Grime and punishment
Grime and Punishment
If my last newsletter was an attempt at science fiction, this one has some nuggets you could use in a crime thriller. The FBI estimates that fraud accounts for up to 10% of total US healthcare expenditure of US$ 3.54 trillion a year, of which US$ 1.1 trillion is spent on administration costs; now US$ 354 billion is bigger than the annual budget of many countries so one wonders what the American police have been up to. Maybe they need to take some tips from the Welsh police who used the fingerprints on the Whatsapp image of a man holding ecstasy tablets in his palm to identify and arrest the owner of the hand. It all gives new meaning to the mysteries of palm reading.
China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay have both developed social credit rating systems which are widely used in China. Now the Chinese government is embarking on the creation of a comprehensive social credit system that gives every citizen a social rating which determines the privileges each is allowed based on their recorded behavioural history. By contrast, in America the lack of data protection regulations is empowering companies to compile ever more detailed profiles of people around the world who use their systems. Meanwhile in the EU the new General Data Protection Regulation has come into effect placing restrictions on the activities of companies as they compile personal databases using data on EU citizens. All the while security services and criminals are hacking into mobile devices and using cameras, microphones and keystroke recording apps to surreptitiously create further furtive personal profiles.
As a next step in training face recognition software to recognise non-Asian faces, China’s CloudWalk Technologies has contracted with the Zimbabwean government to record details of one million of its citizens, while another Chinese company, Transsion, has emerged as a leader in the African smartphone market, with the latest models including facial recognition software.
Moving from crime to grime, the 2018 State of Global Air Report, prepared by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, records that 95% of the world’s population is exposed to fine particle levels exceeding universal air quality standards. Ambient particulate matter (particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 micrometers in aerodynamic diameter, or PM2.5) ranked as the 6th-highest risk factor for early death. Worldwide exposure to PM2.5 contributed to 4.1 million deaths from heart disease and stroke, lung cancer, chronic lung disease, and respiratory infections in 2016.
In a May 2018 report, the WHO estimated that ninety per cent of the world’s population breathe air that is polluted and around seven million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that lead to diseases such as stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia. Regional data shows that while the situation is improving in the richer countries of Europe and North America, it is worsening in the poorer rest of the world, another indication that inequality is not simply financial. Delhi, Cairo, Dhaka, Mumbai and Beijing are the world’s most polluted cities.
A 2017 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association warned that that by 2100 sea levels could have risen between two and three metres unless urgent steps are taken to eliminate use of fossil fuels. Around the world most than 145 million people live at an elevation of less than a metre above sea level. Two studies published in Nature in April 2018 show the Gulf Stream current is at its weakest level in 1,600 years. If the current continues to weaken, it could lead to freezing European winters, drier regions of Africa and rising sea levels.
On more positive notes, the EU has banned the use of biofuels from 2020. This will affect growers of biofuels crops around the world, particularly in Malaysia where swathes of jungle were replaced by oil producing palm plantations. In North and South America the land used for growing grain and cane could be used for other crops. The French government has introduced an incentive scheme to encourage petrol and diesel car owners to replace their old cars with new electric vehicles which has proved very popular with more than 45,000 applications in the first six months of 2018.
According to a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, more than 500,000 new renewable energy jobs were created in 2017 most of them in China manufacturing solar panels. By the end of 2017, 10.3 million people were employed in the renewable energy sector worldwide. In March 2018 Portuguese renewable energy was more than 100% of demand. As a result the government is eliminating subsidies, most of which were paid to fossil fuel power producers anyway. In early May 2018 Germany briefly reached 100% renewable. By then the country had averaged 42% for the year, well ahead of its 2020 target. On the electric car front, Kia and BMW are among other car makers developing wireless battery chargers.
Brookings calculates that American non-employer firms, which primarily use freelancers and gig-economy workers, have grown 2.6 percent every year since 1997 while traditional payroll employment has grown by only 0.8 percent a year. The growing number of people without employer-sponsored benefits such as paid leave, healthcare, and retirement assistance points to the need for portable benefits systems.
If my last newsletter was an attempt at science fiction, this one has some nuggets you could use in a crime thriller. The FBI estimates that fraud accounts for up to 10% of total US healthcare expenditure of US$ 3.54 trillion a year, of which US$ 1.1 trillion is spent on administration costs; now US$ 354 billion is bigger than the annual budget of many countries so one wonders what the American police have been up to. Maybe they need to take some tips from the Welsh police who used the fingerprints on the Whatsapp image of a man holding ecstasy tablets in his palm to identify and arrest the owner of the hand. It all gives new meaning to the mysteries of palm reading.
China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay have both developed social credit rating systems which are widely used in China. Now the Chinese government is embarking on the creation of a comprehensive social credit system that gives every citizen a social rating which determines the privileges each is allowed based on their recorded behavioural history. By contrast, in America the lack of data protection regulations is empowering companies to compile ever more detailed profiles of people around the world who use their systems. Meanwhile in the EU the new General Data Protection Regulation has come into effect placing restrictions on the activities of companies as they compile personal databases using data on EU citizens. All the while security services and criminals are hacking into mobile devices and using cameras, microphones and keystroke recording apps to surreptitiously create further furtive personal profiles.
As a next step in training face recognition software to recognise non-Asian faces, China’s CloudWalk Technologies has contracted with the Zimbabwean government to record details of one million of its citizens, while another Chinese company, Transsion, has emerged as a leader in the African smartphone market, with the latest models including facial recognition software.
Moving from crime to grime, the 2018 State of Global Air Report, prepared by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, records that 95% of the world’s population is exposed to fine particle levels exceeding universal air quality standards. Ambient particulate matter (particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 micrometers in aerodynamic diameter, or PM2.5) ranked as the 6th-highest risk factor for early death. Worldwide exposure to PM2.5 contributed to 4.1 million deaths from heart disease and stroke, lung cancer, chronic lung disease, and respiratory infections in 2016.
In a May 2018 report, the WHO estimated that ninety per cent of the world’s population breathe air that is polluted and around seven million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that lead to diseases such as stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia. Regional data shows that while the situation is improving in the richer countries of Europe and North America, it is worsening in the poorer rest of the world, another indication that inequality is not simply financial. Delhi, Cairo, Dhaka, Mumbai and Beijing are the world’s most polluted cities.
A 2017 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association warned that that by 2100 sea levels could have risen between two and three metres unless urgent steps are taken to eliminate use of fossil fuels. Around the world most than 145 million people live at an elevation of less than a metre above sea level. Two studies published in Nature in April 2018 show the Gulf Stream current is at its weakest level in 1,600 years. If the current continues to weaken, it could lead to freezing European winters, drier regions of Africa and rising sea levels.
On more positive notes, the EU has banned the use of biofuels from 2020. This will affect growers of biofuels crops around the world, particularly in Malaysia where swathes of jungle were replaced by oil producing palm plantations. In North and South America the land used for growing grain and cane could be used for other crops. The French government has introduced an incentive scheme to encourage petrol and diesel car owners to replace their old cars with new electric vehicles which has proved very popular with more than 45,000 applications in the first six months of 2018.
According to a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, more than 500,000 new renewable energy jobs were created in 2017 most of them in China manufacturing solar panels. By the end of 2017, 10.3 million people were employed in the renewable energy sector worldwide. In March 2018 Portuguese renewable energy was more than 100% of demand. As a result the government is eliminating subsidies, most of which were paid to fossil fuel power producers anyway. In early May 2018 Germany briefly reached 100% renewable. By then the country had averaged 42% for the year, well ahead of its 2020 target. On the electric car front, Kia and BMW are among other car makers developing wireless battery chargers.
Brookings calculates that American non-employer firms, which primarily use freelancers and gig-economy workers, have grown 2.6 percent every year since 1997 while traditional payroll employment has grown by only 0.8 percent a year. The growing number of people without employer-sponsored benefits such as paid leave, healthcare, and retirement assistance points to the need for portable benefits systems.
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