Global warming is a marketer's dream

I always read the letters-to-the-editor in the paper each day. It's a reflection of the editor, and the newspaper's bias, as well as what the readers are thinking. Of course my choice of newspaper reflects my bias, and reading this blog post may reflect yours.
A letter from Glen Leis of Newmarket Ontario (a northern suburb of Toronto) was very insightful. Mr. Leis responded to this column in the Financial Post and his comments are worth sharing.

Climate change (the commonly used euphemism - I prefer global warming) is an ideal cause célèbre because it cannot be observed or measured in real time (you won't see: "Breaking News - Global warming is happening RIGHT NOW!"). No honest scientist would suggest that the record snowfall in the US north east this winter (2010-11), or the very mild Vancouver Olympics (2010) were actually caused by global warming. Those were weather events, not to be confused with climate. However, as Mr. Leis points out, because global warming cannot be definitively measured (in real time), (more and more) money needs to be sent to allow scientists to find a way to do just that.

The media (and Al Gore) however, are not scientists and they have no compunctions about saying that every hurricane, snowstorm, cold weather event, hot weather event, swarm of tornadoes, flood, every weather extreme, is somehow related to the ongoing crisis that is climate change. For them its like the War-on-Terrorism without the Jihadists, an ongoing story that can be milked day-in-and-day-out. Everyone knows who the culprits are, it's understood that global warming always underlies the event. To push that agenda, CNN now has "Extreme Weather" reports. And all of it sells TV time thank you very much!
Mr. Leis continues, the global warming scam, "creates a partnership between industry and government, paid for by the average taxpayer."
In Ontario we are blessed with government-subsidized solar and wind power generation, subsidized hybrid, and electric cars, in fact an entire green industry created by government fiat that could never exist without the crutch of subsidy it's so uncompetitive.
Climate change is a marketer's dream. It plays on fear as well as a person's desire to do the right thing. Put a hybrid label on a car, and people will buy it without thinking about the large expensive battery that will need to be exchanged within the car's lifetime. Call yourself a "green-politician," and people will blindly vote for you regardless of qualifications. That's how powerful the confirmatory bias has become.
Leis concludes by saying that this is "activism spoon-fed to the masses by corporations and governments." "Any movement that espouses massive transfers of wealth to the likes of Robert Mugabe and Communist China must be questioned."
I'm certain I have not convinced the followers of the Gorical, so strong is their zealotry. My real purpose is to save you and me a lot of misdirected expense. In Ontario election day is just nine months away. 

"This ain't Canada right now..."

More fallout from last summers G20 riot in Toronto.
The video below presents a scene that would make a civil libertarian cringe. The police officer is using his experience when he approaches the bearded young man dressed in black with a backpack walking around the downtown near the G20 conference.
The cop is profiling, a technique that I think needs to be used in the broader context of airport security searches and beyond. Does profiling work? Have a look at this article that explains why the Israeli security experience has been so effective for the past 40 years.
Back to the video below, yes it looks bad, but as George Jonas points out in the National Post recent events regarding the rights of individuals and their property have been far more egregious. What is the cause of our apparent loss of freedom here in the Great White North? Jonas thinks, and this may seem counterintuitive, it's the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He may have a point.

"Factories of Death"

That is the phrase James Hansen used to compare coal-fired power plants to places like Auschwitz. Its welcoming front gate is seen there in the picture.
Is it any wonder why anthropogenic global warming skeptics have been called deniers since Hansen's unfortunate comment.
Coal has been used by people as a fuel since the Bronze Age, maybe earlier. It was the fuel that drove the Industrial Revolution which ultimately gave us the modern world, and it is still the fuel that is responsible for producing 40% of the world's electricity production, 69% of China's electricity production and 90% of American electricity production. Coal is going to be around for a very long time indeed.
Niel Reynolds points out in a recent column, that coal is still the future and Alberta is a laboratory in this link. 

School Choice

How can we make our schools better? Competition.
Spend 5 minutes and open your mind to other possibilities, watch this from ReasonTV.

Evolution and Economics

An off-the-cuff remark last week about two of my favourite topics set me off on todays rant. I was at an Institute for Liberal Studies seminar at the University of Toronto. The theme for the day was "From the Great Depression to the Great Recession - How should governments respond to crisis?" One of the speakers, Professor Steven Horwitz, compared the evolution of the eye to Austrian Economics. Huh?
In the war between creationism and evolution, one of the most decisive battles was the evolution of the eye. The creationist argument is captured in the phrase 'a design implies a designer,' and the eye is an intricate design. The argument, often called the "watchmaker analogy," claims that there could be no random series of events (the inaccurate view of evolution) that could possibly result in a complex timepiece or an eyeball. Of course that view is held because creationists have a false understanding of the theory of evolution.
Evolution is directed (not random), yet directionless (without purpose), orchestrated but disorganized, and no intelligent designer is required, thank you very much. How? Natural selection is the mechanism of evolution that Darwin and Wallace discovered more than 150 years ago. The secret to Natural Selection is time, huge almost incomprehensible spans of time; that, combined with differential reproduction (selection), genetics, and variation has given us the diversity of species that inhabit this planet.

So how does that relate to Austrian Economics? Simple, proponents of the Austrian School of Economics advocate for the smallest possible amount of governmental intervention in the economy, remove the so-called 'intelligent guiding hand of government' and let natural economic selection operate freely.
The point is, if you can believe that the eye evolved by Natural Selection over huge spans of time, surely you can believe that economies can function independent of government regulation and intervention. Of course the analogy isn't perfect, but in the case of Austrian Economics time is not the secret, the secret is hundreds of millions (billions?) of economic transactions that occur within an economy, each transaction is directed by a presumably intelligent individual (or company). Each individual or company seeks to improve their economic position by their transactions. The sum total of the economic transactions, represents the productive abilities of the individual, the company or the nation. There is nothing random about that kind of economy and it is definitely purposeful. The most successfully adapted individuals or companies will thrive, and grow their value and wealth. Those not well adapted will fall away, their value and wealth assimilated by the survivors.
I can hear the statists among you mumbling their "what abouts." What about the poor, the indigent and so on? Look around you, if you live in Canada or the United States, our partially unfettered economies has lifted everyone, even the poorest of the poor here, exceed the wildest dreams of the poor in most other jurisdictions. It's not an accident and it certainly is not a result of intelligent design. Imagine if the economy was truly unfettered.

In the picture (thanks to Redmond Weissenberger) left to right: George Bragues (Business Program Head, University of Guelph Humber and a regular contributor to Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada ), Steve Horwitz (Professor of Economics, St. Lawrence University) and Niels Veldhuis (Vice President Research, Fraser Institute)      

Strange Bedfellows? Ralph Nader & Ron Paul Interviewed Together!

Obama equals Bush, two years later

See the picture? That is irony defined.
Reason TV demonstrates in the video below, that George Bush's war has become Barak Obama's war. No different, no hope, no change.
Where is the anti-war movement two years later? Has anything really changed?

The most distressing comment in the video is that the Republicans who started the wars, handed them to the Democrats, who will likely hand them back to the Republicans, possibly as soon as 2012.
Peace!

The "Declinism" of the Anglo-sphere

I'm reading a book right now, that points out how futile it is to make predictions about the future. If you liked Malcolm Gladwell's books (The Tipping Point etc.) you might like Future Babble - Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway  by Dan Gardner. Its easy to read, filled with interesting historical tidbits, and offers reams of examples where brilliant people made predictions that had no relation to what actually happened. Predicting the future is a mug's game, rarely will the experts be held to account - people forget.
So when I read Mark Steyn's Dependence Day, On the erosion of personal liberty, (thanks Jeffery), it did not take long to see that Mr. Steyn was predicting the demise of the Anglo-American classical liberal democracy that has dominated the world since the rise of the British Empire.
Mark Steyn's article is long, extremely well written and very distressing if he is indeed right. I'm leaning on Dan Gardner's view that Steyn's predictions will be wrong, no matter how well argued they are. Here's hoping!

Fromage from the cult of anti-humanism

Cheesy!

Do those make you feel hungry....for food? Me neither. Who knew that one of the hottest new trends involves making cheese out of breast milk, ugh. That's right, take a look here. I was totally out-to-lunch on this, so to speak.
The Post article proves that there is no accounting for taste, and superficially I don't see an issue here, until I read this part:
"....PETA, the animal rights organization, which wrote this after a Swiss restaurant added breast-milk to its menu two years ago: "PETA was inspired to ask ice cream giant Ben & Jerry's to switch from unhealthy bovine juice stolen from tormented calves (aka "cow milk") to healthier, humane human breast milk."
PETA thinks it's a good idea, of course they would. Now this may not be fair but I lump PETA in with the 'enviro-mental' movement. You know them, the people that the George Carlin video was satirizing late last week. They are the ones that seek to diminish human value and make us all feel guilty that we are somehow intruders on the Earth, disrupting the ecological-balance of Gaia. We use up resources, polluting as we do, disrupting and destroying habitats, and just plain making a nuisance out of ourselves. We are the parasites of the planet! We stomp around in our huge carbon-footprints, altering the climate, and endangering all other species. You sir or madame, are guilty by virtue of your birth, all 6 billion of us. This makes the Christian idea of original sin look unambitious.

Here is a short old clip from one of my favourite 'enviro-mentalists', who explains how you too may reach the exalted position of second-level maggot.

    

Joule Unlimited: A Potential Game Changer?

Artificial photosynthesis

That is what US Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry calls the technology being developed by Joule Unlimited Inc., a company in his home state of Massachusetts.
The company claims it has developed a method of producing large amounts of cheap liquid hydrocarbon fuel using a "proprietary organism" and freely available inputs like the evil carbon dioxide and water.
Neil Reynolds describes the company in a Globe and Mail column this week. Time magazine recently touted the company as one of its Top 20 Green Tech Ideas of 2010.
Joule Unlimited claims that it uses artificial photosynthesis that it can scale-up to produce large amounts of "fungible diesel fuel" for around $30US per barrel equivalent. Their technique does not use expensive biomass inputs to produce biofuels, such as is done with corn to make ethanol.
Joule Unlimited expects to begin commercial production in 2012. In the meantime I would put off purchasing that hybrid or electric car, the future is impossible to predict.  

Culturally Retarded

Haiti is on the westside of Island of Hispaniola

Is anyone surprised that one year after the earthquake little has happened in Haiti that indicates it is recovering?
What would a Haitian recovery look like anyway? It was a basket case (poorest in Western Hemisphere) before the earthquake, so would it recover to just being a basket case again?
The problems in Haiti exhaust the imagination, it is a situation where sending everyone away and starting over again seems almost sensible. Why is that? Why is it that a nation of 10 million has 10,000 NGO's present in country and it still doesn't help? There is no easy answer of course. There are economic problems that are directly related to property rights as noted in this column. There are political problems that go way back to corrupt leadership and government. But that I think is just part of the problem, the problem is deeper and more entrenched than mere economics. The problem I think is culture.
Over the past several days, even weeks around here, there has been a discussion about Asian students and lately Asian parenting. In November 2010 McLean's magazine published an article titled "Too Asian?", the title has since been retracted but the article remains and it implied that Asian students which represent a small portion of North American society nevertheless make up a large component of the university population because of their work ethic.
More recently an article by Amy Chua in the Wall Street Journal stated that Chinese mothers have superior parenting skills. Another article by Lawrence Solomon in the National Post takes issue with Amy Chua. Whatever the truth, I will testify (as a former teacher) that Chinese children, on the whole, make very good students indeed. Why is that? I think it is engrained in the culture. As Ms. Chua points out, if you expect more you just might get it, with patience and perseverance.
So what does that have to do with Haiti? I think a great deal. Much of the Haitian population is deeply religious (80% Roman Catholic, 16% Protestant) not that this precludes cultural success. Many populations are deeply religious. Haiti has the added burden that fully half the population practices or believes in Voodoo. How voodoo is reconciled with Catholicism or Protestantism is explained, sort of, in the Wikipedia article linked in the last sentence. 
In a column published this past week in the National Post, Dan Gardner takes I believe a courageous stand when he says: "...Haiti has been crippled, at least in part, by certain cultural values — such as the fatalism promoted by voodoo — that discourage initiative, rationality, trust, achievement, and education." Culture can foster greatness or the reverse.

Homeopathy is Bullsh*t

The People's TV Network (CBC-TV) up here in the Great White North, took a well deserved swipe at homeopathic "medicine" the other night on their program Marketplace. You can see the entire episode if you click on that link. If you harbour illusions about the efficacy of homeopathic medicine this program should dispel them.

The program shows how some of these "medicines" are manufactured by serial dilution (to the point of non-existence), and how they depend on water memory for their power. That power is, I believe, entirely due to the placebo effect. Not that there is anything wrong with the placebo effect, it sometimes works, and avoids expensive occasionally dangerous, treatments and drugs. Of course when real science is used to study the efficacy of any drug, the placebo effect must be ruled out or controlled, and that is reason for the gold-standard double-blind study. The homeopathic drugs mentioned in the program above would likely fail a double-blind study.

Of course Marketplace goes on to suggest that governments should take control of homeopathy. Across Canada government regulation of homeopathic medicine varies from province to province. Most of the regulation (coordinated by Health Canada) is designed to protect consumers from any harm due to the medicine. The CBC implies that this regulation somehow lends credence to the drug's efficacy, and the government should ban the medicines outright because they are ineffective. While understandable, prohibition never works and it will not in this case. People like to have control over their own medical care. That is an issue our governments and politicians will need realize soon enough as public funding of medical services explodes.     

Planetary Perspective

My generation was very fortunate to have George Carlin around to keep us laughing and to keep things in perspective. I'm not certain of Carlin's political views, but I know that there were many things that I could agree with and he certainly had a libertarian attitude. Carlin's views on religion are well known and when I was younger his views were a touchstone for mine before the days of the militant atheists.
Mostly he was important because his humour made us look at the world from his perspective.
People underestimate the power of humour and satire and their role in our society. Just look at how Jon Stewart has changed the way both young and old now view the NEWS.
So here, just for fun, is George Carlin's view on the Planet from almost twenty years ago: Warning: Carlin uses several of those seven words that can never be used on television. Enjoy :-)
 

Arizona revives gun debate. by Rod Rojas

The unfortunate, recent shooting in Arizona in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others were attacked has revived the debate regarding gun laws, especially because Arizona has relatively lax gun laws.

It is widely speculated on the media that Jared Loughner –the alleged gunman- may have some sort of mental imbalance, so there have been calls for further screening regulation to limit the ability of mental patients to purchase guns. It must be noted that mental illness only rarely translates into criminal violence.

One of the reasons why he is being deemed mentally unstable is because of his anti-government views, and his support for the gold standard. By this definition the entire libertarian community should be moved to a mental institution.

According to Rich Daly of Psychiatric News, the mentally ill only perpetrate between 3 and 5 percent of all gun related violence. It seems that a statistical link with the brand of shoes that the killer used might yield more conclusive results.

Mental health care is no different to any other sort of health care; it affects many people around us. Most of them lead relatively normal lives while coping with their imbalance in the same way that others cope with chronic fatigue or diabetes. Because of the huge stigma attached to mental illness, privacy is vital to the mental patient’s ability to function in society. The publication of mental records through a consolidated database to allow gun dealers to perform background checks would be a huge blow to this overwhelmingly peaceful -and sometimes fragile- segment of our population.

In Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) is already talking about a federal ban on high capacity magazines, like the one allegedly used by Loughner.

Considering the repeated and unmitigated failure of every single prohibitionist policy, why would anyone still advocate banning anything?

Banning a good or service only creates a black market for it. And along with the criminalization comes the violence related to the illegal trafficking. In other words, not only do the goods or services not leave the market, but we create new branches of crime, we incur huge costs in connection to the enforcement of the laws, and we see a rise in the price of the goods and services in question.

Sometimes a ban can even make the good more readily available than if it were legally obtainable. Take the case of illegal drugs for example. It is much easier for a teen to get hold of marijuana than beer.

Illegality also imparts the good or service with a certain appeal. The 1920’s prohibition of alcohol in the USA gave glamour to the underground bars. Likewise today, we see how drug dealing has been idealized in parts of the hip-hop culture.

We should also remember that producing, buying, selling or owning a weapon does not in any way harm anybody. The initiation of violence against others or their property is what needs to be punished, and this can be done with or without guns. Victimless, voluntary exchanges are not crimes.

I suppose Congresswoman McCarthy spends time in Washington DC, where some of the most draconian gun laws have been in effect since 1976. She should be familiar with the high crime rate and with the fact that violent criminals still carry guns in the District of Columbia. Restrictive gun laws disarm law abiding citizens, not criminals.

We may contrast the District of Columbia with Switzerland, which has one of the highest private gun ownership rates in the world, and where gun crime rates are statistically insignificant. That little country has no professional army, so Swiss males between the ages of 18 and 42 are required by law to keep a fully automatic assault rifle at home. While conscription should not be advocated, we should note that the Swiss don’t go around shooting each other, just like we don’t go around stabbing each other to death in spite of the fact that we all have big, sharp, lethal knives in our kitchens.

While we feel for the friends and families of the victims, and bans appear to be the right thing to do, we need to know that they do not produce the desired effects. There was once a world without guns and both cruelty and crime were definitely present.

Do not let politicians capitalize on your emotions. Oppose the passing of legislation that restricts your freedom, endangers your privacy and causes problems while solving none.

Rod Rojas is a holder of the Canadian Securities Course designation and performs as a financial adviser in personal, corporate, and public-policy matters. Read his articles at Mises.org.  Send him mail.

Antimatter from thunderstorms

This is very strange and out-of-this-world discovery! This posting from a NASA website claims that the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected evidence of antimatter particles inside thunderstorms.
The Fermi Telescope was designed to look out into the universe, but was able to detect terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.