The threat to wheat

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One of the biggest concerns about climate change is the effect it will have on agriculture. Many studies have suggested that rising temperatures could be harmful to farms around the world, although there’s plenty of uncertainty about how bad things will get and which food supplies we should worry about the most.

Research shows that wheat — the most significant single crop in terms of human consumption — might be in big trouble. The authors of a new study found that a global temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius would lead to a worldwide decline in wheat yield by between 4.1 and 6.4 percent. The world currently produces more than 700 million tons of wheat annually, which is converted into all kinds of products for human consumption. A reduction of just 5 percent would translate to a loss of about 35 million tons each year.

World wheat production for the 2016/17 year will hit 741 million tons, nearly 500 million of which is destined to be used directly for human consumption. While global production of coarse grains, including corn, outweighs the production of wheat, a significantly smaller proportion of it goes to human consumption worldwide, with the rest being used for animal feed and industrial purposes. According to the FAO, global human consumption of coarse grains comes to about 200 million tons annually.

All studies of the subject suggest that China will see yield reductions of about 3.0 percent per 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature, and India is projected to experience a much greater declines of about 8.0 percent. The warmer regions of the world will experience the greatest temperature-related losses. There is still,however, a possibility that rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere may enhance the growth of some plants, although the way that different climatic factors interact with one another in all the different regions of the world is still far from clear.

The rational approach to threats like this is to reduce consumption accordingly. This goes for water, meat, fish, energy, all the things we take for granted. How? By moderating population increase, or, even better, by reducing the rate of childbirth to the rate of deaths to produce a nil increase. This would be a rational, Epicurean approach. Instead, world population is headed to a possible 11 billion, and there is silence on the subject. Why do people get so upset when it is suggested that it would be wise to restrict the number of children to two at most?

Will Brexit wreck the City?

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Will Brexit threaten the City of London’s status as a global financial hub? As the smoke clears on the vote to leave the EU, it’s becoming ever clearer that the answer is no, says Dominic Elliott. Sure, the UK’s financial sector may well have to cope with extra regulation, higher costs and greater capital requirements. But even if the very worst happened, and London-based banks lost the passporting rights that let them sell services across Europe from the UK, the fallout would probably only affect one in ten financial sector workers. Trade in euro-denominated securities might well move to Frankfurt or Paris, but lots of other business would stay. That’s because: a) the costs of upping sticks might well exceed the Brexit-related costs of staying put; b) there’s no single city that “offers a neat alternative to London”; and c) because of “the cluster effect. It’s not so much that banks like to be near their rivals. It’s more that it makes sense to be close to clients.” Insurers and asset managers – two crucial kinds of customer – are unlikely to be going anywhere; nor are blue-chip companies. For now, the wise move for banks is clear: “do nothing” and carry on. (Dominic Elliott, Reuters BreakingViews  July 2016)

We have got it all wrong. Banking was supposed to be a service, not the Britain’s biggest, richest industry. Nor was it ever originally intended that the financial tail should wag the dog, the dog being the greater economy. We have seen too many greedy shenanigans that have had horrible effects on ordinary citizens. We all know this. So maybe some winnowing wouldn’t be a bad thing. If there were significant unemployment of bankers, those still in work might be more careful about their trades. But what we really need is for banks to concentrate on lending for decent honest enterprise and become community banks once again. Let the shady, greedy types depart to the Continent if they wish.

Anti-depressants

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We still don’t know what triggers depression. Pharmaceutical manufacturers claim that anti- depressants correct a chemical imbalance in the brain, but there is no proof that low levels of seratonin cause depression. Antidepressants do change how we feel, in a way that some find helpful and others don’t. But that doesn’t mean they are addressing a chemical imbalance. Many people find alcohol helps them relax, but that’s not because it’s correcting an alcohol deficiency in their brain.

One study says that for children and teenagers with major depression, 13 of the 14 drugs analysed don’t work. Previous research suggests that for adults too, the Prozac class of antidepressants are placebos, at least for people with mild or moderate depression.

Despite this, the number of prescriptions written for these drugs rises every year. In the poorest areas of the UK a staggering one in six people, many with only general sadness, are taking them. Antidepressants can be life-savers for those with severe depression, but it is thought that doctors, who write most of the prescriptions, may know the drugs do little good but may feel they have little else to offer a patient sitting in front of them. They know that antidepressants can have downsides – including withdrawal symptoms, loss of sex drive and weight gain, but they need to be seen to be doing something.

Most alarmingly, in a few people they trigger violent or suicidal thoughts. A new study suggests that of all the antidepressants, one called venlafaxine was the most likely to make teenagers suicidal. Prozac was deemed to be the most effective. But the authors complained that they couldn’t properly assess some of the drugs because of a lack of information. Why is that? Because drug manufacturers refuse to release all data from clinical trials. (based on an article by Clare Wilson in the New Scientist)

I suspect that drugs are not the answer – an interesting job, a desire to learn, an absorbing interest, an objective in life, something other than soccer and the telly – these do the trick. Epicurus drew people into his garden and inspired them, took them out of themselves and encouraged them to think about life, and not just their own. We need more Epicuri.

Classism lives! Dear old Britain.

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The Guardian recently ran an article by Paul Mason that illustrates how class resentment thrives in Britain. Mason wrote that “brown shoes can ruin a career in investment banking, because they betray a lack of “sheen”, according to a Social Mobility Commission report. “Little wonder” that investment banking “suffers from groupthink on a scale that crashed the world markets in 2008”. No matter how good you are, if you don’t dress the part, you can “take your excellence somewhere else”. Fortunately for those trying to “scam” their way into banking, the sartorial faux pas are easily avoided, “with money, practice, a willing tailor and obedient hair”.

“The difficulty lies in the “unfakeable” bits. Only a handful of schools and universities pass muster at many banks, and you’ll need at least four spring internships – which are “in limited supply” unless you’re the offspring of a banker, or similar. If you want to become a City banker, the efficient-markets must become your religion. Above all, remember that “centuries of good practice show capital can only be allocated efficiently when the participants in the deal played rugby with each other at the age of 12”.

Has Mason actually met any average banker in London? Is this piece of classism fair, or can it be dismissed by as a rant by someone turned down by a bank earlier in his career? My (limited) acquaintance with modern bankers suggests it is wildly out of date, but it does illustrate how, despite the fact that non-private school people have dominated so much of life (particularly in the media and the arts) in the last generation, articles like this can still be published. It wouldn’t be allowed were it about, say, women or people of colour. I find it boring, and exaggerated. The Guarniad (as it is known) in many ways is an excellent paper, the only one offering a liberal alternative to political bias. But sometimes it does for Britain what the Republican mis-informationists do for America, that is, misinform and stoke hatred. Like all these things, there is a smidgeon of truth, but it ignores the bigger picture. Epicureans should protest.

Who cares about facts anymore?

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“What is true, and what isn’t? That question is beginning to lose its relevance in American politics For some years now, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and other members of the conservative infotainment complex have relentlessly poured scorn on everything reported by the “mainstream media”, and thereby successfully “wrecked the idea of objective, knowable fact”. Even the Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes, a conservative activist, has recently admitted that things have gone too far, an admission prompted by his frustration over the campaign tactics of Donald Trump”.

As Sykes points out, when Trump says something that’s blatantly racist or untrue, Sykes’s radio audience don’t expect him to retract it: no, they expect him to defend it, and if he doesn’t, brand him a sell-out. “We’ve created this monster,” as Sykes puts it. “We’ve basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers.” In the alternative reality of today’s conservative orthodoxy, science, polls, history and major media institutions have no credibility. Climate change is a hoax. President Obama was born in Kenya. If Trump loses, the election was rigged. Liberals and conservatives can no longer communicate across the ideological divide, or cooperate to solve problems, since they can’t agree on any objective set of facts. “The damage from that is profound, and will not be easily fixed.” (Leonard Pitts Jr, Miami Herald)

Is this the end of the United States as a governable, modern member of the interntional community? I have wondered (to myself up till now), whether the country should have been broken into two and whether the instincts that drove the Civil War were not, in the longer term, more pragmatic. But the problem there is that is is not a simple matter of North versus South. Much of the mid-West is very conservative. A Left-Right division of States into two new countries, even if were conceivable, would leave an East-West divide, with liberal California and maybe other Western States separated from the Liberal North East.

Perhaps only an immigrant such as I would even imagine such a scenario. But if division is not an option, what is the future of the Union and how do you undo the damage done by the radical extremists. Republican speaks not to Democrat, and vice-versa. You can’t have a workable country like that. Epicurus, were he alive, might advocate putting all the extreme politicians and talk show hosts out of business in one huge revolution, re- writing “freedom of speech”, all in the name of commity, peace of mind and civilised discourse. But then you have the 300 million guns…..