Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

DDT and evolution

Naomi Oreskes’ book about climate change deniers makes some interesting points about the pesticide DDT. Apparently, there has been a kind of campaign recently to challenge the history of the substance and its ban, with some anti-regulation groups claiming the regulation of DDT was unneccessary and caused many human deaths. They argue that if DDT use had not been regulated, malaria could have been eradicated.

Oreskes seems to rebut this argument convincingly. Critically, she points out how DDT had been stripped of its effectiveness through over-use, particularly in agriculture. She makes the point that the consequences of different sorts of DDT use for the genetics of the mosquito population can be very different. Spraying indoors exposes only a small minority of mosquitoes to the chemical, leaving most of the population isolated from it. As a consequence, there is only a small advantage for those mosquitoes that are more resistant to the poison. By contrast, widescale agricultural spraying exposes whole populations of mosquitoes to the toxin. Those who are a bit resistant to it have a huge advantage, and soon come to dominate the population. Over time, the indiscriminate use of DDT breeds mosquitoes who are troubled less and less by the toxin.

Oreskes documents how the banning of DDT took place only after its effectiveness was lost, as well as how the environmental and human health effects of the substance were sufficiently worrisome to justify the ban. She argues that the recent attempt to change the historical narrative is not about DDT itself – which nobody is seeking to reintroduce. Rather, it is intended to foster and enlarge a general sense that taking precautions to protect human health and the environment is unjustified, and that science that supports the regulation of industry and individual behaviour is ‘junk’.

A related situation that I have written about before is the abuse of antibiotics in the livestock industry. Just as the agricultural use of DDT provided ideal circumstances for insects to evolve resistance, today’s factory farms may as well have been custom designed to render our antibiotics ineffective. Crowding huge numbers of unhealthy animals close together, flooding them with chemicals to make them grow as quickly as possible, feeding them unnatural diets, and then using antibiotics to try and keep them from dying too early, is a string of compounding errors. Not only does it demonstrate considerable disregard for the welfare of the animals in question, but it demonstrates a lack of foresight when it comes to maintaining the effectiveness of our drugs and the relative manageability of the bacteria out there.

Of course, the political system tends to favour the small group of farmers that benefits from the status quo and which would suffer significantly from a change in policy, rather than the great majority of people who are incrementally harmed by the emergence of ever-more-dangerous superbugs, and the dilution of the effectiveness of the relatively small class of chemicals capable of safely killing bacteria inside human beings, without causing undue harm to the person.

Zero History

Zero History is the third novel in Vancouver author William Gibson’s latest trilogy of science fiction set in the present. It is the sequel to Spook Country, which came out in 2007.

Like all of his work, it is clever and well written. This trilogy succeeds in meshing together the trends and technologies of the past with those of the near-future. It also generates some intriguing characters – in this case, the recovering benzodiazapene addict Milgrim is the most interesting. Unfortunately – as is common in science fiction – Gibson does a better job of setting up a mystery than of resolving it. That and a few forgettable, interchangeable characters constitutes the biggest limitation of the work. Once again, Gibson hasn’t risen to the standard he set with his first novel, back in 1983. That said, while Gibson doesn’t display the same ability to tell a story that is compelling from end to end, in this case, Zero History does seem indicative of his maturation as a writer and a person. For instance, whereas the protagonist of Neuromancer was an unrepentent stimulant addict, Zero History explores the psychological processes of addiction recovery in an intriguing and authentic way.

Certainly, one of the interesting aspects of Gibson’s latest work is his exploration of what kind of societal changes may emerge from the most recent real technologies. As he famously remarked: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” In particular, he is concerned with the emergence of wholesale surveillance technologies in areas ranging from international communications to citywide networks of video cameras paired with facial recognition technologies. The ways in which such technologies intersect with the operating practices of governments, criminal syndicates, and special forces groups is certainly something that has cropped up in interesting ways in both reality and other recent fiction, ranging from the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai to the fictional engagement of both police and drug gangs with communication technology on The Wire.

The climax of Zero History is probably the most disappointing part. Without revealing too much about the plot, it seems fair to say that it is a letdown after all the preparation the characters undertake beforehand, and the revelations that follow it do not seem to justify all the earlier intrigue. That said, Gibson’s latest work is a solid piece of fiction and an interesting exploration of some of the implications of emerging and existing technologies. It will also expose a lot of geeks who normally have nothing to do with the world of fashion to some of the elements thereof, in a way that suggests that the industry is not so very different from the high tech sector, with its secrets and large personalities.

What will the future condemn?

Over on Climate Progress, Joseph Romm makes a good case that future generations will condemn us for ignoring climate change. He argues that there are three signs of a behaviour that is common in a society at one point, but which is later widely condemned on moral grounds:

  1. “people have already heard the arguments against the practice”
  2. “defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity”
  3. “supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit”

All of these factors seem to be in play, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and the changes in climate they are producing.

As I have done, Romm compares greenhouse gas emissions now with slavery in previous times. Both were once central to the economic sytems of some places, but both impose intolerable burdens on innocent people.

The Stuxnet worm

There has been a recent flurry of discussion online about a piece of malware that targets the control systems of industrial facilities – specifically, one that seems designed to sabotage one particular facility. The speculation is that the target is either the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran or Iran’s uranium enriching centrifuge cascades at Natanz. If so, the idea would presumably be to slow down the development of Iranian nuclear weapons.

The sophistication of the worm has led many security researchers to speculate that only a nation state would have the resources to assemble it. That said, there are a great many unknown factors in play. The entire situation could be someone’s attempt at misdirection, or making a threat. Assuming the basic elements of speculation are correct, this would be an interesting development in unconventional military tactics. It probably wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented, however. There have already been three generations of Suter: a computer program developed by a British defence corporation, designed to interfere with communications and communications systems in a military context. Suter or similar software may have been used in Israel’s 2007 airstrike on a suspected nuclear facility in Syria.

The Young Turks

When Jon Stewart interviewed former president Jimmy Carter recently, the topic of Stewart’s upcoming ‘Rally to Restore Sanity‘ arose. Carter commented that Stewart was now becoming involved in politics. At the same time, fellow comedian Stephen Colbert testified before a congressional committee.

At the same time as Stewart and Colbert are moving in new directions, a new satirical news source has emerged. The Young Turks is a website and media show sponsored by Sirius Satellite Radio. It has a kind of unpolished authenticity, lacking the production values of Stewart and Colbert’s offerings. It skews younger and edgier, and the website will start playing a Sirius Satellite stream if you leave it alone too long.

Many young people who I know don’t own televisions, and watch only Stewart and Colbert as video news sources. I am not sure how to feel about that, all in all. Neither seems too partisan, in the end. They mock Obama and Democrats about as much as Republicans. At the same time, perhaps it is worrisome that people (myself included) only absorb American news by means of a couple of spoof shows. There is a risk of fostering confirmation bias, and of developing a distorted sense of what political figures stand for and how influential they are.

On the other hand, most people I know also get a lot of print news from online sources (and sometimes even old school printed newspapers). Stewart and Colbert make intelligent arguments in clever ways, and don’t usually seem to misrepresent people too egregiously. Also, watching those shows helps people stay in touch with the general state of discussion about American politics, which probably resides more on television than online, at least for those who aren’t part of the tech-savvy subset of news consumers.

Privacy and the evercookie

In the context of the internet, cookies are little bits of data stored by web browsers that allow them to track visitors. They have many useful purposes. Commerce sites can keep track of what you have put in your shopping cart; sites can store your language preferences and login information; and so forth. This site uses a cookie so that those leaving comments only need to enter their name and email address once. Of course, cookies can also be used in more malicious ways, such as keeping track of what sites you visit without your approval.

Clearing out cookies is something that can nominally be done by all browsers. Unfortunately, this only applies to cookies of the conventional sort. Now, there are a multitude of ways through which browsers can store information through which to identify a particular computer and browser. As a demonstration of that, the ‘evercookie’ developed by Sami Kamkar stores information in eight different ways. Furthermore, it is able to regenerate any of the information if the user deletes it, provided all eight are not deleted simultaneously.

Kamkar’s intention is to show how tracking technology has outpaced the privacy features in browsers. The loss of anonymity is one of two big changes that have taken place on the internet, since the heady days of its birth. The other, of course, is the increasingly intrusive role played by governments.

Sprawl and municipal services

On his blog, David Reevely makes a convincing case against urban sprawl that I hadn’t heard previously:

The trouble is, sprawl has costs. It’s incredibly expensive for us all. Light-density housing is great to live in, but it’s brutal to supply with public services. Take fire stations: their response times are primarily a function of how far the firefighters have to drive to get to a call. That means that to maintain minimally acceptable standards, you need to have a fire station every so-many kilometres. If 10,000 people live within that radius, then 10,000 people share the cost of supporting that fire station, its firefighters and their equipment. If you pack 100,000 people into that radius, then the cost is divided among 100,000 people, and you have a lot left over from their property taxes for other things. But if you have too few, and their property taxes aren’t enough to pay for the fire station, then you need to bring in money from somewhere else.

It’s a bit ironic, really. We discussed before how people living in rural areas can get a false sense of their own self-sufficiency. It’s ironic that rather than being bold frontierspeople, living off the land, those who populate the less dense fringes of urban centres might impose disproportionate costs on the municipal authorities.

Obama and just war

The concept of ‘just war’ is one with deep roots in philosophy and law – a recognition that while wars are inevitably terrible, sometimes they are less terrible than the alternatives available. While it may have been incongruous of Barack Obama to use his Nobel Peace Prize address to discuss the subject, it was probably the only reasonable thing he could do, given his commitment to a sustained (but shrinking) presence in Iraq and his re-commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Indeed, when I first heard about the decision of the Nobel committee, I thought Obama’s best choice would be to graciously decline the prize, saying that he had not yet accomplished anything worthy of it, and was involved in the prosecution of two wars, to boot.

Obama’s sketch of the philosophy of just war includes elements of both jus ad bellum – the question of when it is right to go to war – and jus in bello – the question of how to rightly conduct yourself during war:

The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

He also stresses how the elimination of violent conflict is not a plausible aim, for the decades ahead:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

He discusses the ways in which contemporary conflicts differ from those in more distant history, describes how American military strength has helped to maintain international stability in recent decades, and argues that some enemies can only be effectively confronted with violence. He also expresses support for the concept of humanitarian intervention, arguing that in cases like the Balkans, it can be justified to use force to stop crimes against humanity, even when doing so is a violation of traditional notions of state sovereignty

At the same time as he argues for the occasional necessity of war, Obama recognizes that war always involves horror:

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another – that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.

Obama’s solution, for reducing the degree to which war is terrible and frequent, is to increase the strength of international institutions, though he doesn’t go so far as to say that the United States will never act unilaterally.

Obama brings up the issue of nuclear proliferation, but does not specify how far he would go to prevent it or roll it back:

One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.

But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.

Earlier, he talks about developing “alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior”, but he does not follow through and explain at what point sanctions should be abandoned in favour of the use of force, though perhaps that question is always too complex to answer with a general formula applicable to all circumstances.

All told, the speech is a thoughtful and defensible one that tries to reconcile principle with pragmatism. At its best, the United States is a key force for stability in the world, as well as the promotion of democracy and human rights. At the same time, it is very plausible that the relative power of the United States will continue to fall, producing difficult new situations in which to make foreign policy.

Obama doesn’t mention the difficulties of domestic politics – one major factor that has hampered him in trying to close down Guantanamo Bay – but that is certainly one of the biggest factors constraining his freedom of movement. Obama has certainly disappointed a lot of people by not changing foreign policy as swiftly or dramatically as they would have liked. It is not entirely clear to what extent that is the product of him being president, rather than a candidate; to what extent it is the result of domestic constraints; and to what extent it is the result of other factors. He closes in saying: “Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.” It remains to be seen how that aspiration will stand beside the totality of his record as president.

But if Not

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech about civil disobedience, entitled “But if Not“. One passage from the speech – which was delivered at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta – seems quite relevant to climate change today, particularly when it comes to people who have a high degree of knowledge about the subject:

I say to you this morning that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it then you aren’t fit to live. You may be thirty eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause and you refuse to do it because you are afraid; you refuse to do it because you want to live longer; you’re afraid you will lose your job; or you’re afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity; or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, shoot at you, or bomb your house and so you refuse to take a stand. Well you may go on and live until you’re ninety, but you’re just as dead at thirty eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

The point about integrity relates to one made by the physicist Richard Feynman, who argued that experts lose their integrity when they allow their conclusions to be publicized – when they are useful to those in power – and allow them to be buried when they are not.

[Update: 19 January 2015] I noticed that the YouTube link in the original post is dead, so here is an audio version.

Climate and HFC-23

I have mentioned before how the gas HFC-23 causes problems in carbon markets. A recent article in The Economist describes the ongoing problem and how it might be addressed. The basic problem is that firms can earn so much for destroying HFC-23, they actually have an incentive to produce it for that purpose:

You cannot simply set up an HCFC-22 plant and demand cash; eligibility is limited to companies which were already producing the gases in 2000-04, and companies are capped in the amount they can receive. But there is little incentive for approved incineration schemes to reduce the amount of HFC-23 that they produce. Quite the reverse, argues CDMwatch, a group that monitors the offset market. It says it has shown the CDM executive board that some plants have reduced their HFC-23 production during periods in which they were ineligible for CERs and upped it when they became eligible again, gaming the system. “They found the smoking gun,” says Michael Wara, a professor at Stanford Law School.

All told, offset systems have a lot of promise. They could allow emission reduction targets to be reached more fairly and at lower cost. It is essential, however, that they be designed and operated in ways that prevent this sort of abuse.