« Sunday sermon | Main | Computers, don't you just love their little ways ..... »
February 19, 2007
The Law of Unintended Consequences ....
The Law of Unintended Consequences is one of the most frequently overlooked physical "laws" in life. There are any number of glaring examples where some well intentioned action has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. My recent visit to Jamaica brought me face to face with one of the most devastating examples - the Emancipation of Slaves. The intention was laudable and extremely desirable, but the outcome was anything but what the protagonists intended - and the legacy is still having repercussions in Jamaica and elsewhere to this day. It was one thing entirely to, at the stroke of a pen, "free" several hundred thousand slaves, it was another entirely to provide them with living incomes, homes, food and even clothing! One moment they had all these things - admittedly fairly basically - and the next they had nothing and nowhere to go!
The planters and slave owners received compensation for the loss of "assets", the slaves got nothing but to be shown the gate. Some, it is true, managed to find employment, usually with their former owners, others had no such luck and had to find their own means of subsisting. The impoverishment of the entire nation from there on seems to have been inevitable and is stamped large on Jamaican society even now. I will admit that I had not appreciated this until I read about it in "The Gleaner", Kingston's principle newspaper. Further research showed me that this was just one of a number of consequences arising from that single event and to be honest, I am not at all sure that the Emancipation lobby ever understood the effect it has had.
What has sparked my writing about this? Several things, first an acquaintance is organising a "March against Slavery" in London to mark the anniversary of the Emancipation in 1837 and secondly the rise of the "Fair Trade" movement which, like the anti-slavery league, has the best of intentions, without, I fear, understanding the affect their campaign is likely to have on the very people they seek to help. In the same week I have had to endure the incredibly intense anti-nuclear movement led by the Greenpeace Eco-terror mob as they campaign to stop the building of any nuclear power plants in the UK. Again, the law of unintended consequences is likely to bite every UK based person hard as our power demand continues to grow and the so-called "renewable" resources are exceeded while Greenpeace and their anti-progress lobby force further delay (and escalation of costs) on the only sensible option.
Likewise we see in the "Global Warming/Climate Change" hysteria another group whose demands for reductions in Carbon Emmissions, ecologically friendly farming, and much more can really only be met if we all stop travelling anywhere, stop manufacturing anything and stop heating or cooling our homes. Oh yes, and we need to cut the world population by about two thirds as well. We cannot have it both ways, if we cut our emmissions something has to be given up - something that is at long last acknowledged by the Kyoto Fascisti now that they realise it is stupid to demand that the developed world do one thing while the world's greatest polluters, the developing world, do another.
Taking the Fair Trade campaign as a starting point, the campaigners want the "workers" in the developing world paid a fair price for their goods and their labour. Fair enough, but what is the price tag? Looking at our end, we will pay more for the raw materials, fair enough, but that is not the greatest part of the cost of these goods. So, if they cost more to start with, they will cost even more to finish because the cost of transport, processing and delivery will all rise commensurately. Ergo, demand will fall, or wages at their end will rise to meet the rising cost. That will start yet another spiral as the costs at this end rise to pay for the rising cost of living and so on .....
Then there is the question of a "fair" wage at the other end. First question, what do we regard as "fair"? Second question, is this really what is needed at the supply end or will it simply drive the living costs there even higher? So the coffee farm worker is paid what we regard as a wage below the poverty line. He or she can't afford a television, gameboy and Nike trainers - but, do they need them or is this a case of our material ambitions being superimposed on another culture and society? Do those who support this campaign and insist that the rest of us drink only "Fair Trade" coffee (ghastly stuff!) or eat "Fair Trade" chocolate (even more ghastly!) really care about the workers who, if the wages are forced up by their campaign, will find themselves in the same position as the Jamaican slaves in 1837 - without any income at all? Do they understand the consequences of this? From my contact with those I know who really do get rabid about "helping the poverty stricken of the world" I would suspect that they don't - or, if they do, they don't care because the "cause" is far more important than the people it will impact upon.
I fear that this same attitude is what drives the Greenpeace Eco-terrorists - their fear of nuclear power drives them to declare that anything will be better than taking a sensible and reasoned approach. One nuclear power plant can produce five times the electricity that is produced by the largest wind farm currently in the UK. They would still rather see every square hectare of this countryside covered by windmills than admit their "renewable" energy sources cannot provide the power on their own. They must also have a scape goat, so humanity is blamed for what may very well turn out to be a natural change occurring in our climate, although I have to admit that the current level of world population and our heating systems and air conditioning systems (all providing some form of heat exchange) are definitely not helping!
This is a living planet and it is slowly entering a warming phase. We may be able to slow that down, but I doubt very much if we can stop it! In the meantime the unitended consequences of their campaigns are to drive prices of basic commodities up, move jobs across continents to where their influence is ignored and to generate poverty among those who lose out as a result.
Looking about me, I see a number of things where the good intentions have been entirely negated by the Law of Unintended Consequences. As I said earlier, this is one law that really does bite!
Posted by The Gray Monk at February 19, 2007 03:59 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt3.mu.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4933
Comments
Regarding "The Law of Unintended Consequences ...." (2007-02-19), there is absolutely no need for nuclear power in the US because there is a simple mature technology that can deliver huge amounts of clean energy without any of the headaches of nuclear power.
I refer to 'concentrating solar power' (CSP), the technique of concentrating sunlight using mirrors to create heat, and then using the heat to raise steam and drive turbines and generators, just like a conventional power station. It is possible to store solar heat in melted salts so that electricity generation may continue through the night or on cloudy days. This technology has been generating electricity successfully in California since 1985 and half a million Californians currently get their electricity from this source. CSP plants are now being planned or built in many parts of the world.
CSP works best in hot deserts and, of course, these are not always nearby! But it is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity over very long distances using highly-efficient 'HVDC' transmission lines. With transmission losses at about 3% per 1000 km, solar electricity may be transmitted to anywhere in the US and Canada too. A recent report from the American Solar Energy Society says that CSP plants in the south western states of the US "could provide nearly 7,000 GW of capacity, or ***about seven times the current total US electric capacity***" (emphasis added).
In the 'TRANS-CSP' report commissioned by the German government, it is estimated that CSP electricity, imported from North Africa and the Middle East, could become one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Europe, including the cost of transmission. A large-scale HVDC transmission grid has also been proposed by Airtricity as a means of optimising the use of wind power throughout Europe.
Further information about CSP may be found at www.trec-uk.org.uk and www.trecers.net . Copies of the TRANS-CSP report may be downloaded from www.trec-uk.org.uk/reports.htm . The many problems associated with that technology are summarised at www.mng.org.uk/green_house/no_nukes.htm .
Posted by: Gerry Wolff at February 19, 2007 06:05 PM