Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

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Problem with Trent 900 was known before accident and raises ethical questions

November 15, 2010

The diagnosis of the problem with the Trent 900 has come in a matter of days and the solution has already been identified and is under implementation. This convinces me that the problem was already known and so was the solution.

There are at least two  important ethical questions which are raised by the Trent 900 story.

1. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), in August, apparently  relaxed a directive regarding the frequency with which Trent 900 engines were to be inspected. The Directive had been issued originally in January. That in itself  should primarily be a technical judgement call and judgements – especially in hindsight – can always be found to be faulty without raising any issues of ethics. However the ethical issue arises if – as it seems to be – the relaxation in August was initiated by representations from a party (Rolls Royce in this case) who found the original directive too onerous. The ethical standards of both the Regulator (EASA) and of the petitioner (Rolls Royce) then give cause for concern.

2. The second ethical issue arises if Rolls Royce knew in advance of the accident to the engine on QF32 that the engines in use were at risk and that the consequences could have been catastrophic. If this was just a judgement of the probability of failure and that this probability was judged insignificant then it is an issue of bad judgement but not unethical. But an insignificant probability of failure should not have initiated the programme of engine modifications that was apparently ongoing even before the accident. Therefore, if Rolls Royce, knowing full well that the risks were sufficiently high to require that the engines had necessarily to be rectified, kept quiet in the “gamble” that no accidents would occur before they had managed to modify all the “faulty” engines,  then it becomes a case of low ethical standards and not just poor judgement. Reports suggest that Rolls Royce knew that the modifications were necessary more than a year ago but also that the mechanic who revealed this was forced to speak anonymously. This does not give any confidence that there is full transparency and, in fact, strengthens the view that Rolls Royce knew there was a problem. The speed (days rather than months) with which the diagnosis has been made and the solution defined also indicates that the engine failure did not come as much of a surprise and that the problem and the solution were already known.

The mainly technical issues with the engine indirectly raise a more general question for the aviation industry of whether there are conditions where competitive pressures  can be damaging because they increase the risk of potential harm to the general public (who unwittingly become guinea pigs for testing new technologies).

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Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Ethics, European Union, Technology | 5 Comments »

Did Rolls Royce know about the risk for a Trent 900 failure before the Qantas accident?

November 14, 2010

Another new twist to the Rolls Royce Trent story.

First it appears that the regulators (EASA) relaxed their original inspection requirements in their Directive of August. It is not clear if this relaxation was in response to the airlines or to the engine maker requesting a change.

Now it seems that Rolls Royce may well have known (perhaps a year ago) that a number of their engines on “older” A 380s were susceptible to oil leaks and therefore to the potentially catastrophic consequences of a fire. About 40 engines on the Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa A 380s have to be changed out.  The newer engines have undergone two modifications compared to the older engines. It seems that Rolls Royce started modifying oil systems on some engines almost a year ago.

If Rolls Royce knew about the risk to the Trent 900 before the flight of Qantas QF32 on November 4th, there is an ethical dimension which needs to be considered.

According to the Herald Sun,

Fourteen of the 24 Trent 900 engines fitted to the six A380s Qantas has grounded are suspected of having an oil leak problem. Another 24 “faulty” engines are on Singapore Airlines jets. The airline has grounded three A380s. Two have been found by the German carrier, which has suffered two Trent incidents.

Revised versions of the engine are being rushed to Qantas.

Sir John Rose, chairman of the British engine maker, issued a statement late on Friday in which he admitted a “specific component in the turbine area of the engine caused an oil fire”, which led to a turbine disc hurtling out. He offered “regret” for causing “disruption”. But he failed to reveal when Rolls-Royce discovered the turbines of the Trent 900 were being exposed to the dangerous oil leaks and the dates of the two upgrades.

Qantas, Singapore Airlines and German carrier Lufthansa installed the original-spec engines on some of their jets. It is understood Qantas has begun record checks to see whether Rolls kept its engineers informed of the design changes to the $25 million engines.

An aircraft mechanic with one of the three airlines claimed Rolls-Royce began modifying the oil lubrication system on the Trent 900 engine in the second half of last year.

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Posted in Aviation, Business, Engineering, Ethics, Technology | 5 Comments »

George Bush “memoirs” plagiarise advisors’ books

November 13, 2010

Huffington Post runs an analysis of George W Bush’s memoirs “Decision Points” and it seems he (or his ghost writer) has managed a great deal of  “cut and paste” from his advisors’ books. Bush even filches descriptions of events which others witnessed as his own even though he was not present! Considering Nixon’s inability to operate the erase button on a tape recorder, it would seem Bush has come a long way if he actually manged all the “cutting and pasting” on his own.

When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn’t getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises “gripping, never-before-heard detail” about the former president’s key decisions, offering to bring readers “aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq,” and other undisclosed and weighty locations.

Crown also got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial “decision points” of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush’s character: He’s too lazy to write his own memoir.

Many of Bush’s literary misdemeanors exemplify pedestrian sloth, but others are higher crimes against the craft of memoir. In one prime instance, Bush relates a poignant meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a Tajik warlord on Karzai’s Inauguration Day. It’s the kind of scene that offers a glimpse of a hopeful future for the beleaguered nation. Witnessing such an exchange could color a president’s outlook, could explain perhaps Bush’s more optimistic outlook and give insight into his future decisions. Except Bush didn’t witness it. Because he wasn’t at Karzai’s inauguration.

In a separate case of scene fabrication, though, Bush writes of a comment made by his rival John McCain as if it was said to him directly. “The surge gave [McCain] a chance to create distance between us, but he didn’t take it. He had been a longtime advocate of more troops in Iraq, and he supported the new strategy wholeheartedly. “I cannot guarantee success,” he said, “But I can guarantee failure if we don’t adopt this new strategy.” A dramatic and untold coming-together of longtime rivals? Well, not so much. It comes straight from a Washington Post story. McCain was talking to reporters, not to Bush.

In a final irony, Bush appears to draw heavily from several of Bob Woodward’s books and also from Robert Draper’s “Dead Certain”. The Bush White House called the books’ accuracy into question when they were initially published.

The similarities between the way Bush recollects his and other quotes may be a case of remarkable random chance or evidence that he and his deputies were in an almost supernatural sync. If so, he essentially shares a brain with General Tommy Franks.

Bush writes: “Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq… ‘If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional grounds forces,’he said. ‘That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.’ I had a lot of concerns. … I asked the team to keep working on the plan. ‘We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,’ I said at the end of the meeting. ‘But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to happen.’“

Franks, in his memoir American Soldier, writes: “‘For example, if we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces. That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.’ President Bush’s questions continued throughout the briefing…. Before the VTC ended, President Bush addressed us all. ‘We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime.’ … The President paused. ‘Protecting the security of the United States is my responsibility,’ he continued. ‘But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists.’ He shook his head. ‘I will not allow that to happen.’

A Crown official rejected the suggestion that Bush had done anything inappropriate, suggesting that the similarities speak to its inherent accuracy!!

Huffington Post goes on to document at least 16 cases of plagiarism (so far) in the book.

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Posted in Ethics, Fraud, History | Comments Off on George Bush “memoirs” plagiarise advisors’ books

Sterile, male, GM mosquitoes released to fight Dengue

November 12, 2010
Ochlerotatus notoscriptus, Tasmania, Australia

Image via Wikipedia

PhysOrg.com:

Scientists have released genetically modified mosquitoes in an experiment to fight dengue fever in the Cayman Islands, British experts said Thursday.

It is the first time genetically altered mosquitoes have been set loose in the wild, after years of laboratory experiments and hypothetical calculations. But while scientists believe the trial could lead to a breakthrough in stopping the disease, critics argue the mutant mosquitoes might wreak havoc on the environment.

“This test in the Cayman Islands could be a big step forward,” said Andrew Read, a professor of biology and entomology at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the project. “Anything that could selectively remove insects transmitting really nasty diseases would be very helpful,” he said.

Dengue is a potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease that can cause fever, muscle and joint pain, and hemorrhagic bleeding. More than 2.5 billion people are at risk and the World Health Organization estimates there are at least 50 million cases every year. There is no treatment or vaccine.

Unlike malaria, which is also spread by mosquitoes, dengue outbreaks are unpredictable and bed nets are of limited use because dengue-spreading mosquitoes also bite during the day.

Researchers at Oxitec Limited, an Oxford-based company, created sterile male mosquitoes by manipulating the insects’ DNA. Scientists in the Cayman Islands released 3 million mutant male mosquitoes to mate with wild female mosquitoes of the same species. That meant they wouldn’t be able to produce any offspring, which would lower the population. Only female mosquitoes bite humans and spread diseases.

From May to October, scientists released batches of genetically mutated male mosquitoes in cages three times a week in a 40-acre (16-hectare) area. By August, mosquito numbers in that region dropped by 80 percent compared with a neighboring area where no sterile male mosquitoes were released.

Luke Alphey, Oxitec’s chief scientific officer, said with such a small area, it would have been very difficult to detect a drop in dengue cases. But their modeling estimates suggested an 80 percent reduction in mosquitoes should result in fewer dengue infections.

Yeya Toure, who leads the World Health Organization’s team on Innovative Vector Control Interventions, called the Cayman Islands trial promising and said it’s worth continuing the genetic modification experiments. He said genetically altered mosquitoes aren’t meant to replace existing tools like insecticides, but to compensate for their limitations, like when mosquitoes develop resistance.

Read said creating mutated mosquitoes might actually be the least invasive way to control dengue. By keeping a lid on the mosquito population via genetic modification, Read said entire ecosystems would be spared the toxic effects of indiscriminately spraying pesticides.

Of course opponents of GM (Gene Modification) think this may be a “bad thing” even though the GM modified males cannot last more than a generation.

“If we remove an insect like the mosquito from the ecosystem, we don’t know what the impact will be,” said Pete Riley, campaign director of GM Freeze, a British non-profit group that opposes genetic modification.

He said mosquito larvae might be food for other species, which could starve if the larvae disappear. Or taking out adult mosquito predators might open up a slot for other insect species to slide in, potentially introducing new diseases.

Experts in the safety of genetically modified (GM) organisms have expressed concern over the release of GM mosquitoes into the wild on the Cayman Islands, which was publicised internationally only last month — a year after their initial release.

Ricarda Steinbrecher, a geneticist and co-director of EcoNexus — a UK-based non-profit research organisation — expressed surprise that the trials had occurred, saying that they had not been mentioned at the fifth meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety — which addresses international safety issues relating to GM organisms — in Nagoya, Japan, last month. She described the lack of publicity surrounding the trials as ‘worrying, both from the scientific perspective as well as public participation perspective’. Steinbrecher said that until a full, long-term environmental assessment of the Cayman trials has been carried out, the recently announced Malaysian trials of the same strain should not go ahead.

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Posted in Biology, Development, Ethics, Medicine | Comments Off on Sterile, male, GM mosquitoes released to fight Dengue

Geoengineering possibilities threaten the CO2 reduction advocates

November 11, 2010

The global warming brigade and their funding is dependant upon carbon dioxide being considered a villain and being banned. Global warming dogma does not like geoengineering solutions which may make doomsday scenarios irrelevant.

When geo-engineering – that is human intervention directed to adapting to climate  – suggests ways in which we could successfully keep climatic conditions suitable for human development, the global warmists are appalled. To suggest alternatives to banning carbon dioxide suddenly creates “ethical issues” whereas alarmism and doomsday scenarios do not!!

But if it is unintended human intervention which creates a problem then surely it is the only “right and proper” course to use intended human intervention to rectify the situation (even though man-made carbon dioxide is of little significance and totally irrelevant as far as climate change is concerned).

In fact – I would suggest – it is unethical to stifle human ingenuity and the march of technology.

Human development cannot be based on “not doing something”. Strategy must be based on the positive choice of “what to do” which may – as a consequence – lead to certain other things not being done. But when environmentalism or conservation or climate change lead only to lists of “what not to do” they degenerate into cowardice where actions are subordinated to “fear” and  lose credibility.

The Guardian tells us:

The problem is that proposals to geo-engineer the climate come loaded with social and ethical concerns. Is it acceptable to intentionally intervene in the volatile climate system? How would it be governed? What would prevent the abuse of climate-controlling technologies, and whose hand would be on the global thermostat?

Geoengineering or climate engineering solution to climate change: marine cloud whitening

A geoengineering solution:Spraying seawater droplets into marine clouds from ships could make them reflect more sunlight. Photograph: Nasa

The growing number of scientists working on different aspects of geo-engineering research – from climate modelling, to lab experiments with reflective particles that could be injected into the stratosphere – are anxious to emphasise that they are not geo-engineering cheerleaders. They simply want to understand the pros and cons of different technologies, in case the day came when they might be needed, a day they hope will never come.

The Royal Society itself has taken great care to indicate that it does not advocate geo-engineering – and certainly not in the place of deep global cuts in greenhouse gases. But it does advocate research on geo-engineering, and that’s where the dilemma for many scientists kicks in.

On the one hand, it is clearly prudent to understand more about geo-engineering – the worst of all scenarios would involve a government deploying a technology without knowing what its effects would be. Initial evidence suggests that spraying the skies with reflective particles of sulphate would have a major impact on patterns of rainfall. Surely it is better to know this sooner rather than later?

On the other hand, conducting research on geo-engineering is one of the main factors that will make the deployment of the technologies more likely. Most scientists are deeply sceptical about the use of such “remedial” action on global warming. But scientists won’t be the ones to decide whether the technology is used. So are they unwittingly clearing the path for future deployment?

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Ethics, Geoengineering | Comments Off on Geoengineering possibilities threaten the CO2 reduction advocates

“KPMG are stupid” – How valuations are made

November 11, 2010

Sydney Morning Herald.

KPMG and regulators are too stupid to notice if an asset is overvalued and investment bankers are leeches, say the characters in an online video lampooning the working culture inside international investment banks.

I have seen how the Big 4 accounting firms behave over the last 30 years and this video thought to be made by employees of an investment bank is not so far away from reality.

SMH continues:

BusinessDay is not implying these events took place, but our source claims the videos were made as an in joke by current staff of a large multinational investment bank for former employees. Another video pokes fun at job descriptions in the corporate world after one of the characters meets a “business accelerator”, who was “somewhat vague in his description of his services, but he was very compelling”.

“Investment bankers are generally perceived to be sharks,” the man then says.

“We are also leeches, but we are leeches with a lot of smaller leeches clinging to our backs,” the lady responds.

The videos end with investment bankers heading out for a typical after-work activity – drinking beer and playing ping pong.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Ethics | Comments Off on “KPMG are stupid” – How valuations are made

Another Nature paper retracted by authors but lead author does not sign retraction

November 9, 2010

Retraction Watch reports on the retraction of a paper at Nature by the authors but where, once again, the lead author does not sign the retraction.

In this case the paper is:

The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+channel is essential for innate immunity by Jatinder Ahluwalia, Andrew Tinker, Lucie H. Clapp, Michael R. Duchen, Andrey Y. Abramov, Simon Pope, Muriel Nobles & Anthony W. Segal, Nature 427, 853-858 (26 February 2004), doi:10.1038/nature02356; Received 18 July 2003; Accepted 20 January 2004.

The Retraction Notice reads

The authors wish to retract this Letter after the report of an inability to reproduce their results, later confirmed by another. The studies the authors then conducted led to an internal investigation by University College London, please see the accompanying Supplementary Information for details. The retraction has not been signed by Jatinder Ahluwalia.

The lead author is usually the researcher and the last name is usually that of the senior author. There have been a number of such cases recently where the authors retract a paper but where the lead author does not sign the retraction. The inference is that there has been some misconduct or alleged misconduct by the researcher which has been “discovered” by the other authors but where the alleged misconduct is not acknowledged by the lead author. (See the cases of Shane R Mayack and Hung-Shu Chang for example). Just the fact that some data can not be reproduced does not mean that misconduct has occurred. Experimental data can never be perfect. In addition to measurement errors and procedural errors, data may also be subject to errors of interpretation and analysis. In fact the scientific method requires the publication of such data – warts and all – which can then be tested by others and retraction would not be necessary or correct merely if different results were obtained later. Erroneous data does not have to be – and should not be – deleted from the record. A retraction – and especially by a multiplicity of contributing authors but not the lead author  – carries a strong inference of misconduct.

This raises once again the question of roles and responsibilities between the different contributing authors, the reviewers and the journal editor for a published paper. Perhaps the number of retractions is at an “acceptable” level, but I am sure that the number of retractions must follow the “Iceberg Principle” and what is finally made visible can only be the tip of what must be there. The senior author must bear some responsibility and have some accountability for such events.

It seems to me that senior authors (as supervisors of the research reported) get away too lightly and merely pass the responsibility onto the researcher’s failings or his misconduct. They abdicate their responsibility for quality and integrity rather too easily. I would like to see a statement by the senior author whenever such a retraction is made “at the request of the authors”.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Carbon Trading dies quietly in the US; time for Europe to follow suit

November 8, 2010

From Pajamas Media:

Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year.

Although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub of the mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law, like the Waxman-Markey scheme passed by the House in June 2009.

At its founding in November 2000, it was estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion. That estimate ballooned over the years to $10 trillion.

The CCX was the brainchild of Northwestern University business professor Richard Sandor, who used $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation to launch the CCX. For his efforts, Timenamed Sandor as one of its Heroes of the Planet in 2002 and one of its Heroes of the Environment in 2007.

CCX’s panicked original investors bailed out this spring, unloading the dog and its across-the-pond cousin, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-traded Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. (Luckier than the CCX, the ECX continues to exist thanks to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol.)

The ECX may soon follow the CCX into oblivion, however — the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. No new international treaty is anywhere in sight.

While we don’t know how well Al Gore and Goldman Sachs fared on their investments in the CCX, we do know that there’s no reason to cry for Sandor. He received $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake in CCX when it was sold. Not bad for a failure that somebody else financed.

http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/market/data/daily.jsf

Carbon Financial Instruments – Nov 5, 2010

Product Vintage Open High Low Close Change Volume
Total Electronically Traded Volume –
CFI 2003 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2004 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2005 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2006 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2007 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2008 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2009 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
CFI 2010 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.05 – 0
Price and volume reported in metric tons CO2


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Posted in Energy, Environment, Ethics, Fraud, International Trade, Investing | Comments Off on Carbon Trading dies quietly in the US; time for Europe to follow suit

Egyptian paper retracted for photo-shopping!

October 28, 2010

 

Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University Hospitals

Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University: Image via Wikipedia

 

Retraction Watch has this amazing story of faking data by photoshopping pictures of warts!

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has retracted a paper it published earlier this year online by authors from Zagazig University.  Zagazig is a town in Lower Egypt, in the eastern part of the Nile delta, and is the capital of the province of the Sharqia Governorate.

Retraction Watch writes:

According to the Egyptian researchers, the MMR therapy “completely” cleared plantar warts in 20 of 23 patients (nearly 90%), and partially removed them in one more patient. Helpfully, the journal abstract provides a section on limitations, which lists the small size of the study and the lack of a control group.

Per the editors:

This article has been retracted because Figure 1C appears to be a digitally altered version of Figure 1B. In addition, the lead author asserts that the signature on the submission form for the manuscript is  not hers. The lead author also asserts that the published figures were not part of the investigation that is the subject of the report.

Indeed, the last two images—a rather plump left foot lying against some kind of floral-print backdrop—appear to be identical with the exception of the missing lesions in the final shot. The placement of the foot against the details of the pattern is so close that it seems highly unlikely to have occurred twice by chance.

The lead author Hend Gamil, MD, who asserts that her signature has been forged on the paper submission remarkably maintains the validity of the study since the apparently photoshopped pictures were from a patient who was not part of the study.

Two wrongs making a right apparently!

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Posted in Ethics, Science, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Egyptian paper retracted for photo-shopping!

Resource depletion is imaginary

October 19, 2010

 

Limits of growth

Doomsaying: Image by net_efekt via Flickr

 

“Humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain”

trumpets the WWF.

Similar headlines have been common-place for the last 40 years. “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 was not the first time such dire predictions were made. They only carried on from where Malthus left off with his  An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. And before Malthus there were plenty of alarmists and doom merchants  at least as far back as mankind has lived in complex societies where opportunists could exploit people by fears of catastrophes and impending doom.

Unfortunately, today’s so-called conservationists have descended to the level of doom “merchants”. Either they are propagating fears of humanity running out of food or oil or coal or metals or water or rare earths or they are screaming about the Earth running out of biological species or of polar ice or sustainability.

But I am not convinced.

Actually, mankind destroys nothing. At the elemental level we neither create or destroy anything (except in the use of nuclear energy where some elemental transformation takes place and where some little mass is converted to energy). All the metals we use or the fuels we use are merely transformed from one compound to another and occasionally some molecules are reduced to their elemental form. The Earth as a system loses only heat (and if the global warming maniacs are to be believed we are not even losing that). The mass of the earth changes only by the accretion of meteors and the leakage of atmosphere and this change is of no material significance.

All the elements that were available remain available. The forms of compounds that we currently use and which have been created slowly by slow natural processes may well be used up. But so what? Mankind has always used what is available and when natural rubber was not enough we made synthetic rubber. We usually take what is available and transform it into the form we want. We take metal oxides, reduce them to the elemental metals and then recombine them into the qualities of steel or alloys we need. We take oil and convert it into plastics. We take plant material and make paper. We take other plant material and make oils. We take sand and make glass. We take limestone and make cement or concrete. We are a carbon-based life form. We use carbon in all its forms as diamonds and all organic materials and now as graphene for nano-materials. We take oil and make food. Nearly all the drugs we use are synthesised.

Even if we restrict ourselves to the known form of the resources we use, we cannot forget that 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. We have not even begun to see what can be found there. Even the off-shore oil and gas we extract hardly scratches the (submerged) surface. We are crowding out some particular species but keep finding new ones. The number of mammals (but not necessarily species) in existence is increasing rather than reducing. The diversity of life in the sea is hardly touched.

The overwhelmingly pessimistic view of mankind and its future which drives the current-day conservationists to their creed of “stop everything” goes nowhere. “Stop the World, I wan’t to get off” is not something for me. A strategy for humanity – like any other strategy – cannot be based on “what not to do”.

I suppose it is the difference between an optimist and the doom sayers. I see no energy crisis – only some technological challenges to be met. I see no food crisis – only some tasks to be carried out, and these tasks do not need any technological breakthroughs. The Earth and the Sun will take care of climate as they see fit and our task is to adapt to whatever changes may come and not to waste our time in any futile attempt to try and control it. We could stop using all energy today and the Earth and the Sun will still cause climate change to happen and mankind is not even a bit player in that music.

I remain an optimist and I believe in the human ability to develop technology. As educational standards improve, human population will probably increase till about 2050, then reduce slightly from about 10 billion people and then stabilise at a very slow rate of growth. This development will be dynamically coupled to our rate of technological development which will continue but where we cannot predict the rate of breakthroughs appearing. A breakthrough in transportation methods (and since the invention of the modern internal combustion engine for transport in 1862, this is now overdue) or a breakthrough in food synthesising technology or finding new sources of energy (and I do not mean wind or solar) will have an obvious effect on quality of life and on rate of population growth.

A true environmentalist must be first concerned with the quality of life for humankind. The “environment” devoid of humans is no environment at all. I wish the so-called conservationists (who are not in my opinion true environmentalists) would stop telling me what not to do.

There is no resource crunch. There may come shortages of resources in the form we are used to but I have supreme confidence in our ability to develop the required technologies to keep improving on our quality of life – and to keep evolving.

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Posted in Behaviour, Engineering, Environment, Ethics, Evolution, Technology | 1 Comment »

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