Tremendous news: but where are the jobs and how much do they cost ?

At a conference organized recently by the Heartland Institute, our colleagues at the young Juan de Mariana Institute of Spain produced a devastating presentation of the green “bubble” economy, showing not only the true cost of renewable energy subsidies, but also how this hugely destructive policy is putting existing forms of energy at unsustainable risks.

As Gabriel Calzada put it, “where is the green worker?”  At the outset, workers are of course busily installing wind farms, solar panels and so on. In fact, some 60 per cent of jobs are dealing with the installation of such equipment.  The Spanish government boasted the creation of some 50,000 new jobs in 2008.  Yes, but each of them cost more than 500,000 euros (to be renewed ?).

The study produced by Juan de Mariana Institute showed that subsidies awarded to “green” technologies represented twice the electricity bill in 2008. In terms of unitary costs, these were more than three times as expensive as other energy sources.

Also, it turned out that Spanish solar panels were so efficient that they generated current even during the night. Claro que si ! Kudos to Gabriel and his colleagues for revealing these and other scams. Porqué pagar más ?

Photos: Freedigitalphotos

Investing your money and savings for your pension in funds that advertise themselves as more “ethical” than others? Maybe it’s time to think again.

Environmental watchdogs are increasingly pointing out funds as dubious, because of investments in different energy companies. In a recent – undercover – study (Swedish) non of the four checked banks proved to offer the clean investments they advertise.

Fraud? Not really, but certainly hypocrisy.

The criteria change and the transparency should not be taken for granted. Funds that exclude energy companies naturally do not exclude wind and solar energy, and oil companies can be accepted as long as they claim to be investing in new technology. No one looks at what companies expropriate land with the help of government, only – sometimes – if they can be suspected of taking part in a downright military conflict. Well, even the latter can be discussed. What if the company are on the side of the god guys? Yes, who are the good guys…? Should the hotel chain to which the “Hotel Rwanda” belongs be excluded for involvement in a conflict? Or, for that matter, any company doing business in communist China?

In churches and help organisations, most often run like big corporations, the – typically professional – financial analysts are often furious over stricter criteria, simply because they may mean less revenue, and consequently less money for charitable work.

More and more funds are even putting global warming into their names. They should be free to do that, but to expect to fall in the the category of ethical funds because of an asserted ambivalence towards CO2, in a debate where it’s not at all certain that any global warming is going on, and especially not if it then would be caused by human activity, is more than pretentious.

Anyone should be free to select investments based on convictions, and anyone should have the right to proper information. As this dubious market looks today, my recommendation would be to simply go for the most prosperous investments, in the more solid belief that prosperity and growth is and will be the best antidote against humanitarian and environmental problems.

Yes, discussion is possible; no, scientific progress is not a matter of international voting to find the truth. (This would be comparable to letting the dictatorship countries vote on human rights at the UN; sorry, my mistake, they already do that.)

As the late Aaron Wildavsky would have said, what counts in today’s debate is not rational evaluation of risk; but instead the potential catastrophic impact of largely theoretical and infinitesimal hazards. What if the tap water in Paris causes cancer? What if antennae for mobile phone networks pose serious health risks?

Where is the proof? “We’re not talking about risk calculus, but about the potential damages”, argue the precautionary zealots. But with an unqualified “if”, anything is possible and all potentially dangerous activities must come to a halt, as the recent Icelandic saga showed. Allègre points out that the decision to block air traffic worldwide was based on a theoretical model which had never been tested. This also applies to other recent health scares (eg bird flu, H1N1 …)  Sounds familiar?

Dealing with the future implies collecting the unknown by small samples, ie through scientific research, experiments entailing trial and error to gather more knowledge. There can be no insurance policy against uncertainty, and hence no “trial without prior guarantee against error”. Yet politics thrives on this need to peddle government-based certainty in a chaotic world.

We need to distinguish between probabilities and calculated risks. The first is basically speculative by nature and only the second may form a reasonable basis for policy action. Panic-mongerers will prosper by selling disaster plans to the public and decision-makers. But our governments would do better to join the cooler heads coalition. Lest we all die in fear of the unknown, in order to reach certainty at last.

On March 21, incidentally my birthday, a friend from Iceland called me and said she had organized some fireworks for me. What a pity she could not set off the second eruption one week ago. With all airline traffic closed down in most of  Europe, as today, the Climate conference in Bonn would have been more eventful. Or less.

But I don’t blame her. Or anyone else. I also have a solid alibi myself.

To my knowledge, honestly, no alarmist has yet tried to pin volcano eruptions on human activity. Nothing surprises me these days, so in case someone would try that over the next few days, it’s interesting to look at the statistics. It’s not Armageddon – non man made - either. Reliable, reported data on eruptions has developed mainly over the past century (though, naturally, there are plenty of earlier accounts). This compiled data shows no significant changes from then to now (though, also naturally, the cycles between eruptions are rather long). Except for the decrease in the early 40’s. I presume you can draw your own conclusions from that. But it also makes you think about the validity of different climate data. The infamous hockey stick, now not accepted by hardly any scientists for example, takes of upwards around 1990. A lot of things happened, including to observation stations, in huge parts of the world those years.

Human action – and design – can, however be valuable. The eruption might go on for days or even years, but so far there are no casualties on Iceland. According to friends there, the worst problem is that the evacuation from the area is getting disrupted by, particularly domestic, tourists, wanting to see it for real.

In 1783, another volcano erupted on Iceland. This led to bad harvests in large parts of Europe, and is generally believed to have been a major source behind the famine and subsequent turmoil in France in 1789. The world, and Iceland in particular, is just trying to recover from a major financial crisis. So far no one – in this part of the world – is talking about a revolution. Once again, draw your own conclusions!

I might get my asthma back, and I can’t fly for a while, but hey! There is a civil society out there, in case of emergency. People are now taking cab rides across half of Europe. You certainly could not do that before the car was invented, the taxi market privatized and the border controls were taken away.

On top, if the eruption continues, the average temperature will drop. Maybe as much as two degrees Celsius, It’s just a theory, but if I were the IPCC, I would at least take a little break.

First, the French state’s insatiable demand for revenues; second, seducing the ecologist lobby and giving the impression that France is proactively contributing to the fight against CO2 emissions.

Redistributive justice on an international scale however yields some very selfish (in this case national) reflexes: the French share of CO2 emissions is quite small (some 1 per cent of the total). Here ends the solidarity (and there are other concerns, ahem, and they may be more interesting for president Sarkozy at international meetings).

End of story? No: if a EU solution can be had, then of course the saga continues. New sponsors apply here.

Fiction is probably more indicative of the direction of future political initiatives. I recently watched both Avatar and Oceans.

Avatar is not exactly subliminal in its political cue; nevertheless breathtaking thanks to its use of technology that only a free market system could produce (but of course indirectly condemned by the script). In fairness, as my friend at the Cato Institute David Boaz forcefully pointed out, the conflict concerns property rights and not primarily environmental havoc.

Oceans is a wonderful production; thankfully, the commentary is minimal and the political discourse is practically absent (except a jibe about the Arctic being soon open for exploitation because of melting glaciers). Still, the message is clear: man is upsetting the “natural equilibrium” (whenever this existed) and man is responsible for exterminating a number of species.

We should also note, perhaps, that scientists estimate that some 99 per cent of the hundreds of million animal species formed since planet Earth emerged have since disappeared. Apologies all around; this happened sometime before Enron, Greenpeace, GW Bush, N. Korea, Ebola and DDT. And no, these fellows were not active when the dinosaurs were massacred (although most of them had just signed the Biodiversity treaty, according to eyewitnesses).

As Bjorn Lomborg pointed out recently, fear is not a good ally for sound policy. The IPCC has taken and perhaps weathered some serious criticism; that’s the way to go. The game is afoot.

Photos: freedigitalphotos

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez is a most innovative man. With his peculiar combination of home made socialism, populist nationalism and impulsive despotism, you never can tell what the next brilliant idea will be.

He decided to change his country’s time zone with half an hour, presumably just for fun. He managed to create a shortage of coffee, in one of the major coffee producing countries in the world, by introducing price controls. And he has managed to stay in power.

He now has noticed that there is a risk of electricity shortage, and that the consumption is far too high compared to other countries in the region. Wonder why. Counter measures now include cutting of power entirely for, presumably randomly selected, institutions, like restaurants, office buildings and others, for 24 hours at a time. A bit like taking the Earth Hour a couple of steps further, and skip that voluntary part.

Moreover, the Easter holidays will be extended by three days, to halt energy consumption in production. Again, most likely creating new deficits in new areas.

As exciting as always. Watch out, maybe in half a year he will decide to cancel Christmas.

His new book, L’imposture climatique is a more than welcome diatribe against the ecologically correct and constructivist establishment.

For non-French readers, here are a some instructive excerpts (my translation).

On the title:

”It is an imposture to claim that we can foresee the global climate in a century. (…) The second imposture is that there is anthropogenic warming through CO2 emissions.”

What about the supposed relationship and Al Gore?

”The equation between temperature and CO2 variations is simply false. The famous hockey stick curb is false.” (…) ”Everything is false in [Al Gore’s] assertions, yet he presents them as … demonstrations.”

Or just to drive home the argument, an excerpt from the book:

”I don’t use the word ’climate imposture’ lightly. Every time that independent thinkers with a solid scientific background have examined the dossier of ’global warming’ they have either expressed doubt or refuted the alarmist theses of the IPCC.”

Heavy stuff; he’ll get plenty of heat, but three cheers for this initiative.

Photos: freedigitalphotos

Two of the more intriguing accusations I got thrown at me in Copenhagen were: “Climate Hater” and “Weather Denier”.

Funny, but strange. I’m convinced that cursing along, hating the ever changing climate is about as constructive as trying to steer a sailing boat by shouting orders to the winds. Either one would just drive you mad (and possibly injured). Denying the weather seems more promising, but equally dangerous. Is that what you do when you take that boat out in spite of the approaching storm?

There’s no room to deny the record breaking cold winter right now. Yo might enjoy the complete silence from the alarmists in Copenhagen, who really picked the wrong year for the meeting, or you may rejoice over the increasing polar ice and the happy polar bears, but the problems are real.

More than 200 dead, just from the cold, in Poland alone. Numerous other victims all over Europe, and the US. Disrupted communications, often fatal traffic accidents, broken limbs on slippery sidewalks, power failures and skyrocketing electricity bills tell the story.

The lesson is to be prepared, and luckily, most people in the developed world are. We have different forms of heating, some in rural areas with two or more alternative sources. We have sound clothing, stocked up food supplies, winter adjusted tires, cell phones, heated cars, sometimes even functional emergency health care. At least most advanced hospitals have several back up systems in case of a black out.

That’s not because we decided to change our lifestyles in Copenhagen, stopped burning fossil fuels or discourage technological development. It’s thank’s to the fact that we never really did that. If you live in Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Austria and some other countries, you most likely also have the chance to hide yourself from the cold in a steaming sauna. That’s what I do, every day, and I’m not sitting there hating neither climate nor weather.  I celebrate that I have won the battle so far.

JACOB ARFWEDSON (Paris)

According to researchers at King’s College (London) future natural disasters are bound to increase strongly stress levels and anxiety among our fellow citizens. The authors did demand that these concerns be addressed by delegates at the COP-15.

This is no scoop and hardly Nobel Prize stuff: being afraid of the future has long been a staples of our kindred. The question should then be: could government possibly and reliably relieve us of this task? No: but let’s look at the evidence.

Where is the proof of imminent worldwide disaster? If you are an avid newspaper reader, you may be already be in a state of constant anxiety.

Hypothesis: should the global temperature rise by 1 or 2 degrees centigrade (where is the evidence?), fish in tropical climates could easily become as aggressive as pirhanas according to Australian scientist Peter Biro. (Well, if you submit humans to the same treatment, the results would probably be similar; just watch any crowd in urban transport in the evening).

That’s almost what governments agreed on in Copenhagen in terms of controlling the rise in temperature (assuming this is possible). But the hypothesis seems remote from empirical observations. With unreasonable premises, anything is possible. Be wary of such predictions, especially when politicians promise you benefits from unproven risks in a 50-year perspective.

Does this sound strange? Please look in your bank account and ask yourself it you can make predictions on the same scale, and remember that you do not wield the same power as our leaders who claim they can regulate the climate.

Happy New Year all the same!

Pictures: freedigitalphotos

“[The conference] does not mean anything. The UN cannot solve the world’s climate problems as it thinks that the solutions may be found in today’s capitalist system.”

So why add to the madding crowd in Copenhagen? His group plans to penetrate the conference center on Wednesday 16 December (without violence, although various objects were seized by the police recently, apparently meant to be thrown; the website is also most informative about what to do when members are arrested). According to the site, the activists will “take over the conference for one day and transform it into a People’s Assembly”.

As they have allegedly been preparing the action for a year, we may well expect some turbulence next week. The Copenhagen Commune? It’s for your own good, please note. And such a useful way to spend time and resources.