Two bits of writing that cheered me up, a bit

In the New Yorker: 

A climate-change march that organizers claim was the largest on record is nevertheless unlikely to change the minds of idiots, a survey of America’s idiots reveals.

Charlie Brooker in The Guardian, writing about Apple:

As part of the iPhone 6 publicity blitz, Tim Cook also announced every iTunes user in the world would be getting U2’s new album free of charge. It was downloaded automatically on to millions of users’ phones, like a sinister virus. Music is meant to be catchy – but not until you’ve heard it. The album, which I haven’t listened to yet, is terrible: even worse than their last one, which I didn’t listen to either. I don’t want to listen to any U2 albums in case I discover I like them, and have to violently reassess my own self-image. For the past five years, it’s been delightfully easy to ignore U2. Then Apple comes along and slings them under your nose like a bowl of bum soup you didn’t order. What do we have to do? Start lobbying Google for U2’s right to be forgotten?

Disconcerting times

Looking globally, there are such a huge number of things to be intensely irritated about, interspersed with the occasional grounds for optimism on that little thing called the liveability of the planet in 100 years time, that my head is spinning and I don't know where to start.  What's more, I think I have an eyeball that is starting to fall apart, which is a condition I was previously unaware of.   Retina is still attached, though, so that's something.

More posts later...

This is an outrage

A letter from Ms Credlin to Mr Pyne's office approving the trip also notes that the attendance of Mrs Pyne was expected to cost the Commonwealth no more than a business class airfare for the minister. As a minister, Mr Pyne is entitled to fly business class on official overseas travel.

Mr Pyne flew business class from Adelaide to Sydney but switched to economy for the rest of the journey to London.

That's from the Fairfax story this morning, explaining how Pyne, who (by the way) has done the completely un-Catholic thing of using IVF to have kids yet wanted to be at the canonisation of one of the most conservative Popes, managed to take his wife along for the ride.

All good people of Australia, like me, who only ever fly economy, should be outraged that in doing so there is a risk that they may have to sit for 20 hours beside the whiniest voiced, biggest pillock of a lying Minister this country has seen in 50 years just so his wife can hold his hand.

I'm thinking of contacting GetUp about this....

More about the recent optimism on de-carbonising the world

John Quiggin � From derp to denialism

JQ has always been an optimist on this topic, but here he is, looking the recent burst of reports I was noting last week, all suggesting that decarbonising the world is indeed do-able, and won't kill the globe economically in the process.

Douthat sounding surprisingly sensible about the Middle East

Grand Illusion in Syria - NYTimes.com

Sunday drugs education

A few days back, I mentioned the delusion that there are bugs under the skin, which is commonly noted as one of the mental problems ice addicts can develop.

Just thought I would look up more about it, and learned that it has a specific name "formication".  

This article from Psychology Today gives a good summary.   I'm surprised to see that it can occur with drugs with a lot less of an image problem than meth:

Drugs that have been reported to cause formication are Adderall, cocaine, crystal meth, methamphetamine, Ecstacy, MDMA, Keppra, Lunesta, Ritalin, Tridyl, Wellbutrin, and Zyban.

You may now resume your normal Sunday activities.

More reason to be optimistic?

Within 10 years, every SolarCity system will come with batteries from Tesla's Gigafactory : TreeHugger

It would appear that the Musk family is confident that, once they get a mega battery plant going, in 10 years, home solar power systems will come with storage and the electricity will be cheap.

As I wrote earlier in the week, there seems to be a sudden wave of optimism around that the world might be able to move to lower CO2 quicker than previously felt possible.

Squeezy spacesuits still under investigation

Spacesuits of the future may resemble a streamlined second skin

Interesting report here on MIT research still ongoing as to how to make a practical, skin tight spacesuit.  (Jerry Pournelle used to feature these in his science fiction from decades ago, so the idea has been around a long time, but a practical version seems yet to be realised.)

More depressing Islam news

Blasphemy row professor killed in Pakistan | GulfNews.com: Unidentified gunmen on Thursday shot dead a professor of Islamic studies in Pakistan who had faced accusations of blasphemy and threats from colleagues over his moderate views, police said.

Blasphemy is a crime carrying death sentence in the mainly Sunni Muslim nation of 180 million people.

The south Asian country is experiencing a spike in the number of cases of blasphemy, which activists attribute to its growing use as a tactic to settle grudges or extort money.

Dr Mohammad Shakil Auj, the dean of the faculty of Islamic Studies at the university in the southern port city of Karachi, had received threats following complaints that his teaching was too liberal, a colleague said.

How liberal, you might wonder?:

Among the articles the 54-year-old had written was one arguing that Muslim women should be allowed to marry non-Muslim men, the colleague said.

Even worse is this description of how blasphemy works there:

The crime is not defined by law, so anyone can file a case saying their religious feelings have been hurt. Frequently, those accused of the crime who are not lynched on the spot can find themselves jailed indefinitely.

Judges and lawyers are often too afraid to show up in court to try the cases, as mere description of the offense can itself often be viewed as a fresh offence.

Where we're heading?

World population unlikely to stop growing this century : Nature News & Comment: The authors calculate an 80% probability that the world population in 2100 will be between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion, and a 95% probability that it will be between 9 billion and 13.2 billion (see chart above). They also predict that the odds are 70% that the population will keep growing throughout the century.

I wonder if climate change will be having an effect on African fertility (which is where the study says growth will be coming) by the second half of the century?  I mean, this sounds incredible:

Raftery and his colleagues project that Africa’s population will at
least triple by 2100, reaching 3.1 billion and possibly as high as 5.7
billion (see chart below). The population of Nigeria, currently 160
million people, could rise to 1.5 billion and overtake China as the
world’s most populous nation, says Raftery.

Those gut bugs messing with our plans, again

Sugar substitutes linked to obesity

A team led by Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Rehovot, Israel, fed mice various sweeteners — saccharin, sucralose and
aspartame — and found that after 11 weeks, the animals displayed glucose
intolerance, a marker of propensity for metabolic disorders.

To simulate the real-world situation of people with varying risks of these
diseases, the team fed some mice a normal diet, and some a high-fat
diet, and spiked their water either with glucose alone, or with glucose
and one of the sweeteners, saccharin. The mice fed saccharin developed a
marked glucose intolerance compared to those fed only glucose. But when
the animals were given antibiotics to kill their gut bacteria, glucose
intolerance was prevented. And when the researchers transplanted faeces
from the glucose-intolerant saccharin-fed mice into the guts of mice
bred to have sterile intestines, those mice also became glucose
intolerant, indicating that saccharin was causing the microbiome to
become unhealthy.

Wages of sin, continued

Yet more talk about the increasing rate of STD's in Australia, with syphilis in particular increasing, apparently largely in gay men.  The SMH even has an interactive map for looking at each State's rate over the last decade or so.  (One of more unusual uses of an interactive map you're likely to see.)

I am also surprised at the apparent popularity of ice amongst the gay community.   The Age had an article the other day:

Gay men are openly trading ice on dating apps such as Grindr as soaring use of the drug raises fears it is fuelling a 20-year high in Australia's HIV diagnoses.

Grindr, which has more than 63,000 active monthly users in Melbourne, connects men for casual  sex but is increasingly becoming an online playground for ice dealers.

The drug is popular with some gay men during sex as it causes a surge of the "happy" chemical dopamine, boosts libido and strips  away inhibitions.

Another article I linked to before said that ice was, in England, seen as only a rich, urban gay drug.

Like I say, I find it rather hard to credit that any people use the drug at all, when there is a very real risk of addiction and long lasting psychosis.  I also find it a little hard to credit that some gay men, living in an environment where free casual sex has become easier than ever to arrange, don't remain satisfied with the mere availability of sex, but want to actually artificially enhance the feeling of orgasm more and more.  (I suppose you could say that is part of what is behind ecstasy and cocaine use for straight rich people - although I see from some sites the latter can impair orgasm.  It at least won't end with making you feel you've got bugs permanently under your skin.  Bizarrely, I also see at a Reddit site that someone claims LSD can be great for sex.   I would be very surprised if that were consistently the case; I would have thought there is a fair chance it could involve your partner turning into a giant spider at an inconvenient time.)

I don't know - I just keep getting the feeling that being non judgemental about these things isn't working out great.   Isn't it time some people in drug and STD education started saying something obvious like:  "look guys, sex and orgasms are fantastic, but if you're doing it right, you don't need drugs to make it feel better.  Seriously.   We've got thousands of years of collective human experience to back that up.   Oh, and a chancre sore on your penis or mouth is a really bad look, and you kinda deserve to feel bad if you've spread it around to some stranger you met on Grindr."

Modern university

Harry Clarke's post on what it's like at a modern university teaching economics is pretty interesting.  I am a bit puzzled about the ability to skip tutorials, though.  Can't attendance at them at least be made more compulsory?  (Not that I recall them being particularly useful, though, to be honest.  I just don't like the idea of attendance at the university being more or less optional unless you actually are doing an on line course.)

Audience shrugged

In news to quicken the heart of, oh, about 6 Australians who post or comment at Catallaxy, I see that the third instalment of Atlas Shrugged has opened in America.  The reviews are not positive. Here's Variety:

That must be the fault of those damn freedom-hating socialists, or perhaps it’s due to the fact that so few of the Tea Party types the series’ producers once hoped would queue up are, er, the literate sort. Or maybe it’s just that the prior installments weren’t very good movies, and it should surprise few that this last one is the worst of the lot.

Amusingly, I see it features a couple of cameos:

(Prominent conservative pundit types including Grover Norquist and Sean Hannity duly make cameo appearances as themselves here to further the cause.)

 And someone gives us a synopsis of the story:

For the blessedly uninitiated, Rand’s 1,168-page novel is the favorite book of many young sociopaths you meet in business schools. Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged posits a hysterically overwrought nightmare dystopia in which government regulation has crippled the economy. Shadowy politicians conspire with corrupt union leaders to bleed corporations of their precious profits, with “parasites,” “looters,” and “moochers” living off the hard-earned wealth of the noble 1%. In this time of crisis, America’s captains of industry have had it up to here with poisonous concepts like “charity” and “altruism.” Inspired by a mysterious figure named John Galt, they sabotage their companies, trashing the country’s infrastructure before disappearing altogether. Basically, it’s all about a bunch of rich crybabies who don’t want to share their toys so they break them and go home.

Rugby mates a bit too matey

Rugby players risk infectious skin condition by swapping bacteria on shared razors and towels 

In England, an investigation into how 4 men at a rugby club got a serious skin infection resulted in this:

 Almost 20 per cent of players said that they regularly share towels,
while 10 per cent said they share razors and five per cent swap clothes.

Really?  Razor and smelly towel sharing?  Sport needs to be banned, I say, as a public health measure. 

GM not so great in one respect, at least

Cross-bred crops get fit faster 


As reported in Nature:

Old-fashioned breeding techniques seem to be leading genetic modification in a race to develop crops that can withstand drought and poor soils.

As the climate warms and rainfall becomes more erratic, farmers worldwide will increasingly need crops that can thrive in drought conditions. And the high costs of fertilizers — along with the environmental damage they can cause — are also pushing farmers to look for crop varieties that can do more with less.

The need for tougher crops is especially acute in Africa, where drought can reduce maize (corn) yields by up to 25%. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project, which launched in 2006 with US$33 million, has developed 153 new varieties to improve yields in 13 countries. In field trials, these varieties match or exceed the yields from commercial seeds under good rainfall conditions, and yield up to 30% more under drought conditions.

An analysis published earlier this year reported that by the project’s end in 2016, the extra yields fromdrought-tolerant maize could help to reduce the number of people living
in poverty in the 13 countries by up to 9% (R. La Rovere et al. J. Dev. Areas 48(1), 199–225; 2014). In Zimbabwe alone, that effect would reach more than half a million people.

And here's the bit about GM:

Drought tolerance is a complex trait that involves multiple genes.Transgenic techniques, which target one gene at a time, have not been as quick to manipulate it. But CIMMYT and six other research organizations are also developing genetically modified (GM) varieties of
drought-resistant maize, in collaboration with agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in St Louis, Missouri. Coordinated by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation in Nairobi, the Water Efficient Maize for Africa project aims to have a transgenic variety ready for African farmers by 2016 at the earliest.

A look at economic optimism

New Scientist reports this:

Is it too good to be true? Top economists this week lay out an audacious argument for transforming the world's economy into a low-carbon one. Even if you forget climate change, they say, it is worth doing on its own. That's because a low-carbon economy is an efficient economy that will deliver faster economic growth, better lives and a greener environment. Forget the costs, feel the benefits.

The report is published today, a week before world leaders gather at the United Nations in New York City for the UN Climate Summit 2014, which will discuss how to share out the cost of fighting climate change. But its optimistic message is that there is no cost to share. Nations should be cutting their carbon emissions out of self-interest.

The study – authored by the World Resources Institute, a think tank in Washington DC, the Stockholm Environment Institute and others – is published by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, an independent body chaired by Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico, and Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics. (The Stern Report in 2006 first opened up a global debate about the economics of tackling climate change). A copy of the latest report, Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report, is available here.

"We can combine economic growth and climate responsibility," Stern said at a pre-publication press briefing. "The key is fostering the right investment, making it profitable to the private sector."

 They also link to another (pretty wildly) optimistic sounding report:

"You can go green and continue to prosper and develop," said Ed Davey, the UK secretary for energy and climate, yesterday. And the evidence is on his side. Economists say that, despite the expense, drastic cuts in the UK's carbon dioxide emissions will boost the country's economy.

The finding should encourage action to reduce CO₂ levels, which reached a new high in 2013, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization. The growth from 2012 was the biggest jump since 1984, and may be partly down to plants and other organisms taking in less CO₂.

If climate change isn't incentive enough to cut emissions, try this: if the UK cut its carbon emissions by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030, as it has promised, its GDP would be 1.1 per cent bigger than if it stuck with fossil fuels, says a study by consultants at Cambridge Econometrics.

About half the gain would come from cheap running costs for fuel-efficient cars, with 190,000 new green jobs and higher wages also helping. The average household would be £565 a year better off.

Maybe it's just me, but I do feel that even things like China deciding to be pickier about what coal it burns, and the Abbott government discovering that the Australian public actually loves renewable energy does make it seem that what Greenies have been saying for a long time may turn out right - the world is going to go cleaner and it's stupid to not take steps to encourage that in Australia too.

A look back at economic pessimism

In comments in a post here yesterday, I was arguing that those economists who are optimistic on the cost of taking serious action on CO2 emissions probably have history on their side, in that there are clear examples of where government mandated changes for environmental reasons did not have the terrible economic costs that the industry initially claimed.   The examples I gave were the introduction of unleaded petrol, removing CFCs, and catalytic converters in cars.

Now, I was  really just going by memory on these, but I've looked up what was said about catalytic converters in the 1970's, and it's very interesting to read in retrospect.  These extracts are from a Thomas Friedman book:

From one extreme to another

Hello, Kurdistan :: Daniel Pipes

Gawd.  Daniel Pipes in this column notes that he used to oppose an independent Kurdistan in Iraq; now he thinks it would be a good idea for a transnational independent Kurdistan to be created in the region, looking something like this:

That'll go over well with Turkey and Iran.   Talk about your one extreme to another.

So which Australian politician is quoting this column with implicit approval?   Senator Blofeld Leyonhjelm.  (See his twitter feed.)   Along with his (apparent) view that cannabis should be sold from the supermarket, the government take over supply of ecstasy, gun laws be relaxed, and fixing the budget by a slash in both welfare and the top tax rate, he's a "big ideas" man with the luxury of not having to deal with the practicalities of ever putting them into effect.

An optimistic take on China and renewable energy

Economics: Manufacture renewables to build energy security

Quite a lot of surprisingly optimistic news on China and its rapid growth in renewable energy to be found in this article.  For example:

China generates more than 5 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, about 1 trillion kWh more than the United States. China's rapid economic expansion since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 has been based on fossil fuels: it consumes around 23% of the world's coal production for electricity. But fossil fuels alone cannot power the industrial growth the country needs to keep up with the West.

Since the mid-2000s, China has also pursued a low-carbon energy strategy. Investment in hydroelectric, wind, solar and nuclear-power generating facilities increased by 40% between 2008 and 2012 — from 138 billion renminbi (US$22 billion) to about 200 billion renminbi. The share of investment in fossil-fuel power facilities in China, meanwhile, fell from around 50% to 25% over the same period.

And for the big, big picture:

Our critics will counter that technology-based solutions raise concerns over the availability of industrial materials and land for building solar and wind devices and farms. But our calculations suggest⁶ that a global renewables push for an extra 10 terawatts of power-generation capacity could be achieved on current industrial scales over the next 20 years, by which time the world energy system would be well on the way to total conversion. Producing the extra 10 terawatts from renewables needed to transform global electric power would require more than 5 million square kilometres (about twice the size of Kazakhstan) filled with around 3 million wind turbines, 14,000 concentrated solar-power installations and 12,500 solar-photovoltaic farms. These technologies could perhaps be accommodated in the world's desert and semi-desert regions. The targets are large — but they are manageable compared with current world production levels of 1.75 billion mobile phones per year or 84 million vehicles per year⁶.