watching the world
31st July 2018 – Watching the World
Welcome to the thirtieth of Brian’s Musings. I recommend for your reading a fascinating book by the late Hans Rossling entitled Factfulness; it will give you new eyes for looking at the world.
Watching the World
To make reading easier I have grouped my musings into topics.
Climate Change
The World Meteorological Organization reported that in July 2018 much of the world recorded extreme temperatures and rainfall. With the Soccer World Club in Russia fresh in our minds I tried without success to find a trajectory of July temperatures in Qatar, hosts to the 2022 tournament. However I did find that average daily temperatures are 42 degrees Celsius with a maximum of 50 degrees – not exactly ideal conditions for players or spectators.
Research using satellite images and modelling by the IMBIE Team and published in Nature in June 2018 show that the rate of melting of Antarctic ice has doubled between 1992 and 2017. The melted ice has resulted in sea levels worldwide rising 8 mm to date.
There is at least some good news on this subject. The California Air Resources Board announced that greenhouse gas pollution in California fell below 1990 levels for the first time since emissions peaked in 2004. California aims to cut emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
Low Cost Renewable Energy:
Ireland will be the first country to disinvest from fossil fuel investments following legislation passed in 2018.
The world’s biggest solar tower power plant with molten salt storage, the 150 MW Noor Ouarzazate III solar receiver, has begun commissioning in Morocco, and is scheduled to begin production by October 2018. The only other large scale facility of its type is the 110 MW Crescent Dunes solar tower in Nevada.
During 2018 China is planning to install 2.7 GW of panels that can absorb light on both sides
Renewable energy provided 40% of Germany’s power supply in the first half of 2018, nearly 9% higher than the same period in 2017 and more than 33% up on the same period in 2014. Wind, hydro and solar together supplied 45.8% of Spain's electricity demand in first six months of 2018.
In its latest outlook, the IEA expressed concern that worldwide investments in renewables in 2017 declined 7% to US$ 318 billion. However, one needs to take this observation with a pinch of salt. The IEA includes hydro power in its definition of renewable and there is limited investment in that sector. In addition the costs of wind and solar have been dropping fast so increasing amounts of capacity can be purchased for the same price as in previous years.
Researchers at Atmosphere to Electrons, an R&D program for wind power at the United Kingdom’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimate that the cost of wind power, which dropped 65 percent between 2009 and 2018, could drop another 50 percent by 2030 making it competitive with natural gas.
According to a July 2018 report from the IEEFA, installed wind power generation in the USA increased from 16.7 GW at end 2007 to an expected 90 GW by end 2018 according to the American Wind Energy Association, while solar photovoltaic has increased from zero to 56 GW, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. To put those numbers in perspective, Australia’s total generating capacity is approximately 50 GW – excluding rooftop solar that is.
The share of U.S. power derived from coal has fallen from about one-half in 2000 to less than one-third in 2017. Another 4 percent of American coal fired plants will be removed from service in 2018. More than 10% of American nuclear power plants will be retired between 2018 and 2025.
Mass Data Storage and Mining
Canadian consumers were appalled to inadvertently find that some malls in North America are using facial recognition technology to profile users of their facilities by age and gender so they can target them better with products and advertising. That’s as nothing compared to what is happening in China.
By 2020 the Chinese government plans to have completed a national video surveillance system which includes AI based facial recognition software. Judging by projects already underway, software will also be able to recognise people by their walking gait as well as monitor body language and facial expressions. A system is being trialled in schools which monitors pupil’s movements and eating habits as well as academic results. As of last month all registered Chinese automobiles are being tracked using RFID chips. All this information is being collated into a massive social and financial credit rating system.
In China’s restive Xinjiang region, Muslim Uighurs have been required to provide facial photographs, DNA swabs, iris scans and blood tests while compulsory software on phones and computers watches for suspicious information with perpetrators sent to concentration camps. Grenade carrying drones are also being deployed in the region.
We foreigners shouldn’t be too smug about all of this. As part of its Belts and Roads project, elements of these technologies could find use in other countries, particularly those where supreme dictators rule the roost. Already a Chinese traffic management system is being installed in Malaysia, while Zimbabwean government data is being used to improve recognition of the faces of people with darker skins.
Automation-based Unemployment:
China’s lack of megastores and shopping malls means the country has been able to leapfrog directly to the age of online ordering. China’s JD.Com, for instance, uses drones to deliver products to rural customers.
By the end of 2017 there were 122 million active mobile money accounts in sub-Saharan Africa transacting 63% of the value of all mobile money transactions in the world. Again this is a case of leapfrogging from a situation where banks and credit cards are in short supply towards a future cashless, bankless society.
Sweden’s Nordea Bank used automation to reduce employment by 2,500 in the past year with the result that overall costs dropped 11% while profits increased 31%. The bank is planning to prune another 3,500 jobs through more automation.
According to the World Robotics Report 2018 of the International Federation of Robotics, 2017 global sales of 387,000 industrial robots was a record high, 31% above 2016 and more than 100% up on five years earlier. Most demand was in the automotive industry which experienced 21% growth to 125,500 units. The fastest growing sectors were the metals industry up 55%, the electrical and electronics sector up 33% and the food industry up 19%.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) forecasts that 56% of workers in the manufacturing hubs of Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam will lose their jobs due to automation by 2038. Verisk Maplecroft has warned that as a result the risk of slavery and trafficking appearing in supply chains will increase substantially.
Automated Electric Vehicles
The number of electric and hybrid cars on the roads worldwide jumped 54 percent in 2017 to more than three million. I will leave you to calculate how many will be on the road by 2030 if this rate of increase continues as it might well as European governments, concerned by extreme weather and fires, are considering increasing climate change mitigation actions.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported that for the five-month period, from January to May 2018, Chinese production of pure electric and hybrids cars grew 122.9 percent on the same period in 2017 to reach 328,000 units.
Bloomberg New Energy forecasts that Chinese companies, led by Contemporary Amperex Technology, will be manufacturing 70 percent of world’s batteries for electric vehicles by 2021.
Europe is planning to make solar roads that also charge electric cars.
NASA announced that their all-electric X-57 plane could make its first flight as soon as 2019.
Increasing Inequality:
A June 2018 report from the OECD entitled A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility recorded that the average disposable income of the richest 10% of the population of the OECD is now around nine and a half times that of the poorest 10%, up from seven times in 1993. Wealth inequality is even more pronounced, with the top 10% holding half of total wealth, while the bottom 40% holds only 3%.
The report went on to conclude that children whose parents did not complete secondary school have only a 15% chance of making it to university compared to a 60% chance for their peers with at least one parent who achieved tertiary-level education. Furthermore a 25 year-old university-educated man can expect to live almost eight years longer than his lower-educated peer on average. The difference is 4.6 years for women. Children born into the bottom of the income distribution have less chance to move up and improve their occupational status and earnings than their parents and previous generations. Meanwhile those at the top of the income distribution may remain there for a long time.
The current American government was not particularly enthralled by a report on American poverty delivered by the UN Human Rights Council’s Australian Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He commented that the United States has the highest income inequality in the Western world, and this can only be made worse by the massive new tax cuts overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy. At the other end of the spectrum, 40 million Americans live in poverty and 18.5 million of those live in extreme poverty. In addition, vast numbers of middle class Americans are perched on the edge, with 40% of the adult population saying they would be unable to cover an unexpected US$ 400 expense.
The US health care system already spends eight times as much to achieve the same life expectancy as in Chile and Costa Rica, and African-American maternal mortality rates are almost double those in Thailand. The World Economic Forum recently ranked the US 26th out of 29 advanced economies for promoting intergenerational equity and sustainability, and 28th for promoting inclusion. WHO data released recently shows that babies born in China today will live longer healthy lives than babies born in America. In global healthy life expectancy rankings, the US came 40th.
Hourly wages for workers in “production and nonsupervisory” positions, who make up 80% of the private workforce, actually fell in 2017. Expanding employment has created many jobs with no security, no health care, and often with below-subsistence wages. The benefits of economic growth are going overwhelmingly to the wealthy. Average pre-tax national income per adult in the US has stagnated at $16,000 since 1980 for the bottom 50% of the income distribution, while it has really boomed for the top 1%, a trajectory that has been quite different from that in most European countries.
His recommendations include acknowledging that America’s vibrant democracy is in peril unless steps are taken to restore the fabric from which it was crafted, including the adage that ‘all are created equal’; stop irrationally demonizing taxation and begin exploring how reasonable taxes can dramatically increase the social well-being of Americans and the country's economic competitiveness; and provide universal healthcare, as every other developed and many developing countries already do. This would rescue millions from misery, save money on emergency care, increase employment, and generate a healthier and more productive workforce.
A study from the Roosevelt Institute concluded that a government handout to every American of $12,000 a year, no strings attached, would boost the American economy to the tune of 12.5-13% over eight years.
Welcome to the thirtieth of Brian’s Musings. I recommend for your reading a fascinating book by the late Hans Rossling entitled Factfulness; it will give you new eyes for looking at the world.
Watching the World
To make reading easier I have grouped my musings into topics.
Climate Change
The World Meteorological Organization reported that in July 2018 much of the world recorded extreme temperatures and rainfall. With the Soccer World Club in Russia fresh in our minds I tried without success to find a trajectory of July temperatures in Qatar, hosts to the 2022 tournament. However I did find that average daily temperatures are 42 degrees Celsius with a maximum of 50 degrees – not exactly ideal conditions for players or spectators.
Research using satellite images and modelling by the IMBIE Team and published in Nature in June 2018 show that the rate of melting of Antarctic ice has doubled between 1992 and 2017. The melted ice has resulted in sea levels worldwide rising 8 mm to date.
There is at least some good news on this subject. The California Air Resources Board announced that greenhouse gas pollution in California fell below 1990 levels for the first time since emissions peaked in 2004. California aims to cut emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
Low Cost Renewable Energy:
Ireland will be the first country to disinvest from fossil fuel investments following legislation passed in 2018.
The world’s biggest solar tower power plant with molten salt storage, the 150 MW Noor Ouarzazate III solar receiver, has begun commissioning in Morocco, and is scheduled to begin production by October 2018. The only other large scale facility of its type is the 110 MW Crescent Dunes solar tower in Nevada.
During 2018 China is planning to install 2.7 GW of panels that can absorb light on both sides
Renewable energy provided 40% of Germany’s power supply in the first half of 2018, nearly 9% higher than the same period in 2017 and more than 33% up on the same period in 2014. Wind, hydro and solar together supplied 45.8% of Spain's electricity demand in first six months of 2018.
In its latest outlook, the IEA expressed concern that worldwide investments in renewables in 2017 declined 7% to US$ 318 billion. However, one needs to take this observation with a pinch of salt. The IEA includes hydro power in its definition of renewable and there is limited investment in that sector. In addition the costs of wind and solar have been dropping fast so increasing amounts of capacity can be purchased for the same price as in previous years.
Researchers at Atmosphere to Electrons, an R&D program for wind power at the United Kingdom’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimate that the cost of wind power, which dropped 65 percent between 2009 and 2018, could drop another 50 percent by 2030 making it competitive with natural gas.
According to a July 2018 report from the IEEFA, installed wind power generation in the USA increased from 16.7 GW at end 2007 to an expected 90 GW by end 2018 according to the American Wind Energy Association, while solar photovoltaic has increased from zero to 56 GW, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. To put those numbers in perspective, Australia’s total generating capacity is approximately 50 GW – excluding rooftop solar that is.
The share of U.S. power derived from coal has fallen from about one-half in 2000 to less than one-third in 2017. Another 4 percent of American coal fired plants will be removed from service in 2018. More than 10% of American nuclear power plants will be retired between 2018 and 2025.
Mass Data Storage and Mining
Canadian consumers were appalled to inadvertently find that some malls in North America are using facial recognition technology to profile users of their facilities by age and gender so they can target them better with products and advertising. That’s as nothing compared to what is happening in China.
By 2020 the Chinese government plans to have completed a national video surveillance system which includes AI based facial recognition software. Judging by projects already underway, software will also be able to recognise people by their walking gait as well as monitor body language and facial expressions. A system is being trialled in schools which monitors pupil’s movements and eating habits as well as academic results. As of last month all registered Chinese automobiles are being tracked using RFID chips. All this information is being collated into a massive social and financial credit rating system.
In China’s restive Xinjiang region, Muslim Uighurs have been required to provide facial photographs, DNA swabs, iris scans and blood tests while compulsory software on phones and computers watches for suspicious information with perpetrators sent to concentration camps. Grenade carrying drones are also being deployed in the region.
We foreigners shouldn’t be too smug about all of this. As part of its Belts and Roads project, elements of these technologies could find use in other countries, particularly those where supreme dictators rule the roost. Already a Chinese traffic management system is being installed in Malaysia, while Zimbabwean government data is being used to improve recognition of the faces of people with darker skins.
Automation-based Unemployment:
China’s lack of megastores and shopping malls means the country has been able to leapfrog directly to the age of online ordering. China’s JD.Com, for instance, uses drones to deliver products to rural customers.
By the end of 2017 there were 122 million active mobile money accounts in sub-Saharan Africa transacting 63% of the value of all mobile money transactions in the world. Again this is a case of leapfrogging from a situation where banks and credit cards are in short supply towards a future cashless, bankless society.
Sweden’s Nordea Bank used automation to reduce employment by 2,500 in the past year with the result that overall costs dropped 11% while profits increased 31%. The bank is planning to prune another 3,500 jobs through more automation.
According to the World Robotics Report 2018 of the International Federation of Robotics, 2017 global sales of 387,000 industrial robots was a record high, 31% above 2016 and more than 100% up on five years earlier. Most demand was in the automotive industry which experienced 21% growth to 125,500 units. The fastest growing sectors were the metals industry up 55%, the electrical and electronics sector up 33% and the food industry up 19%.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) forecasts that 56% of workers in the manufacturing hubs of Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam will lose their jobs due to automation by 2038. Verisk Maplecroft has warned that as a result the risk of slavery and trafficking appearing in supply chains will increase substantially.
Automated Electric Vehicles
The number of electric and hybrid cars on the roads worldwide jumped 54 percent in 2017 to more than three million. I will leave you to calculate how many will be on the road by 2030 if this rate of increase continues as it might well as European governments, concerned by extreme weather and fires, are considering increasing climate change mitigation actions.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported that for the five-month period, from January to May 2018, Chinese production of pure electric and hybrids cars grew 122.9 percent on the same period in 2017 to reach 328,000 units.
Bloomberg New Energy forecasts that Chinese companies, led by Contemporary Amperex Technology, will be manufacturing 70 percent of world’s batteries for electric vehicles by 2021.
Europe is planning to make solar roads that also charge electric cars.
NASA announced that their all-electric X-57 plane could make its first flight as soon as 2019.
Increasing Inequality:
A June 2018 report from the OECD entitled A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility recorded that the average disposable income of the richest 10% of the population of the OECD is now around nine and a half times that of the poorest 10%, up from seven times in 1993. Wealth inequality is even more pronounced, with the top 10% holding half of total wealth, while the bottom 40% holds only 3%.
The report went on to conclude that children whose parents did not complete secondary school have only a 15% chance of making it to university compared to a 60% chance for their peers with at least one parent who achieved tertiary-level education. Furthermore a 25 year-old university-educated man can expect to live almost eight years longer than his lower-educated peer on average. The difference is 4.6 years for women. Children born into the bottom of the income distribution have less chance to move up and improve their occupational status and earnings than their parents and previous generations. Meanwhile those at the top of the income distribution may remain there for a long time.
The current American government was not particularly enthralled by a report on American poverty delivered by the UN Human Rights Council’s Australian Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He commented that the United States has the highest income inequality in the Western world, and this can only be made worse by the massive new tax cuts overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy. At the other end of the spectrum, 40 million Americans live in poverty and 18.5 million of those live in extreme poverty. In addition, vast numbers of middle class Americans are perched on the edge, with 40% of the adult population saying they would be unable to cover an unexpected US$ 400 expense.
The US health care system already spends eight times as much to achieve the same life expectancy as in Chile and Costa Rica, and African-American maternal mortality rates are almost double those in Thailand. The World Economic Forum recently ranked the US 26th out of 29 advanced economies for promoting intergenerational equity and sustainability, and 28th for promoting inclusion. WHO data released recently shows that babies born in China today will live longer healthy lives than babies born in America. In global healthy life expectancy rankings, the US came 40th.
Hourly wages for workers in “production and nonsupervisory” positions, who make up 80% of the private workforce, actually fell in 2017. Expanding employment has created many jobs with no security, no health care, and often with below-subsistence wages. The benefits of economic growth are going overwhelmingly to the wealthy. Average pre-tax national income per adult in the US has stagnated at $16,000 since 1980 for the bottom 50% of the income distribution, while it has really boomed for the top 1%, a trajectory that has been quite different from that in most European countries.
His recommendations include acknowledging that America’s vibrant democracy is in peril unless steps are taken to restore the fabric from which it was crafted, including the adage that ‘all are created equal’; stop irrationally demonizing taxation and begin exploring how reasonable taxes can dramatically increase the social well-being of Americans and the country's economic competitiveness; and provide universal healthcare, as every other developed and many developing countries already do. This would rescue millions from misery, save money on emergency care, increase employment, and generate a healthier and more productive workforce.
A study from the Roosevelt Institute concluded that a government handout to every American of $12,000 a year, no strings attached, would boost the American economy to the tune of 12.5-13% over eight years.
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