After the Storm, by Adam Bly & TJ Kelleher
An exclusive and revealing post mortem with President Bush's point man on science, John Marburger.
Seed Magazine, January 13, 2009 08:33 AM
Excerpts:
Seed: So let's start big. What is the state of science in America?
[...]
JM: All right. America continues to lead the world in its investments in science, in virtually every field. Although we have about 5 percent of the world's population, we employ about 20 percent of the world's scientists and engineers. No large country other than Japan devotes as much of its GDP to research and development as the US. On the federal level, about half is in the Department of Defense. The other half is the nondefense research. Nondefense research is always a constant fraction of the nondefense discretionary budget, so as the discretionary budget grows or shrinks, the budget for nondefense science grows or shrinks along with it. That pattern has held for four decades, and I expect that to continue.
There are some imbalances in funding. When the Cold War ended, support for physical science, engineering, math, and computer science really flattened out. But with that leveling off, the support for biomedical research was growing steadily, as it had been during the Cold War. In recent years the NIH budget doubled; 60 percent of that money was provided by this administration. The president embraced it as he had a number of things, including nanotechnology and information technology initiatives, that actually had their seeds in the previous administration.
Seed: Could we take the budgetary dimension out of the equation for a moment?
JM: That's very hard to do. The health of science depends on having money for people and facilities and infrastructure that science needs to fly. It's a major aspect, probably the primary aspect of science health.
Seed: But would you acknowledge that another aspect of the state of science is a culture of science? Could you compare the culture of science in America eight years ago to today?
JM: Virtually unchanged, as far as I'm concerned. Science has its own culture. And it's a relatively nonpolitical, almost apolitical, culture. We've seen some increased visibility of the science community during the Bush administration. I think that was part of a political strategy of the Democratic Party, which was somewhat successful, to undermine the credibility of the Bush administration by fixing on these issues. His position on stem cells was attacked as a scientific position, when in fact it's an ethical position. He was attacked for his position on the Kyoto protocol, despite its serious flaws, and the fact that the Senate had already refused to ratify it. But the way it was handled gave an opportunity to the detractors of the president to use those issues to portray the administration as negative toward science.
Seed: So there's no merit to those criticisms?
JM: That image is an urban legend. He made federal money available for embryonic stem cell research for the first time. Furthermore, his State of the Union addresses as well as other speeches often emphasized technology and how important it was. When he unveiled his American Competitiveness Initiative, he stated clearly that it was important to double the budgets for the agencies that did the most critical basic research in physical science.
Seed: Is America still competitive with the rest of the world in science and technology?
JM: The concerns are not about the present. The concern is all about the future. And certainly, the longest term issue in competitiveness is the preparation of a technical workforce. The weakness is manifest in the first place by the rate at which young people choose to go into technical careers of any sort. The No Child Left Behind Act, like other initiatives in science and education that the president has launched, sought to address that lack of preparation. The main criticisms tend to be that it has not been enough.
The quality of science education is very poor because we don't have qualified teachers in the classrooms. Important components of No Child Left Behind and also the American Competitiveness Initiative were designed to address that. The quality of teaching in science and mathematics needs to be enhanced in the US, absolutely.
Seed: Okay. Let's compare that with the state of science in the world.
JM: About a third of the world's R&D is performed in North America, nearly all of it in the US. About a third in Europe and about a third in Asia. Asia is dominated by Japan and now China. North America is dominated by the US. In Europe it is more balanced. Europe is trying to forge coherence in its very fragmented system of education and research, and doing a pretty good job of it. Then there is this huge north/south split. There is emerging research in South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, but it is tiny, and the infrastructure is growing slowly. The percentage of GDP devoted to research in those countries is very small.
Those are areas that we should be concerned about, because investments in science and technology are important stabilizing features for the economies, and they are important nucleations for development programs. You don't have to have people working on particle physics or cosmology in Africa, but you need people who understand them to act as role models and attract young people into technical studies.
Seed: Did America's strategy on science as a soft power change at all over the past eight years?
JM: Many countries pursue science as soft power, but America is unique among nations in this respect. After World War II, the US alone had the remaining economic capacity to develop the opportunities presented by science. Consequently, the world sent its aspiring scientists to us. Because of that, we haven't had to have a focused office of international science diplomacy. It is happening, and it is happening probably more powerfully than for any other country. Whenever I travel to other countries, I see colleagues and students of mine and other faculty. Now some of those students are getting a little old, and I'd like to see more and younger ones.
Seed: How does the US get more?
JM: It should be easier to get into the US as a student. And it should be easier to stay here and become a citizen if you want to, after you get an advanced degree. The president has some very interesting ideas about immigration, which are way out in front of his own party. I wish Democrats had supported them more strongly.
In any case, we've got soft diplomacy. We only have to avoid stepping on our own toes to let it work. By that I mean to be cautious about the post 9/11 provisions that we've made for homeland security. We really need to be careful about our openness to the world.
Seed: Has the US missed an opportunity to enhance American soft power by building something like the Large Hadron Collider?
JM: I don't think so. The US is actually — in a way, unfortunately — dominating the science community at CERN. And the CERN people are a little bit uncomfortable about that. And anyway, that's only one instrument. There are these lovely pictures of protein structures and glowing fish, for which two Americans just got the Nobel Prize. And you've got Hubble and the Mars rovers.
We have ongoing imaginative technological sagas that are capturing the world's attention. The world doesn't always connect them with the US, but the US is the primary player, even on questions like climate science. This is American science.
The biggest threat to that science is the inexorable growth of the mandatory budget for Social Security, Medicare, and other programs. The growth of the mandatory budget is squeezing everything. It is squeezing science, infrastructure, renewal. If not for that, we wouldn't have all these priority decisions to make. We could double NIH and NSF and NASA and everything else in reasonable amount of time. But the fact is that our discretionary budget is not increasing at the same rate as our economy or the needs and aspirations of our society. We have got to do something about it.
Seed: Our magazine has advanced the idea that we must consider science not simply as a thing that we fund, but as a lens through which we should look at the world. Does the structure of science advice to government correlate with the place of science in the world?
JM: Yes, it does. This is an area of vast ignorance because the majority of people motivated to understand science policy and the structure of science advice are government employees. Those are the people who are motivated to understand this stuff. What they know — what the science community at large does not — is that the structure of science advice reflects the full panoply of government activities in a very sophisticated way. Most of what we do here is to coordinate this vast machinery of science in government so that it produces a coherent science program.
When I want to know what to tell the president, I go to NOAA, I go to NASA, I go to NSF, I go to the Department of Energy and bring the right guys in. If I want to learn about climate change, I go to Jim Hansen. Jim Hansen has his own personal point of view. He will tell you that it's his own personal point of view that there's a tipping point, that we can't go over a certain atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. That's fine. As long as he makes it clear that that's his opinion, it's fine with me. He's a controversial person because he's one of the few scientists who's willing to state his opinion. It makes me a little nervous because of his authority as a scientist. Whenever science is recruited in the service of opinion, it makes me very nervous. Everybody wants to use the credibility of science to bolster their opinions. And I don't like that. I try to avoid getting into that trap in this office.
Seed: Did you see President Bush ever change his mind based on the scientific evidence that you presented him?
JM: As far as I can tell, the president, as a matter of principle, doesn't think it's wise to defy nature. By the time I've arranged a presentation about something for the president, all science questions have been resolved. And he expects it. He would probably fire me if I permitted a science question to leak into his briefings. I'm there to make sure that his advisors and his agencies have consulted with the science community, and that all the science issues have been taken care of before anything gets to him.
Seed: Was there a dimension, an approach, or a philosophy held by the president's other advisors that most commonly confronted your advice?
JM: I only give advice about science. I don't give advice about politics or foreign affairs or economics or legal affairs. I stay out of those things. All of the issues that the president needs to decide are in those domains. They are not in my domain. The president doesn't need to make decisions about science. Science does not tell you how to implement policies, except in rare cases. And the real tough part of governing is implementing.
I mean, the tough issues, about climate, for example, are not about whether the Earth is warming or whether it is caused by humans; the real question is how do you go about addressing the problem at a scale that is significant enough to make a difference.
Seed: Except if it takes an extra day or year or term to accept those scientific conclusions as foundational to economic or political strategy, doesn't that seem to be in violation of the principles of science?
JM: The president has had a very practical approach to a response to climate change. In 2001, before I came to Washington, the president established the Federal Climate Science Program to punch up our knowledge and focus on the remaining uncertainties in the science, and he started an initiative in climate technology, which was the seed for lots of subsequent energy initiatives, including the most recent advanced energy initiative. The president reentered ITER, the international nuclear fusion program. He has encouraged the use of nuclear power. Those were decisions that were made by the president.
The president has not said that we have to wait until the certainties are resolved before we do something about climate change. He has actually said just the opposite. It is not easy for me to understand how the public discourse can get so off track as to hold that the president says, "Oh, let's do more research, so we don't have to take any action."
Seed: Why do you think the public holds the belief that it does?
JM: That's actually a science question. I've read a wonderful book called Predictably Irrational, by Daniel Ariely, that addresses this. This is something marketing people, political consultants, and politicians know about, almost instinctively: informational cascades. Scientists, I think, are particularly vulnerable to the informational cascade phenomenon. They know who the good scientists are, and when a good scientist says something, the others tend to say, "Gee, I know he is smart or she is smart, so what he's saying must be right." So it doesn't take too much to tilt a community like this toward a mythology or a mistaken impression. In the absence of some strong rebuttal, I think it is likely to take root in the media environment that we have today.
Seed: Have you ever been troubled by the degree to which science informed the decision about a nonscientific subject?
JM: My job is to make sure that the president understands the issues. I think he has understood every science issue that I have ever talked with him about. Actually, I think he's understood well, much better than people would imagine.
[...]
Seed: What challenges will President-elect Obama face? What advice would you give him and his science advisor?
JM: President-elect Obama, godspeed to him, will face similar difficulties. He ran such a perfect campaign, I hesitate to give him any advice. But, I would say, have respect for the science and for the structures that generations of his predecessors have labored to put in place to make science work for America.
Monday, January 19, 2009
D.C. Prostitutes and Coke Dealers on Business Spiking for the Inauguration
D.C. Prostitutes and Coke Dealers on Business Spiking for the Inauguration
Daily Intelligencer, Jan 18, 2009
A brief phone survey yesterday of D.C.-area hookers found on Craigslist revealed that Barack Obama's inauguration is inspiring great hopes — for their business. A pair who work together expect 30 clients before Wednesday, all paying $200 a pop. Meeka, 21, a “sexy southern belle, new to town,” has come into the city specially for the festivities. “I'm busy over the weekend,” she told us. “I could make time for you, though.” Karina, 26, traveled five hours to get here, and was already “pretty booked up.”
All of the women, who charge between $100 and $300 per hour, voted for Obama. Charlie, who implores clients to “come start my engine, bad boy,” said she would even provide her services to Barack Obama, despite potential costs to his nascent presidency. Lei, a male prostitute, spoke to us at his plush apartment in an upscale neighborhood. “I actually just finished with a client who was from out of town, the South, I think,” the youthful-looking 38-year-old — who is from an Islamic country, and was in an arranged marriage for eight years before coming out of the closet — told us. “I hope the inauguration will bring more business. If it's guys here by themselves on business, then it will.”
Obama's inauguration might also make history for D.C. cocaine dealers — although there is no basis to the rumor that some are dyeing their product black. Over five days, one 29-year-old expects to earn cash in the high five figures from out-of-towners, not least because bars are open until 5 a.m. and there are a few hundred parties. The dealer, who grew up moshing to D.C. punk, laid out $3,000 to stock up because he plans on moving “serious weight.” On Saturday, lounging in the back room of the Rock N Roll Hotel nightclub, he slipped a bag of coke into the hands of a venerable fortysomething European reporter. “I’ve had people calling me about this for weeks,” the dealer says, as the reporter hands him $60. “I just sold out. I gotta re-up.”
Daily Intelligencer, Jan 18, 2009
A brief phone survey yesterday of D.C.-area hookers found on Craigslist revealed that Barack Obama's inauguration is inspiring great hopes — for their business. A pair who work together expect 30 clients before Wednesday, all paying $200 a pop. Meeka, 21, a “sexy southern belle, new to town,” has come into the city specially for the festivities. “I'm busy over the weekend,” she told us. “I could make time for you, though.” Karina, 26, traveled five hours to get here, and was already “pretty booked up.”
All of the women, who charge between $100 and $300 per hour, voted for Obama. Charlie, who implores clients to “come start my engine, bad boy,” said she would even provide her services to Barack Obama, despite potential costs to his nascent presidency. Lei, a male prostitute, spoke to us at his plush apartment in an upscale neighborhood. “I actually just finished with a client who was from out of town, the South, I think,” the youthful-looking 38-year-old — who is from an Islamic country, and was in an arranged marriage for eight years before coming out of the closet — told us. “I hope the inauguration will bring more business. If it's guys here by themselves on business, then it will.”
Obama's inauguration might also make history for D.C. cocaine dealers — although there is no basis to the rumor that some are dyeing their product black. Over five days, one 29-year-old expects to earn cash in the high five figures from out-of-towners, not least because bars are open until 5 a.m. and there are a few hundred parties. The dealer, who grew up moshing to D.C. punk, laid out $3,000 to stock up because he plans on moving “serious weight.” On Saturday, lounging in the back room of the Rock N Roll Hotel nightclub, he slipped a bag of coke into the hands of a venerable fortysomething European reporter. “I’ve had people calling me about this for weeks,” the dealer says, as the reporter hands him $60. “I just sold out. I gotta re-up.”
Colin Powell: Let's Renew America Together
Let's Renew America Together, by Colin Powell
Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.
WSJ, Jan 19, 2009
Next week marks a fresh start for our nation. Whatever one's political leanings, each presidential inauguration is an opportunity for Americans to renew the energy required to deal with the challenges we face -- never more so than when the challenges we face are without precedent.
Over the course of their transition, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden have spoken with confidence and acted with competence. They've unveiled their plans for governing -- plans that recognize it will require federal money to solve our economic problems at home, and diplomatic and military skill to meet our obligations abroad.
But they also realize an equally important truth. While government has a role to play in restoring the American dream at home and rekindling the dream that is America abroad, there are limits to its ability to restore our sense of purpose as a nation. That task falls to us. Particularly in hard times like these, we are charged with living up to our shared responsibility to one another.
My experience is that in times of need, the American people recognize that when one of our fellow citizens is suffering, those of us with the power to ease or eliminate that suffering should come forward. This is not a time to retreat to our homes and wait until it's safe to emerge. It is the time to give more, to step forward and serve our fellow citizens, and to reach into the reservoir of this nation's unrivaled capacity for good.
That's why, at this moment of great purpose, Mr. Obama has chosen the eve of his inauguration to launch "Renew America Together," his call for all Americans to make an ongoing commitment to better the lives of others in their communities and their country. It's fitting that he will do this on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day when we honor the legacy of a man who lived his life in service to others and believed that "everybody can be great, because anybody can serve."
That's the beautiful simplicity of service. When I was a young man, I chose to devote my life to serving my country. I spent decades under her flag as a soldier, and later as a diplomat. In my time as a private citizen, my wife, Alma, and I have made service a part of our lives by founding "America's Promise," an alliance that connects our young people to mentors who teach them the skills they need to grow.
Each of these mentors proves that King was right. You don't have to wear the uniform of this country to serve others. You don't have to work in government. And you don't have to start a foundation. At a time when so many of our countrymen are in need, everyone has the power to help.
Pause for a moment, and ask yourself what you can contribute to the life of this nation. Perhaps you can find an hour each week to volunteer in a soup kitchen or help a child learn to read. Maybe you and your friends can spare an afternoon a month to clean up your local park or prepare care packages for our soldiers stationed in far-flung corners of the globe.
With our hectic lives, it might seem daunting to find convenient means of serving others in a way that matters to you. That's why Mr. Obama's team has unveiled an exciting new tool to facilitate that connection.
USAservice.org is an online community that makes service easy and accessible. Even amidst the busiest of schedules, there is always a moment to log on and find a cause you care about in your own community. It's also easy for organizers to post and publicize projects. Already, Americans have used USAservice.org to create more than 5,000 events across the country.
What these participants will discover, if they haven't already, is that service is a two-way street of mutual benefit. By enriching the lives of others, you get back more than you give.
Barack Obama is asking us to join him on Monday in making a renewed and enduring commitment to enriching the lives of others. If we answer that call, I have every confidence that we as a people will ignite a new national sense of purpose necessary to meet the great need of this hour.
Mr. Powell was secretary of state (2001-2005) under President George W. Bush.
Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.
WSJ, Jan 19, 2009
Next week marks a fresh start for our nation. Whatever one's political leanings, each presidential inauguration is an opportunity for Americans to renew the energy required to deal with the challenges we face -- never more so than when the challenges we face are without precedent.
Over the course of their transition, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden have spoken with confidence and acted with competence. They've unveiled their plans for governing -- plans that recognize it will require federal money to solve our economic problems at home, and diplomatic and military skill to meet our obligations abroad.
But they also realize an equally important truth. While government has a role to play in restoring the American dream at home and rekindling the dream that is America abroad, there are limits to its ability to restore our sense of purpose as a nation. That task falls to us. Particularly in hard times like these, we are charged with living up to our shared responsibility to one another.
My experience is that in times of need, the American people recognize that when one of our fellow citizens is suffering, those of us with the power to ease or eliminate that suffering should come forward. This is not a time to retreat to our homes and wait until it's safe to emerge. It is the time to give more, to step forward and serve our fellow citizens, and to reach into the reservoir of this nation's unrivaled capacity for good.
That's why, at this moment of great purpose, Mr. Obama has chosen the eve of his inauguration to launch "Renew America Together," his call for all Americans to make an ongoing commitment to better the lives of others in their communities and their country. It's fitting that he will do this on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day when we honor the legacy of a man who lived his life in service to others and believed that "everybody can be great, because anybody can serve."
That's the beautiful simplicity of service. When I was a young man, I chose to devote my life to serving my country. I spent decades under her flag as a soldier, and later as a diplomat. In my time as a private citizen, my wife, Alma, and I have made service a part of our lives by founding "America's Promise," an alliance that connects our young people to mentors who teach them the skills they need to grow.
Each of these mentors proves that King was right. You don't have to wear the uniform of this country to serve others. You don't have to work in government. And you don't have to start a foundation. At a time when so many of our countrymen are in need, everyone has the power to help.
Pause for a moment, and ask yourself what you can contribute to the life of this nation. Perhaps you can find an hour each week to volunteer in a soup kitchen or help a child learn to read. Maybe you and your friends can spare an afternoon a month to clean up your local park or prepare care packages for our soldiers stationed in far-flung corners of the globe.
With our hectic lives, it might seem daunting to find convenient means of serving others in a way that matters to you. That's why Mr. Obama's team has unveiled an exciting new tool to facilitate that connection.
USAservice.org is an online community that makes service easy and accessible. Even amidst the busiest of schedules, there is always a moment to log on and find a cause you care about in your own community. It's also easy for organizers to post and publicize projects. Already, Americans have used USAservice.org to create more than 5,000 events across the country.
What these participants will discover, if they haven't already, is that service is a two-way street of mutual benefit. By enriching the lives of others, you get back more than you give.
Barack Obama is asking us to join him on Monday in making a renewed and enduring commitment to enriching the lives of others. If we answer that call, I have every confidence that we as a people will ignite a new national sense of purpose necessary to meet the great need of this hour.
Mr. Powell was secretary of state (2001-2005) under President George W. Bush.
Engaging North Korea Didn't Work for Japan
Engaging North Korea Didn't Work for Japan. By Melanie Kirkpatrick
WSJ, Jan 19, 2008
Excerpts:
In her confirmation hearing this week, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration would use the six-party talks with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to press North Korea to give up its nuclear program. With U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill reportedly staying on at State, it looks like déjà vu for U.S. policy.
Somewhere in Pyongyang, a little man in a boiler suit must be must be smiling -- and marveling at how often Washington falls for his negotiating legerdemain. Dictator Kim Jong Il's latest diplomatic coup came in October when he got the U.S. to take North Korea off the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring countries. What did Pyongyang do in return? The six-party talks collapsed last month when the North said it wouldn't abide by the verbal commitments it had made on verification of its nuclear program. Thus ended Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attempt at engagement with the North.
Since Mrs. Clinton is promising to pursue much the same policy, perhaps it's a good moment to review an even longer-running negotiation with dictator Kim Jong Il that has also faltered: Japan's attempt to get information about its citizens who were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the victims, including a 13-year-old girl, were grabbed by North Korean agents on the streets or beaches near their homes in western Japan, hidden in ships bound for North Korea, and pressed into service training the North's spies to pass as Japanese nationals. The North also kidnapped South Koreans; several hundred are still missing.
The fate of their countrymen is understandably an emotional issue for the Japanese. The names of the 12 people on the official list of the still-missing are well known throughout the country. Prime Minister Taro Aso is often spotted wearing a blue-ribbon pin in their honor. Virtually every political leader supports Japan's longstanding policy: No aid for North Korea unless it releases information on the abductees.
Kyoko Nakayama, special adviser to the prime minister on the abduction issue, was in the U.S. last week to gain support for Tokyo's stance. "The abductions are a state-sponsored crime," she says. "One of the keys to resolving the abduction issue is for the U.S. and Japan to work together." She uses the word "disappointed" -- Japanese understatement for "outraged" -- in reference to President Bush's decision to take North Korea off the terror list.
Tokyo first raised the issue of the abductions with Pyongyang in 1991, Ms. Nakayama says. "We had had our suspicions for years but we couldn't prove [them]." In 2002, when then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was in Pyongyang, "Kim Jong Il acknowledged they [the abductees] existed, and apologized." Kim's admission "opened a door and we could really start negotiating."
Later that year "we were able to get five people back." Of the remaining 12 kidnap victims on Japan's list, Ms. Nakayama says, "the North Koreans told us that eight had passed away and four had never entered the country." Pyongyang sent a funeral urn containing what it said were the remains of one: Megumi Yokota, the 13-year-old girl. DNA sampling showed the remains not to be Megumi's, Ms. Nakayama says. When Tokyo confronted Pyongyang on the deception, "first of all they said they wanted the bones back. . . . Then they said the DNA test had been trumped up." Since that time "there has been no progress."
Given that background, what is Ms. Nakayama's view of dealing with Pyongyang? "Our experience with negotiating with the North Koreans is that they denied [that they had] abducted citizens for years, and they were very comfortable doing so," she says. "Our experience with agreements with the North Koreans is that they'll make excuses for not fulfilling them."
If that sounds familiar, consider the North's denials and obfuscations on its uranium-enrichment program, which it trumpeted in 2002 and subsequently denied. In 2007, the Bush administration backed off its claims about the North's uranium program. Now, in a valedictory speech this month, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley warned of "increasing concerns" in the U.S. intelligence community that the North has "an ongoing, covert uranium-enrichment program."
[...]
Ms. Kirkpatrick is a deputy editor of the Journal's editorial page.
WSJ, Jan 19, 2008
Excerpts:
In her confirmation hearing this week, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration would use the six-party talks with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to press North Korea to give up its nuclear program. With U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill reportedly staying on at State, it looks like déjà vu for U.S. policy.
Somewhere in Pyongyang, a little man in a boiler suit must be must be smiling -- and marveling at how often Washington falls for his negotiating legerdemain. Dictator Kim Jong Il's latest diplomatic coup came in October when he got the U.S. to take North Korea off the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring countries. What did Pyongyang do in return? The six-party talks collapsed last month when the North said it wouldn't abide by the verbal commitments it had made on verification of its nuclear program. Thus ended Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attempt at engagement with the North.
Since Mrs. Clinton is promising to pursue much the same policy, perhaps it's a good moment to review an even longer-running negotiation with dictator Kim Jong Il that has also faltered: Japan's attempt to get information about its citizens who were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the victims, including a 13-year-old girl, were grabbed by North Korean agents on the streets or beaches near their homes in western Japan, hidden in ships bound for North Korea, and pressed into service training the North's spies to pass as Japanese nationals. The North also kidnapped South Koreans; several hundred are still missing.
The fate of their countrymen is understandably an emotional issue for the Japanese. The names of the 12 people on the official list of the still-missing are well known throughout the country. Prime Minister Taro Aso is often spotted wearing a blue-ribbon pin in their honor. Virtually every political leader supports Japan's longstanding policy: No aid for North Korea unless it releases information on the abductees.
Kyoko Nakayama, special adviser to the prime minister on the abduction issue, was in the U.S. last week to gain support for Tokyo's stance. "The abductions are a state-sponsored crime," she says. "One of the keys to resolving the abduction issue is for the U.S. and Japan to work together." She uses the word "disappointed" -- Japanese understatement for "outraged" -- in reference to President Bush's decision to take North Korea off the terror list.
Tokyo first raised the issue of the abductions with Pyongyang in 1991, Ms. Nakayama says. "We had had our suspicions for years but we couldn't prove [them]." In 2002, when then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was in Pyongyang, "Kim Jong Il acknowledged they [the abductees] existed, and apologized." Kim's admission "opened a door and we could really start negotiating."
Later that year "we were able to get five people back." Of the remaining 12 kidnap victims on Japan's list, Ms. Nakayama says, "the North Koreans told us that eight had passed away and four had never entered the country." Pyongyang sent a funeral urn containing what it said were the remains of one: Megumi Yokota, the 13-year-old girl. DNA sampling showed the remains not to be Megumi's, Ms. Nakayama says. When Tokyo confronted Pyongyang on the deception, "first of all they said they wanted the bones back. . . . Then they said the DNA test had been trumped up." Since that time "there has been no progress."
Given that background, what is Ms. Nakayama's view of dealing with Pyongyang? "Our experience with negotiating with the North Koreans is that they denied [that they had] abducted citizens for years, and they were very comfortable doing so," she says. "Our experience with agreements with the North Koreans is that they'll make excuses for not fulfilling them."
If that sounds familiar, consider the North's denials and obfuscations on its uranium-enrichment program, which it trumpeted in 2002 and subsequently denied. In 2007, the Bush administration backed off its claims about the North's uranium program. Now, in a valedictory speech this month, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley warned of "increasing concerns" in the U.S. intelligence community that the North has "an ongoing, covert uranium-enrichment program."
[...]
Ms. Kirkpatrick is a deputy editor of the Journal's editorial page.
Linda Bilmes On The Fiscal Stimulus: Lessons from Katrina, Iraq, and the Big Dig
The Fiscal Stimulus: Lessons from Katrina, Iraq, and the Big Dig. By Alex Tabarrok Marginal Revolution, Jan 19, 2009
Linda Bilmes presented an interesting paper (not online) at the AEAs looking at the fiscal stimulus in light of Katrina, Iraq and the Big Dig. Here are some key grafs:
...We will be attempting to ramp up spending in a very rapid way in a government bureaucracy not set up to deal with this kind of effort. In any organization that starts to increase spending very rapidly there are risks of waste, fraud and inefficiency....
A good play to start looking for lessons is by analyzing the three biggest recent examples of heavy government spending on infrastructure: the Iraqi reconstruction effort, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, and the Big Dig artery construction in Boston. Let me start by pointing out that all of these were plagued by a number of serious problems.
Iraqi reconstruction: [T]he Special Inspector General for Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen,...has found that the effort has been riddled with cost overruns, project delays, fraud, failed projects and wasteful expenditures...even though the first tranche of $19 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money became available in October 2003, the Defense Department did not issue the first requests for proposals for this money until 10 months later...
Hurricane Katrina: ...the US has appropriated, over $100 billion in short and long term reconstruction grants, loan subsidies [etc]...GAO found that FEMA made over $1 billion--or 16% of the total in this particular category--in fraudulent payments...items like professional football tickets and Caribbean vacations.
The Big Dig: ...the largest single infrastructure project in the US...many lessons on how not to run a project...officially launched in 1982, but it did not break ground until 1991, due to environmental impact statements, technical difficulties and jurisdictional squabbles...not "completed" until 2007.
Bilmes is the co-author with Joseph Stiglitz of The Three Trillion Dollar War.
Linda Bilmes presented an interesting paper (not online) at the AEAs looking at the fiscal stimulus in light of Katrina, Iraq and the Big Dig. Here are some key grafs:
...We will be attempting to ramp up spending in a very rapid way in a government bureaucracy not set up to deal with this kind of effort. In any organization that starts to increase spending very rapidly there are risks of waste, fraud and inefficiency....
A good play to start looking for lessons is by analyzing the three biggest recent examples of heavy government spending on infrastructure: the Iraqi reconstruction effort, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, and the Big Dig artery construction in Boston. Let me start by pointing out that all of these were plagued by a number of serious problems.
Iraqi reconstruction: [T]he Special Inspector General for Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen,...has found that the effort has been riddled with cost overruns, project delays, fraud, failed projects and wasteful expenditures...even though the first tranche of $19 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money became available in October 2003, the Defense Department did not issue the first requests for proposals for this money until 10 months later...
Hurricane Katrina: ...the US has appropriated, over $100 billion in short and long term reconstruction grants, loan subsidies [etc]...GAO found that FEMA made over $1 billion--or 16% of the total in this particular category--in fraudulent payments...items like professional football tickets and Caribbean vacations.
The Big Dig: ...the largest single infrastructure project in the US...many lessons on how not to run a project...officially launched in 1982, but it did not break ground until 1991, due to environmental impact statements, technical difficulties and jurisdictional squabbles...not "completed" until 2007.
Bilmes is the co-author with Joseph Stiglitz of The Three Trillion Dollar War.
Green jobs debate: Can Economists Have an Opinion?
Green Jobs: The Debate Is Over On This Issue, Too?, by Robert Murphy
Master Resource, January 18, 2009
When I passed around my critique of Nordhaus’ case for a carbon tax, a typical complaint was that I wasn’t a climate scientist, and so I had no business saying that some of the IPCC projections were possibly biased towards the alarmist side. Of course no one likes to be criticized, but I understood that it was a perfectly fair objection to raise. As an economist, I really wasn’t qualified to cast aspersions on the models of Jim Hansen and such.
So it is with great amusement that I watch the extreme global warming crowd react to minor expressions of doubt coming from their previous allies in the context of a “green recovery.” Many economists who are completely sold on manmade climate change–and even think that it is important for the federal government to take quick action to curb the problem–are merely pointing out that the Obama Administration efforts to link this issue with the recession may be inefficient. To repeat, they are NOT saying that the government should ignore global warming, or even that the government should ignore the unemployed. All they are saying is that it might be foolish to try to design a single, magic bullet policy that solves both problems in one stroke (i.e. “Green Jobs”).
For this heresy, these green economists have had their heads bitten off by some of the loudest alarmists. And some of the alarmists–most notably Joe Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress–have no qualms telling professional economists that they know nothing about job creation. In fact, Romm thinks mainstream economists should drop out of the debate altogether, even though one might have thought policy issues like a carbon tax would involve both climate scientists and economists.
The poor guys over at Environmental Economics are taking heavy fire too, and again for the heresy of questioning whether the stimulus plan will create jobs. To repeat, these two bloggers are professional economists and they favor a carbon tax. Yet when they raise practical concerns to make sure the policies deliver what they promise, many of the true believers will have none of it: Here’s the best one, but also one, two, and three. I think the environmental economists have seen how quickly they can be rejected once they simply raise concerns about the most effective way to enact environmental policies.
If professional climatologists want to say that people like me (though not Richard Lindzen!) have no business criticizing their models, that’s fine. But by the same token, when my colleague and I issue a critique of “green job” studies, these same critics ought to keep their mouths shut, right? (Note that I am not saying economists have a monopoly on economic truth–ha! Far from it. I am just making a point about the inconsistency in the rhetoric coming from the alarmists.)
Master Resource, January 18, 2009
When I passed around my critique of Nordhaus’ case for a carbon tax, a typical complaint was that I wasn’t a climate scientist, and so I had no business saying that some of the IPCC projections were possibly biased towards the alarmist side. Of course no one likes to be criticized, but I understood that it was a perfectly fair objection to raise. As an economist, I really wasn’t qualified to cast aspersions on the models of Jim Hansen and such.
So it is with great amusement that I watch the extreme global warming crowd react to minor expressions of doubt coming from their previous allies in the context of a “green recovery.” Many economists who are completely sold on manmade climate change–and even think that it is important for the federal government to take quick action to curb the problem–are merely pointing out that the Obama Administration efforts to link this issue with the recession may be inefficient. To repeat, they are NOT saying that the government should ignore global warming, or even that the government should ignore the unemployed. All they are saying is that it might be foolish to try to design a single, magic bullet policy that solves both problems in one stroke (i.e. “Green Jobs”).
For this heresy, these green economists have had their heads bitten off by some of the loudest alarmists. And some of the alarmists–most notably Joe Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress–have no qualms telling professional economists that they know nothing about job creation. In fact, Romm thinks mainstream economists should drop out of the debate altogether, even though one might have thought policy issues like a carbon tax would involve both climate scientists and economists.
The poor guys over at Environmental Economics are taking heavy fire too, and again for the heresy of questioning whether the stimulus plan will create jobs. To repeat, these two bloggers are professional economists and they favor a carbon tax. Yet when they raise practical concerns to make sure the policies deliver what they promise, many of the true believers will have none of it: Here’s the best one, but also one, two, and three. I think the environmental economists have seen how quickly they can be rejected once they simply raise concerns about the most effective way to enact environmental policies.
If professional climatologists want to say that people like me (though not Richard Lindzen!) have no business criticizing their models, that’s fine. But by the same token, when my colleague and I issue a critique of “green job” studies, these same critics ought to keep their mouths shut, right? (Note that I am not saying economists have a monopoly on economic truth–ha! Far from it. I am just making a point about the inconsistency in the rhetoric coming from the alarmists.)
The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide
The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide. By Sally C. Pipes
Pacific Research Institute, Jan 16, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – The Pacific Research Institute has just released The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide. This is the latest book from health care scholar, and PRI President and CEO Sally C. Pipes.
The book's foreword is by Steve Forbes: “For anyone interested in getting to the core of America's health care troubles, this is the perfect book,” he writes. “And for health care policy makers, it should be required reading.”
In her 182-page book, Ms. Pipes takes on ten popular myths about the state of health care in America. The final chapter lays out several patient-centered prescriptions for reform.
“I wrote this short book as a citizen's guide. Each chapter tackles a complex issue in straight-forward, easy-to-understand language,” said Ms. Pipes.
The book challenges the conventional belief that only government can fix our health care system. In fact, says Ms. Pipes, “government overreach has put the system in a state of crisis.”
A complete list of chapters can be found below.
In her conclusion, Ms. Pipes offers some ways to fix the country's biggest health care problems. “If we want to bring costs down and extend coverage to more Americans, we have to open the health care marketplace to competition -- by abolishing costly government regulations and reforming the tax code to make insurance more affordable.”
“We can solve the health care problems that plague the United States,” concluded Ms. Pipes. “But we won't solve them if we continue to believe the many myths that plague the health care debate.”
List of Chapters
Foreword by Steve Forbes
Pacific Research Institute, Jan 16, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – The Pacific Research Institute has just released The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide. This is the latest book from health care scholar, and PRI President and CEO Sally C. Pipes.
The book's foreword is by Steve Forbes: “For anyone interested in getting to the core of America's health care troubles, this is the perfect book,” he writes. “And for health care policy makers, it should be required reading.”
In her 182-page book, Ms. Pipes takes on ten popular myths about the state of health care in America. The final chapter lays out several patient-centered prescriptions for reform.
“I wrote this short book as a citizen's guide. Each chapter tackles a complex issue in straight-forward, easy-to-understand language,” said Ms. Pipes.
The book challenges the conventional belief that only government can fix our health care system. In fact, says Ms. Pipes, “government overreach has put the system in a state of crisis.”
A complete list of chapters can be found below.
In her conclusion, Ms. Pipes offers some ways to fix the country's biggest health care problems. “If we want to bring costs down and extend coverage to more Americans, we have to open the health care marketplace to competition -- by abolishing costly government regulations and reforming the tax code to make insurance more affordable.”
“We can solve the health care problems that plague the United States,” concluded Ms. Pipes. “But we won't solve them if we continue to believe the many myths that plague the health care debate.”
List of Chapters
Foreword by Steve Forbes
Myth One: Government Health Care Is More Efficient
Myth Two: We're Spending Too Much on Health Care
Myth Three: Forty-Six Million Americans Can't Get Health Care
Myth Four: High Drug Prices Drive Up Health Care Costs
Myth Five: Importing Drugs Would Reduce Health Care Costs
Myth Six: Universal Coverage Can Be Achieved by Forcing Everyone to Buy Insurance
Myth Seven: Government Prevention Programs Reduce Health Care Costs
Myth Eight: We Need More Government to Insure Poor Americans
Myth Nine: Health Information Technology Is a Silver Bullet for Reducing Costs
Myth Ten: Government-Run Health Care Systems in Other Countries are Better and Cheaper than America's
Solutions: Markets, Consumer Choice, and Innovation
Drinking Water Treatment Becomes More Affordable with U.S. Help
Drinking Water Treatment Becomes More Affordable with U.S. Help. By Nancy Pontius
International partnerships expand treatment facilities in developing world
Littleton, Colorado — An affordable, sustainable drinking water treatment system designed by a U.S. laboratory is being used successfully in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, South America and the Philippines.
The technology, which uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water safely and cheaply, was designed by Ashok Gadgil at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“The lab conducts research in all areas of science and encourages transfer of innovations to the marketplace, including technologies benefiting the developing world,” lab spokesman Allan Chen told America.gov.
The lab licensed the purification system to the U.S. firm WaterHealth International (WHI), which is working to expand access to affordable drinking water in developing countries and thereby reduce diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.
“Around the world, waterborne diseases kill more people than AIDS and have a huge health and economic impact,” Tralance Addy, WHI president, told America.gov.
His organization provides a weapon to fight waterborne disease, and works alongside nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries to improve living conditions.
For instance, 1 million people have access to clean water from more than 200 WHI water centers in India, where the technology was introduced in 2006 and established through a partnership with the Naandi Foundation.
Other NGOs such as the Lions Club also have provided funding, as have several foreign-born physicians residing in the United States who want to support their home towns.
Individuals in these communities have reported that they and their livestock are healthier with treated water, according to WHI, which studies health improvements from the water centers.
“WHI also partners with foreign governments who provide an umbrella of support to establish water centers, and sometimes provide funding,” said Addy, who was born and raised in Ghana.
WATER TREATMENT CENTERS
In the past, donated or purchased water treatment technology sometimes failed, Addy said, because communities had to struggle to maintain the facilities.
To overcome this, WHI developed “WaterHealth Centres” where water is treated centrally for a small community using a variety of approaches, including:
• ultraviolet water disinfection technology, which is highly effective against harmful germs, and does not require high energy, high water pressure or sophisticated maintenance procedures.
• new buildings, which also can be used for community meetings and social events, to house the systems.
• local personnel hired and trained to operate and maintain the systems.
• hygiene and health education programs that emphasize the economic benefits of avoiding waterborne illnesses.
• narrow-neck water-storage containers to avoid water recontamination.
• marketing to inform residents of the water treatment and its benefits.
• financing for a portion of initial installation costs ($20 per person for a small village in India, for example).
WHI asks communities to make a down payment — sometimes provided by a local government, philanthropist or NGO — and then helps finance the remaining balance. Once the loan is repaid, the community owns the center.
To cover loan payments and operation and maintenance costs, consumers are charged a small fee for purified water. “Currently, one village in Ghana charges 5 cents for 20 liters of treated water,” Addy said.
Local entrepreneurs often start businesses delivering treated water by bicycle or truck. For many families, the time spent collecting water takes away from income-producing activities. “Men and women often walk long distances to get water, and water collection is a common reason why girls don’t go to school,” Addy said.
GHANA
In Ghana, as in many developing countries, it is believed at least 50 percent of all illnesses are related to waterborne contaminants, Addy said. Ghana has a high number of reported cases of Guinea worm, a debilitating infestation by waterborne parasites.
To help its citizens, the Ghanaian government encourages private participation in the water sector and is working to improve water supplies to all rural citizens by 2010, Addy said.
In this West African country, WHI partners with U.S. nonprofit World Vision Ghana for the health-education component of the program. In December 2007, WHI opened a pilot water center in Afuaman, serving about 3,700 people.
“WaterHealth Centres are important because they provide potable water to communities out of reach from conventional water supply and empower communities by making them involved in the water supply process,” Bismark Nerquaye-Tetteh, a retired water supply specialist with World Vision Ghana, told America.gov.
“Women in Afuaman who use the treated water have noticed a reduction in the incidence of diarrhea and cholera in their households,” said Nerquaye-Tetteh, who has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa Water Initiative.
Construction of five additional WHI centers in Ghana will be completed by March in partnership with the U.S. nonprofit Safe Water Network, which funds the project.
“The government of Ghana has been extremely supportive at both the district level, by assisting the communities in raising the down payments, and at the federal level, by waiving import taxes and duties on imported equipment,” Nerquaye-Tetteh said.
This expansion “brings an important and crucial service to communities that would, under prevailing circumstances, not have this service,” he added.
WHI hopes to expand into other African countries in the near future.
More information on the program is available on the WaterHealth International Web site.
International partnerships expand treatment facilities in developing world
Littleton, Colorado — An affordable, sustainable drinking water treatment system designed by a U.S. laboratory is being used successfully in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, South America and the Philippines.
The technology, which uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water safely and cheaply, was designed by Ashok Gadgil at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“The lab conducts research in all areas of science and encourages transfer of innovations to the marketplace, including technologies benefiting the developing world,” lab spokesman Allan Chen told America.gov.
The lab licensed the purification system to the U.S. firm WaterHealth International (WHI), which is working to expand access to affordable drinking water in developing countries and thereby reduce diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.
“Around the world, waterborne diseases kill more people than AIDS and have a huge health and economic impact,” Tralance Addy, WHI president, told America.gov.
His organization provides a weapon to fight waterborne disease, and works alongside nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries to improve living conditions.
For instance, 1 million people have access to clean water from more than 200 WHI water centers in India, where the technology was introduced in 2006 and established through a partnership with the Naandi Foundation.
Other NGOs such as the Lions Club also have provided funding, as have several foreign-born physicians residing in the United States who want to support their home towns.
Individuals in these communities have reported that they and their livestock are healthier with treated water, according to WHI, which studies health improvements from the water centers.
“WHI also partners with foreign governments who provide an umbrella of support to establish water centers, and sometimes provide funding,” said Addy, who was born and raised in Ghana.
WATER TREATMENT CENTERS
In the past, donated or purchased water treatment technology sometimes failed, Addy said, because communities had to struggle to maintain the facilities.
To overcome this, WHI developed “WaterHealth Centres” where water is treated centrally for a small community using a variety of approaches, including:
• ultraviolet water disinfection technology, which is highly effective against harmful germs, and does not require high energy, high water pressure or sophisticated maintenance procedures.
• new buildings, which also can be used for community meetings and social events, to house the systems.
• local personnel hired and trained to operate and maintain the systems.
• hygiene and health education programs that emphasize the economic benefits of avoiding waterborne illnesses.
• narrow-neck water-storage containers to avoid water recontamination.
• marketing to inform residents of the water treatment and its benefits.
• financing for a portion of initial installation costs ($20 per person for a small village in India, for example).
WHI asks communities to make a down payment — sometimes provided by a local government, philanthropist or NGO — and then helps finance the remaining balance. Once the loan is repaid, the community owns the center.
To cover loan payments and operation and maintenance costs, consumers are charged a small fee for purified water. “Currently, one village in Ghana charges 5 cents for 20 liters of treated water,” Addy said.
Local entrepreneurs often start businesses delivering treated water by bicycle or truck. For many families, the time spent collecting water takes away from income-producing activities. “Men and women often walk long distances to get water, and water collection is a common reason why girls don’t go to school,” Addy said.
GHANA
In Ghana, as in many developing countries, it is believed at least 50 percent of all illnesses are related to waterborne contaminants, Addy said. Ghana has a high number of reported cases of Guinea worm, a debilitating infestation by waterborne parasites.
To help its citizens, the Ghanaian government encourages private participation in the water sector and is working to improve water supplies to all rural citizens by 2010, Addy said.
In this West African country, WHI partners with U.S. nonprofit World Vision Ghana for the health-education component of the program. In December 2007, WHI opened a pilot water center in Afuaman, serving about 3,700 people.
“WaterHealth Centres are important because they provide potable water to communities out of reach from conventional water supply and empower communities by making them involved in the water supply process,” Bismark Nerquaye-Tetteh, a retired water supply specialist with World Vision Ghana, told America.gov.
“Women in Afuaman who use the treated water have noticed a reduction in the incidence of diarrhea and cholera in their households,” said Nerquaye-Tetteh, who has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa Water Initiative.
Construction of five additional WHI centers in Ghana will be completed by March in partnership with the U.S. nonprofit Safe Water Network, which funds the project.
“The government of Ghana has been extremely supportive at both the district level, by assisting the communities in raising the down payments, and at the federal level, by waiving import taxes and duties on imported equipment,” Nerquaye-Tetteh said.
This expansion “brings an important and crucial service to communities that would, under prevailing circumstances, not have this service,” he added.
WHI hopes to expand into other African countries in the near future.
More information on the program is available on the WaterHealth International Web site.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
WaPo: National Day of Service
National Day of Service. WaPo Editorial
The president-elect's call to action
The Washington Post, Monday, January 19, 2009; page A18
TODAY, THE nation honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose tireless quest for equality and justice helped to make possible tomorrow's historic inauguration of the first African American as president of the United States. Today's holiday is meant to be a day of national service, a day when a grateful nation emulates Dr. King's sacrifice and service to others so that they may know a better life. It is in that spirit that President-elect Barack Obama has called on Americans to give back by tapping the enthusiasm of the millions who flocked to his candidacy and propelled him to the White House.
"We already have several million people already signed up through thousands of sites that were organized through our Web site," Mr. Obama told us during a visit Thursday, which would have been Dr. King's 80th birthday. "We provide them with a package of resources, and they run with it." Some of the activities taking place across the United States include making care packages for troops serving overseas, collecting food for and serving meals to the homeless, cleaning neighborhoods, parks and waterways, and building affordable housing.
But the next president doesn't envision this call to service as a one-day event. He is intent on creating a culture of service. "Part of my message in every speech I hope that I give over the next four years is that government can't do everything and everyone has a role," Mr. Obama said.
The new administration is committed to expanding the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, the 16-year-old organization administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service. It plans to create service organizations to get people to actively participate in finding solutions to the problems facing the country. There will be specific entities for those interested in energy independence, education, health-care reform and help for veterans. Mr. Obama has set a goal of 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students. To encourage 100 hours of service per year from college students, Mr. Obama proposes a $4,000 tax credit for their education. And he pledges to improve volunteer programs aimed at senior citizens.
Dr. King once said, "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." We encourage you to visit http://www.mlkday.gov/ today to find a project that could use your greatness.
The president-elect's call to action
The Washington Post, Monday, January 19, 2009; page A18
TODAY, THE nation honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose tireless quest for equality and justice helped to make possible tomorrow's historic inauguration of the first African American as president of the United States. Today's holiday is meant to be a day of national service, a day when a grateful nation emulates Dr. King's sacrifice and service to others so that they may know a better life. It is in that spirit that President-elect Barack Obama has called on Americans to give back by tapping the enthusiasm of the millions who flocked to his candidacy and propelled him to the White House.
"We already have several million people already signed up through thousands of sites that were organized through our Web site," Mr. Obama told us during a visit Thursday, which would have been Dr. King's 80th birthday. "We provide them with a package of resources, and they run with it." Some of the activities taking place across the United States include making care packages for troops serving overseas, collecting food for and serving meals to the homeless, cleaning neighborhoods, parks and waterways, and building affordable housing.
But the next president doesn't envision this call to service as a one-day event. He is intent on creating a culture of service. "Part of my message in every speech I hope that I give over the next four years is that government can't do everything and everyone has a role," Mr. Obama said.
The new administration is committed to expanding the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, the 16-year-old organization administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service. It plans to create service organizations to get people to actively participate in finding solutions to the problems facing the country. There will be specific entities for those interested in energy independence, education, health-care reform and help for veterans. Mr. Obama has set a goal of 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students. To encourage 100 hours of service per year from college students, Mr. Obama proposes a $4,000 tax credit for their education. And he pledges to improve volunteer programs aimed at senior citizens.
Dr. King once said, "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." We encourage you to visit http://www.mlkday.gov/ today to find a project that could use your greatness.
Obama’s FDA commissioner should avoid actions that make the drug development process more costly and inefficient
Tough Challenges at the FDA, by John E. Calfee
Obama’s FDA commissioner should avoid actions that make the drug development process more costly and inefficient.
The American, Jan 15, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama must nominate a new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The current commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, will resign on January 20 when Obama takes office. The President-elect has already appointed an acting commissioner, Dr. Frank Torti, the FDA’s well-regarded deputy commissioner and chief scientist, who has been at the agency for less than a year. But finding a permanent commissioner is a different matter entirely. Filling the commissioner post has been agonizingly slow ever since the Health Omnibus Program Extension of 1988 made FDA commissioners subject to Senate confirmation. Individual senators can exercise a temporary veto and they sometimes pick fights over extremely narrow issues, such as moving a single drug from prescription to over-the-counter status. Having a confirmed commissioner at the helm has become the exception rather than the rule. In the 11 years and 11 months since David Kessler, the first Senate-confirmed commissioner, resigned in February 1997, the FDA has been presided over by acting commissioners more than half the time. The four interim periods without a confirmed commissioner averaged 18.5 months, and none was shorter than 15 months.
The FDA’s immense regulatory ambit is said to encompass one-fourth of the U.S. economy, but by far its greatest challenges lie in balancing the risks and benefits of both new and approved drugs and medical devices. This balancing act is deeply influenced by outside forces. Watchful critics in Congress, academia, and the practitioner community are quicker to spot something amiss with an FDA-approved product than they are to discern slowness or inefficiency in moving development and approval forward. This one-sided criticism, which in recent years has risen to the level of vitriol, is bound to push the FDA staff toward over-caution, i.e., toward a disproportionate emphasis on safety rather than, say, getting new drugs to market.
It is no surprise that critics have claimed that the FDA, having jumped or been pushed into bed with the pharmaceutical industry, has neglected drug safety. The critics’ evidence is primarily anecdotal, however. For that matter, the two leading controversies—whether the pain relievers Vioxx and Celebrex cause heart attacks, and whether certain antidepressants trigger suicidal thoughts in their youthful users—have been largely resolved without any real evidence of FDA neglect. In fact, there is strong evidence that when the FDA responded to critics by imposing stark warnings on antidepressants, the net effect was more suicides rather than fewer because the warnings deterred usage among seriously depressed younger patients. One can criticize the FDA for many things (I have offered more than my share of criticism), but the idea that FDA management ever decided to slight drug safety in any systematic manner has no foundation in either common sense or the public record.
The next FDA commissioner, acting or permanent, must be a virtuoso balancer, and must exercise that skill on a much broader front than most people appreciate. The public tends to focus on the FDA’s yea-or-nay decisions on new drugs or new warnings. But that is only a small part of the agency’s portfolio. Far more important in the long run are the thousands of decisions made every year about essential details in murky areas such as product development and manufacturing.
In overseeing clinical trials of new drugs, for example, FDA staff have been debating how strongly to rely on so-called surrogate markers—such as blood glucose levels for diabetes, LDL cholesterol levels for heart disease, and tumor size for cancer—instead of “clinical” markers such as limb amputations, heart attacks, and mortality. The agency has also been mulling whether to require that new drugs be not only safe and effective (the traditional standard), but also superior—or at least “non-inferior”—to the drugs with which they will compete. This seemingly simple topic raises daunting scientific and statistical questions on which leading experts have strongly disagreed. In the meantime, heated discussion has focused on the extent to which clinical trials should be designed to detect rare but serious side effects such as heart attacks or strokes. The FDA recently announced a compromise approach for the most-discussed category—diabetes drugs—without settling the controversy for good.
Meanwhile, there are questions about what kind of testing to require for thousands of annual modifications and improvements in medical devices. Another especially contentious issue is whether to exercise more control over how physicians prescribe drugs and devices, notwithstanding the FDA’s longstanding policy of not regulating the practice of medicine. FDA staff and outsiders are also exploring the tricky science of testing “advanced therapies” such as stem cells and autologous therapeutic vaccines. Simply establishing approval standards for manufacturing methods is difficult, not to mention requirements for testing and approval.
The great danger now is that Obama will appoint a permanent commissioner devoted to the politically attractive gambit of pursuing an agenda dominated by a few high-profile issues. Anyone fixated on elevating the prominence of drug safety, for example, is bound to distort decisions even further from reasonable tradeoffs involving drug development and related activities including marketing. The same danger exists for radical changes in FDA approval standards such as downgrading surrogate markers, requiring superiority for new drugs, or forcing dramatically advanced therapies to conform to conventional testing standards. Those changes alone would add years of testing for drugs now in the clinical phase and, worse, would feed back into drug development itself by greatly increasing the expense and length of clinical trials. (If the same principles had been applied in the past, immensely valuable drugs would have been greatly delayed or never brought to market at all.)
In the ratchet-up world of health and safety regulation, any movement in these directions would be extremely hard to reverse. Yet the FDA is already moving to reduce the role of surrogate markers and to implement a superiority requirement for some drug classes (for certain antipsychotics, for example). Let us hope that the next FDA commissioner remembers that from the standpoint of patients, too much safety can be just as harmful as too little.
John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Obama’s FDA commissioner should avoid actions that make the drug development process more costly and inefficient.
The American, Jan 15, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama must nominate a new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The current commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, will resign on January 20 when Obama takes office. The President-elect has already appointed an acting commissioner, Dr. Frank Torti, the FDA’s well-regarded deputy commissioner and chief scientist, who has been at the agency for less than a year. But finding a permanent commissioner is a different matter entirely. Filling the commissioner post has been agonizingly slow ever since the Health Omnibus Program Extension of 1988 made FDA commissioners subject to Senate confirmation. Individual senators can exercise a temporary veto and they sometimes pick fights over extremely narrow issues, such as moving a single drug from prescription to over-the-counter status. Having a confirmed commissioner at the helm has become the exception rather than the rule. In the 11 years and 11 months since David Kessler, the first Senate-confirmed commissioner, resigned in February 1997, the FDA has been presided over by acting commissioners more than half the time. The four interim periods without a confirmed commissioner averaged 18.5 months, and none was shorter than 15 months.
The FDA’s immense regulatory ambit is said to encompass one-fourth of the U.S. economy, but by far its greatest challenges lie in balancing the risks and benefits of both new and approved drugs and medical devices. This balancing act is deeply influenced by outside forces. Watchful critics in Congress, academia, and the practitioner community are quicker to spot something amiss with an FDA-approved product than they are to discern slowness or inefficiency in moving development and approval forward. This one-sided criticism, which in recent years has risen to the level of vitriol, is bound to push the FDA staff toward over-caution, i.e., toward a disproportionate emphasis on safety rather than, say, getting new drugs to market.
It is no surprise that critics have claimed that the FDA, having jumped or been pushed into bed with the pharmaceutical industry, has neglected drug safety. The critics’ evidence is primarily anecdotal, however. For that matter, the two leading controversies—whether the pain relievers Vioxx and Celebrex cause heart attacks, and whether certain antidepressants trigger suicidal thoughts in their youthful users—have been largely resolved without any real evidence of FDA neglect. In fact, there is strong evidence that when the FDA responded to critics by imposing stark warnings on antidepressants, the net effect was more suicides rather than fewer because the warnings deterred usage among seriously depressed younger patients. One can criticize the FDA for many things (I have offered more than my share of criticism), but the idea that FDA management ever decided to slight drug safety in any systematic manner has no foundation in either common sense or the public record.
The next FDA commissioner, acting or permanent, must be a virtuoso balancer, and must exercise that skill on a much broader front than most people appreciate. The public tends to focus on the FDA’s yea-or-nay decisions on new drugs or new warnings. But that is only a small part of the agency’s portfolio. Far more important in the long run are the thousands of decisions made every year about essential details in murky areas such as product development and manufacturing.
In overseeing clinical trials of new drugs, for example, FDA staff have been debating how strongly to rely on so-called surrogate markers—such as blood glucose levels for diabetes, LDL cholesterol levels for heart disease, and tumor size for cancer—instead of “clinical” markers such as limb amputations, heart attacks, and mortality. The agency has also been mulling whether to require that new drugs be not only safe and effective (the traditional standard), but also superior—or at least “non-inferior”—to the drugs with which they will compete. This seemingly simple topic raises daunting scientific and statistical questions on which leading experts have strongly disagreed. In the meantime, heated discussion has focused on the extent to which clinical trials should be designed to detect rare but serious side effects such as heart attacks or strokes. The FDA recently announced a compromise approach for the most-discussed category—diabetes drugs—without settling the controversy for good.
Meanwhile, there are questions about what kind of testing to require for thousands of annual modifications and improvements in medical devices. Another especially contentious issue is whether to exercise more control over how physicians prescribe drugs and devices, notwithstanding the FDA’s longstanding policy of not regulating the practice of medicine. FDA staff and outsiders are also exploring the tricky science of testing “advanced therapies” such as stem cells and autologous therapeutic vaccines. Simply establishing approval standards for manufacturing methods is difficult, not to mention requirements for testing and approval.
The great danger now is that Obama will appoint a permanent commissioner devoted to the politically attractive gambit of pursuing an agenda dominated by a few high-profile issues. Anyone fixated on elevating the prominence of drug safety, for example, is bound to distort decisions even further from reasonable tradeoffs involving drug development and related activities including marketing. The same danger exists for radical changes in FDA approval standards such as downgrading surrogate markers, requiring superiority for new drugs, or forcing dramatically advanced therapies to conform to conventional testing standards. Those changes alone would add years of testing for drugs now in the clinical phase and, worse, would feed back into drug development itself by greatly increasing the expense and length of clinical trials. (If the same principles had been applied in the past, immensely valuable drugs would have been greatly delayed or never brought to market at all.)
In the ratchet-up world of health and safety regulation, any movement in these directions would be extremely hard to reverse. Yet the FDA is already moving to reduce the role of surrogate markers and to implement a superiority requirement for some drug classes (for certain antipsychotics, for example). Let us hope that the next FDA commissioner remembers that from the standpoint of patients, too much safety can be just as harmful as too little.
John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Long-Range Transport of Anthropogenically and Naturally Produced Particulate Matter in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic
Long-Range Transport of Anthropogenically and Naturally Produced Particulate Matter in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic: Current State of Knowledge by Kallos et al. 2007. By Roger Pielke Sr. @ 7:00 am
Climate Science, Jan 16, 2009
There is a valuable research paper that documents the important role of aerosols on weather and climate, with an emphasis on their transport across long distances. The paper, by an outstanding scientist at the University of Athens, is
Kallos, G., M. Astitha, P. Katsafados, and C. Spyrou, 2007: Long-Range Transport of Anthropogenically and Naturally Produced Particulate Matter in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic: Current State of Knowledge. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 46, 1230–1251.
The abstract reads
“During the past 20 years, organized experimental campaigns as well as continuous development and implementation of air-pollution modeling have led to significant gains in the understanding of the paths and scales of pollutant transport and transformation in the greater Mediterranean region (GMR). The work presented in this paper has two major objectives: 1) to summarize the existing knowledge on the transport paths of particulate matter (PM) in the GMR and 2) to illustrate some new findings related to the transport and transformation properties of PM in the GMR. Findings from previous studies indicate that anthropogenically produced air pollutants from European sources can be transported over long distances, reaching Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and North America. The PM of natural origin, like Saharan dust, can be transported toward the Atlantic Ocean and North America mostly during the warm period of the year. Recent model simulations and studies in the area indicate that specific long-range transport patterns of aerosols, such as the transport from Asia and the Indian Ocean, central Africa, or America, have negligible or at best limited contribution to air-quality degradation in the GMR when compared with the other sources. Also, new findings from this work suggest that the imposed European Union limits on PM cannot be applicable for southern Europe unless the origin (natural or anthropogenic) of the PM is taken into account. The impacts of high PM levels in the GMR are not limited only to air quality, but also include serious implications for the water budget and the regional climate. These are issues that require extensive investigation because the processes involved are complex, and further model development is needed to include the relevant physicochemical processes properly.”
Among the conclusions is the finding that
“Climate and air-quality feedbacks are not well understood, and hence future work requires specialized surface and upper-air measurements to explore the validity validity of the various model elements.”
It should be obvious, that skillful multi-decadal climate predictions cannot be made, despite claims by the IPCC and CCSP assessments that this is possible.
Climate Science, Jan 16, 2009
There is a valuable research paper that documents the important role of aerosols on weather and climate, with an emphasis on their transport across long distances. The paper, by an outstanding scientist at the University of Athens, is
Kallos, G., M. Astitha, P. Katsafados, and C. Spyrou, 2007: Long-Range Transport of Anthropogenically and Naturally Produced Particulate Matter in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic: Current State of Knowledge. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 46, 1230–1251.
The abstract reads
“During the past 20 years, organized experimental campaigns as well as continuous development and implementation of air-pollution modeling have led to significant gains in the understanding of the paths and scales of pollutant transport and transformation in the greater Mediterranean region (GMR). The work presented in this paper has two major objectives: 1) to summarize the existing knowledge on the transport paths of particulate matter (PM) in the GMR and 2) to illustrate some new findings related to the transport and transformation properties of PM in the GMR. Findings from previous studies indicate that anthropogenically produced air pollutants from European sources can be transported over long distances, reaching Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and North America. The PM of natural origin, like Saharan dust, can be transported toward the Atlantic Ocean and North America mostly during the warm period of the year. Recent model simulations and studies in the area indicate that specific long-range transport patterns of aerosols, such as the transport from Asia and the Indian Ocean, central Africa, or America, have negligible or at best limited contribution to air-quality degradation in the GMR when compared with the other sources. Also, new findings from this work suggest that the imposed European Union limits on PM cannot be applicable for southern Europe unless the origin (natural or anthropogenic) of the PM is taken into account. The impacts of high PM levels in the GMR are not limited only to air quality, but also include serious implications for the water budget and the regional climate. These are issues that require extensive investigation because the processes involved are complex, and further model development is needed to include the relevant physicochemical processes properly.”
Among the conclusions is the finding that
“Climate and air-quality feedbacks are not well understood, and hence future work requires specialized surface and upper-air measurements to explore the validity validity of the various model elements.”
It should be obvious, that skillful multi-decadal climate predictions cannot be made, despite claims by the IPCC and CCSP assessments that this is possible.
The Importance of India
The Importance of India, by Duncan Currie
Bush deserves credit for boosting relations with New Delhi
The Weekly Standard, Jan 15, 2009
BILL EMMOTT, a former editor of the Economist magazine, has written that George W. Bush's "bold initiative" to strengthen U.S. relations with India "may eventually be judged by historians as a move of great strategic importance and imagination." It "may turn out to be the most significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush administration," says historian Sugata Bose, an India expert at Harvard. Bilateral ties had improved toward the end of the Clinton administration, thanks largely to the efforts of Strobe Talbott, then serving as deputy secretary of state, and Jaswant Singh, then serving as Indian foreign minister. But "the big jump in relations came under President Bush," says Columbia economist Arvind Panagariya, author of the 2008 book India: The Emerging Giant.
By far the most controversial element of Bush's India policy was the U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, which Congress approved this past fall. It was announced in 2005 but then delayed for years by opposition from Democrats in Washington, left-wing parties in New Delhi, and an Indian nuclear establishment that was skeptical of U.S. intentions. "The determination of the White House was very important," says Panagariya, who believes the Bush administration played a "crucial" role in convincing the Indian government to fight for the deal.
Critics of the nuclear pact "really exaggerated the risks to the non-proliferation regime," says Stephen Cohen, an India expert at the Brookings Institution. As part of the accord, India has accepted new international safeguards on its nuclear program. In turn, the United States has lifted a longstanding ban on U.S.-India civilian nuclear trade. Cohen predicts that the deal will help New Delhi pursue a more sensible arms control policy.
Beyond the nuclear pact, the United States and India have also upgraded their broader strategic cooperation. After the 2004 Asian tsunami, they launched a joint relief mission with Japan and Australia. In June 2005, they signed a new defense framework which enhanced bilateral military ties and stated that "the United States and India agree on the vital importance of political and economic freedom, democratic institutions, the rule of law, security, and opportunity around the world. The leaders of our two countries are building a U.S.-India strategic partnership in pursuit of these principles and interests." In September 2007, India hosted and participated in multilateral naval exercises that included ships from the United States, Japan, Australia, and Singapore.
To appreciate where U.S.-India relations are today, recall how frosty they were during much of the latter half of the 20th century. The first prime minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who served from 1947 to 1964, was an avowed socialist and champion of the Non-Aligned Movement. Throughout the Cold War, Indian scholar Ramachandra Guha writes in his 2007 book, India After Gandhi, the United States "tilted markedly toward" Pakistan while India "tilted somewhat toward" the Soviet Union. (During the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Richard Nixon groused to Henry Kissinger that "the Indians are no goddamn good.") It was not until the late 1990s, notes Guha, "that the United States moved toward a position of equidistance between India and Pakistan."
Today, the U.S.-India partnership seems to make perfect strategic sense: Both countries are English-speaking democracies; both are wary of a rising China; both are fighting against Islamic terrorism; and both have an interest in promoting bilateral economic cooperation. India wants to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and it needs America's support. Economic links between the two countries are now "so strong that they stabilize the overall relationship," says Cohen.
Then there is the cultural dimension of the relationship. Panagariya points out that most people in India have a relative, friend, or neighbor who is a member of the Indian diaspora. "They see so many Indians being successful in the U.S.," he says. India is a youthful country, and its younger generation has no serious connection to the anti-Americanism of the Cold War era. In a 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, 66 percent of Indians expressed a favorable view of the United States.
To be sure, the U.S. and Indian governments will not always be in harmony. Bose says that India probably took a more "strident" position than necessary in the Doha round of global trade talks, which collapsed in late July after a fierce debate over agricultural policy. He adds that Indian officials are worried about Barack Obama's commitment to free trade, given his repeated criticism of "companies that ship jobs overseas." American officials, meanwhile, are concerned about India's relatively warm relations with Iran. But Panagariya says the Iran issue will not prove a major hindrance to U.S.-India collaboration. After all, India is very friendly with Israel. "You don't hear a peep out of the Israelis about India's Iran policy," says Cohen.
As for Pakistan, it has always bedeviled U.S.-India relations. Now the war in Afghanistan is complicating things even more. In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, "India and the United States are likely to come closer," says Bose, provided the Americans use their leverage with Pakistan and pressure Islamabad to reform its army, clean up its intelligence services, and clamp down on militant groups. Despite all the saber-rattling, Bose expects that New Delhi will stay focused on its international ambitions and act prudently.
"India wants to play a role on the global stage," he says. Right now, however, with a national election due by May, the South Asian giant is experiencing severe economic turmoil. The worldwide downturn has taken a harsh toll on India and disrupted its lengthy run of 9 percent annual GDP growth. World Bank economist Sadiq Ahmed reckons that the Indian growth rate will dip below 7 percent in the 2008-2009 fiscal year and below 6 percent in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. "Job losses are going to be enormous due to the global slowdown," Indian commerce ministry spokesman Rajiv Jain recently told Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, the Indian financial industry has been rocked by news of a massive fraud scandal at outsourcing giant Satyam.
Painful as they are, India's economic troubles should not be overblown. "It's not a disaster scenario by any means," says Ahmed, who thinks that Indian policymakers have thus far done "a very good job" in responding to the slump. He notes that inflation has fallen sharply, interest rates have returned to normal levels, and the domestic liquidity situation has stabilized. India is benefiting from its high savings rate. "We are not expecting a prolonged downturn," says Ahmed.
Whatever its current woes, India has remarkable potential. Its middle class is still dwarfed by that of China, but it will balloon over the next few decades. A May 2007 McKinsey Global Institute study estimated that between 2005 and 2025, average real household disposable income in India will nearly triple, the Indian middle class will swell from roughly 50 million people to around 583 million, and the country's consumer market will grow from the 12th largest in the world to the fifth largest.
Goldman Sachs reckons that India could have a larger economy than the United States by 2050. As Goldman economists Jim O'Neill and Tushar Poddar observed in a June 2008 paper, the United Nations has projected that India's population will increase by around 310 million between 2000 and 2020. "India will in effect create the equivalent of another U.S.," wrote O'Neill and Poddar, "and for those of working age between 2000 and 2020, India will create the equivalent of the combined working population of France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. We estimate another 140 million people will migrate to Indian cities by 2020."
India's long-term progress is stunning. The 2007 McKinsey study pointed out that, "in effect, there are 431 million fewer poor people in India today than there would have been if poverty had remained at its 1985 rate." There is no question that "India's economic reforms, and the increased growth that has resulted, have been the most successful anti-poverty program in the country's history."
Long a bastion of socialism, India flirted with economic liberalization during the 1980s, under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi, who served as prime minister from 1984 to 1989 (and was assassinated in 1991). But the reform process didn't begin for real until 1991, when India was facing an economic crisis. As Robyn Meredith of Forbes magazine writes in her 2007 book, The Elephant and the Dragon, some 110 million Indians "had been thrown into poverty in just the preceding two years," and "330 million people, or two of every five Indians, lived below the poverty line." Inflation had surged to 17 percent, and the country "was flat broke."
In response, the Indian finance minister, Manmohan Singh, embraced a bold agenda of deregulation, privatization, tariff reductions, and tax cuts. Singh devalued the rupee, removed obstacles to foreign investment, and expanded trade. "Early steps were also taken to open telecommunications and domestic civil aviation to the private sector," writes Panagariya. "These measures yielded the handsome growth rate of 7.1 percent between 1993-94 and 1996-97, and also placed the economy on a long-term growth trajectory of 6 percent."
The reform process stalled in the late 1990s but regained momentum during the third term of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which began in 1999. As Panagariya writes, "the Vajpayee government systematically moved to open the economy to foreign and domestic competition and to build the country's infrastructure." Singh's Congress Party took power in 2004 as the leading coalition member of the United Progressive Alliance, and Singh became prime minister. Economic reformers had high hopes for the government, especially given Singh's record as finance minister, but they have been disappointed, as the reform process has stagnated.
Moving forward, further economic reforms will be critical. The United Nations Population Fund says that India will eclipse China as the world's most populous country by 2050. Will India's population explosion produce a "demographic dividend," or a demographic disaster? "That's the million-dollar question," says Bose. Indeed, a rising population does not guarantee that India will fulfill its potential. It will need to create millions of new jobs and also ensure that its workers are properly equipped to do those jobs. In their recent paper, O'Neill and Poddar outlined ten steps that India must take "to achieve its 2050 potential." These include strengthening its education system, containing inflation, liberalizing its financial markets, boosting trade with its neighbors, and improving its infrastructure.
India's biggest weaknesses are education and infrastructure. As Emmott writes in his 2008 book, Rivals, "The country's large, young population will not be an economic advantage unless it can be educated to the standards required by manufacturers and service companies." The current Indian education system "is grossly inadequate for that task, and putting that right will be costly." Consider these numbers: "Only 28 percent of India's schools had electricity in 2005; only half had more than two teachers or two classrooms." India has a significantly lower literacy rate than countries such as China, Vietnam, and Malaysia, Emmott notes.
As for the infrastructure problem, it remains a huge drag on Indian economic growth. According to the World Bank, more than half of India's state highways are in "poor condition." In its latest survey of global competitiveness, the World Economic Forum found that Indian business executives consider "inadequate supply of infrastructure" to be "the most problematic factor for doing business" in their country. The next four "most problematic factors" were (in order) "inefficient government bureaucracy," "corruption," "restrictive labor regulations," and "tax regulations."
Though India has come a long way since the 1991 crisis, its business sector remains heavily shackled. The latest World Bank report on "the ease of doing business" around the world ranks India a lowly 122nd out of 181 economies. By comparison, China ranks 83rd. Meanwhile, the most recent Index of Economic Freedom, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranks India 123rd out of 179 economies, barely ahead of Rwanda.
"Indians joke that India is like a drunk walking home: it takes one step forward, then two steps sideways, but eventually makes it home," writes Meredith. "Indian reforms, hampered especially by local politics, tend to lurch ahead, then jolt to a stop, only to hurl forward again." Besides local politics, Indian reforms have also been hampered by persistent social tensions, ethnic conflicts, and domestic security threats. As Meredith observes, "The advances of the glittering New India mask stubborn problems, such as high child-mortality rates, violence against women, caste-based discrimination, and religious strife."
The 2008 Mumbai massacre offered a grisly reminder that India has long been plagued by Islamic terrorism. (In December 2001, jihadists attacked the Indian parliament building.) It has also spent several decades battling Maoist rebels known as "Naxalites." Then there is the longstanding dispute over Kashmir and plenty of other spats with India's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. Tensions with Islamabad have been high in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. Though many Indians wish they could just disregard Pakistan, that is not a viable option. "When you have a neighbor whose house is falling down, you simply can't ignore it," says Cohen.
Barack Obama will inherit a dangerous situation in Pakistan, but he will also inherit a U.S.-India partnership that is stronger than ever. Over the coming decades, as global power continues shifting to Asia, the importance of that partnership will only increase. Embracing India may indeed prove to be a significant part of President Bush's legacy. As Bose puts it, Bush elevated the relationship "to a completely new level."
Duncan Currie is managing editor of The American.
Bush deserves credit for boosting relations with New Delhi
The Weekly Standard, Jan 15, 2009
BILL EMMOTT, a former editor of the Economist magazine, has written that George W. Bush's "bold initiative" to strengthen U.S. relations with India "may eventually be judged by historians as a move of great strategic importance and imagination." It "may turn out to be the most significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush administration," says historian Sugata Bose, an India expert at Harvard. Bilateral ties had improved toward the end of the Clinton administration, thanks largely to the efforts of Strobe Talbott, then serving as deputy secretary of state, and Jaswant Singh, then serving as Indian foreign minister. But "the big jump in relations came under President Bush," says Columbia economist Arvind Panagariya, author of the 2008 book India: The Emerging Giant.
By far the most controversial element of Bush's India policy was the U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, which Congress approved this past fall. It was announced in 2005 but then delayed for years by opposition from Democrats in Washington, left-wing parties in New Delhi, and an Indian nuclear establishment that was skeptical of U.S. intentions. "The determination of the White House was very important," says Panagariya, who believes the Bush administration played a "crucial" role in convincing the Indian government to fight for the deal.
Critics of the nuclear pact "really exaggerated the risks to the non-proliferation regime," says Stephen Cohen, an India expert at the Brookings Institution. As part of the accord, India has accepted new international safeguards on its nuclear program. In turn, the United States has lifted a longstanding ban on U.S.-India civilian nuclear trade. Cohen predicts that the deal will help New Delhi pursue a more sensible arms control policy.
Beyond the nuclear pact, the United States and India have also upgraded their broader strategic cooperation. After the 2004 Asian tsunami, they launched a joint relief mission with Japan and Australia. In June 2005, they signed a new defense framework which enhanced bilateral military ties and stated that "the United States and India agree on the vital importance of political and economic freedom, democratic institutions, the rule of law, security, and opportunity around the world. The leaders of our two countries are building a U.S.-India strategic partnership in pursuit of these principles and interests." In September 2007, India hosted and participated in multilateral naval exercises that included ships from the United States, Japan, Australia, and Singapore.
To appreciate where U.S.-India relations are today, recall how frosty they were during much of the latter half of the 20th century. The first prime minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who served from 1947 to 1964, was an avowed socialist and champion of the Non-Aligned Movement. Throughout the Cold War, Indian scholar Ramachandra Guha writes in his 2007 book, India After Gandhi, the United States "tilted markedly toward" Pakistan while India "tilted somewhat toward" the Soviet Union. (During the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Richard Nixon groused to Henry Kissinger that "the Indians are no goddamn good.") It was not until the late 1990s, notes Guha, "that the United States moved toward a position of equidistance between India and Pakistan."
Today, the U.S.-India partnership seems to make perfect strategic sense: Both countries are English-speaking democracies; both are wary of a rising China; both are fighting against Islamic terrorism; and both have an interest in promoting bilateral economic cooperation. India wants to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and it needs America's support. Economic links between the two countries are now "so strong that they stabilize the overall relationship," says Cohen.
Then there is the cultural dimension of the relationship. Panagariya points out that most people in India have a relative, friend, or neighbor who is a member of the Indian diaspora. "They see so many Indians being successful in the U.S.," he says. India is a youthful country, and its younger generation has no serious connection to the anti-Americanism of the Cold War era. In a 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, 66 percent of Indians expressed a favorable view of the United States.
To be sure, the U.S. and Indian governments will not always be in harmony. Bose says that India probably took a more "strident" position than necessary in the Doha round of global trade talks, which collapsed in late July after a fierce debate over agricultural policy. He adds that Indian officials are worried about Barack Obama's commitment to free trade, given his repeated criticism of "companies that ship jobs overseas." American officials, meanwhile, are concerned about India's relatively warm relations with Iran. But Panagariya says the Iran issue will not prove a major hindrance to U.S.-India collaboration. After all, India is very friendly with Israel. "You don't hear a peep out of the Israelis about India's Iran policy," says Cohen.
As for Pakistan, it has always bedeviled U.S.-India relations. Now the war in Afghanistan is complicating things even more. In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, "India and the United States are likely to come closer," says Bose, provided the Americans use their leverage with Pakistan and pressure Islamabad to reform its army, clean up its intelligence services, and clamp down on militant groups. Despite all the saber-rattling, Bose expects that New Delhi will stay focused on its international ambitions and act prudently.
"India wants to play a role on the global stage," he says. Right now, however, with a national election due by May, the South Asian giant is experiencing severe economic turmoil. The worldwide downturn has taken a harsh toll on India and disrupted its lengthy run of 9 percent annual GDP growth. World Bank economist Sadiq Ahmed reckons that the Indian growth rate will dip below 7 percent in the 2008-2009 fiscal year and below 6 percent in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. "Job losses are going to be enormous due to the global slowdown," Indian commerce ministry spokesman Rajiv Jain recently told Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, the Indian financial industry has been rocked by news of a massive fraud scandal at outsourcing giant Satyam.
Painful as they are, India's economic troubles should not be overblown. "It's not a disaster scenario by any means," says Ahmed, who thinks that Indian policymakers have thus far done "a very good job" in responding to the slump. He notes that inflation has fallen sharply, interest rates have returned to normal levels, and the domestic liquidity situation has stabilized. India is benefiting from its high savings rate. "We are not expecting a prolonged downturn," says Ahmed.
Whatever its current woes, India has remarkable potential. Its middle class is still dwarfed by that of China, but it will balloon over the next few decades. A May 2007 McKinsey Global Institute study estimated that between 2005 and 2025, average real household disposable income in India will nearly triple, the Indian middle class will swell from roughly 50 million people to around 583 million, and the country's consumer market will grow from the 12th largest in the world to the fifth largest.
Goldman Sachs reckons that India could have a larger economy than the United States by 2050. As Goldman economists Jim O'Neill and Tushar Poddar observed in a June 2008 paper, the United Nations has projected that India's population will increase by around 310 million between 2000 and 2020. "India will in effect create the equivalent of another U.S.," wrote O'Neill and Poddar, "and for those of working age between 2000 and 2020, India will create the equivalent of the combined working population of France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. We estimate another 140 million people will migrate to Indian cities by 2020."
India's long-term progress is stunning. The 2007 McKinsey study pointed out that, "in effect, there are 431 million fewer poor people in India today than there would have been if poverty had remained at its 1985 rate." There is no question that "India's economic reforms, and the increased growth that has resulted, have been the most successful anti-poverty program in the country's history."
Long a bastion of socialism, India flirted with economic liberalization during the 1980s, under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi, who served as prime minister from 1984 to 1989 (and was assassinated in 1991). But the reform process didn't begin for real until 1991, when India was facing an economic crisis. As Robyn Meredith of Forbes magazine writes in her 2007 book, The Elephant and the Dragon, some 110 million Indians "had been thrown into poverty in just the preceding two years," and "330 million people, or two of every five Indians, lived below the poverty line." Inflation had surged to 17 percent, and the country "was flat broke."
In response, the Indian finance minister, Manmohan Singh, embraced a bold agenda of deregulation, privatization, tariff reductions, and tax cuts. Singh devalued the rupee, removed obstacles to foreign investment, and expanded trade. "Early steps were also taken to open telecommunications and domestic civil aviation to the private sector," writes Panagariya. "These measures yielded the handsome growth rate of 7.1 percent between 1993-94 and 1996-97, and also placed the economy on a long-term growth trajectory of 6 percent."
The reform process stalled in the late 1990s but regained momentum during the third term of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which began in 1999. As Panagariya writes, "the Vajpayee government systematically moved to open the economy to foreign and domestic competition and to build the country's infrastructure." Singh's Congress Party took power in 2004 as the leading coalition member of the United Progressive Alliance, and Singh became prime minister. Economic reformers had high hopes for the government, especially given Singh's record as finance minister, but they have been disappointed, as the reform process has stagnated.
Moving forward, further economic reforms will be critical. The United Nations Population Fund says that India will eclipse China as the world's most populous country by 2050. Will India's population explosion produce a "demographic dividend," or a demographic disaster? "That's the million-dollar question," says Bose. Indeed, a rising population does not guarantee that India will fulfill its potential. It will need to create millions of new jobs and also ensure that its workers are properly equipped to do those jobs. In their recent paper, O'Neill and Poddar outlined ten steps that India must take "to achieve its 2050 potential." These include strengthening its education system, containing inflation, liberalizing its financial markets, boosting trade with its neighbors, and improving its infrastructure.
India's biggest weaknesses are education and infrastructure. As Emmott writes in his 2008 book, Rivals, "The country's large, young population will not be an economic advantage unless it can be educated to the standards required by manufacturers and service companies." The current Indian education system "is grossly inadequate for that task, and putting that right will be costly." Consider these numbers: "Only 28 percent of India's schools had electricity in 2005; only half had more than two teachers or two classrooms." India has a significantly lower literacy rate than countries such as China, Vietnam, and Malaysia, Emmott notes.
As for the infrastructure problem, it remains a huge drag on Indian economic growth. According to the World Bank, more than half of India's state highways are in "poor condition." In its latest survey of global competitiveness, the World Economic Forum found that Indian business executives consider "inadequate supply of infrastructure" to be "the most problematic factor for doing business" in their country. The next four "most problematic factors" were (in order) "inefficient government bureaucracy," "corruption," "restrictive labor regulations," and "tax regulations."
Though India has come a long way since the 1991 crisis, its business sector remains heavily shackled. The latest World Bank report on "the ease of doing business" around the world ranks India a lowly 122nd out of 181 economies. By comparison, China ranks 83rd. Meanwhile, the most recent Index of Economic Freedom, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranks India 123rd out of 179 economies, barely ahead of Rwanda.
"Indians joke that India is like a drunk walking home: it takes one step forward, then two steps sideways, but eventually makes it home," writes Meredith. "Indian reforms, hampered especially by local politics, tend to lurch ahead, then jolt to a stop, only to hurl forward again." Besides local politics, Indian reforms have also been hampered by persistent social tensions, ethnic conflicts, and domestic security threats. As Meredith observes, "The advances of the glittering New India mask stubborn problems, such as high child-mortality rates, violence against women, caste-based discrimination, and religious strife."
The 2008 Mumbai massacre offered a grisly reminder that India has long been plagued by Islamic terrorism. (In December 2001, jihadists attacked the Indian parliament building.) It has also spent several decades battling Maoist rebels known as "Naxalites." Then there is the longstanding dispute over Kashmir and plenty of other spats with India's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. Tensions with Islamabad have been high in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. Though many Indians wish they could just disregard Pakistan, that is not a viable option. "When you have a neighbor whose house is falling down, you simply can't ignore it," says Cohen.
Barack Obama will inherit a dangerous situation in Pakistan, but he will also inherit a U.S.-India partnership that is stronger than ever. Over the coming decades, as global power continues shifting to Asia, the importance of that partnership will only increase. Embracing India may indeed prove to be a significant part of President Bush's legacy. As Bose puts it, Bush elevated the relationship "to a completely new level."
Duncan Currie is managing editor of The American.
Expect a proliferation of new regulations that will reach into every area of American life and commerce
Obama’s Green Team, by Kenneth P. Green
We can expect a proliferation of new regulations that will reach into every area of American life and commerce.
The American, Friday, January 16, 2009
What do President-elect Barack Obama’s leadership picks tell us about the kinds of energy and environmental policies we can expect in the next four to eight years? On balance, they suggest we are in for a radical shift away from George W. Bush’s pro-market policies and back to the aggressive regulatory approach favored by the Clinton administration. Let’s take a look at Obama’s prospective appointees.
Lisa P. Jackson
Obama’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be the first African American to head the Agency since its creation in 1970. She will be the fourth female administrator of the EPA, which seems to be a trend: four of the last seven EPA chiefs have been women. Jackson’s choice may be the only bright spot among Obama’s energy and environmental nominees. While in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Jackson’s record was one of generally cooperating with industry and streamlining permitting processes, often angering green activists who opposed any activity that made it easier to build or expand polluting facilities. Her handling of New Jersey’s Superfund sites has also come in for criticism, and her confirmation hearings could be ugly. It’s possible that Jackson will be able to bring her business-friendly orientation to the EPA—but that depends on how much independence she is granted by Carol Browner, Obama’s eco-czar (more on her below).
Ken Salazar
At first blush, Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, who has been tapped for interior secretary, looks like a moderate. As with Jackson, some environmentalists have opposed his selection, citing his support for the confirmation of Bush’s first interior secretary, Gale Norton, and his ill-defined ties to resource extraction industries. Salazar has also comes under fire for several votes unpopular with the environmental movement, such as his 2005 vote against tightened CAFE standards; his 2006 vote to remove congressional barriers to oil exploration off Florida’s Gulf Coast; and his 2007 vote against legislation that would have required the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. Nevertheless, Salazar currently has a rating of 100 percent with the League of Conservation Voters, an extremist green outfit that has hailed him as an environmental hero for cleaving to their party line.
Steven Chu
The selection of Steven Chu as energy secretary is another ethnically historic pick: Chu will be the first Asian American to head the Department of Energy. He has impressive scientific credentials, sharing a Nobel prize for research on laser cooling and atom trapping. Chu currently serves as director of the Berkeley National Laboratory. Chu clearly has the right background for the job; but ideologically, he’s cut from the same cloth as the rest of the Obama cabinet. Chu is an ardent supporter of greenhouse gas (GHG) control regimes such as the Kyoto Protocol, and we can expect him to push President Obama to sign a Kyoto successor agreement.
Nancy Sutley
Obama’s choice of Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality continues the trend of diversity picks: Sutley will be the first openly lesbian woman to head up the CEQ. Sutley is deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles. She previously served as a regional administrator of the EPA when Carol Browner was administrator (under President Clinton). During her tenure as deputy mayor, Sutley has enacted two clean air initiatives. One of those initiatives involved switching the Department of Water and Power (known to those of us who grew up in Los Angeles as “Drip and Tingle”) over to wind and solar power. The other initiative was a program to replace 16,000 diesel trucks at the port of Los Angeles. In each case, Sutley gave little thought to the economic impact of environmental regulation. Such negligence has contributed to California’s economic crisis and its loss of recession-proof industries such as the aerospace sector, which was pushed out of the Golden State by rigid air pollution controls.
Jane Lubchenco
Obama has selected marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, another agency with a strong focus on climate change. Lubchenco will make that focus even stronger. She is a longtime crusader for strict regulation of GHG emissions. Lubchenco has served on the boards of the World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, and other green NGOs. She believes that ocean acidification (a byproduct of GHG emissions) is the biggest threat to life in the oceans. Lubchenco is not content to simply promote her own views; she is also keen to stifle dissent, and was instrumental in getting Oregon’s state climatologist fired for his unorthodox views on global warming.
John Holdren
John Holdren’s designation as White House science adviser affirms that Obama will have a thoroughly climate-focused team. Holdren, a program director at Harvard University, is a climate change alarmist who has slandered skeptics as “dangerous” forces who “infest” the Internet and media. “We should really call them‘deniers’ rather than ‘skeptics,’ Holdren has said, “because they are giving the venerable tradition of skepticism a bad name.” Regardless of the fact that hundreds of qualified scientists are dubious about elements of the “climate crisis” school, Holdren simply dismisses their legitimacy. He was solicited by Scientific American magazine to criticize Bjorn Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Holdren’s review was one of the most lopsided public assaults on critical thinking about the environment in recent memory.
Carol Browner
Carol Browner’s selection as “energy coordinator” (sometimes called energy czar) virtually guarantees that the Obama administration’s energy and environmental policies will be anything but moderate. Her two terms as EPA boss were marked by adversarialism, punitive enforcement actions, draconian tightening of environmental regulations, and the message that business is destructive of the environment and dishonest about the costs of environmental regulations. Browner’s capstone achievement, the tightening of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards in 1997, sparked legal battles that raged for nearly ten years and required resolution by the Supreme Court. Throughout the debate, Browner consistently denied that cost was any consideration in setting standards, despite findings by the Office of Management and Budget that the costs of the regulations would outweigh the benefits, and despite numerous studies showing that, on net, far more people would be harmed by the economic consequences of the new standards than would be helped by the incremental gains in air quality. As a result of this bruising battle, Browner made many enemies in both business and government.
When it comes to climate change, she is a disciple of Al Gore, for whom she worked from 1988 to 1991. Browner reportedly helped write much of Gore’s book Earth in the Balance, which called for a wrenching transformation of American society to make it “greener” and the elimination of the internal combustion engine in 25 years. Browner believes that “climate change is the greatest challenge ever faced,” and that the EPA is the agency to face it. Toward the end of her tenure as EPA chief, Browner gave the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant, despite the fact that such gases are barely mentioned in the Clean Air Act.
***
On balance, if Obama’s nominees remain true to their stated positions, it is likely that his administration will 1) try to implement severe GHG controls that will inflict major damage on an already-reeling economy, and 2) seek to restrict consumer choice through the imposition of new environmental policies. The cost of virtually everything is likely to rise, since energy is a fundamental input to production and the provision of goods and services. All told, we are about to witness an unprecedented proliferation of new regulations that will, as a recent EPA report admits, reach into every area of American life and commerce.
Kenneth P. Green is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
We can expect a proliferation of new regulations that will reach into every area of American life and commerce.
The American, Friday, January 16, 2009
What do President-elect Barack Obama’s leadership picks tell us about the kinds of energy and environmental policies we can expect in the next four to eight years? On balance, they suggest we are in for a radical shift away from George W. Bush’s pro-market policies and back to the aggressive regulatory approach favored by the Clinton administration. Let’s take a look at Obama’s prospective appointees.
Lisa P. Jackson
Obama’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be the first African American to head the Agency since its creation in 1970. She will be the fourth female administrator of the EPA, which seems to be a trend: four of the last seven EPA chiefs have been women. Jackson’s choice may be the only bright spot among Obama’s energy and environmental nominees. While in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Jackson’s record was one of generally cooperating with industry and streamlining permitting processes, often angering green activists who opposed any activity that made it easier to build or expand polluting facilities. Her handling of New Jersey’s Superfund sites has also come in for criticism, and her confirmation hearings could be ugly. It’s possible that Jackson will be able to bring her business-friendly orientation to the EPA—but that depends on how much independence she is granted by Carol Browner, Obama’s eco-czar (more on her below).
Ken Salazar
At first blush, Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, who has been tapped for interior secretary, looks like a moderate. As with Jackson, some environmentalists have opposed his selection, citing his support for the confirmation of Bush’s first interior secretary, Gale Norton, and his ill-defined ties to resource extraction industries. Salazar has also comes under fire for several votes unpopular with the environmental movement, such as his 2005 vote against tightened CAFE standards; his 2006 vote to remove congressional barriers to oil exploration off Florida’s Gulf Coast; and his 2007 vote against legislation that would have required the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. Nevertheless, Salazar currently has a rating of 100 percent with the League of Conservation Voters, an extremist green outfit that has hailed him as an environmental hero for cleaving to their party line.
Steven Chu
The selection of Steven Chu as energy secretary is another ethnically historic pick: Chu will be the first Asian American to head the Department of Energy. He has impressive scientific credentials, sharing a Nobel prize for research on laser cooling and atom trapping. Chu currently serves as director of the Berkeley National Laboratory. Chu clearly has the right background for the job; but ideologically, he’s cut from the same cloth as the rest of the Obama cabinet. Chu is an ardent supporter of greenhouse gas (GHG) control regimes such as the Kyoto Protocol, and we can expect him to push President Obama to sign a Kyoto successor agreement.
Nancy Sutley
Obama’s choice of Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality continues the trend of diversity picks: Sutley will be the first openly lesbian woman to head up the CEQ. Sutley is deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles. She previously served as a regional administrator of the EPA when Carol Browner was administrator (under President Clinton). During her tenure as deputy mayor, Sutley has enacted two clean air initiatives. One of those initiatives involved switching the Department of Water and Power (known to those of us who grew up in Los Angeles as “Drip and Tingle”) over to wind and solar power. The other initiative was a program to replace 16,000 diesel trucks at the port of Los Angeles. In each case, Sutley gave little thought to the economic impact of environmental regulation. Such negligence has contributed to California’s economic crisis and its loss of recession-proof industries such as the aerospace sector, which was pushed out of the Golden State by rigid air pollution controls.
Jane Lubchenco
Obama has selected marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, another agency with a strong focus on climate change. Lubchenco will make that focus even stronger. She is a longtime crusader for strict regulation of GHG emissions. Lubchenco has served on the boards of the World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, and other green NGOs. She believes that ocean acidification (a byproduct of GHG emissions) is the biggest threat to life in the oceans. Lubchenco is not content to simply promote her own views; she is also keen to stifle dissent, and was instrumental in getting Oregon’s state climatologist fired for his unorthodox views on global warming.
John Holdren
John Holdren’s designation as White House science adviser affirms that Obama will have a thoroughly climate-focused team. Holdren, a program director at Harvard University, is a climate change alarmist who has slandered skeptics as “dangerous” forces who “infest” the Internet and media. “We should really call them‘deniers’ rather than ‘skeptics,’ Holdren has said, “because they are giving the venerable tradition of skepticism a bad name.” Regardless of the fact that hundreds of qualified scientists are dubious about elements of the “climate crisis” school, Holdren simply dismisses their legitimacy. He was solicited by Scientific American magazine to criticize Bjorn Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Holdren’s review was one of the most lopsided public assaults on critical thinking about the environment in recent memory.
Carol Browner
Carol Browner’s selection as “energy coordinator” (sometimes called energy czar) virtually guarantees that the Obama administration’s energy and environmental policies will be anything but moderate. Her two terms as EPA boss were marked by adversarialism, punitive enforcement actions, draconian tightening of environmental regulations, and the message that business is destructive of the environment and dishonest about the costs of environmental regulations. Browner’s capstone achievement, the tightening of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards in 1997, sparked legal battles that raged for nearly ten years and required resolution by the Supreme Court. Throughout the debate, Browner consistently denied that cost was any consideration in setting standards, despite findings by the Office of Management and Budget that the costs of the regulations would outweigh the benefits, and despite numerous studies showing that, on net, far more people would be harmed by the economic consequences of the new standards than would be helped by the incremental gains in air quality. As a result of this bruising battle, Browner made many enemies in both business and government.
When it comes to climate change, she is a disciple of Al Gore, for whom she worked from 1988 to 1991. Browner reportedly helped write much of Gore’s book Earth in the Balance, which called for a wrenching transformation of American society to make it “greener” and the elimination of the internal combustion engine in 25 years. Browner believes that “climate change is the greatest challenge ever faced,” and that the EPA is the agency to face it. Toward the end of her tenure as EPA chief, Browner gave the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant, despite the fact that such gases are barely mentioned in the Clean Air Act.
***
On balance, if Obama’s nominees remain true to their stated positions, it is likely that his administration will 1) try to implement severe GHG controls that will inflict major damage on an already-reeling economy, and 2) seek to restrict consumer choice through the imposition of new environmental policies. The cost of virtually everything is likely to rise, since energy is a fundamental input to production and the provision of goods and services. All told, we are about to witness an unprecedented proliferation of new regulations that will, as a recent EPA report admits, reach into every area of American life and commerce.
Kenneth P. Green is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
In the Huffington Post: Obama & the Peace Corps
An article by Laurence Leamer
Huffington Post, January 18, 2009 03:14 PM (EST)
Excerpts:
Has President-elect Barack Obama [...] turned away from his most exalted ideals in an act of such spiritual malfeasance that it will condemn his administration?
Some observers cite the fact that the stimulus package contains money for AmeriCorps but nothing for the Peace Corps as evidence that the president-elect has turned his back on his pledge to double the size of Kennedy's most noble child. There is buzz among former Volunteers and others associated with the Peace Corps that the expanded future of the organization is in immediate and dramatic peril.
The Peace Corps $330 million budget is insufficient even to maintain the current level of 7,876 volunteers. In recent months some potential volunteers have been asked to defer their enlistments for up to a year. To expand dramatically another $80 to $100 million is needed, a pittance in terms of the impact such an escalation would have on America and the world.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal in 1964-66, an early supporter of Obama, a volunteer and a member of the steering committee in Palm Beach County, and I don't believe for a minute that he will back away from his historic pledge. He can't or he will be denying his essence. Obama will be the first president whose most formative life experience was service, working as a community organizer, and service/volunteering will be one of the essential themes of his presidency.
Obama will be our president, the leader we thought one of us might be, a leader going back to those ideals and taking them to new dramatic place in American life. "To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - our people," Obama says in the winter issue of Worldview Magazine. "We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And, we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity. This will not be a call issued in one speech or on program. This will be an important and enduring commitment of my presidency."
As Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel told Thomas Friedman in his column the day after the historic election: "The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service -- in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama's campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again."
It is that "dormant civic idealism" resonating among millions of Americans that can change our country. In the Obama years service/volunteering may well become the crucial mark of social legitimacy without which we are not full citizens. I understand the profound linkage between the Peace Corps/volunteer experience and the Obama campaign.
Let me tell you the story of two women, one who was in my Peace Crops group, and one who volunteered with me in South Florida. Suzanne Cluett was a feisty, determined blonde from Seattle who in the Sixties trekked to remote areas of Nepal bringing medical advice to women. She worked in that same field after leaving the Peace Corps. She became the first employee of the nascent Gates Foundation. Suzanne worked with Bill Gates' father in her basement developing what has become the greatest foundation in the history of the world. Thanks to Suzanne, the Gates Foundation is imbued with the spirit of the Peace Corps.
Suzanne died of cancer in 2006. A group of us from Nepal IV built a school in the mountains of Nepal in her honor. Bill Gates donated a million dollars part of which went to build a maternity hospital high up in the Himalayas so for the first time Sherpa women can give birth in a hospital. But Suzanne real immortality rests in the Gates Foundation. Every time you read about or see its accomplishment, think that you are seeing the Peace Corps at work.
Maria Cole is a beautiful, fortyish African-American dentist. She had a practice in reconstructive dentistry in South Florida. She sold it because she wanted to do something different and that something different was volunteering for Obama. She flew up to New Hampshire and worked organizing Enfield. Then she went on to South Carolina. She wanted to go to Texas but got no response from the Obama staff in Chicago. So she and a friend took off on their own and set up shop in Eagle Lake where Obama won both the primary and the caucus. In South Florida during the general campaign Maria managed the northern part of Palm Beach County. The largely black Rivera Beach generally had about a twenty percent turn out; this time it was over eighty per cent, almost all for Obama.
Suzanne and Maria never met but they are sisters of the blood and spirit, partners in helping to build a great and noble movement. I am witness to the fact that as brilliant and historic a figure as Obama is, he is in some measure the vehicle for a movement far larger even than the presidency. The millions of people who volunteered discovered a spiritual affinity with each other and a cause and they has a momentum and energy that nothing can stop.
I volunteer once a week for the Lord's Place in West Palm Beach working with the homeless. It's a sacrament with me. I've talked about it to Jorge Quezeda, the Latino maintenance chief in my Palm Beach condominium. Jorge's a big Obama supporter too, and he got excited hearing me talk about the Lord's Place, and he's going to start volunteering too.
Something is happening everywhere in America. The dormant idealism is awakening. The size of the Peace Corps will double. Young Americans will go to Asia and Africa and Latin America not as soldiers but as missionary of a new faith, emissaries of the best in America. They'll go into the slums, and so will middle-aged folks and retired people, and we will change this country and this world.
We are ready, Mr. President, ready for you to lead us.
Huffington Post, January 18, 2009 03:14 PM (EST)
Excerpts:
Has President-elect Barack Obama [...] turned away from his most exalted ideals in an act of such spiritual malfeasance that it will condemn his administration?
Some observers cite the fact that the stimulus package contains money for AmeriCorps but nothing for the Peace Corps as evidence that the president-elect has turned his back on his pledge to double the size of Kennedy's most noble child. There is buzz among former Volunteers and others associated with the Peace Corps that the expanded future of the organization is in immediate and dramatic peril.
The Peace Corps $330 million budget is insufficient even to maintain the current level of 7,876 volunteers. In recent months some potential volunteers have been asked to defer their enlistments for up to a year. To expand dramatically another $80 to $100 million is needed, a pittance in terms of the impact such an escalation would have on America and the world.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal in 1964-66, an early supporter of Obama, a volunteer and a member of the steering committee in Palm Beach County, and I don't believe for a minute that he will back away from his historic pledge. He can't or he will be denying his essence. Obama will be the first president whose most formative life experience was service, working as a community organizer, and service/volunteering will be one of the essential themes of his presidency.
Obama will be our president, the leader we thought one of us might be, a leader going back to those ideals and taking them to new dramatic place in American life. "To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - our people," Obama says in the winter issue of Worldview Magazine. "We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And, we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity. This will not be a call issued in one speech or on program. This will be an important and enduring commitment of my presidency."
As Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel told Thomas Friedman in his column the day after the historic election: "The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service -- in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama's campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again."
It is that "dormant civic idealism" resonating among millions of Americans that can change our country. In the Obama years service/volunteering may well become the crucial mark of social legitimacy without which we are not full citizens. I understand the profound linkage between the Peace Corps/volunteer experience and the Obama campaign.
Let me tell you the story of two women, one who was in my Peace Crops group, and one who volunteered with me in South Florida. Suzanne Cluett was a feisty, determined blonde from Seattle who in the Sixties trekked to remote areas of Nepal bringing medical advice to women. She worked in that same field after leaving the Peace Corps. She became the first employee of the nascent Gates Foundation. Suzanne worked with Bill Gates' father in her basement developing what has become the greatest foundation in the history of the world. Thanks to Suzanne, the Gates Foundation is imbued with the spirit of the Peace Corps.
Suzanne died of cancer in 2006. A group of us from Nepal IV built a school in the mountains of Nepal in her honor. Bill Gates donated a million dollars part of which went to build a maternity hospital high up in the Himalayas so for the first time Sherpa women can give birth in a hospital. But Suzanne real immortality rests in the Gates Foundation. Every time you read about or see its accomplishment, think that you are seeing the Peace Corps at work.
Maria Cole is a beautiful, fortyish African-American dentist. She had a practice in reconstructive dentistry in South Florida. She sold it because she wanted to do something different and that something different was volunteering for Obama. She flew up to New Hampshire and worked organizing Enfield. Then she went on to South Carolina. She wanted to go to Texas but got no response from the Obama staff in Chicago. So she and a friend took off on their own and set up shop in Eagle Lake where Obama won both the primary and the caucus. In South Florida during the general campaign Maria managed the northern part of Palm Beach County. The largely black Rivera Beach generally had about a twenty percent turn out; this time it was over eighty per cent, almost all for Obama.
Suzanne and Maria never met but they are sisters of the blood and spirit, partners in helping to build a great and noble movement. I am witness to the fact that as brilliant and historic a figure as Obama is, he is in some measure the vehicle for a movement far larger even than the presidency. The millions of people who volunteered discovered a spiritual affinity with each other and a cause and they has a momentum and energy that nothing can stop.
I volunteer once a week for the Lord's Place in West Palm Beach working with the homeless. It's a sacrament with me. I've talked about it to Jorge Quezeda, the Latino maintenance chief in my Palm Beach condominium. Jorge's a big Obama supporter too, and he got excited hearing me talk about the Lord's Place, and he's going to start volunteering too.
Something is happening everywhere in America. The dormant idealism is awakening. The size of the Peace Corps will double. Young Americans will go to Asia and Africa and Latin America not as soldiers but as missionary of a new faith, emissaries of the best in America. They'll go into the slums, and so will middle-aged folks and retired people, and we will change this country and this world.
We are ready, Mr. President, ready for you to lead us.
Can We Start Shooting the Geese Now?
Can We Start Shooting the Geese Now? By Greg Pollowitz
Here's a press release form New York City's website, NYC.gov, on a pilot program focusing on more environmentally friendly ways to control Canadian geese. This method brags about special dogs that won't attack the geese:
This April, the Central Park Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation will pilot a one-month program using an environmentally-safe method to attempt to reduce the number of geese in Central Park. The first step of the process includes herding- but never touching or attacking- the geese with highly-trained border collies. Skilled trainers will lead two border collies in driving the geese away from the Park’s lawns and water bodies throughout the month of April. Urban Park Rangers and Central Park Conservancy staffers will supervise training and goose management.
Large flocks of resident Canada geese leave excessive goose droppings, resulting in large areas of landscape that are unavailable for public use and recreation. In Central Park, geese continually overgraze the grass around the Harlem Meer and its surrounding landscapes, increasing erosion. The high nitrogen content in goose droppings can alter water chemistry and produce algae that rob the water of oxygen, killing fish and other wildlife.
Bred to herd sheep, collies have a natural instinct to round up flocks of geese. By patrolling various areas of the Park, the geese will be encouraged to abandon the lawns and water. In conjunction with the border collies, public education is crucial. Feeding geese only encourages them to linger in public areas. Herding dogs and education are two methods of Canada goose management that are approved by the Humane Society and the USDA Office of Wildlife Services.
Brilliant. They got the geese out of Central Park and to someplace else. Like Laguardia.
Here's a press release form New York City's website, NYC.gov, on a pilot program focusing on more environmentally friendly ways to control Canadian geese. This method brags about special dogs that won't attack the geese:
This April, the Central Park Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation will pilot a one-month program using an environmentally-safe method to attempt to reduce the number of geese in Central Park. The first step of the process includes herding- but never touching or attacking- the geese with highly-trained border collies. Skilled trainers will lead two border collies in driving the geese away from the Park’s lawns and water bodies throughout the month of April. Urban Park Rangers and Central Park Conservancy staffers will supervise training and goose management.
Large flocks of resident Canada geese leave excessive goose droppings, resulting in large areas of landscape that are unavailable for public use and recreation. In Central Park, geese continually overgraze the grass around the Harlem Meer and its surrounding landscapes, increasing erosion. The high nitrogen content in goose droppings can alter water chemistry and produce algae that rob the water of oxygen, killing fish and other wildlife.
Bred to herd sheep, collies have a natural instinct to round up flocks of geese. By patrolling various areas of the Park, the geese will be encouraged to abandon the lawns and water. In conjunction with the border collies, public education is crucial. Feeding geese only encourages them to linger in public areas. Herding dogs and education are two methods of Canada goose management that are approved by the Humane Society and the USDA Office of Wildlife Services.
Brilliant. They got the geese out of Central Park and to someplace else. Like Laguardia.
On "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat"
Guest Weblog By Madhav Khandekar. Climate Science, Jan 2009
There is an article in Science [H/T to W. F. Lenihan!]
Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat
David. S. Battisti and Rosamond L. Naylor Science 9 January 2009: 240-244.
The abstract of this article reads
“Higher growing season temperatures can have dramatic impacts on agricultural productivity, farm incomes, and food security. We used observational data and output from 23 global climate models to show a high probability (>90%) that growing season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics by the end of the 21st century will exceed the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006. In temperate regions, the hottest seasons on record will represent the future norm in many locations. We used historical examples to illustrate the magnitude of damage to food systems caused by extreme seasonal heat and show that these short-run events could become long-term trends without sufficient investments in adaptation.”
An excellent weblog by Pat Michaels on this Science paper is also worth reading (see).
Madhav Khandekar has e-mailed me on this article, and graciously accepted my invitation to post as a guest weblog his insightful comments on this paper. Dr. Khandekar is an Environmental Consultant (extreme weather events) and worked for 25 years with Environment Canada in Meteorology. His weblog follows.
Guest Weblog by Madhav Khandekar
“I read the abstract and summary of David Battisti’s article from Science and am very disappointed at his naive analysis of “hot” future climate and its possible adverse impact on world-wide and in particular tropical agriculture. I am afraid he (David) has NOT tried to understand or analyze in depth how agriculture has evolved in most tropical regions.
From my limited analysis of agricultural evolution over south Asia (where more than 60% of humanity lives today) most regions have substantially increased their grain & food (fruits, veggies etc) supply in the last 25 yrs. Increase in max temp (due to GW) alone is NOT necessarily deleterious to agriculture in Asia and tropical Africa. Reduced rainfall (seasonal, Monsoonal) can be more deleterious to agriculture and so far there is NO indication that Monsoon or seasonal rains over Asia & tropical Africa have declined in the last 25 yrs.
Allow me to provide some numbers: For India (I have done extensive analysis of Monsoon and agriculture for India) the rice yield has increased from 25 M tonnes in 1950 to about 100 M tonnes in recent yrs and most of India’s rice grows in the Peninsular India where mean temp has increased by about 1C over the past 50 yrs. During the Monsoon months mean temp is about 32/35c (David refers to this as ‘critical’, which is NOT correct) but with good rains from Monsoon season,rice can grow quite well there. In the northern Province of Punjab (India’s wheat growing region) wheat grows due to winterrains (December-March, about 6-10 cm) plus excellent irrigation (perhaps best in the world) and today Punjab produces about 70 M tonnes of wheat, compared to about 15 M tonnes in the 1950s. Besides wheat & rice India also produces a variety of other grains like beans, sorghum, soya, barley etc. India has two agricultural seasons, Kharif the main Monsoon season,
June-Sept and Rabi, winter season Dec-Feb this only for selected regions of Peninsular India and parts of central & north India where irrigation is well developed. The two seasons’ total yield today can and does provide sufficient grains/fruits/veggies etc for 1.2 B people of India, this represents about 20% of world’s humanity!
Based on limited analysis, I can say that “there is plenty of food today for most people in India (there is NO starvation anywhere!). Admittedly, the prices of grains & veggies are yet NOT affordable to everyone. The Central Govt (in New Delhi) is doing its best to provide basic grains (rice & wheat) to many rgions at subsidized prices.With general elections coming in the next three months or about, the ruling Govt in New Delhi will try its best to provide adequate food/grains to everyone so the next election will NOT be on “food shortage” issue, BUT most certainly on terrorism which is becoming the most talked about issue at present. Elsewhere in south Asia, food grains and fruits and veggies have registered increased yields in the last 25 yrs and most regions (including Burma OR Myanmar where there is strict Military rule) have adequate food supply.
In summary I completely disagree with David Battistie’s analysis of “reduced grain yield” in a warmer world! This issue is very poorly analyzed. Battistie gives example of the Sahel region, which is a poor example in my opinion. Battistie should know that the Sahel is NOT the grain basket for Africa. It produces a measly few M tonnes of peanuts, so why worry about possible depletion of few M tonnes of peanuts, while completely ignoring hundreds of M tonnes of grain being produced elsewhere? To give some more numbers: For the year May 2007 thru April 2008, India’s total grain yield, per an article I read in May 2008, was estimated at about 230 M tonnes, possibly largest yield in the last ten yrs. During an election in July/August 2008 in one of the southern Provinces in India, the New Delhi Govt was promising people there that “rice will be made available at Rs 20 per Kilo-this translates to about 50 cents (US) per kilo!” (Delhi Govt has purchased large quantities of wheat & rice for distribution at subsidized rates).
p.s. I met Battistie at a CMOS (Can Met & Oceanogr Soc) Annual Metting in Kelowna British Columbia in 1995. He is agood modeler and I had good discussion with him. I am afraid he puts “too much” faith in his models.”
Dr. Khandekar added the further comments below after I requested permission to post as a guest weblog.
You are most welcome to post my comments on your blog. I would feel honoured to see my comments on south Asia’s grain and food sufficiency over the last 25 yrs in your blog.
Allow me to make few more observations: I visited two major cities of India New Delhi (lat 30N Population ~ 11 M) and Hyderabad (lat ~13N Population ~8 M) in the last year and was impressed to see both these cities full of vegetation and big shady trees providing a nice “green look” despite the fact that both these cities have hot summer climate with max temp reaching 42-45C at least ten days during the premonsoon months March-May. In New Delhi, India’s capital city, there is an area in Central Delhi (close to the India Met Dept main office) called The Lodi Gardens, which is about 2 Sq Km area with lots of large trees providing excellent shade during hot summer days. These well-known Lodi Gardens were established by the Lodi Family which ruled New Delhi around 1000-1100 AD. It is interesting to note that these Gardens and the trees have survived the relatively cooler climate of the LIA (Little Ice Age) and are thriving well, even during the hot summer days of New Delhi. I recall New Delhi recording max temp of 50C for about two weeks in June 1998, the so-called ‘hottest’ year as designated by the IPCC.
Both New Delhi & Hyderabad have Monsoonal climate where summer (June-September) rains provide the annual moisture (about 20-25 inches of rains both places). New Delhi does get few cm of winter (December-march) rains, while Hyderabad only occasionally gets some winter precipitation via Easterly Waves from the bay of Bengal (in the east) of about 3-5 cm.
Even the State of Rajasthan (in Northwest India) which has a desert climate can and does support fair amount of greenery and large trees dotted along ‘old’ dried rivers as well as elsewhere in the State. Northwest India has experienced an interesting climate change over the last two thousand years (recall Late Prof Reid Bryson’s study of the 1960s on ‘dust & climate”) and there are numerous stories in the Hindu Mythology about the vanishing River Saraswati (Goddess of Knowledge) which was full of water some 1500 years ago and is completely dry at present. There are plans at present to revive the old dry river bed to make it green again!
When one closely analyzes the climate of India and south Asia, Battisti’s present study in Science seems deeply flawed.
There is an article in Science [H/T to W. F. Lenihan!]
Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat
David. S. Battisti and Rosamond L. Naylor Science 9 January 2009: 240-244.
The abstract of this article reads
“Higher growing season temperatures can have dramatic impacts on agricultural productivity, farm incomes, and food security. We used observational data and output from 23 global climate models to show a high probability (>90%) that growing season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics by the end of the 21st century will exceed the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006. In temperate regions, the hottest seasons on record will represent the future norm in many locations. We used historical examples to illustrate the magnitude of damage to food systems caused by extreme seasonal heat and show that these short-run events could become long-term trends without sufficient investments in adaptation.”
An excellent weblog by Pat Michaels on this Science paper is also worth reading (see).
Madhav Khandekar has e-mailed me on this article, and graciously accepted my invitation to post as a guest weblog his insightful comments on this paper. Dr. Khandekar is an Environmental Consultant (extreme weather events) and worked for 25 years with Environment Canada in Meteorology. His weblog follows.
Guest Weblog by Madhav Khandekar
“I read the abstract and summary of David Battisti’s article from Science and am very disappointed at his naive analysis of “hot” future climate and its possible adverse impact on world-wide and in particular tropical agriculture. I am afraid he (David) has NOT tried to understand or analyze in depth how agriculture has evolved in most tropical regions.
From my limited analysis of agricultural evolution over south Asia (where more than 60% of humanity lives today) most regions have substantially increased their grain & food (fruits, veggies etc) supply in the last 25 yrs. Increase in max temp (due to GW) alone is NOT necessarily deleterious to agriculture in Asia and tropical Africa. Reduced rainfall (seasonal, Monsoonal) can be more deleterious to agriculture and so far there is NO indication that Monsoon or seasonal rains over Asia & tropical Africa have declined in the last 25 yrs.
Allow me to provide some numbers: For India (I have done extensive analysis of Monsoon and agriculture for India) the rice yield has increased from 25 M tonnes in 1950 to about 100 M tonnes in recent yrs and most of India’s rice grows in the Peninsular India where mean temp has increased by about 1C over the past 50 yrs. During the Monsoon months mean temp is about 32/35c (David refers to this as ‘critical’, which is NOT correct) but with good rains from Monsoon season,rice can grow quite well there. In the northern Province of Punjab (India’s wheat growing region) wheat grows due to winterrains (December-March, about 6-10 cm) plus excellent irrigation (perhaps best in the world) and today Punjab produces about 70 M tonnes of wheat, compared to about 15 M tonnes in the 1950s. Besides wheat & rice India also produces a variety of other grains like beans, sorghum, soya, barley etc. India has two agricultural seasons, Kharif the main Monsoon season,
June-Sept and Rabi, winter season Dec-Feb this only for selected regions of Peninsular India and parts of central & north India where irrigation is well developed. The two seasons’ total yield today can and does provide sufficient grains/fruits/veggies etc for 1.2 B people of India, this represents about 20% of world’s humanity!
Based on limited analysis, I can say that “there is plenty of food today for most people in India (there is NO starvation anywhere!). Admittedly, the prices of grains & veggies are yet NOT affordable to everyone. The Central Govt (in New Delhi) is doing its best to provide basic grains (rice & wheat) to many rgions at subsidized prices.With general elections coming in the next three months or about, the ruling Govt in New Delhi will try its best to provide adequate food/grains to everyone so the next election will NOT be on “food shortage” issue, BUT most certainly on terrorism which is becoming the most talked about issue at present. Elsewhere in south Asia, food grains and fruits and veggies have registered increased yields in the last 25 yrs and most regions (including Burma OR Myanmar where there is strict Military rule) have adequate food supply.
In summary I completely disagree with David Battistie’s analysis of “reduced grain yield” in a warmer world! This issue is very poorly analyzed. Battistie gives example of the Sahel region, which is a poor example in my opinion. Battistie should know that the Sahel is NOT the grain basket for Africa. It produces a measly few M tonnes of peanuts, so why worry about possible depletion of few M tonnes of peanuts, while completely ignoring hundreds of M tonnes of grain being produced elsewhere? To give some more numbers: For the year May 2007 thru April 2008, India’s total grain yield, per an article I read in May 2008, was estimated at about 230 M tonnes, possibly largest yield in the last ten yrs. During an election in July/August 2008 in one of the southern Provinces in India, the New Delhi Govt was promising people there that “rice will be made available at Rs 20 per Kilo-this translates to about 50 cents (US) per kilo!” (Delhi Govt has purchased large quantities of wheat & rice for distribution at subsidized rates).
p.s. I met Battistie at a CMOS (Can Met & Oceanogr Soc) Annual Metting in Kelowna British Columbia in 1995. He is agood modeler and I had good discussion with him. I am afraid he puts “too much” faith in his models.”
Dr. Khandekar added the further comments below after I requested permission to post as a guest weblog.
You are most welcome to post my comments on your blog. I would feel honoured to see my comments on south Asia’s grain and food sufficiency over the last 25 yrs in your blog.
Allow me to make few more observations: I visited two major cities of India New Delhi (lat 30N Population ~ 11 M) and Hyderabad (lat ~13N Population ~8 M) in the last year and was impressed to see both these cities full of vegetation and big shady trees providing a nice “green look” despite the fact that both these cities have hot summer climate with max temp reaching 42-45C at least ten days during the premonsoon months March-May. In New Delhi, India’s capital city, there is an area in Central Delhi (close to the India Met Dept main office) called The Lodi Gardens, which is about 2 Sq Km area with lots of large trees providing excellent shade during hot summer days. These well-known Lodi Gardens were established by the Lodi Family which ruled New Delhi around 1000-1100 AD. It is interesting to note that these Gardens and the trees have survived the relatively cooler climate of the LIA (Little Ice Age) and are thriving well, even during the hot summer days of New Delhi. I recall New Delhi recording max temp of 50C for about two weeks in June 1998, the so-called ‘hottest’ year as designated by the IPCC.
Both New Delhi & Hyderabad have Monsoonal climate where summer (June-September) rains provide the annual moisture (about 20-25 inches of rains both places). New Delhi does get few cm of winter (December-march) rains, while Hyderabad only occasionally gets some winter precipitation via Easterly Waves from the bay of Bengal (in the east) of about 3-5 cm.
Even the State of Rajasthan (in Northwest India) which has a desert climate can and does support fair amount of greenery and large trees dotted along ‘old’ dried rivers as well as elsewhere in the State. Northwest India has experienced an interesting climate change over the last two thousand years (recall Late Prof Reid Bryson’s study of the 1960s on ‘dust & climate”) and there are numerous stories in the Hindu Mythology about the vanishing River Saraswati (Goddess of Knowledge) which was full of water some 1500 years ago and is completely dry at present. There are plans at present to revive the old dry river bed to make it green again!
When one closely analyzes the climate of India and south Asia, Battisti’s present study in Science seems deeply flawed.
Oil, minerals, the Sun: “Finite” Is Not “Scarce”
“Finite” Is Not “Scarce”, by Michael Lynch
Master Resouce, January 18, 2009
[A scientist was addressing a luncheon gathering and mentioned that the sun would burn out in 4 billion years. A woman in the front, alarmed, asked him to repeat the number, which he did. "Thank goodness!" she exclaimed, "I thought you said 'million'". Traditional physicist joke.]
Many of those writing on oil markets, energy security, commodity prices, and energy policy often cite, with great authority, the fact that “X is finite.” This can be seen both in the general press, such as the recent story on Abu Dhabi’s effort to diversify away from oil revenue (www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13greengulf.html), and in more detailed reports, such as the one written for the Army: “Energy Trends and Their Implication for US Army Installations.
”In the words of Vijay Vaitheeswaran of the Economist, “So what?” I have had this comment, that “x is finite,” made to me repeatedly, and I ask the questioners why they think it matters, to which they usually reply, “Well, it means production has to peak.”
But after all, isn’t everything effectively finite? Coal is finite, minerals are finite, and so forth. Even renewables rely on the sun for power, and the sun’s fuel is finite. So why should this mean we have to be concerned.
Or looked at another way: wasn’t oil always finite? A hundred years ago it was finite, but so what? What action should any government have taken then to respond to its finite nature that would have been meaningful.
The point is, as the lady in the anecdote above understood, that numbers matter. Finite is not scarce and it makes a huge difference whether or not the number is large or small, not whether it is finite.
Master Resouce, January 18, 2009
[A scientist was addressing a luncheon gathering and mentioned that the sun would burn out in 4 billion years. A woman in the front, alarmed, asked him to repeat the number, which he did. "Thank goodness!" she exclaimed, "I thought you said 'million'". Traditional physicist joke.]
Many of those writing on oil markets, energy security, commodity prices, and energy policy often cite, with great authority, the fact that “X is finite.” This can be seen both in the general press, such as the recent story on Abu Dhabi’s effort to diversify away from oil revenue (www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13greengulf.html), and in more detailed reports, such as the one written for the Army: “Energy Trends and Their Implication for US Army Installations.
”In the words of Vijay Vaitheeswaran of the Economist, “So what?” I have had this comment, that “x is finite,” made to me repeatedly, and I ask the questioners why they think it matters, to which they usually reply, “Well, it means production has to peak.”
But after all, isn’t everything effectively finite? Coal is finite, minerals are finite, and so forth. Even renewables rely on the sun for power, and the sun’s fuel is finite. So why should this mean we have to be concerned.
Or looked at another way: wasn’t oil always finite? A hundred years ago it was finite, but so what? What action should any government have taken then to respond to its finite nature that would have been meaningful.
The point is, as the lady in the anecdote above understood, that numbers matter. Finite is not scarce and it makes a huge difference whether or not the number is large or small, not whether it is finite.
Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade? Don’t Forget “Neither”
Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade? Don’t Forget “Neither”. By Robert Bradley
Master Resource, January 18, 2009
An article in today’s Houston Chronicle, "Debate Flares over How to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions," compares the relative merits of a carbon tax and cap-and-trade. We will be hearing a lot about these two approaches in the weeks and months ahead.
But the Chronicle article did not consider the other major alternative: neither a tax nor a cap-and-trade program. Yet that free-market alternative is alive and well. Some top Houston-based energy economists favor just this approach, which would amount to continuing the status quo as far as the federal government is concerned.
Several good arguments support the option of unpriced carbon dioxide (CO2).
First, it keeps the government from further politicizing the energy industry. If you believe that government is the problem and not the solution to energy problems, more government via a new energy tax is not the way to go.
Second, such an energy tax is regressive, hurting lower- and middle-income users the most. Thus a complicated rebate or credit program might have to be imposed in order to neutralize the problems of the "simple" tax approach.
Third, any tax will disadvantage the imposing country relative to countries without CO2 taxation. Such a discrepancy invites new restrictions on international trade in the name of "equality" and "climate stabilization." A trade war might arise between developed countries with carbon restrictions and developing counties with lighter or no carbon restrictions. Such protectionism is a high cost of such a tax. (Cap-and-trade has the same flaw).
Fourth, any new addition to the tax code, even if it is revenue neutral at inception, will take on a life of its own. The tax might change in unpredictable and unjustified ways, and it might not be revenue neutral for long. So the qualitative decision–do not impose a new tax, period–guards against the quantitative unpredictability of a new tax regime.
Are there other worthy arguments to add to these four?
Master Resource, January 18, 2009
An article in today’s Houston Chronicle, "Debate Flares over How to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions," compares the relative merits of a carbon tax and cap-and-trade. We will be hearing a lot about these two approaches in the weeks and months ahead.
But the Chronicle article did not consider the other major alternative: neither a tax nor a cap-and-trade program. Yet that free-market alternative is alive and well. Some top Houston-based energy economists favor just this approach, which would amount to continuing the status quo as far as the federal government is concerned.
Several good arguments support the option of unpriced carbon dioxide (CO2).
First, it keeps the government from further politicizing the energy industry. If you believe that government is the problem and not the solution to energy problems, more government via a new energy tax is not the way to go.
Second, such an energy tax is regressive, hurting lower- and middle-income users the most. Thus a complicated rebate or credit program might have to be imposed in order to neutralize the problems of the "simple" tax approach.
Third, any tax will disadvantage the imposing country relative to countries without CO2 taxation. Such a discrepancy invites new restrictions on international trade in the name of "equality" and "climate stabilization." A trade war might arise between developed countries with carbon restrictions and developing counties with lighter or no carbon restrictions. Such protectionism is a high cost of such a tax. (Cap-and-trade has the same flaw).
Fourth, any new addition to the tax code, even if it is revenue neutral at inception, will take on a life of its own. The tax might change in unpredictable and unjustified ways, and it might not be revenue neutral for long. So the qualitative decision–do not impose a new tax, period–guards against the quantitative unpredictability of a new tax regime.
Are there other worthy arguments to add to these four?
BHO: From Lady Liberty to renewable energy
From Lady Liberty to renewable energy, by Dave Rochelson
change.gov, Saturday, January 17, 2009 02:45pm EST
Just a few days before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama stopped in Bedford Heights, Ohio, to visit the Cardinal Fastener factory there.
In his remarks, President-elect Obama pointed out that the company’s roots in the country go deep—its bolts appear in both the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge—but it now earns half its profits from the manufacture of parts for wind turbines.
“In some ways you can’t think of a more iconic company than Cardinal Fastener,” President-elect Obama said. “The story of this copmany…is that renewable energy isn’t something pie in the sky. It’s not part of a far off future. It’s happening all acorss America right now.”
Watch the video of the President-elect’s tour of the factory and his remarks
change.gov, Saturday, January 17, 2009 02:45pm EST
Just a few days before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama stopped in Bedford Heights, Ohio, to visit the Cardinal Fastener factory there.
In his remarks, President-elect Obama pointed out that the company’s roots in the country go deep—its bolts appear in both the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge—but it now earns half its profits from the manufacture of parts for wind turbines.
“In some ways you can’t think of a more iconic company than Cardinal Fastener,” President-elect Obama said. “The story of this copmany…is that renewable energy isn’t something pie in the sky. It’s not part of a far off future. It’s happening all acorss America right now.”
Watch the video of the President-elect’s tour of the factory and his remarks
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