Ireland did not discover climate change in 2007, despite what our Green party would like you to think. We published a beautifully-intentioned but toothless strategy back in 2000. Yet it's only since last summer when Greens got in government that any kind of proper carbon policies (ie taxes) have been talked about and tentatively introduced. Sadly there's more than a hint of the thought about that putting big taxes on big cars is the solution to the whole problem. It's not. Here's five little truths on climate change policy to get you thinking:
1) Rich people are always going to emit more carbon, in the same way that they already drive nicer cars, live in bigger houses and travel more. You might not like this. Get used to it though.
2) A well-designed carbon tax would have roughly the same impact as cap-and-trade at international level, without all the messy negotiations and finger-pointing. Given the immense ethical (never mind practical) problems associated with levying a tax at international level we're going to be stuck with Kyoto and her offspring for some time to come.
3) Prices are generally a reasonably good measure of the importance society puts on various activities. Radiohead like to feel guilty about touring because of its carbon impact. They shouldn't bother. People are obviously choosing to forgo other carbon-producing activity in order to go and watch them instead.
4) It has the vogue within certain European quarters to blame either Americans, their driving habits, or both for climate change. Much of this sentiment is formed in ignorance of the true carbon cost of most activities. Educate yourself. Driving big cars is bad, overheating your house is really bad and eating beef is terrible.
5) The cheapest way to reduce emissions is always the best way, both at the individual and societal level. No abatement strategy is any more noble than any other.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
We're back
We have internet at home after a long pause. And because it's cold and dark and it's January outside there's not much else to do except speculate about the world in 2008.
Monday, 20 August 2007
Another Flaky Fianna Fáiler
Senator Mary White has a deeply silly letter(sub needed) in today's Irish Times. Silly waffle about how Shannon Airport is FF's contribution to Ireland, etc, etc:
Seán Lemass, considered the establishment of Aer Lingus to be his proudest achievement, and recognised Shannon airport as "a development which would prevent us from being cut off from the rest of the world".Etc, etc. More about connectivity, etc, etc but, crucially there's a more than a hint of disloyalty to the government. The very same government she supports in the Seanad:
The reluctance of the Government to intervene... raises the question of the purpose of the 25 per cent stake it holds...[in Aer Lingus]. If this shareholding was not intended to influence the strategic development of the company in support of the Government's vision for the country, what purpose was envisaged for it?Now I kind of agree with her, from an opposite point of view. But is this evidence of a lack of loyalty to the government she supports? I think it is.
RIP Tony Wilson
Tony Wilson was buried today. He was the co-founder of Factory Records and the Hacienda; and general man-about-Manchester. In its 1980s prime Factory released some pretty amazing music from Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays.
24 Hour Party People - what you could very roughly descirbe as a biopic - was released back in 2002. It's long been one of my faves and Steve Coogan's portrayal of Wilson captures him as both deeply silly yet oddly effective at organising a chaotic bunch of people into making very good music.
Check this clip where Joy Division record She's Lost Control while Tony minces round in the background. Well worth a look.
24 Hour Party People - what you could very roughly descirbe as a biopic - was released back in 2002. It's long been one of my faves and Steve Coogan's portrayal of Wilson captures him as both deeply silly yet oddly effective at organising a chaotic bunch of people into making very good music.
Check this clip where Joy Division record She's Lost Control while Tony minces round in the background. Well worth a look.
Saturday, 18 August 2007
Bad Journalists Part 1
Is Tom McGurk Ireland's worst journalist? Quite possibly. Now RTE doesn't let people on to complain about the toilet facilities in (hypothetically) the parish hall in Swinford, Co Mayo. But someone up there in Montrose thinks that it's okay for Tom to waffle on air about how he won't be able to get his pre-match pints with his rugby chums in Jury's anymore, even though it's just as parochial. But he's often worse in print. This week in the Sunday Business Post Tom's noticed about fifteen years after everyone else that:
And just in case you think Tom's being excessively anglocentric he notes that:
Well by that logic shouldn't the French, German and Italian national teams be in the doldrums too? Now soccer isn't really my thing but I seem to remember those three making semi-finals of the World Cup last summer and one of them winning it.
Then he just gets is plain wrong:
Now Liverpool have never won a Premier League title. And Blackburn have won one in 1995. So that makes you wrong Tom. Not just wrong in your opinions. But in facts that would take a minute to check.
Then he gets it wrong again:
Well not quite. Sky used to have the rights to broadcast all Premiership games. Not any more as Setanta have quite a few. So that makes Tom wrong. Plain wrong. And then he mentions that the Premiership is 'the biggest viewed sporting event in the world'. Nope Not the World Cup, the Superbowl, or even the Olympics.
But then it gets curiouser. Tom writes that:
Even more bizarrely Tom obviously thinks he's the first to notice the commercialization of soccer. He congratulates himself on a job well done:
Despite all the mistakes and confusion there does lurk in the article a truth that dare not speak its name, that someone is a pretty bad journalist.
The Premier League is all about money and the clubs are little more than huge brands...Football is now quite simply a vast global merchandising industry, still stretched across what were the bones of the old professional game in England....[T]he English Premier League...is now less a domestic league than a world one.
And just in case you think Tom's being excessively anglocentric he notes that:
It has also overhauled the Spanish, Italian and German leagues in financial terms and, because of its enormous wage levels, attracts the very best players in the world. It’s no wonder that, as a consequence, the England national team is in the doldrums. Rather than attempt to produce homegrown players, the English clubs are now more likely to sign foreign talent.
Well by that logic shouldn't the French, German and Italian national teams be in the doldrums too? Now soccer isn't really my thing but I seem to remember those three making semi-finals of the World Cup last summer and one of them winning it.
Then he just gets is plain wrong:
Since the inception of the Premier League the big four [Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea] have won all the major silverware
Now Liverpool have never won a Premier League title. And Blackburn have won one in 1995. So that makes you wrong Tom. Not just wrong in your opinions. But in facts that would take a minute to check.
Then he gets it wrong again:
The Premier League, of course, is effectively owned by Rupert Murdoch in all but name,
Well not quite. Sky used to have the rights to broadcast all Premiership games. Not any more as Setanta have quite a few. So that makes Tom wrong. Plain wrong. And then he mentions that the Premiership is 'the biggest viewed sporting event in the world'. Nope Not the World Cup, the Superbowl, or even the Olympics.
But then it gets curiouser. Tom writes that:
What further complicates the coverage of the game is the fact that not only does Murdoch effectively ‘‘own’’ it, he also owns the principal television and newspaper outlets covering it.Now in fact the Premiership is owned by the twenty clubs which comprise it. Previously I thought that Tom thought that owning BSkyB meant that Murdoch effectively owned the Premier League. Now he says that that 'Murdoch effectively ‘‘own[s]’’ it {the Premiership]' but controls all the media coverage as well. So how precisely does Murdoch effectively own the Premiership? Puzzled? Me too. And if Murdoch 'owns' the Premiership that makes it a monopoly, not a fucking cartel.
What, essentially, we have here is some sort of cartel effect, with the vast financial resources in the game keeping everybody happy, and with the scale of Murdoch’s press ownership preventing journalistic scrutiny.
Even more bizarrely Tom obviously thinks he's the first to notice the commercialization of soccer. He congratulates himself on a job well done:
Few are prepared to break cover and say it, but the truth that dare not speak its name is that, increasingly, the emperor may have no clothes. Today’s English Premier League is less and less about sport, and more and more about marketing.
Despite all the mistakes and confusion there does lurk in the article a truth that dare not speak its name, that someone is a pretty bad journalist.
Drug Outbreak or Just More Bad Stats?
Those of you out there who've touched on the humanities at some point of their academic career will probably heard the term discourse. It's a slightly nebulous academic term which roughly means that every area of discussion or debate has a set of unwritten rules governing what can and cannot be said. And while the rules may appear obvious they generally reflect the dominant ideological paradigm. In doing so 'they limit the terms of acceptable speech' (as Judith butler says)so that the very terms of the debate frame its outcome. The implication of all this is that academics are the only ones wise enough to see through all of this, which annoys me a bit. But it's a useful concept nonetheless.
Which takes us to the discourse of how drug crime is generally reported in Ireland*. Here's a very few assumptions which underpin every article you'll read on the topic - assumptions that are far from self-evident on closer examination:
The article cites a senior Garda source (why unnamed?) saying "while the increase in drugs seizures indicated a growing drugs trade here, it was also evidence of the success of the National Drugs Unit here." This may be true. But some might argue that a "growing drugs trade" indicates that the National Drugs Unit is not being very successful. You could also argue that "increases in drug seizures" are the sign of the National Drugs Unit being very successful and the drug trade actually decreasing. Who can tell? I honestly don't know, but the article doesn't even offer an opinion or seek out an expert who might know.
The placing of a value of €420m on the value of cannabis sold in Ireland is completely unreasonable. The most up-to-date research suggests that in the last year 5.0% of Irish 15-64 year olds have used cannabis, but only 2.6% have done so in the previous month. This demographic consists of approximately 3 million people. This implies that there are 150,000 users of cannabis in any given year. But this would mean that the €2800 worth of cannabis is consumed per user per year - and half of those users haven't even touched the stuff in the last month! My understanding of such matters is that it takes quite a bit of smoking to get through €55 of the stuff in a week, never mind the cost of tobacco. I'll politely assume that Conor Lally's ignorance of drug values is greater than this girl's, but as a journalist who writes about the area it really shouldn't be.
Further down the article mentions that only €3m of heroin was seized last year and using our magical multiple we get to an annual trade of €30m. But most recent statistics put the number of opiate-users in the country at 15,000. If we again assume that half are heroin users (which is one of the assumptions of the article which seems plausible) the figures suggest that an average heroin habit can be run for about the same price as 40 cigarettes a day! Am I the only one who notices anomalies like this?
The article also cites a source claiming that Ireland is in the early stages of a cocaine epidemic. While I don't want to resort to quoting a dictionary, an epidemic is a widespread outbreak of a serious disease where many people are at risk of infection. No one is at risk of taking cocaine if they don't want feel like it. Throughout the article there is no refutation of either Garda or NACD figures. It's pretty obvious that these are people with an ongoing professional interest in ensuring that reported drug crime is reasonably high.Quoting them without question is lazy.
There are two very interesting stories about drugs in Ireland that to my knowledge no journalist has every pursued. One is that Garda sources regularly overstate the value of drug seizures by at least 50% and anyone who even knows someone who has bought drugs on can do the math and figure this out. The other is that there are an estimated 15,000 opiate addicts in Ireland and 60% of drug-related deaths every year are heroin-related. Heroin is clearly the worst drug out there in terms of impact on users and those around them.Yet heroin-related prosecutions represent a mere 11% of the total while cannabis prosecutions (usually simple possession) account for about 55%, and have been growing. Why are Garda resources so skewed in this direction? No journalist ever asks.
*Manifesto alert. Hibernium believes in the citizen's right to imbibe any recreational drug she likes in full cognicanse of its dangers. However we don't think this is necessarily wise and certainly think that she should be financially incentivized into healthier types of fun.
Which takes us to the discourse of how drug crime is generally reported in Ireland*. Here's a very few assumptions which underpin every article you'll read on the topic - assumptions that are far from self-evident on closer examination:
- Garda estimates of street value are always correct
- The fight against drugs is not being lost. Nor is it being won.
- Some drugs are worse than others
The article cites a senior Garda source (why unnamed?) saying "while the increase in drugs seizures indicated a growing drugs trade here, it was also evidence of the success of the National Drugs Unit here." This may be true. But some might argue that a "growing drugs trade" indicates that the National Drugs Unit is not being very successful. You could also argue that "increases in drug seizures" are the sign of the National Drugs Unit being very successful and the drug trade actually decreasing. Who can tell? I honestly don't know, but the article doesn't even offer an opinion or seek out an expert who might know.
The placing of a value of €420m on the value of cannabis sold in Ireland is completely unreasonable. The most up-to-date research suggests that in the last year 5.0% of Irish 15-64 year olds have used cannabis, but only 2.6% have done so in the previous month. This demographic consists of approximately 3 million people. This implies that there are 150,000 users of cannabis in any given year. But this would mean that the €2800 worth of cannabis is consumed per user per year - and half of those users haven't even touched the stuff in the last month! My understanding of such matters is that it takes quite a bit of smoking to get through €55 of the stuff in a week, never mind the cost of tobacco. I'll politely assume that Conor Lally's ignorance of drug values is greater than this girl's, but as a journalist who writes about the area it really shouldn't be.
Further down the article mentions that only €3m of heroin was seized last year and using our magical multiple we get to an annual trade of €30m. But most recent statistics put the number of opiate-users in the country at 15,000. If we again assume that half are heroin users (which is one of the assumptions of the article which seems plausible) the figures suggest that an average heroin habit can be run for about the same price as 40 cigarettes a day! Am I the only one who notices anomalies like this?
The article also cites a source claiming that Ireland is in the early stages of a cocaine epidemic. While I don't want to resort to quoting a dictionary, an epidemic is a widespread outbreak of a serious disease where many people are at risk of infection. No one is at risk of taking cocaine if they don't want feel like it. Throughout the article there is no refutation of either Garda or NACD figures. It's pretty obvious that these are people with an ongoing professional interest in ensuring that reported drug crime is reasonably high.Quoting them without question is lazy.
There are two very interesting stories about drugs in Ireland that to my knowledge no journalist has every pursued. One is that Garda sources regularly overstate the value of drug seizures by at least 50% and anyone who even knows someone who has bought drugs on can do the math and figure this out. The other is that there are an estimated 15,000 opiate addicts in Ireland and 60% of drug-related deaths every year are heroin-related. Heroin is clearly the worst drug out there in terms of impact on users and those around them.Yet heroin-related prosecutions represent a mere 11% of the total while cannabis prosecutions (usually simple possession) account for about 55%, and have been growing. Why are Garda resources so skewed in this direction? No journalist ever asks.
*Manifesto alert. Hibernium believes in the citizen's right to imbibe any recreational drug she likes in full cognicanse of its dangers. However we don't think this is necessarily wise and certainly think that she should be financially incentivized into healthier types of fun.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Bad Statistcs in the Irish Times
Sean Flynn has a front-page piece in the Irish Times entitled Number of firsts at DCU doubles in less than decade which has a very interesting point about grade inflation and then proceeds to make some very silly conclusions from the statistics on offer.
The accompanying table shows universities have a higher proportion of students getting honours degrees and concludes that "When figures for both firsts and 2:1 honours degrees are combined, UCC and Trinity emerge as the universities where students appear to have the best prospects". This is plain wrong. Yes, these two universities have the highest proportion of students getting good degrees. Yet these statistics say nothing about the ability of candidates on entry or the distribution of grades in the courses the universities have to offer. Arts and social science subjects are generally harder to fail yet harder to excel in while the distribution for science and engineering subjects is flatter with both more firsts and more thirds. Hinting to potential entrants that they'll do better at one institution over another (as the piece insinuates) is simply misleading.
Also Flynn notes that UCD fails to return a full set of results to the HEA yet concludes that: "13 per cent gained a first and 26 per cent a upper second-class honours (2:1) degree." even though the percentages in the accompanying table fail to sum to 100%. Help anyone?
In reality the quality of degrees is unlikely to vary very much from university to university in Ireland. Why? It's a small country so there's only one place to study some subjects. How can you judge UCD's veterinary graduates and Trinity's pharmacy graduates, even against each other? You can't as they're the only places in the Republic to study the subjects. Identical salary scales, equal capitation and little university autonomy ensures that the 'product' on offer in Irish universities is going to vary very little. Policy has always been focussed on ensuring breadth of subjects and wide access and sometimes quality at undergraduate level has suffered as a result.
I'd like to see a serious study (a bit like this one) of university gradings controlling for ability of entrants, drop-out rates and the type of course mix on offer. Until that's done there's very few conclusions (and certainly no front-page ones) to be drawn.
The accompanying table shows universities have a higher proportion of students getting honours degrees and concludes that "When figures for both firsts and 2:1 honours degrees are combined, UCC and Trinity emerge as the universities where students appear to have the best prospects". This is plain wrong. Yes, these two universities have the highest proportion of students getting good degrees. Yet these statistics say nothing about the ability of candidates on entry or the distribution of grades in the courses the universities have to offer. Arts and social science subjects are generally harder to fail yet harder to excel in while the distribution for science and engineering subjects is flatter with both more firsts and more thirds. Hinting to potential entrants that they'll do better at one institution over another (as the piece insinuates) is simply misleading.
Also Flynn notes that UCD fails to return a full set of results to the HEA yet concludes that: "13 per cent gained a first and 26 per cent a upper second-class honours (2:1) degree." even though the percentages in the accompanying table fail to sum to 100%. Help anyone?
In reality the quality of degrees is unlikely to vary very much from university to university in Ireland. Why? It's a small country so there's only one place to study some subjects. How can you judge UCD's veterinary graduates and Trinity's pharmacy graduates, even against each other? You can't as they're the only places in the Republic to study the subjects. Identical salary scales, equal capitation and little university autonomy ensures that the 'product' on offer in Irish universities is going to vary very little. Policy has always been focussed on ensuring breadth of subjects and wide access and sometimes quality at undergraduate level has suffered as a result.
I'd like to see a serious study (a bit like this one) of university gradings controlling for ability of entrants, drop-out rates and the type of course mix on offer. Until that's done there's very few conclusions (and certainly no front-page ones) to be drawn.
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