Climate stupidity, part 2

(Note: the original title of this posting was "The man-made warming religion (MMWR), part 2")

Below is a continuation of the exchanges in a friend’s facebook status, re the man-made warming religion (MMWR). B

ut before that, here are two updates on global sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly, data as of this week.

Notice the steep decline in SST in Nino region 4 -- near Indonesia, Philippines, other south east Asian countries. During the 2007-08 cooling, September 2007 SST anomaly (or deviation from the average) was around -0.4 C. As of September 12, 2010, the SST anomaly was around - 1.4 C. Meaning, current cooling of Nino 4 region is about 1.0 C colder than the already colder than usual mid to late 2007. Data is from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/indices.shtml.

And here's another presentation of SST anomaly. See the dark blue blue color representing cooler than usual water in the Pacific Ocean, especially in the equator, data as of September 16, 2010. If this pattern will continue, by December 2010 to around February 2011, such blue color-coded water in the Pacific will reach the Philippine archipelago. Really brrrrr months ahead. Data is from http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif
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MMWR part 2.

One of the discussants argued,

If by consensus, we mean "unanimity", then there really is no consensus. But is it reasonable to call the scientific opinion that warming is caused by human activities "religion"?

"National and international science academies and scientific ...societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 which states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]

No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.[2][3] Some other organisations also hold non-committal positions." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_changeSee More

Real science, unlike political science, is very strict: theory and data must conform with each other at all times. If theory conflicts with data, theory must give way, data should prevail. The previous theory reverts to become a mere hypothesis, to be subjected to a battery of more tests, to see if the previous theory holds or it should be abandoned and thrown away.

So many data that contradict the "unprecedented warming due to human carbon emission" claim by Al Gore and the IPCC. The existence of the medieval warm period (MWP), much warmer than past century's warming (roughly from 1850 to 1998) was written by several hundred peer-reviewed authors and articles.

If the IPCC authors are so confident of their findings, why were they all cowards to confront the several hundred scientists who presented papers in the International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) the past 3 years? The 1st and 2nd ICCC were held in NYC itself where the UN holds office. IPCC should have sent 20 or 200 of its scientists to debate squarely with the contrarian scientists who blatantly organize an international forum in NYC itself that attempts to discredit most or all of what they wrote. But none, zero soul from IPCC authors. Why are they ALL so "busy" or coward?

When a so-called theory contradicts with data, and since data must prevail over theory, and people still believe in that "theory", then it can be considered as a religion. In religion, you don't need much data and scientific facts. You only need to believe, you only need faith, and that's it. There was a MWP, but people say "No, there was no MWP, the past warming was unprecedented." That's religion. There is a climate cycle of warming-cooling-warming-cooling in the past 10,000 yrs, past 1 million yrs, etc. But people say "No, the world's temp was generally flat, until the industrial revolution came and created unprecedented warming." That's religion. Disregard facts, let faith prevail. Religion.

His counter-point:

I don't know that AGW theory has already been refuted. Surely, not by ICCC scientists, since the IPCC scientists did not attend their conferences to debate about the "new data" they have found? Regarding MWP and climate cycle of warming-cooling-warming, I don't think climate scientists are refuting that; only that the level of C02 concentration today is much higher than in those times and is the most likely cause of present-day warming (as Hyungsik pointed out in his post). By the way, many non-scientists like myself form our opinions and beliefs (or embrace a religion as you prefer to call it) by looking at websites like this: http://www.bis.gov.uk/go-science/climatescience/human-activities. So, it maybe better if you can put up a blog that refutes their arguments and counterarguments one by one for the benefit of the public.

The only problem, I think, is that if people read your website and accept the counter-theory you are proposing based on the data and interpretations you have presented, nothing can stop climate scientists who are advancing the AGW theory from claiming that they have data and interpretations that refute your claims. And it is then that people turn to scientists with the strongest claims to legitimacy to help them form their opinions and beliefs. Thus, ironically, scientists become proponents of a new "religion" in a world where people are asked to decide/vote on policies that will determine the future of the human polity. Science can wait for "certainty", but politics is doomed to take action in the midst of "uncertainty" and conflicting values, beliefs and opinions, in a social climate that is forever changing.

When Einstein's theory of relativity was still being questioned then, he said something like this: "They said there are 1,000 scientists who say I'm wrong. I don't need 1,000 other scientists to prove that I'm wrong. I only need one to prove that I'm wrong."

The MWP existence is not a "new" data. It's old data, some scientists have written about it in peer-reviewed journals 50 yrs ago or older. So far, there are 879 different scientists from 522 diff research institutions around the world who wrote about the truthfulness of the MWP, http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/scientists.php. But the AGW religion explicitly or implicitly say it never happened because the recent warming has zero precedent, it is "unprecedented."

On this count alone, AGW is totally discredited already. Plus there are many other theories to explain the Earth's warming-cooling cycle in the past and the present.

It was cited above, the IPCC Jan. 2001 report -- that's the 3rd Assessment Report or AR3. The most prominent graph in AR3 was the "hockey stick" shape made by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State U. That graph shows a generally flat world temp over the past 1,000 years -- no MWP, no little ice age (LIA) -- until about 1850s, CO2 and world temp rose rapidly up to the present. The graph looks like a hockey stick.

Lots of scandal generated by that graph, more appropriately called "Mann-made warming" to refer to its author, Michael Mann. Now, go to IPCC AR4 released in November 2007. That graph is gone, no traces. No explanation whatever given by AR4 why the most prominent graph of AR3 is gone.

The theory of gravity has zero skeptic, because data and theory always conform with each other. No one jumped from a building or an airplane without a parachute just to disprove that theory, everyone knows that theory is true. Many other scientific theories have zero skeptic or contrarians because facts always conform with theory.

In AGW or man-made warming religion, the number of skeptical voices is directly related to the number of contrary facts. If we go by Eisntein;s advice, just one -- not 100, not 1,000, only one -- contrary data and AGW is already discredited. Only politics and evil desire for global ecological central planning keeps it alive.

Climate stupidity, part 1

(Note: the original title of this posting was "The man-made warming religion (MMWR)")

I love debates, especially on topics that I have done a lot of readings already. Like climate change, drug price control, intellectual property rights (IPR) and health, taxes, free market, free trade, limited government, and so on.

I encountered a long debate with some believers of the man-made warming religion (MMWR) this week in facebook. A Korean friend posted in his facebook status this note:

“UNEP Sustainer just launched a new article about relations climate cahnge and politic. This is presenting our mission and identity. We are oppositing to Climate scepticism unlike opinion of Mr. Nonoy from Phillipines.”

I said “No problem, friend. Did you see my latest compilation of articles on the subject, "Essays on climate alarmism part 2", 20 pages long, http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20100825.pdf.

Also my review of the book "Climatism!" by Steve Goreham. It has lots of graphs and satellite pictures, showing that "man-made warming" is based on faith, not science. That's why it can be considered as a religion. See here, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2010/08/climatism.html

Most warmers would quickly jump on “appeal to political authority” attitude and launch some ad-hominem attacks like this one:

"That's only his (Mr. Goreham) rhetoric for some propagation. I bet Steve is not a climatologist. I believe the coordinated and agreed opinions from hundreds of climate scientists from IPCC members, rather than one writer with different scientific background who never published a paper on the scientific journal. That's very typical tactics used by climate skeptics."

Since it is a clear example of ad-hominem attack – attacking the messenger, not the message – I quickly countered that all the top leaders of the MMWR are non-scientists. Al Gore is a politician. Rajendra Pachari, IPCC chairman, is an economist. Lord Stern of UK is also an economist. Leonardo di Caprio is an actor. The "big" scientists in the warming camp like Michael Mann and Phil Jones were involved in the "climategate" scandals.

We should focus on the science because that's what Al Gore and the IPCC do not want the public to do. They want the public to become idiot and not ask questions on the physical science basis of the MMWR. They say, "Science is settled, debate is over, everyone shut up and listen to what we say."

The other guy on the MMWR replied that

"Climate science is very complex. Nobody understands the whole system. Only peer reviewed opinions should be trusted. We don’t have much time to argue about it. We already emitted substantial amount of greenhouse gases and it is very likely that global temperature will exceed 2 degree celsius compared to pre-industrial era unless we succeed to mitigate drastically within 15 years.”

For me, this is a clear example of the aggressive attitude by the advocates of the MMWR. This attitude goes like this: “We have no more time for debate, enough of debates, time for action, to accept lots of new environmental regulations, lots of carbon taxation.”

I am not a scientist. My academic training and professional work is economics and economic research. But I read a number of literatures about climate science. I have attended Heartland Institute's 2nd and 4th international conference on climate change (ICCC) in NY last year and Chicago this year. It is a high level scientific conference and I have heard a lot of scientists there -- solar physicists, meteorologists, climatologists, geologists, biologists, ex-astronauts, ex-NASA scientists, etc. So many skeptical voices from scientific point of view. And all key leaders and scientists of IPCC, Al Gore, are always invited there, and they all chicken out, they are all cowards to face real debates.

About “peer reviewed papers only”, the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4) has dozens of non-peer reviewed papers incorporated in it. The "Himalayangate" scandal in that report did not come from any scientific journal, but from a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) campaign material. Glaciergate, Judithgate, lots of it.

Another believer of MMWR suggested that "Perhaps Nonoy can briefly state the main arguments of climate skeptics and we can see if those can be responded to equally briefly in this thread."

It’s a good suggestion and my answer is very simple: There is climate cycle of warming-cooling-warming-cooling. They are driven by natural factors -- the Sun, pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), volcanoes, water vapor and other natural greenhouse gases (GHGs). Human influence like carbon emission plays a very minor influence on the Earth’s climate.

Global warming was true. It happened in the last century, it happened during the medieval warm period (MWP), and in earlier periods. Global cooling was also true. It happened in the last little ice age (LIA, during the Maundeer minimum and Dalton minimum), it is happening this decade and the coming years.

To say therefore that the recent warming is "unprecedented" is 100% lie. There were plenty of precedents, of periods in the past where there was global warming while human carbon emission was almost zero.

That guy recognized and thanked my reply. Then added another question:

“If the climate cycle is driven ‘mainly’ by natural factors, does it mean that humans cannot "add" to the level of carbon emissions to such an extent that it can push the climate beyond its natural cyle? Similarly, if global warning can happen in the past when human carbon emission was zero, does it mean that we can now emit all the carbon that we want and it will not push the global temperatures to dangerous/catastrophic levels?”

This is a good and valid question. Let’s take some facts. Current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is 390 parts per million (ppm). At the start of the industrial revolution, it was about 285 ppm. Early or middle of this decade, it was 385. Those are chicken numbers. Make it 400, make it 500 ppm. Then do the math: 500 / 1,000,000 = 0.05 percent. Is that so alarming? Make it 1,000 ppm, that's 0.10 percent. So alarming?

The gas that we exhale, the gas that our dogs, chicken, cows, pigs, etc. exhale, is CO2. The gas that our rice, vegetables, flowers, trees, need to produce food via photosynthesis, is CO2. Now the MMWR says that CO2 is an evil gas that must be regulated and taxed as much as possible to discourage its continued large human emission.

Another thing to consider is the role of cloud feedback. Does initial, small warming from humanity's carbon emission result in positive or negative feedback in cloud formation? Both are possibilities, but data gathered by some climatologists suggest that the answer is negative feedback, not positive. See Dr. Roy Spencer's discussions, http://www.drroyspencer.com/

The guy is a climatologist whose work at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) includes interpreting satellite data from NASA’s Aqua satellite – tropospheric temperature, sea surface temperature (SST), shortwave radiation, among others. He is also a former NASA scientist.

The other guy checked one of the graphs I presented in my book review of “Climatism!” and made this comment:

"Total CO2 in the column of troposphere which is about 15 km high deflects the long wave radiation, radiated from the land surface. Human breath, animals and vegetation don’t need to be blamed for that. Only fossil fuel based economy is emitting annually ~30 GtCO2 and total CO2 in the atmosphere amount to 760 GtCO2. Total amount is rapidly increasing and CO2 concentration keep increasing close to 390 ppm. This ‘rate’ of CO2 increment and temperature rise is unprecedented. I say again “the rate”. If you look at the time scale of paleoclimate data figure over the 400 000 years (http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2010/08/climatism.html), one scale is about 10,000 years.

For the past 200 years, CO2 concentration nearly doubled and mean temperature rose ~ 0.7 ºC. If you plot it on the same paleo-climate data, this graph would looks like almost vertical line. This is why scientists say this is "unprecedented” and very likely caused by anthropogenic forcing. Due to this CO2 increment, stratosphere is cooling, thermosphere is shrinking, increasing reflected long radiation is detected, less heat is escaping to space (monitored by satellites), more fossil fuel carbons detected in coral reef. All of those facts are monitored, detected, proved and peer-reviewed, published. Regarding your 2nd arguments, that’s his hypothesis not the agreed results. I’m not a climatologist but I’m writing as much as I know based on published results and basic sciences."

Ok, so what accounted for CO2 concentration of nearly 300 ppm about 130,000 yrs ago from the Vostoc ice cores data? Due also to anthropogenic forcing? But there was zero car or even bicycle during that time, zero fossil fuel emission from any motorized engine. The lesson from that data is that global warming or cooling determined the level of CO2, not the other way around. The lag that was estimated from those data is about 800 yrs.

The important point is that there was, there is, large debates on-going on the causes of those warming-cooling periods. It is totally wrong to say, "debate is over, science is settled" so that everyone should just listen to what Al Gore and the IPCC say we should do. If debates are on-going, if climate science is so uncertain, then why are we taxpayers paying for all those expensive and frequent global climate meetings, paying for carbon taxes, paying for new climate bureaucracies?

That's why MMWR can also be considered as the great climate robbery. See for instance how one Philippine climate official want to borrow $100 billion for the next 10 yrs in climate loans. The level of this climate robbery when this materializes, will be bigger than all the robbery by past dictators and government thieves of the Philippines, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2010/09/climate-loans-racket-part-2.html.

And here’s additional comment from one of those guys:

"Why should the world be taking action on climate change despite the skepticism against the consensus of the scientific community? Maybe because the cost of not taking action and being proven wrong is something that humanity cannot afford?"

But there is zero scientific consensus. As I said, there are large debates on-going. See for instance, http://petitionproject.org/. Some 31,400+ American scientists openly declared that "there is no convincing scientific evidence" of man-made warming. If there is zero consensus, why do politicians and carbon thieves take over?

And these are their counter-comments,

"Wow! I want to meet those students. I wonder why they do not appear in AGU(American Geophysical Union) conference and why they do not present their groundbreaking results in front of their peers. They would win another Nobel prize, if they could prove the science wrong. I want to see them seriously and want to be convinced."

"Just a quick glance at it and I can see that it turns climate science on its head! Rather than cutting CO2 emissions, these scientists are actually arguing that we should welcome them! I'm baffled, to say the least!”

The Sun as main driver of the Earth's climate (warming and cooling) is also a theory but carbon regulators and eco socialists do not like that theory, they cannot regulate the Sun and solar energy. PDO as an important driver of the Earth's climate is also a theory, but eco-socialists don't like that either, they cannot regulate Pacific Ocean's decadal oscillation. Volcanoes and natural degassing is also a theory but eco-socialists do not like that too, they cannot regulate volcanoes and degassing from tectonic movements. It is much easy to demonize, regulate and tax carbon emission, so all political forces, UN climate money, are on regulating carbon.

Indeed it is a large-scale carbon robbery project. Check for instance how much carbon and energy taxes many governments will slap their own taxpayers.
The guys from the MMWR are persistent. One suggested,

"Presuming the climate change is indubitable, developing countries like the Philippines should not be getting loans for climate change mitigation, but grants for climate change adaptation, following the principle of climate justice."

I say whether loans or grants, it is the same climate rent-seeking and robbery. You want even higher taxes for the taxpayers of Europe, Japan, US-Canada, etc. so that climate officials and politicians in the Phiilippines and other poorer countries will enjoy if not steal?

The eco-socialists, eco-capitalists, eco-thieves and eco-saviours, everyone should pause, listen and let the on-going debate among scientists continue. So all global meetings by the UN FCCC, all moves to create new climate bureaucracies, all climate loans, all legislations for carbon taxes, all new climate regulations, should stop. Let us allow the scientific debate to have a general judgment.

And another counter-argument:

"Not if we agree that those responsible for CO2 emissions should take prime responsibility for climate change action. Not if organized citizens can make sure that the grants really go to adaptation measures in agriculture, for example, which is supposed to be the most vulnerable to climate change impact."

Come on, there is NO scientific consensus until now that CO2 emission is evil, that it is the main cause of the past century's warming, nothing. But people keep arguing that the MMWR is so true and all those bureaucratic meetings, climate loans racket, high carbon taxation etc, should continue.

Hello, Cancun, Mexico! November this year, thousands of climate bureaucrats, politicians, politician-posturing environmentalists and NGOs, media, showbiz superstars, and many more will descend on you. Their goal is simple: to have a global ecological central planning action plan.

The web and governments; Beauty and the beast

The worldwide web (www) and the internet are perhaps the greatest invention that humanity has created to pursue what it wants best -- individual freedom, liberty, personal expression.

It is easy to find lots of people attacking capitalism and the profit motive, using tools that were invented precisely by capitalism and the profit motive -- like blogger, wordpress, facebook, youtube, yahoo, twitter, friendster, and so on. We pay zero tax, we pay zero registration fee, we just register and click "I accept" to the terms and conditions of those online networking providers and we are hooked to our friends and family members anytime, anywhere in the world who have internet connection.

Thus, the web is the beautiful creation that relies on zero coercion, zero force, zero mandatory contributions, among people, between service users and providers. Despite charging zero fee for the users, the profit-motive capitalists and entrepreneurs who started and maintain those online networking sites still make billions of dollars of profit somewhere. Everyone is happy for this voluntary exchange.

Governments, in contrast, rely on force and coercion, on mandatory contribution. For its various "services and programs", bureaucracies that were created, bureaucrats who were hired and politicians who were elected, whether we like them or not, we have to part with our money to sustain them all. We have to part with a portion of our individual freedom to submit to whatever old and new regulations, control and prohibitions that they will enact and implement.

This makes governments the beast.

Recently, a number of governments requested google and youtube to remove certain contents from their sites. Governments can cite all sorts of reasons and alibi, like protecting their "national security", etc. Their goal is one and the same: limit personal freedom and the individuals' right to self-expression.

We would also think that among those governments, those under communist leadership will be on top. It is wrong. It is the supposedly democratic governments like Brazil, Germany, India and the US. Data is from The Economist, September 3, 2010 issue.

Controlling the web will be a preoccupation for many governments, big and small, rich and poor. The beast among ruling administrations, among ruling politicians and bureaucrats, push them to control and regulate people both in the physical and virtual worlds.

We ordinary citizens are lucky that capitalism and the independent capitalists invented the web. If it was any government or the United Nations (UN) bureaucrats who invented it, then they will exercise all forms of control and coercion -- censorship, large-scale spying, threats and harassment -- just to make people toe their political line.

Some guys argue that it was not capitalism but the US military who invented the web and the internet. Really? In the first place, governments and the armies are unproductive units in society that produce no surplus. It is private enterprises, private individuals, hard-working and ambitious individuals, who create surplus for society, a big portion of which is siphoned off to sustain governments and huge armies.

The web and governments.
Beauty and the beast.

Mining 1: Mineral Rights

A friend from Delhi, Barun Mitra, founder of Liberty Institute, wrote in his column at WSJ Asia yesterday, Landing India's Next Big Investment: Land and mineral rights must belong to people.

It's about a controversial multi-billion dollar Vedanta bauxite mining project in eastern India state of Orissa that has been stalled. India's Ministry of Environment and Forest issued notice to the mining company for violating various provisions of the Forest Rights Act. Barun argued on land and mineral rights angle, and say that these should belong to the people who live there. Barun made this concluding paragraph,

How ironic, then, that because of the archaic laws of India, promoters of a multibillion-dollar mining project cannot directly negotiate with the people who are on the land. And how tragic that this project's closure is being celebrated by NGO activists as a "victory." It is just the opposite.

The same "state ownership of minerals and natural resources" even on private lands apply in the Philippines. You have a farm, fine, the national and governments recognize your private ownership to that land. You just have to pay the annual real property tax to the local government.

Now, there are also important mineral deposits below your farm, say a copper mine some 500 meters below the surface. Those mineral products belong to the state, not to you. Your ownership is only on the surface.

So the state can grant or issue a license to a mining or quarrying company for a fee or share to total mineral output, to extract and mine those minerals, either by open-pit mining or via underground quarrying. You have zero share on those mineral products I think, it all belongs to the government and the mining company.

This is an opportunist power of the state to circumvent private property ownership. Once land has been titled for ownership to a private person or company, both the surface and sub-surface resources of that land should belong to the landowner. If there are mineral deposits below, a mining company can go straight to the landowner, private entity or a community, say upland dwellers, and negotiate for a mutually-acceptable arrangement in fees.

No water crisis, only alarmism crisis

It is now September, the sky is mostly dark because of the clouds if not rains falling. Many environmental NGOs, government agencies, even held a "La Nina summit" last month to prepare for lots of rains and flooding. But some sectors still parrot the "water crisis" situation until now. That the "water crisis" was due to global warming, or was due to water privatization. These claims and hypothesis are wrong.

In my article last July, Water deficit and alarmism surplus, I argued that the so-called "water crisis" was an engineering problem and not a climate change problem.

Here's another proof, from the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) website itself. As of today, September 8, 2010:

Ipo Dam: current elevation, 99.67 meters;
spilling level, 101 meters.
Alert level: normal.


Lamesa Dam: current elevation, 79.30 meters;
spilling level, 80,15 meters.
Alert level: normal.


Angat Dam: current elevation, 173.10 meters;
spilling level, 217 meters.
Alert level: normal.

See the point above? While Ipo and Lamesa dams are near their spilling levels, Angat dam is still far from its spilling level.

If it was because of "man-made global warming" or because of "capitalist ownership of water supply", then Ipo and Lamesa dams should also experience the same situation as Angat, water level are too far from the spilling level. Ipo and Lamesa should experience the same level of "capitalist exploitation" and "alarming prolonged drought" as Angat dam. But it is not the case.

Blame water supply management or other engineering problems by Maynilad Water (Lopez group), or earlier government intervention in the use of Angat's water supply last year.

Healthcare Competition 4: Solving Info Assymetry

(Note: the original title of this paper was "Info asymmetry in healthcare")

After posting Healthcare competition 5: UK below, an economist friend commented,

I do agree that the "free" health care system is not a bed of roses. However, so does unregulated private sector provision. I think a more relevant policy is that patients should know their options. They should know how providers fare in quality of care measures. Whether they be public or private providers.

Good points there. I believe in the power of market segmentation -- different services for different people/consumers with different needs and different budget. Consider the food sector: there is no government carinderia or govt. restaurant or govt. supermarket, and people are eating. The rich may eat at P2,000/meal, the middle class may eat at P200/...meal, the poor may eat at P20/meal. But it doesnt mean that the P20/meal, only 1% the cost of what the rich may eat, is poisonous or non-nutrious. It can be a complete meal already (carbo, protein, vitamins, etc.) depending on how the household would prepare and cook the food. There is govt. presence in food, like the National Food Authority (NFA), and all it does is accummulate debt year after year, that we taxpayers have to shell out year after year too.

Compare that in healthcare: there are thousands of govt. rural health clinics, thousands of govt. "botika ng barangay", dozens of govt. hospitals, there is a govt. health insurance corp, a govt. drug price control policy, etc. and health problems are expanding.

When you deregulate markets, like food, clothing, footwear, etc., there is a market for everyone, rich and poor, young and old.

My friend replied back:

Clothing, food, and footwear are pure private goods. I am for private sector involvement but more importantly, I would rather have people informed of the quality of service they are about to take. One important ingredient for free markets or deregulation to work is absence of, or minimal information asymmetry, people are informed. More tuned to competition, minimization of information asymmetry.

Information asymmetry is a problem or a situation where one party (say the healthcare provider like the physicians, hospitals, drugstores, etc.) is more knowledgeable than the other (say the patients), and this results in inefficiency of resource allocation in society. Like the less-informed party will pay more than what he/she is supposed to pay if he/she has more informatino.

One solution to this problem is to encourage branding. Makati Medical Center (MMC) brand. St. Luke's Medical Center brand. Medical City brand, Maxicare brand, Intellicare brand, etc. People will associate the "St Luke's brand" as expensive, great healthcare, etc. versus another hospital's brand or image, and another HMO's brand.

Like in food sector, again. When it's Jollibee or Mcdo or Chowking, people don't care whether the branch is in Davao or Cubao or Tuguegarao. They assume and know that the food quality, food price, service, etc. is the same for all branches. People are buying the brand and all products and services that go with that brand. Information asymmetry is drasticaly reduced if not removed.
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See also:
Healthcare competition 1: Switzerland, August 28, 2010
Healthcare competition 2: Singapore, August 29, 2010
Healthcare competition 3: Hong Kong, September 02, 2010

New vaccines, via competition or more regulations?

A World Health Organization (WHO) official said in an influenza conference in Hong Kong, as reported in yahoo news, that WHO wants faster, more flu vaccine production.

The world ducked the most recent outbreak, swine flu or H1N1 virus, that last year was feared by WHO and officials of many government health agencies, to possibly cause "millions" in death. The virus killed an estimated 18,600 people worldwide, still a big number.

The WHO wants anti-outbreak vaccines to be developed quick to save more lives. It is a noble goal and many people, me included, would support it. The world has seen "bird flu", SARS ("civet flu"?), swine flu, other variants of ordinary flu. I think it will not be far out for the world to see new viruses someday that can be called "horse flu", "sheep flu", "cat flu", "dog flu", "elephant flu", "tilapia flu", and so on.

I also think that some big pharmaceutical companies are already doing serious research on projecting evolving and mutating diseases from current ones where effective treatments are already available. So that when new flu, virus and diseases will show up someday on a global outbreak trend, those companies will need only short notice of several weeks to come up with an effective vaccine to kill such new diseases.

Competition among innovator pharma companies should expand the range of choices by the people and public health agencies by various governments. Those companies are driven by profit and by fear of being bankrupt. Since medicine innovation is a high risk, high returns or high losses activity, the probability of going red someday is always a possibility. Generics manufacturers do not face this kind of high risk, high returns situation. They do not have to reinvent the wheel as the most successful molecules to treat particular diseases have already been discovered by the innovator companies.

But does the WHO favor more competition and innovation always? I remember that sometime in 2008, the WHO was busy discussing how to kill, or shorten, or confiscate patents of certain newly-discovered medicines and molecules, through its lesser-known body, the Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) on Innovation, Intellectual Property and Public Health.

The WHO as a leading international body and bureaucracy on public health cannot hope to see more powerful vaccines someday if its other agenda is to restrict and penalize those who invent new drugs and new vaccines. The organization seems to be promoting more health populism and socialism rather than more competition and more realistic defeat of existing and emerging diseases.

Solar cycle and climate

(Note: this is my article for The Lobbyist today)

In almost all literatures by the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) or man-made warming camp, natural factors that can influence planet Earth’s climate are either degraded or denied. Such natural factors include the Sun, Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), volcanoes, water vapor and natural GHGs, among the more prominent ones.

A solar scientist, Paul Vaughan, M.Sc., recently produced a new paper, The North Pacific and Solar Cycle Change. With few words and discussions, he showed three graphs plotting the solar cycle length (SCL) and sea surface temperature (SST) of North Pacific from 1855 to 2010. A solar cycle averages 11 years. Some solar cycles have shorter than 11 years, others, like the recent solar cycle 24, was longer, at about 12.5 years. The result of the SCL and SST North Pacific plot is very interesting as shown below:

There is almost a perfect fit between SCL and SST. Warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycles of SST correspond to longer-shorter-longer-shorter SCL cycles – which suggests that the Sun is the main driver of SST here, at least for the North Pacific.

A known solar physicist from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, Dr. Willie Soon, also came up with the same result when he plotted total solar irradiance (TSI) and temperature in Greenland, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, from 1880 to 2005. TSI is an indicator of solar activity or inactivity. More TSI means more active Sun, which means more warming.

Paul Vaughan also plotted SCL and the PDO. Pacific Ocean occupies almost one-third of the Earth’s total surface area, or bigger than all land surfaces and continents combined. Thus, PDO with its own internal dynamics is being watched as a contributing factor to the planet’s global temperature. The result of the SCL-PDO plot is also interesting.

There is also a close fit between SCL and PDO, except in years between 1945 to 1955. In general, warming-cooling cycles in PDO corresponded with longer-shorter PCL cycles, except in the middle of the last century. The above graph also shows that PDO has entered a cooling trend since around 1998 up to now.

Man-made warming literatures do not discuss these natural factors. From the “science is settled, debate is over” mantra, we were told that we should accept monstrous environmental regulations, (“dirty”) energy taxation, (“clean”) energy subsidies, endless global climate meetings, new climate bureaucracies created in many countries.

The idiocy and alarmism of man-made warming claims have caused lots of damage to our lives. Foremost of which is intellectual dishonesty.