Climate Tricks 23: Using Typhoon Haiyan for Climate and Energy Rent-Seeking

Below is an abridged article written two weeks ago by a friend, Vice President of Reason Foundation http://reason.org/, Julian Morris. He is also the former Executive Director of the International Policy Network (IPN, London). The full article with two charts is here. I added the chart below and is not part of his original paper.
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The Terrible Toll of Typhoon Haiyan Doesn't Excuse Bad Policy

Julian Morris

November 19, 2013

The terrible toll of Typhoon Haiyan—estimated to have killed more than 4,000 people—reminds us of the often awesome power of the weather. Some say the death and destruction in Asia are symptoms of climate change and that we can expect worse to come—unless we cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases. Coincidentally, negotiators from around the world are meeting in Warsaw, Poland this week and next to attempt to hammer out a deal that would do just that. But cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases may not be the best way to address the threat of hurricanes and typhoons, even if climate change is making them worse.

When it hit the Gulf of Leyte in the Philippines, Haiyan had sustained winds of 145 mph, with gusts of up to 170 mph, making it comparable in intensity to the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which had winds of approximately 145 mph at landfall on the Texas Coast. The loss of life in Leyte, currently estimated at between 3,600 and 4,500, may ultimately be as great or greater than Galveston, where between 8,000 and 12,000—a quarter of the town’s population—are estimated to have died, making it the most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history.

Some activists claim that Haiyan is a symptom of climate change and that it should be a wake-up call to take action to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Even theologians are getting in on the act, saying that the typhoon is the result of the sin of climate denial! But those may not be the most appropriate lessons. First, because it is far from clear that global warming is leading to an increase in the number or intensity of typhoons and hurricanes. Second, and more importantly, even if global warming does result in more extreme weather events, cutting emissions will likely do little to reduce the damage they inflict, while potentially costing a great deal, thereby reducing people’s ability to take preventative or ameliorative action….

(Trend lines in global temperature, air (UAH and RSS), land + sea surface (HadCRU), land only (GISS) vs. global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, January 1997 to October 2013)

Foreign Donations and Customs Bureaucracy

This is from a friend, JB Baylon of the I Am PGH (Person Giving Hope) Foundation. He posted this yesterday in his fb wall, about the Customs bureaucracy even for donations to victims of typhoon Haiyan.

EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS REQUIRE EXTRAORDINARY RULES. I just saw an email exchange between Gil Santos and someone based in Guam about an aborted effort to donate used X-ray equipment and other supplies from the US, aborted because Customs officials are allegedly assessing each of the four 40-foot containers $12,500.

This reminds me of a story of a ship laden with used hospital equipment that returned to the US without unloading its cargo for PGH also because Customs officials were imposing some tariff on the donations...

As if the PGH is not in dire need of help like this??

This is not the first time I've heard of things like these. When Enrique Zobel was trying to explore ways of helping fellow para and quadriplegics like himself we discovered that collecting slightly used wheelchairs and hospital beds from abroad would be subject to tax here at home.

I think it is time to review these policies and Yolanda provides us the perfect reason to do so.

I think any donation to a public hospital should be tax free. Any donation to a private hospital should be taxed at half or less than the normal.

Now anyone who tries to use this tax free or tax reduced donation system to smuggle items and/or somehow circumvent our Customs regulations should be dealt with firmly with the "guilty" institutions blacklisted and its officials criminally charged.

The default principle of government. policy should be to make it easier to donate. As it is now it seems the default principle of policy is to strangle the process so as to avoid any forms of smuggling... 

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Four years ago, I wrote about the Books for the Barrios (BftB,www.booksforthebarriors.com) donation of thousands of books, other education materials from the US to rural public schools here in the Philippines.

Those books from America were donated FREE.
Those books will be distributed to public elementary schools in rural areas of the Philippines for FREE.

But when those containers of books from the US reach the Philippine ports, BftB Manila pays for the following:
1. Customs duties around P65,000 -- yes there are taxes for donated and used books!
2. Customs broker around P60,000 -- an agency that deals everything with the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

The BftB Manila staff who narrated me that story last year, said that what's worse, donated medicines and vaccines by volunteer medical missions from abroad, many of them are parked at the Customs area and allowed to deteriorate. Why? Those medical missions and volunteers have money for the airfare of the volunteers and shipment of free drugs and vaccines. But they never expected there are high taxes and Customs brokerage to pay for those donated medicines, so they did not bring money for such. Those vaccines are on refrigerated containers that run on electricity, of course. Since they cannot pay the taxes, and the medicines require continued electricity while the papers and payment are being processed, the BOC personnel disconnect the electricity as electricity charges are being borne by the Bureau. Within hours, those useful, essential, life-saving medicines become useless as they need to be kept at a particular temperature (say 0 or 10 Celsius). When the temperature goes up or down significantly, the medicines become ineffective for their intended patients.

(See CSOs and State 8: Gawad Kalinga, Health NGOs and Taxes)

I checked the Bureau of Customs (BOC) website and I saw this bureaucratic process, that donated goods must pass through the DSWD and must be cleared with lots of requirements. See here.

O, bureaucracy. One more reason why the BOC should be abolished, and a unilateral free trade, free movement of foreign donations, should be adopted.

Typhoon Haiyan, Some Stories of Courage

I am speechless watching the photos, reading stories, of death and destruction in several provinces in central Philippines when typhoon Haiyan hit them last Friday, November 8. Facebook and twitter are sizzling with various stories and opinions. I can't add much on these. I will just repost this opinion from an anonymous person, shared in facebook today by several friends. I just added photos from various online sources.
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(Personal account of a person who survived the Typhoon and does not want his name posted, made today)

I wont be posting my whole experience as there's always some people who think they know better. But i do want to make things clear so you would have an idea what its really like being there.

1. Tacloban prepared for Yolanda, to say that they didn't because of the their casualty number is a bit disappointing. They had families already relocated in designated evacuation centers even before the storm it was just sad that those places were destroyed as well.

2. Don't go on thinking you know better by saying they should have left the seaside. Im not enitrely sure but even near the heart of the city there are sandwiched cars my guess is the water went as far as there when it hit.

3. Step down your high horse from time to time. Dont be so quick to judge looters, i was looter. I looted medecine for the red cross, milk and food for the children. Walked 4 hours and dug into 2 foot empty plastic bottles to get at least something to drink and bring back some. The people who took flat screen tv's were the same people who offered to give me a drink and some lugaw. Those who looked like ex-convicts offered me something to eat. Almost all the time they are willing to lend a hand when you said you really need something. What they didnt show on the news was how people were helping each other amidst the catastrophe.

4. These tv personalities and politicians majority are a piece of shit. Mar Roxas and his body guards never helped us retrieve families trapped on the cottages on the hotel that we were staying or assisted in helping the wounded. They just walked around clean tidy as if they couldnt be bothered. Ted Failon ate a hearty meal while some children barely had anything to eat and slept in comfy beds while children slept on marble floors. Love Anover panicked and asked us to go downtown to get military assistance like they were someone special. You dont hear those on the news do you? its all about what was recorded on the shot.

5. It might look like chaos i guess that's what they want to show you, but there are police patrols, i personally went to the police station and ask about the rumors of hostility, they told us that its not true as they have not received any news about it. dont think for once that they are not doing their jobs, their manpower is spread so thin why? Because some of them are dead.

6. Dont for once think that everyone hungry is hostile. Dont you dare think like "oh im trained, oh i have seen this happen somewhere, oh its going to happen here" its not a movie. People just want someone to talk to, hear their story ask them how they are, i found out that listening to what they have to say helps them and it helps you.

7. There are no zombies. You can talk to the people sometimes you would be surprised as to how they can help and how much they are willing to help.

8. No one is special. You might have the best training, equipment, plans or what have you. At the end of the day youre one of them, you are in the same situation as them, to think otherwise. Is i think quite foolish.

9. To think its always going to be this way is foolish as well. Im counting 3 to 4 days if relief and resources cant make it, it will be chaotic.

10. Ego is useless.

The more you find, the less you lose... find something in each person that you meet.

I am no expert, again theres going to be someone here who has tons of things to say because of his knowledge or expertise. This is what i experienced, im not a victim nor a survivor, but for 5 days i was a citizen of Tacloban.

This will be my last post about what happened.

Climate Tricks 22: Typhoon Haiyan due to Man-Made CC?

The strongest typhoon this year in the planet, storm "Haiyan" (renamed as "Yolanda" by PAGASA) has left the country after it rammed through central Philippines, affecting many provinces like Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Palawan. As of this morning, casualties have topped 100 dead people, mostly in Taclocan, Leyte.

Some groups naturally seize on this story to say that "man-made climate change" is to blame. When there are less rain and less storms, it's due to "man-made global warming" or "man-made CC". When there are lots of rains, more storms, it's also due to "man-made GW/CC". So the public must send more money to the UN -- IPCC, FCCC, UNEP, WMO, UNDP, etc. The public should also donate more money to Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other big international environmentalist groups.

A friend posted today that "Dr. CP David (UP National Institute of Geological Sciences or NIGS) goes against Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists and remains a climate change skeptic on GMA News TV today."

I commented that he's a real David, son of my former boss, Prof. Randy David also of UP. CP has shown independence of mind and not swallowed by a corrupt UN, at least in climate and energy policies. 

CC is true, global warming was true. CC is purely cyclical and natural, warming-cooling-warming-cooling, with or without humans and their SUVs or bicycles. Nothing to be alarmed except alarmism itself. It is wrong to say that there is only global warming and there is no global cooling.

The head of UP Biology Department, Dr. Perry Ong, delivered a "centennial lecture" in UP in 2008, attacking AGW and "man-made GW/CC" by the UN IPCC. Another friend, Fidel Nemenzo of UP Math Department, once told me that there are many UP natural scientists who are laughing at the IPCC reports. Problem is that they don't get oodles of UN money, also WB, ADB, USAID, etc. money to "save the planet."

When people say Haiyan is the "strongest storm in RECORDED HISTORY", when did they start counting with such history? 20 yrs ago? 50? 100? 1,000, 1 million yrs ago? Chances are they don't know. Just a sound bite, to keep climate alarmism remain alarmist.

And UN IPCC is NOT a scientific body. It is a government and political body. That is why it is "Inter-governmental Panel on CC" and not "Inter-scientists Panel on CC".  The head of IPCC was never a scientist. Its head for many years now, Rajendra Pachauri, is a an Indian transport economist or engineer.  

The Sun-GCRs-climate link theory is a harder nut to crack, than CO2-climate hypothesis. Like Henryk Svensmark (Denmark) theory,
Svensmark’s Cosmic Jackpot: “Evidence of nearby supernovae affecting life on Earth", April 24, 2012.

A recent critique of IPCC 2013 report, 

Scientific Critique of IPCC’s 2013 ‘Summary for Policymakers’

by Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, S. Fred Singer, and Willie Soon*, October 19, 2013

Anthropogenic GW (AGW) is religion. In religion, people do not need hard graphs, charts, satellite photos. Ok, they need graphs too, but only those that cater to the belief. If certain scientfic graphs stare them in the face and these data say the allegation is wrong, well, people close their eyes to contrary data and keep believing. That is why it is religion and faith-based. 

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/

That's why Dr. CP David, Dr. Perry Ong, others from UP natural science community have more sence and independence of mind than the UN paid hacks, plus Greenpeace, WWF, other treehuggers. But another friend suggested that skepticism is "crackpotism". Hehehe, product of emotionalism and religionism courtesy of UN's decades-long deception.