[Apologies to our readers but a consistent error in all the links to previous posts within this and earlier posts has now been corrected. You can view all the previous sections of his lecture by clicking the links in this Post. Ed.]
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are here , Part Three and Four here
Parts Five and Six were in this post. These are the concluding two parts.
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are here , Part Three and Four here and Parts Five and Six in this post. The concluding two parts are tomorrow. Part Five
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are here with Part Three and Four in this post. The remaining four parts over the next two days.
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are in this post with each of the following three days having the next two.
Trying to say anything new about the implications of the terrible disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would be impossible.
All I can do is to admit my very great discomfort at knowing that later today, I shall be returning to Phoenix by flying across the Atlantic in a Boeing 747.
A small amount of web research suggests that there are about 600 transatlantic flights a day and that my B747 will use roughly 10 tons of fuel an hour, i.e. conservatively 100 tons for the flight LHR-PHX.
So 600 x 100 = 60,000 tons of fuel every day just in flights across the Atlantic!
So pointing the finger at BP is, in a very real sense, misdirected. BP are only responding to our need for oil, in all its forms.
Do watch the videos from Prof Al Bartlett being shown on this Blog from tomorrow to understand the mathematics behind our unsustainable way of life.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.
The Committee’s members come from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The present Chairman of the Committee is Mr Nout Wellink, President of the Netherlands Bank.
OK, that’s clear then!
Pers Kurowski
Well, according to a good supporter of and Guest contributor to Learning from Dogs, Pers Kurowski, we really ought to know much, much more about this ‘committee’.
Pers has a Blog called Tea with FT (as in the Financial Times) and there is much to read there that helps us understand why we are in so big a mess with the banks. Here’s his piece from the 4th May.
Basel Committee, why don´t you just shut up!
Sir who do these Basel Committee regulators really think they are bullying us around with an arrogant “the banks should be sensible and realise that it might backfire if they protest too much”? as reported by Brooke Masters, May 4.
They themselves are the ones who thought everything would be fine and dandy if they just had some few credit rating agencies determine default risks and then gave the banks great incentives, by means of different capital requirements, to follow those credit risk opinions. They themselves are the ones who believing in the abundance of safe triple-A rated lending and investments, caused the world to stampede and fall over the subprime mortgages. They themselves should shut up, because rarely has the world seen such a gullible naive and outright stupid bunch of regulators.
Now the banks, in the midst of a crisis, need to build up the equity they do not have precisely because the Basel Committee did not require them to have; precisely when we need the most the banks to lend. The regulators, instead of bullying banks, should busy themselves day and night finding ways for severely capital stretched banks to be able to lend to those small businesses and entrepreneurs who have had to pay the cost of higher capital requirements but who had absolutely nothing to do in generating this crisis.
And just in case, for the record, I am no banker, only a citizen, very upset with the fact that in the 347 pages of the regulations known as Basel II, there is not one single word that describes the purpose of those regulations. Basel Committee why do you not start defining a purpose for what you are doing? Is that too much to ask?
Recently we rented the film, Pirate Radio, a somewhat ‘true’ story about the days of broadcasting rock and roll from a ship moored just outside British waters. Here’s the official trailer of the film (somewhat glitzy as is the manner of Hollywood):
Anyone of my sort of vintage living in England during the 1960s will recall the fun and excitement of Radio Caroline, the name of the radio station that started up in 1964.
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O’Rahilly, to circumvent the tight hold the record companies had on the broadcast of popular music in the UK. It originally commenced transmissions as an offshore radio station broadcasting from a ship anchored in international waters off the coast of South East England. Originally unlicensed by any government, for the majority of its early life, it was labelled as a pirate radio station.
Radio Caroline
Amazingly, at its peak Radio Caroline had an audience of 23 million listeners. In a very real way Radio Caroline was another symbol of what became known as the Swinging Sixties, a transformation period for post-war Britain.
Tony Blackburn was just one of many famous disk jockeys who started life out on Radio Caroline, with Tony being the first presenter of the BBC’s Radio 1 station, broadcasting popular music, when it came on air on the 30th September, 1967.
Tony Blackburn, some while ago!
Anyway, if you are nostalgic towards the ‘good’ old days of the sixties, do watch the film.
Wonderful short film of the P-38 Lightning (thanks to Steve).
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a WWII American fighter aircraft. Equipped with droppable fuel tanks under its wings, the P-38 was used as a long-range escort fighter and saw action in every major combat area of the world.
A very versatile aircraft, the Lightning was also used for dive bombing, level bombing, ground strafing and photo reconnaissance missions.
The Lockheed team chose twin booms to accommodate the tail assembly, engines, and turbo superchargers, with a central nacelle for the pilot and armament. The nose was designed to carry two Browning .50 machine guns, two .30″ Brownings and an Oldsmobile 37 mm cannon.
The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in active production throughout the duration of American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day.
Music: Benny Goodman with Helen Forrest – ‘It’s Always You’.
Several times a week, I drop into Karl Denninger’s blog The Market Ticker. While frequently the articles are too technical for me, it’s still, nonetheless, possible to get the drift of Karl’s messages.
As his overall theme is strongly coincident with my own views on my pension investments, and which have served me proud over the last 10 years, especially the last 2 years, it’s natural that I like what Karl does.
But the point of this Post is to underline just how much time and effort Karl puts in to his work, all of which is free to the world at the click of a mouse.
Are there others who devote equal amounts of time to their Blogs and websites? Yes, many! And many of them are also heroes (and heroines!)
Of course, I have no doubt that The Market Ticker is part of Karl’s business strategy but, again, he could choose other ways to make his income without sharing, for free, so many valuable ideas.
Here are a couple of examples to underline my deep respect for this man. (Taken from Market Ticker on the 13th May.)
Learning from Dogs 