D-Day

On Thursday February 12th, the world celebrated Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. Or at least the world had that option.

I have been getting off at the same metro station for the past half year. And yet, on that day, I saw something new: people handing out a magazine called "Vågn op" (in Egnlish: "Wake up"). They are Christians. With a capital "C".

Now, my question is this: was that a coincidence? Did they just happen to be at that station at that point? Or was it the birthday of Charles Darwin that made them want to push their point?

2009 is also the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species. So naturally, the whole issue of science versus religion is taken out for a spin. The scary thing is, that so many seem to doubt or reject evolution.

In a recent article (The Economist, February 7th 2009, "Unfinished Business"), a figure was showing the 2006 figures on public acceptance of evolution. My country, Denmark, held second place (only surpassed marginally by Iceland) with more than 80 percent accepting evolution. The rest either doubted or rejcted it. The Netherlands, usually seen as progressive and enlightened, hovered around 60-65 percent. Of course, most people will notice the bottom two (Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africe wasn't included) were: the US (35-40 percent) and Turkey (25 percent).

But after 150 years, the scary thing is, that any country can have any true rejection left.

I could have hoped for a better birthday gift for old Charles. If anyone wants me, I'll be at the anniversary exhibit on evolution:

(Museum of Zoology)

Writing on the Wall

We are in the middle of a financial crisis. I know so because it's in the paper every single day.

Some people say we should help ensure liquidity for the banks. Others that the banks are hording the liquidity and that "we" (a euphemism for "the government") should lend directly to individuals and companies. Others again seem to think we should give the money to public works though in Denmark, the fear-induced economic slow-down has hit the retail sector more than it did construction.

I say they all got it wrong!

The first thing we do is remove the advertisements by the companies that already went belly-up.

The picture in this blog entry is from Copenhagen airport where all the luggage trolleys still have Sterling Airlines ads on the back. Sterling was based in Denmark but had an Icelandic owner. They filed for bankruptcy on November 29th.

And yet, 45 days later, they still ask us if we think about our next flight. I am sure some people are. Like the ones who bought tickets only to be told hours later that there was no arline anymore. I wonder what exactly they are thinking (the ad doesn't tell us).

Or another Icelandic company, Glitnir bank, which has a big poster, also in Copenhagen airport. A school of fish is together showing the sign for infinity, and the text reads: "Is nature trying to tell you something?". It might be telling us to remove the poster.

When the posters and the ads are gone, then we can talk about how to move on. Right now, the Icelandic relics are taunting us.

Too Little, Too Much

The European Union works based on a few simple principles. One of them is, that they do what they do because they it makes sense to do it on a European scale rather than leave it to the national governments. The official term is subsidiarity.
Let us look at a current example: the European Union wants to give each child between the ages of 6 and 10 one piece of fruit every week. The hope is that the project will help combat obesity.

Tell me this: is this project too much, too little or both? Personally, I think it's both!

One piece of fruit per week doesn't change anything. From the perspective of general health, it is underfunded an unambitious to the point of being ridiculous.

One the issue of European necessity, I am still unable to see how doing this on a European scale serves a purpose. Each country should decide this sort of issue themselves.

So what are we left with? Well, as usual just another piece of bureaucracy without effect, without mandate and without a shred of common sense.

Next year, we'll be voting for new EU parliament members. With our luck, not a single candidate will see a flaw in this wonderfully pointless initiative.

Need… More…

The election has ended and I am going through a sort of withdrawal. I no longer get to watch election television at odd hours of the night. I can’t find page upon page of analysis by people who used to be spin doctors themselves. I… I simply can’t spend much more time on the election.
In the days right after the voting, we have the counting of the votes for individual candidates and the work of creating the basis for the next four years. But now it is all over. We still have «ordinary» politics but it doesn’t have the urgency of Elections.
I got to try something new this year: handing out flyers for a specific candidate. And even got to help with hanging up a few posters. Søren Toft, the candidate I was out promoting didn’t get in, but he did a fantastic job with the campaign. And it was interesting to sense how it works when an election is about more than just receiving information. And that is perhaps the single most exciting experience in this campaign: actually being one of the many people who actively try to participate in the process. I wasn’t as active as I would have liked, but it was a start. And in four years, I get to do it again.
I know: I am an election junkie.

Election Small Talk

Less than a week ago, the Prime Minister used his right to call for national elections. Those who know me can testify to me being an election news junkie. I stayed up half the night last year to follow the US midterm elections, and was an avid reader of articles regarding the election in France earlier this year.

This year, there is a small difference to the experience from earlier elections: this year, I am a member of a political party. On Saturday, I was walking around in central Copenhagen, getting a feel for the first parts of the campaigns. I ended up at city hall square where 60 or so young people were lying on the ground, while their friends walked around trying to get us outraged at what takes place in Iraq. It should be noted, these were youth activists from the unity list – an assortment of former communists, extreme socialists and the like. Like all other parties, some of them are nice people, other are less so.

When revealing my party membership, the young man immediately wanted me to see myself as personally responsible for the death of over 200,000 Iraqis. Failing to agree with him, we entered into a small discussion which started from a low point because he was unhappy that I in return wanted him to take personal responsibility for all the deaths under Stalin.

I then tried to seize the opportunity for agreement when he stated that the problem in Iraq wasn’t that we had freed the country from an evil dictator, but the management of the effort thereafter. I asked him if that meant that he in principle agreed with going into Iraq, to which he immediately agreed – and then looked perplexed. Obviously, he didn’t agree with me but had been caught up in a rather convoluted argument which suddenly left him unhappy.

I left him as he decided that he would rather discuss other issues which I suspected would be as fruitful as debating against handguns in the NRA.

I wish that politics could be about compromises rather than incriminations.

Faster!

Last month, the Greater Copenhagen Region experienced a rather dramatic rainfall. A few areas further away from the city were actually flooded. And a bit of earth slided away from under the train tracks on the line I use every morning on my way to work. More than a month later, they still drive slowly on that part of the rails.

Two weeks later, we had sun. It made the tracks start to expand and shortly after, the trains had to slow down as the tracks were now winding more than expected.
Of course, all this was insignificant as problems with signals have generally kept the trains running slower than usual. The weather (no matter what kind) is just there for additional spice.
Traffic research is an area of research in its own right – I believe it is part of the same general field of science as chaos theory. One part of their scientific arsenal is comparing train schedules over time, it seems. At least someone in the field did that recently. It may be a crude methodology, but it can show some interesting results: trains are no faster today than they were 40 years ago.

I recently saw parts of an old «Die Hard» film – the one taking place at an airport. Some of the scenes take place in an airplane circling the airport, waiting for clearance to land. At one point, the British air hostess says to a passenger: «We’re like British Rail. We may be late, but we’ll get there». The plane later crashes to the ground in a mighty explosion.
Having just been to London, I noticed that although the public transport may have its problems (including a minor flooding in the Underground), they were improving. Stations were being renovated as part of a billion pound renovation project.

So in Denmark, surely the same kind of progress must be on the way, right? Wrong! Yes, we have a metro, which has been a great improvement but busses and s-trains, which serve many more are worse off so the overall picture is grim. And with a bridge linking Funen and Zealand, we still don’t drive faster than 40 years ago.

Yet the only major project on the drawing board is a bridge linking Zealand and Germany. Mind you, it will not be connected to the high speed train network that is growing in Europe. Ignoring that we can already drive to Germany via Jutland (thanks to the aforementioned existing bridge), I just want to know when my daily commute will be on time. Now that would be a prestige project in my book.

Legitimate?

Right now, the leaders of eight countries are sitting at Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm, Germany, behind a 12 kilometre long steel fence. Outside, thousands of protesters are demonstrating. I believe that it is democracy at its finest when people take to protesting against or for things that are important to them, but the current scenario is beginning to look like we are one ring short of «Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus». In the first ring, we have the politicians and in the second we have the protestors. Some may claim that this shows how politicians have become kings and queens, removed from reality. Others – like myself – see this as a sad necessity brought on by violent protestors.

But the first thing to annoy me is the claim that meetings like G8, WTO and the World Economic Forum are not legitimate.

Christoph Kleine, a spokesperson for the collective, said their protest is a «clear sign of our rejection of the G8 and our belief that the G8 is completely illegitimate.

«These are the governments of eight countries who think they can rule the world because they are the richest and most powerful. This is not democratic.

«We can see the result of domination by these countries - war, social injustice. They stand for the danger of climate change. They are the countries who are responsible for most of the emissions.»

-From the BBC

The claim is, that G8 (as an example) is illegitimate because they try to rule the world and they are not the elected officials of said world. True, they are not elected on behalf of the world. They are elected by majorities on eight countries (we’ll ignore Russia as an example of a non-democracy in action). The G8 does not have any formal power, and can therefore only work at all if the eight countries agree and try to enforce the agreements.

Tricia O'Rourke, spokesperson for Oxfam, said: «We are reminding them that they have to deliver.»

«In 2005 in Gleneagles they promised they would increase aid to $50bn (£25bn) by 2010, but we recently calculated following current trends they will be short by $30bn.»

-From the
BBC

It sounds like an organisation with the ability to make and keep promises, right?

The G8 – like the World Economic Forum – is a gathering of people with power and influence who talk – don’t rule, but talk. Last time I checked, it’s a good thing when people talk. But apparently, it is a bad thing when the people talking actually have power.

So who can talk without democracy suffering? Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran? Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? Or maybe the few thousand demonstrators who set cars on fire in Rostock this week as part of their protest?

I think I prefer a world where people with power talk instead of throwing bricks and molotov cocktails.

Nice, Neat and Wrong.

I truly dislike bad statistics, and today, I found a very ugly example of this: The Global Peace Index.

One of the things we – all humans – like to do is rank everything and use it for comparisons: Danes will compare themselves to Norwegians and Swedes, they do the same. We all like to see how much better Scandinavia fares compared with the rest of the world. It is a natural urge and can be great for starting a discussion. But at the same time, an index serves as the basis for a brief news story confirming existing stereotypes.

Today’s example comes from the Reuters story: «US ranks low, just above Iran on new peace index» .

The short version is: a philanthropist, a small group of researchers and the Economist Intelligence Unit (as an economist, I can appreciate the humour in ‘economist intelligence’) got together to create the «Global Peace Index», a composite indicator of 24 variables that indicate and rank how peaceful 121 countries are. To quote Global Peace Index President Clyde McConaghy said:

«(…) peace can and has and will continue to be measured.»

That may be true, but that doesn’t say that this index has achieved that result.

The primary story was that: Iraq is at the bottom, the US fared pretty badly (worse than Yemen, better than Iran). Norway was at the top of the list, followed by New Zealand and Denmark (which earned it an honourable mention in a Danish newspaper ). And the final bit: Leo Abruzzese, the North American editorial director of the Economist Intelligence Unit said that in general the most peaceful countries were the smallest, the most politically stable and democratic.

Have you learned much new from the story? I didn’t either, but it did confirm the prejudices I was supposed to have: ‘I am good, other are not’. But it doesn’t really tell me much. Let us look at what it is they have made. First the idea of a composite indicator:

Composite indicator:

Definition:
A composite indicator is formed when
individual indicators are compiles into a single index, on the basis of an underlying model of the multi-dimensional concept that is being measured.

Context:
A composite indicator measures multi-dimensional concepts (e.g. competitiveness, e-trade or environmental quality) which cannot be captured by a single indicator. Ideally, a composite indicator should be based on a theoretical framework / definition, which allows individual indicators / variables to be selected, combined and weighted in a manner which reflects the dimensions or structure of the phenomena being measured.

Source: OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms

A composite indicator can be a great tool for some things, but they tend to oversimplify things, and the potential for bias in the indicators is sometimes rather high.

And then there is the issue of whether or not they measured the right thing in the first place. Let us take the example of the US. They allegedly scored low because of the number of wars it is involved in, large numbers of soldiers killed on the battlefield and high defence spending as well as by having the world's largest prison population per share of overall population and relatively high levels of violent crime. To me, that doesn’t quite work.

A belligerent country may try to invade others, peaceful ones may be engaged in a defensive war. Would the US during World War 2 be considered peaceful? Very unlikely, but they did not go into the war until attacked. They lost a lot of soldiers in battle and had high spending on the military, just like Germany and Japan did at the time. But do we learn much from an index that cannot distinguish between the two?

The US probably puts too many people in jail, but is that a measure of not being peaceful? Other countries use the death penalty very liberally against political opponents. That isn’t measured.

Another example was Israel, which ranked lower than Iran. Is there a greater chance that a suicide bomber will strike in Tel Aviv than in Teheran? Yes, but does that measure peacefulness? The Iranians were also rated as having more trust in other citizens. I wonder if that is because they don't have to fear suicide attacks. Just a thought.

At the end of it all, the index seems to measure whether the citizens can live in peace combined with whether their government (democratically elected or not) is using official military force abroad. Two different things, with one common denominator: they don’t explain the cause, only the action. If anyone wants a discussion about peace, they need to include measures for why countries see their soldiers dying abroad, what the alternatives to prison is and whether overt military actions are the only measure of creating the opposite of peace. What about supporting terrorist groups in other countries?

I will not claim that the US seems peaceful these days, but the group itself quote Albert Einstein: « Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order--in short, of government». I would like to see the Global Peace Index try to reflect that instead. It was a nice thought, but let's go back to the drawing board.

Priorities!

Hamas and Fatah – the two major political factions in Palestinian politics – have formed a unity government. It is still not clear if the new government will recognize the state of Israel, promise to end violent attacks or even live up to past agreements with Israel. This is important. If all they resolve to do is not fight amongst themselves, it could even lead to steps backwards in the quest for peace in the Middle East.

And yet, this did not make it to the front page of any paper in Denmark. We had more important stories. Like the future wedding between a former member of the Danish monarchy and a man who doesn’t even own up to his existing obligations as a father.

And even that story had a bit of merit, since it could – albeit under very extreme circumstances – affect who inherits the throne in Denmark.

But what did we get to read about?

You guessed it: the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

It is always sad when someone dies, but the level of media interest? She does not hold any political office. She is known only for her Playboy past, her short marriage to an old rich guy and the subsequent trials, a short-lived television show and a few personal tragedies. And that makes her much more interesting than peace in the Middle East, global warming, politics and the new potential threats from Russia and China.

Am I the only one to find this scary? That for all the important stories that could grace the world’s big medias, we focus on the death of a person who is famous for being famous?

Inspired by the fictional character of Ronald Weasley: We need to sort out our priorities!

Green House Hot Air

If people have difficulties in believing in the Green House effect, blame the weather. Not that I don’t believe in it myself – I just think that the warm weather has employed the same PR experts who recommended Osama Bin Laden to send out a video a few days before the last presidential election in the US.

So what has made me think so? Let us review what has happened in the last months.

» Neoconservatives and right-wing Christian group are apparently advocating that driving a car suited for off-road driving in jungles and deserts with a fuel consumption equal to that of a small nation may not be the right thing to do. The Christians are worried that the green house effect may be damaging God’s creation and neoconservatives are worried about the dependence on oil from other – potentially not too friendly – countries. That should definitely help on reducing emissions. (Read: «Waking up and catching up» The Economist, January 25th 2007)

» The carmakers and oil companies are advocating green initiatives themselves. The motives could be many and varied – but probably with some aim on the bottom line. If someone decides to set up pro-environment initiatives, it’s better to make money off it than loose money because of it. That isn’t wrong either. Economics – and the world in general – works that way. Action follows the incentives. I am just sorry we didn’t set up the incentives earlier. Whatever the motivations, this is another positive for the environmentalists.

» One final incentive regards the direct financial loses that could arise from changes in the global climate. OECD is warning that tourism revenue from ski resorts may be a thing of the past in several European countries, as the rise in temperatures could eliminate the snow – and hence the skiing. And great wines may in the future not come from Italy, Greece, or Southern California but perhaps you would like a nice vintage from Cornwall or Niagara Falls? It will definitely upset the people who are currently making a living off skiing and wine. (Read: «OECD warns climate change is threatening Europe's skiing trade» OECD, December 13th 2006 and «Climate shifts will change the future of vintages» Worlds of Wine, April 21st 2004)

With all these incentives, it is perhaps not so surprising that traditional environmental lobbies, politicians and industry alike all talked the same talk. And the scene was perfect: no snow in Davos, as people started to arrive. No snow at the ski resort of Davos. It could not be any better. The scene is set. (Read: «Can this really be Davos?» BBC's Tim Weber, January 23rd 2007)

And this is where everything starts to fall apart. Just as everyone is settled in and ready for the Davos experience and a focus on global warming, it starts to snow!

I still believe that there is something to the notion of global warming, but it looks ridiculous when people discuss it with reporters live on BBC while they huddle up in thick winter coats around the microphone because they apparently are in the middle of a blizzard.

It just isn’t very sensible PR on behalf of Mother Nature.