Walk like an Egyptian ... Think like a Norwegian

COVID-19 has infected at least 31 million people around the world. The confirmed death toll is nearing 1 million. Both numbers are likely underestimates. The annual “Goalkeepers Report” from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is usually a hopeful account of an improving world, is instead a litany of loss. The global economy will decline by at least $12 trillion by the end of 2021. About 37 million people have already been pushed into extreme poverty. Twenty-five years of progress in vaccine coverage have disappeared in 25 weeks.

Bill Gates adds: "Certainly humility is called for because the damage—whether it’s economic, educational, mental health—is so large."

Sigh!

Anything else?

I think the prescription is still the same as it was before this pandemic, and the cost of doing it is in the tens of billions, not hundreds of billions. Compared to, say, defense budgets, this is not a gigantic additional burden.

Awful, isn't it, that our country and the Republicans in particular are always ready to spend gazillions on bombs and fighter jets, but become penny-pinching paupers when it comes to public health!

Sigh!  

If you are like me, you have been wondering these past few days why there haven't been any updates about the various Covid vaccines in development.  Because, they are still only in the testing phase.

But, the good news is that there is more than one: "A fourth Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun enrolling adult volunteers."

Meanwhile, as a cartoon in The New Yorker puts it, we dread the oncoming winter.

Confined to our homes. Through the long dark, damp, and cold days.  It will be a miserable December, January, February.

We just have to adopt a different mindset.  Like what the Norwegians in the Arctic do.

People who see stressful events as “challenges”, with an opportunity to learn and adapt, tend to cope much better than those who focus more on the threatening aspects – like the possibility of failure, embarrassment or illness. These differences in mindset not only influence people’s mood, but also their physiological responses, such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate, and how quickly they recover after the event. And the impact can be long-lasting, even during major transitions

Not easy to do.  But there is no other choice either.  And that's exactly how the Arctic Norwegians deal with the long, long, long dark winter--they adopt a healthy mindset:

Leibowitz found that these attitudes actually increase with latitude, in the regions where the winters will be even harsher. People in Svalbard (at 78 deg north) had a more positive mindset than the people in Tromsø (69 deg north), who took a more optimistic view than people in Oslo (60 deg north). In other words, the positive wintertime mindset is most common where it’s most needed.

And I want to complain from here at 45 degrees north?

But, there is no way that I will watch any Norwegian slow TV! ;)

Why rush to accuracy when ...

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The "war on terror" is a failure

The Economist has a neat way of summarizing the Norway terrorism:

Relative to Norway’s population, the two attacks taken together are of a similar magnitude to the September 11th hijackings in the United States.

Norway's dead from the twin attacks are proportionally worse, strictly on the basis of population.  Norway has a shade under five million people, while the US is home to more than sixty times that number.

Soon after the news of the explosion, pundits were theorizing about Islamic fundamentalist militants and even Kurdish and Uighur elements.  When, as was the case in the Oklahoma City violence, it was "home-grown" terrorism. 

Apparently this extreme right winger boasted about having been in contact with the English Defence League.  Thanks to the New Yorker's profile of this outfit and its leader, only a couple of weeks ago, I can understand why the EDL might have such fanatics. 

One of the many aspects of this atrocious violence in Oslo is that the Bush/Cheney "War or Terror" as a response to 9/11 was one of the worst things they could have done.  And for Obama to continue to wage that war against terror, as if it is something like an identifiable army that can be defeated, is a tragedy.

I am all the more reminded of the television program I watched when I was in India a couple of years ago.  It was in one of those news channels, and was a talk show featuring some wannabe public intellectuals.  The question for this panel was this: "all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."  I had to force myself to watch it for a while.  It was awful to hear most of them assert that all terrorists are Muslims.

They conveniently forgot all kinds of non-Islamic terrorism within India's borders alone, leave alone the rest of the world.  Two prime ministers were assassinated, and neither was caused by terrorists who were Muslims.  Indira Gandhi was felled by bullets fired by a Sikh, and Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces by a Srilankan Tamil suicide bomber.  In contemporary India, Maoist guerrillas use violence, and these are not driven by any religion, Islam or otherwise.

Yet, there was only the Islamic terrorism that was discussed.

It seems to be a similar story in the rest of the world, and definitely in the West.  Even when unfortunate events like in Oslo repeatedly point out that terrorism comes in all flavors.

A rational rethink might then question the War on Terror that the US continues to fight.  But, apparently not.

A violent crime proportionally greater in magnitude than the 9/11 event.  I recall being depressed for a few days after that happened.   I can't begin to imagine the emotions among Norwegians now ...

Terrorism in Oslo :(

How terrible! 
Raw footage from The Daily Beast:

Does banning asbestos hurt poor countries?

In 2002, I visited my school, where I studied and played and goofed around!  All the way until the 12th grade. (lots and lots of warm memories--about the teachers, fellow students, hmmm ... maybe I should visit the school later this year?)

All the buildings seemed much smaller when I visited the school after 21 years--a result of having been used to the sizes here in the US.

I am pretty sure that many of the buildings continued to have the same asbestos roofs that were in place when I was there.  I am no buildings expert (editor: are you an expert in anything, other than commenting? No problems--I will check with dad who is a civil engineer!) but I am sure even in the photo here the roof is asbestos.

Except for a couple of months when the temperatures were pleasant, the 6th through 8th grades that I think we spent in these buildings were always warm/hot.  It was a different life when we didn't care much about the heat and dust.  And neither did we care that there was asbestos all around, particularly in the broken pieces.  Even drainage pipes had asbestos.

Asbestos, from which we run away here in the US because of its carcinogenic effects, is an inexpensive and robust material in the poor countries.  The school that I attended is a relatively affluent school in an affluent town.  To have the kind of roofs it does and the facilities it offers is one awesome dream for, I would reckon, three quarters of the billion-plus who live in that country.  The millions living in slums would love to have asbestos roofs, instead of the tin sheets, or thatched roofs ...

Asbestos is a huge industry even now, as this chart from the BBC shows.

It is not difficult to understand why it is used a lot in poorer economies.  The crazies thing here is with Canada--it is one leading producer and exporter, even though "What is mined in Quebec is a different kind of asbestos - white asbestos or chrysotile - the only kind now used commercially worldwide. Countries like Russia, China, Brazil, and India - although not Canada - use it widely as a cheap and effective building material."

Talk about ethics--Canada does not allow using asbestos within its borders, but mines and exports asbestos for others to use?  It is like Norway--those peace-loving tree-hugging Scandinavians extract and export quite a few millions of barrels of petroleum that is a major polluter :)

Oh well; we can't all be Gandhis and practice what we preach!

carbon emissions, and how to bypass them :-(

So, the Economist made me think about something that should have been pretty obvious to me, given that one of the topics I teach is the economic geography of resources. All these years I have been explaining to students how there is lots of oil under the North Sea, and how Norway is a huge oil exporter. And an exporter of natural gas too.
In other contexts, I have also talked about how Scandinavians value and cherish clean air, water, ....

Yet, I had completely failed to note the contradiction in Norway's image of cleanliness with its tremendously profitable exports--oil and natural gas--which are one hell of a polluter! What a moron, eh? Writes the Economist:

Yet for all its environmental piety, Norway is also a prodigious polluter. Its greenhouse-gas emissions have grown 15% since it adopted the carbon tax. They are still rising, and are likely to continue to do so until 2012, according to Mr Stoltenberg. As it is, Norway spews out more emissions per head than many other countries in Europe. And, in the eyes of many environmentalists, these statistics understate the damage Norway is doing to the atmosphere. It is the world’s third-biggest exporter of gas and fourth-biggest exporter of oil. The process of extracting these fuels from below the North Sea releases some greenhouse gases within Norway itself. But when the oil and gas Norway exports are burned abroad, they generate far more emissions.

Maybe Norway's situation is more a philosophical challenge than an economic one. It does remind me of accusations that Mother Teresa was accepting large donations from people who were renowned crooks. Her argument was that she didn't care who dropped what in the donation box!

But seriously, is it ethical to advocate for caring for the environment when the country exports a gazillion barrels of oil every year?

Well, that was a couple of days ago. And that was from a publication that is center-right. Another British publication, the Guardian, which never leans to the right, has an interesting news report--that

Britain's biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emissions trading scheme (ETS) designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets.
The sell-off has helped trigger a collapse in the price of carbon, making it cheaper to burn high-carbon fossil fuels and leading to a fall in the number of clean energy projects.

The report adds:

The EU's emissions trading scheme was set up as a market solution to cut greenhouse gas pollution from industry. Polluters were issued with permits that can be traded between companies and countries as a way of encouraging an overall reduction in carbon output. However, companies are now cashing them in for their own financial benefit.

Up to €1bn-worth of carbon emissions permits are said to have been sold off in recent months as industrial companies see an opportunity to bring in funds at a time when their carbon output is expected to fall due to lower production.

Nothing makes sense anymore :-(