Denial of the Truth

The term “denier” is frequently used as a criticism of those who refuse to believe an apparent self-evident truth or fact.  I think it first came into vogue when it was applied to Islamists and ultra-right wing neo-nazis who claimed that the Jewish holocaust of WWII was a fabrication.  The evidence of history is clearly on the side of the truth claim that the genocidal extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime did, in fact, take place.  But in recent years, the derisive term “denier” has been applied to anyone who is the least bit skeptical of the degree to which human activity is primarily responsible for global warming, or even if global warming is taking place.  It’s disturbing to me that this would be the case, given that the body of evidence purporting to undergird the “truth” of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is still very much open to debate.

In fact, those who accuse AGW skeptics of being “global warming deniers” argue that the “debate is over”; that it is now time for radical action.  What’s disturbing about this is that this is not how science is supposed to work.  As an illustration, imagine there are 1000 reputable climate scientists in the world.  If 600 of them are convinced of AGW and the remaining 400 are not, does that mean AGW is a fact?  What if the ratio was 800 to 200?  Does a so-called consensus have to be reached in order to arrive at scientific truth?  Fortunately, science has never worked this way!  If it had, we would still believe the earth was the center of the solar system and that all the matter in the universe had always existed (no big bang)!  Very often, the most profound scientific revolutions come about because of the work of lone scientists working in fields sometimes outside of those in which the discovery is made (see the book by Thomas Kuhn, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”).

Most of the time, the advancement of knowledge through the operation of the scientific method does not engender controversy.  But the current state of global warming alarmism leads me to believe that science is being co-opted by political and social agendas.  I will be blunt:  I strongly believe that leftist, eco-socialists have been promoting AGW as a “hook” to advance a radical environmentalist agenda that is fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-free market (it has to be man-made global warming or else their agenda doesn’t work).  This agenda seeks to weaken industrialized nations, particularly the United States, and uses the manufactured world cataclysm of the hypothesized effects of global warming (rising sea levels, droughts, etc.) to shake down the “rich” nations and force the transfer of wealth directly to underdeveloped countries.  That this is clearly a political and not a scientific issue is borne out by the fact that opinion on the existence and/or the severity of global warming (particularly AGW) is divided along political lines.  Liberals in congress tend to support AGW and conservatives do not.  It is also evident in the money trail:  grants by governments to scientists to produce evidence of AGW.
 
The academic community is also clearly, and bitterly, divided over this issue.  Here is an excerpt from an open
letter by Dr. Petr Chylek, a leading climate scientist, to the top 100 climate scientists in the world (including Phil Jones, head of the East Anglian University Climate Research Unit whose emails were leaked to the world recently) in which he argues for a return to academic integrity in climate research:

“For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished.

It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort.

Yes, there have been cases of misbehavior and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name a few. However, it was misbehavior of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community.

… To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails. Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity.

The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Thus, two of the three pillars of the global warming and carbon dioxide paradigm are open to reinvestigation.

The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. Yes, there always will be a few deniers and obstructionists.

So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work.

Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide. Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public’s trust and move forward.”

It is very distressing to me that world leaders are so convinced of this so-called “truth” of AGW that they are willing to destabilize their own economies trying to “reverse” the effects of something that, to all intents and purposes, is a complete and total scam.  Radical policy decisions will be made on the basis of a corrupted scientific process in which researchers of good faith are derided and ostracized for reaching conclusions at variance with the prevailing “correct” ones.

Hopefully, decades from now, we will look back and see that the real truth was that the world climate was never in danger of an apocalyptic rise in temperatures.  What will more likely occur, however, will be a revisionist historical view that vindicates the draconian measures currently being taken by the industrialized world to reduce “pollutants” like CO2 as having “done the trick” in saving the world from global warming.  If that is the case, science is doomed to be the slave of politics.

Projection

The older I get, the more I am convinced of the truth that we tend to project onto others those faults and foibles we ourselves struggle with.  There is a liberal columnist whose syndicated column appears in my local paper a couple of times each week.  I disagree with him on virtually every topic, but what really galls me is his self-righteous, finger-wagging attitude.  In every one of his columns he climbs on his high horse and acts as if he is the sole possessor of the moral high ground.

Why does this bother me so much?  Why should I even care?

I think it’s because, as much as I hate to admit it, he and I are probably very much alike.  As a Christian, I understand that both of us share humanity’s fallen nature – we are all sinners.  But it’s deeper than that.  Why do I sense pride and self-righteous egotism oozing from his writing?  Like most liberals, he writes passionately about social justice issues, particularly race.  I’m sure many of his readers admire this passion and concern, whether they completely agree with him or not.  Perhaps the reason I get so incensed when I read his columns is because where others see passion and concern, I see moral superiority, and there’s no way I’m going to let someone with the “incorrect” positions on the issues get away with acting as if he is morally superior to me!
 

But , if I’m honest, I’d have to admit that I’m no different than him.

My natural tendency is to bristle at and criticize people who act as though they are superior (in other words people who tend to bristle at and criticize others!).  If I were a man of true humility, I would be more concerned with getting the log out of my own eye before trying to point out specks in the eyes of others.  But there is a little policeman inside of me that sees it as his duty to “call out” those who don’t follow the rules and who behave as though the rules don’t apply to them.  Here’s how idiotic it can get:  on my drive home from work, I often take the carpool lane (because I carpool), but I am keenly aware of single drivers who try to “get away with” driving in the carpool lane.  So what do I do?  If I see a “single ship” driver coming up behind me in the carpool lane I will slow down to match the rest of the traffic.  I do this intentionally to frustrate him, but more importantly, to make sure he knows that I know that he is a jerk and a lawbreaker!

Again, I have to ask myself the question, “why is this so important to me?”  Why is it important that I be right?  Why do I chafe at the notion that there is someone who thinks they are “better” than me?

The answer is that I am a sinner who does not rightly acknowledge the dominion and authority of the Most High God.  I have often identified with the psalmist when he says, “I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… they are not stricken like the rest of mankind… pride is their necklace… their hearts overflow with follies”  (Psalm 73).  He even goes on to say, “in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence”.  Yet the author of Psalm 73 also goes on to say, “when my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you”.  In other words, my indignation is nothing more than envy of those whom God alone can and will judge.  God’s Holy Spirit “pricks my heart” and causes me to realize my sin.  That God in His mercy would discipline me to be aware of my own pride and sinfulness is truly a blessing!

In one sense I am no different than my antagonist columnist.  Yet, by God’s grace, I can become more aware of my own failings, and instead of driving me into bitterness and anger, He will turn my heart to repentance and an acknowledgment of His sovereign goodness.  I will still struggle with pride and arrogance, but I know the victory has already been won. 

It is only God’s grace that differentiates me from my antagonist; nothing inherent in my own self-righteousness.  I pray God may deal as mercifully with him as He has with me!

The Danger of Authority Without Responsibility

Bureaucracies are strange things. Once created, they tend to perpetuate themselves and often grow into large, unwieldy corporate entities that take on a life of their own. I happen to work for one of the world’s largest and most notorious bureaucracies, the Federal Government of the United States. Specifically, I work for the Department of Defense, perhaps the largest bureaucracy within the US government. In my more cynical moments, when people ask me what I do for a living, I’ll tell them that I am a bureaucrat.

In almost thirty years of working directly for the DoD, either in uniform or as a civilian, I have come to the conclusion that the US military bureaucracy is too large, too top-heavy, and has developed a pathological culture of risk aversion, obstructionism, and excessive consensus-building. This has created a situation, devastating to organizations in general, in which most low- and mid-level bureaucrats are given responsibility with little or no authority, and most high-level bureaucrats (generals, admirals and senior civilians) have a great deal of authority and little, if any real responsibility. Such a situation directly violates one of the most basic tenets of leadership, which is that one should be given authority commensurate with one’s responsibility.

How did we get to this point? Put simply, there are too many people at the top with not enough real responsibility; so they have to create it. According to author Richard A. Gabriel, “Since Vietnam, the percentage of officers has fallen to 11 percent of total force strength. Curiously, however, as the number of officers relative to enlisted strength has declined since the war in Vietnam, the ratio of general officers to troop strength has increased by 31 percent. The Army has more general officers relative to the number of troops it can put in the field than it did during Vietnam. And the same is true of the Navy and the Air Force as well”. Since not every general or admiral is in the field commanding troops, what are they doing? They are in charge of large staff sections in the Pentagon or one of the several regional or functional commands around the world. Often, they are deputies or special assistants to higher ranking flag officers or senior civilians at the assistant or under-secretary level.

Here then, is the situation: you have a surfeit of ambitious, high ranking officers filling positions, many of which are of questionable value-added to the mission of the US military. Because they are flag officers, they possess a great deal of power and influence. Because they are ambitious, they frequently create an entire small fiefdom around themselves, dedicated to the advancement of a particular political, programmatic or policy agenda which will lead to their own promotion to the next higher rank. Thus, because this tendency is pervasive across the military establishment, a huge amount of work is generated by these individuals. Their staffs churn out hundreds of Power Point briefings, position papers, information papers, studies and analyses, most of which will become “shelf ware”. The low- to mid-level bureaucrats who prepare all of this material work extremely hard and are very diligent. Yet they often have little, if any, sense of the significance of their labor. They are rarely given any authority to speak for, or make decisions on behalf of, their organizations.

All this creates a culture of risk aversion. No one wants to fail or be seen to be incompetent. So incompetence and failure among senior officers is masked and diluted by the sheer number of senior officers and the creation of elaborate “governance” structures consisting of boards, steering groups and other “consensus building” bodies of which they are members. Thus, no one individual can be blamed for making a poor decision. Of course, these boards and steering groups require secretariat staffs to prepare all the briefing materials and coordinate the agenda – more activity leading to more shelf ware.

This practice of consensus building as a means to insure oneself against criticism has generated a strange practice called Joint Staff Action Plan (JSAP) staffing. Let’s say my office within the Joint Staff is the proponent for security assistance training, and my general wants to write a new security assistance policy for the military. A draft of this document must be circulated to every office in the Pentagon, every major joint command and every DoD Agency for comment. This is usually done three times: at the “action officer” (bureaucrat) level, the Colonel (Navy Captain) level, and the Flag Officer/General Officer level. Any comments considered “critical” must be successfully adjudicated with the commenting organization. Such a process stifles creativity and innovation, discourages risk taking, and tends to result in outcomes that give the appearance of progress, but in reality simply “kick the can down the road” and perpetuate the status quo.

Congress is the only organization in the Federal government authorized to establish the size and makeup of the US military. Legislation should be introduced and passed that will fix a target ratio of senior officers and civilians in the DoD at a level far lower than today. This target can be achieved through the gradual attrition of senior officers through the normal retirement process. Congress should also hold hearings to determine the necessity of the continued existence of non-warfighting commands and staffs, both at the Service and Joint levels.

The history of successful militaries, from the Roman legions to the German general staff in WWII, to the Israeli army, has shown that the most effective and efficient fighting forces can be fielded with a relatively few, key experienced and talented senior leaders. And we should never forget that the mission of the US military is to win our nation’s wars, not to provide a career path for high level bureaucrats.

Constitutional Government is Small Government

I carry around with me a little copy of the Constitution of the United States. It’s easy to do, since it’s a very small document. Even with all of the amendments, a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution (along with the Declaration of Independence) is only about sixty pages in length. It is the supreme law of the land, and contains within its various articles the framework and specified powers for the Federal government of this country. The reason this document is so small is because there are actually very few powers specifically given to the national government. For example, Article I, Section 8 lays out the powers of the Congress. They are limited to: taxation, providing for the common defense (raising an Army and Navy) and declaring war, regulating commerce with foreign nations, establishing naturalization laws, coining (and borrowing) money, establishing post offices and post roads, granting patents, and other various duties such as protecting the nation from piracy and calling up the militia. The tenth amendment states in its entirety, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.

Why then, do we have a Federal government involved in every aspect of our daily life, from education, to health care, to dictating to private corporations? It’s a very long story, but we now live in a country where the unbridled power of the Federal government overshadows every aspect of government. Is this what the founders of our nation envisioned? We have become so used to the influence of Washington in our everyday lives that we take it for granted. But the Constitution does not authorize the kind of power our national government has appropriated for itself.

I’ve frequently asked myself what our country would be like if we actually had a Federal government that existed within the proscriptions of the Constitution. Would we be able to function? Wouldn’t many things just not get done? What is the role of the Federal government, the governments of the various States, local municipalities, and the private sector in providing the necessary services we need to have a functional and thriving society? I’ll try to walk through a few examples of areas where both government and the private sector are involved and do a thought experiment about what “small government” might look like.

Transportation. We have a system of Federal highways that culminated with the Interstate highway system that was essentially completed in the 1960s. Would we have been able to build such a system without Federal tax money or incentives? I suspect that such a system could have been suggested and planned at the Federal level, but the administration of its construction could clearly have been carried out with the States raising the revenue and overseeing the construction. The only real role for the Federal government (according to the Constitution) would be to regulate the commerce those roads carried between the States.

Education. We have a long history and tradition of local schools in this country; public schools financed by local taxes. The role of the Federal government in education of our nation’s youth is nowhere authorized in the Constitution. Unfortunately, the selective granting of Federal money to States and localities to support education has encouraged them to depend on the Federal government and look to it for revenue. It also makes it much easier for the Federal government to dictate to the States in areas of regulation of schools.

Social Welfare. It began with the passage of the Social Security act in the 1930s, but has grown to include Medicare, Medicaid, and Aid to Families With Dependent Children, commonly known as “welfare”. What was viewed initially as a step toward providing a minimum level of financial security to those unable to work either through old age or disability has become a huge system of Federal taxes that find their way into the general revenue fund and have not kept pace with the changing demographics of the nation. It can be argued that welfare programs have actually encouraged the breakup of families, when women are compensated by the Federal government for raising children out of wedlock. The current push to “reform” health care by setting up a so-called “public” insurance option and then mandating that all Americans purchase it or be guilty of breaking the law will only exacerbate the problem, raising Federal taxes and further limiting the ability of the States and the private sector to provide a vital marketplace for medical treatment and catastrophic medical insurance coverage.

The only constitutionally authorized Federal agency still providing services is the U.S. Postal Service. But do we even need a Federal Post Office? Why can’t FedEx, UPS, or any number of other private delivery companies bid on regional postal contracts for the delivery of mail? Could we eliminate the Department of Education? What would be the effect on our schools? I suspect it would not be negative. One might argue that there are Federal agencies, the elimination of which could be detrimental to the welfare and safety of the nation. The Federal Aviation Administration comes to mind. But I think it is a worthwhile exercise to systematically work one’s way through the Federal bureaucracy and analyze the degree to which an agency’s function is either 1) necessary, 2) could be performed by a State or municipal government, or 3) could be addressed through free market competition in the private sector. At the very least, such an analysis must be performed before rushing to the conclusion that every perceived problem must be solved through Federal legislation and the subsequent establishment of another Federal agency.

The size of our Federal government is largely our own fault. Part of the problem is that we continue to elect representatives to Congress whom we reward with reelection when they bring Federal dollars to their home districts. This is classic “pork barrel politics”, and it does nothing except make the problem worse. Until we begin to disassociate Federal representation with Federal largesse, government will continue to grow. A Constitutional amendment limiting terms of Federal representatives and Senators would go a long way toward relocating governmental power in the United States to where it primarily belongs: to the States and the People.

*****************************************

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced a bill in the Senate calling for the constitutional amendment described above.

A Proposal for Improving Traffic Flow and Highway Safety

In my post from October 18^th, I promised that in a future posting I would share some ideas I have about solutions to traffic congestion that might make you chuckle. Well, today is that day. In that post, I suggested that it might be possible to improve the capacity of highways through means other than simply adding more roads or widening existing ones. The way to do this was to address the two components of traffic flow, namely traffic density and average velocity. The previous article dealt with the issue of traffic density. Today, I’d like to discuss the speed component, and how we might be able to use technology to improve traffic flow.

Let’s say it’s a bright, sunny morning; there are very few cars on the road. You seem to have the whole road to yourself. How do you decide how fast to drive? If the posted speed limit is 65, you might figure you could get away with setting your cruise control at about 72 and be relatively safe from the State Patrol. You feel that you are driving safely: the road is dry, visibility is good, and there is little traffic. In fact, you might be able to drive for miles without even changing lanes.

Now let’s change the scenario: It’s still dry and sunny, and you’re still able to drive at 72 mph, but now the road is crowded with other vehicles, all moving at about the same speed. The highway is reaching its theoretical maximum capacity, which is that moment just before the density reaches the point at which cars are so close to one another that the slightest decrease in the speed of one car will result in a massive compression wave traveling backwards through traffic until the average velocity plummets to near zero. Here’s my question: What causes that one car to slow down so suddenly? It seems to me that if we were able to minimize such sudden decreases in speed of individual vehicles, we might be able to maintain a higher average traffic velocity and therefore a more efficient use of the existing roadway capacity.

So, here is my hypothesis: If we are able to reduce the number of lane changes of individual drivers, there will be fewer instances of other drivers having to brake to avoid colliding with these drivers cutting in an out of traffic. The reduced instances of braking will generate a smoother flow of traffic , resulting in higher traffic flow and fewer accidents. Stated another way, to the extent drivers keep to the same lane, overall traffic velocity will remain high enough to maintain an efficient traffic flow. Assuming this hypothesis is true, I believe the technology is available today to provide a solution.

Why do drivers change lanes? There really is only one reason: to overtake other drivers. Why would someone want to do that? There may be a number of irrational reasons (competition, a sense of superiority, etc.) and I’m certainly not qualified to go into the psychology of driving behavior. But the rational reason is simply that most drivers want to be able to travel at the speed they choose. If my “chosen” speed is 72 in a 65 mph zone, and the traffic is moving at 58, I will continue to change lanes to “get ahead” of slower drivers until I reach a point where I can drive, unhindered, at 72. Realistically, of course, this never happens if the traffic is very dense. Aggressive drivers who are constantly changing lanes never really manage to get to their destinations much more quickly than they would have if they had “gone with the flow”. But in the process, they create disruptions in the traffic flow that increase the likelihood of collisions and force other drivers to react to their behavior by making sudden braking or steering maneuvers.

Intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies may be useful in gradually curbing excessive lane changing. Consider a stretch of interstate highway, slightly modified so that there are magnetic sensors placed at regular intervals along the lane markers. When a car makes a lane change and moves over one or more of these sensors, an on-board computer records the lane change; keeping a running total. The computer then calculates the number of lane changes per mile traveled. At the end of the year, during the car's annual safety inspection, the data in the computer are downloaded and sent to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The lane-change per mile factor for that vehicle is then compared against values derived from a historical database of driving patterns. Excessive lane changers might be assessed a monetary fine or awarded negative driving points based on the past year's data. Gradually, either driver behavior will improve or such drivers will lose their licenses and be taken off the road.

The ITS-based solution I propose gets to the heart of the speed enforcement problem: Vehicle speed by itself is not the issue; it is speed relative to other vehicles. If I am a law enforcement officer, I am more concerned about the aggressive driver weaving in and out of traffic than the lone driver on a remote highway in Montana or Nevada who is driving above the speed limit.

For those who may be concerned that this proposal violates civil liberties or privacy, I will only offer that the license to drive a motor vehicle on public highways is a privilege granted by the state, not an absolute right. The state has a compelling interest in protecting its citizens and providing a safe driving environment for its licensed drivers. Collecting such data from a vehicle’s computer is no different than the collection of GPS location data by trucking companies of their drivers’ whereabouts. It is in the company’s interest to ensure its drivers stay on the route and are on time, and the acknowledgment of this data collection is a condition of employment.

We have reached a point in the development and management of our national highway system where we have to begin thinking creatively about solutions to traffic congestion and safety problems. If state departments of transportation knew it was possible to increase the traffic flow volume on a stretch of interstate highway without adding another lane, wouldn’t it be worth pursuing simply from a cost standpoint? If highway safety officials knew it was possible to reduce the number of accidents per highway mile and ease the jagged nerves of commuters at the same time through the use of ITS, wouldn't it make sense to investigate? The answer to both these questions is yes; and it will take real vision and bold action at the state and federal level if society is to get the most benefit from ITS.

National Security and Energy Independence

The term, “national security” has come to be synonymous with national defense. But given the geography of the United States, it’s unlikely we would ever need to use our defense forces to secure the homeland from an invading army. National security really has more to do with the protection of those critical infrastructures the loss or degradation of which would place the country in a position of economic and military vulnerability. These infrastructures include:

• Banking and Finance: The nation’s banking system and securities exchanges as well as the public confidence in this system
• Transportation: Road, rail and waterway networks, airports and seaports
• Power: Electrical power generation, transformation and distribution, pipelines for natural gas and oil
• Public Works: Reservoirs, aqueducts, wastewater treatment plants and drainage systems
• Communication: Radio and television networks, satellite networks, computer networks, the internet

Of these critical infrastructures, I would argue that power, or energy production and distribution, is the most sensitive to disruption; not just from physical attack, but because the very sources of energy we rely upon are largely imported from politically and socially unstable regions of the world. For this reason, I believe the United States’ national security is increasingly tied to its energy security.

In the pre-industrial age – before the rise of steam power, gasoline engines and electricity, communities and entire societies were based on an agricultural foundation. Fuel was primarily associated with wood for cooking and heating fires and to generate heat for basic ore smelting and metalworking. This fact of history was brought home to me when we lived in England during the 1980s. The rolling green countryside of central England had once been covered in dense, deciduous forest. By the 20^th century, after thousands of years of human habitation, most of these vast forests had disappeared; the trees having been cleared for farming and grazing land, and subsequently used for fuel and building material.

Today, in a post-industrial world, all the technologies we rely upon for everything from food to shelter to transportation, depend on energy. Securing stable sources of energy has now become a key objective of our national security strategy. Despite all the technological advances in the last century, our primary sources of energy in this country remain fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), as a result of a combination of declining oil production and increasing demand, net US imports of oil and petroleum products increased by 400% from 3.16 million barrels per day in 1970 to 12.04 million barrels per day in 2007. The largest net suppliers of oil and petroleum products to the US are Canada and Mexico, which supply about 30% of the US daily oil demand. Another 28% of this demand is supplied by other countries, including OPEC nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This means that the US domestic production supplies only about 42% of our own oil demand.

According to the EIA, about 86% of the coal mined in the US is used for the production of electricity. Coal plants account for 52% of the electricity generated in the United States. Unlike oil, the US is actually a net exporter of coal, so the situation is not nearly as dire. Coal reserves are estimated to be sufficient to last for hundreds of years at current rates of consumption.

The only other existing source of energy for the production of electricity (other than hydroelectric power) is nuclear energy, which provides 19% of the electric power in the US. Nuclear power, while a relatively untapped source of clean energy (nuclear energy comprises only 14% of the world’s electricity production), spent nuclear fuel is highly radioactive and extremely hazardous. Transport and long term storage of nuclear waste is fraught with controversy.

But the point of this article is that US energy supplies are a critical strategic vulnerability for the future security of the country. We know that fossil fuels will become increasingly more expensive to extract, and will eventually be depleted altogether. No new petroleum refineries have been built in the United States for decades, and the existing refineries are operating at near peak capacity. Nuclear energy is unpopular, highly regulated and as a result, new reactors are slow to come on line.

The solution is energy independence. To the degree we can become free of dependence on external sources of fuel we also free ourselves from the threat of being held captive by petroleum supplying nations or cartels who clearly could care less about the economic well being of the United States. Those who are old enough to remember the days of the OPEC oil embargo in the early 1970s realize the potential devastation that might be wreaked on this nation in the event of a major disruption in oil supplies. And that embargo occurred at the point of America’s peak domestic oil production! We have since become embarrassingly dependent on oil imports to fuel our economy.

This need for secure, stable and environmentally friendly sources of energy is so vital to our national security that this country should invest in a national research and development program on the scale of the Apollo project of the 1960s. Such a program’s goal would be nothing less than the invention and development of next generation energy technology, whether that be nuclear fusion, electrical storage technology (batteries) or significant advances in solar, or other sources of renewable energy supply. In the meantime, all efforts should be made to exploit the reserves of oil, coal and natural gas that exist within our borders, whether they are in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or off our nation’s coasts.

The technology for extracting fossil fuels with a minimum of environmental disruption exists today. Contrary to the assertions of environmental lobbies, this is not an “either/or” situation. It is possible to shift the production of energy back to a domestic basis while at the same time driving toward the next generation solution. As a nation, we should accept that the goal of achieving independence from fossil fuels will involve a period in which we simultaneously cushion ourselves from disruptions in external sources of supply while we wean ourselves from oil. This cushion is necessary. Neither should we hamstring ourselves with the needless burden of cap and trade regulations, the outgrowth of a completely fabricated global climate “emergency”.

Those critics of President Bush, who accused him of waging a “war for oil” may not have been that far off the mark. The middle east would likely not be such a strategically significant part of the world for America were it not for the fact that is currently in our national interest to ensure middle east oil supplies continue to remain on the open market. That’s a reality we must live with. Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have to.

The Economics of Traffic Congestion

Like most people who must commute to work, I am forced daily to think about the perpetual problem of traffic congestion. It may seem like a pretty mundane thing to write about. It’s not really controversial; nobody likes being stuck in a traffic jam. But attempts to solve traffic problems can be very controversial. For example, if a solution involves building more roads or widening existing ones, there are issues of how to pay for the construction. Should state or local taxes be increased? Should a revenue bond be issued to raise the money? Should new residential development be restricted? I’d like to spend a little time thinking about the basics of the problem before moving to proposing solutions.

On the surface, the problem of traffic congestion really seems like a straightforward one: too many cars trying to use a limited road network. But the causes of traffic congestion are many and varied, so any potential solutions will not be simple ones. I propose that, fundamentally, traffic congestion is a function of economics; that is, the choices we make regarding our desired outcome (a smooth and easy commute) and the costs of our choices, whether those costs be monetary, or in the frustration we experience when we are delayed in reaching our destination due to a traffic jam.

When designing highways, traffic engineers are trying to maximize the flow of traffic. That is, they are trying to design a system that will allow the movement of the largest volume of vehicles as rapidly as possible. This flow is the product of traffic density (the number of vehicles that can fit in a linear stretch of roadway) and the average velocity of the traffic. There is a theoretical maximum flow a highway can accommodate. You’ve probably experienced this when you’ve been in a very fast moving flow of very dense traffic. This can be a dangerous time because the least perturbation in the flow will cause a car to slow suddenly, causing a wave of brake lights to come on and the average velocity of all the vehicles drops dramatically. This is illustrated in the graph below. Traffic flow increases gradually with traffic density until this magical maximum is reached, at which point the efficiency of the roadway begins to degrade as traffic velocity approaches zero.

In theory, one could achieve a higher traffic flow, but to do this, drivers would have to surrender their autonomy as drivers: each vehicle would be bumper to bumper – almost connected like cars in a train – such that all the vehicles moved as one. This would maximize the traffic density. If all the vehicles moved simultaneously (and didn’t change lanes) very high speeds could be reached and thus traffic flow would increase with no possibility of traffic jams. Of course, that isn’t reality! The whole idea behind the private automobile is the freedom and autonomy of being able to control where you want to go. Optimal traffic flow requires the cooperation of many individual drivers following (hopefully) a standard set of traffic regulations.

The notion of autonomy and control of our cars gets us back to my thesis that traffic congestion is primarily a function of economic choices. If we try to solve the problem of traffic congestion by widening existing roadways or building additional ones, we will simply have increased the opportunity for more vehicles to be on the roads without having done anything to improve the efficiency of the traffic flow (remember that traffic flow is made up of the number of cars on the road and the speed they are traveling). I propose that we first focus on solutions that target these two components of traffic flow. Such solutions would simply do two things: they would reduce the number of vehicles on the road (traffic density) and regulate the traffic velocity. The solutions I am in favor of are also economic solutions, because they involve choices with costs and benefits.

At six AM on a Sunday morning, you will likely have no traffic problems, but at seven AM on Monday morning… needless to say, the time of day and the day of the week has a significant impact on the number of vehicles on the road. Here are several ways this number can be reduced:

• Carpooling – one of the reasons that higher gas prices are not necessarily bad is that it forces commuters to consider choosing the minor inconvenience of sharing a ride with two or three others who are going to the same destination. When gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon a year and a half ago, several of us at work decided to explore a carpool. We were amazed to discover how many of us lived close enough to each other that it made sense to consider. Now, when three of us ride in to work together, we are effectively taking two unnecessary vehicles off the road. The carpool has the added benefit of reducing wear and tear on our vehicles, not to mention the savings in fuel costs.
• Congestion Pricing – Most drivers use the road as if it were a commodity they didn’t have to pay for. We know from basic economics that when you reduce the price of something, the demand for it increases. So if drivers perceive that they are not having to pay for the privilege of using a stretch of highway, they will think nothing of using as much of it as they want. Many localities around the country are now considering imposing tolls or fees on particularly congestion prone segments of highways. These tolls are graduated based on the time of day and day of the week. So the highest tolls would be imposed during morning and evening rush hours, while there might be no toll at all on Sunday. The city of London, England has had great success in using congestion pricing to reduce the number of vehicles coming into the city during weekdays. This is truly an economic decision: it forces drivers to compare the benefit of taking a particular trip to the cost. And before you leap to the conclusion that such congestion pricing amounts to economic discrimination, realize that possessing a driving license is a privilege, not a right. Collecting tolls directly supports the maintenance of roadways, bridges and tunnels, and reduces the tax burden for everyone.
• Mass Transit – Bus and streetcar service is widespread and convenient in Europe. It is not as popular in the US because our larger distances and suburban-style residential development have made the automobile the transportation means of choice for most people. But particularly as fuel prices increase, more and more Americans will be willing to consider public transit as a viable alternative to private cars for routine commuting.

We haven’t even touched on the related topic of urban planning and its effect on traffic volume. This addresses the fundamental reason we need to commute in the first place because it addresses where we live and work, the origin and destination of virtually all commutes. In a future blog posting, I’ll try to get to the second component of traffic flow, which is velocity. There are actually unexplored economic solutions to this part of the problem as well. All that is needed to get some of these ideas “on the table” is a little creativity and a willingness to risk being laughed at. I’ll give you a chance to laugh in a future column!

Climate Change

There are so many perspectives and angles of approach one can take when trying to think clearly about the issue of global warming, or as it is currently being referred to: “climate change”. There’s the scientific perspective (what is the evidence for climate change and how rigorous is the science?) and the public policy perspective (what regulations should be in place to deal with climate change?). There is also a social science perspective (why is climate change controversial and seemingly divided along ideological lines?) and even a religious perspective (did God give man stewardship over the earth, or is the earth to be venerated by man?)

My thinking on this subject tends to be drawn to the structure of the relationship between the claim that the effects of climate change demand a response by governments on a massive scale, and the nature of that response. The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, once proposed an approach to decision making that has come to be known as “Pascal’s wager”. The question for Pascal was the relationship between the existence of God and the state of his own belief in God. Should he believe in God or not? He suggested that there were two possible “states of nature” with respect to the existence of God: Either God existed, or he did not. There were also two possible responses Pascal could take with respect to these states of nature: Believe in God, or don’t believe in God. So Pascal created four possible outcomes based on these states of nature and his responses to them:

1. God exists/I believe in God – therefore a positive outcome
2. God exists/I don’t believe in God – most likely a very negative outcome!
3. God does not exist/I believe in God – a less negative outcome than (2)
4. God does not exist/I don’t believe in God – a rather neutral outcome

As in the case of climate change, there are also two basic “states of nature”: either the planet is warming or it is not. But unlike Pascal’s simple decision aid, our problem is more complicated (it is actually a decision tree, and if this were not a blog post, I’d probably try and show an illustration of that at this point). But I think you can get an idea of the complexity of the decision problem by examining the table below:

The potential states of nature range from no global warming to significant increases in world temperatures in a relatively short period of time. The potential responses can be grouped into three categories: 1) do nothing, 2) take defensive measures (that is, assume that global temperature increases are incapable of being reversed, so we must protect civilization from the inevitable effects – rising sea levels, increasing areas of arid land, etc.), 3) take pro-active measures (reverse the effects of global warming).

The problem is that there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the actual “state of nature” of planetary warming. All of the scenarios describing the projected effects of planetary warming are based on computer modeling. The ability to forecast the local weather (also based on computer models) over the next week is not a certain science, yet predictions of specific global temperature increases over a period of 50 to 100 years are viewed as certain. So we really don’t know how dire the situation is.

If global warming is a reality and is unstoppable (that is, will not yield to efforts by humans to reverse it) then the best recourse for public policy makers would be to take defensive measures; e.g., divert resources to protecting civilization from its effects. Sea walls and dikes should be constructed around vulnerable coastal communities like New York and New Orleans to protect these cities from the inevitable rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice.

On the other hand, if we know what causes global warming, and can reverse its effects, we should do so. But here is the problem: scientists are not certain what causes global warming. There is no “scientific consensus” about climate change. A number of distinguished researchers in this area have studied the evidence and have found that if we are in a planetary warming period, it may simply be cyclical (due to activity by the sun or other causes). In addition, they have noted that, while increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been associated with temperature increases, such a correlation may not infer causation; that is carbon dioxide may not actually be causing atmospheric warming, but may actually be a “lagging” indicator of it.

From a public policy standpoint, then, we really do not have enough information about the extent to which human beings actually cause global warming (if, in fact, it is taking place) to commit our nation to policies and treaties that would have immediate and dire economic effects such as placing caps on carbon dioxide emissions.

To return to our decision matrix, it appears our government and society in general has decided on the solution before the problem is really defined. Continued repetition in the media of a particular theme is not a substitute for scientific rigor and evidence. Global warming may be real, but much more work needs to be done to clarify the true state of nature before committing public resources to politically acceptable “solutions”.

Health Care 1

The issue of health care has been center stage for months now. It is the centerpiece of the president’s legislative agenda and has generated a great deal of controversy. Amid all of the punditry and soundbites, I wonder if the actual issue (problem to be solved) has become obscured.

The first task of any systems analyst or engineer is to make sure you are solving the right problem. It may seem obvious, but I think that much of the angst associated with this, or any, political issue is that people already have the “solution” to the problem in mind. So their efforts are not so much focused on coming up with an answer to the problem as they are on selling their particular solution. Often such “solutions” are conveniently tied to political ideologies or economic self-interest.

The complexity of this issue becomes evident when you try and capture all of the justifications for why the health care issue is problematic. Some argue that access to health care is a fundamental human right. But such a statement is freighted with a lot of unanswered questions: What is the definition of “health care”? Is it the ability to go to a doctor when you are sick or injured and not have to pay for it? How sick do you have to be? Who makes that determination? What about elective medical procedures? What about preventative medicine? And then there is the question of what exactly constitutes a “fundamental human right”. Where do “human rights” come from? If access to health care is a fundamental human right, what about access to clean water or food? What about clothing and shelter? If one agrees that all of these are fundamental human rights, how does one define the degree to which they should be provided? Is it the role of government to ensure the granting of these human rights?

If the problem is focused on the basic economics of medical care (note that I switched from the term “health care” to “medical care”) then we might be honing in on the potential problem. If I am sick, but I think it’s just the flu, or if I sprain my ankle, I can make an appointment with a physician and receive an examination, a diagnosis, and a prescribed treatment. I expect to pay for it, but I know that it won’t bankrupt me. On the other hand, if I am injured in an industrial accident or a car crash, or am diagnosed with cancer during a routine visit to the doctor, the cost of paying for the medical care I will need will far outweigh my ability to pay for it out of my personal savings. That is why the concept of medical insurance was invented – to fill a specific need in our economy. A company pulls together a pool of people, all of whom share the risk that a small percentage of them will have a catastrophic medical expense. Each member of the pool pays what is called a premium, which is mathematically calculated based on the likelihood of members of the pool succumbing to statistically unlikely medical events (most people will not die of cancer or be disabled as the result of an automobile crash).

So, I’m thinking that there might be a number of Americans who don’t have such insurance, which is true. The figure being bandied about is 47 million. Of course, a significant percentage of that 47 million are people who could afford catastrophic medical insurance, but have opted not to acquire it. We may be getting closer to what the real problem is… What if the market for “major medical”, or catastrophic insurance, was unconstrained sufficiently such that market forces allowed enough competition in that market to drive “prices” for premiums to an affordable level? Of course, this raises the question of exactly what is considered “affordable”. This, then, reduces the problem space to one in which we are asking the question, “how best to allow premiums for medical insurance to find a level at which most Americans could reasonably afford to purchase such a premium (as they do with auto or homeowner’s insurance premiums)? If this is the fundamental question, then one must ask what is the role of the Federal government in bringing this about? If we are now assuming that the Federal government actually has a role in solving this problem, we must analyze the extent to which the government has participated in creating this problem in the first place. If it has, then the primary goal of government would be to extricate itself from contributing to the problem. This question must be addressed prior to the imposition of any governmentally-mandated solutions.

To Write is to Think

This is the most humble beginning of a most humble blog. I do not pretend to be an opinion columnist or a journalist. I am not a clever writer. But I do believe the best way to think and ponder any issue or concept is to write about it.

Writing helps take thoughts and ideas that may be pinging around in your head and get them organized. The feedback from seeing your thoughts take shape on paper or a computer monitor helps to refine and sharpen them. Any logical fallacies or lack of evidence to support an assertion become immediately apparent when you read your own first draft of an argumentative or persuasive essay.

If you are reading this, then I am grateful, and I hope you will help me sharpen my own thinking on a number of subjects.