Tag: politics

Global Warming: We need new colors.

These maps show the difference between last winter's average temperatures and the long term average (from 1951-1980). Notice that the scale goes up to 11. Image from Hansen and Sato, 2011.

For much of the U.S., last winter was pretty cold. If you look at the maps above, you can see that the eastern United States was up to 4 °C colder than normal in December. However, if you look a little further north into Canada, you’ll see a broad, pink region, where the temperatures were up to 11 °C warmer than normal.

The rate at which the world has been warming has been accelerating. It’s been interesting watching the predictions of the relatively crude computer models of the 1980’s coming true.

The red line show that the actual warming has been awfully close to the middle scenario predicted by climate modelers. The figure was slightly adapted from Hansen and Sato (2011).

Although, it’s really the broadest, more general predictions that tend to be more reliable. One of those predictions, that’s been consistent for a long time and with a lot of different models, is that the poles would warm significantly faster than the rest of the planet.

What’s also been interesting, if somewhat depressing, is seeing the political consensus lag behind the scientific consensus. Twenty years ago there was a real debate in the scientific community about if global temperatures were rising. Now scientists argue mainly about what to do: reduce greenhouse gas pollution, adapt to the inevitable, or some mix of the two. Yet two weeks ago the House Science Committee heard testimony from a professor of marketing, advocating for an end to all government funding of climate research. Perhaps the belief is that if we don’t look it won’t happen.

Curiously, even research teams funded by people who politically oppose global warming, are just confirming the results of all the other scientific groups. Unsurprisingly, they’re now getting heat from their former supporters.

At the same time, Kate (on climatesafety.org) observes that NASA’s James Hansen has had to add a new color (pink on the graphs at the top of the page) to his climate anomaly maps because of the unexpectedly large warming over last winter.

Too many Young Adults: Reasons for Revolution

A successful democratic revolution may well need a relatively wealthy and educated population, however, one of the main things that seem to drive revolutions themselves is just how many young adults there are in a country.

… countries in which 60 percent or more of the population is under the age of 30 are more likely to experience outbreaks of civil conflict than those where age structures are more balanced.
— Madsen (2011): The Demographics of Revolt

When there are lots of young people getting to the age when they are just trying to find jobs and start families, but the country’s economy can’t grow fast enough to provide all the jobs they need, then you have a lot of dissatisfied, disaffected people with time on their hands; it’s a tinderbox ready for any spark.

I recently attended a talk by Jennifer Scuibba where she laid out the case. Scuibba’s blog, also has a
a very good set of links that look at the age demographics of the current revolutions in the Arab world.

One of the links goes to a report by Richard Cincotta and others (Cincotta et al., 2003) that used this type of demographic analysis to figure out which countries were most likely to end up in conflict.

Countries at risk of civil war (Cincotta et al., 2003).

They talk about the demographic transition, “a population’s shift from high to low rates of birth and death,” as being a key factor in reducing the likelihood of conflicts. Therefore, they suggest:

… a range of policies promoting small, healthy and better educated families and long lives among populations in developing countries seems likely to encourage greater political stability
— Cincotta et al., 2003: The Security Demographic – Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War

If civil conflict leads to a successful democratic transition, then political stability is probably not a net benefit.

However, once there is a democratic revolution, the same large cohort of young people still exists, which could make a country like Egypt unstable for quite a while, until it goes through the demographic transition. After all:

…countries do not become mature democracies overnight. They usually go through a rocky transition, where mass politics mixes with authoritarian elete politics in a volatile way. Statistical evidence covering the past two centuries shows that in this transitional phase of democratization, countries become more aggressive and war-prone, not less …
— Mansfield and Snyder (1995): Democratization and War

The Economy and Revolution

Vali Nasr’s interview on NPR’s Morning Edition talks about what it takes to make a successful revolution. Particularly, they focus on the need for a vibrant, educated, middle-class for a successful transition to democracy.

Another key, and I think essential point, is that the Egyptian protesters share the same global-citizenship values that Brazilians, South Koreans, and even Europeans and American, share. That they have these values, from years of communication with the outside world, offers the best chance that this revolution will be successful.

Edmund Burke supported the American Revolution, but opposed the French Revolution because the former was a conservative revolution, the colonists were fighting to regain rights that had lost, while the latter were trying to impose an ideal of democracy and equality that they had no experience with. He was right; the French revolution lead to the Terror then eventually to Napoleon and the restoration of the aristocracy.

How protests lead to revolution

The events that spark revolutions can come as a surprise. While everyone at home might want to overthrow the dictator, they don’t know if everyone else wants to do so too, so they are reluctant to go against the government. This is why protests are so important (as well as news coverage of the protests), because then the people offended by the government can see that there are a lot of other people like them.

Dictators, like Mubarak, do a lot to prevent protests: their secret police will arrest and “disappear” opposition leaders; riot police will be out in force to suppress protests if people start to gather.

The Egyptian protesters faced this very problem. So they organized over the internet, as anonymously as possible, and, for the January 25th protests, they arranged several meeting places for protesters so the riot police were too spread out to suppress everyone.

Stephen Pinker talks about this in terms of Individual Knowledge and Mutual Knowledge. Individually everyone knows the dictator is bad, but with the protests, they all realize, mutually, that everyone else also thinks the dictator is bad. Which is really bad for the dictator.

Photos from Egypt

TotallyCoolPix has several series of totally cool pictures spanning all the events of the Egyptian revolution. The images are all from the major newswires, and, with their excellent framing and composition, as well as the dramatic subject, are superb examples of the photographic arts.

January 26th, 2011. In the first days, the protesters squared off against the riot police. The marches start off peacefully. (From TotallyCoolPix:The Egypt Protests).
Violence erupts as police try to disperse protesters using rubber bullets, water cannons and (U.S. made) tear gas. (Image via TotallyCoolPix:The Egypt Protests)
January 30th, 2010. The Army came out, and the protesters saw them as protectors. (From TotallyCoolPix:The Egypt Protests Part 2)
Feburary 4th, 2011. Pro-government loyalists attack anti-government protesters, 'exchanging' Molotov cocktails. The battle (which includes a horse and camel charge) goes on through the night, but in the morning the protesters held their ground. (Image from TotallyCoolPix:Egypt Protests: Anti-Mubarak vs Pro-Mubarak Riots)
February 10th, 2011. Protesters wave shoes as Hosni Mubarak refuses to resign in a televised speach. (Image via TotallyCoolPix:The Egypt Protests: The Shoes Come Out)
February 11th, 2011. Gridlock in the cities as Egyptians take to the streets to celebrate Mubarak's resignation. (Image via TotallyCoolPix:The Egypt Protests: Mubarak Resignation Celebrations)