Category: Economics

Categories
Economics Environment This blog

[264] Of Kyoto is costly but it’s still the best solution

After doing tons of reading on the Kyoto Protocol, I’ve come to a conclusion that the Protocol is too costly for implementation.Why?

The Kyoto Protocol, if ratified, essentially demands the reduction of six greenhouses gases to the 1990 level by the year 2008. Those gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydroflourocarbon, perflourocarbon, and sulphur hexafluoride.

All those six gases, with carbon dioxide in particular are closely related to growth and energy. The connection to energy is a simple one to make since carbon dioxide is the product of burning any carbon based material, including fossil fuel. Growth on the other hand needs energy. Due to this fact, the bigger the economy, the larger greenhouse gases emission will be.

Currently, according to David G. Victor in his book The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming, most countries greenhouse gases emission exceeds the 1990 targeted level. In order to achieve the Kyoto set goal, many countries will have to reduce their growth by a substantial amount and upgrade numerous machines to be environmental friendly. The cost of doing so is high and this is the main reason why the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases withdrew from the Protocol. Recently, Russia has hinted that it will also withdraw from the Protocol.

Of course, the negotiators at the Earth Summit + 5 were aware of that and thus carbon or emission trading was introduced so the cost of emission reduction could be pulled down to a more tolerable level. This method allows the idea of aggregate instead of individual emission reduction. As a result, this allows the participants of the Protocol to continue to develop its economy.

Nevertheless, there are voices of discontent from the backroom. Emission trading is done by giving out emission permits to the parties of the Protocol. Later, unused permits by some countries could be sold to others who need to emit more greenhouse gases than the allocation. The problem is, permit allocation was not given out according to the size of the economy but rather, the allocation problem was solved by the wits of the diplomats. Therefore, some countries received more permits then it should have and more received too little.

If the Kyoto Protocol were to be ratified, Russia and Kazakhstan will gain profit by simply selling these permits. This is true due to the fall of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR states) economy has no way of using all of its allocation, thus creating a surplus of profitable permits. Other countries like the US, hypothetically speaking, will have to buy from Russia so as to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol. Like what Victor said in his book, no country will sign a deal that merely enriches somebody else without doing something concrete in dealing with global warming.

One way or another, with or without permits, there are losers – somebody has to cover up the cost. Yet, if the Kyoto Protocol isn’t ratified in time, the cost of damage due to global warming and the subsequent climate change will be higher than the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol itself.

Given the options, isn’t it’s only logical to accept the least costly path?

For the sake of compromise, perhaps the Kyoto’s target could be lowered but sooner or later, the emission reduction must be done to avoid probably the costliest damage in modern Human history.

p/s – The __earthinc has been nominated for flyingchair.net‘s best Malaysian weblog.

Alright. Time to get aggressive. People of the world, vote for me at flyingchair.net. I know I wouldn’t win but, hey, a bit of publicity wouldn’t hurt!
If you love my site, vote me!
If you hate it, vote me!
If you are indifferent, vote me!
Vote me! :)

Categories
Economics Environment Personal Solar car

[259] Of Malaysia, the center of software piracy

Malaysia, the center of the world software piracy. Proof – MS Longhorn has been released in the street of Johore Bahru. Of course, the OS is still under the alpha version, yet to be completed.

The only answer to piracy is Linux – the open source OS.

p/s – Russia has finally, unofficially refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. It’s disappointing but not surprising. However, it’s not a formal no yet. So things might be brighter than it seems to be. But then sadly, as the author of EnviroSpin Watch has put it, “The politics are even more complex than the science!”

pp/s – My sister has received admittance into the University of Adelaide, Australia. Yea! If I’m going to the World Solar Challenge in 2005, I have a place to stay!

Categories
Economics Personal

[242] Of twelve desperate points

What’s the difference between having four heads in six trials and four consecutive heads in six trials?
Ans: Twelve desperate points.

Somehow, I misread the my exam question and interpreted it as a geometric distribution problem instead of Pascal distribution problem. I can’t believe that I did

P(X=6) = [(1-p)^(3)]*(p) with p=(0.5)^4

because we need four successive successes, instead of

P(X=6) = (5C3)*(p^4)*[(1-p)^2]

But then, even the way I interpreted it into geometric is wrong. Heck, what am I talking about? When you choose your distribution wrongly, there is no way to do it the right way in the wrong way!

To Prof. Inoue, please apply normal distribution into the grading. I know everyone got at least a B+ for the first midterm but the second midterm is a disaster for the whole support. There is no way anyone in the class will get an A- with the current 95-for-A cut off. I dare bet, letting X is the set of discrete grades (X = {A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, E, F}) and P(X=x) is a probability with X=x,

P(X>A-) = 0 and thus P(XA-)

Sigh…

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[235] Of restricted military aid due to the “Jews rule the world by proxy”

Due to Dr. Mahathir’s “Jews rule the world by proxy” speech, the US Senate has agreed to restrict a total of $1.2 million in military aid.
Just a point here, Malaysia’s GDP is measured in billion.

And guess what, ball pen does work in space. Apparently, the “Russian used pencil story was a hoax”. However, the million dollar pen, known as Fisher pen, does exist. Read all about it here.

p/s – Anybody that plays with fire alarm should be amputated.

Categories
Economics

[218] Of playing hockey in a globalized world

While I was on the way back to Ann Arbor from a hockey match at Michigan State University in Lansing, Aaron asked my opinion on globalization. I said to her that I generally believe globalization is good but the only thing that is making it not work are the restrictions forced on trade. Taxes, tariffs, subsidies etc. are preventing globalization.
Though the restrictions are bad, I went on further and told Aaron, Louisa and Amy that I understand why there are restrictions to trade. Smaller economies, I used Malaysia as an example find it very hard to compete with the US and Europe on the global scale. Malaysia needs and wants to protect its local industries. When a small tiger spars against a fully grown lion, certainly the cub is nothing but a dead meat. The only way to help the cub is to protect it and only let the fight happens after the cub has grown into a mighty tiger.

As I continued to vomit my thoughts, I said though restrictions done by the developing countries are acceptable due to the analogy, the restrictions imposed by the developed nations are a bit unfair. If the US and the EU really want globalization, they should be fair to the developing countries, in particular the Asian tigers and the Latins, by abolishing the subsidies and tariffs that are enforced on industries and imports. While eliminating these restrictions, the US and EU shouldn’t expect the developing countries to do the same thing at the same time. The developing countries should be given extra time to adapt to free trade and let their local industries to gain sufficient capital to compete internationally. Until the developing countries have done that, globalization will never work the way it should have been.

And before the conversation topic moved on to the upcoming Aaron’s Rosh Hashanah celebration, I said both parties on each side of the fence, the advocates and the oppositions both have valid points and both are right. To decide which are you, you only need to see where you are. If you are rich, you possibly would be the advocates; if you are otherwise, most likely you will oppose it.

I said that in the Mercedes drove by Louisa with Aaron seemingly to agree. Amy was quietly thinking about it and the GPS kept on its mission to annoy us. Though I managed to convince them, the idea that I threw out had begun to hunt me down while I was trying to get some sleep after doing my statistics homework on correlation and regression later that night.

On the comfy bed, my mind raced to find a better way to explain why some people think globalization is bad and why I believe in a world without border. Thus, I tarried with a pillow under my head and a blanket covering my body for almost two hours. As the precious sleeping time slipped from my clumsy fingers, my thought brought fruit.

If I could rewind the time and be with those three girls of whom I am growing fond of, I would say globalization is like standing in the middle of the Diag during a warm day, naked with the surrounding strangers staring at you. (My apology to all non-Michigan readers. The Diag a huge students’ square with green grasses and trees around it. During a warm day, no doubt it is the densest place in the town of Ann Arbor.)

How do you feel?

The feeling certainly would be insecurity because there is nobody to help you out. There is nobody for you to call out for help. You are alone, naked.

Similarly, globalization describes the same thing, only that you are possibly wearing a tie with a black coat on. Similarly, it’s like a typical graduating undergraduate. After three, four or five years of college, finally you are facing the real world and you have no idea what you want or have to do. All you see is the sheer magnitude of reality bites. All you see is an omnipresent fierce competition to gain the ultimate objective of this world – money and power.

Nobody is saying hi, nobody is saying howdy; everybody is minding their own business.
But, between freedom and dependency, which would you choose?

I do not know about you but I prefer to be independent, free of all things, dependent on nobody. Therefore, I to a certain degree believe in globalization.

As a note, being a green certainly does not contradict with this belief. Damage to the environment is done by the irresponsible industrialists, not by globalization itself.
And oh, the Wolverines lost to the Spartan 4 – 1 and I think I was responsible for the first two goals scored passed Amy. I’d stopped the ball but the ball somehow went to a Spartan player. I stood there like a statue, not amused by my own mistake. Sigh…

The second goal happened simply because I was out of position but I guess I could shift the blame to Aaron since she was the one that asked me to support her. =)