curious what you mean specifically? I think overall, in regions with more free enterprise, things are pretty efficient. Where there is more regulation, more government interference, less efficiencies. are you talking about the same thing?
Ah, sorry, wrong terminology. Yes, our markets are reasonably efficient, but what I meant was that we use inherently expensive methods of achieving trivial things, and those methods leave no room for incremental improvement. I’m not quite sure what the correct word is. Here’s a couple of examples.
Climate control. In many cold countries, electric heating is encouraged. You can understand why: it minimizes pollution in urban centres. But consider how that works. Coal is delivered to a power station, where it is burned to produce heat. The heat is used to produce vapour which turns a turbine. The turbine turns a generator. The electricity from the generator wends its way through a hugely complex network of wires, transformers, and assorted control equipment. When it arrives at someone’s home, it’s turned back into the form of energy we first started with: heat. WTF? All we’ve actually achieved is to lose 50-60% of the chemical energy inside the fuel, and we spend an incredible amount of money to maintain the machinery moving that energy from a power station over there to a home over here. There is NO possible improvement within the constraints of that system. All the alternatives involve a completely different system: for instance, we could build houses that don’t really need much heating; and we could provide what’s needed with solar heating, which is now cheaper than coal anyway. An enormous load would be removed from the grid, which could be downsized. Or, if you’re a poor country, you don’t need to build it in the first place, or at least not in the form we have in “advanced” countries.
Transport.This is one of my particular bugbears. First, have a look at Google Earth - any random city - and observe how much land area is occupied by roads. Ponder on how much it costs the local government to build and maintain it. Now observe that the average car costs ~US$6000/year to run (AAA statistics, AAA services subscription deleted) and spends 95% of its time (~8300 out of 8760 hours) just taking up space. Those 400-odd hours (~15000 miles/year) burn 2500 litres of fuel, or 80000MJth (=22000kWh) at a cost of ~US$2500. That’s 1.5kWh/mile, representing an average (thermal) power expenditure of ~50kW. Fifty bloody kilowatts to move a lump of lard from A to B. Seriously? The world record for fuel economy currently stands at 5385km/litre equivalent, representing an average power (at 30kph) of about 50W, or three orders of magnitude better than an ordinary passenger car. Now, fair enough, that was achieved with a vehicle completely impractical for commercial use. But it gives you some idea of what’s possible. Energy waste isn’t some academic issue for politicans to debate in climate change conferences. It translates directly to monetary cost, human labour expenditure, and resource waste. How, for instance, is anyone in a low-income country supposed to buy and fuel a car? Yes, it can be done, but only at enormous personal and social cost. We need to do it better than that.
We can do better, much better.
I’m very excited about the future possibilities of energy generation as we know it can be done and the closer we get to the precipice of climate degradation there will be a frantic need for them.
It’s not just climate, but public health that should be driving change too.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17704116 I find this report disturbing, I can’t help think ‘well if that is the UK, what about Taiwan?’
Urban planning has lots to do with the commute mess we are in, and it’s a very outdated model. there may not be much economic incentive to change this culture either
- sure I’d love my bicycle-friendly cities (and even better where there is bike-friendly city planning), but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. you can’t force people to adopt more efficient modes of transport. People love their cars, and until we come up with a better car design, I’m not sure how we move the ball. maybe at some point, we will see the “true” cost of fuel.
agree that the housing model needs change. Even in germany (with its subsidies, etc.) it still take a hefty cost to install solar power in homes (and only making sense with long-term cost capture). Your average person will not invest (or could afford to).
There are many things that could be done to make a better world, but perhaps at the cost of a tyrant (think eugenics, less people, less energy, less consumption, but who decides. Less cars, less consumption, but who decides?) not ez
Yes, it hasn’t changed much since they were building Babylon and Carthage, and really not much economic incentive to do anything about it. Yet.
There is no better car design. It’s as good as it’s going to get. What’s needed is a completely different method of transport. Yes, bikes are nice, but as you say, not everyone’s cup of tea and you can’t force people to use something they don’t like. The built-in efficiency problem with cars is the insistence on human control. Too tedious to go into exactly why in this thread, but a completely automated system (google “Personal Rapid Transport”) can be 60-90% more efficient for any given capacity. Unfortunately, that requires a completely different infrastructure, but again, that’s where poor countries have a massive advantage, because they have no real infrastructure to begin with … which is why I get intensely irritated by posts that advocate “allowing” those countries to adopt hopelessly obsolete, polluting technologies.
A combination of simple profiteering, the inherent complexity of retrofitting into a house not designed for solar, and perverse government incentives (which favour much-less-efficient PV rather than heat collectors). Fitted as standard in new houses, it would be very cheap. Ten square meters (=10MWh/year) of the latest generation thermal-diode type heat collectors costs about 1000 euros wholesale, and about 2000 euros for the associated support equipment (pumps, controllers, tank, pipes, etc). At E0.15/kWh for gas heating, a new-build system (NOT a retrofit) would pay for itself in ~2 years, even in famously un-sunny Germany.
It’s even less easy when governments are simultanously pulling the strings on their favourite (usually inappropriate) renewables method, and subsidizing fossil fuels and general pollution in the name of “economic growth”, whatever that is.
Yeah, I’ve seen similar figures quoted (pro-rata) for China. Depressing, isn’t it. However, it’s all a bit theoretical, and it pales in comparison to the one million verified deaths (worldwide) that occur due to traffic accidents, and the 60-odd million serious injuries. That’s worth repeating: the entire population of the UK is killed or injured every year, courtesy of our cars.
Wrong again, that is the west’s philosophy. Canada opted out not BRICS! 
Theoretical the study might be, but it still disturbs me. I will try not to go off on a tangent… Road deaths in general are shocking as so many are out of stupidity (we talk about this enough on here).
Moving away from cars, do you think solar power (individual fitting to homes) is a good idea? I get the feeling were reaching a point where it’s going to be affordable to most people (who can afford a home).
There are also hydrogen systems coming onto the market greenoptimistic.com/2011/09/ … 5tI1O1TIUU which do more to harness the solar energy.
And back to the real climate change issue this just in: bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17843648
I don’t get the us versus them argument. For instance the West is not one single entity and the BRICs have no real affinity to each other. Do you think we have much affinity in Ireland with giant resource rich nations like Canada across the Atlantic? Do you think Germany and the US are aligned in their thinking? These are all soundbites and are just artificial constructs.
India is a country that could suffer immensely if it dries out. It also contains a huge chunk of the worlds population that are living on the borderline. It’s not like Canada where they could do with some warming up and which has sufficient resources for its small population to deal with major climate change.
There SHOULD be some type of long term plan at this stage where growth is taking place but as is obvious when I visit the place there is none.
The best thing India could do for itself is control it’s population , this is more important than signing up to any international global warming agreements.
Anyway I don’t want to focus on India in particular but just look at China to see where it does not want to go.
Yes China can be admired somewhat as it has improved living standards greatly but has absolutely destroyed its air and it’s water and it’s indigenous plants and animals. Literally every city I visited recently in China was covered in a coat of smog. This is why rich people in China don’t want their own families to live there. In the end they used up their beautiful and historic land for short term gain and trashed their heritage and home. Every year over the last 5 years Beijing was adding a half million cars a year. The streets are clogged with large polluting sedans.
Now they have made the MRT system there almost free to encourage use of public transport, talk about getting things arseways!
Divea, as HH just said, addressing climate change as a local issue can only benefit India immensely. There is no conspiracy, no “us” against “them”. “The west” (however you define it) has a vast amount of technology and know-how they’re willing to export to low-income countries which could be used to enhance “green” productivity, thereby producing a healthier trade balance while simultaneously creating development and improvements in living standards. It’s your own politicians (and in the third world generally, including China) who are sitting on their hands watching a huge opportunity just pass them by, while having a snout-fight over some imaginary trough. Their current approach is indeed completely “arseways”.
It depends what you mean by solar. The heater systems are usually a good idea, the PV systems not so. New solar installations, distributed or otherwise, are cheaper than fossil fuels in sunny climates. You can prove that with a few back-of-envelope calculations. That’s even ignoring the fact that coal/oil/nuclear is massively subsidised; solar is still cheaper. However the cost and complexity of retrofit makes it unwise for existing homes, and in areas with <2.5suns (average) insolation, it’s marginal even for new-build systems. As pingdong said back there, far better to start again and do it properly. It’s not a case of just replacing this power source with that power source; it all has to work together as a system. The whole is then greater than the sum of individual parts. For example, if you have streets full of electric vehicles, you need fewer static storage systems because the vehicles themselves can contribute to storage capacity. If you use any sort of intermittent source (solar or wind), you MUST have a demand-billing system to make sure demand is matched as closely as possible to output. Storage, such as the hydrogen system you mentioned, costs as much or more than the panels themselves (per kWh) and must be minimised in any future infrastructure.
I’m sure Fred Smith will have something to say about that 
One feels that one has gone to sleep and woken to an alternate world. Has it really come to this? Has everyone really come over to my side of the argument? Has everyone suddenly discovered the development vs. emissions paradigm and bought into my side of the equation? How in the name of G-d have things come to this state… not that I am not most pleased, just hugely surprised.
Ah, right on cue 
Fred, I think you missed the entire point. All of your threads conflate policy with science. A lot of people here agree with your views on policy, or at least understand where you’re coming from. What they disagree with are your rather odd views on science.
Thing is, the policy bit - the actual doing - is the important bit. So if there are enough like-minded people who are prepared to actually do something useful - that is, to prepare for the inevitable and ensure that we have a functioning economy when it happens - we might be onto something. Our respective views on the underlying science, or even the politics, are irrelevant … as long as we’re working towards a common solution.
Personally I believe it is possible to 1) adapt to climate change 2) reduce pollution by an order of magnitude, including CO2 (although whether that matters is up to you to determine) and 3) generate wealth while we do it. The uphill struggle is convincing people that doing so will make things better. To my mind, consuming less, wasting less, and letting nature give us free stuff must make us more wealthy, but try telling a classical economist that. And have a look at Divea’s post back there.
We know the world is full of incompetent leeches who make their living spending other people’s money on stupid stuff. 'Twas ever thus. Doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t get on with something useful as best we can.
You’ve nailed it there, Finley. If I’m not mistaken, Fred and I both agree on cap-and-trade, for totally different reasons. I see it as a Wall Street scam that has little to do with actually reducing CO2 and thus is no use in preventing climate change. Fred, I assume (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, Fred) is against it because it’s become associated with the Democrats - if the Republicans were for it, then he would be too. I couldn’t care less about which political party supports what, I want to see reductions in CO2 production, and cap-and-trade in my opinion would be next to useless. Fred and I seem to be in agreement on nuclear power, though also for slightly different reasons. I see it as the key to reducing CO2 production, and Fred (I assume) supports it because many or most Democrats are anti-nuclear. Republicans, to their credit, at least pay lip service to nuclear power - Bush claimed to be pro-nuclear during a speech about energy, but he never even tried to license a new nuclear power plant during his presidency, and mostly promoted expanding coal and natural gas production. So I’m not really sure if the Republicans are truly pro-nuclear, but if the assumption is that they are, then Fred can be counted upon to support it.
Well Fred, if you’re reading this, I do hope we can continue to agree on those issues: anti-cap-and-trade and pro-nuclear. Even if your “science” is in flat-Earth territory, it’s results that counts, as Finley said.
cheers,
DB
When someone asks what I think… I would imagine that we would all be expecting me to answer eventually… so the right on cue is sorta kinda confusing as yes… there was a cue… and so I was yes right on that cue… is that odd? unusual? unexpected? worthy of comment?
Hmmmm… the climate change issue is for the most part policy is it not? say 80 percent? as we are constantly being asked to do something that costs money to prevent something or ameliorate the effects… so would not the policy especially who should pay and under what circumstances be the most important component? Or this conversation would end up being among scientists at scientific conferences and it would never have reached the US president or UK prime minister or tax advisor or IPCC’s desk, non?
Ah… yes, we agree then… the policy bit is the actual doing (or not doing at great expense and with the creation of yet another massive bureaucracy that subverts rule of law for social justice or at least the pretense of the same) and it is as you say and as I have always stressed the important bit.
The very admission of the same, would you see, vindicate my argument ALL ALONG on these threads. You are a relative newcomer. Scroll back to the original threads where I always said the issue is to a large degree moot unless any action beyond making people feel good about themselves would lead to anything tangible or beneficial.
Who decides “better?” The capitalist world that this IPCC effort is seeking to subvert through costly bureaucracies to fund the endless desire of many to serve in lucrative functionary positions that has been around since the dawn of time, would actually SLOW the move to the new technologies and the other waste-preventing methods in my view.
You have lost me there.
What about her post would be offensive in your view?
The very fact that you conclude with this statement, again, vindicates everything that I have been saying for seven to eight years. The ORIGINAL view was not like this. The original view is that Kyoto and other schemes would work and that people like me who scoffed were in the clutches of oil and coal lobbyists. We were the ones who could not see the possible, the unenlightened ones who did not get it. The very fact that this entire thread is now along the lines of the original arguments that I was making often alone is a huge shift in the paradigm. THAT is my point.
Not just Wall Street. Please include all the NGOs, UN bureaucrats, EU functionaries and others who will feed off the trough of ADMINISTERING that program.
Nope. Just as I have always criticized agricultural subsidies especially those to ethanol, sugar, cotton, peanuts and the other three that seem to get the lion’s share while pointing out that more than 80 percent of all of the same go to the richest, corporate not family farmers. Wrong.
Utterly useless in my view and I am not a politicized supporter of any of the same. Read my very positive comments about Secretary Clinton and the two supreme court justices that Obama nominated. In fact, I have been very pleased with Obama and may ultimately vote for him. I am still concerned, however, that his administration does not quite get business. That is all. I am very happy that he has engaged in a number of initiatives and I am 80 percent satisfied. As to the stimulus and debt, well, as I pointed out earlier, Bush was just as bad at that, hence my comments regarding wherein lies the difference?
Not necessarily. I merely point out the laughable nature of seeing the very Democrats and Greens who were so against nuclear 30 years ago now supporting it because CO2 has become the new demon. And there always is with them. Must be something about the tarot card readings that they get.
Nuclear is on its way out again not because of Fukushima but because of the high cost. If it makes sense to ensure energy security then I am all for it. I think that we need to reassess the cost of oil and gas especially in light of the security and military costs that are associated with them.
flat Earth? hahahaha So can someone show me where the great sealevel increases are taking place? and was this not the key “proof” of so many global warming alarmists a few years back and now? we cannot use these because we have to understand that global factors are involved? okay but then go back to the nuclear protesters who are now for and see why I am laughing at the current stance.
Well, fair enough. I was referring to recent threads in which we were unable to steer the conversation past various bits of scientific flotsam. The topic of this thread is hypocrisy (in policy) and I think it’s a pretty interesting one.
Very good point. At the moment its a combination of admen, politicians, and various others with vested interests who decide what’s “better”. And I agree with you that it doesn’t matter whether they work for the IPCC, the US government, the UN, or Save The Rare Fungus - their aim is to channel as much money as possible into their own pockets or those of their friends and cronies. However, they’ve done an extremely good job of convincing millions of people that their way is the One True Way.
They have also, paradoxically, turned off third-world countries to the idea of sustainable development. When someone says “don’t do this”, the natural human response, unfortunately, is to do it anyway, often because we imagine that the forbidden activity must offer some sort of hidden benefit.
I suggest we can redefine “better” in the same way the Microsofts, Apples, and BMW’s of this world do it: by developing outstanding products to replace those that need replacing. In the absence of political intervention (there’s the rub, of course) the market will decide what’s “better”.
Well, most economists take “growth is good” as dogma. Yet they rarely examine the nature of growth, or explain why it should be good. Most of the things we consider valuable - security, rule of law, freedom of speech, clean air and water - they really don’t “cost” anything, as such. Their existence depends on social constructs, not economic activity, and certainly not on economic growth. Freedom of speech can (in theory) exist in abject poverty.
It seems to me that, for any given increase in economic activity (=consumption of irreplaceable resources), the return (=quality of life) is small to nonexistent, especially once you get past a certain (fairly modest) point of technological development.
Take, for example, industrial agriculture, which has well-documented side effects, produces a poor quality product, and would cease to exist without massive inputs of energy and mined materials. The average US citizen spends about 5% of the average US income on food. Looked at another way, we can say that one person “feeds” (through a complex economic chain) 19 others. Yet most natural-farming advocates estimate precisely the same level of productivity using modern, low-input methods which require no chemical fertilizers, very limited machinery/energy, and produce almost zero pollution. In various places, natural farming is delivering results in excess of that conservative estimate. That is, most of the economic activity in modern agribusiness, with its attendant consumption and waste, is completely pointless.
Not offensive - just weird. I already answered this question in previous posts, but I cannot comprehend why she thinks poor countries should waste their scant financial resources on polluting, expensive, outdated infrastructure that “advanced” countries would like to discard, when far better methods are available to them at lower cost. You’ll note that she didn’t have an answer: it’s simply an idea that politicians in poor countries find extremely useful, because keeping the hoi polloi poor and stupid means that they can extract whatever they like with impunity. Do you disagree?
In that case, I imagine the rest of this thread could get very interesting!
On the subject of nuclear: personally I think it’s just one possible option that will have niche applications during the next couple of decades. In sunny countries with plenty of land area, solar is cheaper and (more importantly) it’s very easy to operate and has no inherent safety concerns. Very very few countries have the money, accumulated expertise, and cultural wherewithal to build and operate nuclear reactors safely and effectively. I see the current obsession with nuclear as stemming directly from a one-dimensional focus on CO2, which is just one of many pollutants, and in the grand scheme of things, not the most important one. Improperly-stored nuclear waste is far more hazardous.
There are a lot of stupid people in the world… is this something new?
Bullshit. Most nations act in their best interests. Perhaps, many of these nations are not turned off by the hype of “sustainability” but fully understand that many state actors want to raise labor and environmental standards to price their low-priced rivals out of the markets in which they are succesfully competing?
Then neither of us needs to have this conversation and we need not engage in any more debate in international fora about these issues and anyone reading this should stop supporting NGOs by funding them with tax deducted dollars. Music to my ears.
Do you actually write like this? or is this some kind of posture that you imagine sells well and makes you look intelligent? I suggest to you that it does not. Development everywhere has been good. There are costs but would you argue that today’s hyper developed America is dirtier and more dangerous environmentally than Renaissance Italy? Tudor England? Ancien Regime France? If not, your point is pointless.
And it seems to me that you have a propensity to speak in Academese which makes me wonder whether you understand what it is that you are discussing. Otherwise, why not just use your own words? hmmm?
??? What’s your point? That cheap products are not always the best? and that premium products are so priced because of a perceived quality difference?
No because not all of those technologies are readily accessible and readily for lack of better word implementible in these countries AT PRESENT. Eventually, they, too, will move up the technology chain but that does not mean that the economic decision to use the technologies that are available is an irrational one.
I will conclude with a laugh that we have far far FAR departed the concern for mother earth that characterized earlier discussions. Interesting how far the pendelum has swung away from, but the polar bears… but the penguins… but the glaciers… but the sealevel increases… but the coral bleaching… but the NGO bullshit… er… excuse me could not resist the latter.
Unlikely. For one thing, as I outlined earlier, sustainable agriculture is actually cheaper than the industrial method, especially when your country is lacking the economic infrastructure to deliver chemicals, fuel, machines, etc etc. If you’re talking about international trade, rich countries can block food imports from poor countries by the simple expedient of subsidising their own farmers and imposing tariffs (or other barriers) on imports. This is routine practice in the US and the EU, despite WTO rules against it.
I’m interested in debating with you, but if you don’t like my writing style, go and read some facebook walls instead. No skin off my nose.
Define “development”. The societies you mention were so utterly different to the US, in all sorts of ways, that you can’t sensibly compare. For example, Tudor England was dominated by an extractive elite, non-existent rule of law, and routine and arbitrary violence. That would have had more impact on economic performance that (for example) the absence of chemical fertilizers.
Again, it’s not my problem if you can’t cope with long words. That wasn’t an especially complex sentence. If you know what “propensity” means, I’m guessing you understood perfectly well, but you don’t have an answer.
That much of so-called “growth” is unproductive, consuming ever-greater quantities of inputs with no attendant growth in useful outputs. Since what goes in must come out in SOME form, it usually comes out as pollution.
No, they’re not. Sustainable farming wins hands down on every single parameter, especially in third-world countries. Solar power systems can be installed and maintained by illiterates. We can go into details if you want. Just as most of Africa never bothered with landline telephones because they weren’t the right solution, they shouldn’t be installing coal-fired power either.
Hardly. Like I said earlier, if we use more appropriate technology for solving human problems, the polar bears and the penguins benefit too. And don’t be too dismissive of other species. You’d be surprised how many of them are necessary to keep Fred Smith alive.
Sorry, you are still wrong, again, can you reposit that?
I fear you may be out of sorts on this.
:no-no:
Kanada opted out of the Kyoto Protocol, as well it should. So have Japan and Russia, I might add.
As for BRICS, we were not even invited, though I guess that is only natural, being as our economy in not emerging, having merged long ago with our NORAD partner, and more recently our NAFTA allies.
Ye ken?
What is it about the word sustainable that makes me want to run screaming while covering my ears?
The point about less developed ECONOMICALLY nations in the time frame that I provided is that they were NOT cleaner. So more development of the er economic variety has often led in the long run to in fact cleaner water, air, sewerage, food, etc. of the ENVIRONMENTAL kind, NON?
As to the economic desirability of solar and sustainable (there! I have said the word) agriculture, when the time is right, so will be the demand.
As to mobile/cellular phones vs. landlines, this is PRECISELY the technological development that the climate change alarmists refuse to acknowledge that made a whole development paradigm moot and it came from the private sector weighing risks and profits NOT from the UN or any development agency, non?
In the meantime, many thanks for your more natural choice of words… See we still can maintain communication without something along the lines of the following:
To foster and incentivize technological development of agriculture, state governments in collaboration (extra points!!!) and partnership with a confluence of private-sector actors both corporate and family-owned have resulted in a paradigm shift from non-productive, small-scale, market access lacking entities to those which are plugged in and cognizant of global trends and macroeconomic forces. While development models cannot discount or fail to properly weight traditional and culturally normative influences, they can successfuly achieve and promote to enhance to develop (deliberate… the beloved three-verb construct) the programmatic attractions to shift the perception and awareness of beneficial profit-making actions that lead to sustainable regularized (love that word!) trendlines that ultimately, and across a broad range of sectors, pluralize the cash-generating activities that prolong and extend said perceived benefit – in the guise of profit-generating entrepreneurial forces – to ensure and guarantee the continued buy-in (a new absolute must!) or otherwise participatory regimen (blah blah blah) of the actors and activities in question. Global organizations, such as the United Nations, can play a key role by activating and fostering a sense of inclusion (and where would NGOs be without inclusion?) in world markets to the betterment of individuals and small to medium-sized businesses and family farms, which will, in the long term, potently (ooohhhhh) address the socio-economic issues that face them and thus generate a bottom-line increase in national development indices that delivers more than the hypersensitized focus on growth and expansion of gross domestic product (GDP).
If you would prefer to talk like this, I am more than happy to generate more of the above. Oh, and it is all my work just in case you had any doubts