Cause global warming? Yes we do.

Beyond a reasonable doubt.

The global warming problem brings to light several issues which may represent the Achilles heel of Science. Who says we need absolute, conclusive, evidence-based proof of cause and effect before taking action? Science. And policymakers who believe that if they base their decisions on science, their derrières are covered.

However, climate change may be the thing that blows their cover. Firstly, while the ups and downs of global temperature have been cyclical over the ages, the recent sharp increase has been unprecedented. Second, the steep rise in greenhouse gas emissions by humans has also been unprecedented. Quite enough of a link — or evidence-based proof — to make governments act prudently if they valued their Earth more than their tax revenue. It seems they don't.

The problem is that for self-preserving policymakers, the strict scientific method is preferred. If you can neither independently verify results, isolate the phenomenon from all other factors nor repeat the test, the hypothesis falls apart. The perfect rationalization for doing nothing.

But we the people need action. What if we viewed damage to the environment, often knowing, willful and premeditated, as a crime rather than collateral damage in the quest for riches? Then, as in the courts, we could hold our rulers to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. It may may not have been proven in a laboratory that humans contribute to accelerated global warming and climate change but it is true, beyond a reasonable doubt.

I may be judging science too harshly. There are branches that weigh a multitude of factors and make decisions that are not guaranteed to be successful. In medicine for example, it is routine for doctors to evaluate a patient's array of complex conditions against any number of possible treatments and gamble on a procedure that may save a life.

That kind of science is good enough for policymakers. It gave Ted Kennedy an extra year of enviable life. Countless others benefit every day from scientific decisions based on judgement rather than mere data. So why not base decisions about saving the planet on legal or medical experience rather than the petri dish alone?

In the end it's not about saving the planet. It's about saving lives. Ours.

Blinded by the light

Is the current financial crisis indicative of a progress trap? Were the wizards of Wall St. blinded by their own light? It's a profoundly complex issue, and too early to call. However, in searching for clues there are some useful pointers. The Markit company was founded in 2001 to provide information on the newly deregulated Credit Derivatives market, and their publication Markit Magazine offers expert, though slightly ambivalent, insight. They are optimistic that the future will see improvement. Andrew Cavenagh, writing in the Summer 2008 issue, is frank in explaining the weakness of two "smug" assumptions. One is that the global credit market was large and resilient enough to absorb shocks without permitting structural damage to the credit system. The other is that the "exponential growth of securitisation worldwide" provided a reliable, cheap source of funding that allowed lenders to risk sub-prime mortgages, knowing that the risks would then be passed on to the larger credit market as derivatives. Also known as "repackaging toxic debt".

This is a huge market where quantity has counted more than quality. Reading further in Markit magazine it remains difficult to tell whether lessons will be learned. One would expect that swift regulation would end the tendency to trade in financial instruments that have been increasingly abstracted from real assets. According to Lehman Brothers (now defunct) in The Lehman Brothers Guide to Exotic Credit Derivatives "The credit default swap is the basic building block for most ‘exotic’ credit derivatives". However, Bloomberg.com reports that the SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said on Sept. 23, 2008 that "Neither the SEC nor any regulator has authority over the CDS (credit default swap) market, even to require minimal disclosure," and that should be addressed "immediately". At year-end, this remains unregulated, with some critics citing fear of worldwide derivatives market disruption. Didn't this already happen? If the U.S. sub-prime practices caused global shockwaves, surely U.S. regulation would be entirely appropriate.

If you thought it ended at exotic swaps, think again. Financiers trade options on swaps, and the term for that instrument is - you guessed it, "swaptions". Denise Bedell, of Markit magazine, writes in the Winter 2008 issue: "we can still learn lessons from past crises that can help guide the success of current efforts and curb the length and severity of the present turmoil." Tellingly, a sidebar to her article has a history of US financial crises, beginning 1819 and repeating the same mistakes to the present. A recurring feature of these crises is loss of credit to the average citizen, of consumer confidence and jobs in what we now refer to as “Main Street”. These issues are getting secondary consideration, but leaders can address them regionally without waiting for international coordination.

I would conclude that if the global community was behaving differently from, and more pragmatically than the U.S., we might not fall into the trap of being too clever for one's own good, and salvation may come from other nations. There are many of those and some must have their feet on the ground, so I too am optimistic.

Quotes:
Andrew Cavenagh the markit magazine – Summer 08: One change that seems certain to result from the debacle is that institutions that originate mortgages – or any other types of loan – will no longer be allowed to sell on the entire risk to the capital markets. It is hard to imagine that some of the reckless sub-prime lending that occurred in the US would have happened if the lenders had been obliged to keep the “assets” on their balance sheets.

Denise Bedell Winter 2008 – the markit magazine
Bedell, in Learning from the past quotes a credit analyst as saying "the current bailout packages we are seeing are proving absolutely necessary in order to stop the complete crisis of confidence. With the packages, they have the crash trolleys out and have applied the defibrillator so the patient is at least alive. So now the global economy needs to be nursed back to health." The remarks of a senior equity capital markets banker are also quoted: "They will do whatever it takes to succeed, they will repair the credit markets, and if the current packages aren’t enough then they will throw another log on the fire."

Defibrillators? Logs? Give me abstract expressionism any day. I'm told it's good at the bank.

Canadian economists advocate putting a price on carbon

More than 230 prominent Canadian economists have signed an open letter to their government advocating a price on carbon, a cap-and-trade system, and a carbon tax.

Notes from the side..

In the June/July '08 issue of MIND, Michael Gazzaniga has some new insights into hemispheric specialization and problem-solving:

• The left-brain interpreter makes sense out of all the other processes. It takes all the input that is coming in and puts it together in a make-sense story, even though it may be completely wrong.
• The left hemisphere...tends to falsely recognize new items when they are similar to previously presented items, presumably because they fit into the schema it has constructed.
• The right hemisphere maintains an accurate record of events, leaving the left hemisphere free to elaborate and make inferences about the material presented. In an intact brain, the two systems complement each other, allowing elaborative processing without sacrificing veracity.

and not so new:

• ...the left hemisphere is specialized for language, speech and intelligent behavior, whereas the right is specialized for such tasks as recognizing upright faces, focusing attention, and making perceptual distinctions.

Read the full article

purchase Escaping the Progress Trap online at amazon.com

Berkeley professor lists progress traps

Prof. Tadeusz W. Patzek, PhD, Professor of Geoengineering at UC Berkeley, California has posted a web archive of articles and comments on the progress trap phenomenon. 2008, 2007

Intuition is real!

Researchers at Leeds University Business School say that gut feelings or intuitions are real, and we should take them seriously. Read the Science Blog article here. Or read the British Journal of Psychology article Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences - abstract.

At your service: Escaping the Progress Trap

Aurora Picture Show, a microcinema in Houston, Texas has released a collection of "informational videos by artists who use recent technological tools for purposes other than what they were designed to do and, in some instances, in direct opposition to their intended use." The title of the DVD is At your service: Escaping the Progress Trap and it is included with the Spring '08 issue of Art Lies Contemporary Art Magazine. The videos are also available on line at the Art Lies website and offer a challenging, funny and moving take on progress. See them if you think art can bring you to your senses. See them if you don't.

Concordia University adds "Escaping the progress trap" to course material

Dr. Sheila Mason, professor of Virtue Ethics, Feminist Ethics and Environmental Ethics with Concordia University's philosophy department has included portions of "Escaping the progress trap" in the Environmental Ethics course for January 2008. Comments Dr. Mason, "The two chapters that I would like to use are Excuses, Excuses, and Nurturing Genius. These fit in well as I like to use Damasio and Ledoux to make the point about emotion, which fits very well with Virtue Theory - the basis of this course...The writing is very beautiful: clear and measured."

Download the presentation "Excuses, Excuses"

Al Gore and real value in Human Resources

“There is a big shift in the business community around the world toward a greater appreciation for the fact that the short-term, quarterly report point of view misses a lot, and if a company is going to be profitable and productive on a sustained basis that means looking at some of the factors that don’t always show up on the balance sheet...If the only way we recognize what’s valuable and profitable is the price tag, then the things that don’t come equipped with price tags can begin to look like they’re not valuable...But the attitude of the employees and their loyalty and feeling about the company has a direct impact on turnover, re training costs, labour productivity, the amount of creative effort" said Al Gore at the 2007 Top Employer Summit in Toronto. - Canadian HR Reporter - April 9, 2007