Burning ivory only increases poaching

May 3, 2016

Some 105 tons of contraband ivory was burned by Kenyan authorities last week in their effort to curb illegal poaching. I find their logic flawed. All the ivory that was destroyed was what had been recovered from poachers or traders who had been caught. The ivory came from elephants already killed. But I don’t see how destroying this ivory will save a single elephant from being targeted by poachers.

BBC: Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has set fire to a huge stockpile of ivory in an effort to show his country’s commitment to saving Africa’s elephants.

More than 100 tonnes of ivory was stacked up in pyres in Nairobi National Park where it is expected to burn for several days. The ivory represents nearly the entire stock confiscated by Kenya, amounting to the tusks of about 6,700 elephants.

Some disagree with Kenya’s approach, saying it can encourage poaching.

ivory burning

Suppose even that some – say 10% – of this contraband ivory – if it hadn’t been destroyed – would have found its way back to the illegal market. To that extent the price of ivory would have been held down. Now the price will have increased in  response to the shortfall in supply. And any increase in the black market price will only increase the incentive for the poachers. That part of the ivory destroyed – which would have found its way to the black market – will now have to be replaced by additional poaching.

The ivory comes mainly from African elephants for markets in Asia. The producer countries are primarily Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and the consumption is in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Elephant poaching is driven by the demand for ivory and the price the consumer is prepared to pay. Around 20,000 elephants are killed by poachers every year (from a population of about 500,000). That is driven by the demand for about 1,000 – 1,500 tons of raw ivory every year. Currently the price of raw ivory – I am told – is about $2,500 per kg (from around $1,500 for small tusks to over $3,000 for large tusks). In 2010 this was less than $1,000 per kg. Most of this price increase reflects an increase of demand and not a scarcity of supply. As long as this demand holds up (overwhelmingly from China), it is worthwhile for poachers and traders to risk being caught.

The only way poaching will stop is when it is not worthwhile for a poacher to ply his trade. Either because the risk of being caught is too high or because the return on the enterprise is too low. The price for illicit ivory has to crash if poaching is to be curtailed. The volume of the demand can only be addressed by education and that is a slow process. The other factor which could help would be if a reducing demand could be met by “legal” ivory. Around 30,000 – 40,000 elephants, I estimate, die of natural causes every year. Their tusks are usually destroyed. But they could form part – or even all – of a “legal” trade which serves to depress the price of raw ivory. Mammoth ivory recovered from the Siberian permafrost could also form a useful addition to the “legal supply”.

Preventing poaching and prosecuting traders is all very well, but ultimately the consumer demand has to be educated out. Raw ivory price has to be brought down to a level where poaching is just not worthwhile.

Kenya would have done better to flood the market with this ivory. It would have prevented or at least delayed the poaching of some 5,000+ elephants.

 

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Raging biodiversity – “One trillion species on earth”

May 3, 2016

A new paper now estimates that there could be up to one trillion species on earth.

Kenneth J. Loceya, and Jay T. Lennona. Scaling laws predict global microbial diversity. PNAS, 2016 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1521291113

It seems logical to me that for any environment there has to be an optimum (perhaps many possible such) number of species for the sustainability of those species. Biodiversity is not always good and the current “wisdom” that increasing biodiversity is always a good thing, is not just flawed – it is plain stupid. Evolution is highly inefficient (though it has been effective) and produces far more species than are necessary for the sustainability of life. Since over 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct, it follows that evolution has failed every one of those extinct species; and failed each to the point of destruction. Mass extinctions are merely the way in which the detritus of failed evolution is cleaned out. Currently probably some 30% of all species need to go extinct.

I have never yet heard a satisfactory explanation of why ever-increasing biodiversity, which is so politically correct, is a good thing. “The good of the eco-system” is often quoted – but what on earth is that? Is it better to have a multitude of species or a multitude of individuals in a fewer number of species? Is it better for external forces to change an environment (long, slow geologic processes or short sharp catastrophic events) or for the species within the environment to change it? There is a mindless worship of biodiversity which is not logical.

It seems almost self-evident to me that, for any given environment there must be an optimum number of species, with particular combinations of characteristics, which allow the ecosystem or biosphere to be in a self-sustaining equilibrium (not growing or declining but self-sustaining). This optimum will vary depending upon the characteristics and interactions between the particular species existing and the available space in the prevailing environment. Then, having fewer than the optimum number of species in that environment would mean that all the complex interdependent, interactions between species that seem to be necessary for sustaining each of the participating species would not be fully developed. I say “seem” because it is not certain that all interdependencies are necessarily of benefit to individual species. “It is the entire ecosystem which benefits” I hear some say, but even that is more an assumption than a conclusion.

 

The press release from the University of Indiana

Earth could contain nearly 1 trillion species, with only one-thousandth of 1 percent now identified, according to a study from biologists at Indiana University.

The IU scientists combined microbial, plant and animal community datasets from government, academic and citizen science sources, resulting in the largest compilation of its kind. Altogether, these data represent over 5.6 million microscopic and nonmicroscopic species from 35,000 locations across all the world’s oceans and continents, except Antarctica. ……

….. Microbial species are all forms of life too small to be seen with the naked eye, including all single-celled organisms, such as bacteria and archaea, as well as certain fungi. Many earlier attempts to estimate the number of species on Earth simply ignored microorganisms or were informed by older datasets that were based on biased techniques or questionable extrapolations, Lennon said. ……

……. The study’s results also suggest that actually identifying every microbial species on Earth is an almost unimaginably huge challenge. To put the task in perspective, the Earth Microbiome Project — a global multidisciplinary project to identify microscope organisms — has so far cataloged less than 10 million species.

“Of those cataloged species, only about 10,000 have ever been grown in a lab, and fewer than 100,000 have classified sequences,” Lennon said. “Our results show that this leaves 100,000 times more microorganisms awaiting discovery — and 100 million to be fully explored. Microbial biodiversity, it appears, is greater than ever imagined.”

Abstract

Scaling laws underpin unifying theories of biodiversity and are among the most predictively powerful relationships in biology. However, scaling laws developed for plants and animals often go untested or fail to hold for microorganisms. As a result, it is unclear whether scaling laws of biodiversity will span evolutionarily distant domains of life that encompass all modes of metabolism and scales of abundance. Using a global-scale compilation of ∼35,000 sites and ∼5.6⋅106 species, including the largest ever inventory of high-throughput molecular data and one of the largest compilations of plant and animal community data, we show similar rates of scaling in commonness and rarity across microorganisms and macroscopic plants and animals. We document a universal dominance scaling law that holds across 30 orders of magnitude, an unprecedented expanse that predicts the abundance of dominant ocean bacteria. In combining this scaling law with the lognormal model of biodiversity, we predict that Earth is home to upward of 1 trillion (1012) microbial species. Microbial biodiversity seems greater than ever anticipated yet predictable from the smallest to the largest microbiome.

Related:

ktwop on biodiversity

The fossil record shows that biodiversity in the world has been increasing dramatically for 200 million years and is likely to continue. The two mass extinctions in that period (at 201 million and 66 million years ago) slowed the trend only temporarily. Genera are the next taxonomic level up from species and are easier to detect in fossils. The Phanerozoic is the 540-million-year period in which animal life has proliferated. Chart created by and courtesy of University of Chicago paleontologists J. John Sepkoski, Jr. and David M. Raup.

The fossil record shows that biodiversity in the world has been increasing dramatically for 200 million years and is likely to continue. The two mass extinctions in that period (at 201 million and 66 million years ago) slowed the trend only temporarily. Genera are the next taxonomic level up from species and are easier to detect in fossils. The Phanerozoic is the 540-million-year period in which animal life has proliferated. Chart created by and courtesy of University of Chicago paleontologists J. John Sepkoski, Jr. and David M. Raup.

 

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Negative first impressions

May 1, 2016

I am just an old square.

First impressions do get modified, but when the first impression is negative enough, there never is a second.

  • Sagging trousers : – 10,000
  • Someone in a burqa: – 5,000
  • Face piercings: – 2,000
  • Tattoos : – 1,000
    • Beautiful tattoos : + 10 – 100
First impressions 1

First impressions 1

  • Idiot drivers : – 1,000
  • Idiot cyclists : – 999
  • Idiot Autos in Delhi : – 900
First impressions 2

First impressions 2

  • Suit with short pants : – 900
  • Shiny suit : – 890
  • “Power” tie : – 880
First impressions 3

First impressions 3

Probably says more about me than anybody else.

 

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Valborg 2016 – Seeing in the 1st of May

April 30, 2016

For once it wasn’t snowing or raining on the eve of the 1st of May.

It was still a bit chilly though and the warmth of our local Valborg night (from the German Walpurgis night) bonfire was welcome.

Historically Valborg is derived from the Viking fertility celebrations that took place around April 30th, where the arrival of spring was celebrated with bonfires at night. The actual purpose of the fires was to scare off witches and evil spirits. A practical use for the bonfires was also to scare off predators such as foxes before the livestock were let out to graze on May 1st. In the Middle Ages, the pagan Spring ritual became associated with Saint Walpurga who was declared a saint during this time of the year.

A welcome to beautiful May.

Sköna maj, välkommen
till vår bygd igen!
Sköna maj, välkommen,
våra lekars vän!

Valborg 2016

Local variants of Walpurgis Night are observed across Europe in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Estonia.

 

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Donald Trump has to choose a woman and Hillary Clinton cannot

April 30, 2016

As the Republicans begin to accept, albeit reluctantly, that Donald Trump is going to be their candidate and as it becomes clear that Sanders has been eliminated, the choice of possible running-mates is coming to the fore.

It is pretty obvious to me that Hillary Clinton cannot chose a woman as her Vice Presidential pick. To be elected as the first woman President is already a risk. To have another woman as her running mate as well would be going over the top. She would risk alienating all the patriarchal minorities she is going to depend upon. A two-woman ticket, in the US of today, would almost certainly lose. It would be far too risky and Clinton just does not take risks.

Second, and more importantly, Clinton cannot afford, and will not tolerate, another woman who takes the feminist spotlight away from herself. Clinton’s feminist credentials are rather weak. She needs the comparison when juxtaposed with a man to get up to be just passable. Any woman she chose as her VP would almost certainly have stronger feminist credentials and would hog the feminist limelight. Clinton’s ego would not, could not, intentionally allow her to accept a position in the shadow of someone else.

Clinton needs to project an image of strength and resolve (which she does not naturally do). For this she requires a man as her running mate. She needs him to be perceived as being strong but subservient to her. In fact, all her closest advisors need to be men for the image of her strength to be enhanced. Not unlike how Indira Gandhi or Golda Meier or Margaret Thatcher chose in their heydays.

Just as Hillary Clinton has no choice but to avoid a female running mate, Donald Trump is, I think, forced to have a woman as his. His weakest support is with women and that support is necessary. But interestingly he needs an intelligent, feminine – rather than a feminist – partner. I merely observe that “intelligent and feminine” always trumps “feminist” (no pun intended) and even overrules “attractive”. A “feminine” female never needs to fight all the battles that a feminist does. “Feminine” always makes “feminist” look envious. She will need a track record for “smartness” and pragmatism. She will therefore have to be an experienced politician but feminine enough to eclipse Hillary Clinton. She will have to be feminine enough to make the feminist attacks seem like sour grapes or just envious “whining”. Trump has a track record of appointing women to high positions in his business empire and the voters will need to be reminded of that.

Ted Cruz has announced Carly Fiorina as his VP pick, but it seems a desperate bid for publicity against a rampant Trump. Fiorina herself would not qualify to be a Trump running mate. Sarah Palin’s name has been mentioned but I suspect she carries too much baggage. Condoleezza Rice has also been mentioned but she carries even more baggage. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (nee Nimrata Nikki Randhawa and of Sikh origin) is not impossible and neither is Cathy Rodgers, a five-term Republican congresswoman. Susana Martinez is the Governor of New Mexico and in addition to being intelligent and feminine is also of Hispanic origin. Joni Kay Ernst is the junior Senator from Iowa and a combat veteran who has seen service in Iraq.

Trumps Picks

My guess would be that whoever he picks, in addition to being intelligent, feminine and with a track record in politics, will also probably represent an “immigrant” constituency. Which would take Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez to the top of the possible list.

 

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Corbyn’s Labour party “is not anti-semitic”, except when needed for class war

April 29, 2016

During the early days of the labour movement and the growth of industrial Europe, it was not only the right-wing view that Jews were grasping trades-people to be looked down upon which fuelled anti-semitism. In the beginning of the 20th century, Jews were identified with banking and finance and epitomised the Great Enemy in the class struggle against capitalists. A strong strain of anti-semitism was nurtured within the hard-left as being an integral part of the class-war.

The hard-left (the loony left) core at the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party still believe that capitalism is the religion of the Jews and they are all fundamentally and ideologically anti-semitic. That group traces its history of Jew-hating to the rise of capitalism and long before the creation of Israel. After the First World War, the anti-semitism that was part of the class-war became associated also with a racial opposition to Jews. The hard-left version of UK anti-semitism thus shares the same roots of Jew-hating as that which fired up the National Socialists in Germany and which was exploited by Hitler. After the Holocaust and WW 2, anti-semitism was politically incorrect everywhere. The collective European guilt allowed – and encouraged – the robbing of the Palestinians and the creation of Israel. It was only 2 generations later – and since the 1980s – that the new strain of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine anti-semitism could grow. This strain of the disease is automatically carried by any Muslim who supports Palestine or Palestinians. In recent times the hard-core, loony left in the UK have found it convenient to cloak their own anti-semitism, which originates from class-war roots, under the guise of being pro-Palestine and in support of all things Palestinian.

Nowadays the UK Labour party contains many Muslim (mainly of Asian origin) members. A large section of these newer members (though not all) have little knowledge of the rise of the labour movement and the identification of all Jews with the Great Enemy – Capitalism. These members trace their antisemitism to their support of Palestine and the consequent opposition to anything Israeli (including the Jewish population of Israel). They are engaged in a religious war – not a class war. The UK Labour party contains many anti-semites of these two strains; a newer religious strain and a classic class-war strain which hides under the religious strain.

Jeremy Corbyn is trying to revive the class-war. That also provides an environment for the class-war based strain of anti-semitism to prosper. It still has to be hidden under the cloak of being pro-Palestinian. But that, in turn, allows the religious strain of the disease to grow. So when the UK Labour party MP, Naz Shah (of Pakistani origin and a somewhat lurid background), expressed her anti-semitic views she represented the new religious strain. She was suspended from the party for that. But she was suspended by a very reluctant Jeremy Corbyn. But then Ken Livingstone (“Red Ken”, “Loony Ken”) came out in her support and Corbyn was forced to suspend him as well. He actually suffers from the class-war strain of the anti-semitism disease, though he too conveniently hides under the pro-Palestine version of the disease.

Now Jeremy Corbyn himself is a closet anti-semite of the class-war kind. Before he became leader of the party he came close to coming out of the closet when he supported radical and even extremist proponents of the Palestinian cause. Now, as leader, he cannot afford to be so politically incorrect. Nevertheless he could not just suspend his long-time friend and class-warrior, Ken Livingstone, for saying what he himself believed. To try and create a balance he got the chief whip to give the MP who publicly confronted Ken Livingstone a real dressing down. Corbyn did not do it himself of course.

class warriors (incidentally anti-semitic) image Daily Mirror

class warriors (incidentally anti-semitic) image Daily Mirror

But the message was clear.

So when Jeremy Corbyn says that the Labour party “does not support any form of anti-semitism”, he means except when it is the class-war kind and it is kept hidden under the guise of something else.

 

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Islamists abandoning the sinking Swedish Green Party

April 28, 2016

It seems quite clear that after the recent revelations, islamists no longer see the Green Party as a useful vehicle for promoting the caliphate or the introduction of Sharia law. No doubt there is a witch hunt going on within the party. The word has gone out to islamists, it seems, to abandon the sinking Green ship. It may be a deliberate strategy to leave the party before they are asked to leave.

Swedish democracy, which already unduly favours minorities, is being strained by having the Green Party in government.

Sweden currently has a government of the minority for the minority. A minority in which a minority Green Party has more say than they are entitled to. And a Green Party in which a minority radical islamist element has far greater say than they are entitled to.

It started last week with Mehmet Kaplan of the Swedish Green Party being sacked (“resigned”) as Housing Minister from the coalition government. But on every day since a new name of an islamic politician sneaking out (or being  smoked out) of the Green Party has emerged. The two leaders of the Green Party (mouthpieces) Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin have not resigned. Instead they have called for a “new start” and have asked their discredited nominating committee to investigate whether the party should be led by others or whether they should continue with a renewed mandate. By stating that they are prepared to continue they are trying to limit the calls for them to step down.

Most of the calls for resignation are directed against Åsa Romson who has been very accident prone in her choice of words (comparing the Mediterranean to Auschwitz, placing Auschwitz in Germany, calling 9/11 “an accident”….). However it has been Fridolin rather than Romson who seems to have been largely responsible for the infiltration of the Greens by radical islamists. His blind charge to get a multicultural membership – come what may – is now backfiring. Of course he is very young (32) and has very little experience, and it shows. As Education Minister in the coalition he has demonstrated his childishness.

The list of islamists leaving or taking a time-out or being forced out is growing:

Mehmet Kaplan – started the Swedish Muslims for Peace and Freedom, tried to promote the Erdogan line, consorted with Turkish right-wing groups, compared Israel to the Nazis, invited hard-line islamists to speak to the Swedish parliament, has publicly used the four-finger Muslim Brotherhood. Resigned as Housing Minister

Yasri Khan – Current Chairman of Swedish Muslims for Peace and Freedom. He was being proposed by the Green Party nominating committee as a member of the Steering Committee, refused to shake hands with women, refused to condemn capital punishment for apostasy, refused to condemn the treatment of bloggers in Saudi Arabia. Withdrew his candidature and stated he was leaving the Greens.

semanur taskin

Semanur Taskin – Leader (mouthpiece) of the Young Greens in Stockholm. Also a member of  Kaplan’s Swedish Muslims for Peace and Freedom and an Erdogan supporter. A very confused lady who supports the hijab but also sees the hijab as a symbol of oppression. Wants to introduce gender segregated swimming pools. Has abandoned the sinking ship that the Green Party is.

MP-politikern Derya Uzel Senir sa inför valet 2014 att hon och hennes parti aktivt skulle arbeta för att motverka ett erkännande av det armeniska folkmordet. Foto: Miljöpartiet

Derya Uzel Senir – Deputy to the Stockholm city council and a member of the Labour Market Board, Also a strong Erdogan supporter and a Armenian genocide denier. She has taken a time-out from all her Green party duties.

Kamal Al Rifai

Kamal al-Rifai – He is/was the Green Party deputy in Burlöv Municipality. He is also the leader of the Syrian Association in Malmö and has invited the controversial Saudi imam, Salman al-Ouda (one of Osama bin-Laden’s teachers) to speak (preach) at a fund raising event. He says he is no longer involved with the Green Party.

 

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Ted Cruz will not get a job as a sports commentator

April 27, 2016

It is now arithmetically impossible for Ted Cruz to win the Republican nomination by his own efforts. He is pinning his hopes on a contested convention and – somehow – coercing enough delegates to be able to beat Trump.

Improbable.

Another job Ted Cruz is never going to be offered is that of a basketball commentator (or a commentator for any sport for that matter).

From the Ted Cruz sports picture book

From the Ted Cruz sports picture book

 

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Major disconnect between record votes for, and media opposition to, Trump

April 27, 2016

There are very few (if any) media outlets which support Donald Trump’s candidacy. Most are quite scathing about him. Yet he seems to be getting more Republican votes than any other candidate ever has. With the numbers actually turning out for Trump, it is impossible that many of his supporters are not also consumers of the media denigrating him. The media, every time they attack Trump, are also saying that all his supporters are imbeciles.

This is only a reminder of the basic truth that the media are not representative of anything other than themselves. Which raises the question whether having a one-sided and unrepresentative representation of the population – as is apparent with the media and the US electorate – enhances or degrades democracy? But Trump’s successes in the face of virulent media opposition demonstrates a disconnect of massive proportions between the US electorate and their media.

trump voters

Politico:

With his five blowout wins Tuesday night, Donald Trump has passed Mitt Romney’s popular vote total from four years ago and is on a trajectory that could land him more Republican votes than any presidential candidate in modern history – by a lot.

Trump surged to 9.9 million votes, according to totals that include Tuesday’s preliminary results across the northeast and could rise further as the final votes are counted. That’s already more than 100,000 more than Romney earned in the entire 2012 primary season and tens of thousands more than John McCain earned in 2008.

Trump is certain to pass McCain’s total next week in Indiana, but more importantly, he’s positioned to easily pass the modern record-holder George W. Bush — who collected 10.8 million votes in 2000.

That presents an uncomfortable reality for anti-Trump forces: they’re attempting to thwart the candidate who is likely to win more Republican primary votes than any GOP contender in at least the last 36 years, and maybe ever.

In an email to POLITICO, University of Minnesota political science professor (and Smart Politics blogger) Eric Ostermeier noted that only eight candidates have won more than 7.5 million Republican primary votes since the advent of the modern primary and caucus system. Ronald Reagan won about 7.7 million votes in 1980, the fewest other than George W. Bush’s 7.6 million in 2004, when he didn’t face a primary challenge.

George H. W. Bush clocked in at 8.2 million votes in 1988 and 9.2 million in 1992, while Bob Dole earned 8.4 million in 1996.

I am more than a little cynical about the media. So I suspect that we shall see them beginning to start backing away from their vicious opposition to Trump as his chances of becoming the Republican nominee increase. That should be by June this year. We shall then see them even beginning to become mild supporters by about September or October. It is a little too risky for any media outlet to openly court IRS investigations under a future President Trump. After all, there is not a single media outlet without reported losses. And all those “apparent losses” are always a tax offset for the owning entity.

 

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BRICS is dead, long live MICKI

April 26, 2016

Brazil (-3.7%) and Russia (-1.3%) are experiencing negative growth and South Africa (+0.7%) is stagnating. Which leaves only China (+6.5%) and India (+7.5%) from the BRICS motor. But Indonesia(+5.1%), Kenya (+5.8%) and even Malaysia (+4.4%) are growing and it is time to bury BRICS and start talking about MICKI (Malaysia, India, China, Kenya and Indonesia).

(Map by Focus Economics)

MICKI - Emerging Markets (map by Focus Economics)

MICKI – Emerging Markets (map by Focus Economics)

 

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