Global Warming Reaction

Looks like Sebastian doesn't quite agree with my recent posts on global warming. I'll post a response when I've thought a bit, and have some time. Check out his post if you have five minutes and see what you think.

Our Local Stasi

Turns out the Stasi had their local headquarters and apartment building just a few doors down from our place. It is actually just behind where the old synagogue was before it got burnt down by the Nazis. Wandering around the place you can still see the old guard posts near the entrances, now all boarded up, but not yet torn down.

The photo below shows the apartment building that used to house the Stasi officials. There's actually a pretty neat mural just below that I'll also post when I manage to get a photo without cars parked in front of it.

The building itself is the largest around and clearly stands out, looming over the old city. I like the contrast between the photo, with the clear blue sky background and how many of the locals probably felt about it before the collapse of East Germany. I imagine that that area was probably actively avoided by a great many folks.

I find it personally difficult to reconcile the fact that the Stasi were one of the largest and most repressive secret police organizations within the communist world with the apparent high opinion that East Germans have of their former government, but perhaps that is just my snarky American attitude coming out.

Egyptian Freed

Now I am not normally paranoid, but let me get this straight. The Washington Post publishes an editorial suggesting that before Obama meets with Mubarak, the president (dictator would be a more accurate term) of Egypt, it would be nice to see some sort of progress on the human rights front.

I have no idea whether the Post was commenting on diplomatic outreaches that were already occurring, or whether Mubarak, or one of his deputies, decided this was a jolly good idea after the article was printed. But, a couple of days after that editorial came out, lo and behold, the suggested 'bone' was thrown.

As much as I detested George W. Bush, he did put his finger upon a thorny issue. Specifically, how should the US handle dictators that happen to dovetail nicely with the American geopolitical strategy? Saudi Arabia and Egypt would be the two best examples of countries whose leadership is both nicely aligned with US interests, yet happen to be utterly undemocratic.

It will be quite interesting to watch how the Obama administration handles this particular issue. And while this is thoroughly excellent news for Ayman Nour and his family, it is far from clear this means anything at all substantial for Egyptians in general.

Happy Tree People

So this photo is of my brother Mitchell and his lovely little daughter Alice. They are currently living in Melbourne, Australia.

The most painful part of living outside of your home country is that it is hard to stay in touch with friends and family. I have yet to meet Alice, who is coming up to one. We are planning to head back to Australia for Christmas at the end of this year, but that still seems very, very far away.

History and Memory

I found this short article in the Economist to be quite fascinating. It is on one of those topics that I have randomly pondered about a bit: how does history get taught in schools in post-communist countries? I've always thought it would be difficult to teach the history honestly and openly, given that the collapse of communism is so recent.

Evidently this is the case, and as a result youngsters are getting confusing messages:

The ignorance is unevenly spread. Young western Germans know more of East Germany’s history. In Bavaria just 39% of schoolchildren had “little or very little” knowledge; in Brandenburg 72% were ill-informed. A third of eastern German students thought that Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, two western giants, actually governed the east. The same proportion judge West Germany’s political system to have been the better; two-thirds of westerners do. Such differences persist even among children of western and eastern parents who attend the same Berlin schools.

Given that one-third of west German students think that the East Germany political system was superior, it is perhaps not surprising that two-thirds of east German students have the same thought. But nonetheless, I find this to be somewhat shocking.

But perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps many of these students have families for whom the East German system worked. Perhaps many of them had parents or teachers who did not understand the inefficient or unsustainable nature of the East German system. After all, I would guess that this information was not common knowledge. The context is also critical: this is Germany, and I can't really see much potential harm as these misconceptions are worked out over time. Indeed, I have some faith that this will be worked out as there is a public space where it can be worked out, through peaceful debate and discussion.

This is not the case though in other post-Communist countries such as Russia where such debates are not encouraged. Russia is a fascinating case when thinking about history and memory, and its effects on politics. How do Russians think about the Communist times? How does it get taught in schools? I can easily imagine that Putin would want to put the best possible gloss on these times, but what does that mean for Russian society?

Reading about Russia under Putin's leadership is not particularly pleasant. Under Putin corruption has become endemic, the state is being run by mafia related groups, an already feeble rule of law has been asphyxiated and the Kremlin has worked hard to centralize control over economic activity. And I cannot but think that part of the explanation for the general acceptance of this is a collective societal amnesia.

This is not to say that Putin is trying to recreate the communist, or really socialist, system exactly as it is existed before Gorbachev unwittingly pulled the plug. The means of government control and the economic structure have been updated and are now more subtle, but there are many similarities. But will these similarities be discussed and debated or repressed? Will students be encouraged to think through these issues and to think about better paths that may lie ahead? In Putin's Russia, I doubt that will be on the curriculum any time soon.

Conservatives and Global Warming

David Brooks and George Will are arguably two of the most respected conservative newspaper pundits in the States. I like reading these guys as they are often a good read if you want a well reasoned conservative response to some issue. At times they dodge issues or slide into sophistry, but their columns are also quite often very interesting.

Unfortunately, I found both of their columns today to be quite depressing. Brooks decided to write a piece celebrating the fact that Americans seem to have no desire to live close to cities, but would rather live outside, in the exurbs, and commute. Brooks celebrates this, despite the fact that that structure is obviously dependent upon the car, and requires using huge amounts of energy to inefficiently move Americans between work, home, the supermarket and the mall.

George Will in his article seems to be echoing a theme that has come up recently: there really isn't any global warming at all, but rather global cooling. Actually, Will doesn't even argue that position: much like Brooks, he never seems to state his opinion at all. Instead, he just quotes other sources and other opinions, and avoids giving his own. One gets the feeling reading the piece that he doesn't think global warming is an issue, but then, it is hard to tell.

I guess it just doesn't strike me as fundamentally a conservative position to completely ignore our affect on the planet. We only have one, and many generations to come depend upon us taking care of it. And while there might be some room for error, it seems like the scientific opinion is pretty firmly pointing in one direction: the planet is warming and burning fossil fuels is the primary reason. It would be nice if American conservatives actually engaged with that issue, rather than pretending that it simply does not exist.

Carbon Tax

More depressing, but far from surprising, news showing the clear political limits in the fight against global warming. A carbon tax would be the simplest, cleanest and most efficient way to start reducing the amount of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, it is simply politically untenable in the US, and probably most other places as well. Thinking about it, I reckon that you could almost use support for a carbon tax as a rough benchmark to measure how seriously a society or a polity is actually willing to combat global warming. And by that measure we have a long way to go.

Blue Sky

It is amazing how long periods of cold, snowy and gray days can really make you yearn for some blue sky. We had a lovely day on the weekend, but things seemed to conspire to keep us indoors. So now its back to snow and slush and gray. Fortunately, there aren't too many more months to go till spring.

The photo above was taken by Layne on the frozen Baltic beach at Warnemunde, near the mouth of the Warnow. I have never been on a beach in a snowy winter before, and it is quite odd to walk on hard, frozen sand. It was also a beautiful day, with some folks sailing large powerful kites and the sun gently setting in the West.

Growing up, I never thought I'd ever live on the Baltic coast, it was just one of those things that didn't even occur. For an Australian, the Baltic really does seem like another world away. I just wish it had a little less cloud; there is something wonderful about walking in parks and forests with blue sky above.

Northern Territory

My father just got back from a short stint as the temporary CEO of the Katherine West Health Board in the Australian Northern Territory (NT). The CEO had taken a break for a few months to spend some time in the South, and Alan was ideally suited to help out for a bit. The photo above shows most of the board members. My father, Alan, is the man in the middle with his arms clasped together.

There a lot of challenges in providing health care in remote, often Aboriginal, communities but the KWHB seems to be working well. The Federal Government has provided more funding recently, which has also helped increase health in areas of the NT.

There will probably always be a set of structural challenges in providing high quality health care in such a huge, rugged, country, but in that area at least, things seem to be moving in the right direction.

Worldview Humility Reaction

Sebastian posted an interesting comment about my recent atheism post - and brings in Richard Dawkins into the discussion (Sebastian has his own cool blog here). As Sebastian points out, right now Dawkins is, for better or worse, probably the most high profile atheist out there. Unfortunately, he tends towards the annoyingly evangelical side of things.

I actually wonder why Dawkins is even bothering. The UK is one of the more secular places on the planet, and I have a hard time imagining that atheists are as truly disadvantaged as say, vegetarians, dyslexics, coal miners or recent immigrants from South Asia. I can't say that I really feel the need for either a support group or a political lobby, but whatever.

Oddly enough, I really did not intend to kick off such a long thread about atheism when I first commented on non-believing London buses. I've really enjoyed putting my thoughts down on this topic as it tends to clarify and distill my own flightly feelings, but I swear I am not picking arguments for the sheer joy of it.

When I get through a few other things I'll try to circle back and comment more on Dawkins. He is an interesting character and I should read his book. I also think Obama and his understanding of faith is quite interesting as well - but I need to finish his books first.

Broken Glass II

I already commented on how someone had a attacked the synagogue basically next door to us. Well, it turns out that fifty yards down the road the Nazis burned to the ground a synagogue during Kristallnacht. This was back in November 1938, almost exactly 70 years ago.

Here is the plaque in front of the apartment building that now stands there.

I wonder how many people went to that synagogue, how many naming ceremonies there were, how many births and weddings celebrated? I wonder how someone could throw stones through a synagogue window within sight of this memorial.

Worldview Humility

One of the things that I particularly like about atheism is that I think it is actually a humble worldview. At the core of atheism is the honest assessment that we just don't know what happens after death; that we just don't know much about a good many things. And importantly, part of atheism is the facing and acknowledgment of this reality.

In many ways I think this acknowledgment of these limits is inspiring. After all, it is the not knowing something that causes you to wonder and powers curiosity. It also encourages you to get out and experience life, to live life to the fullest.

Depending upon your perspective, however, there are also negative consequences. If you were likely to experience a lot of heartache and unrelieved hardship would you put up with it? I can see a lot of benefits of believing in heaven if your life on earth is hell. And to be brutally honest, I don't think a group of atheists would have survived the dark ages. Suicide would be a too appealing prospect compared to a life of unremitting toil and heartache.

This is why I think the evolutionary approach to understanding religious belief makes a lot of intuitive sense. Perhaps there's even an amusing irony in there: it may be thanks to many generations of believers who struggled through difficult times that I may now be a happy atheist.

Capitalism and Canada

Fareed Zakaria has a new article in Newsweek that looks at Canadian banks and how they are faring compared to their American counterparts:

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada's more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

I especially like the article because of the implicit point that this economic crisis is not a crisis of capitalism itself. Rather, as the article makes clear the American financial crisis and the collapsed housing bubble are far more directly related to the erosion of the financial regulatory system.

From what I can gather from reading and talking with my father, it sounds like Australian banks are also generally doing okay, again based on better regulation and substantially lower leverage ratios.

Time and space

The Perelli's took this photo of us over the Christmas holidays about a month ago. It feels like it was just a week ago or so, but of course, it isn't. It is already mid-February and will soon be March. On the plus side, the days are starting to stay light much longer, and despite the snow on the ground, you can almost sense Spring coming. The sun's rays are starting to contain warmth and soon we'll be looking for the first early flowers to poke their heads out of the hibernating ground.

It is strange and sad to think that on the other side of the planet my home country is scorched, dessicated and burning. Some nearly 200 people have died in horrible bush fires in Victoria, just south of where my parents live, and just north of my brother in Melbourne. Sometimes being an atheist is not that great: it would be comforting to able to appeal to a higher power.

Economic Anxiety

I really cannot get my head around the economic crisis. The numbers involved are so large that, as many people have remarked, they have become meaningless, like the number of stars in the galaxy. No one seems to really know what is going on, how long it will last or even whether we are through the worst of it.

While not normally an nervous person, if I think too much about this particular crisis I really can get myself anxious. So far we would seem to be fairly insulated from the effects being felt by millions of folks: both Brienna and I have jobs and seem likely keep them, we have plenty of time for our savings to gain some value again, we don't have any debt to speak of and are all in good health. But I feel like much that I thought I knew about finance, about how the world worked economically was illusion. I am left with the impression of skating over thin ice, feeling that at any moment we, our friends or family could plunge into the icy water below.

This video from TalkingPointsMemo, with Josh Marshall interviewing Joe Stiglitz, provides a good overview of the current situation and shadow play in the background. I also like this one. And although a few things in it don't make sense to me (money market accounts are not FDIC insured among others) it does give an insiders view of the magnitude of the issue.

Part of me worries that the worst is actually yet to come. Although millions of people have lost their jobs, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason this couldn't continue. The stimulus package continues to shrink and is still, according to Krugman, probably much smaller than it should be. I doubt that this will rival the Great Depression, but what reasons do I actually have to support that? There seem to be so many unknowns that it is hard to have any confidence that we aren't going to find something else that the Masters of the Universe forgot to mention to the rest of us.

That much of this crisis stems from the policies pursued by the Bush Administration, from the deliberate weakening of financial regulations for ideological reasons, leaves me just dumbfounded. I still cannot quite believe that Alan Greenspan, who draws a significant chunk of blame for this debacle, is not being more widely held in contempt in the States. How do these people sleep at night?

Beneath each statistic of unemployment in the US is a family and often children. Losing a job is no joke in the States, and right now what would be the chances of finding another one? If you did manage to find something, the chances of finding something with the same pay and conditions would have to be remote. That this is happening to millions of folks across the US is just as hard to fathom as the dollar figures for the various bailout packages.

One State

Shimon Peres put down some thoughts today in the Washington Post about the importance of a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. His piece is in response to an increasing number of articles and commentary pointing out that the two-state solution is rapidly becoming obsolete. In this particular piece, Peres doesn't provide much argument; he basically just asserts the importance of a two-state solution:

Having personally witnessed the remarkable progress we have made with the Palestinian Authority in recent years, I believe that a two-state solution is not only the best resolution to this age-old conflict but one within our reach.

But is it really within reach? Like the many other pundits and writers, who hope, cajole or plead for some sort of resumption of peace negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state, he fails to actually address the question of whether it is really possible anymore.

There was an excellent story on 60 minutes a couple of weeks ago by Bob Simon (part 1 and part 2). As covered in depth in the story, it appears as though a tipping point may have been reached. There are now simply too many settlements and outposts and too many Jewish settlers resolutely determined to stay. When interviewed about it later, Bob Simon stated that in his view, history had simply passed the two-state solution by.

The graph below neatly and simply summarizes the situation by showing the number of West Bank settlers, increasing over time. This graph comes from the Peace Now website, which is worth checking out for the factual information that is otherwise hard to locate.



Importantly, at no point has the number of settlers decreased or even held stable. Under Labor and Likud governments, during peace negotiations and conflict, the number of settlements and settlers has steadily increased. It simply strikes me as surreal that Peres, who knows all about this, decides not to address it at all.

Nor does the evacuation of the Gaza settlements provide any real comfort. From my reading, I think there was a general recognition in the settler movement that Gaza was simply untenable, but the West Bank, Samaria, is another story entirely. I would not be at all surprised if there weren't some settlers that would be prepared to die rather than surrender the West Bank. After all, some of these folks, and obviously there are a minority, are prepared to live very roughly, in hostile territory, with their often young families. It takes deep faith, courage and determination to do this in the first place and I am very skeptical that they would simply uproot their lives if some politician in Tel Aviv told them to do so.

One of the reasons that I particularly like the 60 minutes interview is that it shows very clearly what happened when Olmert tried to evacuate just one tiny settlement outpost. The violence that was sparked was traumatic - and Olmert simply didn't try to remove any more.

It is also important to point out that the settler demographics are just one reason why the two-state solution is looking obsolete. The Israeli political structure itself, with the deal making power often being wielded by the far right groups, in itself could also preclude a two-state solution. This situation looks likely to reoccur after yesterdays election. Access to water, and especially the Jordan River, is another extremely complex issue that is fundamentally hard to solve. And critically, with every passing year the conflict becomes systemically harder and harder to solve.

So, increasingly I think that if writers or commentators are going to talk about a two-state solution, the onus ought to be on explaining why exactly they think it is feasible in a very concrete, practical way. I would very interested in hearing about how the settlers are going to be removed, and when for example. But then again, maybe these are questions that Peres would rather not think about.

America, The Rorschach Test

One thing I like about having lived in the States is that gives you some perspective when reading articles about the place. Frequently, what people write about the States is actually far more revealing about themselves, in often completely unintentional ways, than it is about the US itself.

Take this op-ed in the New York Times. The writer Alaa Al Aswany offers a critique of America, and Obama in particular, for his silence on the recent fighting in Gaza. I guess one of his key quotes would be where he summarizes a variety of Egyptian opinion after the recent Gaza fighting:

I thus concluded that no matter how many envoys, speeches or interviews Mr. Obama offers to us, he will not win the hearts and minds of Egyptians until he takes up the injustice in the Middle East. I imagine the same holds true for much of the greater Muslim world.

You could crudely, but more or less accurately, summarize the article as arguing that (1) a lot of Egyptians like Obama, (2) America is not being fair in mediating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and hence (3) Egyptians are not going to really trust the new administration until it starts addressing addressing injustice in the Middle East, specifically in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I am often puzzled when I read articles like this. For starters, does the writer really understand American or Israeli politics? To simply say that the States should simply become a fair mediator in the conflict glosses an enormous amount of complexity as well as the limited amount of leverage that the new administration actually possesses. Alaa Al Aswany has lived in Chicago and should have some familiarity with this, but it doesn't come through in his article.

But the most gob smacking aspect is that from Alaa Al Aswany's perspective, America's entire relationship with the Middle East, and somewhat more breathlessly, the entire Muslim world, can be boiled down to this single conflict. Really? And more importantly, should it? American aid to Egypt, over $30 billion since the mid 1970s; American involvement in ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan; American military support for Muslims in Kosovo and strong American support for Turkey are all irrelevant compared to this one issue.

I might happen to agree with Al Aswany's basic idea, that a more even-handed American approach to this conflict would be a good idea. But one of the more ugly side-effects of the Palestinian-Israel conflict is that it seems to suck up American time and energy that could theoretically be better applied to far worse conflicts, such as those in Sudan, Congo or Zimbabwe, where many, many more people are dying.

I would love to read something by Al Aswany on any of these topics: after all Sudan is actually next door to Egypt and Congo sits just below Sudan. The Arab League even has its headquarters in Cairo, though I haven't read much about pressure being applied on Sudan by Arab governments. But then again, I would hate to judge a country by just one aspect of their foreign policy.

Commuting Locavores

So, I was pondering the locavore movement the other day. There are many reasons to eat locally grown food, including better taste, a greater sense of harmony with local seasons and apparently even better behaved bowels. But certainly one raison d'etre of the locavore movement is the desire to reduce the distance that food must travel from where it is grown to where it is consumed, hence reducing the amount of fossil fuels required for food production and transportation.

This makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, but does it really make sense when examined critically? I mean, I love the color and vibrancy of local markets as much as anyone, but on balance, I can't say that I really think they are even a part of a solution to global warming.

I also cannot resist thinking the snarky question about that what matters more, the distance that your food has travelled, mostly likely in bulk and in relatively efficient trucks, or the distance that the consumer travels on a daily basis, to and from work, and to and from their local market or Whole Foods, individually, in a generally inefficient car?

Sleeping Children

Aralyn and Caeden are sleeping now after a busy day out swimming in a lovely indoor pool in Ribnitz-Damgarten. Living in gray and cold Rostock, there is something absolutely wonderful about spending the day nearly naked in a steamy, almost tropical, pool. Especially when you get to simultaneously look out onto frigid Baltic waters only a hundred meters away.

There is also something soft and warm and magical about sleeping children. I snapped this photo of Aralyn a few weeks ago when she was sleeping in our bed after Caeden decided to stay up late and party. Later, I picked her up and carried her back to her own bed, which is one of the many joys of being a dad.

Atheism Redux

First off, Danny, thanks for your response. Although I really enjoyed all our discussions in the past, I feel like writing them down makes the arguments themselves much clearer and more interesting as we can get deeper into the issues.

So, reviewing your argument, you started off by differing with my interpretation of the definition of atheism. I then wrote in my second post that the first definition offered by dictionary.com that "the doctrine or belief that there is no God" was very much the strong form of atheism that denied God's existence. I never intended the first definition to be an example of weak atheism, founded on a lack of belief, as you might have been implying.

However, the second definition "disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings" supports my argument that atheism is an absence of belief, not a positive belief in the non-existence of a supreme being. Going further, the definition of disbelief as "the inability or refusal to believe or accept something as true" concurs exactly with the meaning of weak atheism.

Your quote is quite revealing: “an unbeliever has the proofs (of implicitly, Christianity's truth - my comments) and incurs the guilt of setting them aside”. Wouldn’t you agree that the logic of this quote is grounded in Christianity's truth, which I am setting aside? I am not surprised it is referred to in the definition but can you not see how I might object to that logical starting point?

So I believe that the first argument, that atheism can simply be the absence of belief, is supported by the dictionary.com definitions. If pushed, I would adopt this position as the safest and ultimately most sane response when discussing these issues with religious folks. I like this approach to atheism because it simply sets aside questions of belief, and provides no opening for arguments that atheism is just another belief or just another religion.

*****

Emily also kindly sent me an email related to this discussion suggesting that we clarify what we mean by God in this discussion. So, for the purposes of this discussion I would define God as being any one or more of the many gods and goddesses that have been worshiped by humanity in the last three or four millennia. I would include the contemporary Hindu gods such as Vishnu and Shiva, Norse gods such as Thor and Loki, the Roman gods and so on, as well as the God of the current three great monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

However, these gods and goddesses are just a subset of all entities for which there is no empirical evidence for their existence. And while there is a big difference between unicorns and the many gods and goddesses of the various people on earth, all of these entities share the common characteristic of lacking any scientific evidence demonstrating their existence. Indeed, it is one of their defining attributes: one must simply believe.

Circling back to the strong atheism argument, I thus think that the statement "there are no unicorns" is logically the same as "there is no God", and about as reasonable. If we enumerated all the current and past Gods and Goddesses, how many would a Christian be comfortable stating do not exist? And how many people today would think that such statements would be reasonable – akin to stating that unicorns do not exist?

Why exactly does the same logic not apply to the Christian God? For a Christian the answer is obvious. However, for me, and I would suggest for a disinterested observer of the discussion, the answer is not at all obvious.

I also don't think it matters that a great many more people believe in the Christian God or that Christianity is a much more enriching experience compared with a belief in unicorns. Just because millions, or even billions, of people believe something doesn't make it true. That would simply amount to taking the thinking behind the line "if I say it thrice then it is true" to the mathematical limit.

*****

The third argument I would make is based on Sebastian's interesting comment (check it out here). For me, one really interesting part of his email was where he pointed out that every society known has an associated religion or belief system. It appears to be impossible to be human and not have spiritual or religious thoughts.

There is a fascinating article in the latest New Scientist by Michael Brooks that addresses this point. He looks at a number of researchers and their work in trying to unravel the origin of religious belief. One of the key points in the article seems to be that not only are our minds are biologically receptive to religious belief, but that it may almost be the ‘default’ setting.

Having become a parent I can certainly see how this makes sense. Aralyn has had an entire imaginary pantheon of characters for sometime, and it would be simple for her to make a logical step to an imaginary, but powerful God. Such a belief would also be very comforting to her: she has struggled for some time to get her head around death (she came across this while watching the Lion King) which is really hard when you are only four. God would make this so much easier and simpler for her.