What do atheists believe?

According to Wikipedia, atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. But logically, isn't this the same as saying atheism is the belief that there are no deities? My experience is that atheists don't like to be said to believe anything, even the non-existence of gods. Why is this?

Atheists believe in a random Big Bang followed by random evolution, with no reason or purpose and with no intrinsic meaning. Reason is deified and becomes the touchstone of credibility. Ken Wilbur describes this as 'flat-land' but Richard Dawkins and others take exception to this, citing their appreciation of nature, art and music.

Personally, I tend towards the belief that we are all one, we are all divine, and maybe that God is in all of us (and in everything). This would be panentheism. But life is a mystery and I am continually amazed at the miracle of our existence and our ability to contemplate and discuss philosophy and the meaning of life. I also tend towards Epicureanism: eat, drink and be merry. Or is that Hedonism? :)

Nice graphs from Google

I have just discovered Google's public data. This is a Google site which takes raw data from a number of sources and plots nice graphs, like the one above.

My personal electricity consumption is about 3000 kWh/year. The UK average of approx 6000 kWh/year includes public infrastructure usage eg pumping water, traffic lights and office/shop lighting.

An interesting graph would be energy consumption versus GNH (gross national happiness index). Google doesn't offer this yet...

Solar's Great Leap Forward

Update 23rd July 2010:
Last year (Chinese manufacturer) Yingli achieved an all-inclusive cost of $0.85 per watt! (source)

MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article on PV (photo-voltaic) solar panels. One Chinese company (Suntech's) production capacity has increased from 10 megawatts a year in 2002 to well over 1,000 megawatts today. The manufacturing cost has come down by a factor of about 3 (from $3.75/watt to $1.28/watt) in only 6 years:

Global installed PV capacity has gone from 1.2GW in 2004 to 8.7GW in 2009, an increase of 725% or approx 50% per year compounded See chart below). This capacity, at 25% production factor, results in approx 19B kWh per year.

Global electricity consumption in 2009 was about 3000 kWh per person (extrapolating from this graph), or about 21,000B kWh per year. So solar is less than a tenth of a percent at the moment. But at a 50% growth rate, it could be at 44% (of today's output) in 15 years, ie by 2025.

And if you believe Amory Lovins' graph, then energy consumption could be down a few percent by 2025 anyway. And we haven't even talked about solar thermal...

PS: Thanks Big Gav!

Zero Carbon, Nuclear free!

I like this RMI graph; it shows fossil fuel and nuclear energy declining to almost zero. I am a big fan of Amory Lovins and his RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) think tank. I embrace his prediction of a zero-carbon, nuclear free USA (world?) by 2050. (click on image for bigger picture).

See also RMI's Reinventing Fire.

Reinventing Fire, the (6 minute) video is here:

Per capita grain

How much grain (including rice) do we grow each year? According to the UN's FAO's latest report (2010 outlook - PDF), global grain production for this year is estimated at 2.28B tonnes. We have approx 7B people on the planet so that's about 325kg each, just under 1kg per day.

How much grain do we need? Another FAO report says that 167kg of grain per year provides 75% of a person's 2100kCal daily requirement.

There is obviously enough food to go round; just not enough income to pay for it...

Budget: progressive or regressive?

Ed Miliband, for Labour, said: "It takes a long time to establish an honourable political tradition. But it takes a very short time to destroy it. Are [Lib Dems] still the party of Keynes, Beveridge and Lloyd George? We all know these three men would turn in their graves at the idea that the inheritors of the Liberal tradition were supporting this budget." - link

I'm disappointed that the party I voted for (Lib Dems) is backing the recent budget. I'm seeing arguments both ways that it is progressive and regressive. I think it's acknowledged that the attempts at deficit reduction are approx 75% spending cuts and 25% tax increases. I believe this is Tory ideology to shrink government as much as it can. I agree with Caroline Lucas (Green MP) that the public isn't being asked on whether to cut spending or raise taxes; it is being asked how to implement spending cuts...

Green Party on the budget

Alec points out that the party closest to my 'Budget Suggestions' post is the UK's Green Party.

Cuts “destructive and unnecessary” says Green Party leader

Caroline Lucas MP argues for 'fair taxes' to reduce the deficit rather than spending cuts. Some of her points include:

• Why cut 25% of the Inland Revenue when we have £28B in unpaid taxes and a possible extra £15B collected by re-opening local tax offices?
• abolish the cap on NI contributions
• tax capital gains at tax payer's marginal rate (usually 40%)
• The OBR indicates governments spending cuts of £100B over the next 5 years but none of this is necessary
• "the coalition’s cuts aren’t needed and that fairer taxes and the Green New Deal are"

The full (35 page PDF report) is here.

Budget suggestions:update

Well, the emergency budget has been and gone. Of all my proposals, the only one the Chancellor got anywhere near was the one to increase capital gains tax to 40%. Even here, the Chancellor fell short, raising the CGT to 28% (for higher rate tax payers). The threshold for paying no CGT at all remained the same at £10,100.

Budget suggestions

Tomorrow is UK emergency budget day. I quite like the idea of no spending cuts but instead increase taxes.My suggestions?

• raise capital gains tax (CGT) to 40% from 18%
• eliminate the £10k+ CGT tax-free allowance
• scrap the £40k cap on NI so everybody pays NI all the way to the top
• land tax: say £100 per hectare?
• carbon tax on areas not covered by the ETS, eg transportation fuels
• auction (or sell) the carbon allowances currently given to electricity producers under the ETS

Note: ETS is the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for CO2

Lomborg on grain

In his book, the Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg optimistically  believes that we have enough grain to feed people and that this will continue. I decided to see what grain production had done since the publication of his book in 2001. Lomborg has a graph showing grain production (more or less) increasing linearly from 1960 to 2000. He also included a FAO projection of a slight increased rate of growth (page 95). I derived the graph below from Lomborg's graph and the lates FAO figures. The actual rate of growth is even higher than forecast!

The world's net debt is exactly zero

The world's net debt is exactly zero. So if we're talking about particular parts of the world where it is positive then maybe we should be specific. And how do places with negative net debt get on (e.g. China, Germany). Also it hardly seems that some parts of the world will struggle endlessly with net debt: eventually they'll default or inflate the debt away. So how relevant is debt? 

The above comment caught my attention.  Is it true? For every debtor there is a creditor? Sounds plausible.  

So how relevant is debt? - this question reminds me of debates with Alec. I think it hinges around when debt collectors arrive at your door. Or borrowing costs go through the roof...

Reindeer & Malthus

The number of Reindeer on St Matthew Island was 29 in 1944. By the early 1960's the population was 6000. A few years later, and after a hard winter, the population crashed to 42.

Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834) believed that the human population would grow faster than the food supply: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". He has been proved wrong so far (for humans), but St Matthew's Island is an example of where he might be right (and the poster child for people inclined to a dieoff/overshoot/collapse viewpoint).

See also:

• THE INTRODUCTION, INCREASE, AND CRASH OF REINDEER ON ST. MATTHEW ISLAND
• Wikipedia: Thomas Robert Malthus

The rich get richer...

If you're earning £60k (marginal tax rate 40%) and get a pay rise to £80k, you will pay an extra £8,000 in tax and only get to keep £12,000 of your £20k increase.

On the other hand, UK Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is 18%, with a tax free exemption of £10,100. So, if you earn £60k and sell shares for a £20k profit, you pay tax of £1,800, ie you get to keep £18.2k of the £20k. (see HMRC)

But maybe this will change in the June 22nd budget?

UK Government Debt/Spending

Just discovered a good source for UK Government Debt/Spending statistics:

• Debt Bombshell public spending summary
• Data Sources for Debt Bombshell (Treasury, ONS etc)
  

Here's a table from the public spending page:

(£ billions)	2009-10	2010-11
Benefits and Pensions	195.5	202.6
Health	99.9	104
Education	66.4	69.2
Debt interest	27.2	42.9
Defence	38.7	36.7
Local government	30.1	30.8
Scotland	25.4	26.1
Law and Order	19.6	19.6
Wales	13.6	14
Northern Ireland	9.6	9.9
EU contributions	5.6	7.9
Transport	6.4	6.4
International aid	5.5	6.2
Other departments	127.9	125.4
Total government spending	671.4	701.7

I suppose you could say, not to worry, £42.9B is only 6% of £702B...

Update: 2009/10 income was £476B (H.M.Treasury) of which £42.9B would be 9%

Day 1

My friend Alec said I should start a blog rather than pester him with email. My interests include Peak Oil, Lomborg, Economics, Environment, Relationships, Self-help, Spirituality to name but a few.