Ferraris for all

I am due to appear on BBC television this evening talking about the role of greed in the current financial crisis. Naturally I will be arguing that it is not the driving force behind the market turmoil. I am scheduled to be on BBC World at 7.30pm (London time) and later on the BBC News 24 channel.

Labels: economics, finance, media appearances, television

An interesting article by Sameer Panya in Miller McCune on apocalyptic visions in movies, popular books and TV. Examples he points to include the Dark Knight (the latest Batman movie - evidently shows the Joker trying to destroy the world for sheer pleasure), Wall-E (see my post of 21 July 2008), Battlestar Gallactica (the recent TV version) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road ( a novel which comes out as a film later this year). Two recent books examine this phenomenon: In Apocalyptic Dread by Kirsten Moana Thompson and Shocking Representation by Adam Lowenstein.

I wrote about apocalpytic visions in non-fiction in my post of 24 April 2008. I also used the introduction from Mad Max II to introduce my recent Fund Strategy feature on oil (see 26 August 2008 post).

Such visions seem to represent, in an extreme form, the fear of the future that is so prevalent at present.

Labels: book, environment, film, television

Worldwrite has launched its Worldbytes television channel (see 28 August post). The first programme includes an item with me talking about poverty in London.

Labels: inequality, media appearances, television, Worldwrite

Worldwrite is to launch an online monthly video news channel called Worldbytes at 7pm (London time) on Friday 5 September. More details to follow but it promises to be a must watch programme with its staunchly pro-development stance and irreverent attitude to growth scepticism.

Labels: development, inequality, television, Worldwrite

Andrew Marr’s Britain From Above documentary series on BBC television was a pleasant surprise. His aerial perspective of Britain, although impressionistic in some respects, enabled him to make some useful thematic points. In particular the episode on “Manmade Britain” argued that Britain’s landscape is entirely shaped by human beings. The patchwork quilt of different coloured fields is a result of industrial agriculture which goes back to the enclosure acts of the early nineteenth century and before. Other influences include urbanisation as well as the creation of “green belts” around British cities (under the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act) and the establishment of national parks from 1949 onwards. Overall Marr argues that man has shaped Britain’s environment for more than 6,000 years. Before that it was almost all wood land.

Labels: cities, environment, television

The BBC2 Newsnight programme this evening completely succumbed to the panic about water shortages. Its underlying assumption was simple: population growth and industrialisation are leading to greater use of this scarce commodity. This in turn is leading to the prospect of conflict and even water wars worldwide.

Sadly none of the studio guests challenged the fetishisation of water. It is wrong to see water as causing conflict – water is just “stuff” – the problem is the lack of investment in infrastructure to ensure everyone has enough water. Nor is it true that water is a finite resource (see, for example, posts of 22 August 2006, 19 October 2006 and 12 March 2008).

Worldwrite is also producing a documentary on this topic called Flush It!. Hopefully it will provide an antidote to such scare-mongering. Its premiere is at the Battle of Ideas festival on 2 November.

Labels: consumption, environment, film, television, water, Worldwrite

Barbara Ehrenreich, a prominent American activist and writer, has added her voice to the debate about inequality in America. This Land is Their Land (Metropolitan Books), her book on American extremes, seems to be receiving a lot of publicity. This includes an appearance on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

Labels: America, book, inequality, television

Burn-up, BBC 2’s big budget eco-thriller on the oil companies and runaway climate change, was awful in every way: as a drama, politically and in relation to the science. Rob Johnston on spiked has written an incisive review but it is worth outlining the key misconceptions embodied in the drama as they are common in the green mindset:

* It is assumed that there is no question that runaway warming (not just climate change) is happening. Catastrophe is imminent. A worst case scenario is presented as indisputable fact.

* Corporations are driven by greed in their ruthless pursuit of oil. In this sense attacks on capitalism are moral (it is driven by bad people) rather than linked to the pursuit of profit in itself. Companies and the economy are “addicted” to oil. (Insurance companies are a partial exception as they are suffering big losses as a result of climate change).

* The role of corporate lobbyists is to shed doubt on “the science”. They play the pernicious role of generating uncertainty and may engage in “greenwash” to improve their clients’ images.

* Deep down America knows that climate change is bad but it should help further its drive for global domination.

* Britain is on the right side but ineffectual.

* China is duplicitous – playing America against Europe to further its own interests,

* The only way to deal with climate change is to cut emissions. Adaptation is hardly discussed at all let along geo-engineering.

Sadly such mistaken views are widely held in the climate change debate.

Labels: climate, environment, review, science, spiked, television

You can see me talking about China and the environment at the recent Battle for China conference by clicking the link.

Labels: china, development, environment, media appearances, television

After writing my piece on the campaign against the use of Indian child labour by suppliers to Primark (see 24 June post) an interesting parrallel occurred to me. It seems to me there are similarities between the campaign to “save” Indian children with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaign for chicken welfare at Tesco. Both sets of campaigners see themselves as superior beings protecting lower creatures from the forces of greed.

Labels: consumption, ethics, food, india, television

Spiked has published an article by me on the recent documentaries on child labour in India. It argues that ethical consumerism is nauseatingly elitist.

Labels: consumption, ethics, india, spiked, television

It is becoming increasingly clear how mainstream concern for labour standards has become (see 6 May 2008 post). It used to be the case that radicals would typically support workers in their struggles against employers. Today self-appointed defenders of labour standards seek to protect employees against greedy companies. In the past it was about expressing solidarity for workers’ battles today it is primarily a case of using state institutions to defend employees as victims. The two notions could not be more different.

Two recent examples of how this works. The awful British fashion brats from BBC3’s Blood, Sweat and T-shirts (see 18 April 2008 post) appearing on Newsnight to talk about labour standards in the developing world. The group were at best gormless (wearing an £800 bracelet while working in an Indian cotton factory) and more often contemptuous of their Indian hosts. Yet they somehow have the moral authority to talk about Indian labour standards on a premier news programme.

A more perceptive piece by TA Frank, a former sweatshop inspector, appears in the April issue of Washington Monthly. Among other things it reminds readers that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have criticised trade deals as unfair to American workers while arguing for future agreements to have higher labour standards. It also makes the point that Robert Reich started cracking down on American sweatshop when he was labor secretary in the Clinton administration.

It is hard to think of many things more nauseating than protectionism masquerading as support for workers. Nor, as some of the Indian workers featured in Blood, Sweat and T-shirts pointed out, is it as simply as banning child labour in the developing world. The alternative for many child workers and their families is often extreme hardship and even starvation. The solution is economic development in the poorer countries. Child labour is rare when countries become rich.

Labels: development, ethics, india, inequality, television

Ceri Dingle of Worldwrite has previewed a BBC documentary series on six fashion designers who visit India to work for firms producing clothes for the British high street. Evidently the young British brats cannot even sew straight and are contemptuous of Indians. The views of the Indian clothing workers are not even represented on screen. Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts starts at 9pm on Tuesday 22 April on BBC Three.

Labels: india, review, television, Worldwrite

I appeared last night on 18 Doughty Street, an internet television channel, discussing a range of topics related to the recent G8 summit of world leaders. The other panellists on the Claire Fox News programme were Deepak Lal and Stuart Simpson. The programme can be watched by clicking: here.

Labels: development, globalisation, media appearances, television

I was planning to do a brief review of last night’s television programme on the human footprint. The programme reduces human life to consumption and waste. To quote the Channel 4 website: “From our babyhood – when we get through a massive 3,796 nappies and produce 254 litres of urine – through to our old age and death – by which time we will have had sex 4,239 times, eaten 10,866 carrots, taken 7,163 baths and done an average of 15 farts a day – this extraordinary film tells the story of an average life, the story of our human footprint.”

However, James Heartfield has saved me the trouble with an excellent review on spiked. He points out that humans have a productive and creative side rather than simply being consumers. It also includes a useful reference to his critique of Herbert Giradet on sustainability along with Giradet’s reply.

Labels: footprint, spiked, sustainability, television

This week’s episode of The Trap, part two of the three part documentary by Adam Curtis, failed to convincingly link paranoid man with rising inequality (see posts of 11 and 12 March). The first 45 minutes of the hour-long programme elaborated on the last week’s theme of how the idea of rational selfish individuals arose during the Cold War (including John Nash, James Buchanan and Tom Peters). It also showed how institutions such as the National Health Service were reformed to incorporate these ideas in the 1990s. Only then, three quarters of the way through the programme, did it make a tenuous link with inequality through the mechanism of school league tables. Rich individuals, it pointed out, could afford to buy houses in areas with top-performing schools. As soon as it made this point it quickly moved on to inequality in America and then onto the idea of corruption. It ended by questioning the science of the “selfish gene” and describing how behavioural economics is gaining in popularity. So literally only a few minutes of an hour-long programme even attempted to demonstrate the link between “rational economic man” and inequality.

Labels: corruption, economics, inequality, television

Chris Dillow, author of the stumblingandmumbling blog, has written an entry questioning the intellectual history in last night’s Adam Curtis documentary (see yesterday’s dispatch). Dillow points out that the theory of people as selfish and paranoid dates back to Leviathan (1651) by Thomas Hobbes rather than the Cold War. The notion of self-interest generating social order is to be found in Berenard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (1714). Another flaw, Dillow argues, is that:

“Economists' scepticism about the possibility of a common interest doesn't just arise from a cynical view of human nature. It stems also from the problem of aggregating preferences - as Kenneth Arrow showed in his impossibility theorem. But then, Arrow was no rightist cold warrior, so he doesn't fit Curtis's template.”

Labels: economics, television

The first episode of The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom?, a BBC2 documentary by Adam Curtis, was characteristically wide-ranging and thought provoking. It showed how a particular notion of freedom evolved during the Cold War which emphasised the importance of the rational individual against ideas of the public interest or altruism. Curtis linked this idea of rational individuals to the free market economics of Friedrich Hayek, game theory (eg John Nash), public choice theory (eg James Buchanan) and the anti-psychiatry movement of RD Laing. Other manifestations of this idea include privatisation and the “internal market” within the National Health Service. TV programmes such as Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, written by an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, also embody the idea that a unified public interest is a myth. Instead institutions have to be devised to ensure that individuals respond to rational incentives. Next week Curtis will evidently go on to show how the popularisation of such ideas led to a widening of inequality.

Labels: economics, inequality, television

Just managed to catch up on the BBC Panorama programme “Go green or else!” on a year in the life of “ethical man” (currently available to view on the internet). The programme is itself a recycling of the regular items by Justin Rowlatt on the BBC Newsnight programme over the past year. Rowlatt and his family cut back on consumption over the year including ditching their car, forsaking air travel, eating fewer animal products, recycling and even urinating on their compost heap. The aim, which they achieved, was to cut the family’s carbon footprint by 20% over the year. They also made significant financial savings along the way.

The problems with this approach are straightforward. It is obviously possible to save money if you are prepared to accept austerity. But why should people have to do without cars, air travel or meat? Even cutting back on such consumption is not desirable.

More fundamentally the programme looked at the question entirely from the perspective of personal consumption. Tackling climate change meant individuals and families consuming less. The possibility of producing more energy, for example through nuclear energy or hydroelectric power, was ruled out of the discussion by the framework of the programme itself.

The programme’s “carbon guru” was Professor Tim Jackson of Surrey University. His website includes several papers putting sustainable consumption and sustainability more generally into a more theoretical context.

Labels: climate, consumption, economics, environment, sustainability, television

This morning I appeared on Sky News debating Friends of the Earth on the raising of air taxes which came into effect today. I argued against the taxes on two grounds. First, they were in effect a form of rationing which would discourage people from flying. Second, to the extent that climate change is a problem the solution lies with investment in technological innovation. Friends of the Earth argued the taxes were welcome but the proceeds should be earmarked for green purposes.

Interestingly the Friends of the Earth representative made a big point of insisting that the science on climate change was certain and the Stern review proved it. Of course he did not make clear what exactly was certain. That the earth is warming? That humans are responsible? That catastrophe is imminent? That rationing is the only way forward? It seemed to me what was really being said was that it is illegitimate to challenge the consensus that there should be natural limits on human behaviour. In other words what is really being pushed is not scientific truth but a morality of low expectations.

Labels: climate, environment, media appearances, television

Another sign of the shift in the climate change debate towards a “pro-mitigation” consensus (see dispatch of 15 August 2006). Exxon, often reviled by environmentalists, has subtly shifted its position according to todays’s Wall Street Journal Europe (subscription required to read articles):

“The changes in Exxon's words and actions are nuanced. The oil giant continues to note uncertainties in climate science. It continues to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, the international global-warming treaty that limits emissions from industrialized countries that have ratified it. It also stresses that any future carbon policy should include developing countries, where emissions are rising fastest.

“Still, the company's subtle softening is significant and reflects a gathering trend among much of U.S. industry, from utilities to auto makers. While many continue to oppose caps, these companies expect the country will impose mandatory global-warming-emission constraints at some point, so they are lining up to try to shape any mandate so they escape with minimum economic pain.

“Exxon has stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank that last year ran television ads saying that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is helpful. After funding them previously, Exxon decided in late 2005 not to fund for 2006 CEI and "five or six" other groups active in the global-warming debate, Kenneth Cohen, Exxon's vice president for public affairs, confirmed this week in an interview at Exxon's headquarters in Irving, Texas. He declined to identify the groups beyond CEI; their names are expected to become public in the spring, when Exxon releases its annual list of donations to nonprofit groups.”

Labels: climate, corporations, energy, environment, television

There follows a comment by me on the legacy of Milton Friedman from the 20 November issue of Fund Strategy.

Few people under the age of 40 are likely to have heard of Milton Friedman, the doyen of free market economics who died last week. Friedman was one of the key intellectual forces behind what became known as the Thatcher revolution in Britain and the Reagan revolution in America. Yet, given recent developments, his corpse is probably already spinning.

Friedman, who won a Nobel prize in 1976, was partly known as a formidable technical economist. Much of his work focused on the relationship between the money supply and economic activity.

One conclusion he drew was that America's Federal Reserve was largely responsible for the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although it had the means, it lacked the will to inject sufficient liquidity into the system when it was needed. This conclusion points to another key theme of Friedman's work: scepticism about the role of the state in resolving economic problems.

But Friedman was not just an academic. He played a key role in popularising his ideas in newspapers and television programmes. For instance, his Free to Choose documentary series was broadcast by the BBC in 1980. Many others also promoted his ideas in the free-market upsurge of the time.

Yet although Friedman is often associated with the Conservative party under Margaret Thatcher, it was Labour that first started to implement his ideas. As Samuel Brittan, a veteran Financial Times columnist, has pointed out, it was James Callaghan, then prime minister, who argued in 1976 that governments could not spend their way into full employment.

In practice this meant pursuing cuts in public spending, along with pay restraint, to deal with what was then called "stagflation" - an ugly combination of stagnation and high inflation.

Where Labour led the Conservatives followed with fervour. What became known as "Thatcherism" involved attacks on public-sector workers and trade unions. In the process the idea that "There is No Alternative" to the market - dubbed "Tina" - was popularised. Socialism and Keynesianism were both discredited in the process.

The great irony of this development was that it robbed conservatism of a sense of purpose. The attack on the unions and the comparisons with the Soviet bloc provided conservatives with a mission. In contrast, today we have a strange combination of Tina without any sense of direction.

The result is a peculiar pro-market anti-capitalism. Capitalism is seen as creating enormous problems - climate change being the most popular current example - but at the same time there is no alternative vision. The result is a popular mood of gloom and despondency. Friedman has left a strange legacy.

Labels: America, economics, Fund Strategy, television

I appeared on Sky News again this morning debating Ashok Sinha of Stop Climate Chaos. The subject of the debate was the announcement by David Miliband, the environment secretary, of a “climate revolution”. At the time of broadcast it was not clear what this would involve but it seems certain to be centred on the government’s favoured approaches of rationing and behaviour modification. Evidently he also wants to reward companies for energy efficiency rather than energy production.

I made the point that a strategy based on rationing was undesirable and unviable. Over time we will inevitably use more energy even if we become more energy efficient. The challenge is to make society richer so that it is better able to deal with climate change and other problems it faces.

Labels: climate, environment, media appearances, television

Air travel is becoming a particular target for climate change campaigners. Although air transport currently only accounts for a small percentage of global emissions the proportion is expected to rise rapidly in the coming years. The question is discussed in more detail in a report (PDF) from Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute published yesterday. It also had extensive media coverage including an item with BBC Newsnight’s “ethical man”.

Although the subject demands detailed examination some reasons to question the consensus are already clear. Certainly the argument that most flyers are relatively rich - which is no doubt true - should not be used against cheap flights. The point is that more people than ever can afford to fly and that number should be increased much further. Mobility has both enormous economic benefits and is a key component of freedom.

Paul Charles, a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic, also makes a good point in an article on the report on BBC online: "We've suggested starting grids at airports, so that planes don't have to run their engines for half an hour all the way to the runway while they're queuing up. That will cut millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions." So building larger and better airports could help reduce emissions.

No doubt over time aircraft engines can also be made even cleaner and more efficient. They are already much better than they used to be and this trend will continue.

Brendan O’Neill has written an article on the snobbery surrounding cheap flights on spiked and there is a debate on the subject at the Battle of Ideas.

Labels: speeches, television, transport

This morning I appeared on Sky News debating the economics of climate change with Friends of the Earth. The environmentalist group had commissioned a report from Tufts university (PDF) which argued that immediate action was needed to stop climate change becoming a catastrophic problem. My counter-argument was that the richer we are as a society the better able we should be to tackle climate change and other challenges facing humanity. The debate can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here

Labels: climate, media appearances, television

I hesitate to write too much on climate change because it could easily become a full-time preoccupation. But given it is increasingly used as the ultimate argument against affluence it is difficult to avoid devoting time to it.

George Monbiot’s new book on climate change, serialised in three parts in the Guardian, provides a model of how not to conduct the debate. Yesterday there was an article on 'the denial industry' which focused on ExxonMobil. He made a similar film for the BBC Newsnight programme which was broadcast this evening. The main point of both was that ExxonMobil is financing “climate change deniers” – including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Independent Institute – to misrepresent the truth on climate change in order to protect its profits.

There are two reasons why this argument is flawed. First, the fact that anyone receives finance from a particular source, even one with a vested interest, does not prove that an argument is wrong. I could be paid by the Devil Inc to produce this website but that does not invalidate my arguments (as it happens I am entirely self-financed). Second, it is misleading to talk to climate change “denial”. Only a lunatic would deny that the climate is changing and most specialists seem to accept that humans have played a role in warming. What needs to be debated is the character of the change (a scientific question) and how best to respond to it (a political question).

Monbiot cites a website with the sole aim of exposing Exxon . He has also set up a new website of his own , along with Mark Lynas and Joss Garman, to argue solely on climate change. There is also a speaking tour on the book.

Labels: book, climate, corporations, environment, film, television

Spiked has today published my review of An Inconvenient Truth. In it I argue that Al Gore’s dogmatic documentary embodies the worst possible response to climate change. It can be found by clicking on the appropriate link in the reviews section on the bar on the left hand side of this site.

However, as a critique of Gore’s pretentious style it is hard to do better than South Park. An Inconvenient Truth was ruthlessly lampooned in its episode on ManBearPig.

Labels: climate, film, review, spiked, television

Once you start looking you find numerous examples of anti-materialism. Today I came across two before even arriving at work.

BBC TV’s Breakfast programme included an item on the proposal by David Miliband, Britain’s environment minister, to introduce swipe cards to ration carbon usage. Supporting the proposal, on the green side of the couch, was Mayer Hillman. Indeed he claimed he proposed the idea many years ago. Opposing Hillman was James Woudhuysen, professor of innovation at De Montfort University, who proposed “supply side innovation” as an alternative (more efficient power stations, nuclear energy, tidal power and so on).

On my train journey the front page headline in the Metro was “Rise in crime is blamed on iPods”. John Reid, the home secretary, was quoted as saying the rise in violent crime “is largely driven by a rise in the numbers of young people carrying expensive goods". Now it is true that iPods could not have been stolen before they were invented but it is hard to take this argument seriously. For example, one study estimates that the murder rate in medieval England was twice that in contemporary America. Or alternatively perhaps the current conflict in the Middle East can be reinterpreted as a battle over iPod ownership?

Labels: climate, environment, technology, television