Falling stars - by Richard... Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Falling stars - by Richard... Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Via Tom Nelson we get a report from the Fiji Times on the fatuous WWF Earth Hour campaign. This year, it aims to reach one billion people in more than 1,000 cities encouraging them to cast their vote for the earth by turning off their lights for an hour on 27 March.

As of 14 February, however, only 579 cities had signed up for what is already a toned down event. Nelson reports that 88 countries and 4,088 cities participated in Earth Hour 2009, ten times more cities than Earth Hour 2008, which saw 400 cities participate. The lights, it seems, are not going out all over the world. Perhaps the WWF had better stick to writing reports about glaciers and forest fires.

Another star on the wane, it seems, is our old friend Dr RK Pachauri. In a survey reported by the Hindustan Times and others, which lists the "100 most trusted Indians", former president A P J Abdul Kalam and industrialist Ratan Tata top the list. But, says the paper, among the other surprises in the list was R K Pachauri, who trailed at 61 along with TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai.

And yet another of the mighty fallen is al-Gore. Forbes Magazine, in the persona of Henry I Miller, has him suffering from suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. Amongst the signs he lists, taken from the psychiatrist's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts."

We also get, "A grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)" and: "Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love; believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)."

Miller notes that Gore's Sunday op-ed column was entitled, "We Can't Wish Away Climate Change." Too bad we can't wish away Al Gore, he says. But ... you can always wish upon a falling star.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

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Climate parasites - by Richard... Tuesday, March 02, 2010

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change is proudly touting its 40-page brochure on climate change in cities.

Cities, we are told, are concentrations of vulnerability to the harmful impacts of climate change. They are also, directly and indirectly, responsible for the majority of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gasses. 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, a number that is set to increase to 60% by 2030. For all of these reasons, cities are on the front line in responding to the threats of climate change.

For further details, you must contact Professor Jim Hall, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University. By some strange coincidence, that is exactly the same detail on a grant application to the Engineering and Physical Science Council (EPSRC), which just happens to have given him £124,385 for a project labelled SCORCHIO: "Sustainable Cities: Options for Responsing to Climate cHange Impacts and Outcomes".

SCORCHIO, it turns out, is a bit of a bun fight for academics. Not only is Newcastle University a beneficiary, Professor GJ Levermore of the University of Manchester has also done rather well out of it. He as scooped the jackpot of £319,234 for his part in the project.

And just to keep the other chaps happy and firmly on-side, we have another project in the running, called LUCID: The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Development of Cities.

Professor M Davies of the University College London gets £608,174 for his part in the project. Professor S E Belcher of the University of Reading gets a tidy £238,330 and Professor M Kolokotroni of Brunel University walks away with £179,953.

Just so no one feels left out, we also have SNACC: "Suburban Neighbourhood Adaptation for a Changing Climate - identifying effective, practical and acceptable means of suburban re-design". The big money goes to Professor R Hambleton, a cool £380,454. Runners up are Dr R Gupta of Oxford Brookes University, who gets £182,046, and Professor G R Bramley of Heriot-Watt University, who has to make do with with a mere £63,638.

Mind you, they must all be just a teensy-weensy bit jealous of Dr T Drage from the University of Nottingham. With "Step Change Adsorbents and Processes for CO2 Capture", he grabs first prize in the climate change lottery with a stonking £1,580,881.

However, there is plenty to go round. Altogether, under the "climate change" theme, the EPSRC is paying out on 114 lottery winners university projects, dispensing a grand sum of £63,245,372.

And, of course, all these dedicated, independent scientists are firmly convinced that climate change is a real and present danger. How could £63,245,372 be wrong? And then there are the 912 grants from the Natural Environment Research Council on climate change. At a mere £166,500,521, that also tends to concentrate a few minds – but that is another story.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

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A third rate government - by Richard...

Imagine if you would, your locality plagued with a rash of small brickworks. They are primitive in design, belching fumes and befouling the neighbourhood, the smoke and toxins causing real health problems. What would you do?

Not in any way comparable in seriousness, in the tiny physical world inhabited by EU Referendum, we are faced with the unwelcome prospect of a take-away being opened up at the end of our street.

Before it can open, however, it needs planning permission, so Mrs EU Referendum has been busily consulting with local councillors and organising a petition, plus writing to local officials and the planning committee. Like as not, the development will be blocked – just as it has on the three previous occasions the same owner has made the same application for the same take-away.

The issue here, of course, is that to protect our local environment, we seek relief from government. By and large, it performs moderately well. Certainly, there is not the slightest chance of us ever being discommoded by a brickworks being planted at the end of the street.

But that is not the case in India. With the burgeoning economy and a building boom the like of which we have not seen in England for some time, the suburbs of many small towns and cities have been troubled, exactly as described, with a rash of small brickworks, the like of which would never be permitted or tolerated in any developed country.

Now, to develop a corpus of law, including planning restrictions and pollution controls, and an effective enforcement mechanism, is not exactly rocket science. We in England can trace such laws – and the enforcement bodies – back to the Public Health Act 1848, and the emergence of the "public health nuisance" as a statutory offence which could be dealt with by public officials.

Despite the benefits of modernity, however, the governments (federal and state) of India seems entirely incapable of implementing – or, at least, administering such basic controls over their own territories. And this is despite the fact that brickworks are one of the major causes of pollution in India and, being highly inefficient, are holding back rather than promoting development.

So it is that, with governments manifestly incapable of governing, we see the intervention of international agencies such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an offshoot of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

This emerged into my consciousness while hunting the Pachauri millions, when I came across this project, costed at $2,792,593, part funded by GEF, utilising the services of our favourite NGO, TERI.

Headed, "Energy Efficiency Improvements in Indian Brick Industry", it is a worthy enough project, but only scratches the surface of a much larger problem. And, reflecting the priorities of the funding organisation rather than those of the local communities, its main objective is not the betterment of society (and industry) but the control of CO2 "pollution".

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the project, though, the very fact that the government of India allows it is remarkable. Put the shoe on the other foot and imagine how we might feel if, to sort out the takeaway problem at the top of the street, we had to wait for a United Nations agency to descend upon us, throwing money at a local NGO.

That such agencies exist or are allowed to operate – at least, in India – should be regarded by the citizens as an insult, an affront to national pride. To accept that national systems are so inadequate that the intervention of outside agencies for such basic services has to be a most abject admission of incompetence.

Furthermore, far from helping development, it actively undermines it. One can see the sense in calling on outside consultants to assist in identifying inadequacies in governance and administrative systems – although it is hard to accept that such an endeavour is beyond the capabilities of local talent.

Then, surely, the priority would be to introduce such laws as are needed (where they do not already exist) and then to develop the enforcement systems that make them work. 

Yet it is the manifest inability of the Indian government to perform the basic functions of government that is holding the country back. Doing part of the job that the government should be doing can hardly help. It is not poverty, ignorance, or lack of resources, per se that is the problem. We were hardly blessed with the attributes and riches that India can now claim, back in 1848 when we started to deal with our own messes.

The problem is a lack of effective governance. We are thus forced to conclude that India is a third world nation because it has a third rate government. And our "development aid", it seems, is making the situation worse.

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