by Richard Gowan | Dec 6, 2011 | Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Off topic
Few journalistic cliches are as irritating as the trope of describing some war-ridden country as “the size of Texas” or “three times the size of France”. I recall being taught at school that an area of rain-forest “the same size as Wales” was being burned every year in Brazil. Some wit asked if it would be possible to burn Wales instead.
Most of these comparisons are pretty meaningless because it’s reasonably hard to keep exact data on the size of France, etc., in your head. Now, however, the BBC has come up with a useful graphic to prove that the Democratic Congo is “around two thirds the size of Western Europe.” Nasty choice of color-scheme, though…
by Alex Evans | Dec 6, 2011 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development, Global system
That’s what people keep asking former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff, apparently. But, he observes,
It is a curious question, because it seems to presume that there is a viable replacement waiting in the wings. The truth of the matter is that, for now at least, the only serious alternatives to today’s dominant Anglo-American paradigm are other forms of capitalism.
Continental European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it – except sustainability. China’s Darwinian capitalism, with its fierce competition among export firms, a weak social-safety net, and widespread government intervention, is widely touted as the inevitable heir to Western capitalism, if only because of China’s huge size and consistent outsize growth rate. Yet China’s economic system is continually evolving.
Indeed, it is far from clear how far China’s political, economic, and financial structures will continue to transform themselves, and whether China will eventually morph into capitalism’s new exemplar. In any case, China is still encumbered by the usual social, economic, and financial vulnerabilities of a rapidly growing lower-income country.
Perhaps the real point is that, in the broad sweep of history, all current forms of capitalism are ultimately transitional.
So what are the key stresses that may push us on to the next transitional form[s] of capitalism? Five, reckons Rogoff: (1) failing to price public goods properly – like clean air, water or a stable climate; (2) inequality; (3) market failures on medical care; (4) failing to value the wellbeing of future generations, including through resource depletion; and (5) financial crises. Hard to disagree with any of those…
by David Steven | Dec 5, 2011 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYv9yd3_3HA[/youtube]
I can see why the world is warming to Newt. He talks a lot of sense on climate change.
My message is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere… and do it urgently.
Let me explain why this is a very challenging thing to do if you’re a Conservative. For most of the past thirty years, the environment has been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. Therefore if you’re a Conservative, the minute you start hearing these arguments, you know what’s coming next. Just bigger government and higher taxes. So even though it might be the right thing to do, you end up fighting it because you don’t want the bigger government and the higher taxes. And so you end up in these cycles…
I think there has to be a green Conservatism. There has to be a willingness to stand up and say, “here’s the right way to solve these [problems] as seen through our value system. And now have a dialogue about what’s the most effective way to solve it, rather than get into a fight about whether to solve it. When I was speaker, on a whole range of biodiversity issues, I intervened again and again on the side of the environment. I really do believe [in the environment].
I would be delighted to see open ended hearings – not in time, but in terms of the topic – that started and said: “If we’re serious about a dramatic global reduction in carbon loading over the next twenty years – starting immediately – what are the different models that might work? Are there incentive based, market-oriented models that might work as well or faster? And is there a chance that they would produce the technology that would make it easier for India and China to decide you can have green prosperity?”
Because if you can develop green prosperity, you change the entire trajectory for the planet, not just for the US… I would love to see hearings that didn’t start with a fight over cap and trade… which I don’t think is the way to start. The way to start is to ask what the optimum choices we can make strategically to minimize carbon loading in the next twenty years.
I believe we can bring a science, technology, and entrepreneurship/incentive-based model that would at least be worth being considered seriously by the House and Senate.
Two minor caveats. First, I don’t think Gingrich ever developed his idea for an incentive-based model that wasn’t cap and trade. And, of course, this is from back in 2007. I hear the ex-Speaker’s position has evolved been more intelligently designed since then. Here’s the 2011 version:
Remember, in the mid-1970’s there was a cover of Newsweek and Time that says we’re in the age of a brand new glacial period and they had a cover of the Earth covered in ice. This is the 1970’s. Now many of those scientists are still alive and they were absolutely convinced. I mean, if Al Gore were able to in the 1970’s we would build huge furnaces to warm the planet against this inevitable coming Ice Age.
I’m not disputing or discrediting the National Academy of Sciences, I’m saying a topic large enough to change the behavior of the entire human race is a topic that is more than science and deserves public hearings with very tough minded public questions and we’ve had almost none of that on either side.
The ‘more than science’ hearings should be fun! Perhaps Newt will explain what happened to evidence that was sufficient to demand urgent action just four years ago…
by Seth Kaplan | Dec 5, 2011 | Africa
What can you do with US$1.2 billion? Treat over one million HIV/AIDS patients in Africa for one year. Build 200 new university campuses in places such as Ghana. Provide core funding for hundreds of developing country think tanks. Or organize an election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Which is likely to improve the most number of lives?
The election in the DRC this week, the second since the end of the bloody civil war that ravaged central Africa in the 1990s, is supposed to bring greater stability and more accountable government to a country almost the size of western Europe. But progress since the first election in 2006 has been disappointing. The country ranks dead last of the 187 countries on the Human Development Index. The poverty rate is 71%. Only 9% of the DRC’s people have even intermittent access to electricity.
And as the New York Times reported recently:
Brutal rebel groups still haunt the hills [in the eastern region], pillaging minerals and killing and raping at will. . . . A witch doctor recently led a revolt in the northwest of the country. In February, rebels besieged the airport in Lubumbashi, in the south, thought to be Congo’s most promising city. Even here in Kinshasa, home to about 10 million people, bands of wiry, adolescent street children wielding iron bars routinely set up roadblocks and steal money from helpless motorists.
This election is unlikely to change much. The polls are widely believed to be rigged, will probably be contested, which will likely yield violence. In releasing a report that detailed abuses, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said, “The kind of intimidation, threats, incitement, arbitrary arrests and violence that we have documented is unacceptable and has a chilling effect on voters.”
There are few other places on the planet where politics are as disconnected from reality. Elections are more a fight to control the spoils of power between competing groups of elites then a mechanism likely to bring better government
to the country’s people.
(more…)
by David Steven | Dec 5, 2011 | UK
Remember how Gordon Brown used the Treasury to keep the rest of the Cabinet on a short leash? Seems like Ed Balls is up to the same trick:
It’s almost cliched to paint Balls as the the crudest of tax and spenders, throwing money at a failed system in a desperate attempt to turn the ship around. To read much of the media coverage around the shadow chancellor (and for that matter, the Labour leader), you’d presume they long for nothing more than another spending binge.
Yet tell that to the shadow cabinet, many of whom feel stymied in their attempts to even float potential new policies (nevermind make concrete spending commitments) by the strict control Balls’ office has maintained over even potential spending commitments. Nothing that could even notionally impinge on economic policy is put forward without the explicit say so of the shadow chancellor – a cause for silent frustration for many seeking to make their mark around the shadow cabinet table.
I am sure Ed Miliband is enjoying this as much as Tony Blair did.
