wordsmyth

Abandon objectivity? Please, no!

2006-04-03T07:41:00.000Z

"The newspaper industry is in the midst of a psychic meltdown over the threat posed by the Internet." writes Michael Kinsley in Slate.

He thinks US papers should ditch objectivity in an attempt to become more attractive. Specifically he wants the New York Times to travel that path.

Great. Now US papers are all going to be like the London sheets - packed with opinions and bigotry but sadly lacking in any in-depth reporting.

As for the New York Times abandoning objectivity - the NYT is far and away my favourite paper and I always refer to it to get the nitty gritty. But objective? No, it is a committed liberal vehicle. And, fair enough. But if they completely abandon the commitment to objectivity, to hard news and in-depth reporting, it will disappear beneath the waves in a spectacular Titanic moment.

And, it would be an even bigger disaster.

Blogger structures

2006-03-16T09:42:00.000Z

Blogger structures – and companies – start to emerge

Serial new tech entrepreneur John Batelle has scored some serious financial backers for his latest venture: Federated Media.

The oddly old-style name hides a distinctly new tech business model. FM brings together an growing number of blogs, marketing them to advertisers as a package.

More

Murdoch Media power

2006-03-15T12:40:00.000Z

"Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry -- the editors, the chief executives and, let's face it, the proprietors," says Rupert Murdoch.

Indeed, the 75-year-old News Corp. boss sees the current media changes as just part of a much more sweeping science and technology driven revolution.

"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and to destroy - not just companies but whole countries."

Commies can't beat web initiative

2006-03-10T09:39:00.000Z

Web undermines Chinese Communist Party campaign

Chinese web sites are offering fake essays that allow communist party cadres to cheat the homework requirements for the latest party driven political campaign known as "bao xian".

Bao xian translates as "preserving the progressiveness" but the maybe the party bigwigs aren’t familiar enough with the capabilities of the most progressive of all technologies – the net.

The campaign is aimed at rebuilding the Communist party’s grass- roots organization, which is seen as being in distinct disrepair.

The International Herald Tribune quotes party boss Ouyang Song trotting out remarkable statistics to prove the campaign is successful: 54,000 new party organizations, promotion of 80,000 cadres and the building of 100,000 activity venues in villages.

But the forced participants in the campaign, which began in January 2005, say it is an increasingly hollow ritual with ritual self-criticism which is strictly pro-forma.

Web entrepreneurs have set up sites to take advantage of the demand for the required self critical essays. For small fees they are offering essays customized to party ranks – from the most senior down to head of a street committee. They can be downloaded and then tinkered with to make them seem original.

Opiate of the masses

2006-02-15T09:19:00.000Z

Who’d have thunk it? TV dulls initiative and turns rabble-rousers into couch potatoes.
‘Israeli army jailers at a tough facility for Palestinian security prisoners in the Negev desert have discovered a unique deterrent against disturbances: television.
In the year since the first TV set was installed in the Ketziot prison, there have been no serious disturbances that required tear gas for dispersal--up to then a common occurrence, said the soldiers' weekly "Bamahane" in its current issue.
The prison commander, identified only as Lt. Col. Avi by the magazine, said the security prisoners spend their time watching television instead of planning disturbances. "The culture of planning hostile activity here is withering away," he told the weekly.
Jailers control the channel selection, the magazine said, limiting viewing to the three main Israeli channels, CNN and a Jordanian TV station.’

Only in America

2006-01-31T09:49:00.000Z

Only in America:

What can a GI add to his or her own basic kit when shipping out to a combat zone?

Slate writer, Daniel Engber, advised by a Sgt. Todd Bowers, tells us:

“You don't have to worry too much about getting permission for basic "snivel gear"—stuff that keeps you at a minimum level of physical comfort. You probably won't get in trouble for bringing along some extra fleeces, jackets, and gloves, or even for trading in Army-issued boots for a commercial pair. But if you want to pick up a new scope for your rifle or a nonstandard armor vest, you'll have to clear it with a commanding officer. And bringing along your own guns or grenades is a strict no-no.”

So, leave those grenades home in the bedside table!

Actually, when the average GI steps foot in the Middle East, where everyone seems to have a supply of automatic weapons and explosive devices, they may not be as far from home as they think.

Blogging impacts

2006-01-23T22:37:00.000Z

Michael Barone, a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report, says bloggers are altering U.S. politics in unexpected ways.
"The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans."

From elite leaders to mass movement?

2005-12-14T11:05:00.000Z

Loretta Napoleoni has an excellent piece on the terrorist leader Al-Zarqawi in the current edition of Foreign Policy.

Worth reading for those who think the burden of the Iraq war might soon lighten.

Piss Power!

2005-12-11T09:55:00.000Z

If we run out of hydrocarbons, there will always be piss power.
Singers scientist Ki Bang Lee is working on a paper battery, sandwiched between bits of plastic, which produces power from, yes, human urine.
Lee published his work last September in The Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. It shouldn’t really come as much as a surprise that it is possible, but how efficient will it be? Will beer drinkers soon be encouraged to troop to the pissoir in order to recharge the pub batteries?

As the news changes

2005-10-05T09:18:00.000Z

Jozef Imrich: I think it worth trying to isolate the different characteristics which make define different types of online productions. (I think journals is a dying term, redolent of deadwood media).

First off there are mainstream publications: the papers that simply put their content up online. At first they adapted to the web only in a typographical sense. Wow! This is different to our paper products. We'll have to design the thing differently.

The electronic media, television and radio, weren't much more savvy. Like the newspapers and magazines, they simply tried to reproduce their products online. Sometimes this worked, most often it didn’t.

Then, along about 1999, earlier in some cases, came a dash of interactivity.

The mainstream players then began to realise, as the purely online publishers had years before, that this medium was different.

The consumers of the product wanted, indeed demanded, that they have a say in producing the product. The advent of blogs took this one step further: let's just do away with the product altogether!

Many blogs were, and are, simply the product of one person, or one group of people. But, provided they can attract people to comment, interactivity is built in. Still, most blogs, like WebDiary, have a central control: the keys to the castle are held by one person or by one small group.

Wikipedia is different in that it is a genuine, and fascinatingly successful, attempt to give everyone the keys. It is the creative commons in practice.

Is this the way things are going to go? Or, are various groups going to try to retain editorial control? Human nature, not to mention commercial and brand incentives, would dictate that the urge to control is never going to disappear.

But the underlying technologies are developing in ways that empower the consumer, not the producer. Aggregators such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are essentially news publishers without journalists. Push technologies, particularly RSS, the various news alerts systems and desktop widget systems (I use Konfabulator), increasingly allow us, as information consumers, to define what types of information we receive. Editors of all types are crying into the coffee cups.

At the same time: we are also witnessing the unplugging of the net – as it migrates on to ever physically smaller, more portable and wireless gadgets. So not only is the content being redefined, so are the physical ways we get that content.

Irrational pessimism

2005-10-02T09:42:00.000Z

Regarding the true costs of whacko scares: David R kicked off this thread with the idea of some type of tipping point - on the weekend that Rita was scheduled to make shore. American consumer confidence was to collapse and a downturn begin.

That didn't happen and logically there should have been some post mortem discussion on why the prediction was wrong.

Instead the usual fabulists, doomsters and whacko theorists took over. This is one of the besetting problems with forums such as this. Unless rigorously edited, the nutters tend to take over as they produce more words.

But the issues raised should be taken seriously. As I pointed out, energetically and at tiring length on the SMH version of Webdiary, we have a tendency to give doomsters and predictions of imminent catastrophe much more credibility than we should.

Much of this is due to our desire for entertainment. The idea of Armageddon and a single catastrophic end to everybody and everything is deeply embedded in our culture.

I’m as guilty as anyone: I do love crossing swords with the doomsters and egging them on to ever more irrational, indeed insane, assertions.

But, although they could be dismissed as just amusement, these games also have an impact in the real economy.

Robert Barro recently published a paper looking at what is known as ‘the equity premium puzzle’. Why do shares generate better long-term rates of return than government bonds? According to conventional neo-classical economic theory, share returns should be better than bonds, but only by that margin which reflects the greater risk involved. In practice, they do far better.

Barro argues that investors are fundamentally irrational. They overestimate the likelihood of a catastrophe and this makes the demand for bonds higher than it should be – driving down prices. In other words, it isn’t irrational optimism but irrational pessimism that is at work here.

This idea has kicked off a firestorm of a debate.

Go to the New Economist to check it out.

The death of left and right

2005-10-02T08:54:00.000Z

Politics is personal and the personal is politics: new technologies have empowered all of us. We use those new technologies, particularly the net, to free ourselves from various constraints - not least those of geography.

The old politics were poorly described by labels such as left and right. Today those labels are quaint historical curiousities. . I think ‘authoritarian’ and ‘libertarian’ say more - but admit that they are hardly snappy.

An old communist party member, like David McNight, is always going to favour authoritarianism over the siren call of liberty. Basically he distrusts the people. Liberate yourself David! Take that final step. Recognize that the old reliance on authority, obedience and hierarchy is fading.

There are new possibilities now, new opportunities, new risks.

Konfabulated

2005-09-25T08:33:00.000Z

Konfabulator and it's widget gallery

Recently bought by Yahoo!, Konfabulator has really useful tools, great graphics and - perhaps most importantly - the ability to infinitely reshape your desktop to the immediate tasks at hand.

We all have repetitive tasks - specially when working on specific projects. I am experimenting with putting them on my desktop as and when needed. When working on other projects, I turn them off.

The main benefit I've found so far is keeping an eye on changing prices and conditions - although there is also the ability to build your own widgets. That's an area I haven't gone into as yet - but others have and the results can be downloaded from the widget gallery.

http://www.widgetgallery.com/

Latham's stake in the ALP's heart

2005-09-18T07:24:00.000Z

Mark Latham has revealed himself to be what many long suspected him to be: a puffed up little thug with a severely inflated ego. He obviously thinks himself a genius and everyone else fools.

Well, you get a lot of people like that - in politics and other walks of life. But what does it say about those who supported him and backed him to become Prime Minister? Come on all you little loyal followers, you propagandists who back whatever and whomever is put up by the Labor apparatchiks.

Own up. You backed yet another egotistical, bullying, overly ambitious little self-promoter. And, it seems to me the Labor party is producing nothing but such types lately. It's 19th Century collectivist ideology is now creaking with age. It's ability to create reasonably competent state administrations - dealing with essentially service issues - appears still robust.

But can it ever again generate the leadership necessary for a national role? Or is the whole thing now rotten to the core?

More Australian twilight than English dawn

2005-09-13T14:56:00.000Z

England’s triumphant cricketers enjoyed a deservedly rapturous, alcohol-fuelled celebration in London’s Trafalgar Square Tuesday. British sporting victories are, after all, still rare enough to warrant frenzied and energetic celebration.

But any dreams that this victory will translate into a period of English global cricket dominance are likely misplaced. Australia’s aging sporting gods lost the Ashes; England’s battlers only played well just well enough to catch them as they fell.

The period of Australian dominance of the cricketing world is, more likely than not, now coming to a close.

For nigh on two decades a combination of talent, skill, discipline and a peculiarly Australian brand of ruthless competitive aggression, allowed the now aging boys from down under to dominate the cricket world in a way that is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

Various teams have enjoyed periods in the sun before, notably the West Indies in the 1970s. Highly talented individuals or groups of individuals drove those periods of success, and when the great talents departed so, invariably, did the success.

Australia’s reign was different. With the notable exception of spin bowler, Shane Warne, the Australian players were not stand out talents. They were good of course – very good.
But it wasn’t individual talent that drove the success. It was the willingness of all the players to knuckle down and place the team’s interests ahead of their own. Tactics and strategy became as important as individual performance and captains, from Allan Border through Steve Waugh, played only to win. Australia, when on top form, won in almost metronomic fashion.

Victory followed victory. Everything was in rhythm; everything was in place. Fielders backed each other up. When one batter underperformed there was another – or two or three – to take up the slack.

The bowling attack was varied, energetic and unrelenting. Australia played with a singleness of purpose that was mesmerizing – and always daunting for the competition.
It was as if a clever way had been found to channel the often unfocussed and blind competitiveness that is such a marked Australian male characteristic.

But the machine is now clearly creaking. Current captain, Ricky Ponting is a good soldier, obviously steeped in cricket lore and tradition. But, like a World War One general he keeps faith with traditional tactics even when they are failing.

Spinmeister Warne and seamer McGrath are both in the mid-thirties.
Underperformers maintain their position in the batting order.

Caution is in, brotherhood and team spirit reign. It is a great way to win friends but not run an all-conquering sporting team.

Has Australia the will to rip through the fog of mateship and good-feeling? Can it find the discipline to take the tough decisions needed? The indications are not good. The team, the selectors and the Australian public are too in love with the glow of victories past. It may take years of successive failures before change comes about.

In other fields of human endeavour such gentle nostalgia and reverence for former greats is permissible, even admirable.

In the matter of fact world of top sport it simply doesn’t work.

* * * *

Nick Dockerty (Dock) says:

i think the aussies blundered in quite a few areas but mainly they didn't have a bowling strategy other than puttting McGrath and warne on + follow it up with lee/tait bowling bouncers and yorkers. i would posit that england can stay no.1 for 3-4 years. mainly because of the dearth of really good bowling attacks around. each top team has one maybe two good bowlers. eng have 3 and on their day 4.

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

So, I gather you are saying I am wrong - that England, with its strong bowling attack, can turn this victory into the beginning of a reign?

Dock says:

yes -but how long the reign well. lots of coaches worldwide will be copying england's approach and putting really robust bowling strategies in place in order to make the best of what they have. for the first time i thought the aussies bowled and batted like individuals and not as a unit as they have done before. it's difficult even for aussie team members not to be in awe of warney and mcgrath

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

Likely true. But that is what has changed. When the Australian Institute of Sport was set up in the early 80s it introduced a level of professionalism - of strategy, metrics and so on - that has a levelling effect. We're all pros here sort of thing. That is conducive to team building. Now we seem to be reverting ...

Dock says:

aye agree. ponting is a gentlemen first and skipper second. it's great to have respect for the tradtions and unsaid sportmanship of the game (replacement fielders) but they forgot why they had become the world's finest team - to leave nothing (or as little as poss.) to chance - and to wind at all costs. i think eng. had the edge in that department esp on the first day when ponting got hit - no-one

Dock says:

asked if he was ok... which was harsh but it sent the right message at the right time that this was going to be tough...

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

And, at the very end. He sent out the batters in order. Rubbish decision. It should have been the 20/20 openers - Gilchrist and ?

Dock says:

indeed

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

So, for once, they aren't fighting to the last ball. That is the difference between the comfortable, successful 30s and the hunger of the early 20s. Got to have fire in the belly. This they no longer have ...

Dock says:

he should have bowled mcgrath all day yesterday too

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

Or got lee to really rough them up, then Mcgrath, then Warne. Whatever. It is fascinating that, as late as lunch yesterday, the Australians were still in with a chance. Mark Waugh would have made sure we took it.

Dock says:

Agree....Gilchrist had an interesting series that seemed to sum it all up. he wouldn't change his game plan and seemed to batting from memory

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

I still can't believe Langer's decision to accept the light.

Dock says:

aye another good point. they should have really be going for it then and piling on the runs england looked weary on saturday

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

On Gilchrist: yeah, I think he wasn't that much below par - but he was definitely below. Like all of them. Sort of playing at 75% effectiveness. And think of all the fielding mistakes. That was not typical of the old Australia. Not at all.

Dock says:

Aye. but you'll be back - new skipper, new faces. And Tait's good already and he's only gonna improve

Michael Ekin Smyth says:

Well, from what I've read so far - if you can believe it - there seems to be no sense of urgency. No significant changes are, as yet, even being contemplated.

Dock says:

very odd

Flash downs hard disks

2005-09-08T06:29:00.000Z

The beginnings of the ascendancy of flash memory in all portable consumer devices has been signalled. When Steve Jobs launched the new Ipod Nano it was the end of the beginning.
Hard drives, with their moving parts and complex manufacturing techniques, will of course, survive in higher end applications.
But Flash is set to take over in every application up to one or two gigabytes in the very near future.

Offending a friend of Australia

2005-04-18T13:54:00.000Z

The man known as the Chief, otherwise PNG Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, had to take off his watch and empty his pockets. Later he is told to take off his shoes. He is offended, so offended that he is doing the proverbial and indulging in a not inconsiderable bit of self-harm.

He is suspending the latest, highly generous Australian aid program worth hundreds of millions of dollars; even though his struggling country can ill afford it. Canberra officials are unimpressed. Mr. Downer shrugs his shoulders and says he goes through security himself. What’s the problem?

The people creating the offence were the bumptious little security officials at Brisbane airport. In true petty bureaucrat style, they enforced their rules. Of course, they did. Particularly on a stumpy old black guy wearing a dress. He may be a Prime Minister but, hell, we’re paying for it all aren’t we?

The same officials wouldn’t have dared even raise questions of George Bush and his party. They would have bowed and scraped.

Michael Somare is an old guy and he has been around a long time. Lots of his policies smack of old 70s government activism – kind of like those of one of his early contemporaries, Gough Whitlam. Somare knew and worked with Gough, with Bill Hayden, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Andrew Peacock and so many others, In fact Somare has known and dealt with virtually every senior Australian leader of the last three decades. Considering that he led the political movement that won PNG independence, his attitude toward the former ‘colonizers’ has been truly remarkable.

He has always been a bit of an Australian fan. He certainly knows more about Australia and its history than many Australians – and probably a lot more than most current members of the Canberra parliament.

He schooled his children in Australia and has surrounded himself with Australian staffers, business associates and colleagues. Compare that to so many other leaders of newly independent countries – like Zimbabwe’s Mugabe for example. A quarter century after independence he is still running on a hate the colonizer ticket. Somare never did that, even when it would have gone down well.

I have to make one of those admissions of personal interest here – I once worked for the guy. It is nearly a quarter century ago now but I can still remember aspects of Somare’s personality, and his government, that truly impressed.

Newly independent countries, with little infrastructure, few educated people and not much money, are by definition chaotic places. For the new leaders the temptation to go down the authoritarian route, to play the anti-foreigner card, is always there.

Somare never took it. Just the opposite. In an extremely violent society, he abhorred violence and big man politics – although after a few he could of course curse out his opponents with the best of him. But his political philosophy was based more on getting people inside the tent pissing out rather than on hammering them into submission.

Was the government technologically proficient? Free of corruption? No, of course not. I’d defy anyone to create such a government in that environment. Most members of parliament were barely literate. Somare himself was no policy wonk. But he was overwhelmingly conciliatory and would go that extra half-mile to compromise with people – which, of course, often got him in into even worse pickles.

The whole thing was far from perfect – but it could have been a lot worse. Australia’s taxpayers paid a big hunk of the tab back then and still do. Somare recognized that and often said thanks in a variety of ways.

One way he repaid was by ignoring little slights. I can remember a reception at which a well oiled Australian ‘executive’, leaning too close and talking too loudly, pushed his business card into the Chief’s top pocket. Just like a car salesman, or a rich guy giving a waiter a tip. Somare looked over and rolled his eyes as if to say: see, that’s how these blokes are.

He was the Prime Minister. The boozed-up, Ocker jerk should have been showing some respect to the man who was widely acknowledged as the father of his nation. But he didn’t even know enough to realise he was offending. So Somare let it pass. You can only demonstrate that type of tolerance for so long. If you bottle it up – for years, for decades – one day it is just going to burst out.

I think that may be what happened in Brisbane.

That airport officials could do that is bad enough. But the fact that Canberra isn’t even willing to make an effort to fix the problem is inexplicable. They’re busy welcoming the Indonesians and the Malaysians and worrying about FTAs with China. Yes, they are the big guys and they are the ones that will matter. But that doesn’t mean you should start treating your old friends like dirt.

Australia’s attitudes toward Pacific nations are generally benign and friendly but they are tinged with an arrogance that inevitably humiliates. From the 1860s, when a NSW unit went over to New Zealand to fight in the Maori Wars, we’ve always felt free to interfere in Pacific affairs. We occupied Papua, invaded New Guinea, took on the League of Nations mandate and then fought the Japanese there. Many believe that was the extent of Australian activities but, even in the 1920s we were sending cruisers up to the Solomons to enforce law and order – just as we did in the last outburst of chaos.

Australia’s economic impact is decisive to all the micro nations of the Pacific – as well as to the two majors - PNG and New Zealand. We have put a lot of work and care into our relations with the Kiwis. Now we should put an equal amount into the Pacific nations, starting with Michael Somare and PNG.

On doomsters and other (non) thinkers

2005-02-21T14:11:00.000Z

In the 1870s engineers warned Queen Victoria that, if London’s population grew beyond four million, transport-derived pollutants – horse manure - would overwhelm the city.

The population did pass four million in Victoria’s lifetime, and the city didn’t disappear under a tidal wave of steaming dung, although it must have smelt like it was going to at times.

There were around 50,000 horses providing the energy for transport in central London alone. Apparently one horse produces somewhere between five and fifteen kilos of dung and more than a litre of urine every day. Over a thousand tonnes of manure were carted out of the city each day.

And it wasn’t just the by-products – vast quantities of food had to be carted into the city each day to feed the animals. There seemed to be a ‘natural’ limit to what could be achieved with the resources to hand.

The problem was as bad in other big cities. Dead horses were a major pollutant. In the 1880s about 15,000 horse carcasses were removed annually from the streets of New York. Experts calculated that diseases spread via the manure accounted for about 20,000 deaths in that city each year.

Was the intractable and unalterable problem of horse manure going to limit the size of urban development? Would our grandchildren ever forgive us if we didn’t tackle this challenge?

Many believed so, particularly the experts. Focussed on ‘the problem’, they thought there was an unchangeable relationship between the existing technologies and what was, and what was not, a resource. Like so many Malthusians, flat-earthers, resource shortage theorists and eco-doomsters before and since, they failed to understand a basic underlying fact: it is the technology that determines the resource, not the opposite.

As technologies change and advance resources are continuously being redefined. If a particular resource for whatever reason becomes too expensive, we develop technologies that use cheaper resources.

Within a decade of the expert warnings being given to Queen Victoria, Karl Benz had taken out the first patent for a vehicle propelled by an internal combustion engine. Oil was on the road to becoming an important resource.

Previously a minor player in the lighting market, oil would now become a competitor for hay and oats – the primary resources for horsepower - and coal – the resource for steam locomotives and, for a while at least, steam-cars. Horse manure and horse carcasses would remain a pollutant for a long time – in 1915 there were still nearly 10,000 horse carcasses removed each year from the streets of Chicago – but the problem had peaked decades earlier.

Why did the expert advisors in the 1870s fall into such a simple intellectual trap? Why didn’t they understand or at least give some consideration to the evolution of technology? After all, by the 1870s technological advance should have been well understood. The industrial revolution had been underway for a century. The rapid advance of science and knowledge in general had been understood in Europe, if not since the Renaissance, and least since the Enlightenment.

There are three parts to the answer: first the problem of the unknowable, second cultural and social inertia and finally the institutional and political context.

1. The problem of the unknowable. We know technology is going to advance but we don’t know where it is going to and we don’t know how quickly it is going to move forward. All human organisations, companies, governments whatever, rely on metrics. If you can’t measure it, there is a tendency to disregard it. Because of the great difficulties in measuring and predicting technological advance there is a strong bias against including any consideration of it.

2. Cultural and social inertia. Sci-fi is a literary form for teenage boys and nerds. Sci-fi writers are generally regarded as marginal, far from serious literary figures. Even in our technological age, technology enthusiasts are often dismissed as blue-sky theorists. Serious people with high status in the existing social order make a virtue out of slow adoption of technology – which is rational because they know, consciously or unconsciously that the new technologies are undermining the social order and their existing status.

3. Which brings us to the institutional and political context. Academics sneering at the Internet are also rational – because the net is undermining their comfortable numbers in today’s tertiary institutions. Institutions are shaped by existing technologies. When the technologies change, so do the institutions. The powers that be are always threatened by technological advance and will always resist it. Then there are the outsiders who, by creating panics and scares, can advance their own careers. Here we come to the marginals: the snake oil salesmen, the professional doomsters, the resource shortage theorists. Some, such as Paul Ehrlich, maintain a semblance of academic credibility over decades – even as each and every prediction is disproved. Others are simply ‘out there’, working the insecurity of the mass markets – hoping for a way in.

As technological change accelerates the reactions to it grow in tandem. Today the doomster mind-set and the doomster profession - perhaps better called a vocation – are prominent parts of our social and media landscape. It is essential a reactionary and conservative stance but few if any of its practitioners consider themselves as such.

Peak oil theorists are one sub-branch of this proud line, which reaches from Malthus through the Club of Rome.

All energetically pluck at slightly different strings but the tune remains the same. We must limit the freedoms of the present generation for the sake of the unborn. Otherwise, how will our grandchildren survive this or that threat?

And, who is going to dictate those limitations to our freedom? Well, those who define the problem naturally. It is an old wheeze but a good one. Dictators and authoritarians use it all the time. It is a key to power and influence and, let’s face it; it’s a whole lot of fun. We really do enjoy a snake-oil salesman, particularly when he posits salvation or damnation.

Where this comes from is difficult to pin down. They have the same attraction as old time preachers and, despite the odd charlatan; they are, almost always, sincere in their beliefs. Sincerity is a winning characteristic. No cynics or sceptics these, they tend to be true believers. They really do think that this or that catastrophe is about to happen, or is already underway.

But, let’s not let them off too lightly. Malthusian ideas lead to protectionism and xenophobia. Resource shortage theories lead to rule by bureaucratic fiat and repression of fundamental rights. These are not harmless cranks. Whilst amusing they are socially reactionary and can also be politically dangerous.

Peak oil debate

2005-02-16T10:14:00.000Z

Ian. It is perhaps worth reminding you that abuse merely undercuts any weight your arguments may have. And my name is spelt with a Y not an I. Pedantic yes, but also important and I fear indicative of the accuracy of so many of the generalized and sweeping assertions you make.

You structured your reply/abuse using a series of points. I’ll try to do the same.

Point one: you assert that oil is ‘responsible’ for a great list of things – virtually all of the products and energy sources in our society. Well, I guess it is worth congratulating you on discerning how important oil has become. It is used extraordinarily widely because it has characteristics – including price – that beat out the competition. Oil currently holds – in general terms – around 40% of the global primary energy market. However as the price rises the various competitors increasingly come into play.

Examples: Dow Chemical now has its first commercial biochemical plant functioning – all feedstocks are non-hydrocarbon. Petrochemicals still enjoy huge price advantages. But at some point these do disappear. Whether this occurs at the equivalent of US $100 or US $200 is not, as yet, clear. However, rest assured it will happen. As the international community builds carbon costs into the pricing system that competitive point will come closer.

Competitors come into play at different points in each separate energy market. Furthermore these vary from one part of the world to another. For example natural gas and LNG are competitive in many Australian static energy markets – electricity generation, domestic and industrial use at prices much lower than equivalents to today’s oil prices. An example that might be of interest to you is that solar power is generally considered to compete at between $65 and $140 – the large range being due to the varied conditions under which it must operate. As the energy conversion efficiency of solar cells rises that price falls. Nanotech has already made some fascinating contributions in this area with the possibility of totally new ‘cells on film’ technologies that could make solar cells far, far cheaper.

In the transport market oil does have special competitive qualities – it is relatively cheap and safe to store and transport. In addition, it is highly energy intensive. That is, it contains a lot of energy for its weight. That is why oil still dominates in this market and competitors find it so hard to make headway. However, advances are continuously being made in the various aspects of both hybrid and hydrogen technologies. They are continuously becoming more efficient, cheaper and more competitive. Of course advances are continuously being made in internal combustion technologies as well – but that is also to the good – as they become less polluting. Will there be a transformative moment? A silver bullet, which changes everything? Highly unlikely. The world is too complex for that now. But change is underway – continuously and it is never ending.

Regarding your points about the impact of higher oil prices: yes, if you look closely enough there is some minor effect but, in the broader world, it is totally insignificant. Western economies are healthy and growing. Damn even sclerotic old Europe has managed to turn in some growth in the last 12 months!

Point two: you say the Arab oil embargo was a political peak and that peak oil is the real thing. The ’73-4 crisis was an oil embargo, the 79/80 was basically a reaction to the Iranian revolution. There was no embargo. As I said, I’m not arguing that there is no peak, I’m saying that it isn’t as important as you and the other doomsters claim.

Point three: yes, oil has a monopoly only in transportation. Look up monopoly in a dictionary. Oil may enjoy an advantage, of price or whatever, in other applications but it has no monopoly. Please try to understand words and use them accurately. Think more, emote less.

Point four: Peak uranium? Please … now we are entering the realm of the absurd. What I noted was that construction of nuclear plants has begun to rise again. Green objections will probably stop that process in the West but will have limited impact in other regions. Simple facts.

Point five: Yes, renewables have only a tiny market share – but it is growing faster than the overall market. Additionally technological change in these technologies is accelerating. Is any one technology going to ‘replace oil’? No. But its London to a brick that they are going to eat into oil’s market share. The energy slate is going to become more diverse, more complicated and less carbon intensive.

Point six: Yes, principally due to the rapid economic growth of China, CO2 emissions are likely to continue to grow. But there is no "fixed link between commodity consumption and pollution". It is continuously changing relationship and overall our environmental performance is improving. We are becoming better at what we do and we are emitting less pollution for each unit of energy consumed.

Point seven: You completely misunderstand my point. Of course fossil fuels are finite. My point is that technology determines what is and what is not, a resource. Wind was the key resource for ships powered by sail, oil for diesels and so on. Resources are not the determining factor, technology is. It is brains, not commodities,

Point eight: Do not underestimate technological advance. Even with the technologies we have today, we can tap into vast resources of oil, heavy oils, methane hydrates, coal, and on and on. The point isn’t really about resource depletion; it is about the environmental side effects. You say that ‘it is all built on non-renewables’ which is a contradiction of what you say elsewhere. Even you admit that 3% of primary energy supply is renewable. Now, 97% is a hard nut to crack. But, given that we are beginning to include the carbon cost in the whole equation, I think we can expect significant advances.

Point nine and conclusion: Yeah, yeah, I haven’t done my research, I’m living in a dream world and I’m shallow and intellectually dishonest. Well, what can I say? Maybe you’re right. Who knows? I try to be honest and to, as far as it is possible, to objectively assess the facts that come to my attention. Also, I try not to get abusive – even when I can do it stylishly and it is a whole lot of fun. Ian, I suggest you try the same.

The commentariat is doing Mike Moore's work for him

2004-07-27T07:34:00.000Z

The most important aspect of Michael Moore’s work is often overlooked. It is brilliant marketing.

Moore has a developed an instantly recognizable character – the cap, the chins, the stubble, the shouting – and the political abuse. The ‘had it up to here’ working class stiff.

Like Mickey Mouse this MM character is now instantly recognizable and increasingly marketable. From ‘Roger and Me’ onwards Moore has honed and polished this character and product. The results of this decade-and-a-half campaign are simply stunning. Moore’s companies already have turnovers in the hundreds of millions (F 9/11 alone has now racked up more than $100 million in ticket sales) and Moore’s personal net worth is in the tens of millions. Moreover, just from his current product line, he can expect substantial residuals over the coming years.

There is also the potential to leverage his core product – the MM character – into a virtually endless series of marketing vehicles.

Moore is not fundamentally a political man. He uses politics to set the agenda – and generate press coverage leading to ticket and book sales. His speaking fees alone would now make him a fairly wealthy man. So arguing points or debating issues with him is essentially irrelevant. He doesn’t need to win arguments, just tell a plausible story that entertains. The chattering classes are, in effect, doing the advertising for him.

He is an entertainer, masquerading as a political activist – and making tens of millions out of it. Of course, he isn’t the first to take this route – just the best practitioner at the moment.

The end of the age of new?

2004-07-26T12:16:00.000Z

The end of the Age of New?

Want to get greater performance from your car? Or, improve your washing machine, or boost the volume from your home theatre kit? In almost every case you can buy some new chips, slot them in, download some software and instantly become an e-mechanic, or at least a marginally competent e-maintainer.

In the way they are currently used, these upgrade kits are currently not substantially different to their 20th Century equivalents. Consumers, with some skills a technical bent, buy them to tweak the performance of a standard product by adding some bells and whistles.

But, as they become increasingly sophisticated they have the potential to alter the way many, if not all, consumer durables are manufactured and used. Consumer durables are that class of product – ranging from kettles to cars – which are used many times before wearing out.
In the 19th Century, before the widespread introduction of mass production, the few major durables that existed were typically repaired and re-used as long as their basic physical structure held together.

As mass production spread, better initial quality and maintenance extended the life of products. Repairs were only undertaken when their cost was less than the cost of replacement. As reliability improved, we entered the age of the trade in and then of the disposable. Car beginning to act up? Trade it in on a new one. Walkman sound blurry? Chuck it and buy a new one.

By the 1990s it was often cheaper to buy a new product than repair an existing one. Both marketing and the rapid advance of technology accelerated this pattern. Car marketers discovered early on that the introduction of ‘annual models’ was an effective way of boosting sales figures. In the 1980s personal computer manufacturers brought out new models every time technology advanced incrementally.
There were several drawbacks to this system, some of which have been well understood for some time. It produced a lot of physical waste and that created some passing hysterias along the lines: what are we going to do with all that trash?

But the real problem lay deeper. It kept our products dumb. Each time we wanted to get something better, we had to get a new one. We lived in the age of the new – and didn’t our bank overdrafts show it! The physical and financial waste involved probably actually increased over the decades.
But, now that may all change.

Wireless communications are becoming more pervasive and software ever more intelligent. Boeing has just launched a service that allows its airliners to automatically feed back information on the state of their systems. The maintenance people, and/or maintenance program, can monitor the plane in flight and arrange any needed maintenance or supplies. How long can it be before a similar system is developed for cars?

This built in maintenance information system is just the beginning. As vehicles and other products become more intelligent some repair capabilities will be built in. Just as some software can now repair itself via the Net, your car may automatically upgrade itself while you are filling your tank.

This will not automatically mean the end of the product cycle. In fact, in the beginning, it may accelerate it. However, in the longer term, intelligence and self repair capabilities may become re-enforcing.

‘I don’t want that car: it is too new and has not developed sufficient intelligence.
On the inter-planetary space ships of the coming decades, ‘new’ will not be an option. They will have to be intelligent and self repairing.
We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the age of the new.

Ma! I Shrunk the Company

2004-07-24T08:49:00.000Z

Microsoft's extraordinary decision to hand $62 billion back to shareholders is likely to prove to be a significant turning point in market history.

Effectively Bill Gates and co. are saying that they don't know what to do with the money and that individual market players - investors - know better.

This a remarkable admission. For perhaps the very first time in modern capitalism a major company has abandoned the focus on growth above all. By consciously choosing to shrink itself Microsoft has acknowledged that beyond economies of scale there are diseconomies that can overwhelm.

Transaction costs which, as Ronald Coase demonstrated, are criticial in determining optimal company size are continuing to decline. The advantages of powerful brands, such as Microsoft's, are now hedged in by disadvantages, as demonstrated by the activities of activists and anti-trust lawyers.

Centralized decision-making by company executives is the loser. Dispersed decision making, through markets, the winner.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher marked the end of the growth of government. Bill Gates may very well end up as the symbol of the end of the growth of corporate power.

Markets Rule OK!

Hayek got it right

2004-07-22T13:15:00.000Z

Those seeking to understand the evolution of economic systems, could do worse than to read Friedrich Hayek.

"Order generated without design can outstrip plans men consciously contrive."
"(The) extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously ... Evolution leads us ahead precisely in bringing about much that we could not intend or foresee."

The story keeps bubbling

2004-07-16T13:51:00.000Z

The Wall Street Journal says Shell's auditors, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. were warned in 2002 by Shell's internal auditor about potential problems with its reserves bookings.

The internal reserves auditor, Anton Barendregt, is said to have highlighted systemic problems with the company's reserves reporting procedures.

Mr Barendregt is said to have concluded that only about 1 per cent of Shell's reserves for 2002 were at risk of being overstated. It is unclear whether the internal warnings were significant enough to merit investigation.

Meanwhile, Andrew Brown, head of Shell's gas-to-liquids project in Qatar says talks with the US Securities and Exchange Commission may be necessary in order to allow the booking of gas reserves there as proven.

The SEC definitions of what can be included in an oil company's accounts have been a key bone of contention throughout Shell's crisis. Defenders of Shell's policies argue that the SEC's definitions are too conservative and fail to take into account cutting edge technologies - which Shell relies on.

Time for the mega-merger?

2004-07-15T09:16:00.000Z

Should BP make a play for Shell?

Fadel Gheit, an Oppenheimer analyst says shareholders to push for such a combination.

Shell has excellent assets, strong financials, a global presence and dedicated staff. But Gheit says it has not got the kind of management expertise to "restore its industry standing and achieve its potential".

He says there would be $10 billion in synergies in the mid-term and cash freed up by disposals.

"We think under the leadership of BP's current CEO with the two companies' assets, operations and global presence, BP-Shell would make a perfect merger," Mr Gheit was quoted in the Guardian as saying.

shellcrisis.com

2004-07-14T12:32:00.000Z

The much lamented vacuum of ownership in modern corporations is coming to an end. A new coalition of institutional investors, activists and aggressive fund managers is insisting on controls on executives and better board oversight.

Activists, investors and class action warriors
For Shell the clock is ticking
www.shellcrisis.com

The top two executives have been booted out and a legal report allocating the blame to them published. The Dutch have agreed to do away with the priority shares that locked control of Royal Dutch Petroleum in a few hands. A board committee has been appointed to review Shell’s arcane and complex management structures.

The, nearly anonymous, men and women in charge think they have a handle on Shell’s crisis. They are now preparing to face down aggressive questioning from activist shareholders at the holding company annual general meetings on 28 June.

The corporate spin is that a line has been drawn under the affair and it is now time to move on. But that line in the sand has been drawn several times already and each time Shell’s managers have been proved wrong by subsequent developments.

Shell, once one of Europe’s most predictable corporate giants, is haemorrhaging that most vital corporate asset of all, credibility.

Worse, it appears unable to take the steps necessary to regain the momentum and rebuild confidence in its leadership and structures.

The oil major faces a daunting range of serious immediate and medium term challenges.

· Regaining the confidence of shareowners; institutional and private.
· Dispersing a storm cloud of regulatory investigations in the US, the UK and the Netherlands.
· Fighting a consolidated class action of 12 separate multi-billion dollar claims in US courts.
· Simplifying its top management to enable faster decisions
· And, reversing its lame performance in the search for oil and gas.

Under siege the first, natural, reaction of any organisation is to lock down and defend. But, defence of an ever-shrinking and significantly weakened perimeter will at best buy you time. It won’t rebuild confidence or market credibility.

To lift the siege, Shell has to break out of its mental fortress and re-assess the events and processes leading up to the present crisis. Today Shell’s parent companies: Royal Dutch and Shell Transport & Trading, have nearly one million share owners, not share holders: share owners. It is no longer possible to ignore the owners: changing technologies and regulation have seen to that.

The vacuum of ownership is disappearing. Shell’s executives, long accustomed to only telling owners only what they thought they needed to know, have to adjust their mental maps. The owners now count.

Activist institutional owners have discovered that large share owner constituencies mean they don’t have to take over a company to have a say. They can run campaigns, structured just like political campaigns, in order to force change. The campaign against Shell’s current governance structures has been led by a handful of share owner activists who, using press releases, media leaks and letters to editors, have consistently wrong-footed both the parent company boards and the Shell managers.

Some of these activists are idealists, like those in the NGOs who have been a feature of corporate AGMs for decades. Their main aim is to have a say.

But the current campaign features other, much more hard-nosed activists.

These are investors from ‘activist focus funds’ who have worked out that shares in companies with better governance structures, on average, perform better.

They are profit driven, not idealists seeking a better corporate world. Unlike political campaigners, corporate governance activists usually do not want the issue to come to a vote. But, as in election campaigns, winning in the polls leading up to the vote will often build up sufficient pressure to force changes.

Instead of trying to combat these activists, Shell needs to recognise the validity of their interests – they are the owners after all – and co-opt them and their ideas.

The way to regain share owner confidence is to recognize their role. The ultimate aim of both groups is the same: to build a better and more efficient organisation that produces more profits. The fight is really about the sharing out of power within that organisation.

Share owners are now flexing their muscles and that they are not going to go back to being simply shareholders.

Recognizing that all walls are now made of glass

For decades Shell has been like the Kremlin: lots of rumours and theories about it but little hard information. Decisions are handed down as from a mountain. Part of the practical problem has been the lack of a single corporate face. No Lord Browne figures have emerged because of the collegiate executive structure. But that has only been part of the story. Most of the problem has been, and is, caused by defensive and bureaucratic attitudes and structures.

Shell, moulded in a time when deference to authority and hierarchy was virtually automatic, has not adapted to new realities.

Stricter corporate governance regulations and today’s information technologies, mean that most information, once carefully guarded and sparingly shared, is now a commodity, like any other. Rare in earlier decades, transparency if not the norm, is increasingly common. Company walls, once solid and virtually impermeable, are now almost invariably translucent and quite often transparent. Those companies that provide information are trusted and build credibility. Those that don’t, lose credibility. In a competitive environment the pace is set by the most transparent.

The recategorization of hydrocarbon reserves, which set off Shell’s crisis in January, was at least partially caused by an irrational executive belief that it was possible to absolutely control when and where information was provided.

They could and did hold most of the damaging information within Shell for some years, but at extraordinary cost to the organisation. What would have been damaging but controllable downgrades turned into a massive write down of assets and a string of legal and regulatory liabilities.

Shell, like so many other companies, government departments and unions, has struggled to come to terms with this new reality of increasing transparency and the new egalitarian attitudes. Any strategy to move from its present impasse must address this overwhelming reality.

Managers should not be on boards

Corporate governance rules in the US, UK and the Netherlands have evolved dramatically over the last 10 years. Increasing separation of boards and managers and more individual accountability for the reliability of corporate information are common themes in all three countries.

That means the old practice of managers controlling boards through the placement of retired executives, or ineffective non-executives, is dying out. As with the rise of share owner power, executives are understandably not keen on ceding powers to board members, whom they may see as having insufficient knowledge or expertise. It goes against character, particularly when the executives are alpha male engineers, used to getting their way.

But, the rules for listed companies have changed and so have the practices. Company forms are evolving and we may be witnessing the birth of a new professional type of board director. Both Shell and Royal Dutch have already largely adapted, before being forced to, an indication that all hope is not yet lost.

Tell them more and then some more

Now that willingness to adapt has to be translated into far greater openness and transparency. To seize the initiative and work its way out of its present crisis Shell should take active steps:

Instead of grudgingly putting out terse press releases on corporate reforms, details and discussion papers should be published online. A dialogue with all interested parties should be developed.

Naturally all figures demanded by regulators, whether US, European or other, should be provided when and as required.

But transparency demands more than just meeting regulatory needs: they need to be exceeded. The competitors are not the regulators but the other companies that win more credibility by providing more and more reliable information.

Instead of, as now, getting into pointless arguments about whether or not the measures are the right measures, the initiative can be gained by publishing as much raw data as possible within the limits of commercial confidentiality.

That would allow analysts and other experts to slice and dice the data along whatever lines they chose and to draw their own conclusions. The secret of having a good strategy is sometimes not to have any secrets, at least not with your owners.

Shell: the first major corporate casualty of Sarbanes Oxley?

2004-07-12T19:14:00.000Z

Ken Lay, Enron’s former boss – shepherded into court in handcuffs.

Could that be the fate awaiting Shell’s sacked boss, Sir Philip Watts?

The story of Shell’s crisis is the biggest corporate scandal in Europe this year. Amidst confusion and controversy, assets worth about $140 billion have vanished from the books. Was it a classic asset ramping scam? Or, was it the result of an antiquated and out of date corporate structure?

Find out more at http://www.shellcrisis.com

Anzac day 2004

2004-05-18T15:59:00.000Z

The block on which the old windmill stood near Pozieres hamlet is probably little bigger than those allocated to new houses on the fringes of Australian state capitals.

About 20 metres wide, maybe three or four times as deep.

The front has a lawn, but the back yard is an uneven grassed-over heap of dirt and stone less than three metres high.

Apparently Australian dead lay thicker on this tiny piece of France than on any other piece of earth anywhere either before or since. When the attack began on 23 July, 1916, the Australians had only been in action in Europe once before and, according to contemporary accounts, the meat grinding reality of industrial warfare had barely dented their enthusiasm.

A few days, and more than five thousand casualties later, the survivors must have begun to realise the unforgiving nature of the game. Five thousand shattered lives for one house block. And, for them, the fight was just beginning.

A few short weeks later tens of thousands more diggers were inching toward the next target, a farmhouse, less than two thousand metres north and slightly to the west. Mocquet Farm. An old lane, once framed by trees, was their route. In the six weeks after seizing the old windmill another 23,000 Australian lives were lost or damaged beyond repair.

Driving along today’s twisting tarmac, just wide enough for two cars to pass, there is virtually nothing to see. Only a sign and a small, almost new, memorial marks the spot.
Unlike Gallipoli, Mocquet Farm has not seized the Antipodean imagination. No towering cliffs, no gallant sea-borne assaults. No sun most of the time. Just mud, ploughed farmland, a few inconsequential rises and unremarkable depressions defining the landscape.

An insignificant rural place, but one seeping Australian blood.

The words Pozieres and Mocquet Farm signalled terrible news for many Australian families. But they were little known in the wider world for they were just two sites on the much larger Somme battlefield.

Millions of soldiers were thrown into the struggle here – nearly two million died. At the final whistle, four-and-a-half months after kick-off on 1 July – the bloody score was roughly even – one million Germans, one million British and Commonwealth.
A few hundred metres northwest of Mocquet Farm the Thiepval memorial looms – the largest British remembrance of that 1916 season. The ones they couldn’t find are remembered here – around 72,000 of them.
Ranks of names, panel after panel. If you have a name of vaguely English descent, you will find someone here similarly described. An endless school roll call. Built in the 1930s, Thiepval silences even the most boisterous visitors. Reading the endless names carved precisely into the light stone, groups drift apart, individuals move off into their own thoughts. Some cry. Others simply go quiet. Very quiet.

My own grandfather, a Capt. R.R.R. Ekin Smyth, who was from Adelaide, is buried a few kilometres away in the Bouzincourt Ridge cemetery. Finding him wasn’t all that difficult, although it is necessary to map out your visit. There are so many cemeteries; it is very easy to get them mixed up. Every ridge, every hamlet has a ‘Brit. Cim’ marked. On the Somme they are more common than villages, more frequent than woods. Some are small, with just a few hundred occupants; others have thousands.
A visitor needs the right cemetery name, the plot number, the row and headstone reference. A postcode for the dead.

The cemeteries are meticulously and quite beautifully maintained, even nearly 90 years on. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission does its job so well the graves look almost new – like the soldiers, permanently young.
Seeing your own name on a headstone on the other side of the world produces a sensation difficult to describe. Questions immediately rise. Why on earth would anyone bother to come all this way to die in a fight over fairly poor farmland? What was going through their minds? Why, if the accounts are accurate, were they so cheerful and guileless as they went to the slaughter?

No answers are possible, of course. We can never fully understand the thoughts, the beliefs that motivated a different generation – even one so relatively recent.
These were soldiers of the Australian Imperial Forces – fighting for an empire that probably meant the world to them, but is just a history example today.
In 1916 Bouzincourt Ridge wasn’t even a battle, just another part of the killing arena. Two years later it still was, as the Germans swept south in their last big push of the war.
The British lines were forced nearly 20 kilometres south where the Australians were once again in a desperate fight, this time for a slightly higher ridge near the market town of Villers Bretonneux.

Here the Australian version of Thiepval stands – the memorial to those they couldn’t find. About 11,000 in all. The bodies of nearly a quarter of all Australians killed in France were never recovered. Artillery, and the recently invented and more powerful explosives did their work well.
On a cold but clear day it is possible to see Thiepval from Villers Bretonneux. Two years of war and millions of deaths did not move the killing zone far. As a visitor walks up the rise, Australian, Canadian and South African graves are lined up on both sides. At the top stands a tower about the height of a four or five storey building that anchors two memorial arms adorned with panels of names.

On the north side are the low numbered battalions; the 5th which fought at Pozieres in 1916. On the south side the 60th contributes its list of names. The roll call of battles scrolls across the top. Each wall ends in a neo-classical memorial adorned with mammoth carved Australian and Union flags.

The Villers Bretonneux memorial is bulky, massive, and perhaps even a bit pretentious. But how else could a distant and tiny developing country make sense of such massive loss?

In World War II fighting French forces took on the Germans here and the tower still carries the battle damage. A sign warns visitors that, although massive and solid, the tower is not structurally sound. So no climbs to the top to survey the battlefield, discuss the strategies employed.

Perhaps it is as well. Down amongst the neatly spaced headstones, three bunched together stand out. Instead of being a precise military distance apart, they are squashed together, like mates having a smoko.

All three are in their early twenties, all from the same unit and all died on the same 1918 day.

Another close by, with a Star of David, remembers 18-year-old M. Marks. ‘A young life freely given’.

Anzac is how Australia remembers World War I - the Great War, the War to end all wars - and that is likely how it should be. The first great sacrifice always grabs the headlines and takes precedence.

But these farmlands in France are where most of the price was paid.

To fully grasp that price a visit to one of the German cemeteries – on maps marked as ‘Cim. All’ – helps perspective. We know about the 60,000 British casualties on 1 July 1916, but few remember Moritz Faber, a ‘musketier’, who fell on the same day.
Germany, poor after losing the war, buried its dead four to a grave and marked them with small black metal crosses.

Counterpoint to the light coloured Commonwealth cemeteries, the German graveyards are dark and speak not of glorious loss but simply the fact of death.

Peak oil rears its head - again.

2004-05-18T15:53:00.000Z

‘Peak oil’ is like 'reds-under-the-bed' or ‘Bolshevik hordes’ or any of the many other spectres of doom and destruction that have been trotted out by various demagogues over the years.

Like all of them it is based on an element of truth taken out of context and spun to meet other political needs and aims.

Certainly many agree that production from conventional oil sources will peak sometime in the relatively near future - in this decade or perhaps in the next few decades. But, so what?

The ‘real’ price of energy - the percentage of overall global income needed to pay for it - has declined for centuries and is highly likely to continue to do so. Even if the rate of decline of energy cost flattened, or even reversed, markets could quickly adapt.
In 1980 the energy industry made up – ball park – nearly 10 per cent of gross world product.

Today it constitutes somewhere between three and four per cent. If oil prices soared by a factor of say 4 – to about 160 dollars a barrel – that would only take us back to 1980 in real terms.

Once oil prices rise above 30 dollars – average over a whole 12 months of trading – the incentives for substitution begin to click in – big time.

Non-conventional oil sources – heavy crudes, oil slates etc – are currently producible at between 14 and 25 dollars a barrel. However given the front loaded investment cycle – it costs a lot to start up these projects – investors are not keen until there is a track record of between 12 and 24 months of consistently ‘high’ prices. That has not, as yet, occurred. If and when it does, large numbers of projects based on non-conventional sources will start to come on stream.

Other forms of hydrocarbon energy – gas, coal also begin to compete more effectively when prices are consistently above 20 dollars a barrel – in all areas except, of course, the transport market.

In addition, the incentives for alternatives – such as hydro, solar, nuclear and – crucially biofuels - grow exponentially. Biotech is likely to prove to be a crucial factor in the generation of new fuel ‘resources’ within just a few decades. All of that, along with continued improvements in energy efficiency and the introduction of new technologies such as fuel cells, means that even if conventional oil ‘peaks’ the long-term implications for the world economy are limited.

Within the oil market itself the competition from other fuels is just as important an influence on price as the overall supply. So, OPEC continues to be caught in its historic cleft stick. They can drive up prices in the short and medium term – but if those prices stay ‘high’ (currently above say 30 dollars a barrel) – the incentives for competitors become too significant. Then competing conventional sources, unconventional sources and alternatives click in. The result? A price crash – very similar to the one we saw in 1986,

It is certainly true that we will continue to see changes in the energy industry - as we have seen continuously over the last few centuries. The dominance of oil is already over – after all, it makes up less than half the energy market – and it will likely continue to decline over coming decades. Oil will continue to be a very important commodity, worth hundreds of billions each year, but in a global economy near 27 trillion, it has to be seen in context.

As the basis for a doomster, ‘end of the world as we know it’ movement it doesn’t wash. Nor does it wash as the key to any paranoid anti-democratic, anti-free market and anti-American conspiracy theories.