The Guardian reports today in an article entitled, Bush's pollution charter, that the US Government 'plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity'.
The changes to regulations are still in draft form but as the energy companies are large contributors to Republican Party coffers and with a Presidential election next year, the prognosis is not good. In the New York Times, the story doesn't rank among the lead headlines, but an article in the science section, Draft of air rule is said to exempt many old plants, states that, Marianne Horinko, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, would probably sign the rule before Labor Day. It would go into effect shortly thereafter, without further review or public comment.' Well, when you're a newly resurgent global hegemon, and you've got people focusing on suicide bombers and the problem of postwar Iraq, who's going to give a shit about the health of the planet?
A piece in the Financial Times today sheds a little more light (pun intended) on the reasons for the big power failure in North America last week. These include low investment in an ageing grid, too much deregulation, coordination problems between states, and last, but by no means least, rising demand.
The article, Blackouts show inability to heed warnings, argues that now this has happened, there might be some coordinated attempt to fix the problem. I wonder, though, how much effort will be devoted to reducing demand so the system can cope better, as opposed to find ways of delivering an increased supply.
Great piece from Jack Robertson in Margo Kingston's web diary today, When black is white, it's easy being Green, which presents an optimistic vision of the future for the Greens in Australia. It encapsulates very nicely the evolution of my own thinking in recent times.
When the Brits complain about the weather (a national pastime) many people make reference to the glorious summer of 1976, the bench mark to which all decent summers must be compared. There were 15 consecutive days of temperatures above 32 degrees in this particular year, with a top temp of 35.9 degrees. Yesterday this paled into insignificance in the UK as the highest temperature ever was recorded at Gravesend, Kent, a sweltering 38.1 degrees.
Continental Europe, meanwhile, continues to experience temperatures in the 40s. While these weather patterns wouldn't be too out of place in central Australia, one cannot help but reflect on the changing weather patterns we seem to be experiencing. In particular, governments would be well advised to consider the costs of these extreme weather conditions. To this end, Matt Prescott's Earth-info.net made reference to an interesting piece in The Guardian recently, that describes global warming as a weapon of mass destruction.
Clive Hamilton's recently published book, Growth Fetish, certainly caused a stir, and Richard Layard adds fuel to the fire.
The Economist this week gives details on Layard's Lionel Robbins memorial lectures delivered earlier this year, 'Happiness -- Has Social Science a Clue?', which reports on research that suggests that incomes don't make us happier, and we work too hard. The conclusion is that GDP is a flawed measure of economic well-being, and that happiness demands leisure as well as material consumption. On that note, I think I'll take the rest of the weekend off.
Amrozi, a.k.a 'the smiling assassin' will now face the firing squad for his hand in the Bali bombing. I can't help agreeing with Susanna Miller, one of the relatives of the British victims, who considers it an inappropriate punishment.
The Guardian reports: "Gandhi said an eye for an eye makes the world blind," Ms Miller told Reuters. "We want a cessation of violence ... We're furious with the people that did it, but clearly it is just going to make the international situation worse if we're going to have 30 martyrs."
An argument I hear quite regularly is that you have to be rich to care about the environment. Put another way, a less developed country (LDC) has to develop economically before it can clean up the environment, notwithstanding the fact it's the economic development that has screwed up the environment!
The logic employed seems to be that people who are really poor are too poor to worry about the environment because they're more concerned about a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. According to The Economist this week, a book just published on the state of the environment in Thailand makes this very point. An article entitled How green is my tiger? (password protected) comments on a book by James David Fahn called A Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the South-East Asian Boom. To be fair to Fahn, though, this is more than likely The Economist's spin on his work -- I'll reserve judgement until I've read the book! But whether he emphasises this point or not, it strikes me that this argument makes a pretty big assumption; viz. economic development has to be 'dirty'. Capitalist development has largely proceeded along these lines thus far, of course, but with carefully-directed overseas aid, appropriate technology transfer, and a well-thought out legislative framework in the LDC in question, the environmental mess to be cleaned up might not be created in the first place. LDCs do not need to make the same mistakes as the developed countries.
There's a bit of a furore at the moment here in Singapore over the issue of foreign workers. With unemployment at a 'heady' 4.5% (which is pretty high by Singaporean standards) a group of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) economists released a report last week indicating that 3 out of every 4 new jobs between 1997 and 2002 went to foreign workers.
The following day, the Manpower Ministry hit back, claiming that the NTU academics had erred and that, in the period under consideration, 9 in 10 jobs created went to Singaporeans! The economists were taken to task in a way that only the Singaporean Government can, and the academics have subsequently retracted their claims and apologised. Interestingly, the story doesn't seem to want to go away, with a headline in today's paper reporting on various appeals for more data on foreign workers. Acting Manpower Minister, Ng Eng Hen, announced at the weekend that it was 'sensitive data' and that 'information on specific sectors or nationalities were being held back for reasons of national interest'. Even more interesting from my point of view is that Associate Professor Tan Khee Giap and Professor Chen Kang are no slouches and there has yet to be a detailed report as to exactly why their findings were so wrong. The NTU group also included the widely respected Professor Lim Chong Yah, probably one of the most pre-eminent economists in Singapore. Curiously, Professor Lim seems to have escaped the criticism levelled at profs Tan and Chen.
There aren't too many genuine politicians around the world. By this I mean people who genuinely look to promote the greater good, and who aren't in it just for themselves. For mine, Tony Benn ranks among this select group.
He was always portrayed by the British tabloids as the doyen of the 'looney left' (I don't know whether this is still the case -- not being an avid Sun reader), but anyone who has ever heard him speak would likely be struck by the integrity and honesty of the man, even if they didn't agree him. I was fortunate enough to be part of a small discussion group with him in Sheffield many years ago, an event that had a significant influence on the way I view the world today. Always the great communicator, Benn is now releasing his 'greatest hits', it would seem, set to music! The mind boggles, but I think I will be making a purchase nonetheless.