It's Fixed in the Next Release - Politics

So NOW is Climate Change a Clear and Present Danger?

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:27:26 -0500

For years – for decades – climate scientists have been telling us that global warming was going to have some seriously bad, seriously expensive effects on the environment. Slowly, the population at large has gone from considering this a "unproved theory" to a "concern", but it's never been a real "problem", at least not in the sense that a ten cent increase in the cost of gas is a problem bordering on a crisis.

We know this is human nature. As a species, we evolved to deal with immediate threats, with clear and present dangers. So while climate scientists and environmentalists move from worry, through to desperation, and finally hopelessness, the political will to take action doesn't materialize.

"Theory" is making a rapid transition to "evidence", as the severity of weather disruption increases around the world. We donate funds for disaster relief amid a growing concern that maybe all that science is right, that maybe we should take action before things get really bad. But then the headlines fade and we go back to bitching about gas prices, demanding rollbacks in electricity rates, and not electing politicians who dare to advance environmental policies because they'll be "too expensive".

Back in reality, well over 300 people have been killed by "unprecedented" tornadoes in Alabama. Damages from this one event are estimated to be between two and five billion dollars¹. Half the North American continent is experiencing "unusual" weather, and the season for this sort of storm has just begun.

So I wonder if this is the year that we have our collective watershed moment. Is this the year that we wake up and realize that we should have been taking dramatic action a decade or more ago? Because this is the new reality. It's going to be expensive, it's going to cost lives, it's going to make food more expensive – if not scarce. Even if we fixed the problem overnight (an absolute impossibility), we're stuck with a least a decade of "what you see is what you get and it's going to get worse before it gets better" weather.

Unfortunately no epiphany seems forthcoming. A quick survey of commentary surrounding the current Canadian election campaign has more people concerned with paying five cents more for a litre of gas today than they are about food shortages or dying in a "freak storm" in a few years. As the New Democratic Party surges in the polls, the most resonant criticism of their policies seems to be that a carbon tax could increase gas prices by four cents a litre, with a corresponding increase in a vast array of goods.

We have transitioned from "people will die" to "people are dying", and we're not scared yet. At least not scared enough to take meaningful action. I really hope we wake the f--- up, and soon.

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[1] Estimate from Eqecat, a catastrophe risk-modeling firm that advises insurance, reinsurance and financial companies, as quoted by upi.com.

Why I'm Voting Green in 2011

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:53:06 -0500

It's probably pretty obvious from this blog that my political philosophy most closely aligns with the Liberal Party. What's less obvious is that it's hardly a tight fit. Its more of an alignment of averages. Some probably perceive me as radical left (for example I believe in a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians), some as radical right (along with guaranteed income comes the cancellation of many social assistance programs). I believe in competition, but I don't subscribe to the interpretation that competition requires traditional capitalism.

In last night's English leader's debate, not only was the voice of the Green Party excluded by an irresponsible (in both senses, reckless and unaccountable) "consortium of media companies", but the environment seems to be a non-issue with all "mainstream" party leaders.

This is grossly unacceptable. If it doesn't make you angry, wake yourself up. The environment is the single biggest issue of our generation. It's one of the top issues for a majority of voters. Yet our leaders are silent. Harper could care less, it's all about the present for him. Ignatieff and Layton seem to have been terrified by Stephane Dion's attempts to push too far, too fast. Somehow they believe that the voting populace is so shallow that we can't decouple Dion, who few wanted to see as Prime Minister, from environmentally responsible policies.

So what do we have? Three leaders who care more about votes than about the country they purport to serve. Oh yeah, and Duceppe, who serves the concept of another country.

Well screw them. Screw them all. It's time to flush the lot of these self-serving myopic power seekers out of politics. This time around I'm voting Green in protest, and I urge you to do the same, independent of your usual political inclinations. I realize that if all 50 of my readers go Green, not much will change, so if you buy into my argument, encourage as many people as you can to do the same.

It seems the only way to get environmental issues on the policy agenda is through a measure of popular vote. In the absence of voting reform (another Green party policy), the only way the political establishment will take on the environment before it's a full blown crisis is if the populace put their votes where their concerns are.

I can see some objections to this approach, and I want to address them.

Voting Green will split the left and give Harper a majority. Bull. Take a closer look at the Green Party platform. It's right of the Liberals. To hell with Harper swinging left in a desperate attempt to pick up a majority, it might even be right of the Conservatives in some respects. The Greens should be splitting the vote on the right.

If the Greens win, they won't have the experience to govern. Absolutely true. But the chances of even a Green minority are somewhere between getting hit by lightning twice and winning a lottery. On the other hand, if they score a few seats, they'll actually be able to keep the environment on the agenda. Besides, can you imagine the NDP in a minority situation? It's not much prettier, but people vote for them.

Are there good counter-arguments? Post them in the comments.

The Environment, the Economics of Raw Materials, and the Collapse of Civilization

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:48:00 -0600

The theft of perfectly functional manufactured goods for scrap value has become a serious issue over the past decade. The number of stories of small to medium scale theft, primarily of copper, has gone from rarity to ubiquitous. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has declared copper theft a critical threat to infrastructure. The size of the problem has grown because the recovered value of many easily recycled raw materials is exceeds the risk of getting caught.

This can be generalized. If raw materials aren't cheap relative to wages, civilization collapses by dismantling itself. This is a grave matter, and I find the implications profound.

I consider myself an environmentalist. I've always believed that one way to build a more environmentally responsible economy was to factor in the "true" cost of extracting resources from the natural environment — despite never having come up with any practical ideas as to how such a cost could be established. Under such a scheme, all raw materials would be significantly more expensive. But the baseline for measuring "expensive" has to be wages. So there's a deeply fundamental flaw in my belief, namely that it leads to the self destruction of civilization. My simplistic prescription is now completely trashed and a new model is required, because the status quo doesn't work either.

On the other hand I have always been at odds with much of the environmental movement, in that I grudgingly advocate nuclear power. Not because I think it's clean and wonderful and cheap, but because it looks like the only way we can bridge from fossil fuels to something sustainable without the catastrophic collapse of civilization.¹

I mention energy here because it is a big factor in the cost of production and distribution of raw materials. As time passes, we need to go farther, dig deeper, and expend more energy to extract them, so energy is not only a significant cost factor but rising faster relative to other costs. Mining is one of those places where nuclear seems problematic. Having some mining company build a reactor in a remote part of a third world country just to operate a mine seems foolish at best, and a formula for either future environmental disasters or the proliferation of nuclear weapons at worst.

Even in politically stable populated areas, building a couple of hundred nuclear reactors is a much less adequate "bridge solution" than I had hoped. To put it bluntly, there's no point in having a few terawatt hours of nuclear energy available if someone keeps tearing down the transmission lines for scrap. For that matter it won't matter if that power is generated by the cleanest imaginable source. If infrastructure is constantly under attack, reliable energy could easily mean small scale generation in well defended fiefdoms.

I wish I had a solution for this one, even one that's overly simplistic. 2010 should go down in history as the year dire predictions of the cost of climate change started to swing rapidly from radical wing-nut environmentalist overstatements to brutally underestimated realities. It would be nice if 2011 was marked as the year policy makers started to get a grasp of the magnitude of the threats posed by more costly energy and moved urgently to address the problem. We should now be on the equivalent of a war footing, dedicating the bulk of our fiscal, intellectual, and physical resources to solve these problems. Inexpensive energy is axiomatic to the current structure of our society. If we fail to find a way to generate it, our social structures will undergo major upheaval. Major upheaval is never good.

Instead, we remain complacent. The probability of defeat rises with each day; the cost of victory increases exponentially. It is a time for activism. Call your local politician and remind him or her that there are no elections in feudal societies.

1. For the record I don't particularly enjoy doom-saying by sticking "collapse" and "civilization" together. I just happen to think that the problem is that serious.

Let's Just Call it the Canadian Conference Board of Incompetence

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:05:30 -0500

In The Conference Board of Canada's Deceptive, Plagiarized Digital Economy Report Michael Geist attacks the Conference Board for a variety of faults that call its claims of objectivity into question. Subsequently, in Conference Board of Canada Responds, Stands By Its Report he comments on their inadequate response.

What is perhaps most informative is this quote from the response "The Conference Board regularly produces custom research. Our guidelines for financed research require the design and method of research, as well as the content of the report, to be determined solely by the Conference Board." [Note to conference board: that is how you cite sources.]

This quote suggests that they take full responsibility for the incompetence, sloppy methodology, poor fact checking, and many other faults in their work. They appear to either be completely disconnected from reality or to be fully aware that they have no credibility whatsoever.

I suppose it doesn't matter which.

How the Liberals Should Elect a Leader

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:42:28 -0600

There is no question that the Liberal Party of Canada needs to pick a new leader, and fast. Not only do they have to do it quickly, but they have to do it right.

While Michael Ignatieff might be the right choice, and might even be the winner at a convention, Bob Rae's observation that a process of installing him is "undemocratic" carries some weight. Simply installing Ignatieff based on polling results and some "consultation" with riding leadership may be prudent, but it's not smart.

I put "undemocratic" in quotes for two reasons. Firstly, the word has been horribly misused over the past few weeks. All the political drama we have just experienced has been nothing but democracy. Those who call it otherwise are merely uninformed. Anyone who says "I voted for Harper, not Dion" is in desperate need of education on the political system that this country uses. On the second count, the normal process that the Liberals use to pick a leader is anything but democratic. To anyone who wants to argue this, I merely observe that this was the process that got Dion the leadership in the first place.

The "transferable delegate" system might make for great television, but it has clearly been demonstrated that not only is it out of touch with the party grassroots, it doesn't pick the best leader. Time to chuck this tradition along with Mr. Dion. This time, let's lose the baby and the bath water.

This gives the Liberals an amazing opportunity to demonstrate that there is a fix for the problem. What they should do is quickly set up an online leadership voting system. They should mail cards with a security PIN code to every party member in good standing. Party members should then be required to combine this PIN with some piece of personal information that's on file, such as the member's phone number and year that they joined the party. There will need exception handling process for those who have problems, but I guarantee that they'll get a democratically elected leader in a short period of time and at a lot less cost than a convention.

The catch to all of this is that we're talking about a party that can't manage to get a critical video for a national address done on a reasonable schedule, and even then they can't do a job that wouldn't embarrass a grade seven student. It's painfully evident that the Liberal communications people are under siege at best, or woefully incompetent at worst.

Still, an online leader selection process would be relatively straightforward. I'd even be willing to help implement such a system, because I think real democracy is important. Then we can talk about moving federal elections to a Single Transferable Vote system (in particular, BC-STV) and then maybe we can get on to building governments that are formed from meaningful, relevant, and functional coalitions. It is possible.
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Liberal Hopeful Bob Rae Expects Three Years of Recession?

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:25:01 -0600

Bob Rae announced that he will be seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party today. "I'm running because I believe I have the judgement, the character, the values and the experience to lead at a very difficult time in the life of our country," said Mr. Rae.

It's not exactly clear which leadership he's talking about. If he had said "a very difficult time in the life of our party," I would probably be in agreement. He and Michael Ignatieff are both pretty strong candidates, but I think Mr. Rae stands a better chance in a federal election. I find Ignatieff to be a little distant... he might very well make the best Prime Minister, but that's no good if you can't win an election. I also don't think Mr. Rae's much-discussed stint as Ontario premier is anywhere near the liability that it's been made out to be.

But watching today's press conference, I got the distinct impression that Rae is saying that he's got what it takes to be PM during hard economic times. So he's got some magic plan to win the leadership race and topple Harper's government in the next nine months or so — that would be quite a feat — or he expects the recession to last a good three to four years, the most likely time we'll be called to the polls again.

Now this downturn may very well last that long, but it sure doesn't look good to come out looking like that's your expectation. Looks like poor judgement, which makes the statement self-contradictory.
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Paris Hilton Gives Republicans a Lesson in Internet 101

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:11:28 -0500

I kind of like republican Presidential candidate John McCain — as a person. He seemed to have great personal integrity until last week, when his campaign started running attack ads against his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

Unfortunately for him, this ill-advised manoeuvre seems to have been engineered by a bunch of old dinosaurs who are completely out of touch with the reality of the Internet. I guess nobody told them that big television advertising dollars no longer get you exclusive access to the attention of the populace. Oops.

The McCain ads sandwiched Obama's image with those of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, deriding him as a mere celebrity, not ready to lead. I've always maintained that Ms. Hilton plays her public image as a lot dumber than she really is (don't get me wrong, I'm not giving her Rhodes Scholar either), and this week Paris Hilton shot back at the use of her image in that ad.

Analysts have said that the main advantage of the McCain ads were that they got widespread news coverage, and that having segments of them lead the news gave them huge extra exposure at no cost. Unfortunately for them, it looks like Hilton's spoof, likely shot for a few tens of thousands of dollars and featuring McCain being referred to as "wrinkly white-haired guy", is going to get almost as much exposure.

In general, I think attack ads are crass and desperate (particularly when run by a party that is in power outside an election, but that's another post entirely), and it's good to see them backfire. The only real downside of this parody is that there will probably be an embarrassingly large number of ballots filed in November with Paris Hilton as a write-in candidate.

To conclude, here's the Internet 101 summary for anyone contemplating an attack ad:

In a wired world, be careful about where you lob the muck. It's a lot easier to fight back than you think.

RIP, SUV: Gas Prices Are "Getting There"

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:44:50 -0500

This weekend the Toronto Star announced the death of the SUV. One of the reasons this came up has to be the closing of the General Motors truck assembly line in Oshawa. It seems that as the price of gas gets above about $1.25 per litre (or $4/gallon in the U.S.), the number of people who "need" an unsafe gas guzzling SUV drops off pretty quickly. Now these same people "need" to unload their luxury land barges. There's nothing like a flexible definition of needs.

This is a good start. There's going to be a lot fewer road trips in the family road boat this year. Some people will argue that this is a bad thing, that families should be able to get out there with their kids to see all that this vast country has to offer. These people haven't actually seen a family in one of these vehicles. The parents are happily enjoying their time "together" while each kid is in their own isolated space with individual DVD players and noise-reducing headphones. They see as much of the countryside in their basements. Besides, a lot of travel options remain open. Our geography is every bit as dramatic from a train. Better yet, on a train it's a lot easier to get your kids to come out of their multimedia shells and look at something without risking a major accident.
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Earth Hour: Little More than a Message

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:42:38 -0500

Earth Hour has come and gone. Overall it was pretty successful: the statistic I heard was that electricity consumption in Ontario was down by 8%.

What does that mean? From a pragmatic viewpoint, not a hell of a lot. From a political viewpoint, it's pretty significant. I don't have the numbers that project the percentage of the population that participated, based on an 8% reduction, but I'll guess it's somewhere between 15% and 25%.

That's a lot of people sending a message. At this point it seems the big environmental problem is politicians. Most individuals get it, most corporations get it, but the politicians, who can actually manage the process of real change, just aren't there yet.

Maybe having as many as one in four voters demonstrate their commitment to change through Earth Hour will be enough to wake them up. I'm not holding my breath though.
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I'm Boycotting the Olympics

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:00:47 -0500

There was a time when the events unfolding in Tibet would have caused rapid worldwide outrage, followed shortly by a flood of withdrawals from the Olympics.

But that was when China was of little economic importance.

I am dismayed at how flexible our collective principles are when it comes to the economy. It seems that the only time when a political leader has to be concerned about minor trifles — say for example, killing off a few tens of thousands of people from that pesky tribe next door — is when they're not either producing oil or keeping those same tribe members working 16 hour days to make cheap clothing.

So it is with China. Most of the West is enjoying a great standard of living(*) thanks to China. Their leaders know this well. They may even be rubbing it in our faces. Or maybe they're just rubbing the 1938 games in our faces and laughing.

Are we going to actually support the principles of Human Rights and take a stand? What, and pay more for consumer goods as a result? In the pocketbook versus principles battle, it looks like pocketbook wins, no contest.

If politicians are unwilling or unable to act, it's up to the people. A small step though it may be, I'm opting out of the Olympics this year. This summer I'll be watching something else.

There's also a few companies who have lost my business: Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson&Johnson, Lenovo Group, McDonalds, UPS, Panasonic, Swatch, Samsung... at this point, the Olympic logo on any product is an icon for "don't buy me".

Last but not least, there's a Facebook group that expresses similar sentiments. I don't agree with everything they say, but they're close enough and are the largest of a handful of similar groups. Join them and be counted.

* I mean this in the "wow, this is inexpensive" sense, not in the formal economic sense.

Stephen Harper Crosses Floor to Join Liberals

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:56:19 -0600

OTTAWA -- In a bold and unprecedented move, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party.
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Making the Best of Afghanistan

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 23:48:25 -0500

Canada has a significant proportion of it's military involved in a combat and reconstruction role in Afghanistan. In principle, the mission is a good one: get rid of what's left of the Taliban; help rebuild the damage done by war; establish a stable political system that allows the country to become self-sufficient.

Everything sounds pretty good except for that last part. Try holding a gun to someone's head and saying "right, form a stable civil state or I'll shoot." It's not going to work.

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Things You Can Learn from a Survey

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Sun, 14 May 2006 22:40:00 -0500

I just fielded a call from Ipsos-Reid, a large and reputable polling firm. The subject was Canada's "diplomatic and development" role in Afghanistan. The sponsor of the survey was the Federal Government. It began by asking what aspects of the media's coverage I was aware of. Then it went on to ask about how I felt about the role, conveniently ignoring anything to do with the military's current combat operations. Then it asked if I agreed or disagreed with various aspects of our non-military activities. After going through all of these items, it asked again how I felt about the overall role (still restricted to diplomacy and development, of course).

The repetition of the question is fascinating. You expect that really what's being measured here is this question: "If we keep telling Canadians about all the good things, will they change their opinion to support the mission, conveniently ignoring the occasional body bag (which we'll hide by blocking the media from showing them)?"

But that's not the reason for this entry...
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Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a Waste of Time

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:23:00 -0600

I read a blog post today by Simon Phipps (DRM and the Death of a Culture) which was a well reasoned complaint about the constraints that DRM can place on use of content. Yet no matter how well reasoned, nor argued from which position, these arguments on DRM don't matter. They don't matter because DRM will never work on static content. This is so basic, so obvious that I'm not sure why anyone ever thought it would. In fact, let's make it more general: all copy protection technologies, past, present, and future do not and will not prevent copying of non-interactive media. In fact they're a colossal waste of time, effort, and money that only serve to inconvenience legitimate users (and as Phipps points out, kill culture).

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Terrorism as Economic Warfare

nospam@example.com (Alan Langford) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:20:00 -0600

I did a quick search for the title of this post and mostly found references to "asymmetric warfare", meaning warfare where there's a large difference between each side's military capability or methods of engagement. It's a term frequently used to refer to terrorism. Then there's economic warfare, which can be part of a military effort or completely non-military in nature.

It's interesting to note that Osama Bin Laden's version of terrorism makes for some pretty fine economic warfare in and of itself. One wonders what Bin Laden's total investment has been in his adventures to date. Probably nothing over a few hundred million dollars or so, including labour, materials, equipment, etc.

But what has the rest of the world invested in fighting him? The U.S. tab is probably well over a hundred billion dollars. Add the efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus in investments by other "coalition partners" like the U.K. and it's not unreasonable to double that.

So that's a thousand to one return on investment, conservatively. Worse yet, given a reasonably well established and autonomous organization, Bin Laden's cost of ongoing operations is a fraction of his investment to date. Yet the cost of overthrowing governments, replacing infrastructure, improving economic opportunities and installing a resilient democracy remain astronomical. Moreover one can be cerain that the U.S. has invested a mere fraction of its final cost in Iraq so far. What's that take the terrorist return on investment to? One to 100,000?

As far as I'm concerned the USSR collapsed under the economic weight of the cold war. With a far less efficient economy, it was only a matter of time before the West won. Now we find ourselves in a similar situation. All terrorists have to do is motivate the world's larger military powers to mobilize their resources a few times and then wait. We'll fall under the weight of being dramatically less economically efficient at the game. Asymmetrical economic warfare indeed.