideas, typically born
of scant knowledge of local considerations, have failed far more than not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>International economic investment mechanisms,
such as the IMF and the World Bank, have a very poor record at enabling
economic takeoff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Economic self-interest
in places ranging from Puerto Rico to Indonesia has resulted in over-dependence
in many developing countries on commodities like coffee, which over the years
has resulted in wild swings in country economic performance and hence living
standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, of course, the aid that
is targeted at education and health has typically come with prescriptions such
as “force everyone to plant this way” or “teach abstinence in sex education”
that fly in the face of the evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
To succeed in causing such a dip, an approach must be (a)
global, (b) coordinated, (c) evidence-based and not just technology-based, and
(d) able to get buy-in from a wide variety of governments and localities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only plausible set of actors that meet
these criteria are the UN and certain NGOs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since 1950, but not very much before that, they have been acting on a
world-wide basis to tackle these problems, and the metrics that the UN has
adopted starting before 2000 are evidence of just how evidence-based these
interventions are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The UN’s modus
operandi emphasizes local “driving” and modification of global prescriptions,
and many NGOs have learned to follow suit.<br />
<br />
And the contrast is especially marked in the poorest
countries of all, in Africa and Southeast Asia – where despite all the handicaps
there really is clear improvement in extreme poverty and all the other criteria
at least since 2000, where there wasn’t before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is wrong to ascribe this to cell phones, because first you have to
get the cell phones to people, and even local businesses and microlending can
only do so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The extension of these
services to beyond the easy targets and the smoothing of the path with local
and national governments can only be done via mechanisms like the UN-NGO
alliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
I don’t mean to overemphasize this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is certainly true that in both India and China,
national-government efforts to pursue certain types of “directed” free markets
also played a major role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I simply want
to emphasize that the evidence I see suggests that even in those cases, the
positive effect of both the national-government efforts and the free market is
much less than we tend to think, and the effect of non-market,
non-national-government efforts aimed at health, education, and poverty much
greater, partly because they were more effective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they were more effective because they
communicated to all parties good metrics and effective strategies.<br />
<br />
The ”stupid” here, I think, is aimed more at Pinker than
Hickel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Hickel is oblivious to
the possibility that the population growth he appears to be worrying about can
be effectively targeted, and is being targeted, not by coercive “colonialist” programs,
but by empowering women financially to make their own reproductive choices and
by removing the ever-present worry in extreme poverty that the next generation
will not survive to adulthood, hence the added births “in case”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Pinker gives the impression that he does
not see the role of the UN and NGOs at all, since they don’t fit neatly into
his paradigm of “enlightenment” such as is exemplified by scientific
organizations and market forces. <br />
<br />
<h2>
It’s Not About Crises, It’s About Long-Term Efforts</h2>
<br />
And one final point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We emphasize too much, when looking at long-term effectiveness, war, crises,
and particular “bad” governments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
believe that what the graph referenced above, and many others, shows is that
what matters in making a big positive change is the ability to target the right
factors and then globally change one’s tactics and goals based on the
evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>National governments and even
global firms are almost universally bad at this, the governments because they
do not “mark to market” frequently enough without input from the rest of the
world, global firms because they are often too small to leverage the kind of
global resources to make a dent and because they continually veer off the right
factors into “making money.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I view what
is happening in climate change, with the UN and the IPCC taking the lead in
sounding the alarm and most countries lagging behind their metrics, is another example
of this, where we overemphasize our concerns with the UN’s effectiveness in
handling wars and bad governments, and fail to adequately appreciate or support
its coordinating efforts.<br />
<br />
Let’s stop the poor economic and political theorizing that
fails to realize there is a shining example of the long-term effectiveness of
organizations that fit neither “economics rules all” nor “politics rules all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, I’m not recommending global government; but
I am certainly not recommending today’s underestimation of the effectiveness of
supra-national authorities by the likes not only of Pinker but just about
everyone I hear commenting about these matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the contrary.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-56783888090045016642019-01-03T16:01:00.002-08:002019-01-03T16:01:37.136-08:00Climate Change: Being the Smart Change
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Increasingly, personal efforts to combat climate change by
changing one’s lifestyle are in the news.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>“Being the Change”, Peter Kalmus’ 2017 book, is probably the most
detailed book about the subject, but others ranging from Canada’s David Suzuki
to Phys.org are also weighing in.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If we
just restrict the suggestions to those impacting the carbon emissions caused by
one individual’s actions, suggestions include:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reducing or eliminating air travel;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A vegetarian or almost-meat-free diet;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Growing one’s own food in particular ways, or
just buying local, and composting;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Living car-free or using transportation fueled
by renewable-energy-based sources (e.g., a solar/wind-based grid);</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Implementing large gains in home efficiency,
including all-LED lighting, recent advances in such areas as vacuum cleaners
and washer/dryers, insulating, and unplugging appliances;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Supplying home electricity and heat via solar
panels or utility-supplied renewable energy;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you really want to get drastic, moving to a
place that is likely to have the least impact on carbon emissions over the next
60 years, such as a place away from a seacoast and marshland, not in an arboreal
forest or one prone to wildfires, and probably in a city or large town.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one that comes up frequently as having by far the “biggest
bang for the buck” is air travel.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But is
it, really?</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Flying the Uncompetitive Skies</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the effect of your stopping flying one time is that the
airlines make, say, 1/30<sup>th</sup> of a flight in fewer flights (assuming an
average of 30 people per flight), then, according to Kalmus and others, the
answer is a resounding yes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Kalmus
estimated that he personally was causing 10 times the amount of carbon
emissions that he could achieve by implementing all the major personal
carbon-reduction measures that he could bring about.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Under my assumption about the effects of
stopping air travel, his cessation of air travel meant he was only causing 2
times the amount of emissions that he could achieve.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In other words, almost 90% of his personal carbon-emissions
savings came about simply by quitting air travel.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The flaw in this reasoning comes when we examine the actual
effect if you, the reader, stopped air travel altogether.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If you did so, and you’d been flying 30 times
a year, would the airlines respond by flying one less flight?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>They are typically overbooked, and the loss of you as a customer would
be overwhelmed over the course of a year by yearly increases in demand.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Granted, if a few more like you did so, then
there might have been less of an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">increase</i>
in the number of flights in that year, but as long as demand from non-abstainers
is increasing faster than the number of air-travel dropouts, you are not
accomplishing any reductions in global carbon emissions at all – and that’s the
bottom line.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let’s try analyzing this according to economic theory and real-world
implications of that theory.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Suppose
that, all over the world, one-half of the individual consumers of air travel on
one day suddenly stopped flying.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
the dust settled, would we see one-half the number of flights, and hence
one-half the number of carbon emissions?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Clearly, demand from non-obstainers is not going to double in the next
year after the market crash.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet, the impact is likely to be far less than we
expect.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There are two key economic
principles involved, it seems to me.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>First, the global air-travel market is made up of hundreds of regional
and national markets.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Each of these is
typically effectively a monopoly or duopoly.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And so, they are charging higher prices and taking fewer customers than
they could.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When the market is cut in
half, they can cut prices (and they have a lot of room to do so).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Meanwhile, demand from non-abstainers rises,
because in the regional markets that are the bulk of air travel (think:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>New York to Washington DC) there is high cross-elasticity
of demand (the second economic principle).<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Lower prices means that consumer demand switches from trains to planes.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Practically speaking, of course, such a change would not
happen at once.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that means that
non-abstainer demand increases more nearly match rates of abstention, so when
the dust settles we may well see a 20% rather than an almost 90% decrease in
carbon emissions from personal abstentions.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This is simply one of those cases where accomplishing carbon-emissions
reductions by government regulation is realistically the only effective
alternative.</span></div>
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Being the Smart Change</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, does this mean that I think the person seeking to “be
the change” should give up on giving up air travel?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By no means.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Personal choices do have some effects on markets, and the more
individuals do this, the more it goes viral and becomes an unstoppable
trend.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I suggest two things:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Go ahead and cut air travel, at least the air
travel you really don’t care that much about.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But mentally, don’t think that you’ve had as great an effect as you would from all the other tactics, like energy savings or uses of renewable energy, you carry out. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In choosing what to cut out, consider cutting
out long-distance and overseas travel first.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Yeah, I hate to say this.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the
economics says that this is one area where airline companies’ price-cutting
power and ability to attract new demand is least, and therefore it is most
likely that scheduled flights (not to mention charter flights) will indeed be
cut sharply with decreases in demand.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Postscript/Addendum/Whatever</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me call two books related to climate change that I am
reading to your attention.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Rising, by Elizabeth
Rush, adds the loss of marshlands with rapid sea-level rise as one more key,
potentially irreversible net source of carbon emissions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Plus, it has a superb writing style.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In Search of the Canary Tree, by Lauren
Oakes, lets you inside the mind and experiences of an environmental scientist
as she chronicles the ongoing destruction of yet another vital tree, and also
considers to what extent we are capable of long-term adaptation to climate
change.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So far, I find it riveting,
although I have quirky tastes.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">p.s. I have been away from this blog for a few weeks and
will not be paying as much attention for a few weeks more, partly because I am
posting a series of old writings about JRR Tolkien over at Daily Kos (<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.dailykos.com</span></a>, check the diaries).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Those who care, be warned!</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-9160193970815967212018-12-15T19:09:00.000-08:002018-12-15T19:31:16.146-08:00Climate Change Fall 2018: Postscript to Addendum<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Two new factoids:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The CO2
data from Mauna Loa are now showing that CO2 levels (averaged over the last ½
year plus a projection of the next six months) reached 410 ppm in Nov.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This date is a little more than three years
since that measure reached 400.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The estimate of carbon emissions – flat for
years 2014-2016 – rose by 1.6% in 2017 and is projected to rise by 2.7% in
2018.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Primary increases were from China
and India, but the US also rose – only Europe among major contributors
decreased.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Although, as I have noted,
this measure may well be flawed as an indicator of underlying carbon emissions
rise, the very fact that it can now be monitored on a monthly basis suggests
that some of the flaws have been worked out.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It is, therefore, less likely to be an underestimate of carbon
emissions, and hence the rate of rise is more likely to be correct or a slight
overestimate.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Let me reiterate the conclusion in my Oct. addendum more forcefully:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am told that I have, on average, 8 ½ years
more to live.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By the time I am dead, CO2
seems all but certain to reach 430 ppm, and may well be approaching 440
ppm.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By 2050, if things simply continue
linearly instead of accelerating the way they have done for the past 60 years,
we will be at 500 ppm, nearly doubling CO2 at the start of the Industrial
Revolution.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This bakes in a global
temperature rise since then of 4 degrees Centigrade, or 7 degrees Fahrenheit in
the long run, according to James Hansen and others, with at least 2 degrees C since
the IR in the short run, or another 2 degrees F from the way things are right
now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Another point:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There
is a clear line between recent increases in carbon emissions and the
administration of President Donald Trump.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The lack of support from that administration is clearly linked not only
to US increases (via a strong rise in US oil/shale/natural gas generation) but
also to decreased pressure on India and China, both in unilateral relations and
in the meetings regarding implementation of the Paris Agreement.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-61358929782357224852018-10-31T21:27:00.000-07:002018-10-31T21:27:35.037-07:00Climate Change and Economics: The Invisible Hand Never Picks Up the Check
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the past few days, I have been reading Kim Stanley
Robinson’s “Green Earth” trilogy, an examination of possible futures and
strategies in dealing with climate change thinly disguised as science
fiction.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One phrase in it struck me with
especial force:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“the blind hand of the
market never picks up the check.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To put
it in more economic terms:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Firms, and therefore market economies as a
whole, typically seek profit maximization, and because the path to profit from
new investment is always uncertain, to focus particularly on cost minimization
within a chosen, relatively conservative profit-maximization strategy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To minimize costs, they may not only use new
technologies (productivity enhancement), but also offload costs as far as
possible onto other firms, consumers, workers, societies, and governments.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Of these, the most difficult is offloading
costs onto other firms (e.g., via supply-chain management), since these are
also competing to minimize their costs and therefore to offload right
back.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Therefore, especially for the large,
global firms that dominate today’s markets, the name of the game is to not only
minimize costs from workers, consumers (consider help desks as an example), and
societies/governments, but also to get “subsidies” from these (time flexibility
or overtime from workers, consumers performing more of the work of [and bearing
more of the risk of] the sales transaction, governments not only providing
subsidies but also things such as infrastructure support, education and
training of the work force, and dealing with natural disasters – now including
climate change).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Often, especially in regard to climate change, economists
may refer to the process of the invisible hand never picking up the check as
the “tragedy of the commons.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The flaw
of this analysis is to limit one’s gaze implicitly to tangible property.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If one uses as a broader metric money
equivalents, then it is clear that it is not just “common goods” that are being
raided, but personal non-goods such as worker/consumer/neither time that
translates to poorer health and less ability to cope with life’s demands,
sapping productivity directly as well as via its effects on the worker/consumer’s
support system, not to mention the government’s ability to compensate as it is
starved of money.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And all of this still
does not capture the market’s ability to “game the system” by monopolizing
government and the law.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another point also struck me when I read this phrase:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>macroeconomics does not even begin to measure
the amount of that “cost raiding”, instead referring to it as “externalities”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And therefore:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economics cannot say whether market capitalism is better than other
approaches, or worse, or the same.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It
cannot say anything at all on the subject.</span></i></b></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Further Thoughts About Economics and Alternatives to Market Capitalism</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A further major flaw, imho, in economics’ approach to the
whole subject is the idea that cost minimization should not only be a desired
end but also the major goal of an enterprise.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I am specifically thinking of the case of the agile company.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As I have mentioned before, agile software development
deemphasizes cost, quality, revenue, time to market, and profit in favor of
constantly building in flexibility to adjust to and anticipate the changing
needs of the consumer.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And yet, agile
development outperforms approaches that do concentrate on these metrics by 25%
at a minimum and sometimes 100%.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the entire economy were based on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real</i> agile firms, I would suggest that we would see a comparable
improvement in the economy – permanently.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Moreover, the focus on the consumer should lead to a diminution in “cost
raiding”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The focus on being truly in
tune with the consumer’s needs, for example, should diminish raiding the
consumer’s time in the sales transaction and forcing them to use the help-desk
bottleneck.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And I still live in hope
that agile development with fewer time constraints will empower the developer
with the ability to seek out and implement his or her own tools to improve processes,
thereby allowing better retraining.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Implications of Climate Change for Economics and Market Capitalism</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Robinson includes a critique of market capitalism in his
work, and concludes that it has to change fundamentally.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I find the critique itself problematic; but
that doesn’t mean he isn’t right in his conclusion.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The fundamental question to me is, what happens when
externalities go in reverse, and suddenly the things that have led to ongoing
profits lead to ongoing losses?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Robinson
paints a frightening picture of a world in which brownouts, blackouts, killing
cold, and killing heat are common, and insurance, whether private or
governmental, cannot adequately compensate, leading additional costs to settle,
inexorably, on their last resort, business.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Then, implicitly, firms must cannibalize each other, with the largest
being best equipped to do so.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I tend to place things in less apocalyptic terms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>According to Prof. deLong, GDP performance
can be thought of as part improvement in productivity and part expansion of the
workforce.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The climate change scenario
necessarily implies a shrinkage of that workforce (in labor-hours) faster than
productivity can climb, and therefore a constantly shrinking market.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In that case, the market’s rising need for “cost
raiding” as the market shrinks simply speeds up the shrinkage of the market –
not to mention the underlying societies.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And that, to me, is the fundamental flaw that needs correcting. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Theoretically, one option is to capture things like “the
social cost of carbon” in company accounting – an idea I wrote about five years
ago.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Practically speaking, the uneven
effects of that on companies mean real impact on the employees of coal and oil
companies, a fact we have already seen a small foretaste of, and that has further
revealed the ability of oil and coal companies to entirely snarl the political
process to prevent adequate steps at limiting “cost raiding” – and that makes
our carbon pricing efforts in real-world terms more likely than not to be
inadequate to reverse the “cost raiding” trend.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The obvious alternative, which I and others have argued for
and I in fact picked up on eight years ago when I first understood the dire
implications of climate change, is “World War II in America”, governmental
interference in the economy comparable to that of WWII in order to “win the war
on climate change”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Only, of course, the
aim is to lose the war with as little damage as possible.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So suppose we do that; what then?</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The obvious answer is, “sustainability” – meaning practices
that will ensure that having “won the war”, we don’t lose it again in the future
by slipping back into the old carbon-guzzling, ecology-devastating, arable-land-destroying
habits.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Is that enough?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Robinson says no, that despite
sustainability, cost raiding will continue to increase in other areas.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And here I tend to agree with him, although I
am not sure.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It appears, reverting to Prof. deLong’s point above, that it
is possible with sustainability to continue to improve both human welfare and
corporate profitability, by improving productivity with a more or less stable
(almost certainly shrunken) population and workforce.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>However, productivity improvement may well be
less than in the Industrial Revolution – it has already slowed for an unduly
long time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And if that is the case, then
there is no market-capitalism path forward that involves today’s increases in
corporate profitability and avoids cost raiding increases.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know the answer to this.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I feel, however, that the beginnings of an
answer lie not in perpetually increasing the size of the workforce by improving
human welfare, while somehow not increasing population, but rather in
perpetually increasing “consumer productivity”:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>the value that people get out of their lives, that they can then invest
in others.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>More specifically, I think
markets can be divided into those for carrying out daily tasks (“Do”), those
for socializing and participating in society (“Socialize”) and those for
learning and creating (“Learn”).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A
balance must be kept between these efforts in any individual’s life, so the
perpetual increases must be achieved inside each of these three sets of
markets. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would argue that today’s market economies use “Do” to crowd
out much of the other two sets of markets, and are less good at perpetually
increasing the value of “Socialize” and “Learn”, although the crowding-out may
mean that “Do”’s superiority is illusory.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I have no clear idea as to what to do about my conclusions, except to
examine each set of markets more closely to gain clues as to how to achieve
this perpetual value increase.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just some thoughts.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And oh, by the way, Robinson is indeed worth reading.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-1944978606522314372018-10-30T09:57:00.000-07:002018-10-30T09:57:37.994-07:00Climate Change Fall 2018: A Personal Addendum
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</i></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
One thing I did not note in my recent climate-change
update:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The CO2 data from Mauna Loa are
now showing that CO2 levels (averaged over the last ½ year plus a projection of
the next six months) reached 409 ppm in Sept.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This is about three years since that measure reached 400 ppm, and is
less than 6 months before it reaches 410 ppm.</div>
</span><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am told that I have, on average, 8<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>½ years more to live.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By the time I am dead, CO2 will in all
likelihood have reached 430 ppm, and may well be approaching 440 ppm.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By 2050, if things simply continue linearly
instead of accelerating the way they have done for the past 60 years, we will
be at 500 ppm, nearly doubling CO2 at the start of the Industrial
Revolution.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This bakes in a global temperature
rise since then of 4 degrees Centigrade, or 7 degrees Fahrenheit in the long
run, according to James Hansen and others, with at least 2 degrees C in the
short run, or another 2 degrees F from the way things are right now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Heckuva job, humanity.</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Local Markings of Climate Change These Days</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have lived in the Northeast US for all of my 68-year life,
the last 40 years of it near Boston.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This year, there are so many weather changes I cannot remember ever
seeing before.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is now a day before Halloween.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For the first time ever, most of the leaves
are still on the trees.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Leaf coloration
only began happening in early October, the latest ever; it used to happen in
mid-September. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In late October, shortly before a playoff game was to be
played in Fenway Park, there was a thunderstorm.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That has never happened in late October.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As a matter of fact, thunderstorms only used
to happen around here once or twice in mid-summer – if that.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This last summer was hot (as usual) and humid (something
that has only been happening in the last 10 years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It started in late June and went full tilt
until mid-September, which it has also never done before, at a typical “the way
it feels to you” pace of the upper 80s to the low 90s F.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Many days, I stayed indoors all day and
night.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All year, the wind has been strong – typically 10 mph faster
than even 15 years ago.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My backyard is
well shielded by trees from the wind, and until the last couple of years I
could look out and not see the leaves and branches moving.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This year, I typically see them moving even
close to the house.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There has been a lot of rain this year.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What’s unprecedented is that most rains are
hard rains, with big raindrops hammering on the roof.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Going out for a walk during a rainstorm, with
wind blowing your umbrella wildly, the streets flooded an inch or three, and
the wind driving the large raindrops horizontally onto your clothing, is
contraindicated in most cases.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So even
in the spring and fall of this year, some days I spend indoors all day and
night.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I know that from here on, on average, it all only gets
worse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>100-mph nor’easter, anyone?</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-76055816356324708762018-10-18T08:12:00.000-07:002018-10-18T08:12:21.511-07:00Reading New Thoughts: O’Reilly’s What’s The Future, the Agile Entity, and Prediction
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tim O’Reilly’s “WTF:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>What’s the Future, and Why It’s Up to Us” is, alternately, an insightful
memoir of many of the computer industry events that I lived with and to some
extent participated in, a look at the oncoming technologies coming from the
computer industry and its spinoffs, with particular over-emphasis on Uber and
Lyft, and an attempt to draw general conclusions about how we all should
anticipate what’s going to impact us in the future and how we should “ride the
wave”.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, I want to add a caveat that I think should become a
Law:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The future happens faster than we think – and then it happens slower
than we think.</span></i></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">By this I mean:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>when
new technological breakthroughs arrive, not all are obvious to a particular
part of the economy that we attend to, even if (today) they are linked by
software technology.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then, even when
they seem like the “new new thing” everywhere in our particular area, they
typically take 10-30 years to spread to the world at large.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For example, smartphones and their apps (themselves
over 10 years old) are by no means ubiquitous in the Third World, despite the
hype.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’d like to note here several instances of the future
arriving “faster than we think”, some profiled in WTF.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Among the ones that I find amazing (and
sometimes frightening):</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We can now alter and replace 20-gene DNA and RNA
segments, and hence genes in general, not only for the next generation but also
in many cases over the course of a few months for our own.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The work to achieve that happened less than
10 years ago, practical implementation was achieved less than 5 years ago, and
the Nobel Prize for that work (led by Jennifer Doudna and her team, described
in her book) was awarded this month.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pictures of anyone can be inserted seamlessly in
a different scene, making it very hard to tell the truth of the news pictures
that we see every day.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Understandable automated language translation
(e.g., Google), automated voice recognition, and automated picture recognition have
been achieved (although “good” speech recognition has still not been reached).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Semi-automated bots generate comments on
articles and in blogs that are often indistinguishable from the ungrammatical
and rambling comments of many humans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Hence,
the attempts at hacking political elections and the increasing difficulty of
figuring out the truth of events in the public arena, “crowded out” as they now
sometimes are by false “rumors.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">More subtly:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Uber and Lyft create “instant marketplaces”
matching buyers and sellers of taxi services.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Supermarkets now dictate to growers production
of specific items with detailed specification of quality and characteristics,
based on narrow segments of the consumer market.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, let’s talk about what I think are the new thoughts
generated by WTF.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In particular, I want
to suggest that O’Reilly’s view of how to “predict” which oncoming technologies
should be factored into one’s business, government, or personal strategy going
forward, how to fit these into an overall picture, and how to use that picture
to develop strategy, is really of most use in developing an “agile strategy”
for an agile entity.</span></div>
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">WTF Key Technologies and Strategies</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps the best place to start is with WTF’s “Business
Model of the Next Economy,” i.e. a model of the typical firm/organization in
the future.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There are many subtleties in
it, but it appears to break down into:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Central “Networked Marketplace Platforms”, i.e.,
distributed infrastructure software that provides the basis for one or many
automated “marketplaces” in which buyers and sellers can interact.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the supply chain, the firm would be the
primary buyer; at the retail level, it would be the primary seller.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Feeding into these platforms, an approach that
“replaces markets with information” – instead of hoarding information and using
that hoarding to drive monopoly sales, the firm releases information openly and
uses the commoditization of the product to drive dominance of new products.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Also feeding into the platforms, a new approach
to user interfacing that seeks to create “magical experiences.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This particularly enhances the firm’s and
platform’s “reputation.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Another
“feeder” is “augmented” workers – workers enabled by rather than replaced by
AI-type software.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A fourth “feeder” is “On-Demand” (applied
flexibly, as needed) talent (workers given added value by their talents) and
resources.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This includes an emphasis on
actively helping workers to succeed, including over the long run.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A fifth feeder – somewhat complementary to the
fourth – is “Alternatives to Full-Time Employment”, where the emphasis is on
being flexible for the benefit of the worker, not the employer – the takeaway
being that this actually benefits the employer more than WalMart-style “show up
when we need you and never mind your personal life” approaches.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The key newness about this approach is that
is “managed by algorithm” – the algorithm allows both the employer and employee
to seek to manage their needs in a semi-automated fashion.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Returning to the business itself, the final
feeder to the marketplace platform is “Services on Demand”, which offers to the
consumer an interface that is providing an ongoing service rather than simply
selling a product.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is enhanced by
“marketplace liquidity,” ways to make it easier for the consumer to buy the service.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At this point I revert to my caveat/Law in the
beginning.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This “next economy” model is
already operating in parts of the computer industry and related fields, e.g.,
Amazon, Google, Lyft – the future has already happened faster than we
think.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At the same time, there will be a
longer time than we think before it diffuses across the majority of
organizations, if it does so at all.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Government and law are two obvious places considered in WTF where this
model holds great potential, but will take a long, long time to effectively
apply.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the object of the game is to “ride the technology wave”
by predicting which oncoming technologies should be factored into one’s
business, then the technologies in this model are relatively safe bets.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They are already past the stage of “timing”,
where the technology is attractive but it may not yet be time for the market to
implement it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As WTF points out, the
trick is not to simply latch on to a strategy like this, but to constantly update
the model and its details as new technologies arrive at their “timing” stage. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Enter the agile strategy.</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Prediction and the Agile Entity</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The agile process is, on its face, reactive.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It does not attempt to get out ahead of the
combined wisdom of developers/process-users and consumers/end-users.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Rather, it seeks to harvest that wisdom
rapidly in order to get out in front of the market as a whole, and only for the
purposes of each development/rollout process.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">An agile strategy (which, up to this point, I haven’t
examined closely) should be a different animal.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Precisely because any strategy bridges a firm/organization’s entire set
of new-product-development efforts as well as aligning the rest of the
organization with these, an agile strategy should be (a) long-term and (b) to a
significant degree in advance of current markets.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the case of the strategy outlined in the previous section
(i.e., implement the “new business economy model”), one very straightforward
way of adding agility to the strategy would be to add agility to the software
and analytics used to implement it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One
tried-and-true method for doing this is “refactoring” – adding a layer of
abstraction to the software so that it is relatively easy to change.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another method is simply to plan to revisit the strategy
every 3-12 months. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The agile CEO I
interviewed and reported on in a 5-years-old blog post did exactly that – a
5-year plan, revisited and informed with both his outside feedback and the
information he gathered by attending scrum meetings.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">WTF adds a third dimension:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>attempt to discern upcoming technologies and approaches that are
“important”, and then “time” the shift to a new strategy incorporating those
technologies/approaches.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Prediction,”
in these terms, means anticipating which oncoming technologies/approaches are
important and also the pace of their evolution into “timely” products and
services.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would argue, however, that this is precisely where an
agile strategy adds value.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It does not
assume that what seems important now stays important, or that an important
technology/approach will arrive in the market in the next 5 years, but rather
that whatever steps we take towards preparing the way for a new
technology/approach must be flexible enough to switch to another
technology/approach even midway in the process.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>For example, we may move towards augmenting our workers with AI, but in
such a way that we can instead fully automate one set of workers in order to augment
a new type of worker whose responsibilities include that of the old.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We would be, in a sense, “refactoring” the
worker-task definition.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So here’s my take from reading WTF:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It should be possible, using WTF’s method of
anticipating change, to implement an agile strategy as described.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Moreover, an agile strategy should be clearly
better than usual ones.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Usual strategies
and agile processes do not anticipate the future; agile strategies such as this
do.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>WTF-type strategies anticipate the
future but are not flexible enough to handle changes between identification of
the future and the time for its implementation; an agile strategy should be
able to do so.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-42469871484182404302018-08-19T20:48:00.000-07:002018-08-19T20:48:07.735-07:00Climate Change Mid-2018: The Relatively Good Bad News
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I have argued before, human metrics on how well we are
coping with climate change can be highly misleading, usually on the side of
false optimism.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Two metrics that are
clearly not thus biased are:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Measurements of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa in
Hawaii, which have been recorded since 1959;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Estimates of Arctic sea ice volume (with extent
serving as a loose approximation), especially at minimum in September, which
have been carried out since the 1980s. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the past few years, I have covered the drumbeat of bad
news from those two metrics, indicating that we are in a “business as usual”
scenario that is accelerating climate change.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>In the first half of 2018, what has happened in both cases is that the
metrics are not following a “worst possible case” path – hence the “relatively
good” part of the title.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At the same
time, there is no clearly apparent indication that we are deviating from our “business
as usual” scenario – mitigation is not clearly having any effect.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is possible, however, that we are seeing
the beginnings of an effect; it’s just not possible to detect it in the
statistical “noise.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And given that
scientists are now talking about a “tipping point” in the near future in which
not only a frightening 2 degrees C temperature by 2100 is locked in, but also
follow-on feedbacks (like permafrost melt) that take temperature rise
eventually to a far more disastrous 3-4 degrees C – well, that’s the
underlying, ongoing bad news.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, this summer’s everlasting heat waves in the US,
Europe, and the Middle East – heat waves clearly caused primarily by human-generated
CO2 emissions and the resulting climate change – make the “new abnormal”
obvious to those of us who are not wilfully blind.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But for anyone following the subject with an
open mind, the heat waves are not a surprise.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s take a look at each metric.</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">The El Nino Effect Recedes</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">From late 2016 to around June of 2017, the El Nino effect
crested, and, as it has done in the past (e.g., 1998) drove both temperatures
and the rate of CO2 rise skyward.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Where
2013-2015 saw an unprecedented streak of 3 years of greater than 2 ppm atmospheric
CO2 growth, 2016 and 2017 both saw record-breaking growth of around 3 ppm
(hiding a brief spurt to almost 4 ppm).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>1998
(2.86 ppm) was followed by a year or two of growth around 1 ppm – in fact,
slower than 1996-7.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the percentage
rate of rise has also been rising over the years (it reached almost 1% in early
2017, 4 ppm over 404 ppm).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Therefore, it
seemed a real possibility that 2018 would see 2.5 ppm growth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Indeed, we saw 2.5 ppm growth as late as the
first month or two of 2018.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, however, weekly and monthly growth has settled back to
a 1.5-2 ppm rate, consistently since early 1998.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even a 2 ppm rate gives hope that El Nino did
not mean a permanent uptick in the rate of rise.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A 1.5 ppm rate would seem to indicate that
2018 is following the 1999 script – a dip in the rate of rise, possibly because
of the follow-on La Nina.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It might even
indicate a slight – very slight – decrease in the underlying rate of rise
(i.e., the rate of rise with no El Nino or La Nina going on).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that, as I noted above, is the first indication
I have seen that things might possibly be diverging from “business as usual”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, there’s always the background of bad news.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In this case, it lies in the fact that
whereas ever since I started following CO Mauna Loa 6 or 7 years ago CO2 levels
in year 201x were about 10 ppm greater than in year 200x (10 years before), right
now CO2 levels are about 13.5 ppm greater than in year 2008.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So, even if the El Nino effect has ended, the
underlying amount of rise may still be increasing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The best indicator that our efforts are making a difference
would be two years of 1 ppm rise or less (CO2 Mauna Loa measures the yearly amount
of rise by averaging the Nov.-Feb. monthly rises).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Alas, no such trend has shown up in the data
yet.</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Arctic Sea Ice:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not In Stasis, Not
in Free Fall</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the last 2 years, the “new normal” in Arctic sea ice
advance and retreat has become apparent.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It involves both unprecedented heat in winter, leading to new low extent
maxima, and a cloudy and stormy July and August (key melt months), apparently negating
the effects of the winter melt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>However,
volume continues to follow a downward overall trend (if far more linear and
closer to flat-line than the apparently exponential “free fall” until 2012,
which had some predicting “ice-free in 2018”).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog (neven1.typepad.com) continues
to show, however, “ice-free in September” still appears only a matter of time (at
a best guess, according to some statisticians, in the early 2030s).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Subsea temperatures (SSTs) in key parts of
the Arctic like above Norway and in the Bering Sea continue to rise and impact
sea ice formation in those areas.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As the
ice inherited from winter thins, we are beginning to see storms that actually
break up the weaker ice into pieces, encouraging increased export of ice to the
south via the Fram Strait.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The ice is so
thin that a few days ago an icebreaker carrying scientists had to go effectively
all the way to the North Pole to find ice thick enough to support their
instruments for any length of time.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So the relatively good news is that it appears highly
unlikely that this year will see a new low extent, much less an ice-free
moment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The underlying, ongoing bad news
is that eventually the rise in SSTs will inevitably overcome the counteracting
cloudiness in July and August (and that assumes that the cloudiness will
persist).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Since 1980, extent at maximum
has shrunk perhaps 12%, while extent at minimum has shrunk perhaps 45% (volume
shows sharper decreases).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And in this,
unlike CO2 Mauna Loa, there is no trace of a hint that the process is slowing
down or reversing due to CO2 emissions reductions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nor would we expect there to be such an
indication, given that we have only gotten globally serious about emissions
reduction in the last 3 years (yes, I recognize that Europe is an exception).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">The Challenge</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The question the above analysis raises is:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What will it take to really make a
significant impact on our carbon emissions – much less the dramatic reductions scientists
have been calling for?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I see no precise answer
at the moment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What I do know is that
what we are doing needs to be done even faster, far more extensively – because the
last few years have also seen a great increase in understanding on the details
of change, as I have tried to show in some of my Reading New Thoughts
posts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The ways are increasingly there;
the will is not.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that, I think,
along with countering the disgustingly murderous role of President Trump in
particular in climate change (I am thinking of Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico as
an obvious example), should be the main task of the rest of 2018.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-56167989554284668892018-08-04T12:27:00.000-07:002018-08-04T12:27:56.663-07:00Reading New Thoughts: Two Books On the Nasty Details of Cutting Carbon Emissions<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have finally gotten around to talking about two books I
recently read, tomes that have greatly expanded my knowledge of the details and
difficulties of reducing carbon emissions drastically.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These books are Peter Kalmus; “Being the
Change” and David Owen’s “Where the Water Goes”, and I’d like to discuss the
new thoughts I believe they give rise to, very briefly.</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Kalmus and the Difficulties of Individual Efforts to Cut Carbon Emissions</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Being the Change” is a bit of an odd duck; it’s the personal
musings of a physicist dealing with climate change at the level of cross-planet
climates, on his personal efforts to reduce his own greenhouse-gas emissions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Imho, its major value is that it gives perhaps
the best explanation I have read on the science of climate change.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>However, as promised, it also discusses
Kalmus’ careful dissection of his own and his family’s lifestyle in terms of carbon
emissions, and his efforts to reduce these emissions as much as possible.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the start we find out that Kalmus has been successful in
reducing his emissions by 90% over the course of a few years, so that they are
only 10% of what they were at the start of the effort.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is significant because many scientists’
recommendations for what is needed to avoid “worst cases” talk about reductions
of 80-90% in a time frame of less than 25 years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In other words, it seems at first glance that
a world of individual efforts, if not hindered as they are now by business
interests or outdated government regulations, might take us all the way to a
carbon-reduced world.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When we look at the details of Kalmus’ techniques, however,
it becomes apparent that a major portion of his techniques are not easily
reproducible.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In particular, a significant
chunk of savings comes from not flying any more; but he was flying more than
most, as a scientist attending conferences, so his techniques extended
worldwide are more likely to achieve 50-70% emissions reductions, not
80-90%.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then we add his growing his own
food while using “human manure” as manure; and that is something that is far
more difficult to reproduce worldwide, given that perhaps 50% of humanity is
now in cities and that scavenging human manure is a very time-consuming activity
(not to mention borderline illegal is some jurisdictions).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So we lose another 10-20%, for a net
reduction of 30-60%, according to my SWAG (look it up).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The net of it is, to me, that using many of Kalmus’ techniques
universally, if it can be done, is very much worth doing; but also changing
business practices and adopting government policies and global efforts is
necessary, whether we do our individual efforts or not, to achieve the needed
drastic reductions in carbon emissions, over a short or a long time
period.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There are two pieces of good
news here.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>First, Kalmus notes that he
could have achieved further significant personal reductions if he’d been able
to afford a solar-powered home; and that’s something that governments (and
businesses) can indeed take a shot at implementing worldwide.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Second, I heard recently that my old junior
high’s grade school was now teaching kids about individual carbon footprints ("pawprints") and what to do about them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, the
recommendations were weak tea; but it’s a good start at spreading individual
carbon-emissions reductions efforts across society.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">Owen and the Resistance of Infrastructure, Politics, and Law to Emissions
Reductions and Sustainability</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nominally, “Where the Water Goes” is about the Colorado
River watershed, how its water is allocated, and changes due to the evolution
of the economies of neighboring state plus the pressures due to increasing
climate-change water scarcity, increased usage from population growth, and the
need for sustainability and carbon-emissions reductions. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What stands out about his account, however, is
the weird and unexpected permutations of watershed management involved.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Here are a few:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Colorado originally did not provide enough
water for mining, except if it was reserved in large chunks for
individuals.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As a result, a Law of the
River set of water-use rights has grown up in place of the usual “best fair use”,
where the older your claim to a certain amount of the water is, the more others
whose use of scarce water you pre-empt.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An elaborate system of aqueducts and reservoirs
that feed water to cities from Los Angeles to Denver.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rural economies entirely dependent on tourism
from carbon-guzzling RVs and jetskis used on man-made lakes.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Agriculture that is better in the desert than in
fertile areas – because the weather is more predictably good.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A food-production system in which supermarket
chains and the like now drive agriculture to the point of demanding that individual
farmers deliver produce of very specific types, weight ranges, and quality – or
else;</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A mandated cut in water use can lead to real-world
water use increase – because now users must use draw more water in
low-water-use periods to avoid the risk of running out of their “claimed amount”
in a high-use period.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Owen’s take is that it is possible, if people on all sides of
the water-scarcity issue (e.g., environmentalists and business) sit down and
work things out, to “muddle through” and preserve this strange world by
incremental adaptation in a world of increased water scarcity due to climate
change, and that crude efforts at quick fixes risk the catastrophic breakdown
of the entire system.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>My reaction to
this is quite different:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>to change a
carbon-based energy system like the Colorado River is going to take fundamental
rethinking, because not only the “sunk cost” infrastructure of aqueducts,
reservoirs, and irrigation-fed agriculture, plus rural-industry and state-city politics
reinforces the status quo, but the legal system itself – the legal precedents flowing
into real-world practices – metastasizes and elaborates the carbon excesses of
the system. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For this particular system, and probably in a lot of cases, I
conjecture that the key actors in bringing about carbon reductions are the
farmers and the “tourism” industries.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The farmers are key because they in fact use far more water than the cities
for their irrigation, and therefore carbon-reduction/sustainability policies
that impact them (such as reductions in pesticides, less meat production, or less
nitrogen in fertilizers) on top of water restrictions make their job that much
harder.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is hard to see how anything
but money (correctly targeted supports and incentives) plus water-use
strategies focused on this can overcome both the supermarket control over
farmers and these constraints to achieve major carbon-use reductions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Meanwhile, the “tourism industries” are key because, like
flying as discussed above, they represent an easier target for major reductions
in energy and carbon efficiency than cities. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On the other hand, these rural economies are
much more fragile, being dependent on low-cost transport/homes in the RV case, and
feeding the carbon-related whims of the rich and semi-rich few, in the jetski
case.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the RV case, as in the farmer
case, money for less fossil-fuel-consuming RVs and recreation methods will
probably avoid major economic catastrophe.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, I repeat, what is likely to happen if this sort of
rethinking does not permeate throughout infrastructure, politics, and the law,
is the very major catastrophe that was supposed to be avoided by incrementalism,
only in the medium term rather than in the short term, and therefore with
greater negative effects.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The tourism
industries will be inevitable victims of faster-than-expected,
greater-than-expected water shortages and weather destruction.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The farmers will be victims of greater-than-expected,
faster-than-expected water evaporation from heat and weather destruction.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The cities will be the victims of resulting
higher food prices and shortages.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What Owen’s book does is highlight just how tough some of
the resistance “built into the system” to carbon-emissions reductions is.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What it does <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b> do is show that
therefore incrementalism is preferable.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>On the contrary.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-7821722302116765752018-07-25T19:07:00.000-07:002018-07-25T19:07:38.054-07:00Reading New Thoughts: Haskel and Westlake’s Capitalism Without Capital, and the Distorting Rise of Intangible Assets
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Disclaimer:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am now retired, and am therefore no longer
an expert on anything.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This blog post
presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In my view, Haskel/Westlake’s “Capitalism Without Capital”
is not so much an argument that the increasing importance of “intangible assets”
constitutes a new and different “intangible <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economy</i>”,
as strong evidence that the ever-increasing impact of software means that a
fundamental idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economics</i> – that everything
can be modeled as a mass of single-product manufacturers and industries – is
farther and farther from the real world.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>As a result, I would argue, measures of the economy and our well-being
based on those assumptions are increasingly distorted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And we need to do more than tweak our
accounting to reflect this “brave new world”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, my own brief “summary” of what Haskel/Westlake say.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They start by asserting that present-day
accounting does not count intangible company investments like software during
development, innovation property such as patents and R&D, and “economic
competencies” such as training, branding, and business-process research.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the case of software development, for
example, instead of inventory that is capitalized and whose value is represented
at cost until sold, we typically have expenses but no capitalized value right
up until the software is released and sold.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>A software company, therefore, with its continual development cycle,
appears to have zero return on investment on a lot of its product portfolio.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Haskel/Westlake go on to argue that a lot of newer companies
are more and more like software companies, in that they predominantly depend on
these “intangible assets.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The new breed
of company, they say, has key new features:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“sunk costs” – that is, you can’t resell
development, research, or branding to get at its monetary value to you.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“spillovers” – it is exceptionally easy for
others to use your development-process insights and research.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“scalability” – it requires relatively little
effort and cost to scale usage of these intangible assets from a thousand to a
million to a billion end users.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“synergies” – research in various areas,
software infrastructure, and business-process skills complement each other, so
that the whole is more than the sum of the value-added of the parts. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“uncertainty” – compared to, say, a steel
manufacturing firm, the software company has far more potential upside from its
investments, and often far more potential downside.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“contestedness” – such a company faces much
greater competition for control of its assets, particularly since they are so
easy to use by others.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally, Haskel/Westlake say that, given their assumption
that “intangible companies” make up a significant and growing part of the
global economy, they already have significant impacts on that economy in
particular areas:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Secular stagnation” over the last decade is
partially ascribed to the increasing undervaluing of these companies’ “intangible
assets”.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Intangible companies increase income inequality
because they function best with physical communication by specialized managers in
cities.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Intangible companies are under-funded, because
banks are not well suited to investing without physical capital to repossess and
resell.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Haskel/Westlake suggests that
greater use of equity rather than loans is required, and may be gotten from
institutional investors and by funding collaborating universities.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Avoiding too much failure will require new
business practices as well as new government encouragement, e.g., via better
support for in-business control of key intangible assets (clear
intangible-asset ownership rules) or supporting the new methods of financing
the “intangible companies.”</span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="margin: 2.66px 0px 0px;">
<span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: Calibri Light; font-size: medium;">It’s the Software, Sirs</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let’s look at it a different way.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Today’s theories of economics grew out of a
time (1750-1850) when large-scale manufacturing was on the rise, and its
microeconomics reflects that, as does the fact that data on economic
performance (e.g., income) comes from surveys of businesses, which is then “adjusted”
to try to include non-business data (trade and reconciling with personal income
reports).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From 1750-about 1960, manufacturing
continued to increase as a percentage of overall economic activity and
employment, at the expense of farming.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>From 1960 or so, “services” (ranging from hospitals to concierges) began
to carve into that dominance, but all those services, in terms of jobs, could
still be cast in the mold of “corporation that is mostly workers producing/dealing
with customers, plus physical infrastructure/capital”. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now consider today’s typical large software-driven
company.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Gone is the distinction between
line and staff.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Manufacturing has shrunk
dramatically as a share of economic activity, both within the corporation and
overall.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bricks and mortar is
shrinking.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jobs are much more things
like developers (development Is not manufacturing nor engineering but applied
math), marketers/branders, data scientists (in my mind, a kind of developer),
help desk, Internet presence support.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The increased popularity of “business agility” goes along with shorter
careers at a particular company, outsourcing, intra-business “services” that
are primarily software (“platform as a service”, Salesforce.com).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Success is defined as control over an
Internet/smartphone software-related bottleneck like goods-ordering (Amazon),
advertising (Google), or “apps” (Apple).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now consider what people are buying from these
software-driven firms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I would argue
that it differs in two fundamental ways from “manufacturing” and old-style “services”:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is bought is more abstract, and therefore
applicable to a much wider range of products.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You don’t just buy a restaurant meal; you buy a restaurant-finding
app.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You don’t just browse for books;
you browse across media. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What you are
selling is not a widget or a sweater, as in economics textbooks, but information
or an app.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can divide up the purposes of buying into
(a) Do (to get something done); (b) <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Socialize/Communicate,
as in Facebook and Pinterest; and (c) Learn/Create, as in video gaming and blog
monetization.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The last two of these are
really unlike the old manufacturing/services model, and their share of business
output has already increased to a significant level.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Of course, most if not all software-driven
companies derive their revenues from a mix of all three.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The result of all this, in economic terms, is complexity,
superficially masked by the increased efficiency.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Complexity for the customer, who narrows his or
her gaze to fewer companies after a while.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Complexity for the business, whose path to success is no longer as clear
as cutting costs amid stable strategies – so the company typically goes on
cutting costs and hiring and firing faster or outsourcing more in default of an
alternative.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Complexity for the
regulator, whose ability to predict and control what is going on is undercut by
such fast-arriving devices as “shadow banking”, information monopolies, and
patent trolling.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In other words, what I am arguing for is a possible
rethinking of macroeconomics in terms of different microeconomic foundations,
not the ones of behavioral economics, necessarily, but rather starting from the
viewpoint “what is really going on inside the typical software-driven corporation”
and then asking how such a changed internal world will reflect back to the
overall economy, how macroeconomic data can capture what is going on, and how
one can use the new data to regulate and anticipate future problems better.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John LeCarre once said that the key problem post-Cold-War
was how to handle the “wrecking infant” – here he was referencing an amoral
businessman creating Third-World havoc, although you can translate that to the
situation in the US right now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
software-driven business, in terms of awareness of what to do, is a bit of a wrecking
infant.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If it isn’t helped to grow up,
the fault will not lie solely in our inability to anticipate the distorting
rise of intangible assets, its side-effect, but also in our failure to deal
adequately with its abstraction, new forms of organization and revenue, and
complexity.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3675340046469703224.post-58584460952985069982018-07-04T16:53:00.000-07:002018-07-04T17:14:27.339-07:00There’s Something Wrong Here: July 4, 2018<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">For the first time in polling history (since 2000), less
than half of Americans say they are “extremely proud” of being an
American.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Before Donald J. Trump became
the Republican candidate for Presidency, that figure had never gone below 54 % (“extremely
proud”); it is now 47 %.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The figures
show equivalent declines among Democrats and “independents”, but a slight
uptick among Republicans.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The conclusion is that President Trump makes a
net 7 % of the country more ashamed to be an American.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I cannot find another President of whom
historians say that he made a large proportion of Americans more ashamed of
their nationality.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Wayne Kernochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12662540362928885168noreply@blogger.com0