PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet TERRA 6/2002 - 30 September 2002
---------------------------------------
"Instead of half a century or more to adapt to global
warming, the
next 10 to 20 years might bring a climate change that would
change the
world and the world economy. In Gagosian's words, it could
"freeze
rivers and harbors and bind North Atlantic shipping lanes in ice
...
disrupt the operation of ground and air transportation ... cause
energy
needs to soar exponentially ... force wholesale changes in
agricultural
practices and fisheries."
--Robert C. Cowen, The Christian Science Monitor, 26
September 2002
"The Science report calls into question the accuracy of
global
climate change models, which have not considered the effects of
black
carbon. "We now have an opportunity to include more of the
important
anthropogenic effects. It could be that there are other feedback
cycles in the global climate system that we don't
understand."
--Georgia Institute of Technology, 27 September 2002
"A rocket fuel component has been detected in drinking water
sources
in 18 states. Now the EPA wants to set the "safe" level
of perchlorate in
drinking water at effectively one part per billion (ppb). That
standard
would subject more groundwater to expensive cleanup -- estimated
at $6
billion for Department of Defense facilities alone... It doesn't
take a
rocket scientist to see that the EPA's proposed perchlorate
standard is
needlessly low. But we will need a space program-sized budget to
pay for
it."
--Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com, 27 September 2002
(1) NASA STUDY REVEALS NEW UNCERTAINTIES IN CLIMATE MODEL
PREDICTIONS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(2) GLOBAL WARMING BLAMED FOR ICE METEORS
Reuters, 27 September 2002
(3) INTO THE COLD? GLOBAL COOLING SCARE WARNS OF ABRUPT FREAZING
IN 10-20
YEARS
The Christian Science Monitor, 26 September
2002
(4) URBAN 'HEAT ISLANDS' MAY CONTRIBUTE TO ERRONEOUS GLOBAL
WARMING TRENDS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(5) CLEAN-UP CONFUSION
FoxNews.com, 27 September 2002
(6) GLOBAL PROGRESS IN SLASHING POVERTY
The Christian Science Monitor, 26 September
2002
(7) THE GLOBALISATION OF HUMAN WELL-BEING
Cato Institute, 22 August 2002
(8) AND FINALLY: MORE EVIDENCE FOR GLOBAL WARMING AS MUNICH HAS
EARLIEST
SNOWFALL SINCE 1442
The Times, 27 September 2002
=========
(1) NASA STUDY REVEALS NEW UNCERTAINTIES IN CLIMATE MODEL
PREDICTIONS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
RESEARCH NEWS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Georgia Institute of Technology
430 Tenth Street, N.W., Suite N-116
Atlanta, Georgia 30318 USA
MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS:
John Toon
404-894-6986 Fax: 404-894-4545
E-mail: john.toon@edi.gatech.edu
or
Jane Sanders
404-894-2214 Fax: 404-894-6983
E-mail: jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu
TECHNICAL CONTACT:
Michael Bergin
404-894-9723 Fax: 404-894-8266
E-mail: mike.bergin@ce.gatech.edu
WRITER: John Toon
For Immediate Release: September 27, 2002
Report Assessing Impact of Soot on Global Warming Could Alter
Control
Strategies, Place Burden on Developing Nations -- and Create New
Uncertainty
in Climate Model Predictions
A new study on the role that atmospheric soot particles may play
in global
warming suggests a new near-term control strategy, introduces a
new element
of uncertainty in climate models and shifts more responsibility
for curbing
pollution to developing nations such as China and India.
Published in the September 27 issue of the journal Science, the
report -- by
researchers from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies --
suggests that
by absorbing sunlight and altering weather patterns, light
absorbing
carbon-based particles could have nearly as much impact on global
warming as
carbon dioxide: a greenhouse gas that has long been considered
the primary
culprit in global warming. The soot particles are produced by
diesel
engines, cooking fires and other sources.
In a perspectives article published with the NASA Goddard paper,
atmospheric
researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology describe some
of the
policy implications of the new findings. Among them:
* Because black carbon particles have relatively short
atmospheric lifetimes, successful control efforts could
curb their effects in a matter of months or years. Carbon
dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,
meaning control efforts couldn't impact global warming for
generations.
* Soot emissions come primarily from developing nations such
as India and China. If these emissions do in fact play a
large role in global warming, that could shift pressure
for environmental control to those nations. Industrialized
nations in North America and Europe are responsible for
the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions.
* Efforts to control soot may also bring immediate
improvements in human health since the small particles
thought to be most active in affecting climate are the
same PM 2.5 particles that cause respiratory distress when
trapped deep in the lungs.
* Little is known about the worldwide impact of soot emissions
or even how to properly measure them. Significant new
research will be needed before the role of black carbon
emissions can be reliably assessed.
"The study reported this week in Science really raises some
important policy
issues regarding soot," said Michael Bergin, an assistant
professor in Georgia Tech's
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and co-author of the
perspectives article.
"In the past, researchers have felt that soot didn't really
have a significant
warming effect. But as we've learned more about the amount of
black carbon
emitted by countries like China and India, it appears now that
soot could
have important climatic effects, and that these effects may be
almost as
much as those of carbon dioxide."
In their perspectives article, Bergin and Professor William
Chameides, also
in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, point
out the
differences between black carbon soot and greenhouse gases such
as carbon
dioxide and methane. For instance, soot particles are removed
from the
atmosphere on time scales of weeks to months, while carbon
dioxide lingers
for hundreds of years. That could point toward a better near-term
control
strategy.
"This could be 'low-hanging fruit' in trying to deal with
the anthropogenic
(human-caused) effects on the climate," Bergin noted.
"From a policy
standpoint, the payoff for controlling soot could be on the scale
of years
rather than centuries."
Black carbon creates its warming effect through an entirely
different
mechanism than greenhouse gases, which act as an insulating
blanket to keep
heat within the earth's atmosphere. Black carbon absorbs light
from the sun,
converting that to heat. The effect varies, depending upon
what is beneath the carbon particles.
If a light-colored surface lies below the carbon particles, the
heating
effect is increased as incoming photons heat the particles on
their way
toward the surface, then heat them again as they reflect off the
land or
clouds. The particles are also involved in cloud formation which
impacts
precipitation patterns. Those weather changes, seen in regions of
China and
India with large soot emissions, may in turn affect the global
climate.
"There are a lot of possible atmospheric effects from
soot," Bergin said.
"We really don't yet understand all the feedback cycles
involved."
In fact, researchers are just beginning to learn about black
carbon soot --
and even to agree on what it is. Formed by the incomplete
combustion from
diesel engines, cooking fires and coal burning, black carbon can
take
different forms. Depending on the specifics of the combustion
process, soot
can take many different forms from spherical particles to chain
agglomerates.
"The nature of the particles and how they absorb light could
be different,"
Bergin explained. "So one gram of soot from one part of the
world could be
different from a gram of soot from another part of the world. We
are really
at the beginning of trying to understand the influences of
soot on climate. Right now, there is a great deal of uncertainty
in any
estimate of the climatological impact of soot."
A key uncertainty is the amount of soot going into the
atmosphere. Localized
studies in China and India, where crops wastes are burned for
heating and
cooking, show very high levels. In developed nations, elevated
soot levels
are found in urban areas -- which have often been excluded from
climate
studies to avoid confusing global climate change with the local
"urban heat
island" effect.
Because nations such as China and India produce so much black
carbon, a new
focus on this pollutant could shift control responsibility to the
developing
nations. Controlling soot emissions would include developing more
efficient
combustion techniques, both for biomass burning and diesel
engines, Bergin
added.
The Science report calls into question the accuracy of global
climate change
models, which have not considered the effects of black carbon.
"This creates some opportunities for climate modelers to
revise their
approaches and to add a potentially important anthropogenic
climate forcing
agent to their models," said Bergin. "We now have an
opportunity to include
more of the important anthropogenic effects. It could be that
there are
other feedback cycles in the global climate system that we don't
understand."
Controlling soot could have an impact broader than global climate
change.
The tiny particles that appear to be most active in absorbing
radiation are
of the size implicated in causing human health effects because
they can
lodge deeply in the lungs.
"These health impacts could make it politically much easier
for
policy-makers to enact the kinds of controls needed," said
Bergin. "The
control strategy could provide a double-whammy by increasing the
health of
both human beings and the environment."
IMAGE CAPTIONS:
[Image 1:
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/linan2.gif
(32KB)
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/linan2.jpg
(1.9KB)]
A typical hazy day near Lin An, China. Black carbon emanates
from a small brick factory. Copyright Science Magazine.
[Image 2:
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/filter1.gif
(36KB)
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/filter1.jpg
(188KB)]
Aerosol particles collected near Lin An, China on a 47-mm Teflon
filter. The
blackness of the filter indicates the presence of black carbon.
Copyright
Science Magazine.
========
(2) GLOBAL WARMING BLAMED FOR ICE METEORS
>From Reuters, 27 September 2002
http://www.itechnology.co.za/index.php?click_id=31&art_id=ct20020927113128436I214627&set_id=1
A Spanish scientist says global warming may be to blame for giant
blocks of
ice which fall from clear skies and rip gaping holes in cars and
houses.
Jesus Martinez-Frias has spent the last two-and-a-half years
investigating
so-called megacryometeors - ice meteors - which tend to weigh
more than 10kg
and have been known to leave 1,5 metre-wide holes in houses.
He fears the formation of these hailstone-like blocks on clear
days could be
a worrying symptom of climate change.
"I'm not worried that a block of ice might fall on your
head, but that great
blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn't exist," said
Martinez-Frias,
director of planetary geography at Spain's Astrobiology Centre in
Madrid.
"Components of the atmosphere, like ozone and water, are
changing in
different levels of the atmosphere. We think these signs could be
evidence
of climate change."
He suggests that because global warming involves one level of the
atmosphere
getting colder while another gets hotter, some ice clouds now
remain longer.
Their centres then fall through the atmosphere, bouncing and
gathering mass,
to end up smashing through a car windscreen or, more usually,
landing softly
in a field, he suggested.
The first megacryometeor found this year in Spain - by a startled
farmer
riding his tractor - weighed 16 kilograms. A 200kg ice meteor has
been found
in Brazil, and others in Mexico and Australia. - Reuters
Copyright 2002, Reuters
======
(3) INTO THE COLD? NEW GLOBAL COOLING SCARE WARNS OF ABRUPT
FREAZING IN
10-20 YEARS
>From The Christian Science Monitor, 26 September 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0926/p14s02-sten.html
Slowing ocean circulation could presage dramatic - and chilly -
climate
change
By Robert C. Cowen | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Call it global warming's dirty little secret. Those
much-publicized
scenarios of how carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution may gradually
heat up the
earth don't tell you another key fact: that climate has sometimes
changed
without warning. It can go from warm to cold - or cold to warm -
in less
than decade, and stay that way for centuries.
Water-circulation data from the North Atlantic now suggest the
climate
system may be approaching that kind of threshold. If man-made
warming or
natural causes push it over the edge, the system will chill down
many
temperate parts of North America and Europe, even while the
planet as a
whole continues to warm.
Terrence Joyce, chairman of the physical-oceanography department
at Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, is one of a
handful of
scientists trying to raise awareness about this possibility. He
says he is
"not predicting an imminent climate change - only that once
it started (and
it is getting more likely) it could occur within 10 years."
Mr. Joyce explains that many of the computer simulations of
climate change
"never predict any abrupt transition." But, he says,
such an event could
occur. "Abrupt climate change has been a part of our
history," he says.
That's what happened when the so-called Little Ice Age cut in
about 500
years ago. Take a look at Bruegel's famous paintings of skaters
on frozen
Dutch canals to get an idea of what would be in store for regions
that
haven't known such harsh winters since we emerged from the Little
Ice Age
during the last century.
There is as yet no conclusive evidence that the Dutch should
stock pile ice
skates. But Woods Hole director Robert Gagosian feels an urgency
to settle
the question. He sees enough disturbing information in the North
Atlantic
data, which oceanographers from Woods Hole and other institutions
have
gathered, to call it "strong evidence that we may be
approaching a dangerous
threshold." He says we need to know whether we are blindly
walking toward
the edge of a cliff.
North Atlantic water circulation raises this level of concern
because it is
a key factor in the climate system. Broadly speaking, that system
redistributes solar heat from the tropics around the planet. The
atmosphere
carries heat north and south in the form of warm air and water
vapor. The
latter releases its heat when it condenses into droplets. That's
about half
the distribution; ocean currents carry the rest.
Winds move heat around quickly. Ocean currents can take
centuries.
Oceanographers call their stately flow the Great Ocean Conveyor.
Warm
surface currents distribute tropical heat. Deep currents carry
cold water
back toward the equator. Together, these currents form an
interconnected
system that circulates through the North and South Atlantic into
the Indian
Ocean and the Pacific.
The "pump" that drives the conveyor is in the northern
part of the North
Atlantic. There, the Gulf Stream brings in warm, relatively salty
water.
This cools as it gives up heat to the winds that warm Britain and
Europe.
Cold, salty water is relatively heavy. Mingling with Arctic
outflows, the
Gulf Stream water sinks to great depths and flows southward. More
Gulf
Stream water flows in to replace it.
This circulation - sucking in Gulf Stream water at the top and
forcing it
down and out at the bottom - propels the North Atlantic branch of
the
conveyor. Shut down that pump, and you could have what Dr.
Gagosian calls
"dramatic" climate change. He explains in a posting to
the Woods Hole
website that "average winter temperatures could drop by 5
degrees Fahrenheit
over much of the United States, and by 10 degrees in the
northeastern United
States and in Europe."
The way to shut down the pump is to dilute the inflow water to
the point
where it is no longer salty enough to sink deeply and flow
southward near
the bottom. That seems to be happening now. Last April, Robert
Dickson of
Britain's Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Agricultural
Science,
together with colleagues from Canada, Germany, and Scotland
reported in
Nature magazine that fresh water has been diluting the North
Atlantic for
the past four decades. Research by other groups confirms this
trend.
Joyce says the evidence "strongly suggests" the North
Atlantic pump is
"threatened by fresh-water dilution." The cause is
unclear. It could be a
subtle effect of global warming. Changes in air circulation have
altered the
freezing and melting patterns of Arctic ice generally. Ice in the
Arctic
Ocean, in particular, has thinned. Also, the Arctic has warmed to
the point
where melting permafrost now is a major concern. But there is no
clear
causal pattern to the North Atlantic fresh-water dilution.
The urgent need, Joyce says, is for "specific research to
clarify what is
going on." That includes more upper-ocean salinity
measurements and
monitoring of the North Atlantic conveyor circulation.
Last December, the National Academy of Sciences released a report
urging
research to understand abrupt climate change generally. Richard
Alley of
Pennsylvania State University at University College, chairman of
the Academy
committee, warned at that time that "it will be a long time,
if at all,
before we are really good at predicting climate change...."
He added, "Any
reality may be very different from the predictions, and we need
to
anticipate changes and surprises."
Right now, those climate simulations don't deal with the nasty
surprises
Gagosian anticipates if the North Atlantic circulation pump shuts
down, as
it has done in some past climate changes. Instead of half a
century or more
to adapt to global warming, the next 10 to 20 years might bring a
climate
change that would change the world and the world economy. In
Gagosian's
words, it could "freeze rivers and harbors and bind North
Atlantic shipping
lanes in ice ... disrupt the operation of ground and air
transportation ...
cause energy needs to soar exponentially ... force wholesale
changes in
agricultural practices and fisheries." Efforts to curb CO2
emissions to slow
global warming would become a secondary issue as people tried to
cope with
more immediate challenges.
Dr. Alley says there's no reason yet for alarm, although there is
a case to
be made for more intensive research to find out what's happening
to North
Atlantic circulation. He also sees a larger challenge. If drastic
climate
change were imminent, there is little we could do to stop it. The
best
strategy, he says, is to work harder now to build resiliency into
agriculture, housing, energy use, and into economies generally.
That's
essentially the conclusion a US Department of Energy
climate-change study
group reached 25 years ago.
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights
reserved
=============
(4) URBAN 'HEAT ISLANDS' MAY CONTRIBUTE TO ERRONEOUS GLOBAL
WARMING TRENDS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
News Service
Cornell University
Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander, Jr.
Office: 607-255-3290
E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu
FOR RELEASE: Sept. 25, 2002
Sweating it out: U.S. cities have 10 more hot nights a year than
40 years
ago, Cornell climate researchers discover
ITHACA, N.Y. -- If you think that summers are getting hotter, you
could be
right -- depending on where you live. Summers are heating up if
you live in
or near any major U.S. city. But in
rural areas, temperatures have remained relatively constant.
"What surprised me was the difference in the extreme
temperature trends
between rural and urban areas," says Arthur T. DeGaetano,
Cornell associate
professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, who reviewed
temperature trends
from climate-reporting stations across the United States over the
past century and examined data from the last 40 years in greater
detail. "I
expected maybe a 25 percent increase for the urban areas compared
to the
rural ones. I didn't expect a 300 percent increase across the
U.S."
Because of population growth in urban and suburban areas over the
past four
decades, particularly in major East Coast cities, there are more
hot summer
nights than ever, says DeGaetano. "This means that cities
and the suburbs
may be contributing greatly to their own heat problems," he
says.
"Greenhouse gases could be a factor, but not the one and
only cause. There
is natural climate variability, and you tend to see higher
temperatures
during periods of drought."
Working with Robert J. Allen, a researcher in earth and
atmospheric
sciences, he found that urban areas across the United States now
have an
average of 10 more very warm nights a year than they did 40 years
ago. In
rural areas there was an average increase of only three warm
nights a year
in the same period.
The growth was the lowest in the central United States, with only
two more
very warm nights. West of the Rocky Mountains the increase has
been about
five nights. DeGaetano explains this disparity by the fact that
there are
simply fewer urban areas in these regions.
DeGaetano classifies a warm night as 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the
Eastern,
Southern and Midwestern United States. In the Southwest, he says,
80 degrees
would be considered a warm night and 70 degrees would be
considered cool.
The research article, "Trends in Twentieth-Century
Temperature Extremes in
the United States," describes average temperature increases
for all cities
and rural areas across the United States. It will be published in
a
forthcoming Journal of Climate . It was supported by grants from
NASA and
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Since the beginning of the 20th century almost three-fourths of
the
climate-reporting stations examined in the study have shown an
increase in
the number of very warm nights. DeGaetano says that the decade of
the 1960s
stands out as a transition between a period that was relatively
stable and
cool, and the sharp increase in warm nights that has occurred in
recent
decades. "You would not expect such a change in the number
of very warm
nights to occur by chance. We saw a statistically significant
shift," he
explains.
Climate-reporting stations located in urban areas often are
indicators of
the huge growth around them. In Manhattan, for example, the
station is
located in Central Park, which was surrounded by a highly
developed urban
area even a century ago. Thus that station did not show the wild
fluctuations recorded in cities such as Miami and Los Angeles,
which have
grown exponentially over the past 100 years.
In very warm periods throughout the past century, drought has
been a factor.
"Warm temperature trends in the past century across the
United States are
strongly influenced by the peaks in warm maximum and warm minimum
temperature extremes during the 1930s and to some extent the
1950s. And
these peaks tend to coincide with widespread drought," says
DeGaetano.
============
(5) CLEAN-UP CONFUSION
>From FoxNews.com, 27 September 2002
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,64198,00.html
By Steven Milloy
A rocket fuel component has been detected in drinking water
sources in 18
states. It's a limited problem the Environmental Protection
Agency's junk
science is about to make much worse.
U.S. missile and space programs used perchlorate as an oxidizer
in solid
rocket propellants for decades. At some facilities where it was
disposed,
perchlorate seeped into groundwater. Some nearby drinking water
wells were
closed.
State and federal officials knew for years perchlorate was in
some drinking
water. They didn't worry, though, because the perchlorate was
generally
below worrisome levels.
Now the EPA wants to set the "safe" level of
perchlorate in drinking water
at effectively one part per billion (ppb). That standard would
subject more
groundwater to expensive cleanup -- estimated at $6 billion for
Department
of Defense facilities alone.
Lake Mead, serving Las Vegas and Southern California, has
perchlorate levels
from eight ppb to 16 ppb. That water would need to be diluted
with other
water at an estimated cost to local water districts of up to $2
billion.
Before taxpayers bear billions in costs, a closer look at the
situation is
warranted.
The health effect the EPA is concerned about is hypothyroidism
caused by
inhibition of iodine uptake by the thyroid gland. At sufficiently
high
doses, perchlorate reduces the thyroid gland's ability to take up
iodine
from the blood. Iodine is essential to the production of thyroid
hormones.
But the EPA ignores a fundamental tenet of toxicology -- the dose
makes the
poison.
This can be demonstrated by comparing perchlorate's iodine uptake
inhibition
to that of nitrate -- a substance that naturally occurs in meats,
dairy
products and vegetables and that also inhibits the thyroid's
uptake of
iodine.
A serving of spinach, for example, causes about 300 times more
iodine uptake
inhibition than the one ppb of perchlorate the EPA says someone
might
consume in two liters of groundwater.
But I haven't heard of anyone alarmed or harmed by spinach.
So what might be a more reasonable perchlorate standard?
The good news is much is known about perchlorate's toxicology.
It's been
used to treat patients whose thyroid glands produce too much
hormone
(hyperthyroidism). Also, workers exposed for an average of five
years to
"high" levels of perchlorate during manufacturing
processes show no changes
in blood chemistry or hormone levels.
Based on these real-life experiences, the actual safe exposure
level for
most people may be as high as 12,000 ppb. This level, however,
might not
fully protect pregnant women and children.
But such a level isn't needed since the highest concentration of
perchlorate
in ground water is on the order of hundreds of ppb.
A 2002 clinical study of men and women of child-bearing age
receiving
180-220 ppb perchlorate for two weeks reported no change in the
thyroid's
uptake of iodine. Even at much higher doses, the volunteers
showed no
changes in thyroid hormones and relevant blood chemistry.
A 2000 study of school-aged children in Chile reported no thyroid
hormone or
relevant blood chemistry changes among children exposed to
drinking water
containing 110 ppb of naturally occurring perchlorate.
Instead of using these real-life data, the EPA relied on dubious
data from
laboratory rat studies. A majority of panelists who reviewed the
matter in
the EPA's June 2002 peer review of the studies criticized their
design,
laboratory practice and data analysis.
The EPA simply ignored this criticism.
Then, to reach one ppb from the rat data, the EPA arbitrarily
divided the
dubious results by 300 -- as per the agency's standard, but
non-scientific
method of accounting for the uncertainty of extrapolating from
experimental
animal results to safety standards for humans.
It's not clear why the EPA staff is so determined to set a one
ppb standard.
One reliable source says some staffers hope to advance their
careers by
playing a role in the setting of a new and highly visible
standard.
Others may be sympathetic to the anti-chemical extremists at the
Environmental Working Group who not only fearmonger about
perchlorate but
oppose human testing of perchlorate -- research that helps
scientists
determine safe levels.
The EWG claims human testing is unethical; it's real worry is
that human
testing reveals the folly of the EPA's proposed standard.
Capping off this impending travesty are the personal injury
lawyers who
salivate at the lawsuit potential of the one ppb standard and may
be found
on the Internet trolling for clients.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the EPA's proposed
perchlorate standard is needlessly low. But we will need a space
program-sized budget to pay for it.
Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com , an adjunct
scholar at
the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo:
Self-defense Against
Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).
Copyright 2002, Fox.com
==============
(6) GLOBAL PROGRESS IN SLASHING POVERTY
>From The Christian Science Monitor, 26 September 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0926/p01s02-usec.html
Global progress in slashing poverty
Studies suggest big economic strides, but many debate the pace
and causes of
progress.
By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science
Monitor
Broad new studies suggest that the world has made extraordinary
progress in
slashing poverty in
recent decades.
The magnitude of the change is the subject of strong debate. But
the
research suggests that the pace of economic progress has been
rapid and
sustained for decades, built on the foundations of relative
political
stability, rising trade, and economic liberalization in the
postwar era.
One new study, published Thursday by the Institute for
International
Economics in Washington, finds that the proportion of the 6.1
billion people
in the world who live on $1 a day or less shrank from 63 percent
in 1950 to
35 percent in 1980 and 12 percent in 1999 (adjusted for
inflation). By some
other measures, the progress has been more modest. Still,
economists agree
that poverty has plunged in key nations such as India and
especially China,
thanks to slowing population growth as well as economic freedom.
"This is a smashing success for the world as a whole,"
says Harvard
University economist Richard Cooper. "We are doing something
right."
The news comes as the World Bank is about to open its annual
meeting in
Washington - an event that has been dogged in recent years by
vocal protests
that the Bank and its sister institution, the International
Monetary Fund
(IMF), have done too little for the world's poor.
The new economic research will not put an end to that
controversy. Vast
populations remain poor, and many still question the wisdom of
World Bank
policies.
Nonetheless, the research findings are relevant to the question
of what
policies should be followed by the those institutions and
hundreds of other
development groups striving to hasten the pace of world economic
progress.
If dramatic gains are under way, the present mainstream policies
- calling
for open markets, free enterprise, and stern fiscal and monetary
discipline
- are working and correct. They need only "tinkering,"
as Mr. Cooper puts
it.
But critics of IMF and World Bank policies maintain that such
economic
success stories as Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and
Singapore are
rooted in more than just "free" markets. These nations
have managed to grow
rapidly, and thereby reduce poverty, by restraining imports when
their
domestic industries were young, pushing exports to rich nations,
and putting
controls on purely international financial flows. They have been
open to
foreign-owned factories but have often insisted that those
investors share
know-how on modern technologies.
Thus, some of the purely capitalist policies urged today, critics
say, are
damaging.
Measuring incomes and poverty in many developing countries is
extremely
difficult. Thus, studies are imprecise and conclusions
controversial.
A Columbia University professor, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, published
two working
papers last spring tending to support the rapid-progress thesis.
Looking at
data from 125 nations, he finds that the number of extremely poor
people
declined by 235 million between 1976 and 1998, even though
population grew
hugely. The $1-a-day poverty rate (in 1985 value dollars; $532 a
year in
today's dollars) fell from 20 percent to 5 percent.
"Looking at the planet as a whole, never in history has
poverty been
eradicated so fast," says Mr. Sala-i-Martin. "The
numbers have never looked
better. The world is a better place."
Curiously, World Bank statistics show a far less positive
picture. The Human
Development Report of the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) finds
that the number of people living in extreme poverty fell only to
22.7
percent in 1999 from 29 percent in 1990. The number of people
living on $1 a
day slipped to 1.15 billion from 1.27 billion.
"The level remains disturbingly high," the report
notes.
The gap between the rich and poor in the world is clearly
"grotesque," says
UNDP economist David Stewart. But whether inequality within poor
countries
is shrinking is "ambiguous."
A key reason for the difference between the studies is varying
statistical
techniques. The Institute for International Economics study, by
Indian
economist Surjit Bhalla, uses national household surveys of
income to find
the distribution of income, and thus the level of poverty. This
he mixes
with aggregate national income statistics.
The World Bank uses the national household surveys of both
consumption and
income, resulting in less progress.
Whatever the technique, economists agree that rapid development
in China and
India is critical to the world picture.
China has 1.3 billion people, more than a fifth of the world's
total
population. According to China's official statistics, its economy
has grown
about 9 percent a year for two decades. That official number is
in question.
About 5 percent is more accurate, says Lester Thurow, an
economist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He looked at the growth in
electricity usage in China's provinces to get his estimate. That
rate is
"still pretty good," he says.
After long enchantment with socialism and its government
controls, India has
moved in the direction of more free enterprise, and growth has
risen for its
1.1 billion people in the last decade.
By the $1-a-day measure, America's poor are affluent indeed. But
census
numbers released Tuesday show a rise in those classified as poor
- income at
$18,104 or less for a family of four - to 32.9 million.
Elsewhere in the world, progress has been uneven, and often not
so handsome.
Africa with its 500 million people has seen poverty worsen. Latin
American
progress has been "disappointing" in the last two
decades, says William
Easterly, an economist at the Center for Global Development in
Washington.
The Mideast and the former East bloc countries have seen poverty
grow,
though Russia has improved in the past two or three years.
Outside China and India, most developing countries are falling
further
behind the rich industrial nations, says Mr. Easterly, a former
World Bank
economist.
At the World Bank meeting this weekend, many critics will be
urging debt
forgiveness to help foster growth.
To Sala-i-Martin, the key to success in developing nations is not
"charity."
The US and other giants can do more by slashing farm subsidies
and opening
to imports.
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights
reserved.
================
(7) THE GLOBALISATION OF HUMAN WELL-BEING
>From Cata Institute, 22 August 2002
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-447es.html
The Globalization of Human Well-Being
by Indur M. Goklany
Indur Goklany is an independent scholar and the author of The
Precautionary
Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment
(Cato
Institute, 2001) and Clearing the Air: The Real Story of the War
on Air
Pollution (Cato Institute, 1999).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Executive Summary
Controversy over globalization has focused mainly on whether it
exacerbates
income inequality between the rich and the poor. But, as
opponents of
globalization frequently note, human well-being is not synonymous
with
wealth. The central issue, therefore, is not whether income gaps
are growing
but whether globalization advances well-being and, if
inequalities in
well-being have expanded, whether that is because the rich have
advanced at
the expense of the poor.
More direct measures of human well-being than per capita income
include
freedom from hunger, mortality rates, child labor, education,
access to safe
water, and life expectancy. Those indicators generally advance
with wealth,
because wealth helps create and provide the means to improve
them. In turn,
those improvements can stimulate economic growth by creating
conditions
conducive to technological change and increasing productivity.
Thus, wealth,
technological change, and well-being reinforce each other in a
virtuous
cycle of progress.
During the last half century, as wealth and technological change
advanced
worldwide, so did the well-being of the vast majority of the
world's
population. Today's average person lives longer and is healthier,
more
educated, less hungry, and less likely to have children in the
work-force.
Moreover, gaps in these critical measures of well-being between
the rich
countries and the middle- or low-income groups have generally
shrunk
dramatically since the mid-1900s irrespective of trends in income
inequality. However, where those gaps have shrunk the least or
even expanded
recently, the problem is not too much globalization but too
little.
The rich are not better off because they have taken something
away from the
poor; rather, the poor are better off because they benefit from
the
technologies developed by the rich, and their situation would
have improved
further had they been better able to capture the benefits of
globalization.
A certain level of global inequality may even benefit the poor as
rich
countries develop and invest in more expensive medicines and
technologies
that then become affordable to the poor.
FULL PAPER AT http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa447.pdf
===========
(8) AND FINALLY: MORE EVIDENCE FOR GLOBAL WARMING AS MUNICH HAS
EARLIEST
SNOWFALL SINCE 1442
>From The Times, 27 September 2002
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-428182,00.html
by Paul Simons
A BLAST of winter came early to the Alps on Tuesday night, when a
bitterly
cold storm dropped two feet of snow on Austria's Sonnblick
mountains.
Stranger still, the storm also left Munich under snow, the
earliest autumn
snowfall since 1442. At that time Henry VI ruled England and a
chunk of
France, while the rather laidback Austrian king, Frederick III,
was more
interested in astrology than ruling his country.
Across Europe, the climate had been proving to be a growing
problem, when a
run of severe winters in the 1430s crippled vineyards and wine
production
plunged from the halcyon days of the previous century.
The snowfall of September 1442 heralded a cruel winter that
lasted well into
May. Chroniclers of the time described how large rivers like the
Rhine were
frozen for three months and snow lay on the ground for eight
months. A thaw
did not arrive until the last week of May.
This period in the early 1400s was the start of a spectacularly
cold epoch
called the Little Ice Age, which lasted on and off until the
1800s. In
Europe, glaciers grew larger, trees retreated from the Arctic
regions and
there were frequent famines as harvests failed in the cold, wet
weather.
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