The Sunburnt Land Has Plenty Of Energy In Store  

The Australian has an article on development of solar power technology in Australia.

IN the 1970s, Australia was leading the world on developing solar technologies. It was driven out of practical necessity rather than some particular vision for a clean energy future. Back then, organisations such as Telecom and Australian National Railways needed to supply electricity to signal points, phone boxes and other remote infrastructure. In many cases solar was the cheapest and most efficient means, pioneering Australian technology development ahead of the world.

Australia is still a sunburned country with some of the best solar assets in the world. In 2004, a federal Government energy futures white paper identified three low-emission energy technologies for which Australia had the potential to exploit a comparative advantage: carbon capture and storage, geothermal and solar.

Solar energy has been idolised for decades as being the perfect energy source: abundant, clean, quiet and still. It does have an annoying habit of switching off at night, but all energy can be stored. For instance solar electricity could be used to pump water up hill and released to run turbines at night. The real constraint is cost. ...

Pioneered at the University of NSW, the cells are very simple technology: the sun's rays hit thin slices of silicon creating an electrical current that is captured by integrated circuits and delivered as electricity. BP Solar bought out Australian manufacturers Solarex and Tideland and it now manufactures panels at Homebush in Sydney for the domestic and Asian markets, competing with imports mainly from Japan and Germany.

Typical silicon cells can convert about 15 per cent of solar energy into electricity, and purer silicon achieves higher efficiencies but at a higher cost. World prices for solar-grade silicon have been pushed up with strong global demand and competition with the microchip industry, which uses the same material. Although spot prices have reached up to $300/kg, prices are expected to ease as supply increases in the next year.

The silicon accounts for about half the cost of a photovoltaic solar panel but cell manufacturers have been driving down cost by slicing the silicon thinner. BP Solar uses cells of about 200 microns thick, butsome technologies in Europe have got this down to 140. Applying technology developed by the Australian National University, Origin Energy has a $20 million pilot plant in Adelaide that is trying to commercialise sliver-cell technology. Silicon cells are cut sideways to produce flexible and very thin slivers of about 50 microns thick, allowing more light to hit the silicon when installed, thereby increasing its operating efficiency, but so far about a third of the silicon is wasted in the cutting process.

Dyesol, a publicly listed company at Goulburn in NSW, is developing lower-cost technology using dye and pigment, instead of silicon, to create a weaker electrical current when hit by sunlight. Described by the company as artificial photosynthesis, the technology is less energy intensive in manufacturing and, because of its lower cost, can be embedded directly into building materials. It will be more competitive if silicon prices remain high or as it drives costs down and efficiencies up.

Solar is also being developed to replicate large-scale electricity from power stations and Melbourne company Solar Systems received a $75 million grant from the federal Government last September to build a 154MW solar power station near Mildura in north-west Victoria. The plant would be about one-sixth the size of a typical coal fired power plant. Solar Systems plans on installing more expensive but more efficient Gallium Arsenide photovoltaic cells, but plans on squeezing more energy out of them by installing them on high towers and surrounding them with almost 20,000 angled mirrors called heliostats. These will track the sun through the day, concentrating solar energy 500 times stronger on to the high-performance cells, but will need sophisticated cooling technology to keep the cells operating efficiently. An aspirational goal for the technology is to deliver electricity at about $50/mW-hour in the same range as natural gas.

Cloud cover reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by 90 per cent and is even lower for concentrated solar, making location crucial to keep efficiency up and costs down. Adelaide company Green and Gold Energy also has developed a solar concentrator technology called Sun Cube, which uses Fresnel lenses, found in car headlights, to concentrate sunlight on to high-efficiency cells. The company has just placed an order for $24million worth of cells to build solar farms by 2009, manufacturing of the units to be completed in China.

The SMH has an article on Labor's new global environment plan.

LABOR says that an increase in the amount of energy coming from environmentally friendly sources and a $40 million export strategy for renewable energy businesses will be the first steps it takes if it wins power and ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.

In a speech to be given today, Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, will reveal what practical measures Labor would take to prepare the country for diving into the multi-billion-dollar industry surrounding the climate change agreement. It will include strategies to help researchers get their work ready for immediate commercialisation and the posting of departmental officers around the world to sell Australian clean energy products.

Labor has for years been promising it would ratify the Kyoto Protocol if it won office but has not yet detailed what would happen after the official commitment was made. Mr Garrett will tell the National Press Club in Canberra today that he would increase the amount of energy that was required by law to come from environmentally friendly sources such as wind and solar. But he is not yet prepared to say by how much.

The massive Gorgon LNG project has taken a step closer to reality with a Chinese customer signing up - "Shell inks Gorgon LNG deal with PetroChina".

Oil giant Shell has inked an offtake agreement with PetroChina International for the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the emerging Gorgon project in Western Australia. Shell today executed a binding heads of agreement for the supply of one million tonne of LNG annually to PetroChina over a 20 year period. The key terms of the agreement provides for the two groups to work together and conclude a detailed LNG sale and purchase agreement before December 2008.

The massive Gorgon project is a joint venture between Chevron Corp, ExxonMobil and Shell. Chevron holds a 50 per cent interest and is the operator of the project, with ExxonMobil and Shell each holding a 25 per cent stake. The offtake agreement is conditional on a final investment decision being taken by the Gorgon joint venture partners. ...

Shell's agreement with the Chinese marks a turn in direction for the major oil producer, which had previously said it would market its share of Gorgon gas in the US. Chinese interests had been in offtake discussions with the Gorgon partners earlier this decade, but the negotiations broke down after the partners refused to match the terms won by the Guangdong province for the supply of gas from the North West Shelf Joint Venture (NWSJV). The Gorgon project involves a two-train LNG plant and a domestic plant on Barrow Island, producing about 10 million tonnes of LNG annually.

Chevron has estimated the greater Gorgon area to contain more than 40 trillion cubic feet of gas. The project cost is expected to increase from the $11 billion figure, estimated four years ago, with some analysts forecasting it rising to $15 billion to $16 billion.

THE IHT reports that Iraqi crude oil is now flowing through Turkey.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said Tuesday that crude oil began to flow from his country's northern oil-rich Kirkuk to a Turkish export terminal last week — for the first time since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. "We're pumping between 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day of Kirkuk crude to the Turkish export terminal of Ceyhan," al-Shahristani told Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

The pipeline — Iraq's main export route from Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan — has been mostly closed due to constant sabotage since the U.S.-led war, which hampered Iraqi efforts to maintain a steady oil flow. Two weeks ago, Iraq agreed with Syria to repair and subsequently reopen another key pipeline, a 880-kilometer (550 mile) long link connecting Kirkuk and the Syrian port of Baniyas. With Ceyhan running and once the Baniyas line — built in the 1950s but bombed by U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam — is reopened, Iraq would be using two terminals on the Mediterranean Sea. ...

The oil minister also told Dow Jones that he expected Iraq's parliament to pass a draft oil and gas law this month. Lawmakers, who were on a monthlong summer recess until Tuesday, had postponed debate on the controversial hydrocarbon law until September. "Some members of parliament have told us they would pass the law this month," said al-Shahristani, a member of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance. "But if the parliament delays passing the law, we're going to invite foreign companies to develop some oil fields in the south." He said his ministry has drawn up a list of oil fields for development based on the old Iraqi oil law during Saddam's era. He did not identify the fields.

During Saddam's rule, some of the potentially rich fields in the south were explored by firms from France, Russia and China. But the firms were unable to develop the fields because of U.N. trade sanctions slapped on Iraq over its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under the new draft hydrocarbon law, the oil ministry said the contracts must be re-negotiated.

MSN Autos has a look at a Dirty Secret: Green Cars Automakers Won't Sell You.

On a recent run from Boston to Cape Cod, I test drove the 2008 Honda Accord, the latest version of this family favorite. The new Accord boasts an environmental first: a six-cylinder gasoline engine that's cleaner than many hybrid systems.

There's only one catch: You can't actually buy this ultra-green Accord, or the four-cylinder version that also produces near-zero pollution. That is, unless you live in California, New York or six other northeast states that follow California's tougher pollution rules. Only there can you buy this Accord, or the roughly two dozen other models that meet so-called Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle standards, PZEV for short.

Not only can't you buy one, but the government says it's currently illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states. Under terms of the Clean Air Act—in the kind of delicious irony only our government can pull off—anyone (dealer, consumer, automaker) involved in an out-of-bounds PZEV sale could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.

So, just how green is a PZEV machine? Well, if you just cut your lawn with a gas mower, congratulations, you just put out more pollution in one hour than these cars do in 2,000 miles of driving. Grill a single juicy burger, and you've cooked up the same hydrocarbon emissions as a three-hour drive in a Ford Focus PZEV. As the California Air Resources Board has noted, the tailpipe emissions of these cars can be cleaner than the outside air in smoggy cities.

That's amazing stuff. But what's more amazing is how few people have a clue that the gas-powered, internal combustion engine could ever be this clean.

Naturally, no company wants to bring too much attention to a car that most people can't buy, unless it's Ferrari. And there's the catch. PZEV models are already available from Toyota, Ford, Honda, GM, Subaru, Volvo and VW. They're scrubbed-up versions of familiar models, from the VW Jetta to the Subaru Outback. But chances are, you've never heard of them.

These cars aren't the only green leaf that's being dangled over our heads. The sweet-looking, sporty-handling Nissan Altima Hybrid borrows its hybrid system from the Toyota Camry, and sipped fuel at 32 mpg during my week-long test drive here in New York. But once again, if you'd love to buy the Nissan and burn less fuel, you're out of luck—unless you live in California or the Northeast.

The SMH has an update on one of the patron saints of Peak Energy, George Orwell (if I ever run out of on-topic things to say in this blog I suspect I'll steal the title of Orwell's regular newspaper column "As I See It" for my next one) - "George Orwell's MI5 dossier revealed". The article repeats a widespread misconception - why do people think that 1984 was about the Soviet Union ? Animal Farm yes, but not 1984. As far as I can tell, 1984 was basically an autobiography - "Airstrip One" wasn't some foreign land, it was England in 1948, and the "Ministry of Truth" was the BBC, where Orwell worked.

George Orwell's left-wing views and bohemian clothes led British police to label him a communist - but the MI5 spy agency stepped in to correct that view, the writer's newly released security file reveals. The secret file that MI5 kept on the author from 1929 until his death in 1950 is being declassified today by the National Archives.

It reveals that in contrast to the fictional "Big Brother", the cruel and all-seeing secret police of Orwell's classic 1984, MI5 took a surprisingly benign view of the writer. Orwell savaged the totalitarianism of Stalin's Russia in Animal Farm and 1984. But he was also a socialist who railed against inequality in earlier works such as Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier. ...

The Special Branch files on Orwell were released by the archives in 2005. MI5's response had been secret until now. It was declassified as part of a phased release of MI5 files under the Freedom of Information Act, which was passed in 2005. Other documents in the file reveal MI5 did not consider Orwell a security risk. In 1943, it was asked whether Orwell should be accredited as a journalist with Allied armed forces headquarters. "The Security Service have records of this man, but raise no objection to his appointment," was the reply.

A year earlier MI5 had approved Orwell's wife Eileen as suitable for employment with the Ministry of Food. Despite his lifelong socialist views, in 1949, a year before his death at 46, Orwell gave the government a list of people he thought were Stalinist sympathisers or "fellow travellers."

Moving on to another idiosyncratic British socialist, George Monbiot, one recent column of his is blaming Friedrich Hayek and neoliberalism for all the world's problems.

For the first time, the United Kingdom’s consumer debt now exceeds our gross national product: a new report shows that we owe £1.35 trillion. Inspectors in the United States have discovered that 77,000 road bridges are in the same perilous state as the one which collapsed into the Mississippi. Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, 120,000 people from New Orleans are still living in trailer homes and temporary lodgings. As runaway climate change approaches, governments refuse to take the necessary action. Booming inequality threatens to create the most divided societies the world has seen since before the first world war. Now a financial crisis caused by unregulated lending could turf hundreds of thousands out of their homes and trigger a cascade of economic troubles.

These problems appear unrelated, but they all have something in common. They arise in large part from a meeting that took place 60 years ago in a Swiss spa resort. It laid the foundations for a philosophy of government that is responsible for many, perhaps most, of our contemporary crises.

When the Mont Pelerin Society first met, in 1947, its political project did not have a name. But it knew where it was going. The society’s founder, Friedrich von Hayek, remarked that the battle for ideas would take a least a generation to win, but he knew that his intellectual army would attract powerful backers. Its philosophy, which later came to be known as neoliberalism, accorded with the interests of the ultra-rich, so the ultra-rich would promote it.

Neoliberalism claims that we are best served by maximum market freedom and minimum intervention by the state. The role of government should be confined to creating and defending markets, protecting private property and defending the realm. All other functions are better discharged by private enterprise, which will be prompted by the profit motive to supply essential services. By this means, enterprise is liberated, rational decisions are made and citizens are freed from the dehumanising hand of the state.

This, at any rate, is the theory. But as David Harvey proposes in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, wherever the neoliberal programme has been implemented, it has caused a massive shift of wealth not just to the top one percent, but to the top tenth of the top one per cent. In the United States, for example, the upper 0.1% has already regained the position it held at the beginning of the 1920s. The conditions that neoliberalism demands in order to free human beings from the slavery of state - minimal taxes, the dismantling of public services and social security, deregulation, the breaking of the unions – just happen to be the conditions required to make the elite even richer, while leaving everyone else to sink or swim. ...

The first great advantage the neoliberals possessed was an unceasing fountain of money. American oligarchs and their foundations – Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others – have poured hundreds of millions into setting up thinktanks, founding business schools and transforming university economics departments into bastions of almost totalitarian neoliberal thinking. The Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and many others in the US, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute in the UK were all established to promote this project. Their purpose was to develop the ideas and the language which would mask the real intent of the programme – the restoration of the power of the elite - and package it as a proposal for the betterment of humankind.

Their project was assisted by ideas which arose in a very different quarter. The revolutionary movements of 1968 also sought greater individual liberties, and many of the soixante-huitards saw the state as their oppressor. As Harvey shows, the neoliberals coopted their language and ideas. Some of the anarchists I know still voice notions almost identical to those of the neoliberals: the intent is different, but the consequences very similar.

Hayek’s disciples were also able to make use of economic crises. One of their first experiments took place in New York City, which was hit by budgetary disaster in 1975. Its bankers demanded that the city follow their prescriptions: massive cuts in public services, the smashing of the unions, public subsidies for business. In the United Kingdom, stagflation, strikes and budgetary breakdown allowed Margaret Thatcher, whose ideas were framed by her neoliberal adviser Keith Joseph, to come to the rescue. Her programme worked, but created a new set of crises.

If these opportunities were insufficient, the neoliberals and their backers would use bribery or force. In the US the Democrats were neutered by new laws on campaign finance. To compete successfully with the Republicans, they would have to give big business what it wanted. The first neoliberal programme of all was implemented in Chile following Pinochet’s coup, with the backing of the US government and economists taught by Milton Friedman, one of the founding members of the Mont Pelerin Society. Drumming up support for the project was a simple matter: if you disagreed, you got shot. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank used their power over developing nations to demand the same policies.

But the most powerful promoter of this programme was the media. Most of it is owned by multi-millionaires who use it to project the ideas that support their interests. Those which threaten their plans are either ignored or ridiculed. It is through the newspapers and television channels that the socially destructive ideas of a small group of extremists have come to look like common sense. The corporations’ tame thinkers sell the project by reframing our political language (for an account of how this happens, see George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!). Nowadays I hear even my progressive friends using terms like wealth creators, tax relief, big government, consumer democracy, red tape, compensation culture, job seekers and benefit cheats. These terms, all deliberately invented or promoted by neoliberals, have become so commonplace that they now seem almost neutral.

Neoliberalism, if unchecked, will catalyse crisis after crisis, all of which can be solved only by the means it forbids: greater intervention on the part of the state. In confronting it, we must recognise that we will never be able to mobilise the resources its exponents have been given. But as the disasters they have caused develop, the public will need ever less persuading that it has been misled.

While Monbiot's intentions are good, I don't share his faith that if only we got the government we all wanted, things would be good. "Big government" will always have some bad outcomes, and they will be ones you are powerless to avoid if you don't like them. His latest column "The Fat Cats Protection League" notes one existing problem with big government - big business seems to have no problem achieving regulatory capture of the government agencies that are supposed to oversee it. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this (as an eternally vigilant and democratically engaged populace seems to be rare outside of a few northern European countries, not including Britain).

Here's some words from Hayek himself (I'd substitute the word libertarian instead of liberal but his is the correct historical usage) on "Why I Am Not a Conservative".

This brings me to the first point on which the conservative and the liberal dispositions differ radically. As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead. There would not be much to object to if the conservatives merely disliked too rapid change in institutions and public policy; here the case for caution and slow process is indeed strong. But the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind. In looking forward, they lack the faith in the spontaneous forces of adjustment which makes the liberal accept changes without apprehension, even though he does not know how the necessary adaptations will be brought about. It is, indeed, part of the liberal attitude to assume that, especially in the economic field, the self-regulating forces of the market will somehow bring about the required adjustments to new conditions, although no one can foretell how they will do this in a particular instance. There is perhaps no single factor contributing so much to people's frequent reluctance to let the market work as their inability to conceive how some necessary balance, between demand and supply, between exports and imports, or the like, will be brought about without deliberate control. The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change "orderly."

This fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is closely related to two other characteristics of conservatism: its fondness for authority and its lack of understanding of economic forces. Since it distrusts both abstract theories and general principles,[6] it neither understands those spontaneous forces on which a policy of freedom relies nor possesses a basis for formulating principles of policy. Order appears to the conservative as the result of the continuous attention of authority, which, for this purpose, must be allowed to do what is required by the particular circumstances and not be tied to rigid rule. A commitment to principles presupposes an understanding of the general forces by which the efforts of society are co-ordinated, but it is such a theory of society and especially of the economic mechanism that conservatism conspicuously lacks. So unproductive has conservatism been in producing a general conception of how a social order is maintained that its modern votaries, in trying to construct a theoretical foundation, invariably find themselves appealing almost exclusively to authors who regarded themselves as liberal. Macaulay, Tocqueville, Lord Acton, and Lecky certainly considered themselves liberals, and with justice; and even Edmund Burke remained an Old Whig to the end and would have shuddered at the thought of being regarded as a Tory.

Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened, rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule – not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.

When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. The acceptance of such principles means that we agree to tolerate much that we dislike. There are many values of the conservative which appeal to me more than those of the socialists; yet for a liberal the importance he personally attaches to specific goals is no sufficient justification for forcing others to serve them. I have little doubt that some of my conservative friends will be shocked by what they will regard as "concessions" to modern views that I have made in Part III of this book. But, though I may dislike some of the measures concerned as much as they do and might vote against them, I know of no general principles to which I could appeal to persuade those of a different view that those measures are not permissible in the general kind of society which we both desire. To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends.

It is for this reason that to the liberal neither moral nor religious ideals are proper objects of coercion, while both conservatives and socialists recognize no such limits. I sometimes feel that the most conspicuous attribute of liberalism that distinguishes it as much from conservatism as from socialism is the view that moral beliefs concerning matters of conduct which do not directly interfere with the protected sphere of other persons do not justify coercion. This may also explain why it seems to be so much easier for the repentant socialist to find a new spiritual home in the conservative fold than in the liberal.

In the last resort, the conservative position rests on the belief that in any society there are recognizably superior persons whose inherited standards and values and position ought to be protected and who should have a greater influence on public affairs than others. The liberal, of course, does not deny that there are some superior people – he is not an egalitarian – but he denies that anyone has authority to decide who these superior people are. While the conservative inclines to defend a particular established hierarchy and wishes authority to protect the status of those whom he values, the liberal feels that no respect for established values can justify the resort to privilege or monopoly or any other coercive power of the state in order to shelter such people against the forces of economic change. Though he is fully aware of the important role that cultural and intellectual elites have played in the evolution of civilization, he also believes that these elites have to prove themselves by their capacity to maintain their position under the same rules that apply to all others.

Closely connected with this is the usual attitude of the conservative to democracy. I have made it clear earlier that I do not regard majority rule as an end but merely as a means, or perhaps even as the least evil of those forms of government from which we have to choose. But I believe that the conservatives deceive themselves when they blame the evils of our time on democracy. The chief evil is unlimited government, and nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.[8] The powers which modern democracy possesses would be even more intolerable in the hands of some small elite.

Admittedly, it was only when power came into the hands of the majority that further limitations of the power of government was thought unnecessary. In this sense democracy and unlimited government are connected. But it is not democracy but unlimited government that is objectionable, and I do not see why the people should not learn to limit the scope of majority rule as well as that of any other form of government. At any rate, the advantages of democracy as a method of peaceful change and of political education seem to be so great compared with those of any other system that I can have no sympathy with the antidemocratic strain of conservatism. It is not who governs but what government is entitled to do that seems to me the essential problem.

That the conservative opposition to too much government control is not a matter of principle but is concerned with the particular aims of government is clearly shown in the economic sphere. Conservatives usually oppose collectivist and directivist measures in the industrial field, and here the liberals will often find allies in them. But at the same time conservatives are usually protectionists and have frequently supported socialist measures in agriculture. Indeed, though the restrictions which exist today in industry and commerce are mainly the result of socialist views, the equally important restrictions in agriculture were usually introduced by conservatives at an even earlier date. And in their efforts to discredit free enterprise many conservative leaders have vied with the socialists.

4. I have already referred to the differences between conservatism and liberalism in the purely intellectual field, but I must return to them because the characteristic conservative attitude here not only is a serious weakness of conservatism but tends to harm any cause which allies itself with it. Conservatives feel instinctively that it is new ideas more than anything else that cause change. But, from its point of view rightly, conservatism fears new ideas because it has no distinctive principles of its own to oppose them; and, by its distrust of theory and its lack of imagination concerning anything except that which experience has already proved, it deprives itself of the weapons needed in the struggle of ideas. Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.

The difference shows itself most clearly in the different attitudes of the two traditions to the advance of knowledge. Though the liberal certainly does not regard all change as progress, he does regard the advance of knowledge as one of the chief aims of human effort and expects from it the gradual solution of such problems and difficulties as we can hope to solve. Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.

Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it – or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism. I will not deny that scientists as much as others are given to fads and fashions and that we have much reason to be cautious in accepting the conclusions that they draw from their latest theories. But the reasons for our reluctance must themselves be rational and must be kept separate from our regret that the new theories upset our cherished beliefs. I can have little patience with those who oppose, for instance, the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts, the conservative only weakens his own position. Frequently the conclusions which rationalist presumption draws from new scientific insights do not at all follow from them. But only by actively taking part in the elaboration of the consequences of new discoveries do we learn whether or not they fit into our world picture and, if so, how. Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would hardly be moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge facts.

Connected with the conservative distrust if the new and the strange is its hostility to internationalism and its proneness to a strident nationalism. Here is another source of its weakness in the struggle of ideas. It cannot alter the fact that the ideas which are changing our civilization respect no boundaries. But refusal to acquaint one's self with new ideas merely deprives one of the power of effectively countering them when necessary. The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence. It is no real argument to say that an idea is un-American, or un-German, nor is a mistaken or vicious ideal better for having been conceived by one of our compatriots.

A great deal more might be said about the close connection between conservatism and nationalism, but I shall not dwell on this point because it might be felt that my personal position makes me unable to sympathize with any form of nationalism. I will merely add that it is this nationalistic bias which frequently provides the bridge from conservatism to collectivism: to think in terms of "our" industry or resource is only a short step away from demanding that these national assets be directed in the national interest. But in this respect the Continental liberalism which derives from the French Revolution is little better than conservatism. I need hardly say that nationalism of this sort is something very different from patriotism and that an aversion to nationalism is fully compatible with a deep attachment to national traditions. But the fact that I prefer and feel reverence for some of the traditions of my society need not be the cause of hostility to what is strange and different.

Only at first does it seem paradoxical that the anti-internationalism of conservatism is so frequently associated with imperialism. But the more a person dislikes the strange and thinks his own ways superior, the more he tends to regard it as his mission to "civilize" other[10] – not by the voluntary and unhampered intercourse which the liberal favors, but by bringing them the blessings of efficient government. It is significant that here again we frequently find the conservatives joining hands with the socialists against the liberals – not only in England, where the Webbs and their Fabians were outspoken imperialists, or in Germany, where state socialism and colonial expansionism went together and found the support of the same group of "socialists of the chair," but also in the United States, where even at the time of the first Roosevelt it could be observed: "the Jingoes and the Social Reformers have gotten together; and have formed a political party, which threatened to capture the Government and use it for their program of Caesaristic paternalism, a danger which now seems to have been averted only by the other parties having adopted their program in a somewhat milder degree and form."

Bill Bonner has a column in The Daily Reckoning noting that life isn't as simple as those who would like to tie themselves rigidly to some ideological dogma would like - "Globalisation: Free Trade Needs Rules, Not the World Bank".

We’ve talked quite a bit about ‘fat tails’ in these pages…about events that lie so far outside the normal course of events that we tend to push them equally far away in our consciousness, events that are so devastating that when they do occur they cancel out every other consideration. There may be only a very slim chance that the human race will be wiped off the face of the earth, it is true. But it would probably be a good idea to take that slim chance very seriously.

Still, just because a fat-tail disaster might smack us in the face at any moment, does that mean we are in favour of more, say, government regulations on food production?

Here, we are forced to hem and haw. Government regulation tends to be ineffective in many cases. And since regulators are frequently drawn from the same industries they are supposed to be regulating, we think they tend to be counterproductive in all the others.

So, we are neither prescribing policy nor proscribing it. We are merely grumbling in our curmudgeonly way that we liked the old genetically unmodified world better. We have no desire to eat strawberries armed against frostbite with herring genes or cauliflower with an IQ higher than ours. We like our food au naturel, unrefurbished, unhedged, and in default drive. Unless it is communion wine, any transformations of nature need to pass the smell test first. We need to be protected from them, as surely as we need to be protected from bad cheques, assault, murder, and another Michael Jackson trial.

You see our problem, dear reader? We would like the state to stop telling us what to do - whether it is in airports, in our schools, or in our bedrooms - but we dig in our heels equally at efforts by global corporations to improve our water, our potatoes, or our boeuf bourguignon at the expense of our local culture and with subsidies from our tax dollars.

This is unlikely to win us any popularity contests today when there are only two acceptable positions on globalisation: it’s A Very Good Thing or A Very Bad Thing. But slogans don’t always do the trick. Each problem has to be thought through in its own terms. Not only is globalisation neither entirely good nor entirely bad, it is not even one single thing. It is several. It is about free trade and costly subsidies, about gourmet water and junk food, about hard capital and soft drinks - all of which have their own reasons for being and their own consequences, and all of which are mislabelled, poorly understood, and constantly confused. In fact, the only thing you can be sure of about globalisation is that it provokes extremes of two emotions in the mob - greed and fear. In other words, the only certain thing about it is that it is a public spectacle.

Naturally, like all public spectacles, globalisation is wrapped up in a huge amount of cant. For instance, if you are a poor country, you are supposed to take to the thing as eagerly as a diabetic takes to insulin.

Now, if it was just a matter of freeing up trade between countries, we would nod our heads in agreement. The exchange of goods and services between people is, and always has been, a good thing. It is, so far as we can see, a far better way of getting what you want than hitting your fellow man over the head. But for it to really work, trade - like driving - needs a set of rules everyone follows; otherwise you are liable to crash or be run over.

Many of the rules of global trade are set by the very people who are weighing down the market with all sorts of subsidies, sweetheart deals, perks, pork and privileges in the first place.

Take the World Bank, which is in the business of telling countries what they need to do to play the global trade game. In the lumpen imagination, the World Bank is not too different from the local neighbourhood savings and loan—a kind of multicultural version of the friendly bank in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. But the real World Bank is headed up not by Jimmy Stewart but by people like Paul Wolfowitz, a man whom his best friend wouldn’t call a soft touch. Confirmed as the bank’s boss in 2005, Wolfowitz immediately proclaimed he was on a mission of mercy:

“Helping the poorest of the world to lift themselves out of poverty is a noble mission or, as former Secretary of State George Shultz said, ‘a beautiful mission’.”

But, the Sisters of Charity do not have to worry about the competition. Wolfowitz has been one of Washington’s biggest hawks since the days when he argued for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. To this day, he likes to praise Indonesia’s Suharto, who in his 32-year reign looted US$30 billion from the public treasury and turned his country into one of the most corrupt in the world. Of course, on second thoughts, that might be the perfect resume for the Bank. After all, the World Bank has a bit of a track record when it comes to getting and spending, not to mention laying waste.

Also at The Daily Reckoning, Dan Denning has some thoughts on "APEC, Protestors and Political Coercion".

Goodness gracious! Crikey! You cannot be serious!

We are gobsmacked that anyone would think we were siding with big government APEC yesterday. We got a bag full of e-mail from disappointed, irate readers who thought we were siding with The Man in his impending confrontation with APEC protestors. Let us clarify.

Government is the biggest property destroying bully of them all. We weren’t siding with it yesterday… or the day before… or tomorrow… or ever. We object, as a matter of principle, to anyone or any group that tries to use the political system and the power of legislation to tell us how to live our life. Live and let live is how we prefer our politics (if we must have a politics at all.)

In that respect, we don’t see much difference between the people who lead APEC and those who are chaining themselves to coal conveyor belts at the Loy Yang power station in Victoria. One group pursues an agenda that promotes the power of the Nation State and its cousins, large corporate interests. The other wants to impose a different set of rules based on different values. But they both basically want to tell us what to do.

Both groups agree that political power ought to be pursued as means to an end. With political power, you can coerce people-through legislation, or other means-to do things your way. We are against that. Sweep your own doorstep. Stick to your own knitting. Butt out of people’s lives. This is why we don’t participate in politics, don’t vote, and encourage other people not to vote too.

Of course, we live in the age of public spectacles, where everyone tells everyone what to do all the time. We probably indulge in unsolicited instruction in the DR too, but only in a negative sense. We tell people what they shouldn’t do.

While we’re on the subject though, how close are we to living a police state? By “we” I mean Australians, Americans, Britons….the whole lot.

Frankly, we find it appalling that here in Australia the Federal government spends millions of dollars on ads that depict actors as dead children (from drugs)… that show cops administering booze tests and drug tests to random drivers… and that interrupt our dinner with graphic pictures of disfigured smokers. We wish the government would get out of our living room.

What business does the government have lecturing, hectoring, and threatening people about private behaviour? And they spend tax payer money to boot! We’re not condoning smoking, drug use, or drink driving. But you don’t promote responsibility in a free society by making people less free, banning dangerous behaviour, and keeping a constant watchful eye on an increasingly large sphere of what used to be private activity.

And don’t even get us started on the anti-terrorism ads that encourage you to spy and inform on your neighbors. There are surely terrorist threats in the world. But you haven’t won much if you fight them by turning an open society into a surveillance society with a constant level of paranoia, distrust, and suspicion… all of it encouraged by the authorities.

What DO we believe? If you give your word, keep it. And don’t do anything to transgress on anyone else’s person or property. Those are two simple rules. Anything else on top of them is meddling.

As for all the other threats and dangers government promises to protect us from, it’s balderdash. There’s an assumption of risk when you get out of bed in the morning. Trying to make the world safer by restricting what people can do with their freedom is a bad trade.

Links:

* The Energy Blog - EEStor Update #8
* The Energy Blog - Oilsands Project to Use Bituman Instead of Natural Gas to Produce Steam. The myth that natural gas limits will constrain tar sands production should evaporate now - bootstrapping has commenced (a very bad thing from a global warming point of view).
* The Energy Blog - Honda Aims to Produce New Hybrid Design
* Groovy Green - Excess Nightime Grid Energy Could Power More Than 70% Of Electric Vehicles
* Washington Post - Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy
* Buckminster Fuller Institute - The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
* Science News - Not-So-Elementary Bee Mystery
* Alternet - Latin America's Surprising New Eco-Warriors. Liberation ecology ?
* IHT - Western Australia reaps huge profits from Chinese boom
* Energy Bulletin - A letter to President Bush regarding “The Surge”
* Huffington Post - DePalma Film Shocks Venice With Iraq Images Papers Didn't Print
* Chris Hedges - Iran: The Next Quagmire. "We are governed and informed by moral and intellectual trolls. The arrogant call for U.S. hegemony over the rest of the globe is making enemies of a lot of people who might be predisposed to support us, even in the Middle East."
* New Yorker - Test Marketing War With Iran
* David Brin - The Ostrich Papers. "Learn the art of seeing the world through "decent conservative eyes"... and then attack the Neocon monsters in conservative terms".
* Alternet - How Popular Movements Can Confront Corporate Power and Win
* Cryptogon - California Senate Blocks Mandatory ID Implants in Employees
* Cryptogon - MSNBC: Do You Believe Any 9/11 Conspiracy Theories?