More water issues in SA

(Semi) fresh on the heals of The Corral's coverage of an appeal to major water-using companies to fund "an extensive water monitoring project" in South Africa...

Concerns about SA Water quality:

Food retailer Woolworths says it is extremely concerned about the quality of the country’s water and the influence this has on food security. 

Noël van Zyl, buying manager at Interfruit, which supplies Woolworths with fresh produce, said on Friday it has become clear over the past 18 months that the country’s water quality is declining drastically.  

“We recently discovered traces of Escherichia coli on fresh produce,” he said.  

[snip] 

Thomas du Toit, representative of the non-governmental organisation Save the Vaal (Save), said government should be “shocked” to its senses, since they are the custodians of the country’s water resources and they are allowing the water quality to deteriorate at this rate.

Van Zyl said Woolworths doesn’t want empty shelves, but if the country’s water quality continues to deteriorate, this will be everyone’s fate.

[For our overseas readers, Woolworths is basically the direct equivalent of Marks and Spencer in the UK (not it's all-but-liquidated namesake). In other words, it is a high-end retailer selling premium food goods and apparel items.]

I swear, this whole South Africa water thing is starting to feel like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I'll avoid repeating myself, so you can have a wonder over to my previous posts to view some modest (brief) suggestions that I make on this issue. 

Beyond that, I'm strangely heartened that the article makes mention (further on) about the link between carbon, climate and water quality. My own research is currently given over to studying aspects of the water-energy nexus, which seems to me a much-ignored area. More on that later, but here's a nice little summary in the meantime.

Quote of the day - Fish

Speaking of life in the oceans...

"Sharks are just evil bastards. I'm quite happy if all the sharks just went because they eat fish and us. And we need the fish."

- Eddie Izzard

Izzard is a genius... quite possibly my favourite comedian. The above line is taken from his performance at the 2006 Secret Policeman's Ball (the fundraising event for Amnesty International)... I'd highly recommend his 2008 appearance as well if you haven't seen it. (Some NSFW language.)

The APS and others respond to the Harold Lewis resignation letter

As reported last week, a physicist by the name of Hal Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society, citing his belief that the APS has been irrevocably corrupted by the politics and money of the global warming question. I left an update at the bottom of that post, linking to a response by Joe Romm of Climate Progress.

Since then, the APS has issued its own response. 

My evaluation of this particular statement: meh.

While it's fine to say things like "The APS totally rejects Dr Lewis' assertion(s)"..., "rigorous academic standards"..., blah blah blah... I mean, come on, grow some balls. If you're fighting for hearts and minds, then you're going to have to better than that. I don't see much in the way that will persuade those who are suddenly unsure about climate change, or potentially leaning the other way. If Lewis' version of certain events at the APS is ridiculous then don't be scared of saying so and - better still - providing the neutral observer with evidence that directly refutes him.

Thankfully, some of the responses coming in from actual members of the APS is reassuringly less tepid. For instance Arthur Smith:

In any case, one outcome of the discussion last year was a plan to develop a new topical group on "the Physics of Climate", something I heartily endorse. Lewis seems to dispute the account given in the APS News article just linked, in particular referring to the organizing committee formed by the APS as "secret and stacked" to form "your own" topical group. If Lewis wasn't planning for the new topical group to be an APS topical group, what did he think he was doing? Lewis wasn't even the person who sent out the petition he talks about in his letter, it was Roger Cohen (not mentioned once in Lewis' letter - why?). Lewis's claims also seem a little odd given that the person selected by APS to head up the organizing committee, Nobel laureate Jerome Friedman of MIT, was one of the signatories on Cohen's petition for the new group. Did Lewis want to try to form a "climate skeptics only, nobody else invited" group somehow with APS sanction? 

[snip] 

Lewis talks about "trillions of dollars". Going to scientists? That seems rather unlikely. The vast majority of the (billions) spent on climate research go to two places: satellite manufacture, launch and operations, and supercomputer centers for doing climate model calculations. The average climate scientist is paid no more than the average American, about $50,000/year, and many work for hardly more than minimum wage, some spending long hours and even putting their lives at risk for their work. This money is the source of corruption? Lewis has absolutely no basis for his claim.

Money is (or was until recently) certainly an attraction to young physicists: Wall Street money. If there is anything that has made the present generation of physicists perhaps slightly less brilliant than their predecessors, it's the siren song from global finance. Several of the brightest graduate students in my class went off to "quant" positions and made roughly ten times more money than the "average scientist" over the past couple of decades. Large quantities of money can certainly be corrupting - but the money doesn't come to the scientists doing science. Some scientists leave science to go where the money is, but they don't send any back.

But somehow, Lewis claims this "money flood" is corrupting universities and non-profit professional societies like APS. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some research areas affected by large sums of money flowing in - medical and pharmaceutical research, perhaps, or defense industry research. I myself have long found Eisenhower's speech on the military-industrial complex a compelling call to action. But Lewis thinks this has something to do with climate research, to the extent that it corrupts a professional society that doesn't even include very many actual climate researchers? That seems a real stretch... Where are his numbers? He has none, no proof of his speculations at all.

Reading this, should I have baulked at the monetary figures Lewis put forward? Well, probably. Certainly, the climate researchers I know aren't exactly living the "high life". It also wouldn't be the first time that sceptics have grossly overstated the money flows accruing to climate change researchers.

Having said  that, I do worry that important non-climate-related research is being sidelined by this overwhelming debate on AGW. Clearly, there are some very important scientific and environmental questions unrelated to climate change that deserve research funding as well. Moreover, its really frustrating to see people trying to lump everything under the climate umbrella or ascribe strong climate causation when there isn't any. (In this light, a close friend of mine has been doing interesting research related to the myopic political contextualisation of "climate refugees".) Of course, all this doesn't detract from the fact that climate change impacts seem likely to dwarf our other environmental concerns and, indeed, most likely exacerbate them. 

Returning to Smith's post, I'm glad to see that he also picks up on Lewis's curious fixation with the word "incontrovertible" in the APS statement. This is something I discussed in my previous post. (i.e. That the earth has been warming for many years is hardly controversial... What remains is pinpointing the underlying drivers.)

Other responses to the Lewis resignation letter have similarly focused on the inaccuracy of his money claims, as well as his reliance on a rather flawed book by A.W. Montford. Eli Rabett is another APS member who has previous beef with Lewis and is weighing in on this matter.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: It’s better to provide solid evidence if you’re going to make strong claims. You can dress up the science and politics of climate change however you want, but some people already know where they stand.

Paul Collier talk on "The Plundered Planet"

I went to a talk last night by Paul Collier. For those of you who don't know, Collier is a big cheese in the development studies world, probably best known for his acclaimed 2007 book, "The Bottom Billion". (I'm fairly embarrassed to say that I actually haven't read it yet. It's been on my bookshelf for a while, but the GF has beaten me to it and is currently finishing it up before I get my chance.) 

Anyway, Collier was in town promoting his new book, "The Plundered Planet", of which I have just bought a copy. To quote the book jacket: he ambitiously aims to "reconcile the immediate needs of the world's burgeoning population with a sustainable environmental future".

Collier is a very good speaker and much of what he said last night made eminent sense. For example, he talked about the pitfalls of poor -- but resource rich -- countries trying to strictly emulate the Norwegian model for managing a sovereign wealth fund. In particular, these nations should almost certainly focus on significant capital development in their own countries rather than investing in equities around the world as Norway has done. (The latter makes sense for Norway since it already has an incredibly high level of in-country per capita investment.) 

He also dismissed the curious notion that developing nations should preserve their natural environment based on the (ethical?) preferences of people in rich countries. [Tip: If you really don't want someone in a poor country to develop a wetland, rainforest, etc... Pay them not to.] Along these lines, Collier made the interesting observation that China's strategy in Africa -- resource extraction in return for infrastructure -- is effectively a monopoly. In other words, if you're an African country in the business to sell your resources in exchange for infrastructure development (without too many strings attached), then China is pretty much the only option available to you.

Now, international agencies such the IMF and World Bank have typically shunned Chinese-style, "resources-for-infrastructure" deals as opaque. Instead, they prefer a more conventional "resources-for-cash" exchange, whereby local governments would build their own infrastructure using money/FDI paid into their treasuries. However, there are many reasons to believe that the Chinese model may be far more attractive to a prudent finance minister of a developing nation. Certainly, he or she might fret over how large a share of the money pie the presidency will ultimately allocate to infrastructure at the end of the day (versus other areas such as military or governmental salaries). By doing business the Chinese way, the finance minister can at least rest assured knowing that badly-needed roads, bridges, etc are going to be built. Thus, if more OECD governments had been prepared to imitate some elements of the Chinese model instead of just criticising it, competition would likely have yielded better environmental and infrastructure outcomes for developing countries than the current situation where China operates alone.

Having said the above, some of Collier's arguments not make sense to me. After providing a nice description of the concept of resource rent, he went on to apply a few insights to the case of transnational resources - in this case, fish. He argued that overfishing is in large part down to the fact that economic rents are not being captured/taxed by any regulatory bodies; that abnormal profits are accruing straight to fisherman which encourages them to overfish. Now, I'm not particularly sure about the direct causation he offers... I think it's just that there are too many people fishing (because of a lack of property rights in the world's oceans), rather than it being a matter of easy profitability. I also wasn't convinced by his proposed solution as he seemed to be arguing for a regulatory system on international fisheries, whereby taxes would be paid to the UN in order to fund the World Food Programme. While admirable its idealism, this scenario strikes me as highly unlikely.

Still, I guess I better read the book before commentating further. It's a few back in the queue right now, but I've certainly heard enough to pique my interest...

Maths and Economics - The Interlude

Those of you paying attention may have noticed that I yet to deliver on my promise to provide a second economic-maths example. Apologies for the delay, but I've had a workload from hell this passed week. Honestly, I'll try and get around to it during the next few days when the storm clears. (The good news is that I at least know what I am going to post about...) 

Anyway, I'd thought I'd share a little statistic in the interim:

As of the present moment, my original post on why we need maths in economics has been viewed more than five times as much as the follow-up oil-tank model.

I found this pretty interesting. The first post was meant to act as a general defence of the subject. However, realising that general defences can be a bit vague I was motivated to offer specific examples to illustrat my points. I really thought that this was where the "value" would lie, since readers would be able to see the actual mechanics at work. Not the case apparently...

Perhaps the calculus in the “oil-tank” example put a few people off. Fair enough, I don't expect everyone to care for going through the maths... But I at least expected them to look over the post and skim to the model's conclusions. However, the click-through rates* indicate that even this hasn't been happening. Rather, it seems that people simply aren't as interested in a specific example of maths being useful to shed light on an economic problem, as they are in having a general discussion about it. In their own little way, these posts offer some insight into behavioural attitudes towards maths in economics – a sort of informal experiment if you will, which shows people leaning towards what I would regard as an important, but less precise approach.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: It's easy to take a position on things without getting to specifics. Providing concrete examples to back-up or demonstrate your point can be harder, but at least you give people something to work with. However, whether everyone will be interested in the evidence at hand is still open to question.** 

---

* Clearly, Stickman's Corral isn't competing with any blogs worth mentioning in terms of numbers. Still, I think that my first maths post in particular has drawn a pretty respectable audience for a lowly grad student blogging in a sea of anonymity :)

** For the dramatic version of what I’m talking about, we have some classic Hollywood.

Passage of the day - Of Columbus, Conquistadors and Cruelty

So I'm a few days late, but Monday was Columbus Day for our friends over States' side. I know this because Aguanomics mentioned it at the time, offering the following aphorism:

The Europeans brought technology and used resources for population growth. The locals would have preferred to use the technology for themselves, but they didn't have the guns.

Anyway, the above reminded me of a great passage I read a while ago in David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations:

The scarcity of gold was a disappointment, but [Columbus] made the best of things and assured that these islands could be an abundant source of slaves[...] Caribbean history after the coming of the white man was in large part the replacement of people by cattle, followed by a repeopling with black slaves to work the sugar plantations. 

The process of depopulation was hastened by massacre, barbarous cruelty, deep despair. The natives committed suicide , abstained from sex, aborted their fetuses, killed their babies. They also fell by the tens and hundreds and thousands to Old World pathogens (smallpox, influenza). The Spanish debated whether the savages they encountered had a soul and were human; but the record makes clear where the savagery lay. When Columbus met his first Indians, he could not get over their friendliness; to this the Spaniards, frustrated for gold, returned bestialities unworthy of beasts. (p. 71)

You can read the whole chapter here. (The most graphic bit actually follows directly from the quoted section. Among other acts of savagery, there is a particularly gruesome sentence involving the treatment of pregnant women...)

On the subject of brutal Spanish incursions into the Americas, it would be rude not to include the following Neil Young classic:

Young does, of course, rather play down the violence that was endemic in some parts of South America prior to the Europeans arriving. Landes actually has a very good line on this issue in a later chapter when discussing a question posed by another eminent scholar, Jared Diamond: Why did the Incas behave so naively (stupidly?) in their dealings with the Spanish, when the latter were so consistently treacherous? Diamond suggested that it was a matter of innocence: The Spanish were well versed in the devious history of man and empires, while the Incas had "no personal experience of any other invaders from overseas... had not even heard (or read) of similar threats to anyone else, anywhere else, anytime previously in history". However, having listed some of the stark cruelties which had characterised the pre-European Inca Empire, Landes reasonably counters: "But the Incas should have known themselves." (p. 108)

PS - If you're into covers... well, I am. The Dave Matthews Band and Warren Hayes do a very respectable version of "Cortez the Killer" live in Central Park here.

Climate Change - Two steps forward, two steps back

Sigh.

After the "No Pressure" video debacle[*], you would think that this week had run out of shite hands to deal the proponents of the AGW theory. However, a scathing letter of resignation by one Harold Lewis from the American Physical Society (APS) is giving climate skeptics a shot of vigour they haven't enjoyed since Climategate fizzled out. A skeptic friend passes on this article in the UK Telegraph, which cites the letter in full and includes the money quote:

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.

Predictably, the excitable Anthony Watts has seized upon it like a fresh cream bagel, while other sceptics are similarly crowing their we-knew-it-all-along! tune. The problem is, while we can easily dismiss the vast majority of the denialist claims (and their preachers) out of hand, I don't think we can or should do so here. Letters like these pose far more troubling questions for us than the usual band of talk-show radio jocks and TV weathermen. Of course, having an actual reputable scientist make such claims is a good place to begin. (Don't get me started.)

The Nobel Prize Winners in Economics for 2010

And, yes, I know that it's not *really* the correct thing to call it:

Straight from the horse's mouth:

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2010 was awarded jointly to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides "for their analysis of markets with search frictions".

Congratulations to all three winners. I have to confess that I am not too familiar with their bodies of work, as I'm not not really into labour issues and unemployment. However, I did some search theory stuff back in my bachelors, and then - strangely enough - more recently in the applied case of marriage. Vierd. You never know where these things will pop up. Perhaps this, along with my recent discussions on the use of maths in economics, is signal to download some papers...

Then again, who has the time?! Better stick to the summaries for the moment. Speaking of which, Paul Krugman weighs in with praise here, while over at Marginal Revolution Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen offer their own admiration here and here. [Update: Well, one person certainly not interested in bestowing unfettered praise on our new laureates is, unsurprisingly, Bill Mitchell. I'm not completely familiar with all the Modern Money Theory (MMT) stuff, but have read some of Mitchell's work before. Not always easy as he must honestly compose the longest posts in the blogosphere.]

Back to the award, it's a good thing thing that I'm not much of a betting man, as my money would have been on Ernst Fehr (or Richard Thaler and Robert Shiller) for their work in behavioural economics (and finance). I also heard rumours about Martin Weitzman and William Nordhaus being in the running, which is great from my perspective as an environmental/resource guy. (I think Weitzman, in particular, continues to produce brilliant research.) However, perhaps their respective fields of behavioural and environmental economics were a step too close to the institutional/governance field of last year's winners, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson.

And, let's be honest, unemployment (structural or otherwise) is the key topic of the moment.

In honour of my Austrian visitors

So it seems that my "Why we need maths in economics" post was picked up by someone in the Mises.org community... Who, in turn, may have first read about it on Daniel Kuehn's blog. Judging by my stats page, these links appear to have been largely responsible for pushing my audience figures into triple figures for the first time. To continue with joke that I made on Daniel's site: In blogging terms, I feel like I've just made it to third base.

Anyway, I certainly appreciate the interest and any comments. Since I am aware that many Austrians feel a return to the gold standard is ultimately necessary to ensure economic stability and prevent government debasement of money*, I offer the following video a token of good will:

If this all seems a rather convoluted segue to get to a song... Yes, the answer may simply be that I was looking for an excuse to put up something that takes me back to my 90s music roots. Better not to think about it too much though. Just enjoy the soundz.

* For the record, I think that the gold standard is plagued by a whole host of problems, but that remains another subject for another day.

Story of the day - Man gang-raped by three women

Africa. Where men are men.

And so, it seems, are certain women...

The following link was posted on my facebook profile by an Italian friend:

Man gang-raped by three women

Johannesburg - A 30-year-old man was off to play pool when three women asked him to direct them to a hotel and he claims they raped him in turn after they had had drinks.

[snip]

"On the way to the hotel, the driver suddenly changed direction and drove to an open piece of veld near the Durban Roodepoort Deep mine.

Kept gun on him all the time

"One of the women pulled out a gun and held up the man while the other two undressed.

"Then all three of them raped him in turn, with one of them keeping the gun pointed at him," said Nothnagel.

This elicited various comments about the proclivities of South African women and my personal motivations for studying abroad. My response (which will not endear me to counselling centres around the world) was: "Hey, the only men I've heard about being raped in SA were the Italian football team back in June... Seriously though, I'm not even sure how this would 'work'?"

To which a Norwegian (female) friend responded: "Raped? Really? At gunpoint!... Scared stiff?" 

Harsh.

But fair.

(Again, more chirp of the day, but I don't see the point in creating a new label just yet...)