Brian's Musings
  • 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

MOstly more doom and gloom

2nd August 2019 – Mostly more gloom and doom
 
People Change:
 
From the latest Our World in Data newsletter: The UN projects that the world population will increase from 7.7 billion today to 10.9 billion by 2100. Most of this growth will come from Africa; its share of the world population will rise from 17% to 40%. More than 8-in-10 people will live in Asia or Africa by the end of the century.
 
The share of the U.S. population over the age of 65 has increased from 15.6 to 19.9 percent in the last 12 years.
 
Studies published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal revealed that in parts of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia up to 80% of the most common malaria parasites were now resistant to the two most common antimalarial drugs.
 
Climate Change and the Environment:
 
According to the WMO, July 2019 was the hottest month on record. June 2019 was the hottest June.
 
On June 28, 2019, a temperature of 45·9°C was recorded at a weather station in France, exceeding the country's previous temperature record, which was set during the 2003 heatwave, by nearly 2°C. Germany, Holland, Belgium and England all also recorded record high temperatures.
 
Europe’s heat wave has moved north over Greenland causing temperatures as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal and causing the biggest melt season in recorded history. On August 1 alone, more than 12 billion tons of water permanently melted away from the ice sheet and will find its way down to the ocean, irreversibly raising sea levels globally.
 
According to the IEA, nearly 2.8 billion people live in hot countries, with average daily temperatures greater than 25°C. Fewer than 10% own an air conditioner, compared with 90% ownership rates in countries like Japan and the United States. And while as many as 2.5 billion people in hot countries are projected to have an air conditioner by 2050, another 1.9 billion will not.
 
Low levels in the Zambezi River have reduced the volume of water in the Kariba Dam and the electricity it generates to the extent where the Zimbabwean government is considering stopping the turbines.
 
Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin is experiencing its worst two-to-three year drought conditions in 120 years of records.
 
France is planning to introduce an airline carbon tax.
 
According to the Financial Times, the plastics manufacturing industry worldwide makes annual profits of US$ 40 billion through producing 350 million tons of plastic.
 
The Guardian’s analysis of shipping records and US Census Bureau export data has found that America is still shipping more than one million tons a year of its plastic waste overseas, much of it to places that are already virtually drowning in it.
 
More than twenty forest fires are raging in the arctic, including a massive fire in Russia.
 
Food and Water
 
The US Food and Drug Administration has ruled that soy leghemoglobin, a protein-based colour additive used to make Impossible Burger’s plant based patties “bleed” like real meat, is safe.
 
Low Cost Renewable Energy
 
In my last musing, I promised to give you a brief summary of the BP’s 2019 Review of World Energy, which consists of a mass of numbers usefully laid out in a series of spreadsheets. In selecting numbers, my primary concern was how the world is adapting to the challenge of climate change; overall the numbers were quite dismal. Primary energy consumption increased by 2.9% and primary energy consumption per capita by 1.8% in 2018. Although the renewable contribution increased by 14.5%, energy generated from each of oil, coal, gas and nuclear also increased in 2018. Energy from wind increased by 12.6% and from solar by 28.9%. China, America, Japan and Germany were the biggest consumers of solar power, while China, America, Germany and Spain were the biggest consumers of wind power.
 
Overall, electricity consumption grew by 3.7%. Despite the strong growth in the electric vehicle industry, crude oil consumption increased 1.2% while biofuels consumption increased 9.7%. Brazilian biofuels production, 22% of the total, increased 17% - could this be contributing to increasing Amazonian deforestation? World carbon dioxide emissions increased by 2% from 2017 to 2018 despite pledges to reduce emissions. European emissions were indeed down by 1.6%, as were South America’s, though the latter reduction had more to do with the collapse of the Venezuelan economy than anything else. New tables showed production of cobalt and lithium, both used in batteries, increased by 13.9% and 17.6% respectively. Most cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo and most lithium from Chile. The prices of both commodities have more than doubled in the space of three years.
 
Wood MacKenzie analysts predict 114 GW of new solar generation capacity will be added this year and 125 GW per year will materialize by early in the next decade.
 
Abu Dhabi’s massive 1.78 GW Noor Solar Park has gone into production. Brazil has secured 211 MW of new solar capacity for a record low US$ 0.0175 per kilowatt-hour compared to Noor’s then record US$0.024 per kilowatt-hour negotiated in 2017. Last week a Portuguese auction attracts world record bid of € 14.8/MWh for solar. An upcoming Saudi auction is expected to send prices even lower.
 
The South Korean Government has announced a 2.1 GW floating PV project. New York has announced a 1.7 GW offshore wind energy project, which will be America’s largest renewables project to date. Kenya’s 310 MW Lake Turkana Wind Power project, Africa’s largest, has gone into production and will help Kenya reach its 100% renewables target by 2020.
 
A new study by DIW Berlin of the economics of nuclear power has found that nuclear power has never been financially viable, finding that most plants have been built while heavily subsidised by governments, and often motivated by military purposes, and is not a good approach to tackling climate change. The average 1,000 MW nuclear power plant built since 1951 resulted in an average economic loss of 4.8 billion euros.
 
Coal, oil and gas receive more than US$ 370 billion a year in support, compared with US $100 billion for renewables according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
 
BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has lost an estimated US$ 90 billion over the last decade by ignoring the serious financial risk of investing in fossil fuel companies, according to economists at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. BlackRock’s multibillion-dollar investments in the world’s largest oil companies were responsible for the bulk of its losses.
 
The U.S. fracking industry spent US$ 196 billion more than what it recouped from gas sold between 2010-2018.
 
Mass Data Mining and Storage
 
Amazon filed an application with the FCC to join SpaceX, One Web and others in launching a constellation of 3,000 satellites to provide broadband internet across the world, particularly Africa. (I’m not sure why the FCC has the right to give permission for satellites to be positioned above me…no doubt the plan is for American companies to further their digital colonisation of the continent).
 
Amazon and the UK’s National Health Service are combining forces to give automated online advice to patients.
 
Elon Musk unveiled a sewing-machine-like robot used to implant ultrafine flexible electrodes deep into the brain which would be used to detect neuron activity.
 
In September of 2017, Equifax announced a data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people. The company has agreed to a global settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 U.S. states and territories. The settlement includes up to $425 million to help people affected by the data breach.
 
The FTC also imposed a record-breaking US$ 5 billion settlement with Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica data disaster. Facebook is required to conduct a massive overhaul of its consumer privacy practices and makes major changes to Facebook's operations with CEO Mark Zuckerberg no longer having sole control over privacy.
 
A hacker made off with ten years of tax records of every citizen and company in Bulgaria. In America a data breach to Capitol One Bank servers last month exposed the personal information of nearly 106 million of the bank's customers and applicants. It will be interesting to see what the FTC makes of this, just one of nearly 3,500 bank hacks over the past year.
 
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
 
VW and Ford are combining forces to develop automated, electric vehicles.
 
BYD and Toyota are teaming up to develop electric cars and the batteries to power them.
 
Increasing Inequality
 
About 10% of the American population does not have any health insurance.
 
According to a new paper released by the ILO, 10% of workers receive 48.9% of total global pay, while the lowest paid 50% of workers receive just 6.4%. Further, the lowest 20% of income earners earn less than 1% of global labour income. Globally, the share of national income going to workers has fallen from 53.7% in 2004 to 51.4% in 2017. On average, the middle 60% of workers has seen its share of labour income decline from 44.8% in 2004 to 43% in 2017. In contrast, the highest earners saw their average share of global pay rise. This trend is being driven by increasing labour income inequality in large countries around the world such as Indonesia, Italy, Germany, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the USA. Poorer countries tend to have much higher levels of pay inequality. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the bottom 50% of workers earn only 3.3% of labour income, compared to the European Union, where the same group receives 22.9% of the total income paid to workers. Both Europe and the Americas are key drivers of the global decline in the labour income share. In Germany and the United States, a pattern of middle class declines and stagnation or moderate gains near the bottom, coupled with large increases in the top can be observed.
 
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_712234/lang--en/index.htm
 
Southern Africa
 
South Africa’s unemployment rate has risen to 30%.
 
South African employment is likely to be adversely impacted by the advent of electric vehicles: currently 80,000 workers are employed in the automotive manufacturing industry, 170,000 in the platinum mining industry, 130,000 in the service station sector and 400,000 in automotive servicing.
 
As always, I look forward to your comments! Incidentally, if you missed the previous musings, you can find them on my website www.Musings.World.
 
Cordialement
 
Brian Paxton
 

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • 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