Brian's Musings
  • Home
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  • Musings
    • Brian's 2020 Newlsetters >
      • 28th June 2020 – Mulling a Covid Afterlife
      • 31st May 2020 - Unlocking your mind while in Lockdown
      • 19th April, 2020 – More stimulants for lockdown contemplation
      • 3rd April 2020 - PLanning Ahead in a Time of Plague
      • 19th March 2020 – More to Mull on in Splendid Isolation
      • 24th February, 2020 - The Corona Virus and Much More
      • 24th January 2020 - What changes likely in the new year?
    • Brian's 2019 Newsletters >
      • 23rd November 2019 - Another fascinating mix from around the world
      • 30th October 2019 - Where are we headed now?
      • 10th October 2019 - Another tour of the issues
      • 27th August 2019 -Brighter than usual
      • 2nd August 2019 - Mostly more gloom and doom
      • 5th July 2019 - Not much improvement anywhere
      • 19th June 2019 - Better late than neverNew Page
      • 27th April 2019 - More to make you think about the future
      • April 2019 Letters to the Editor of Business Day
      • 2nd April 2019 - Another Month of Mixed News
      • 27th February 2019 - More good news than bad
      • 4th February 2019 - Trying to make sense of it all
    • 2018 >
      • 29th December 2018 - Preparing for 2019
      • 3th November 2018 - Death by Hot Air and Other Cautionary Tales
      • 26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
      • October 2018 - Feedback on Draft Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa
      • 21st September 2018 - The Information Flow Continues
      • 31st August 2018 - Reading for the first weekend of spring / autumn
      • 31st July 2018 - Watching the World
      • 13th July 2018 - Energy Update 2018
      • 31st May 2018 - Grime and Punishment
      • 20th April, 2018 - The Equaliser Conspiracy
      • 3rd April, 2018 - More Fascinating Facts and Figures
      • 28th February, 2018 - World Update
    • 2017 >
      • 29th November 2017 - Guessing Our Future
      • 29th July 2017 – Basic Income Grant
      • 26th July 2017 – Ideas for a Brighter South Africa
      • 3rd July 2017 - Another Energy Update
      • 8th May 2017 – Trucking and Selling
      • 12th April 2017 - False News Today
      • 22nd March 2017 - Predicting Speed of Change
      • 27th February 2017 - Growing Inequality
      • 11th January 2017 - Medical Data Mining
    • 2016 >
      • 13th December 2016 - American Irony
      • 25th November 2016 - Global Decision Making
      • 30th October 2016 - Climate Changes
      • 11th October 2016 - Musing Investments
      • 19th September 2016 - The Inexorable Five
      • 2nd September 2016 - Driving Forward
      • 17th August 2016 - Innovationv Update
      • 19th July 2016 - Powering Along
      • 4th July 2016 – An Eye to the Future
      • 10th June 2016 - Reverse Education
      • 20th May 2016 - More Minding P's and Q's
      • 5th May 2016 - A Leisurely Future
      • 17th April 2016 - More Food for Thought
      • 29th March 2016 – America’s Digital Colonisation of the World
      • 11th March 2016 - Measuring Life
      • 26th February 2016 - Growing Older, Growing More
      • 12th February 2016 – Retirement Reflections
      • 29th January 2016 - Just Four More Years to 2020 >
        • 15th January 2016 - A Taste of Red and White
  • Books

The Information Flow Continues

21st September 2018 – The Information Flow Continues
 
People Change:
 
South Korea’s fertility rate is forecast to fall to a historic low of 0.96 in 2018, potentially leading, amongst other things, to underfunded pensions, expanding debt, economic decline and shortages of young people for the economy and the military.
 
In America, about 26 women are dying for every 100,000 live births, almost triple the rate of most western European countries.
 
A World Health Organisation study in eight advanced economies found one third of first year university students reported symptoms of a mental health disorder, including major depression, mania, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, alcohol use disorder and substance use disorder.

Climate Change
 
The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate published its 2018 report Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times as part of its ongoing New Climate Economy project. The report concluded that bold action could yield a direct economic gain of at least US$26 trillion and deliver up to 3.7 gigatons per year of CO2e savings over the next 15 years, while at the same time limiting dangerous climate change. Proposed actions included pricing carbon and moving toward mandatory disclosure of climate related financial risks; accelerating investment in sustainable infrastructure; smarter urban development, particularly transport networks; more compact, connected, and coordinated cities; wise water management; a circular industrial economy where materials are recycled and reused; sustainable land use
 
According to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, from 1970 to 2010, annual global extraction of materials grew from almost 22 to 70 billion tonnes. Each year, at least eight million tonnes of plastics leak into the ocean, contributing to a major new challenge for the 21st Century. Microplastics have been discovered in 114 aquatic species. Today, 95% of plastic packaging material valued at up to US$120 billion annually is lost after first use.
 
An AGU report calculated the considerable global economic gains from complying with the Paris Climate Accord for 139 countries. The relative damages from not complying for Sub-Sahara Africa, India, and Southeast Asia are especially severe.
 
According to the EU Court of Auditors, European air pollution limits are lower than WHO recommended guidelines resulting in some 400,000 premature deaths every year.

Dutch scientists have inaugurated a plastic pilot bicycle path made of recycled bottles, cups and packaging that is expected to be three times as durable as an asphalt alternative.

Food and Water
 
The 2017 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report records that global hunger levels have risen, largely because of extreme weather and conflicts, resulting in 821 million hungry people, mostly in Asia. Perversely 672 million adults are obese and 41 million children under five years of age are overweight while at the same time 151 million children under five are too short for their age because of malnutrition. One third of women of reproductive age have anaemia and only 40% of babies are breastfed exclusively to six months.
 
According to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, 2.1 billion people live without readily available, safe water supplies at home, and 4.5 billion live without safely managed sanitation. Water scarce regions, notably the Middle East, the Sahel, Central Africa, and East Asia could see GDP declines of as much as 6% by 2050 as a result of climate change, increasing migration and conflict.
 
Low Cost Renewable Energy
 
Deloitte’s September 2019 Report, Global Renewable Energy Trends, concludes that renewable energy sources are rapidly becoming the preferred option for reasons of cost and balancing electrical networks rather simply for environmental reasons. In addition, renewable technology is improving fast. The report comments on “cities integrating renewables into their smart city plans, community energy projects democratizing access to the benefits of renewables on and off the grid, emerging markets leading the deployment of renewables on their path to development, and corporations expanding the scope of their solar and wind procurement.”
 
Carbon Tracker predicts that global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023 because of expanding renewable energy growth, action on climate change and slowing energy demand. As a result, oil, gas and coal assets, currently worth trillions, could be worthless. (I trust the managers of our pensions funds are not just taking note but actively moving out of carbon based investments).

Japan’s Marubeni, a major player in the coal sector, announced plans to halve its ownership of coal-fired power plants by 2030, and withdraw completely from the coal plant building business.

The world’s biggest offshore windfarm, the 659 MW capacity Walney Extension in the Irish Sea off Cumbria has officially opened. Walney Extension uses half the number of turbines of the London Array, previously the largest, showing how turbine technology has improved in five years.
 
Azuri Technologies and Unilever Kenya have partnered to deliver solar power to millions of off-grid homes in Kenya with a system that includes a 10 watt solar panel, four LED lights, USB port and connectors for mobile phone charging, a rechargeable radio and rechargeable torch.
 
Fenix International and call phone company MTN have partnered to provide pay as you go solar systems to 30,000 Zambian households so far this year.
 
Mass Data Mining and Storage
 
Gartner predicts that by 2020 there will be 500 million wearables being used around the world.
 
Britons are among the most closely watched populations on earth with an estimated one surveillance camera per eleven citizens.
 
In 2017 Chinese scholars authored more papers on artificial intelligence than did American scholars.
 
Amazon is estimated to have fifty per cent of online retail (this is probably only American retail as Alibaba is huge in China). The EU is investigating Amazon’s dominance since it acts as seller both of its own products and those of third parties, collecting huge amounts of data in the process.
 
Automation Based Unemployment
 
America’s Food and Drug Administration approved its first artificial intelligence based autonomous diagnostic system, IDx, a diabetic retinopathy system, allowing it to make initial diagnoses without the need for an opthalmologist to interpret the image or results.
 
New York’s Melrose Credit Union, which provided services to the city’s taxi fleet, has been liquidated as a result of Uber, Lyft and similar services.
 
A survey conducted by the WEF concluded that by 2025 more than fifty per cent of tasks currently performed by humans will have been transferred to machines eliminating 75 million jobs by 2025 but, at the same time creating 133 million new jobs. (As I have mentioned previously, I prefer proper evidence based research to surveying managers who might not have give due thought to the questions posed).
 
Media research company Magna Global predicts that more than half of American advertising budgets of US$ 207 billion will be spent online in 2018 with Google, Facebook and, now, Amazon taking the lion’s share. Both TV watching and adsales are declining as viewers switch to the convenience of Netflix, Hula, Amazon and other online entertainment providers. (I hope investors considering the Naspers unbundling have taken note).
 
A September 2018 report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Notes From the Frontier: Modeling the Impact of AI on the World Economy, predicts that AI could potentially deliver additional global economic activity of around $US13 trillion globally by 2030, or about 16 percent higher cumulative GDP compared with today. The impact of AI may not be linear, but may build up at an accelerating pace over time. Adoption of AI could widen gaps between countries, companies, and workers.
 
Research jointly conducted by the World Economic Forum and Bain, suggests that deploying blockchain would enable global businesses to generate an extra $1 trillion in trade finance that would otherwise be missed out on. Transforming paper-based documentation into electronic formats and applying smart tools and technologies will help to reduce trade barriers and improve processing times at borders, particularly for small businesses and companies in higher risk developing countries. It’s not clear what impact this will have on employment. (South Africans will be sceptical about any research emanating from Bain following its involvement in emasculating the South African Revenue Services).
 
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
 
Cumulative passenger electric vehicle sales, including buses, reached four million vehicles by July 2018. The time needed to reach each consecutive million electric vehicles sold has shrunk from 17 months for the second million to 6 months for the fourth million.
 
Mercedes-Benz unveiled its first 100 per cent electric SUV. BMW provided details of a planned intelligent, autonomous, electric SUV. Hyundai announced its Ioniq range of electric, hybrid and fuel cell cars. Volvo demonstrated details of a 16 tonne electric, autonomous truck with no cab, in the process improving wind resistance. Other truck manufacturers with planned electric models now include Mercedes, Volvo, Daimler, Renault, Fuso and Australia’s SEA.
 
Germany’s Sono Motors is developing an affordable electric car with solar panels to partially recharge the battery and a lichen air-purifying system which will come to market in 2019. One model of the Toyota Prius Prime now has solar roof panels while Audi is investigating integrating thin-film solar cells into panoramic glass roofs.
 
The Piaggio Group is producing an electric version of the Vespa scooter.
 
American charging infrastructure company ChargePoint plans to install 2.5 million EV charging spots worldwide before 2025.
 
Graz University of Technology in Austria have built a prototype robot-controlled, high-speed combined charging system for electric vehicles capable of charging EVs placed in ‘less than perfect’ parking alignment with the system. Cameras placed on the robot recognise car model, the position and type of the charging socket and tell it where to plug in the charging cable.

Germany has inaugurated the world’s first hydrogen-powered train on the route connecting Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervoerde and Buxtehude.

GM invested US$ 500 million in Lyft and US$ 581 million in Cruise Automation. In May 2018, Soft Bank’s Vision Fund announced it would invest US$ 2.25 billion in GM’s Automated Electric Vehicle project.
 
Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, with combined sales of 10.6 million vehicles last year, announced that future models will integrate Google applications and services including Maps and the voice-commanded Google Assistant for entertainment and utility purposes.
 
France’s national railway operator SNCF has announced plans to introduce prototypes of driverless mainline trains for passengers and freight by 2023. Many French cities, including Paris, already run driverless metro trains.
 
According to the Financial Times, China manufactures 90% of the world’s computer hardware, including 75% of cell phones. Significantly, China is dominant in 5G, the next generation of smart phone communication technology which is expected to play a large part in the self driving vehicle revolution. In the USA, Verizon is implementing a prototype 5G network in several cities.
 
Increasing Inequality
 
According to Bloomberg, top executive remuneration in the USA increased by 24% from 2016 to 2017.
 
Analysis from CIPD and the High Pay Centre showed a 23% increase in top executive remuneration in the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2017, resulting in senior executives earning 145 times the average remuneration of their underlings.
 
Average household income for Britain's highest-earning decile is 6.8 times that of the lowest while average household wealth for Britain's richest decile is 315 times that of the poorest
 
Almost 700 families have become homeless in Dublin so far this year, including 122 families in July alone.
 

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  • Home
  • Brian's Blog
  • Musings
    • Brian's 2020 Newlsetters >
      • 28th June 2020 – Mulling a Covid Afterlife
      • 31st May 2020 - Unlocking your mind while in Lockdown
      • 19th April, 2020 – More stimulants for lockdown contemplation
      • 3rd April 2020 - PLanning Ahead in a Time of Plague
      • 19th March 2020 – More to Mull on in Splendid Isolation
      • 24th February, 2020 - The Corona Virus and Much More
      • 24th January 2020 - What changes likely in the new year?
    • Brian's 2019 Newsletters >
      • 23rd November 2019 - Another fascinating mix from around the world
      • 30th October 2019 - Where are we headed now?
      • 10th October 2019 - Another tour of the issues
      • 27th August 2019 -Brighter than usual
      • 2nd August 2019 - Mostly more gloom and doom
      • 5th July 2019 - Not much improvement anywhere
      • 19th June 2019 - Better late than neverNew Page
      • 27th April 2019 - More to make you think about the future
      • April 2019 Letters to the Editor of Business Day
      • 2nd April 2019 - Another Month of Mixed News
      • 27th February 2019 - More good news than bad
      • 4th February 2019 - Trying to make sense of it all
    • 2018 >
      • 29th December 2018 - Preparing for 2019
      • 3th November 2018 - Death by Hot Air and Other Cautionary Tales
      • 26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
      • October 2018 - Feedback on Draft Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa
      • 21st September 2018 - The Information Flow Continues
      • 31st August 2018 - Reading for the first weekend of spring / autumn
      • 31st July 2018 - Watching the World
      • 13th July 2018 - Energy Update 2018
      • 31st May 2018 - Grime and Punishment
      • 20th April, 2018 - The Equaliser Conspiracy
      • 3rd April, 2018 - More Fascinating Facts and Figures
      • 28th February, 2018 - World Update
    • 2017 >
      • 29th November 2017 - Guessing Our Future
      • 29th July 2017 – Basic Income Grant
      • 26th July 2017 – Ideas for a Brighter South Africa
      • 3rd July 2017 - Another Energy Update
      • 8th May 2017 – Trucking and Selling
      • 12th April 2017 - False News Today
      • 22nd March 2017 - Predicting Speed of Change
      • 27th February 2017 - Growing Inequality
      • 11th January 2017 - Medical Data Mining
    • 2016 >
      • 13th December 2016 - American Irony
      • 25th November 2016 - Global Decision Making
      • 30th October 2016 - Climate Changes
      • 11th October 2016 - Musing Investments
      • 19th September 2016 - The Inexorable Five
      • 2nd September 2016 - Driving Forward
      • 17th August 2016 - Innovationv Update
      • 19th July 2016 - Powering Along
      • 4th July 2016 – An Eye to the Future
      • 10th June 2016 - Reverse Education
      • 20th May 2016 - More Minding P's and Q's
      • 5th May 2016 - A Leisurely Future
      • 17th April 2016 - More Food for Thought
      • 29th March 2016 – America’s Digital Colonisation of the World
      • 11th March 2016 - Measuring Life
      • 26th February 2016 - Growing Older, Growing More
      • 12th February 2016 – Retirement Reflections
      • 29th January 2016 - Just Four More Years to 2020 >
        • 15th January 2016 - A Taste of Red and White
  • Books