Lynas and Lucas on nuclear power

Environmnental writer Mark Lynas and Green Party leader(!) Caroline Lucas debated nuclear power on the today programme this morning. It brought what I thought was the most astute question I've heard for a while on Today:

[Is there something] almost dogmatic in the theological sense about where the Green movement stands on this question, in that people are perhaps looking at the facts through lenses tinted by the historic opposition of the green movement to nuclear power?

Lucas didn't entirely disagree, but argued her point nonetheless in the usual way:

•  "Nuclear would lock us into a centralised energy system...." which is largely cod. They are all good ideas that come under the "decentralised energy" agenda, but the agenda itself is simply a way of packaging all carbon-saving technologies except for nuclear for the purposes of promoting them. By all means do that if you have already decided that nuclear would be a mistake, but it doesn't work as an argument against nuclear.
•  "Nuclear is not necessary..." - perhaps not. Arguably wind is not necessary either, or coal or gas or even energy efficiency. What is necessary is the generation of enough low-carbon energy, and we cannot afford to let dogma get in the way of this.
  
•  "Nuclear delivers too little too late." - that all depends on how much of it we build and how quickly. As Lynas pointed out, Germany built more coal fired power stations after the Greens had their nuclear plant shut down. That is an undeniable harm to the climate.

On their own these arguments might sway some but seen together they are horribly weak. We don't oppose wind farms because they deliver very little as a percentage of our total energy needs. We don't dismantle the interconnector to France's nuclear electric riches on the grounds that that is too "centralised", nor should we. We maintain spare generating capacity so that no single plant is "necessary". Lucas' objections are paper thin when stood against the need for large amounts of low-carbon energy.

Now maybe nuclear is just too expensive. Perhaps filling a percent of a percent or two of the Sahara with CSP, and linking to it with HVDC would be a better investment. But my guess is that we should do both - that we are a long way from being in a position to turn down feasible low-carbon energy sources. It is madness to frame the debate as nuclear v renewables and efficiency, when we are still building coal-fired plant.

And in any case the unknown factor in the cost of nuclear is the underwriting of the decommissioning cost, which is some time away. This would represent off-books liability that puts PFI to shame. No other low-carbon energy source can defer its costs like this. I don't think that our descendents whose climate will have been saved will mind that much the decommissioning cost. It is not as if they would be better off suffering climate change.

So with that in mind, it seems that nuclear capacity is almost certainly probably worth building, and probably probably worth building in sufficient quantity to replace all our coal-fired plant. (Gas, on the other hand, complements wind well.) I realise that my party, the Lib Dems, is opposed. I guess this is due to a desire to do the right thing for the environment, but with too much deference to the environmental movement. But environmentalists should heed Lynas:

We are no longer living in the 1970s. Today, the world is more threatened even than it was during the Cold War. Only this time nuclear power – instead of being part of the problem – can be part of the solution.

In defence of trickle-up economics

Today saw a great speech from Nick Clegg at the Lib Dem conference, arguing for tax cuts for low and middle income earners to help meet rising food and fuel costs. The left don't like this because it doesn't involve veneration of the state, and the right don't because they focus their occasional tax cutting efforts at the better off - which is not to suggest that they cut taxes overall in the long run.

The left shouldn't object of course, because they should recognise that fuel and particularly food are even more basic and important than public services like ID cards and wars. But now I want to address why the right shouldn't object either, because this policy will benefit the rich too in the long run.

According to trickle-up economics, what happens when the low and middle income earners have more money in their pockets is that they go out and buy more of the things they need, so that money eventually gets recycled into executive bonuses, dividends, and so forth. So tax cuts for the poor benefit us all in the long run.

Now it should be said that not everybody agrees with trickle-up theory. Some argue that it is just spin for the doctrine that what is good for the poor is good for the country, a doctrine that should be resisted because, er, they aren't poor, or something. 

But seriously, "supply siders" argue for cuts in taxation on profits to encourage investment. But as post-tax profits drive investment, these can also be boosted by boosting pre-tax profits, by leaving ordinary people with more in their pockets to spend. The difference is who gets the direct benefit and who merely gets trickled on, er, or trickled under.

The perils of genetics

Laurence Boyce at Lib Dem Voice offers us a good argument that genetics is not irrelevant to the way we turn out, but that this raises fears, particularly on the left.

So why all the discomfort? Pinker sets out four “fears” that might make us hesitate in the face of what the science is increasingly telling us. These are the fear of inequality, imperfectibility, determinism, and nihilism. I can’t possibly do justice to all of these – you’ll have to read the book – but the fear of inequality is probably the one which most offends left-wing sensibilities.

There is a great deal of heat over the suggestion that genetic differences between groups would justify discrimination on the basis of group membership. It is clear to me that political equality is a moral principle, not a consequence of us being "born equal" in any sense. Clearly we are not born equal - genetic variation within groups is not disputed. Don't base a good princple on a false premise unless you are trying to oppose it.

But it is vital, one opponent of discrimination would argue, that we oppose the idea that groups may differ genetically one from another, because this would justify prejudice.

So far, so wrong. It is frankly stupid to judge any individual based on group memberships (sex, race, class, shoe size, which group do you choose?) whether there are group differences or not, because all group differences are swamped by individual variation within groups.

However, beneath this, there is some substance in the warning. If there is a genetic difference on average between two groups, this may explain different outcomes on average. This explanation may even be - or seem - sufficient to account for the whole difference of outcome, suggesting that there is no discrimination at work.

So what theories of genetic difference between groups threaten is not the moral principle that people should be treated equitably and on their own merits; rather it is the evidence that disadvantaged groups are indeed discriminated against.

How do we respond to this? Well I would argue that this evidence was never terribly good in the first place. It doesn't, for instance, deal with the likelihood that people with different group identities may make different choices on average. Buddhists may choose to become monks with no possessions and this does not mean that the economic system discriminates against Buddhists.

Much better evidence comes from blind controlled trials; from differences in hiring and marking rates where the name and picture of the candidate are not available. Unfortunately this is not always possible. Still, it is not as if it is any secret. I have heard an employer admit that he won't hire women because they might get pregnant. Others have said that they won't hire disabled people because they might get sued for some technical breach of a complex accessibility law. Is there really such a lack of evidence for discrimination that we must die in a ditch over the weakest of it? No.

Inequality of outcomes between groups is a red flag, it warns us that discrimination is likely to be afoot. We should then find that discrimination and try to stop it. In every case it is a crime against some individual - and if we begin to see it more like this and less as a crime against some group identity, so much the better. Ultimately, groups identities are artificial, and group outcomes don't matter, so long as all individuals are respected and not discriminated against.

Anti-anti-anti-anti-american

There is a little fuss brewing over at Lefty Conspiracy about the America in the World blog. Frankly the sound of repeated comfort-zone positions is pretty deafening, with neither side addressing the arguments of the other much.

So the conspiring lefties complain with some justification about being lumped in with the Taleban, when all they are doing is criticising a government. America in the World complains also with some justification that the USA is misunderstood, that it is good for the world, in a world where so many forces and powers are pretty heinous and do not attract the same condemnation.

Of course everybody knows that the USA, even when under the Democrats is a terribly conservative country, and this does seem to be a large part of what is behind why AitW's Conservative founder thinks it is so great, and the lefties think it is so awful. This seems to me to be a very narrow perspective. Compared to most of the rest of the world, there is little difference between the values of the USA, EU, and the rest of the democratic world. When, for example, one country is left holding out against action on global warming, that country will be Russia.

But actually what is so great about the USA is not its conservatism but its liberalism, if only they knew what the word meant. The USA is still a beacon of freedom and democracy. It's prosperity benefits the rest of the world through trade. Its contributions to science are enormous. And even its military and intelligence services have played some positive roles alongside their various crimes.

It is too easy to forget all this in the face of a few disagreements over policy. Among political people, political disagreements tend to loom large. So it is a shame that this vital cause of opposing anti-Americanism has been conducted in such a partisan way. It is foolish to big up the USA, as AitW does, with snide remarks about the EU. The USA and EU are on the same side, and will have to stand together in the future.

It is utterly bonkers, as AitW does, to offend those who most need to be reached by this message - those with the greatest political disagreements with American people and governments - by lumping them with racists.

Yet the anti-anti-anti-Americans on Liberal Conspiracy should not get a free ride. It is too easy to focus on the comfortable and justifiable: our right to disagree with a government. Beneath the cheap attack on the left and liberals, that few Conservatives could resist, AitW is largely correct about the USA and its other detractors. And we should say so.

Still alive

...and back from the beaches of north Wales. I will resume putting the world to rights as soon as I get round to it, etc.

Actually I did pop in to the David Lloyd George museum in Llanystumdwy. I learned that Lloyd George was the greatest statesman of the 20th century; the man from whom Churchill learned everything he knew (except, presumably, disastrous naval tactics); a man without flaws, at least none worth mentioning.

It impressed me how much he did for ordinary working people - pensions and national insurance and more, and yet he and the party were brought down effectively by the rise of the Labour Party. How does that event look today? What is the Labour Party for? A class war movement winning power has to either represent this new elite, and invent new class enemies, or become a cipher, or a bit of both, as it happened. We have been out of power for 100 years for this? What a stinker.