26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
Welcome to the thirty third of Brian’s Musings. As usual I have grouped the new information under the headings associated with the nine global forces I have identified.
Mass Data Mining and Storage – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip
Facebook, Google and Amazon seem to be constantly in the limelight these days for misusing or simply losing some of the huge volumes of personal data that they have amassed on humankind. So you might be surprised to find me pointing a similar finger of blame at the innocent looking till slip handed to you yesterday by the supermarket cashier.
In the beginning till slips just listed what you had bought and the amount you paid for each item. Then the supermarkets persuaded us to sign up for the discounts offered under their customer loyalty scheme. Now, when you present your loyalty card greedy for those discounts, your printed till slip shows you name and membership number – and the supermarket chain adds your purchases to all the others associated with your name, telephone number and E-mail address.
Somewhere along the line I suspect that the credit card companies have done a deal with the supermarket chain – and all the other shops you use – whereby details of all your purchases are also stored in the credit card company’s database of personal purchase information which is orders of magnitude larger that that of the supermarket chain and can probably be used to deduce your approximate movements from shop to shop.
Here in South Africa one of the health insurance companies has also entered into an arrangement whereby members can also swipe their “healthy food” card at the till and get a refund. So, in addition to all your medical information fed back from pharmacies, doctors and hospitals, the company now knows all your purchases. Members are also able to achieve health bonuses as they surrender data about their visits to the gym and from the fitness devices monitoring the steps taken, the speed run and even your heart rate as you move around. I’m just waiting for the scheme to offer free DNA tests and then they will know much more about me than I know myself – in fact maybe even more than do Facebook, Google and the rest.
It just shows, you don’t know whom to trust with your data these days. You don’t know who’s got what, whom they’ve shared it with and what they’re planning to do with it. Maybe all those discounts and refunds don’t come close to the real value of the data you have volunteered!
People Change:
Climate change is being blamed for the increasing incidence of mosquito borne West Nile sickness in the United States where, last year, 146 people died out of 2,097 reported cases of the virus which was first recorded in the country in 1999. Meanwhile, across the world Japanese paint maker, Kansai, has developed a mosquito repellent paint which is being trialled in Zambia, a potentially very positive development that hasn’t been trumpeted too widely.
Climate Change:
An October 2018 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global CO2 emissions would have to drop 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C rather than the previously agreed 2°C in order to avoid extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The report highlighted the different impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C across a range of factors with particular emphasis on temperatures, sea levels, biodiversity and precipitation. The authors concluded that the urgent changes required to limit CO2, which include investing US$ 2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cutting the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 are affordable.
Different countries are reacting in different ways. A court in The Hague upheld a legal order on the Dutch government to accelerate carbon emissions cuts and reduce greenhouse gas by at least 25% by 2020. Going in the opposite direction, America’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changes to its mandate so that there are fewer protections for Americans from potential harm caused by substances and radiation.
According to the WHO, fine pollution particles of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) contribute to seven million premature deaths a year worldwide. Kings College, London, research shows air pollution causes 9,000 premature deaths each year in London alone, where nitrogen dioxide levels, mostly from diesel powered vehicles, are on a par with those of Delhi or Beijing. In 2016 Beijing’s PM2.5 mortality was estimated at 18,200 according to a study by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. New York estimates that ozone and fine particles there together caused 2,700 premature deaths in 2013. Air pollution from diesel vehicles is estimated to kill 2,500 Parisians a year. The US National Bureau of Economic Research concluded the particles also contribute to dementia while Taiwanese researchers have concluded that high levels of air pollution are linked to an increased risk of mouth cancer. Although biofuels, including biogas, are touted as one pollution solution they too burn creating carbon dioxide.
Plastic in the world’s oceans is forecast to triple from today’s more than 150 million tonnes by 2025. Already one million birds and at least 100,000 sea mammals die annually from eating and getting tangled in plastic waste. The British government is considering banning plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
The International Energy Agency’s latest annual report on renewables forecasts that an additional 1.0 to 1.3 terawatts of clean energy will be installed by 2023. Over the next five years, hydropower is forecast to increase 12 percent; wind generation by 67 per cent; and solar by 200 per cent. Australia’s Origin Energy has concluded that the cost of wind and solar farms has fallen so far it is now cheaper than the marginal cost of coal generation.
Standard Chartered Bank announced it would cease providing financing for new coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world, in support of the Paris Agreement on climate change. South Africa’s Standard Bank is following suit.
FirstEnergy Solutions filed for bankruptcy after its coal fired plants proved uncompetitive leaving taxpayers potentially responsible for huge environmental clean up costs for its plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. American Electrical Power announced the 2020 closure of its 650 MW Oklaunion coal fired power station.
The World Bank announced a new $US1 billion global program to accelerate investments in battery storage for energy systems in developing and middle-income countries. The EU is offering financial assistance for the building of battery manufacturing plants.
According to the International Energy Agency, nearly 620 million Africans, most of them rural, do not have access to electricity and some 730 million depend on traditional solid biomass for cooking. While a few countries including South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Ghana, and Algeria have electrification rates of more than 70 percent, others such as Malawi, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have rates below 5 percent.
Automation Based Unemployment
A joint venture between Tencent and Britain’s Medopad to monitor Parkinson's Disease patients uses artificial intelligence to analyse films of patients moving their hands to determine the severity of their symptoms. Google’s artificial intelligence based Lymph Node Assistant can correctly distinguish metastatic cancer 99% of the time, significantly better than the rate of human pathologists. Of the half a million deaths worldwide caused by breast cancer, 90% are due to metastasis.
Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that worldwide there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021. The cost of cybercrime is predicted to double between 2015 and 2021 to US$ six trillion annually.
Some 1.6 million Americans, or more than 1 per cent of workers, rely for income on gig work found through apps and websites.
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
The governments of both Denmark and Israel have decreed that sales of new petrol or diesel fuelled cars must end in 2030. In September 2018, more than 45% of new car sales in Norway were electric and emissions continued to drop. Germany is providing incentives for car owners to replace polluting vehicles with electric vehicles. A German court banned owners of older diesel cars from driving them in parts of Berlin. A British parliamentary committee is proposing that the United Kingdom bring forward its proposed ban on the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars from 2040 to 2032. London is proposing to make parts of the central district zero emission zones by 2022.
Researchers at the University of Queensland School of Civil Engineering calculated that the transition to an electric vehicle fleet could save Australian households over $A 20 billion per year as a result of lower fuel and maintenance costs. The transition to electric vehicles would require investment in specialised skills and service industries.
Potsdam in Germany has introduced a driverless tram service which uses lidar and radar to avoid obstacles on the track. Honda has invested US$ 2 billion in General Motor’s Cruise self-driving unit. Meanwhile Toyota and Softbank are working together to provide self-driving services. Daimler and Renault have also announced a self-driving joint venture.
Airbus completed its first test of the Vahana, an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, in January 2018. Later in 2018 Vertical Aerospace conducted a successful test flight of its 760 kilogram electric vehicle in rural England. Kitty Hawk and Air New Zealand are to trial electric flying air taxis using a vertical take-off-and-landing passenger plane called Cora. Germany’s Volocopter and the Singapore government are also about to begin test flights of electric self-flying air taxis. Uber announced plans for UberAir.
Increasing Inequality
Individual titling of communally owned lands has been proposed as a potential solution to high rates of inequality in South Africa and other countries. Kenya started providing individual titling in 1950 and the process has not yet been completed.
South Africa
In August 2018 South Africa’s Department of Energy issued a revised draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for comment. Because energy is a subject of great interest to me and because I felt the draft IRF was missing the potential to meet South Africa’s climate change commitments, reduce air pollution, provide employment, reduce the trade deficit and use low cost renewable energy to give the country a competitive advantage, I submitted my own alternative plan which you can download from my Musings website.
According to Stats SA, the unemployment rate at end June 2018 was 36.7%. According to the World Bank, South Africa had a GINI rating of 0.63 in 2015. The 2017 drought caused a drop in agricultural production in the Western Cape, including a 47% drop in wheat production.
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is accelerating the project to develop the 11 GW Inga hydro electric project on the Congo River. In 2013 South Africa’s government signed an undertaking to purchase 2.5 GW of power which would have to be transmitted over a new network more than 1,000 kilometres long. At this stage it’s not clear how electricity from this project compares in price with building solar and wind facilities in South Africa, which would also not require ongoing foreign exchange payments.
Finally – and more lightly
The French cycling association VéloPerdu estimates that nearly 400,000 bicycles are stolen annually in France which has a population of 21 million bikes, while 686,000 British bicycles are reportedly stolen each year from an estimated pool of 22 million. It just shows crime comes in cycles.
Welcome to the thirty third of Brian’s Musings. As usual I have grouped the new information under the headings associated with the nine global forces I have identified.
Mass Data Mining and Storage – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip
Facebook, Google and Amazon seem to be constantly in the limelight these days for misusing or simply losing some of the huge volumes of personal data that they have amassed on humankind. So you might be surprised to find me pointing a similar finger of blame at the innocent looking till slip handed to you yesterday by the supermarket cashier.
In the beginning till slips just listed what you had bought and the amount you paid for each item. Then the supermarkets persuaded us to sign up for the discounts offered under their customer loyalty scheme. Now, when you present your loyalty card greedy for those discounts, your printed till slip shows you name and membership number – and the supermarket chain adds your purchases to all the others associated with your name, telephone number and E-mail address.
Somewhere along the line I suspect that the credit card companies have done a deal with the supermarket chain – and all the other shops you use – whereby details of all your purchases are also stored in the credit card company’s database of personal purchase information which is orders of magnitude larger that that of the supermarket chain and can probably be used to deduce your approximate movements from shop to shop.
Here in South Africa one of the health insurance companies has also entered into an arrangement whereby members can also swipe their “healthy food” card at the till and get a refund. So, in addition to all your medical information fed back from pharmacies, doctors and hospitals, the company now knows all your purchases. Members are also able to achieve health bonuses as they surrender data about their visits to the gym and from the fitness devices monitoring the steps taken, the speed run and even your heart rate as you move around. I’m just waiting for the scheme to offer free DNA tests and then they will know much more about me than I know myself – in fact maybe even more than do Facebook, Google and the rest.
It just shows, you don’t know whom to trust with your data these days. You don’t know who’s got what, whom they’ve shared it with and what they’re planning to do with it. Maybe all those discounts and refunds don’t come close to the real value of the data you have volunteered!
People Change:
Climate change is being blamed for the increasing incidence of mosquito borne West Nile sickness in the United States where, last year, 146 people died out of 2,097 reported cases of the virus which was first recorded in the country in 1999. Meanwhile, across the world Japanese paint maker, Kansai, has developed a mosquito repellent paint which is being trialled in Zambia, a potentially very positive development that hasn’t been trumpeted too widely.
Climate Change:
An October 2018 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global CO2 emissions would have to drop 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C rather than the previously agreed 2°C in order to avoid extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The report highlighted the different impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C across a range of factors with particular emphasis on temperatures, sea levels, biodiversity and precipitation. The authors concluded that the urgent changes required to limit CO2, which include investing US$ 2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cutting the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 are affordable.
Different countries are reacting in different ways. A court in The Hague upheld a legal order on the Dutch government to accelerate carbon emissions cuts and reduce greenhouse gas by at least 25% by 2020. Going in the opposite direction, America’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changes to its mandate so that there are fewer protections for Americans from potential harm caused by substances and radiation.
According to the WHO, fine pollution particles of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) contribute to seven million premature deaths a year worldwide. Kings College, London, research shows air pollution causes 9,000 premature deaths each year in London alone, where nitrogen dioxide levels, mostly from diesel powered vehicles, are on a par with those of Delhi or Beijing. In 2016 Beijing’s PM2.5 mortality was estimated at 18,200 according to a study by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. New York estimates that ozone and fine particles there together caused 2,700 premature deaths in 2013. Air pollution from diesel vehicles is estimated to kill 2,500 Parisians a year. The US National Bureau of Economic Research concluded the particles also contribute to dementia while Taiwanese researchers have concluded that high levels of air pollution are linked to an increased risk of mouth cancer. Although biofuels, including biogas, are touted as one pollution solution they too burn creating carbon dioxide.
Plastic in the world’s oceans is forecast to triple from today’s more than 150 million tonnes by 2025. Already one million birds and at least 100,000 sea mammals die annually from eating and getting tangled in plastic waste. The British government is considering banning plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
The International Energy Agency’s latest annual report on renewables forecasts that an additional 1.0 to 1.3 terawatts of clean energy will be installed by 2023. Over the next five years, hydropower is forecast to increase 12 percent; wind generation by 67 per cent; and solar by 200 per cent. Australia’s Origin Energy has concluded that the cost of wind and solar farms has fallen so far it is now cheaper than the marginal cost of coal generation.
Standard Chartered Bank announced it would cease providing financing for new coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world, in support of the Paris Agreement on climate change. South Africa’s Standard Bank is following suit.
FirstEnergy Solutions filed for bankruptcy after its coal fired plants proved uncompetitive leaving taxpayers potentially responsible for huge environmental clean up costs for its plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. American Electrical Power announced the 2020 closure of its 650 MW Oklaunion coal fired power station.
The World Bank announced a new $US1 billion global program to accelerate investments in battery storage for energy systems in developing and middle-income countries. The EU is offering financial assistance for the building of battery manufacturing plants.
According to the International Energy Agency, nearly 620 million Africans, most of them rural, do not have access to electricity and some 730 million depend on traditional solid biomass for cooking. While a few countries including South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Ghana, and Algeria have electrification rates of more than 70 percent, others such as Malawi, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have rates below 5 percent.
Automation Based Unemployment
A joint venture between Tencent and Britain’s Medopad to monitor Parkinson's Disease patients uses artificial intelligence to analyse films of patients moving their hands to determine the severity of their symptoms. Google’s artificial intelligence based Lymph Node Assistant can correctly distinguish metastatic cancer 99% of the time, significantly better than the rate of human pathologists. Of the half a million deaths worldwide caused by breast cancer, 90% are due to metastasis.
Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that worldwide there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021. The cost of cybercrime is predicted to double between 2015 and 2021 to US$ six trillion annually.
Some 1.6 million Americans, or more than 1 per cent of workers, rely for income on gig work found through apps and websites.
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
The governments of both Denmark and Israel have decreed that sales of new petrol or diesel fuelled cars must end in 2030. In September 2018, more than 45% of new car sales in Norway were electric and emissions continued to drop. Germany is providing incentives for car owners to replace polluting vehicles with electric vehicles. A German court banned owners of older diesel cars from driving them in parts of Berlin. A British parliamentary committee is proposing that the United Kingdom bring forward its proposed ban on the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars from 2040 to 2032. London is proposing to make parts of the central district zero emission zones by 2022.
Researchers at the University of Queensland School of Civil Engineering calculated that the transition to an electric vehicle fleet could save Australian households over $A 20 billion per year as a result of lower fuel and maintenance costs. The transition to electric vehicles would require investment in specialised skills and service industries.
Potsdam in Germany has introduced a driverless tram service which uses lidar and radar to avoid obstacles on the track. Honda has invested US$ 2 billion in General Motor’s Cruise self-driving unit. Meanwhile Toyota and Softbank are working together to provide self-driving services. Daimler and Renault have also announced a self-driving joint venture.
Airbus completed its first test of the Vahana, an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, in January 2018. Later in 2018 Vertical Aerospace conducted a successful test flight of its 760 kilogram electric vehicle in rural England. Kitty Hawk and Air New Zealand are to trial electric flying air taxis using a vertical take-off-and-landing passenger plane called Cora. Germany’s Volocopter and the Singapore government are also about to begin test flights of electric self-flying air taxis. Uber announced plans for UberAir.
Increasing Inequality
Individual titling of communally owned lands has been proposed as a potential solution to high rates of inequality in South Africa and other countries. Kenya started providing individual titling in 1950 and the process has not yet been completed.
South Africa
In August 2018 South Africa’s Department of Energy issued a revised draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for comment. Because energy is a subject of great interest to me and because I felt the draft IRF was missing the potential to meet South Africa’s climate change commitments, reduce air pollution, provide employment, reduce the trade deficit and use low cost renewable energy to give the country a competitive advantage, I submitted my own alternative plan which you can download from my Musings website.
According to Stats SA, the unemployment rate at end June 2018 was 36.7%. According to the World Bank, South Africa had a GINI rating of 0.63 in 2015. The 2017 drought caused a drop in agricultural production in the Western Cape, including a 47% drop in wheat production.
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is accelerating the project to develop the 11 GW Inga hydro electric project on the Congo River. In 2013 South Africa’s government signed an undertaking to purchase 2.5 GW of power which would have to be transmitted over a new network more than 1,000 kilometres long. At this stage it’s not clear how electricity from this project compares in price with building solar and wind facilities in South Africa, which would also not require ongoing foreign exchange payments.
Finally – and more lightly
The French cycling association VéloPerdu estimates that nearly 400,000 bicycles are stolen annually in France which has a population of 21 million bikes, while 686,000 British bicycles are reportedly stolen each year from an estimated pool of 22 million. It just shows crime comes in cycles.
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