Latest on Fri, 06:13 am
Smoke 3
Some of my fellow heathens here complain that the bigots have taken over. They do have a point, I´m afraid.
Some twenty years ago, when I visited Singapore, there were rumors that the pretty autocratic government of the city-state planned a ban on smoking in public. At the time I said: no sweat, I don’t smoke and I don’t live here. But I was wrong. The disease proved to be contagious. And now the situation got disconcerting: all over the world patronizing authorities – schoolmasters, experts, officials, clergy, heads of state- tend to forbid your pleasures for your own good.
Smoke 2
Indonesia can be found this month in one of the articles of PNAS (“Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”). It deals with the large scale fires in Kalimantan, West Papua and Sumatra.
It takes the authorities off the hook- to a limited degree that is. Their responsibility is relative, because in it’s summary the authors from the University of Amsterdam en the University of Wageningen a.o., conclude that alternating periods of relative drought and relative high precipitation have a most important impact on the amount of carbon emissions and by consequence on climate change. El Nino years (dry) are 15 to 30 times worse than El Nina years (wet).
The worrying part is that as a consequence of global warming the number of dry years in the archipelego probably will grow significantly. This may equal more drought and a rapid acceleration of deforestation. Which is a gloomy prospect for the remaining Indonesian jungles.
The rights of Papuans
Prior to the latest edition of “Inside Indonesia” my knowledge about West Papua was near zero. The facts I was aware of were scarce. I did know about the pretty dirty circumstances the Dutch colonial rule was ended in the early sixties of course, had read about some real nasty and even disastrous environmental developments and had heard some occasional alarming news about the oppression of Papuan attempts to achieve more autonomy. I even noticed the trouble Indonesian based correspondents of European newspapers had, to get into that territory. But essentially this part of the world escaped my, and I guess most people’s, attention most of the time.
The odd dozen essays in the October-December issue of the periodical however, show that this attitude is wrong. The present situation is really rather worrying.
I love mankind, but we are heading for trouble. Big time.
Though I’m in a gloomy mood, I hereby declare I love mankind. But, lets be honest about it, the world would probably have been a better place without the human species.
I love believers. They are my fellow men and women after all. But don’t you think the lot of them wouldn’t be so fucked up, if they never ever had been in touch with their ideology?
Surrounded by friends and family members who are economists of a kind, I can’t but love economists. I do so also because they are part of mankind. And because, as professionals, they are believers. They usually believe economy is a science. The only science with an absolute unshakable truth: the free market. As you know in this ideology the invisible hand is God and Milton Friedman is his prophet. To them there is no economy, but free market economy. There is no alternative.