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.