Skeptical of skeptical environmentalist and the improving state of the world

I decided to make a go these two books: The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg and the Improving State of the World by Indur Goklany.

My skepticism lies not so much with their presentation nor the statistics. My skepticism is whether I should be skeptical about all the optimism. Lomborg attacks Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute and specifically about how data is presented in its annual State of the World reports. Lomborg claims that the reports presents statistics in a biased manner since it does not take the ‘long view’ into account.

I am sympathetic to this point of view - we can say that things have gotten worse by picking two points in time that make our case for us - the peak and the trough and then hide everything that has gone on in between. Alternatively we can pick some other two points in time that supports the view we are trying to make. Some comments on the web have pointed out that is possible to claim that the earth has simultaneously warmed and cooled by picking out any two points between 2000 and 2010.

I think that both books misses the larger point. (Goklany’s is a more interesting book but pretty much has the same thrust as Lomborg.) The point is not to thump our chests about how great things have been since neanderthal man walked the earth - but how much the recent past says about the future. To paraphrase someone it’s not how much better off you were than your forefathers but how much better off you were four years ago and how much better off you will be four years from now.

So all the points that are made in the books about the warming climate and pollution etc misses the larger view by appealing to the long run view. In the long run we’ll all be dead, the sun is going to go nova and we’ll be swallowed up by a black hole. I don’t care about the long run. I caer about what’s going to happen 5 or 10 years from now.

P.S. I thought the Goklany book was interesting in that it attempted to calculate I = PAT. None of the calculations were very convincing but I thought it was a valiant attempt. It also had a fairly balanced (I thought) coverage of GM crops, although this is because I’m already biased toward GM.

Update (9/4/2012):
Here are some headlines that essentially ask the relevant question - what does the recent past say about the forseeable future:

1. Summer’s record heat, drought point to longer-term climate issues
2. Wonkbook: Climate change may be to blame for extreme weather events now
3. Hansen, et.al.'s Perception of climate change study. Also covered in the Economist and Think Progress.
4. Cover story of September's National Geographic Magazine.

Plastic bags as an indicator

Of what? When we were in Penang last month, Queensbay Mall sets aside weekends as ‘no plastic bag’ days. Whether we liked it or not we had to bring a reusable bag with us if we wanted to do any shopping.

In contrast when we were in Bangkok a week later, it was plastic bags galore! At a pastry shop, each pastry is individually wrapped in a plastic bag. If we bought four croissants, each had its own bag. Then all of them were placed into another plastic bag! I felt guilty enough to actually bring all the plastic bags back to the States with us for reuse. (Note to self: Bring reusable bags next time - although I’m sure we’d get strange looks.)

The environmental Kuznets curve predicts that when countries get ‘rich’ enough pollution starts to decrease. My gut says that Penang and Bangkok are similar in income levels - if anything, Bangkok seems more affluent. The difference seems to be the degree of inequality - Bangkok seems to have a higher income inequality, a smaller middle class that in theory would care enough to act on social issues like plastic bags.

Failure of development in Kenya?

Economists View pointed to this Project Syndicate article titled "Did the World Bank's Development Efforts Fail in Kenya?":

A month ago, Kenya fell prey to a sudden burst of post-electoral violence... The intensity and scale of the violence have stunned the world. ...

[T]hings seemed to be going well recently. This year's campaign was exceptionally peaceful... Perhaps more fundamentally, Kenya was unanimously seen as the "good student" of development, sometimes referred to as a symbol of an African renaissance.

All the rosy comments was news to me which seems to indicate that development agencies and donors might have been fooling themselves. The reason I say this? K1 has a friend in her class whose family left Kenya two years ago. They loved it there but they said it was no longer safe. Based on this comment alone, the violence in Kenya was not unexpected and was in fact foretold.

Why I think Bill Gates' call for a kinder capitalism rings hollow

Despite, Bill Gates call: "We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well" there is one reason I doubt his conviction. There is capitalism the Bill Gates way and there is capitalism of another nature -- software piracy. Software pirates after all are entrepreneurs too and there is no doubt that Microsoft works hard at destroying their livelihoods.

Microsoft sells Microsoft Office for over $300. If Bill Gates were serious about technology helping the poor, he can use Microsoft's clout to do so. If he believes that the poor can be helped by cheaper technology then he can give it away for free or charge $1. Every time a new version of MSOffice is released, I challenge Microsoft to make the earlier release available for free or for $1. This is of course, if he really believes that technology can help the poor. Or if he believes that producing software for the poor can be profitable, then he can charge $1. Or he can recruit all the would be software pirates to be his distributors.