Oh, and here's George Monbiot explaining why this may well be a symptom of global warming: That snow outside is what global warming looks like.
Showing posts with label monbiot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monbiot. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
winter fun
Haven't done much blogging recently, too busy with ice skating down the river ... It really is a bit weird - after moving here in 1993 we waited 15 years for a proper winter and now we had three in a row (if a proper winter is defined by being able to skate outdoors on natural ice). Of the three cold winters, this was the first one to make the rivers Cherwell and Thames freeze over, and for a full week we were able to skate on a millstream of the river Cherwell.
Oh, and here's George Monbiot explaining why this may well be a symptom of global warming: That snow outside is what global warming looks like.
Oh, and here's George Monbiot explaining why this may well be a symptom of global warming: That snow outside is what global warming looks like.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
education fixed
In his latest column, George Monbiot advocates a brilliantly simple and effective fix for the blatant inequality of opportunity in this country, based on an earlier idea by Peter Wilby. I'll tweak it slightly but the essence is the same:
If only x percent of the year group can go to the best universities, make sure that each and every secondary school gets places for the top x % of their students. I.e. if x is 5, our local state school with some 200 students per year doing A levels, would get 10 guaranteed places at Oxbridge. No more Apartheid in the schools system, as ambitious parents would seek out schools with fewer successful pupils to let theirs have a better chance, so within a few years the whole system would be homogenised and everybody would get ahead purely on the merits of their performance.
The only real problem I can think of is that competition between pupils for the fixed number of places could become nasty.
Other than that there are of course a few political problems meaning that it will never happen, such as the fact that it would remove the heritable privileges of those who are monopolising power and wealth in this country. Also, I think they do it similarly in France (at least I seem to remember that the important figure at the end of your school career is a ranking, not a mark, but not sure), so it can't be right.
So watch out for politicians studiously ignoring this proposal.
Source:
George Monbiot: Universal Cure (24.5.2010, printed in the Guardian on 25.5.)
If only x percent of the year group can go to the best universities, make sure that each and every secondary school gets places for the top x % of their students. I.e. if x is 5, our local state school with some 200 students per year doing A levels, would get 10 guaranteed places at Oxbridge. No more Apartheid in the schools system, as ambitious parents would seek out schools with fewer successful pupils to let theirs have a better chance, so within a few years the whole system would be homogenised and everybody would get ahead purely on the merits of their performance.
The only real problem I can think of is that competition between pupils for the fixed number of places could become nasty.
Other than that there are of course a few political problems meaning that it will never happen, such as the fact that it would remove the heritable privileges of those who are monopolising power and wealth in this country. Also, I think they do it similarly in France (at least I seem to remember that the important figure at the end of your school career is a ranking, not a mark, but not sure), so it can't be right.
So watch out for politicians studiously ignoring this proposal.
Source:
George Monbiot: Universal Cure (24.5.2010, printed in the Guardian on 25.5.)
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
the wrong kind of incentive?
(updated Fri 5.3.2010)
I used to admire George Monbiot, but in his column this week he delivers a general bashing of feed-in-tariffs which includes a few points I have to disagree with. Feed-in-tariffs are a scheme first introduced in Germany 10 years ago and since then copied in around 60 countries and several US states, by which private households that generate their own electricity can sell it back to the electricity provider and get paid more than they would pay to buy the equivalent energy, thus providing a cash incentive for the installation of private solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
As of 1.4., the UK introduces a similar scheme, which Monbiot now rubbishes, dismissing the German scheme along with it. Addressing his criticism point by point:
1) The UK scheme (unlike the German one) is designed to deliver a guaranteed return on the householder's investment, which means that the most inefficient methods of producing energy get the highest subsidies. I agree that this is a fatal flaw in the UK scheme. (I think the German scheme is also different in that it pays generators _only_ for the excess electricity they feed back to the net, not for what they use themselves. So for German householders it pays to generate _and_ save energy.) Trust New Labour to do something ten years late and then get it wrong.
2) Compared with other options, Monbiot says, solar PV (photovoltaics, i.e. using sunlight to create electricity, as opposed to heat) is the most expensive way of saving a given amount of CO2 emission. Apart from the fact that some of the cheaper options include unpalatable things like massive use of nuclear power, I tend to think that we need all reasonable options, including expensive ones. He points out that replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving ones actually saves money and CO2. Well, we did that in 1986, but it hasn't stopped global CO2 emissions from going up further.
3) Monbiot says that in Germany carbon saving by PV is zero, because under the carbon trading act other industries can release more CO2 and compensate any effect. But that would apply to everything anybody might do, so it's a flaw in the trading act rather than a shortcoming in PV specifically.
4) He says the scheme subsidises the "fashion accessories" of rich people (by which he means home owners, which is strange as in the UK around half the households live in their own home, and most wouldn't consider themselves to be rich) at the expense of poor people who can't use the incentive and have to pay for it through higher electricity bills. While there is a small grain of truth in that, I would argue that the better-off part of the population would tend to waste electricity (eg by having several refrigerators instead of one, and several huge flat screen TVs), while the poor would be aware of their electricity bill. So unless I get to see hard data, I would assume the scheme penalises people who waste electricity and isn't particularly hard on poor people.
5) In the last part of the column, Monbiot claims that criminals could easily abuse the system by using electricity off the net to sell it back to the net at a multiple of the price. A few lines further down, though, we learn that the FIT scheme introduced in the UK now doesn't involve metering the electricity fed back to the net but is based on estimated output calculated from PV capacity. As I understand it, this would mean the criminal scheme outlined above wouldn't work.
6) Monbiot is right to point out that the success of PV depends on latitude, i.e. sunshine -- when dismissing the German scheme he may have forgotten to consider that Germany is actually further south than the UK, and does have quite warm summers.
7) Monbiot argues that PV is useless in the UK as it produces power at times when it is least needed, i.e. during summer days, as opposed to winter evenings. However, as most of the UK power is produced by fossil fuels which can be burnt any time or stored if they aren't, every bit of solar power generated even on a hot summer day saves fossil fuels from being burnt. Even more so, as the sunshine intensity is predictable in the short term, so fossil fuel plants can turn down their capacity on those sunny days.
8) another advantage for Germany that Monbiot fails to acknowledge is that as an early mover, the German PV industry has hugely benefited from the scheme and is, I believe, second after China globally. This, of course, doesn't help the UK government which ineptly copied the scheme ten years later.
9) considering that he's been banging on about growing his own green food for years, it is also curious that he doesn't appreciate people may like the idea of producing their own green energy.
I've published a (somewhat more positive) piece about the German scheme in Current Biology a few years ago, which is on restricted access here (also see the relevant blog entry).
PS (4.3.): 10. Monbiot says the German incentives are being scaled down this month because the scheme wasn't working. I haven't researched that yet, but I would suspect that they were scaled down because the black/yellow coalition (conservative / neoliberals) saw the opportunity to cut back something the red-green coalition had put in place in 2000. Also, there may have been a 10 year guarantee which has now run out, not sure. Plus, as the scheme has been very successful in kick-starting the solar industry, the govt. may argue that it's done its job and isn't needed on a similar scale any more. Will have to look into that.
PS (5.3.): yesterday's Guardian carries a response from Jeremy Leggett (who works in the PV industry and is the editor of the book "The solar century" which I reviewed last year):
Solar panels are not fashion accessories,
rejecting Monbiot's claims in four points. Actually, I was considering to submit my 9points to the response column, but then thought Jeremy Leggett is surely going to write something (and he's more qualified). Psychic powers working well this week!
Also in yesterday's edition is an article on the finance pages suggesting that a crucial piece of legislation needed to make the FITs work has been delayed, so the whole thing may still go off the rails. Better wait before I top up that mortgage. This finance article refers to Monbiot as a "green campaigner". Not so sure about that any more, as he now supports nuclear and bashes solar power.
I used to admire George Monbiot, but in his column this week he delivers a general bashing of feed-in-tariffs which includes a few points I have to disagree with. Feed-in-tariffs are a scheme first introduced in Germany 10 years ago and since then copied in around 60 countries and several US states, by which private households that generate their own electricity can sell it back to the electricity provider and get paid more than they would pay to buy the equivalent energy, thus providing a cash incentive for the installation of private solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
As of 1.4., the UK introduces a similar scheme, which Monbiot now rubbishes, dismissing the German scheme along with it. Addressing his criticism point by point:
1) The UK scheme (unlike the German one) is designed to deliver a guaranteed return on the householder's investment, which means that the most inefficient methods of producing energy get the highest subsidies. I agree that this is a fatal flaw in the UK scheme. (I think the German scheme is also different in that it pays generators _only_ for the excess electricity they feed back to the net, not for what they use themselves. So for German householders it pays to generate _and_ save energy.) Trust New Labour to do something ten years late and then get it wrong.
2) Compared with other options, Monbiot says, solar PV (photovoltaics, i.e. using sunlight to create electricity, as opposed to heat) is the most expensive way of saving a given amount of CO2 emission. Apart from the fact that some of the cheaper options include unpalatable things like massive use of nuclear power, I tend to think that we need all reasonable options, including expensive ones. He points out that replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving ones actually saves money and CO2. Well, we did that in 1986, but it hasn't stopped global CO2 emissions from going up further.
3) Monbiot says that in Germany carbon saving by PV is zero, because under the carbon trading act other industries can release more CO2 and compensate any effect. But that would apply to everything anybody might do, so it's a flaw in the trading act rather than a shortcoming in PV specifically.
4) He says the scheme subsidises the "fashion accessories" of rich people (by which he means home owners, which is strange as in the UK around half the households live in their own home, and most wouldn't consider themselves to be rich) at the expense of poor people who can't use the incentive and have to pay for it through higher electricity bills. While there is a small grain of truth in that, I would argue that the better-off part of the population would tend to waste electricity (eg by having several refrigerators instead of one, and several huge flat screen TVs), while the poor would be aware of their electricity bill. So unless I get to see hard data, I would assume the scheme penalises people who waste electricity and isn't particularly hard on poor people.
5) In the last part of the column, Monbiot claims that criminals could easily abuse the system by using electricity off the net to sell it back to the net at a multiple of the price. A few lines further down, though, we learn that the FIT scheme introduced in the UK now doesn't involve metering the electricity fed back to the net but is based on estimated output calculated from PV capacity. As I understand it, this would mean the criminal scheme outlined above wouldn't work.
6) Monbiot is right to point out that the success of PV depends on latitude, i.e. sunshine -- when dismissing the German scheme he may have forgotten to consider that Germany is actually further south than the UK, and does have quite warm summers.
7) Monbiot argues that PV is useless in the UK as it produces power at times when it is least needed, i.e. during summer days, as opposed to winter evenings. However, as most of the UK power is produced by fossil fuels which can be burnt any time or stored if they aren't, every bit of solar power generated even on a hot summer day saves fossil fuels from being burnt. Even more so, as the sunshine intensity is predictable in the short term, so fossil fuel plants can turn down their capacity on those sunny days.
8) another advantage for Germany that Monbiot fails to acknowledge is that as an early mover, the German PV industry has hugely benefited from the scheme and is, I believe, second after China globally. This, of course, doesn't help the UK government which ineptly copied the scheme ten years later.
9) considering that he's been banging on about growing his own green food for years, it is also curious that he doesn't appreciate people may like the idea of producing their own green energy.
I've published a (somewhat more positive) piece about the German scheme in Current Biology a few years ago, which is on restricted access here (also see the relevant blog entry).
PS (4.3.): 10. Monbiot says the German incentives are being scaled down this month because the scheme wasn't working. I haven't researched that yet, but I would suspect that they were scaled down because the black/yellow coalition (conservative / neoliberals) saw the opportunity to cut back something the red-green coalition had put in place in 2000. Also, there may have been a 10 year guarantee which has now run out, not sure. Plus, as the scheme has been very successful in kick-starting the solar industry, the govt. may argue that it's done its job and isn't needed on a similar scale any more. Will have to look into that.
PS (5.3.): yesterday's Guardian carries a response from Jeremy Leggett (who works in the PV industry and is the editor of the book "The solar century" which I reviewed last year):
Solar panels are not fashion accessories,
rejecting Monbiot's claims in four points. Actually, I was considering to submit my 9points to the response column, but then thought Jeremy Leggett is surely going to write something (and he's more qualified). Psychic powers working well this week!
Also in yesterday's edition is an article on the finance pages suggesting that a crucial piece of legislation needed to make the FITs work has been delayed, so the whole thing may still go off the rails. Better wait before I top up that mortgage. This finance article refers to Monbiot as a "green campaigner". Not so sure about that any more, as he now supports nuclear and bashes solar power.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
navigating the backwaters of Oxford
Here's George Monbiot navigating the backwaters of Oxford:
"I pushed through rush-choked channels scarcely wider than my boat. I found backwaters no one had navigated for years. I stumbled across cannabis gardens and camouflaged shelters where fugitives lived. ... Abandoned behind railway fences, on the edge of playing fields, anonymously skirting business units, I found places I had never imagined possible, a parallel world."
I have made very similar discoveries in the last 3 years, it's quite amazing how a city can turn its back to its rivers. Apart from the main punting highway, it really is a parallel Oxford that one gets to see from the waterways.
Unlike GM, however, I don't trouble the fish (the rest of the article in Saturday's Guardian is about fishing). I only watch the wildlife (and have seen a kingfisher too!)
Here's a recent photo of our family canoe, taken upstream at the sunnymeade recreation ground.
"I pushed through rush-choked channels scarcely wider than my boat. I found backwaters no one had navigated for years. I stumbled across cannabis gardens and camouflaged shelters where fugitives lived. ... Abandoned behind railway fences, on the edge of playing fields, anonymously skirting business units, I found places I had never imagined possible, a parallel world."
I have made very similar discoveries in the last 3 years, it's quite amazing how a city can turn its back to its rivers. Apart from the main punting highway, it really is a parallel Oxford that one gets to see from the waterways.
Unlike GM, however, I don't trouble the fish (the rest of the article in Saturday's Guardian is about fishing). I only watch the wildlife (and have seen a kingfisher too!)
Here's a recent photo of our family canoe, taken upstream at the sunnymeade recreation ground.
Monday, September 08, 2008
activist to fructivist
you know it's harvest time when George Monbiot, who regularly implores us to save the world, goes all domestic and fruity and raves about old-fashioned apple varieties. I broadly agree with him on this fructivist manifesto, but have two moans. firstly, no quinces in his orchard ? and secondly, how could he move from Oxford to the middle of nowhere, sorry , middle of Wales? I'm wondering whether the allotment he left behind will get a blue plaque one day. "George Monbiot planted these carefully chosen apple trees before retiring to Wales."
Monday, March 31, 2008
all things apocalyptic
I'm shocked that George Monbiot has another book out -- and I haven't even managed to catch up with the last three. I do read his weekly column though, and I usually agree with everything he says, so I feel I don't have to read the books. Although they are important, of course.
Well, anyhow, the new one is called:
Bring on the Apocalypse: Six Arguments for Global Justice
and available via amazon or Guardian books.
Well, anyhow, the new one is called:
Bring on the Apocalypse: Six Arguments for Global Justice
and available via amazon or Guardian books.
Monday, February 18, 2008
biofuel debate
The only sustainable biofuel is used chip fat, concludes George Monbiot in his latest Guardian column. While I agree with him on most things, I wouldn't go quite as far as that (yet). While not all biofuel programs based on agricultural waste are truly green (he cites an example of waste that would normally be scattered on the fields and help to avoid erosion), there are lots of different kinds of agricultural waste in different parts of the world, and I am sure that for some of them it makes perfectly green sense to turn them into biofuel. Such as the bagasse, a waste product of sugar cane, which the Cubans are turning into ethanol. Or wood chips in Scandinavia.
I think these need to be considered one by one, even though the one green option that is available to all people in all places, is to use less fuel. But that, of course, runs counter to the economic growth that we are so addicted to.
I think these need to be considered one by one, even though the one green option that is available to all people in all places, is to use less fuel. But that, of course, runs counter to the economic growth that we are so addicted to.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
green fuel turning black
Further insights into the problems caused by the rush for biofuels produced from specially grown crops are to be found in George Monbiot's latest column.
As I understand it, all efforts should be directed towards gaining biofuels from abundant agricultural waste material (straw in Canada, sawdust in Sweden, sugar cane bagasse in Cuba). The current government-promoted gold-rush into fuel crops is inefficient at best and quite probably damaging in lots of ways.
As I understand it, all efforts should be directed towards gaining biofuels from abundant agricultural waste material (straw in Canada, sawdust in Sweden, sugar cane bagasse in Cuba). The current government-promoted gold-rush into fuel crops is inefficient at best and quite probably damaging in lots of ways.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
science writer crashes bank
When Northern Rock building society crashed a few weeks ago and was saved by emergency measures by the government, I noticed for a split second that its chairman had the same name as one of my science writers colleagues, Matt Ridley.
Only yesterday I found out from George Monbiot's column that the author of books like The Red Queen, and Genome, and the crash-landed Northern Rock chairman are actually the same person.
How deeply embarrassing for the community of science writers ... First of all, if you have the intelligence and education to deal with the wonders of the physical world, why would you want to deal with something as profane as running a bank? Secondly, if you have to run a bank, driving it into a ditch might give all of us a bad name. I mean who will leave a science writer in charge of a business ever again, after this 16 billion pound disaster?
And to all those who like to diss Wikipedia, George Monbiot's column appeared yesterday, and I checked Ridley's entry in Wikipedia today at 10am and found that it had already been updated based on yesterday's paper.
Only yesterday I found out from George Monbiot's column that the author of books like The Red Queen, and Genome, and the crash-landed Northern Rock chairman are actually the same person.
How deeply embarrassing for the community of science writers ... First of all, if you have the intelligence and education to deal with the wonders of the physical world, why would you want to deal with something as profane as running a bank? Secondly, if you have to run a bank, driving it into a ditch might give all of us a bad name. I mean who will leave a science writer in charge of a business ever again, after this 16 billion pound disaster?
And to all those who like to diss Wikipedia, George Monbiot's column appeared yesterday, and I checked Ridley's entry in Wikipedia today at 10am and found that it had already been updated based on yesterday's paper.
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