Bikes to be manufactured in Africa

"Across Africa they are used to carry infants, lug sacks of grain and ferry boxes of vegetables and crates of chickens to and from markets. In Rwanda, people careen down hills astride homemade wooden versions bereft of brakes. The bicycle is a part of everyday life for many Africans. Yet, despite demand, there is no mass-market African bicycle manufacturer."

Read the rest of the article HERE (gated - create a free FT account to read)

Brazilian ethanol finally allowed into the US

American ethanol uses to much energy to produce it is probably no greener than petrol. Not only that but it displaces food production pushing up food prices. Alternatively, it requires using land that could be used to grow trees. American ethanol production uses billions in subsidies. Funds that could be used for health or education or transport or the environment or lower taxes for businesses and workers. Anything. I came to the conclusion some time ago that it only exists because of the power of the corn lobby. On the few occasions that I fill up a car in the US, I deliberately avoid the mixed petrol-ethanol on offer. I reckon it is probably less green than pure petrol.

Brazilian ethanol takes less energy to produce (even including transport), uses less land per litre to produce, is cheaper and more efficient. Finally, in the current climate of cut-backs, it can't be justified not to allow it to compete with the US variety. It should result in a large reduction of ethanol being produced in the US. Brazil's economy should grow faster lifting more people out of poverty and the American consumer can have cheaper and greener fuel for their cars. The subsidies should go, the land used for food or forest. The world will be a greener place. And, I can fill up cars with ethanol. Oh, but the small vested interests of the corn-lobby in the US which produces inefficient American ethanol due to the utterly crazy subsidy scheme will lose out. All thanks to the fact that Brazilian ethanol is finally allowed into the US.

Britain's progress (and lack of) in cycling

HERE is a great Guardian Focus podcast on cycling in the UK. Part of the great Bike Podcast they do. 

With the caveat that I do not live or cycle in London, I agree with some of the things discussed but disagree with others. Not enough is invested in cycling especially considering the economic benefits of cycling and the billions lost every year because of congestion. I think they have been too harsh on Boris Johnson - although it is not perfect, plenty of progress seems to have been made in London on cycling. A lot more needs to be done though. London's Blue Lanes are clearly insufficient but I disagree that they do nothing - I think that they are likely to raise awareness and change attitudes slowly. I am concerned however at the lack of resources used for cycling when funds are found for other transport. I was interested to discover that Tony Blair revealed in his memoirs that the closest any of his governments came to collapse was when there were queues at the petrol pump (I have not read it). It shows the power of the car lobby. I was happy to see that petrol prices in the UK are probably now about two thirds to three quarters of the full cost of humanity. They still need to rise further.

A couple of cool bike things

1. Strava. I used it for the first time today. Very cool app for smartphones keeps track of cycling times and distances, plots it all on maps and shows you the main climbs. No need for a special computer any more! (HT: SS)


2. Phones use a lot of battery especially if you are running GPS using strava. So what you need is a way to charge your phone using your bike. Enter Global Cycle Solutions. They design products that can improve lives in developing countries using bikes and I love them. You can buy your own from their website too!





3. Buy some bicycle art from this etsy store. Available in different sizes.

Carbon offsetting is sexy!

I did it for my flights to the UK over the xmas hols and for the 1600 miles I managed to clock up in the hire car. I don't think that I should have had to do either as it should be included automatically. Happily, any airlines flying into or out of the EU now have to pay the carbon tax if they exceed their (tradeable) limits. It's a pity these carbon credits were given away rather than sold to begin with and not sold but it is a good start. 

I am really happy the EU resisted pressure from airlines and other countries not to introduce the tax. See, for example, this stupid article from the Washington Examiner which thinks that the EU is trying to get foreigners to bail out the failing European economy - um... Europeans have to pay the tax too; increasing transport costs hurt not benefit the economy in the short run; and, quite frankly, we will all destroy all of our lives if we done implement schemes such as this - in economic models, that results in a utility of minus infinity making this excellent long-run economics.

Carbon offsetting the flight and the car journey makes them both more expensive but if I don't pay, someone else (who is probably significantly poorer than me) will pay for it. 

I use myclimate.org to do my carbon offsetting.

Junk mail

Just two weeks away and I got all of this, just from Comcast. It is already all on its way back to them with a request not to send any more of this junk unless it is actually important (as per the indication on the envelope). How many trees? How much transport? How much energy? ....

On environmental issues, businesses need government leadership

I've been wanting to write something about the Durban Climate Talks that was something more than the morbid curiosity with which I watch humanity choosing to cease to exist à la Easter Islanders by destroying all of the earth's natural systems on which we rely for survival. I like a lot the personal perspectives of my friend, Jo, who is attending the meetings. In the end, of course, countries decided to push our survival to the limit by agreeing to do something after 2020. Scientists say it will not avert catastrophic climate change and somewhat surprisingly for a country that already suffers extremely badly from the effects of climate change, India, were villains (who needs to drink water from the mountains anyway? and why should we care about monsoon patterns anyway?). All this is rather bad economics.

Thankfully, some companies are doing their best to go green despite a lack of Government leadership. But they are doing less than they otherwise would. One of the reasons is that they don't know what the standards will be and there are costs associated with setting standards only to have to change them. For this reason:

Of 300 bosses of big global firms recently quizzed by Ernst & Young, 83% said they wanted to see a legally binding multilateral deal struck in Durban to update the ailing Kyoto protocol and help to put a price on carbon emissions. But only 18% expect this to happen. The absence of a clear climate policy helps explain why, for example, investment in British clean technology fell from around $11 billion in 2009 to $3 billion last year. It would also suggest that any firm factoring a steep carbon price into its plans—as Shell does, assuming a notional price of $40 a tonne—should quietly lower it.

(see FULL ARTICLE in The Economist)

This applies in particular to new technologies such as that associated with electric cars. Israel is reportedly doing very well because the Government has already defined standards. Why invest in a system of recharging or changing batteries when the country may change standards? This partly explains why other countries are doing less well in this field.

A few companies fight against change. For example BA announced that an air duty rise will cost jobs. They are correct. But only in the short run and the alternative is far worse or, at least, far more expensive.

So there are two reasons why Government leadership is necessary: setting standards which are predictable and, applicable to everyone (fair competition) and forcing companies to adjust to the changes rather than fight them.

I recently read a book about the impact that humans have had on the environment and what the planetary limits are in different areas now and what can realistically be done. I recommend as essential reading The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans by Mark Lynas. There is also an excellent interview with him on The Guardian's Science Weekly. (I had pre-ordered this book in fact, and I plan to write a full review of it when I get time.)

He talks in great detail about the CFC (ozone layer) crisis. It is somehow seen today as if this was an easy one to fix but in reality it was far from easy. Governments needed to be strong armed into agreeing. Industry tried to resist saying that there was no alternatives.

Of course, any argument suggesting we could no longer have fridges or deodorants make people think twice. Indeed, I believe that all arguments saying that people's lives would be significantly worse following action to prevent climate change are doomed to failure. But this didn't happen. The industry developed new technologies and I am happy to report I as I write, I am sipping on a beer kept chilled in my fridge and smelling very nice, thank you very much.

The point is that clear legislation and leadership by Government gives industry an incentive to innovate. It gets around the short term profit motive. It gets around the risk of losing business if you go green but your competitor does not. It gets around the standards problem. Governments need to lead to avoid collective action failure (tragedy of the commons) and to create a level playing field.

And we need to have faith in human nature and the dynamism of the private sector to find solutions without lowering living standards. But this will only happen with Government leadership in the right areas (and, obviously, not interfering in business in the wrong areas).

One of the major justifications for having Governments at all is the ability to correct a collective action problem. In Durban they have failed and they all lose some legitimacy for this.