Response to New York Times article "U.S. Needs ‘Long-Term Presence’ in Iraq, Gates Says"

Article located here.

The U.S. Defense Secretary is considering "a very modest U.S. presence with no permanent bases, where we can continue to go after Al Qaeda in Iraq and help the Iraqi forces." The U.S. currently has four bases, one in each quarter of Iraq, that are similar to permanent U.S. bases elsewhere, and that the anti-war movement in the U.S. fiercely opposes keeping troops in Iraq. One of the major reasons for invading Iraq was to move the U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia to new bases in Iraq, in order for the U.S. to maintain its military presence in the Middle East. The Bush administration refuses to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq because it would either have to completely withdraw U.S. forces or explain why it wants a continued presence. The rhetoric against withdrawal and in favor of continued occupation is partially because the administration does not want to admit failure, but also so that the public is more likely to agree with an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq.

Global Warming: A Pragmatic Perspective

Last week I wrote a fairly silly post (it's been edited, by the way,) so now I have to write a super-serious post. Sorry guys, that's just how it works. Actually, I figure that since I've applied to become a 'Residence Sustainability Coordinator', and because I've done more research and thinking since my last attempt on the topic, I've decided to try and tackle the subject again.

I'm not going to cover the causes or consequences of Global Warming in any detail, because there are many excellent resources out there that do a better job than I could do. There are a few disturbing consequences that I'd liked to share. First of all many ecosystems will not adapt well to increased temperatures. Marine ecosystems, and the humans that depend on them, will suffer because coral only lives at certain temperatures, and coral is a vital part of coastal marine ecosystems. If temperatures increase unchecked, the Arctic may disappear within our lifetime, and most of the animals living there will go extinct. According to the WWF, up to a million species could go extinct by 2050. However, global warming will also impact people. Droughts and hurricanes will become more severe and more frequent, and people depending on a declining ecosystem will suffer as well. I'm not listing these facts because I want to scare you, but because they seem to be the most compelling arguments to take action.

We should take three courses of actions to either reduce emissions or lower the global temperature. Even if emissions are stabilized now, the Earth will continue to warm for several centuries, so research should be conducted into effectively reducing current levels of greenhouse gases as well as reducing future emissions. This research is being conducted by companies and by governments. Companies perform R&D based on market research, and they sell technologies to other companies or governments, so they are not easy to influence. Governments, however, are supposed to follow the people's demands, so you should pressure your government into investing much more into research.

While company's R&D divisions are far removed from the public, their sales divisions are completely dependent on the public's actions. Therefore you should support companies that are reducing emissions and suggest improvements to companies that are not. A great book about how emissions can be cut drastically (by 90%) is called "Heat" by George Monbiot and is definitely worth reading for ideas. For instance, concrete produces huge amounts of CO2 and has many economical and eco-friendly substitutes. Also, supermarkets are hugely inefficient because everything is brightly lit and their food has to be cooled without cooling the entire store. Delivery systems cut out this waste and benefit both supermarkets and consumers. Suggest to other retailers that they follow Walmart's example and cut costs by cutting energy consumption. Getting companies to reduce their emissions is not hard to do, because the best ways to be green also save money, but would be possibly the most effective way to cut emissions.

The last course of action involves cutting our own emissions. We all know these actions because they're what most environmentalists talk about, but while many changes are not very hard to implement (I wrote about some of them on my other blog), major changes definitely are. I fly across the Atlantic four times a year, and so I have the choice of either never seeing my family or significantly contributing to Global Warming. Driving to work seems to be only acceptable method of transportation for the majority of people, even though this leads to smog and CO2 emissions. Is everyone that takes transatlantic flights or drives to work a horrible person? No, because it's the system that's seriously flawed, not the consumer. Whenever we buy anything, we don't calculate the value of the resources used, the labor that went into it, the profit that the company needs to make, etc.: it's all already included in the price we pay. The social and environmental damage is not usually included in the bill because neither the producer nor the consumer has to pay. There's no surcharge for the CO2 produced for what we're buying, and unfortunately there's no good system for adding that amount. A taxation system would be fiendishly complicated, and a rationing system (the other suggestion I've seen) would be unpopular and still complicated. Ultimately, all we can do is make sure there are no small changes we can make in our own habits, and focus on the other two courses of action mentioned above.

Global Warming is a serious problem, and our actions within this lifetime will have a huge impact on the following centuries. If we do everything that we can to address the problem, then I think that the most serious consequences can be averted, and eventually Global Warming will not be a concern. I also believe that we will avoid disaster because people are good and will do what is necessary. As we learn more about the consequences of Global Warming and how we can prevent it, the future can only look brighter, and I intend on having the best possible future.

Two Topics- Dogs and Math

I wanted to write about both these topics, but neither of them really justify a full post, so I'm combining them in a sort of "Tuesday Irrelevant Topic Day!" mish-mash. I'm writing them because I like to take a break from all the serious topics occasionally. S0, I'll start with math.

A few of you might have picked up on the clues, that I mention math often, and am planning to minor in it, and rightly concluded that I like math. You may think that I'm crazy or weird for taking two math courses, one second-year differential equations and one third-year calculus course. What you don't know, though, is that math classes are my favourite university courses. The reason I'm majoring in chem is because I find the material more interesting, and I prefer chem lectures to math lectures the vast majority of the time. Chem unfortunately involves labs and tedious coursework, while math has no labs and I often enjoy doing math assignments.

Yes, I like doing math homework. I don't like doing repetitive algebraic manipulation where I know how to solve the problem and it's just a matter of bitch-slapping the equation into its proper form, but I do love being presented with a question I can't solve, trying several approaches, and finally figuring it out and arriving at the correct answer. I don't take pride in most of my other coursework, since it's all fairly boring and doesn't require much creativity, but I am proud of my solutions in math. Basically I'm a huge nerd.

Now, dogs. Dogs have very little to do with math, and if you try to find a connection I will get angry because that's not what math or dogs are for. Unlike humans, it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against groups of dogs based on physical characteristics, because their physical characteristics vary so much and determine what we like about a breed. My favourite dogs are dogs that are average in size and appearance. I don't like wiry racing dogs or powerful aggressive dogs as much as medium-strength ones. I dislike most tiny dogs because they're loud, disobedient, and not as much fun to play with, and huge dogs are just too much dog to handle. I find exotic dogs or boxer-like dogs less appealing than Labradors, Spaniels, German Shepherds, or other more normal dogs. Average dogs are playful, not aggressive; big enough to run around with but not big enough to pull me around; and appealing rather than odd. Interestingly enough when you make an "average" person by combining many people's faces, the composite is usually more attractive than each individual face.

Competing Economic Policy

Economics has several competing schools of thought surrounding one major issue: the role of government intervention. Just like markets, economies are explained by supply and demand, specifically the demand of all people and companies within the economy and the supply of all companies. Specific government policies affect either demand or supply and are called demand-side and supply-side policies, respectively. Demand-side policies are things like taxation, government spending, or fiddling with interest rates, and these tend to work quickly, as policy goes. Supply-side policies are things like direct government provision (e.g. health care, oil), education, reducing impediments to business, and these policies generally take a long time to have an effect. Governments will always strive to increase supply as much as possible, because increased productivity reduces inflation and increases employment. Disagreement results from how best to increase supply and how to use demand-side policies.

The two main schools of thought in economics are the Neo-Classicalist and Neo-Keynesian schools. Neo-Classicalists believe that in the long run, supply will reach full employment of resources and be fixed, so increasing demand will cause inflation and decreasing demand will cause recession. Neo-Keynesians believe that you cannot reach full employment because the economy is constantly in flux, and the closer you get to fully employing resources the more inflation you have. Therefore Neo-Keynesians suggest using demand-side policies to balance inflation and employment.

There's a third school, the Austrian school, that goes further than Neo-Classicalists in condeming government intervention. All economists accept that markets are imperfect and therefore do not provide the socially optimum level of output, namely where both producers and consumers benefit the most. Some markets work fairly well, for instance the market for wheat in Canada produces as much wheat as consumers want, and farmers are happy so long as the weather is good. Some markets don't work well at all, like private health insurance, as we can see from the U.S., and work much better when run efficiently by governments (it's possible, I'll write about how at a later date.) While Neo-Classicalists advocate limited government intervention and Neo-Keynesians advocate substantial intervention, Austrian economists do not believe there should be any government intervention. They believe that while governments may have good intentions, the market they're trying to fix would be better if left alone. This is the economic basis for Libertarianism, and it is part of Ron Paul's platform. It's not as central as his opposition to the war in defining his candidacy, but small government and true conservative ideals are cornerstones of his platform.

The most compelling argument for libertarianism is philosophical and requires another post to discuss, but economic libertarianism ignores that fact that governments are the only agents that can address market failures. They're certainly not the best agents imaginable, but libertarians must acknowledge that some other entity must step into the role played by governments in addressing market failures. Hopefully this post will help you understand why the Swedes advocate government intervention, why conservatives talk about small government, and why libertarians don't want any government at all.

Short Post on Iraq

I was reading an article by Noam Chomsky, arguably the world's most famous intellectual, and he pointed out something I had to share. Those tried at the Nuremberg war trials were hung for crimes of aggression, specifically the illegal invasion of another country. The Bush administration and Congress have committed the same crime by preemptively invading Iraq, and yet those who call for Bush to be tried for war crimes are cast as left-wing crazies.

Technically, the U.S. is accountable to the U.N., but America's current position as superpower means the U.N. could never use this authority, and America could quite legitimately leave the U.N. if the organization went against its interests. By invading Iraq without U.N. support, it broke the same laws that the Nazis were killed for. America's supposed justifications for invading are far more tolerable than the Nazi ambitions of territory and ethnic purity, but America's real reasons for invasion are evil. Not as evil as the Nazis, but invading a country for strategic interests and the benefit of military corporations, and causing the deaths of several hundred thousand people justifies being tried for war crimes. And the current occupation of Iraq, resulting from the illegal and immoral preemptive invasion of the country, has no legitimacy and should be ended as quickly and painlessly as possible.