Can you claim to be on the right side of history?

On several major issues, we all need to decide where we stand. We can obfuscate and waffle and use distractions and other tricks to avoid discussing them and perhaps having an argument, or losing friends if we make our position clear, but your conscience knows what you think, and whether you do anything about it or try to hide.

I’ve lost a lot of social media followers and quite a few former friends by repeatedly laying out my own opinions on controversial issues such as climate change, trans rights v women’s rights, antisemitism, capitalism v socialism, freedom of speech and what I often call the new dark age. I don’t have any grandchildren yet but hope one day I will, and if any of them ask me what I thought and said and did when big decisions were being made around now, I will either be proudly able to say I was on the right side of history, or – and we all must accept this is always a possibility – that I got it wrong, that I believed and said and did the wrong things.

We all live in different information environments. We have different friends, different educations, different personalities, and consume different media. Some of it is not our fault, some of it is results of personal choices. You can’t excuse yourself for not being aware of something if you choose to only ever read media that ignores that issue or always puts heavy spin on it. That’s your free choice (though it is certainly getting harder to find media without bias).

Elections are a time where such personal choices come to the fore.  Us Brits have to vote this week, my yank followers are deep in the very long run up to theirs. In both cases, the decisions are more about big moral issues and will have deeper consequences than most previous elections. Our choice counts, not just for this election, but for our future consciences, for the notional personal account we could give our descendants in the world we have helped architect (or opposed).

It’s not for me to tell you how to vote – it’s your decision and your conscience you’ll have to live with years down the line. My blogs and tweets lay out my own positions on the important issues frequently and my regular readers will know them. But this is my blog, so I’m happy to lay them out briefly again. Maybe it will help think more about your own positions.

Antisemitism: I don’t know if I know any Jews (I don’t know anyone who has told me they are), but I do know that antisemitism is wrong. The Holocaust was only possible because many people stood by and let it. I will not be one of them now. If anyone votes for an antisemitic party, they are complicit in antisemitism. If Jews feel they have to leave the UK because an antisemitic party gains power, that will be shameful for the UK, and anyone who helps them gain power should feel deeply ashamed. It has become very clear that Labour is currently an antisemitic party. I have voted for them several times before, but I will certainly never vote for them again while they are antisemitic.

Capitalism v socialism: Capitalism works. Socialism doesn’t. A socialist government would make it much more difficult for people to lead comfortable lives, including the poorest in our society, and would leave massive debts crippling our children and grandchildren. I don’t want that on my conscience.

Climate change: we have seen some warming in the last few decades. Some of that is likely caused by nature – mainly ocean and solar cycles, but some of it, an unknown amount, is probably caused by humans. CO2 emissions of course but also deforestation, pollution, industry, farming, and all of our personal lifestyle choices. I believe we should not be complacent about any of these, and should work towards a cleaner environment and better stewardship, including developing better forms of clean energy. However, although I want a cleaner world with better environmental stewardship, I most certainly do not agree we are in a ‘climate emergency’, that we are all doomed if we don’t dramatically change our way of life immediately. I believe much of the information we are presented with has been distorted and exaggerated, that the climate models predict too high levels for future warming, and that deeply reduces solar activity likely to last until around 2050 will provide a cooling effect that at least offsets warming, and perhaps even results in net cooling. Consequently, nature has effectively give us a few decades to carry on developing solar and fusion energy technology, that we can invest gradually as free markets incentivise development and reduce the costs, and that we do not need to spend massively right now, because the problem will essentially go away. By 2050, CO2 output will be a lot less than today, the real warming we see by then will be much smaller than is often predicted in the media and there is therefore no real reason to jeopardise our economies by massively overspending on CO2 reduction while the associated costs and lifestyle impacts are so high. Massively spending on scales wanted by XR, the Green party etc, would cause huge harm to our kids’ futures with no significant benefit. If we want to spend huge sums of money, we have a duty to aim for the biggest benefit and there are plenty of real problems such as poverty and disease that could use those funds better. Waste trillions on pointless virtue signalling, or make the world a better place? I know where I stand. None of my local candidates come out well here.

Trans rights v women’s rights: I support trans rights to a point, but we are quickly passing that point, and now eroding women’s rights. Women have had to fight long and hard to get where they are today. In my view, women being forced to accept former men competing with them in sports (or indeed in any field where biological men have an advantage) is unfair to biological women. Having to share changing rooms and lavatories with people who still have male genitalia is unfair to biological women. Deliberate conflation of sex and gender as a means to influencing debate or regulation is wrong. Encouraging young children to change gender and schools preventing parents from even knowing is going too far. Given the potential life consequences, great care should be exercised before gender change is considered and it seems that care is not always present. Making it illegal to discuss these issues is certainly going too far. If someone feels they are in the wrong body and wants hormone treatment or surgery, or if they want to cross-dress or call themselves by a different gender, I don’t object at all, and I’d even defend their right to do so, provided that doing so doesn’t undermine someone else’s rights. Women are a vulnerable group because of physical and historic disadvantages compared to men, and in conflict between trans rights and women’s rights, I think women’s rights should take priority. Good luck with finding a party that agrees.

Freedom of speech and the new dark age: I believe people should be able to say what they want and others should be able to challenge them. I believe in a few sensible restrictions – e.g shouting “FIRE” in a crowded cinema, or deliberate incitement to violence. I disagree with the concepts of hate speech and hate crime, invariably used to close down debate that is essential for a free and cohesive society. Making the law into a tool to restrict freedom of speech (and thought) has already resulted in harm, and has created a large and rapidly growing class of ‘truths’ that everyone must give lip service to even if they believe them to be wrong. They must also lie and state that they believe them if challenged or face punishment, by the law or social media mob. This is simply anti-knowledge. It inhibits genuine progress and the development of genuine knowledge and it therefore inhibits quality of life. Even naming such anti-knowledge is punishable, and it has already caused a high degree of self-censorship in journalism and blogging, so you must use your own judgement on what it includes. My censored thoughts on the new dark age are here: https://timeguide.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/the-new-dark-age.pdf. Again, most parties seem very happy to take us further into the dark age.

I could have picked many other policies and issues. Every reader has their own priorities. These are just some in my mind today.

I don’t think any of the parties come out well today. For many people, spoiling their vote is a valid alternative that officially says they’re not prepared to support any of those on offer on the ballot paper. Others will vote for who they see as the lesser of evils. Others will happily support a candidate and turn a blind eye to their associated moral issues.

Your conscience, your choice, your future memory of where you stood. Choose well.

 

Futurizon carbon emissions: approx zero

It seems to be very fashionable to do carbon audits, so even though I am heavily skeptical of anything related to ‘climate emergency’ and especially wary of anything ‘green’, unlike most ‘green’ organisations and individuals, Futurizon is actually highly environmentally responsible instead of just pretending to be, so I spent a few seconds calculating Futurizon’s:

Travel: Phone, email or Skype encouraged and used wherever possible for client meetings and consultancy. Otherwise, all public transport. 100% of trips are billed to clients, and all trip-related carbon emissions are equivalently clients’ responsibility.

Training, sales, management and other activity-related travel: zero

Waste: minimal paper use (~10 sheets per week) and all is recycled.

Approx 2 printer cartridges per year, recycled.

0.25 computers per year, re-used or recycled

Lighting: approx 98W for 10 hours per day = 0.98kWh/day. All contracted as nuclear or renewables

Computing & comms: total 150W, 10 hours per day, 1.5kWh per day

Heating: all offices are at home so no extra energy for heating

Total footprint is virtually zero, about 2.5kWh per day of energy, sourced from nuclear or renewables, and almost no waste that isn’t recycled. No additional heating or water requirements compared to not working.

Futurizon behaves environmentally responsibly, instead of just rabbiting on about it.

 

 

Proposed Kent solar farm is green lunacy

Solar farms should be placed in desert regions that have low value for growing food, and relatively low value to nature. There are plans to install a massive solar farm in nice green Kent, where it is occasionally a little bit sunny. That strikes me as lunacy, and even some green groups agree and are campaigning against it.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/proposal-for-solar-farm-site-increases-to-1-000-acres-184240/

The project is apparently being led by Hive Energy and Wirsol. I have been in contact with Tesla, who say “Tesla is not in conversations with any parties with regards to this project”.

Land is limited and we must use it sensibly

Nature often takes a battering when money is available, but a rich country should protect nature and ensure that some appropriate spaces are set aside. It is right to resist attempts to reassign such land to other purposes, especially when there area obvious alternatives. In this case, the land in question is mainly natural habitat, but other green areas are used for food production.

World population is growing, with another 3 billion mouths to feed mid-century. Agricultural technology will improve output per hectare and food trends may reduce the amount of meat consumption, but we should be able to feed everyone just fine even with 10 or 11 Billion people, but it will require good land stewardship. Prime agricultural land should be used mainly to grow crops. Some will be needed for buildings and roads of course, and we will want to have extensive nature reserves too. When we can produce more food than people need, we can return land to nature, but we should certainly not waste it by using it for solar farms when there are far better places to put them.

Using agricultural land for solar farms increases food costs by reducing food supply, hurting the world’s poorest people. This is also true of using land to grow biofuels, essentially an extraordinarily inefficient form of indirect solar power.

Secondly, the main current argument for solar power is to save CO2 emissions. If you read my blogs regularly, you’ll know I think that claims of human-related CO2-induced global warming catastrophe are greatly exaggerated, but there is some effect so we should not be complacent, and we do still need to be careful with emission levels. I’ve always been in favor of moving to solar and fusion as very long-term solutions. Fusion won’t be a big player until the 2040s. One day, solar will be cheaper than using shale gas, the most environmentally friendly fossil fuel solution with only half the CO2 output for a unit of energy compared to oil and coal, but that day is still far in the future. The more energy a panel can make, the more CO2 it saves. We only have one atmosphere, and a ton saved anywhere is a ton saved globally. It makes sense to put them in places where there is a lot of sun. Often that means deserts, which obviously have very little value for growing crops and support relatively low levels of life for the same reason. Putting a panel in a desert produces far more energy for far less environmental cost. A solar panel in the Sahara would make 5 times more energy than one in Kent, without reducing world food output at all. 

Furthermore, many desert areas are home to poor people, who might welcome extra income from housing and maintaining panels for a cut of the revenue they make. Dust and sand would make maintenance a regular issue, but providing decent income for regular work for people with few other options makes good economic sense. Doing so would also help subsidize other infrastructure badly needed that might also improve local quality of life in those areas.

Finally, by providing extra income to deprived areas of the world, geo-political tensions may reduce somewhat.

All in, it makes far more sense socially, economically, politically, and environmentally to provide solar power from desert areas than from prime agricultural land or natural habitat.

 

 

Trump’s still an idiot but he was right to dump Paris

Climate change has always been in play. It is in play now. Many scientists think that the rise in global temperatures towards the end of the 1990s was largely due to human factors, namely CO2 emissions. Some of it undoubtedly is, but almost certainly nowhere near as much as these scientists believe. Because they put far too much emphasis on CO2 as the driving factor, almost as a meta religion, they downplay or refuse to acknowledge other important factors, such as long term ocean cycles, solar cycles, and poorly model forests and soil-air interchange. Because they rely on this one-factor-fits-all explanation for climate changing, they struggle to explain ‘the pause’ whereby temperatures leveled off even as CO2 levels continued to rise, and can’t explain why post El-Nino temperatures have now returned to that pause level. In short, their ‘science’ is nothing more than a weak set of theories very poorly correlating with observations.

A good scientist, when confronted with real world observations that conflict with their theory throws that theory in the bin and comes up with a better one. When a scientist’s comfy and lucrative job depends on their theory being correct, their response may not be to try to do better science that risks their project ending, but to hide facts, adjust and distort them, misrepresent them in graphs, draw false conclusions from falsified data to try to keep their messages of doom and their models’ predictions sounding plausible. Sadly, that does seem to me and very many other scientists to be what has been happening in so-called climate science. Many high quality scientists in the field have been forced to leave it, and many have had their papers rejected and their reputations attacked. The few brave honest scientists left in the field must put up with constant name-calling by peers whose livelihoods are threatened by honesty. Group-think has become established to the point where anyone not preaching the authorized climate change religion must be subjected to the Spanish Inquisition. Natural self-selection of new recruits into the field from greens and environmentalists mean that new members of the field will almost all follow the holy book. It is ironic that the Pope is on the side of these climate alarmists. Climate ‘science’ is simply no longer worthy of the name. ‘Climate change’ is now a meta-religion, and its messages of imminent doom and desperate demands for urgent wealth redistribution have merged almost fully into the political left. The right rejects it, the left accepts it. That isn’t science, it’s just politics.

Those of us outside the field have a hard time finding good science. There are plenty of blogs on both sides making scientific sounding arguments and showing nice graphs, but it is impossible for a scientist or engineer to look at it over time and not notice a pattern. Over the last decades, ‘climate scientists’ have made apocalyptic predictions in rapid succession, none of which seem ever to actually happen. Almost all of their computer models have consistently greatly overestimated the warming we should have seen by now, we should by now rarely see snow, and there should be no ice left in the Arctic. Sea levels should be far higher than they are too. Arctic ice is slightly below average, much the same as a decade ago. Polar bears are more abundant than for several decades. A couple of years ago we had record ice in the antarctic. Sea level is still rising at about the same rate as it has for the last 100s of years. Greenland is building more ice mass than ever. Every time there is a strong wind we’re told about climate change, but we rarely see any mention of the fastest drop in temperatures on record after the recent El-Nino, the great polar bear recovery or the record Antarctic ice when that happened. It is a one way street of doom that hides facts that don’t play to the hymn book.

In a private industry, at least in ones that aren’t making profits from climate change alarmism or renewable energy, like Elon Musk’s car, solar power and battery companies for example (do you think that might be why he is upset with Trump), scientists as bad as that would have lost their jobs many years ago. Most climate scientists work in state-funded institutions or universities and both tend towards left wing politics of course, so it is not surprising that they have left wing bias distorting their prejudices and consequently their theories and proposed solutions.

Grants are handed out by politicians, who want to look good and win votes, so are always keen to follow policies that are popular in the media. Very few politicians have any scientific understanding, so they are easily hoodwinked by simple manipulation of graphs whereby trends are always shown with the start point at the beginning of the last upwards incline, and where data is routinely changed to fit the message of doom. Few politicians can understand the science and few challenge why data has been changed or hidden. A strong community of religious followers is happy to eagerly and endlessly repeat fraudulent claims such as that “97% of scientists agree…”, mudslinging at anyone who disagrees.

Even if the doom was all true, Paris was still a very bad idea. Even if CO2 were as bad as claimed, the best response to that is to work out realistically how much CO2 is likely to be produced in the future, how fast alternative energy sources could become economic, which ones give the best value per CO2 unit until we get those economic replacements, and to formulate a sensible plan that maximizes bang per buck to ensure that the climate stays OK while spending at the right times to keep on track at the lowest cost. In my 2007 paper, I pointed out that CO2 will decline anyway once photo-voltaic solar becomes cheap enough, as it will even without any government action at all. I pointed out that it makes far more sense to save our pennies until it is cheaper and then get far more in place far faster, for the same spend, thereby still fixing the problem but at far lower costs. Instead, idiotic governments in Europe and especially the UK (and now today May vowing to continue such idiocy) have crippled households with massive subsidies to rich landowners to put renewable energy in place while it is still very expensive, with guarantees to those rich investors of high incomes for decades. The fiasco with subsidizing wood burning in Northern Ireland shows the enormous depths of government stupidity in these area, with some farmers making millions by wasting as much heat as they possibly could to maximize their subsidy incomes. That shows without any doubt the numerical and scientific public-sector illiteracy in play. Via other subsidies for wind, solar, wave and tidal systems, eEvery UK household will have to pay several hundreds of pounds more every year for energy, just so that a negligible impact on temperatures starts to occur neglibly earlier. Large numbers of UK jobs have already been lost to overseas from energy intensive industries. Those activities still occur, the CO2 is still produced, often with far lower environmental and employment standards. No Gain, lots of pain.

Enormous economic damage for almost zero benefit is not good government. A good leader would investigate the field until they could at least see there was still a lot of scientific debate about the facts and causes. A good leader would suspect the motivations of those manipulating data and showing misrepresentative graphs. A good leader would tell them to come back with unbiased data and unbiased graphs and honest theories or be dismissed. Trump has already taken the first step by calling a halt to the stupidity of ‘all pain for no gain’. He now needs to tackle NASA and NOAA and find a solution to get honest science reinstated in what were once credible and respected organisations. That honest science needs to follow up suggestions that because of solar activity reducing, we may in fact be heading into a prolonged period of cooling, as suggested by teams in Europe and Russia. At the very least, that might prevent the idiots currently planning to start geoengineering to reduce temperature to counteract catastrophic global warming, just as nature takes us into a cooling phase. Such mistimed stupidity could kick-start a new ice age. To remind you, climate scientists 45 years ago were warning that we were heading into an ice age and wanted to cover the arctic with black carbon to prevent runaway ice formation.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. So is methane. We certainly should keep a watch on emissions and study the climate constantly to check that everything is OK. But that must be done by good scientists practicing actual science, whereby theories are changed to fit the observations, not the other way around. We should welcome development of solar power and storage solutions by companies like Musk’s, but there is absolutely no hurry and no need to subsidize any of that activity. Free market economics will give us cheap renewable energy regardless of government intervention, regardless of subsidy.

We didn’t need Kyoto and we didn’t need Paris. Kyoto didn’t work anyway and Paris causes economic redistribution and a great deal of wastage of money and resources, but no significant climate benefit. We certainly don’t want any more pain for no gain. It is right that we should still help poor countries to the very best of our ability, but we should do that without conflating science with religion and politics.

Trump may still be an idiot, but he was right on this occasion and should now follow on by fixing climate science. May should follow and take the UK out of the climate alarmist damage zone too. Making people poor or jobless for no good reason is not something I can vote for.

Sky-lines – The Solar Powered Future of Air Travel

High altitude solar array to power IT and propel planes

A zero carbon air travel solution. Well, most of the bits would be made of carbon materials, but it wouldn’t emit any CO2.

The pic says it all. A linear solar farm suspended in the high atmosphere to provide an IT platform for sensors, comms and other functions often accomplished by low orbit satellite. It would float up there thanks to being fixed to a graphene foam base layer that can be made lighter than helium (my previous invention, see https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/could-graphene-foam-be-a-future-helium-substitute/ which has since been prototyped and proven to be extremely resilient to high pressures too). Ideally, it would go all the way around the world, in various inclinations at different altitudes to provide routes to many places. Carbon materials are also incredibly strong so the line can be made as strong as can reasonably be required.

The flotation layer also supports a hypersonic linear induction motor that could provide direct propulsion to a hypersonic glider or to electric fans on a powered plane. Obviously this could also provide a means of making extremely low earth orbit satellites that continuously circumnavigate the ring.

I know you’re asking already how the planes get up there. There are a few solutions. Tethers could come all the way to ground level to airports, and electric engines would be used to get to height where the plane would pick up a sled-link.

Alternatively, stronger links to the ground would allow planes to be pulled up by sleds, though this would likely be less feasible.

Power levels? Well, the engines on a Boeing 777 generate about 8.25MW. A high altitude solar cell, above clouds could generate 300W per square metre. So a 777 equivalent plane needs 55km of panels if the line is just one metre wide. That means planes need to be at least that distance apart, but since that equates to around a minute, that is no barrier at all.

If you still doubt this, the Hyperloop was just a crazy idea a century ago too.

Interesting times

The US Presidential election was a tough choice between an awful candidate and a terrible one, but that is hardly new, is it? There was no good outcome on offer, no Gandhi or Mandela to choose, but you know what, life will go on, it’s not the end of the world.

The nation that elected Reagan and W will survive and prosper, WW3 has been postponed, as has 1984, the environment will benefit, some rogue states are very pissed off, US cultural decay has been slowed and the UK has just jumped past the EU in trade negotiations. A great many downtrodden people suddenly feel they have some hope and a great many sanctimonious egos have been pricked. The MSM and social media hysteria will carry on for months, but actually, it could have been a bit worse. Hillary could have won.

I don’t like Trump, he seems to me to be another egotistical buffoon with a double digit IQ. It’s not great that he will be in charge, but it wouldn’t have been great if Clinton had won either – she was no angel or genius and the best she had to offer was continued stagnation, division, sanctimony and decline. Trump can’t be a dictator though, and there will be plenty of smart people around him who understand the world far better than him and will advise him, while both houses will act as a secure defense against the worst ideas getting through. On the other hand, with a Republican majority in both houses, he will be able to push through those policies that do hold water. So there will be changes, but only changes that appeal to enough elected representatives, so panic isn’t justified, even if shock and terror are understandable in the circumstances.

Let’s take a glass half full view of the new situation, while acknowledging that there are a few bits of cork in the wine too.

Many people that didn’t live on the coast have felt disenfranchised by government in the last terms. In some of the states in between, nearly two thirds of people voted for someone they feel finally gives them hope. hope is a powerful emotion, it can energize and reinvigorate people who have felt left out. Don’t underestimate the potential that brings for economic growth if harnessed well.

Sure, there are also those who have been terrified by media who have endlessly portrayed Trump as some sort of nouveau Hitler who will try to evict or oppress every black, Latino, Hispanic or Middle Eastern. He is very likely to try to limit future economic migration and to put more checks on who enters from jihadic regions, but it is plain silly to expect he would be able to go further than that even if he wanted to, and actually no evidence that he even wants to. Minorities will become far less scared as they discover that their lives will carry on much as before, and nobody tries to make them leave or lock them up. I doubt that any policies will actually target minorities negatively except to restrict immigration to those who bring more benefits than threats.

Russia is happy that he has won. That is a good thing. The cold war just became less cold, the Satan missiles will be stood down, the chance of a nuclear war just dropped significantly and all our life expectancies just increased. Russians will feel a lot less scared and Putin will be less of a problem. Don’t forget how the situation between Russia and the USA improved during Reagan’s term, one of the thickest people ever to be POTUS, but with the right kind of personality. Obama’s Nobel peace prize will be remembered as one of the biggest misjudgments in history. Hillary’s and Obama’s foreign policies have made the world a great deal more dangerous over the last eight years and Hillary would have made Russia even more edgy, the chance of extinction significant, Iran even more empowered, the refugee crisis even greater, and social stress due to migration amplified. In a choice of two evils, Trump’s version is by far the safer.

1984 has come a great deal closer to reality over the last eight years too. Politically correct sanctimony has taken the place of religion and a Spanish Inquisition has oppressed anyone who doesn’t acknowledge and worship the New Truth. I’ve written plenty on 1984 before and won’t repeat it all here, but consider how the mainstream media has handled this election, amplifying every Trump fault while whitewashing Clinton’s. Unbiased is not a word I could use of today’s MSM. one-sidedness and severe distortion of the truth would be much more appropriate descriptions. Trump made some very sexist remarks, but the media made far more of those than Bill’s actual use of the Oval Office. Hillary didn’t leave Bill over that, so how can she be quite so upset at a sexist remark by someone else? The stench of sanctimony has penetrated every area of the electoral campaign, and indeed every area of values debate in recent years. Is being sexist really as bad as being corrupt or putting personal gain ahead of national interests? Accusations of Clinton corruption and mishandling of highly classified information were invariably approached as if exposing them was a greater crime than the acts themselves. I never saw any proper exploration of these in the MSM away from right-wing outlets such as Breitbart. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and even Google have also been highly polluted by this sanctimony that distorts greatly the data and views people are exposed to, filtering articles and views that don’t comply with their value sets, creating bubbles of groupthink, amplifying tribal forces and increasing division, forcing thick wedges between left and right. The anger between the left and right tribes has become dangerous over the last terms. Hillary might have said she wants unity and that we’re stronger together, that it is Hillary love versus Trump hate, but the evidence points elsewhere, with those who didn’t agree with her apparently being odious intolerable racists, uneducated moronic bigots. A PC 1984 is already close and would have become rapidly closer in a Hillary term.

The social media backlash is already fierce, the anti-Trump protests will be many and often. Sanctimony is a very powerful emotion and it will not go away any time soon. Every policy decision will be met by self-righteous indignation. The split between the holy, progressive, evolved, civilized left and the deplorable, contemptible, ignorant, uneducated, bigoted, omniphobic, Neanderthal right will grow, but it would have grown too under Hillary. California is sanctimony HQ and has oft mentioned that it would like to consider independence again. That day just came closer. I’ve been of the half-baked view that a dual democracy would actually be a better idea,with people sharing the same geography under different governance, and that would be more likely to disperse inter-tribe conflict, but an independent California might get better support in the real world.

The environment will benefit now too. Hillary would have backed more of the same CO2 panic measures such as carbon offset schemes that damage the environment by draining peat bogs and felling forests to plant palm oil plantations, displacing powerless tribes to make space, converting food crops into biofuel and inflating food prices beyond the ability of the world’s poor to pay, planting wind turbines that kill birds and bats and cause bogs to dry out, actually increasing CO2 output. Very many ‘green’ ideas actually harm the environment and the poor. Very few actually work as intended. Without a doubt, the environment will be better off without the greens in control. Environmental science has been polluted so badly that it has severely damaged the reputation of science as a whole over the last few years. New York is not under water, the polar ice caps have not vanished yet, a billion people have not actually been forced from their homes by the sea. Much of the latest science suggests we may well be seeing a prolonged period of cooling from 2020 due to strong reduction in solar activity combined with long period ocean cycles. Severely damaging the economy, increasing prices and taxes and harming poor people disproportionately to solve a problem that actually isn’t anywhere near as bad as the alarmist have suggested, that has been postponed a few decades and will be made irrelevant after that by new technology emerging over those decades is really not a good idea, especially if those natural cycles make the opposite trend more of an issue during that period. Again, we’d be far better off without any of that anti-CO2 policy.

Iran is upset by the Trump victory. That’s good. Iran was becoming rather too enthusiastic about its newfound power in the region. It would be a far greater threat with the nukes it would make in coming years thanks to Obama and Clinton. Another route to WW3 may well just have started to close. Hamas will feel less enthusiastic too. Different policy in that whole unstable region is needed, ongoing stupidity is not. Preventing an influx of jihadists hiding in migrant flows seems a better strategy than inviting more in by reckless virtue signalling. Those in need can still be helped, refugee camps can still offer protection. American kids have more chance now to sleep safely in their beds rather than become victims of jihad. Cultural conflicts between Islamic migrants that refuse to integrate and Americans with Western values will obviously be lower if there are fewer migrants too.

Finally, the UK will benefit too. Instead of a President determined to make sure the UK ‘goes to the back of the queue’ in trade negotiations, we will have one who is more likely to treat the UK well than the EU. Trump recognizes the bond between the UK and the USA far better than Clinton.

So, it ain’t all bad. Sure, you’ve got a buffoon for President, but you’ve had that before and you survived just fine. We nearly got Boris as our PM, so we almost know how you feel. It could have been worse and really, with all your checks and balances, I don’t think it will be all that bad..

The glass is half full, with a few bits of cork.

2016 – The Bright Side

Having just blogged about some of the bad scenarios for next year (scenarios are just  explorations of things that might or could happen, not things that actually will, those are called predictions), Len Rosen’s comment stimulated me to balance it with a nicer look at next year. Some great things will happen, even ignoring the various product release announcements for new gadgets. Happiness lies deeper than the display size on a tablet. Here are some positive scenarios. They might not happen, but they might.

1 Middle East sorts itself out.

The new alliance formed by Saudi Arabia turns out to be a turning point. Rising Islamophobia caused by Islamist around the world has sharpened the view of ISIS and the trouble in Syria with its global consequences for Islam and even potentially for world peace. The understanding that it could get even worse, but that Western powers can’t fix trouble in Muslim lands due to fears of backlash, the whole of the Middle East starts to understand that they need to sort out their tribal and religious differences to achieve regional peace and for the benefit of Muslims everywhere. Proper discussions are arranged, and with the knowledge that a positive outcome must be achieved, success means a strong alliance of almost all regional powers, with ISIS and other extremist groups ostracized, then a common army organised to tackle and defeat them.

2 Quantum computation and AI starts to prove useful in new drug design

Google’s wealth and effort with its quantum computers and AI, coupled to IBM’s Watson, Facebook, Apple and Samsung’s AI efforts, and Elon Musk’s new investment in open-AI drive a positive feedback loop in computing. With massive returns on the horizon by making people’s lives easier, and with ever-present fears of Terminator in the background, the primary focus is to demonstrate what it could mean for mankind. Consequently, huge effort and investment is focused on creating new drugs to cure cancer, aids and find generic replacements for antibiotics. Any one of these would be a major success for humanity.

3 Major breakthrough in graphene production

Graphene is still the new wonder-material. We can’t make it in large quantities cheaply yet, but already the range of potential uses already proven for it is vast. If a breakthrough brings production cost down by an order of magnitude or two then many of those uses will be achievable. We will be able to deliver clean and safe water to everyone, we’ll have super-strong materials, ultra-fast electronics, active skin, better drug delivery systems, floating pods, super-capacitors that charge instantly as electric cars drive over a charging unit on the road surface, making batteries unnecessary. Even linear induction motor mats to replace self-driving cars with ultra-cheap driver-less pods. If the breakthrough is big enough, it could even start efforts towards a space elevator.

4 Drones

Tiny and cheap drones could help security forces to reduce crime dramatically. Ignoring for now possible abuse of surveillance, being able to track terrorists and criminals in 3D far better than today will make the risk of being caught far greater. Tiny pico-drones dropped over Syria and Iraq could pinpoint locations of fighters so that they can be targeted while protecting innocents. Environmental monitoring would also benefit if billions of drones can monitor ecosystems in great detail everywhere at the same time.

5 Active contact lens

Google has already prototyped a very primitive version of the active contact lens, but they have been barking up the wrong tree. If they dump the 1-LED-per-Pixel approach, which isn’t scalable, and opt for the far better approach of using three lasers and a micro-mirror, then they could build a working active contact lens with unlimited resolution. One in each eye, with an LCD layer overlaid, and you have a full 3D variably-transparent interface for augmented reality or virtual reality. Other displays such as smart watches become unnecessary since of course they can all be achieved virtually in an ultra-high res image. All the expense and environmental impact of other displays suddenly is replaced by a cheap high res display that has an environmental footprint approaching zero. Augmented reality takes off and the economy springs back to life.

6 Star Wars stimulates renewed innovation

Engineers can’t watch a film without making at least 3 new inventions. A lot of things on Star Wars are entirely feasible – I have invented and documented mechanisms to make both a light saber and the land speeder. Millions of engineers have invented some way of doing holographic characters. In a world that seems full of trouble, we are fortunate that some of the super-rich that we criticise for not paying as much taxes as we’d like are also extremely good engineers and have the cash to back up their visions with real progress. Natural competitiveness to make the biggest contribution to humanity will do the rest.

7 Europe fixes itself

The UK is picking the lock on the exit door, others are queuing behind. The ruling bureaucrats finally start to realize that they won’t get their dream of a United States of Europe in quite the way they hoped, that their existing dream is in danger of collapse due to a mismanaged migrant crisis, and consequently the UK renegotiation stimulates a major new treaty discussion, where all the countries agree what their people really want out of the European project, rather than just a select few. The result is a reset. A new more democratic European dream emerges that the vest majority of people actually wants. Agreement on progress to sort out the migrant crisis is a good test and after that, a stronger, better, more vibrant Europe starts to emerge from the ashes with a renewed vigor and rapidly recovering economy.

8 Africa rearranges boundaries to get tribal peace

Breakthrough in the Middle East ripples through North Africa resulting in the beginnings of stability in some countries. Realization that tribal conflicts won’t easily go away, and that peace brings prosperity, boundaries are renegotiated so that different people can live in and govern their own territories. Treaties agree fair access to resources independent of location.

9 The Sahara become Europe’s energy supply

With stable politics finally on the horizon, energy companies re-address the idea of using the Sahara as a solar farm. Local people earn money by looking after panels, keeping them clean and in working order, and receive welcome remuneration, bringing prosperity that was previously beyond them. Much of this money in turn is used to purify water, irrigating deserts and greening them, making a better food supply while improving the regional climate and fixing large quantities of CO2. Poverty starts to reduce as the environment improves. Much of this is replicated in Central and South America.

10 World Peace emerges

By fighting alongside in the Middle East and managing to avoid World War 3, a very positive relationship between Russia and the West emerges. China meanwhile, makes some of the energy breakthroughs needed to get solar efficiency and cost down below oil cost. This forces the Middle East to also look Westward for new markets and to add greater drive to their regional peace efforts to avoid otherwise inevitable collapse. Suddenly a world that was full of wars becomes one where all countries seem to be getting along just fine, all realizing that we only have this one world and one life and we’d better not ruin it.

2016: The Dark Side

Bloomberg reports the ‘Pessimists guide to the world in 2016’, by By Flavia Krause-Jackson, Mira Rojanasakul, and John Fraher.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/pessimists-guide-to-2016/

Excellent stuff. A healthy dose of realism to counter the spin and gloss and outright refusals to notice things that don’t fit the agenda that we so often expect from today’s media. Their entries deserve some comment, and I’ll add a few more. I’m good at pessimism.

Their first entry is oil reaching $100 a barrel as ISIS blows up oil fields. Certainly possible, though they also report the existing oil glut: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/shale-drillers-are-now-free-to-export-u-s-oil-into-global-glut

Just because the second option is the more likely does not invalidate the first as a possible scenario, so that entry is fine.

An EU referendum in June is their 2nd entry. Well, that will only happen if Cameron gets his way and the EU agrees sufficient change to make the referendum result more likely to end in a Yes. If there is any hint of a No, it will be postponed as far as possible to give politics time to turn the right way. Let’s face facts. When the Ukraine had their referendum, they completed the entire process within two weeks. If the Conservatives genuinely wanted a referendum on Europe, it would have happened years ago. The Conservatives make frequent promises to do the Conservative thing very loudly, and then quietly do the Labour thing and hope nobody notices. Osborne promised to cut the deficit but faced with the slightest objections from the media performed a text-book U-turn. That follow numerous U-turns on bin collections, speed cameras, wheel clamping, environment, surveillance, immigration, pensions, fixing the NHS…. I therefore think he will spin the EU talks as far as possible to pretend that tiny promises to think about the possibility of reviewing policies are the same as winning guarantees of major changes. Nevertheless, an ongoing immigration flood and assorted Islamist problems are increasing the No vote rapidly, so I think it far more likely that the referendum will be postponed.

The 3rd is banks being hit by a massive cyber attack. Very possible, even quite likely.

4th, EU crumbles under immigration fears. Very likely indeed. Schengen will be suspended soon and increasing Islamist violence will create increasing hostility to the migrant flow. Forcing countries to accept a proportion of the pain caused by Merkel’s naivety will increase strains between countries to breaking point. The British referendum on staying or leaving adds an escape route that will be very tempting for politicians who want to stay in power.

Their 5th is China’s economy failing and military rising. Again, quite feasible. Their economy has suffered a slowdown, and their military looks enthusiastically at Western decline under left-wing US and Europe leadership, strained by Middle Eastern and Russian tensions. There has never been a better time for their military to exploit weaknesses.

6 is Israel attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. Well, with the US and Europe rapidly turning antisemitic and already very anti-Israel, they have pretty much been left on their own, surrounded by countries that want them eliminated. If anything, I’m surprised they have been so patient.

7 Putin sidelines America. Is that not history?

8 Climate change heats up. My first significant disagreement. With El-Nino, it will be a warm year, but evidence is increasing that the overall trend for the next few decades will be cooling, due to various natural cycles. Man made warming has been greatly exaggerated and people are losing interest in predictions of catastrophe when they can see plainly that most of the alleged change is just alterations to data. Yes, next year will be warm, but thanks to far too many cries of wolf, apart from meta-religious warmists, few people still believe things will get anywhere near as bad as doom-mongers suggest. They will notice that the Paris agreement, if followed, would trash western economies and greatly increase their bills, even though it can’t make any significant change on global CO2 emissions. So, although there will be catastrophe prediction headlines next year making much of higher temperatures due to El Nino, the overall trend will be that people won’t be very interested any more.

9 Latin America’s lost decade. I have to confess I did expect great things from South America, and they haven’t materialized. It is clear evidence that a young vibrant population does not necessarily mean one full of ideas, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial endeavor. Time will tell, but I think they are right on this one.

Their 10th scenario is Trump winning the US presidency. I can’t put odds on it, but it certainly is possible, especially with Islamist violence increasing. He offers the simple choice of political correctness v security, and framed that way, he is certainly not guaranteed to win but he is in with a decent chance. A perfectly valid scenario.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with this list. As good as any I could have made. But I ought to add a couple.

My first and most likely offering is that a swarm of drones is used in a terrorist attack on a stadium or even a city center. Drones are a terrorist’s dream, and the lack of licensing has meant that people can acquire lots of them and they could be used simultaneously, launched from many locations and gathering together in the same place to launch the attack. The attack could be chemical, biological, explosive or even blinding lasers, but actually, the main weapon would be the panic that would result if even one or two of them do anything. Many could be hurt in the rush to escape.

My second is a successful massive cyber-attack on ordinary people and businesses. There are several forms of attack that could work and cause enormous problems. Encryption based attacks such as ransomware are already here, but if this is developed by the IT experts in ISIS and rogue regimes, the ransom might not be the goal. Simply destroying data or locking it up is quite enough to be a major terrorist goal. It could cause widespread economic harm if enough machines are infected before defenses catch up, and AI-based adaptation might make that take quite a while. The fact is that so far we have been very lucky.

The third is a major solar storm, which could knock out IT infrastructure, again with enormous economic damage. The Sun is entering a period of sunspot drought quite unprecedented since we started using IT. We don’t really know what will happen.

My fourth is a major virus causing millions of deaths. Megacities are such a problem waiting to happen. The virus could evolve naturally, or it could be engineered. It could spread far and wide before quarantines come into effect. This could happen any time, so next year is a valid possibility.

My fifth and final scenario is unlikely but possible, and that is the start of a Western civil war. I have blogged about it in https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/machiavelli-and-the-coming-great-western-war/ and suggested it is likely in the middle or second half of the century, but it could possibly start next year given the various stimulants we see rising today. It would affect Europe first and could spread to the USA.

Paris – Climate Change v Islamism. Which problem is biggest?

Imagine you are sitting peacefully at home watching a movie with your family. A few terrorists with guns burst in. They start shooting. What is your reaction?

Option A) you tell your family not to do anything but to continue watching TV, because reacting would be giving in to the terrorists – they want you to be angry and try to attack them, but you are the better person, you have the moral superiority and won’t stoop to their level. Anyway, attacking them might anger them more and they might be even more violent. You tell your family they should all stick together and show the terrorists they can’t win and can’t change your way of life by just carrying on as before. You watch as one by one, each of your kids is murdered, determined to occupy the moral high ground until they shoot you too.

Option B) you understand that what the terrorists want is for you and your family to be dead. So you grab whatever you can that might act as some sort of weapon and rush at the terrorists, trying to the end to disarm them and protect your family.  If you survive, you then do all you can to prevent other terrorists from coming into your home. Then you do all you can to identify where they are coming from and root them out.

The above choice is a little simplistic but it highlights the key points of the two streams of current opinion on the ‘right’ response.

Option B recognizes that you have to remain alive to defend your principles. Once you’ve dealt with the threat, then you are free to build as many ivory towers and moral pedestals as you want. Option A simply lets the terrorists win.

There is no third option for discussing it peacefully over a nice cup of tea, no option for peace and love and mutual respect for all. ISIS are not interested in peace and love. They are barbarians with the utmost contempt for civilization who want to destroy everything that doesn’t fit into their perverted interpretation of an Islamic world. However, ISIS is just one Islamist terror group of course and if we are successful in conquering them, and then Al Qaeda and Boko Haram, and so on, other Islamist groups will emerge. Islamism is the problem, ISIS is just the worst current group. We need to deal with it.

I’ll draw out some key points from my previous blogs. If you want more detail on the future of ISIS look at https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/the-future-of-isis/

The situation in Europe shows a few similarities with the IRA conflict, with the advantage today that we are still in the early stages of Islamist violence. In both cases, the terrorists themselves are mostly no-hoper young men with egos out of alignment with their personal reality. Yes there are a few women too. They desperately want to be respected, but with no education and no skills, a huge chip on their shoulder and a bad attitude, ordinary life offers them few opportunities. With both ISIS and the IRA, the terrorists are drawn from a community that considers itself disadvantaged. Add a hefty amount of indoctrination about how terribly unfair the world is, the promise of being a hero, going down in history as a martyr and the promise of 72 virgins to play with in the afterlife, and the offer to pick up a gun or a knife apparently seems attractive to some. The IRA recruited enough fighters even without the promise of the virgins.

The IRA had only about 300 front-line terrorists at any time, but they came from the nationalist community of which an estimated 30% of people declared some sympathy for them. Compare that with a BBC survey earlier this year that found that in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, only 68% of Muslims agreed with the statement “Acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet Mohammed can never be justified”. 68% and 70% are pretty close, so I’ll charitably accept that the 68% were being honest and not simply trying to disassociate themselves from the Paris massacre. The overwhelming majority of British Muslims rejecting violence – two thirds in the BBC survey, is entirely consistent with other surveys on Muslim attitudes around the world, and probably a reasonable figure for Muslims across Europe. Is the glass half full or half empty? Your call.

The good news is the low numbers that become actual front-line terrorists. Only 0.122% of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland at any particular time were front-line IRA terrorists. Now that ISIS are asking potential recruits not to go to Syria but to stay where they are and do their thing there, we should consider how many there might be. If we are lucky and the same 0.122% applies to our three million UK Muslims, then about 3600 are potential Islamist terrorists. That’s about 12 times bigger than the IRA problem if ISIS or other Islamist groups get their acts together. With 20 million Muslims in Europe, that would make for potentially 24,000 Islamist terrorists, or 81 IRAs to put it another way. Most can travel freely between countries.

What of immigration then? People genuinely fleeing violence presumably have lower support for it, but they are only a part of the current influx. Many are economic migrants and they probably conform more closely to the norm. We also know that some terrorists are hiding among other migrants, and indeed at least two of those were involved in the latest Paris massacre. Most of the migrants are young men, so that would tend to skew the problem upwards too. With forces acting in both directions, it’s probably not unreasonable as a first guess to assume the same overall support levels. According to the BBC, 750,000 have entered Europe this year, so that means another 900 potential terrorists were likely in their midst. Europe is currently importing 3 IRAs every year.

Meanwhile, it is rather ironic that many of the current migrants are coming because Angela Merkel felt guilty about the Holocaust. Many Jews are now leaving Europe because they no longer feel safe because of the rapidly rising numbers of attacks by the Islamists she has encouraged to come.

So, the first Paris issue is Islamism, already at 81 potential IRAs and growing at 3 IRAs per year, plus a renewed exodus of Jews due to widespread increasing antisemitism.

So, to the other Paris issue, climate change. I am not the only one annoyed by the hijacking of the environment by leftist pressure groups, because the poor quality of analysis and policies resulting from that pressure ultimately harms both the environment and the poor.

The world has warmed since the last ice age. Life has adjusted throughout to that continuing climate change. Over the last century, sea level has steadily increased, and is still increasing at the same rate now. The North Pole ice has shrunk, to 8.5% to 11% below normal at the moment depending whose figures you look at, but it certainly isn’t disappearing any time soon. However, Antarctic sea ice  has grown to 17% to 25% above normal again depending whose figures you look at, so there is more ice than normal overall. Temperature has also increased over the last century, with a few spurts and a few slowdowns. The last spurt was late 70s to late 90s, with a slowdown since. CO2 levels have rocketed up relentlessly, but satellite-measured temperature hasn’t moved at all since 1998. Only when figures are tampered with is any statistically significant rise visible.

Predictions by climate models have almost all been far higher than the empirical data. In any other branch of science, that would mean throwing theories away and formulating better ones. In climate science, numerous adjustments by alleged ‘climate scientists’ show terrible changes ahead; past figures have invariably been adjusted downwards and recent ones upwards to make the rises seem larger. Climate scientists have severely damaged the reputation of science in every field. The public now distrusts all scientists less and disregard for scientific advice in lifestyle, nutrition, exercise and medication will inevitably lead to an increase in deaths.

Everyone agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and increases will have a forcing effect on temperature, but there is strong disagreement about the magnitude of that effect, the mechanisms and magnitudes of the feedback processes throughout the environmental system, and both the mechanisms and magnitudes of a wide range of natural effects. It is increasingly obvious that climate scientists only cover a subset of the processes affecting climate, but they seem contemptuous of science in other disciplines such as astrophysics that cover important factors such as solar cycles. There is a strong correlation between climate and solar cycles historically but the mechanisms are complex and not yet fully understood. It is also increasingly obvious that many climate scientists are less concerned about the scientific integrity of their ‘research’ than maintaining a closed shop, excluding those who disagree with them, getting the next grant or pushing a political agenda.

Empirical data suggests that the forcing factor of CO2 itself is not as high as assumed in most models, and the very many feedbacks are far more complex than assumed in most models.

CO2 is removed from the environment by natural processes of adaptation faster than modeled – e.g. plants and algae grow faster, and other natural processes such as solar or ocean cycles have far greater effects than assumed in the models. Recent research suggests that it has a ‘half-life’ in the atmosphere only of around 40 years, not the 1000 years claimed by ‘climate scientists’. That means that the problem will go away far faster when we fix it than has been stated.

CO2 is certainly a greenhouse gas, and we should not be complacent about generating it, but on current science (before tampering) it seems there is absolutely no cause for urgent action. It is right to look to future energy sources and move away from fossil fuels, which also cause other large environmental problems, not least of which the particulates that kill millions of people every year. Meanwhile, we should expedite movement from coal and oil to low carbon fossil fuels such as shale gas.

As is often observed, sunny regions such as the Sahara could easily produce enough solar energy for all of Europe, but there is no great hurry so we can wait for the technology to become sufficiently cheap and for the political stability in appropriate areas to be addressed so that large solar farms can be safely developed and supply maintained. Meanwhile, southern Europe is reasonably sunny, politically stable and needs cash. Other regions also have sunny deserts to support them. We will also have abundant fusion energy in the 2nd half of the century. So we have no long term energy problem. Solar/fusion energy will eventually be cheap and abundant, and at an equivalent of less than $30 per barrel of oil, we won’t bother using fossil fuels because they will be too expensive compared to alternatives. The problems we do have in energy supply are short term and mostly caused by idiotic green policies that worsen supply, costs and environmental impact. It is hard to think of a ‘green’ policy that actually works.

The CO2 problem will go away in the long term due to nothing but simple economics and market effects. In the short term, we don’t see a measurable problem due to a happy coincidence of solar cycles and ocean cycles counteracting the presumed warming forcing of the CO2. There is absolutely no need to rush into massively problematic taxes and subsidies for immature technology. The social problems caused by short term panic are far worse than the problem they are meant to fix. Increased food prices have been caused by regulation to enforce use of biofuels. Ludicrously stupid carbon offset programs have led to chopping down of rain forests, draining of peat bogs and forced relocation of local peoples, and after all tat have actually increased CO2 emissions. Lately, carbon taxes in the UK, far higher than elsewhere, have led to collapse of the aluminium and steel industries, while the products have still been produced elsewhere at higher CO2 cost. Those made redundant are made even poorer because they have to pay higher prices for energy thanks to enormous subsidies to rich people who own wind or solar farms. Finally, closing down fossil fuel plants before we have proper substitutes in place and then asking wind farm owners to accept even bigger subsidies to put in diesel generators for use on calm  and dull days is the politics of the asylum. Green policies perform best at transferring money from poor to rich, with environmental damage seemingly a small price to pay for a feel-good factor..

Call me a skeptic or a denier or whatever you want if you like. I am technically ‘luke warm’. There is a problem with CO2, but not a big one, and it will go away all by itself. There is no need for political interference and that which we have seen so far has made far worse problems for both people and the environment than climate change would ever have done. Our politicians would do a far better job if they did nothing at all.

So, Paris then. On one hand we have a minor problem from CO2 emissions that will go away fastest with the fewest problems if our politicians do nothing at all. On the other hand, their previous mistakes have already allowed the Islamist terrorist equivalent of 81 IRAs to enter Europe and the current migrant flux is increasing that by 3 IRAs per year. That does need to be addressed, quickly and effectively.

Perhaps they should all stay in Paris but change the subject.

 

The United Nations: Gaza, climate change and UK welfare

This one is just personal commentary, not my normal futurology; even futurists have opinions on things today. Move along to my futurist pieces if you want.

These areas are highly polarized and I know many readers will disagree with my views this time and I don’t want to cause offence, but I think it is too important an issue to leave un-blogged. Maybe I won’t say anything that hasn’t already been said 1000 times by others, but I would not feel justified in keeping quiet.

Feel free to add unoffensive comments.

The UN started off as a good idea, but over some decades now its reputation has taken an occasional battering. I will argue that it has recently started to do more harm than good in a couple of areas so it should take more care. Instead of being a global organisation to solve global problems and ensure better life for everyone, in these areas at least it has become a tool for activists using it to push their own personal political and ideological agendas.

Last week the UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel for its action in Gaza and wanted to investigate it for war crimes, because they apparently weren’t doing enough to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. The UN is also critical that far more Palestinians are killed than Israelis. Let’s look at that. My analysis echoes that of many others.

I am of course distressed by the civilian deaths in Gaza and Israel, just as I am in other conflicts, and wish they could be avoided, but watching the news and listening to the many voices, my view is that any blame for them must be assigned to Hamas, not Israel. I hope that the UN’s taking sides against Israel shares no common ground with the growing antisemitism we are now seeing in many of the public demonstrations we see about the conflict.

Israel does its best to reduce Palestinian civilian deaths by giving advanced warnings of their activities, even at the cost of greater risk to their own forces, so it seems reasonable to absolve them of responsibility for casualties after such warnings. If people remain in a danger zone because they are not permitted to leave, those who force them to remain are guilty. If civilians are forced to remain while the military evacuate, then the military are doubly guilty. War is always messy and there are always some errors of judgment, rogue soldiers and accidents, but that is a quite separate issue.

A superior military will generally suffer fewer casualties than their opponent. The Israelis can hardly be blamed for protecting their own people as well as they can and it isn’t their fault if Hamas wants to maximize casualties on their side. Little would be gained by forcing Israel to have random Israelis killed to meet a quota.

Hamas has declared its aim to be the annihilation of Israel and all Jews. There can be no justification for such a position. It is plain wrong. The Israeli goal is self-defense – to prevent their people being killed by rocket attacks, and ultimately to prevent their nation from being annihilated. There is no moral equivalence in such a conflict. One side is in the right and behaves in a broadly civilized manner, the other is wrong and behaves in a barbaric manner.

Israelis  don’t mix their civilian and military areas, so it easy to see which are which. Their civilian areas are deliberately targeted by Hamas with no warnings to cause as many civilian deaths as possible but Israel evacuates people and uses its ‘Iron Shield’ to destroy incoming rockets before they hit.

On the other side, the military in Gaza deliberately conceal their personnel and weapons in civilian areas such as primary schools, hospitals and residential areas and launch attacks from those areas. (UN schools have been included in that.) When they receive Israeli warnings of an attack, they evacuate key personnel and force civilians to remain. Hamas knows that innocent people on their own side will be killed. It deliberately puts them in harm’s way to capitalise on the leverage they can get for them via some western media and politicians and now the UN. The more innocents killed in incoming fire, the more points and sympathy they get, and the more battering the Israelis get.

I don’t see any blame at all on the Israeli side here. As the Israelis put it, they use missiles to defend their civilians, while Hamas uses civilians to defend its missiles.

If Hamas uses Palestinian women and children as a human shields, then they must be given the blame for the inevitable deaths, not Israel. They are murdering their own people for media and political points.

The UN, by fostering the illusion that both sides are equally bad, by condemning Israel, and helping Hamas in their media war, are rewarding Hamas for killing their own women and children. The UN is ignoring those critically important circumstances: Hamas using human shields, forcing people to remain in danger zones, putting military resources in civilian areas and launching attacks from there. The UN also ignores Israeli seeking to minimize civilian casualties via warnings and advanced mini-strikes.

The UN therefore forfeits any right to pontificate on morality in this conflict. They have stupidly rewarded Hamas for its human shield policy. Some extra women and children in Gaza will die because of the UN’s condemnation of Israel. It is proof that the human shields policy works. The long list of useful idiots with innocent Palestinian blood on their hands includes many Western journalists, news programs and politicians who have also condemned Israel rather than Hamas for the civilian deaths. The UN deserves condemnation for its words, but the victims will be innocent Palestinian civilians.

Let’s move on to look at another area the UN is doing harm.

The UN is the home of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is the source of scientific and socio-economic advice on a wide range of policies intended to defend the environment against global warming. I won’t look at the issue of climate change here, only the harmful economic policies resulting from poor IPCC advice aimed at reducing CO2 emissions:

Biodiesel – the IPCC produced extremely encouraging figures for palm oil plantation as a substitute for fossil fuels, leading to massive growth of palm oil planting. A lot of forest was burned down to make land available, causing huge immediate emissions in CO2. A lot of planting was on peat-land, causing the peat to dry out and biodegrade, again emitting massive amounts of CO2 into the air. Many poor people were evicted from their land to make room for the plantations. The result of this advice is that CO2 emissions increased, the environment was badly damaged in several ways, and many poor people suffered.

In western countries, huge areas of land were switched to grow crops to make biodiesel. This caused a drop in food grain production, with an increase in food prices, causing malnutrition in poor countries, unknown deaths from starvation and a massive increase in poverty. This policy is in reverse now, but the damage has been done., Very many poor people suffered.

Solar power farms have sprung up widely on agricultural land. Again this pushes up food prices and again the poor suffer. Since solar is not economic in most countries yet, it has to be subsidized, and poor people suffer additionally via higher energy bills.

Wind energy is a worse solution still. In Scotland, many turbines are planted on peat-land. The turbines need to have roads to them for building and maintenance. The roads cause the peat to dry out, making it biodegrade and leading to high CO2 emissions. The resulting CO2 emissions from some Scottish wind farms are greater than would have resulted from producing the same energy from coal, while a local ecosystem is destroyed. Additionally, 1% of the endangered white-tailed eagles in Scotland have already been killed by them. Small mammals and birds have their breeding cycles interrupted due to stress caused by the flicker and noise. Humans in nearby areas are stressed too. Wind energy is even more expensive than solar, so it needs even more subsidy, and this has therefore increased energy prices and fuel poverty. Poor people have suffered while rich landowners and wind farm owners have gained from huge subsidy windfalls. The environment has taken a beating instead of benefiting, money has been transferred from the poor to the rich and the poor suffer again.

Carbon taxes favored by the IPCC have been associated with fraud and money laundering, helping criminality to flourish. They have also caused some industries to relocate overseas, destroying jobs and local communities that depend on those industries. The environmental standards followed in recipient countries are sometimes lower, so the environment overall suffers. The poor suffer most since they find it harder to relocate.

Carbon offsetting has similar issues to those above – increasing prices and taxes, creating fraud opportunities, and encouraging deforestation and forced relocation of communities in areas wanted for offset schemes. The environment and the poor both suffer again.

The huge economic drain on national economies trying to meet emissions targets resulting from IPCC reports makes economic recovery in Europe much slower and the poor suffer. Everyone in a country suffers as a result of higher national debts and higher taxes to pay it back with interest. Enforced government austerity measures lead to cuts in budget increases for welfare and the poor suffer. Increasing economic tension also leads to more violence, more social division.

The IPCC’s political influence, making reports that are essentially politics rather than simply reporting good science, have led to its infiltration by political green activists who seek to introduce otherwise unacceptable socialist policies via the environmental door and also providing official accreditation for activist propaganda. This has subsequently led to corruption of the whole process of science followed in environmental circles, damaging public faith in science generally. This loss of trust in science and scientists now echoes across other spheres of science, making it harder to get public support for important science projects such as future medical programs, beneficial lifestyle changes, dietary advice and other things that will affect quality and quantity of life for everyone. It’s a pretty safe bet that the poor will suffer most, some people won’t live as long, and the environment will take more damage too.

A much more minor one to finish:

Going back to September 2013, the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik was heavily critical of the UK government’s attempt at removing the ‘spare room subsidy’ that allowed people to remain in council houses bigger than they need, designed to free up homes for families that need them. Why should this be a UN human rights concern? Regardless of political affiliation, most people agree that if new houses can’t be built fast enough, it makes sense to encourage families to downsize to smaller properties if they no longer need them, provided of course that policies allow for genuine specific needs. Even with poor implementation, it is hard to see this as a priority for a human rights investigation in the midst of such genuine and extreme abuses worldwide. The fact that this review occurred at all shows a significant distortion of values and priorities in today’s UN.

These are just a few areas where the UN makes a negative contribution to the world. I haven’t looked at others, though clearly some of its activities are praiseworthy. I hope that it will fix these meanderings away from its rightful path. If it doesn’t, it could eventually become a liability.