Rants – Page 35 – a sibilant intake of breath

The US and the UN Human Rights Council

America’s decision to join the new United Nations Human Rights Council (up to now, largely populated with extremely repressive regimes), hopefully signals a willingness on the part of the new administration to try to steer that body off its present course, which seems largely focused on silencing the critics of Islam:

[T]he Cairo document carries the huge rider that the application of all human rights should be subordinated to sharia law. It also affirms the illegitimacy of “exercising any form of pressure” on Muslims to quit their faith “for another religion or for atheism”—in terms that seem to deny the individual’s freedom to change religion, and to justify the penalties for “apostasy” and blasphemy that many Muslim states impose.

It seems pretty critical for the international community to continue to recognize that human rights are vested in individuals, and that decrees that empower the suppression of individuals by organizations run fundamentally counter to them. A world in which people are not free to criticize the religions of one another – including by encouraging them to abandon all faiths – is not one in which the critical rights of individuals are being upheld.

The economic crisis and missed opportunities

[Update: 3 July 2010] Photo removed at the request of the subject.

The most frustrating thing about the ongoing financial crisis is the way in which it has sapped the ability of the Obama administration to do much of anything else. Even if he had inherited an economy in tip-top condition, there would have been an extremely lengthy list of things for Obama to work on: from foreign relations to domestic climate policy. As things stand, everything is taking a back seat to restoring the financial sector to some semblance of normality: an exercise in institutional repair that only has the potential to leave the country slightly better off than it was before the crisis began. A banking system more resistant to crises is a good thing to build, but doing so is ultimately a lot less impressive than reforming health care or pushing the economy firmly onto the track of long-term greenhouse gas reduction. It is, at best, damage control rather than meaningful reform.

Of course, presidents need to deal with the circumstances they encounter. Harold Macmillan may have been right to call ‘events’ the greatest challenge faced by statesmen. Still, one cannot help feeling disappointed at seeing the energies and talents of this administration being primarily directed towards sorting out some errors of lax regulation and oversight which blew up the global economy, rather than making good on its progressive potential. We can only hope that the bank recovery will work, the economy will get back on its feet, and there will be time enough left to take action on other fronts.

Rethinking abstinence

Given the character of the modern world, it seems sensible to re-evaluate some of our assumptions. For instance, the importance of sexual abstinence. Arguably, it derives from three considerations: the danger of pregnancy, the risk of disease, and the social concept of sin. In modern society, good tools are available for dealing with all of these. Among them, hormonal birth control systems, condoms, and atheism. Arguably, much of the case for sexual abstinence has vanished.

Contrast that with the (barely existent) public case for reproductive abstinence. Given that society is grossly unsustainable, we don’t even have evidence that the number of people currently alive can continue to live at the level of material welfare they do. Despite this, most governments push fertility. There is parental leave, there are often tax breaks for marriage and having children, and house ownership is encouraged through public subsidy.

Perhaps the world would be a better place if governments became significantly more lax in their efforts to discourage sexual abstinence, while simultaneously shifting towards encouraging reproductive abstinence. Given the degree to which our gross over-use of the natural resources and adaptive capacities of the planet is threatening the future of the human species, it seems quite rational, in the end. Obviously, governments with some respect for personal liberty cannot actually curtail reproduction. Of course, they couldn’t curtail sex either. The idea is to shift from efforts in the latter area to efforts in the former one. That need not involve anything too restrictive: just making sure that those who don’t want children have the tools required to avoid it, while reducing the degree to which society at large helps finance the reproduction of those who choose to undertake it.

On the complexity level of climate policies

When it comes to policies for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, complexity can conceivably serve three purposes. Two of them have some justification, while the third is largely reprehensible but entirely obvious and largely unavoidable. Unfortunately, it is the two dodgier options that are overwhelmingly more likely to emerge.

The first purpose is environmental effectiveness. For instance, we might add complexity to a pure carbon tax by also banning the construction of new coal-fired power plants. Doing so is likely to reduce emissions somewhat further, especially given that once a coal power plant is built, it takes a brave politician to refuse to grant an exception that will stop a carbon tax from bankrupting it, tossing out those who work there, and nullifying the investments of the financial backers.

The second purpose is economic efficiency. In some cases, it may be that a more complicated policy can achieve the same level of emissions reduction at a lower cost than a simpler one. It may also be that other economic objectives need to be sought in concert with greenhouse gas mitigation. For instance, we might want to increase the total portion of our energy use that comes from domestic sources.

The third purpose is being able to grant hidden favours to friends and contributors. As soon as you start giving away ‘grandfathered’ permits, creating tax exemptions, and the like you, open the door to both soft and hard forms of corruption. The more complex the set of regulations, the easier it is to conceal this. Once you start stacking on special rules for new facilities, different modes of compliance, and complex interactions between carbon policies and other forms of taxation and subsidy, you gain a dense canopy of rules, under which all sorts of shady business can be undertaken.

A government that realized the scope of the threat we face could put a simple policy in place in a matter of weeks or months. They could say:

“If we continue to emit at the level we are now doing, we will probably destroy the ability of the planet to sustain human civilization. This may well happen by the end of this century, especially if our emissions remain on an upward trajectory. To respond to this risk, we are implementing an economy-wide carbon tax. Every time fuel that generates greenhouse gasses is produced or imported, the producer or importer will pay the tax. The cost will then spread through the rest of the economy. This year, the tax will be $20 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. It will rise by $5 per year until at least 2030. We will use the revenues to provide financing for efficiency improvements in all sectors.”

Instead, we are likely to see governments that fail to appreciate the magnitude of the danger, but fully appreciate the opportunities new regulations provide for them to strengthen their electoral positions. As a consequence, there is a very strong possibility that we will fail to respond effectively to the threat of climate change before it becomes impossible to avoid catastrophic harm.

Apple’s new iPod Shuffle

While I approved of the first major remake of Apple iPod Shuffle – replacing the white stick with a clip-on aluminum square – the latest update seems like a big step backwards. The new unit is a featureless piece of aluminum with no controls. Those are provided on the proprietary headphones. That means it cannot be used with conventional headphones, which is lamentable, since Apple’s are of such poor quality. It also means the new players cannot be plugged into a stereo using a miniplug cable: a feature that Emily and I found quite valuable over the summer.

It seems that minimalism and a tendency towards proprietary engineering can both be taken too far.

Lockheed Martin’s green advertising

One page 51 of the March 7th issue of The Economist, I noticed an unusual advertisement for Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defence contractor by revenue:

When you read the text at the bottom, the error in the ad is obvious. Somehow, the advertising firm they hired failed to include any actual Lockheed Martin products. It is all well and good to express your firm’s sincere support for reduced consumption and increased conservation, but it seems important to include some evidence of the concrete actions your firm takes.

With that in mind, I took it upon myself to add one of their quality products, the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile:

These are the missiles that make up the deterrent force of the United Kingdom, another entity sincerely committed to environmental protection. Lockheed also manufactures fighter jets, munitions, missile defence systems, and satellite-launching rockets.

I encourage others with a bit of Photoshop skill to add other Lockheed products to the ad. Here is my original photo. If someone could produce a higher-quality scan, that would be excellent.

Fuel efficiency, climate change, and 2050

Recently, the United Nations Environment Program and others called for fuel efficiency in automobiles to be doubled by 2050. While more efficient transport is a necessary element in dealing with climate change, this target strikes me as profoundly lacking in vision or ambition. There are two major reasons for which I think we must do a lot better.

The first is that, by 2050, we will probably be seeing serious consequences from climate change globally. It is entirely possible that there will be no more Arctic summer sea ice, and far fewer glaciers. Droughts, fires, and heat waves are likely to have increased in frequency and severity. These kinds of changes are likely, to some extent, regardless of what sort of emissions trajectory we follow. The major differences in outcome between a scenario where we cut emissions and save ourselves and one where we doom huge numbers of future generations to enormous climatic harm will largely be felt after 2050. In spite of that, it seems probable that changes which will occur by 2050 will render the strategy of denying and ignoring climate change non-viable. As such, it is doubtful that governments would ask so little of automakers.

The second concerns peak oil. There are a lot of uncertainties involved about timing, technological development, and about how the global economy will respond to falling output. That being said, there will come a day when the global production of petroleum peaks and begins an unstoppable decline. To me, at least, it seems likely that the decline will be well underway by 2050 – making a petroleum-fuelled automobile an expensive proposition for anyone, and quite possibly unavailable to most. In an optimistic scenario, where standards of living keep rising in spite of reduced hydrocarbon output, that will mean that the reduced quantity of fuel available will have a price inflated even beyond what scarcity would dictate. It is, of course, terribly hazardous to make guesses about technology and economic developments so far off, but my gut impression is that a vehicle engineer from 2050 would be aghast to see a vehicle anywhere near as inefficient as those we are using now.

If we do take climate change seriously, and we begin to capture the opportunities for economic transition the crisis offers, by 2050 we should find ourselves moving sharply towards a far more sustainable world. To take one set of examples, it might be a world where ground transportation is overwhelmingly electric, fuelled by renewables and probably some nuclear fission. Liquid fuels produced from biomass might be employed only by aircraft and for specialty applications like vehicles in very remote areas. While that scenario is speculative, to me it seems more likely than one where we are driving around in the same old internal combustion engine, gasoline cars but burning 3.5 litres per 100km rather than 7.0.

The Hill Times on the oil sands

In one of the more absurd headlines I have seen printed recently, Ottawa’s Hill Times reported that: “Canada will fail if there’s no tar sands plan, say experts.” This is both false and an insult to Canadians. It implies that the only economic value that can arise from Canada is embodied in natural resources. It ignores the fact that any kind of long-term prosperity for Canadians needs to be based on sustainable activities, and must ultimately be compatible with a stable climate. Because the oil sands are about chasing down the last few drops of yesterday’s energy source, rather than looking to the future, economic activity based upon them is necessarily ephemeral, as well as hugely environmentally destructive.

The article itself is more reasonable than the headline, but still fails to consider the possibility that the ‘boon’ to Canadians from the oil sands is illusory. When the externalities are taken into account, it is likely that the harm being done to future generations outweighs the value that frantic extraction may have for this one.

Air travel and appreciation

This video clip of Canadian comedian Louis C.K. on the Conan O’Brien show is quite amusing. He is talking about how people take air travel, and technology generally, for granted. He has an amusing way of turning around the common gripes people have about air travel:

‘And then, we get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway, for 40 minutes. We had to sit there.’ Oh? Really? What happened next? Did you fly through the air, incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight, you non-contributing zero?

It’s true that people fail to appreciate the immense effort and skill reflected in things like computers, pharmaceuticals, global communications, as so forth. At one level, that is simply a lack of curiosity. On another, I think it’s a kind of defence mechanism: people are completely dependent on these technologies, and yet few understand them at all. Most people probably couldn’t even explain how an airplane wing produces lift. That general point is especially well made by James Burke. He chooses an even more banal technology example than air travel, elevators. In the first episode of his series, he demonstrates how our attitude towards them demonstrates our dependence, ignorance, and vulnerability.

National Geographic on the oil sands

National Geographic has released a feature article on Alberta’s oil sands. It highlights the immense scale of what is going on: geographically, economically, and in terms of water and energy usage:

Nowhere on Earth is more earth being moved these days than in the Athabasca Valley. To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds like the one near Mildred Lake.

In total, the oil sands extent through an area the size of North Carolina – half of which has already been leased by the Alberta Government. That includes all 3500 square kilometres that are currently minable. In exchange, leases and royalties provide 1/3 of government income: estimated at $12 billion this year, despite the fall in oil prices.

The article also discusses some of the toxins leached by the mining operations, their impacts of health, and the inadequate work that has been done to investigate and contain them.

In the end, it is hard to write anything about the oil sands that isn’t damning, unless all it includes is information on the size and economic value of the oil reserves. The article includes a good quote from Simon Dyer, of the Pembina Institute, highlighting how the extraction of the oil sands is a mark of desperation:

Oil sands represent a decision point for North America and the world. Are we going to get serious about alternative energy, or are we going to go down the unconventional-oil track? The fact that we’re willing to move four tons of earth for a single barrel really shows that the world is running out of easy oil.

The solution is not the ever-more-costly and destructive search for new hydrocarbon resources, but rather the eclipsing of the hydrocarbon economy with one based on sustainable energy.

In addition to the article, National Geographic has also produced a flash slideshow of oil sands photographs.