Is California Insane?

We are all familiar with the stories of the California governor ignoring his own Covid-19 rules to dine at an exclusive upscale restaurant with friends and supporters and of the LA County Supervisor who dined outdoors at her favorite restaurant hours after voting to ban such activity as too dangerous but before the ban took effect. They go out and party, then lock down the people who elected them.

 

That’s just simple hypocrisy. That happens across the nation, although California does seem to have a talent for electing some real nutcases to various levels of government. 

 

We almost expect that kind of hypocrisy from any politician, most of whom are elected on the basis of their charm, good looks or name recognition rather than their ethics and intelligence. But that’s not why California stands out. Here are just two of many examples.

 

The Glock Company manufactures and sells guns. On their site they list the GLOCK 19, a 9 mm Luger. It’s a handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 to 33 rounds. It’s not unlike side arms carried by police. The site carries a warning, only one warning, and it has nothing to do with gun safety. It reads: “This Product can expose you to chemicals including lead [in the bullets?], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other productive harm.” 

The sun can also cause skin cancer. Will they soon require that all doors that lead outside carry a similar warning? The danger of catching cancer from a gun falls far behind other, more immediate dangers.

 

Last August an estimated 3.3 million in California were “Facing [the] Largest Power Outages In Its History … Amid Record Heatwave.” On October 23 the news came:  “Due to extreme fire risk the utility is shutting off 466,000 customers between Sunday and Tuesday.” Then on December 5 the news read: “As parts of California rev up for another round of potentially fire-fueling gusty winds, Pacific Gas and Electric is warning 130,000 customers across 15 counties that they could lose power starting early Monday morning.”

 

Disregard the fact that many experts believe California added to the wildfire problem with poor forestry management. Just think about those stories in light of this headline from last September, “California Governor Signs Order Banning Sales Of New Gasoline Cars By 2035.” 

Picture hundreds of thousands of citizens stuck at home on a regular basis without electricity to charge their cars (or their phones). It’s just one more good idea – unless you can see the unintended consequences. California citizens can sit at home in the dark and applaud their governor for saving the planet. 

 

The antics of California would be funny if they weren’t completely crazy, and if the rest of the country weren’t slowly drifting in the same direction.

Flashback – Critical Thinking

The idea behind the flashbacks on Fridays is to review and update some thoughts and examples from the past. These examples remain valid because behavior has changed very little over the years. We are not learning from our mistakes.

 

The main difference in 2020 is that almost every subject quickly becomes political with people taking sides. The Real Solutions are not political. They come from people changing their personal consequences by improved choices using the Five Dimensions. As these individual improvements accumulate, America moves in the right direction. The solutions come from us and not from the government, but try telling someone that in an election year! 

 

Here from almost nine years ago are some thoughts on critical thinking.

[Around the time of the Civil War, John Stuart Mill wrote essays in opposition to slavery and in favor of women’s rights. In both cases he recognized the difficulty of persuading people to change their minds when their conviction was based on feelings rather than logic – thinking with their hearts instead of their brains. Near the beginning of “The Subjection of Women” he writes: “So long as opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses instability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, … the more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, … always throwing up fresh entrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old.” In other words, it’s tough to get people to change their mind when their opinion is not based on logic. The more you talk, the deeper they dig in to protect long-held beliefs.  

We see this behavior almost daily. We are warned to avoid subjects of religion and politics in social conversations. They lead to no resolution, instead causing others to protect their turf.

This is why many of my critical thinking arguments will fall on deaf ears. Considering, though, the waste, misdirection and sometimes danger that result from individual and societal forays down these blind alleys of feeling-based decisions, I continue.

There are two categories of critical thinking. The first involves paying closer attention, for example, recognizing the popular advertising pitch of “save up to 50% or more” as virtually meaningless. Literally it means: maybe saving some undefined amount that can be less or more than 50%. Likewise, how can all car insurance companies save you (up to) $300 when you switch? They all say so. One even claims that  80% of those who switched saved money - but doesn't mention the 20% dumb enough to switch anyway. These examples, and many others, just take some basic questioning.

The second category hits on subjects treated almost as religious beliefs. When I warn of the dangers of dietary supplements, the ineffectiveness of performance bracelets, or that all-natural does not necessarily mean healthier, I know there are a certain number of readers who will dig in, ignoring examples, evidence and explanations, knowing in their hearts that they are doing the right thing, resisting rather than even considering an alternative point of view. For some the ideas of green and sustainable are nearly sacred. They will not bat an eye when told that a particular wind turbine, for example, saves enough coal-powered energy to pay for itself in 150 years, but has a life expectancy of only 50 years! “But, but, but it’s green! It must be good. It’s the direction we need to be moving!”  Logic is lost in feelings and further argument leads only to increased resistance.

Nevertheless, I will continue to cite examples and drive the message of critical thinking. Making good decisions most of the time is essential for our success, both as individuals and as a society.]

What is Income Inequality?

What is the opposite of income inequality? It certainly can’t be absolute equality of income. Without being more specific, how can the term mean anything?

For years we have heard about goals like clean water and clean air. The US has been moving in the right directions. According to the EPA, “Since 1970, implementation of the Clean Air Act and technological advances from American Innovators have dramatically improved air quality in the U.S.  Cleaner air provides important public health benefits.” Follow the link to find a graph of nine measured pollutants, excluding CO2. It shows a downward trend since 1990 for all, excluding unusual events like dust storms and wildfires. Overall, pollutants have dropped significantly despite the fact that “Americans drove more miles and population and energy use increased.”

All the pollution levels dropped below a line labeled “Most Recent National Standard” as of five years ago. Note that there is a standard that defines an acceptable level of particles in the air. Totally pure air is not a practical or realistic goal.

Similarly, the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act “resulted in major changes in the way drinking water is managed and treated in the United States, and it achieved substantial measurable benefits in risk reduction and public health protection.”

On a side note, these facts do not seem to sway Americans influenced by media reports designed to stimulate concerns about hypothetical risks related to drinking water. A survey from 4 years ago showed that 56% of Americans “were concerned or very concerned about their tap water, 77% were regular users of bottled water, and 43% used some type of home treatment device.” The water industry and regulators have their work cut out for them figuring out how to promote acceptance and confidence in public drinking water supplies “and to maintain the public’s support for needed improvements.”

Once again there are measurable standards. Customers of public water systems receive a report from their water utility every year showing how the water supply measures up to various standards. Again, absolute purity is unachievable.

The same is true for lakes and rivers. “Human health ambient water quality criteria represent specific levels of chemicals or conditions in a water body that are not expected to cause adverse effects to human health.” 

Applying this to income inequality leaves critical thinkers puzzled.

The news media emphasizes stories about the shrinking middle class. “A graph from Reason, however, shows that about 50 years ago, 53 percent of people were middle-income, making between $35,000 and $100,000 per year. Although that statistic has since fallen to 42 percent, the reason [behind the change] is that many people moved into upper-income brackets. The share making more than $100,000 rose from 8 percent to almost 28 percent. (These numbers are inflation-adjusted.)” It’s shrinking, but not in the direction the news media and politicians imply.

Stories about income inequality don’t mention this information. Instead they attempt to stir up envy toward the super-rich, at least some of the super-rich. Notice that the emphasis is always on bankers, CEOs and hedge fund managers, not on sports stars, celebrities, Internet influencers or software developers. We are supposed to be irate that some people are rich, undeserving jerks, but others deserve wealth because they entertain us. Often the people who report these stories are rich themselves.

Furthermore, the evidence that income inequality negatively effects economic growth or social mobility is based on correlation, and, as every student of statistics knows, correlation does not mean causation. Whether or not income inequality is a drag on economic growth remains debatable.

But beyond that, it makes no sense to get upset about income inequality until it is defined and a goal it set. Anything that can’t be measured can’t be said to improve (or get worse). With no goal, there is no definition of victory. (This can also be said about so many other vaguely defined points of contention such as diversity, sustainability, and social justice.)

Flashback - A Real Climate Solution

[In November 2013 I posted this calm look at how nuclear power could be the key to reducing carbon emissions. Last month the powers-that-be met in Madrid to agonize over climate change and again nuclear didn't make the agenda. In fact some countries are cutting back on their nuclear programs to satisfy ill-informed public opinion. I was optimistic 6 years ago, but am less so today.]

The very idea of nuclear power gives people chills of terror. For many the words nuclear and radiation elicit an automatic reaction of panic, but be aware that it’s a feeling they may have to get over very soon.

Reasons behind the fear are many and varied. This NY Times article explains how a problem as far away as Japan can seem scarier to Americans than much less remote and more dangerous threats like smoking, radon, auto accidents or natural disasters. Radiation is difficult to understand, complex and potentially deadly. It’s not only associated with bombs and war but it’s also invisible – so you can’t see it coming. Radiation is uncontrollable – how do you turn it off? – and unfamiliar, unlike burning wood or coal or turning a generator with wind or water. Finally, nuclear energy and radiation have had terrible PR. People are influenced by movies and science fiction stories to the point that in a recent survey on perceived risks for 30 activities and technologies, “students and women's group rated nuclear power No. 1. The experts ranked it No. 20.”

Since the UN came out just days ago with a report that the atmospheric CO₂ level has reached a record, even higher than expected, this automatic negative reaction will soon meet head on with a great deal of pro-nuclear effort as they look for alternatives to coal generation of electricity.

Popular alternatives, wind and solar, have serious drawbacks. They have a large geographic footprint, an ecological concern, while people who generally favor the idea, oppose it being set up next door. Renewable sources vary, only available when there is sunlight or sufficient wind. Variability creates more problems than normally expected. Not only do they require another reliable source to fill the gaps, but that source must also be very flexible. This Economist article tells how the wholesale price of electricity in Germany actually went negative one bright and windy day in June, because of the unusually high supply, which also threatened to overload the grid due to the inability to quickly and efficiently flex their coal, gas and nuclear plants. In places where utilities are required to buy the solar- and wind-generated electricity first, the variability is built into the system, utilities are losing value and profits, so the money for future investments in the delivery systems, the wires to your house, is drying up.

Given those circumstances and despite real drawbacks, like cost, spent fuel disposal and one recent atypical disaster, nuclear is beginning to look more and more attractive as a non-polluting alternative. James Hansen, a former NASA official, and one of the early voices warning of climate change, has recently endorsed it and asked key environmentalists to use their influence in favor of more nuclear plants. Others argue that, despite scary news reports, nuclear power has a very good safety record and has caused less than a dozen deaths from radiation over its entire history. They estimate that 1.8 million pollution-related deaths have been prevented by the current use of nuclear power. They minimize the threat of terrorism and argue that 21^st century technology is far superior to that used in any operating plant in the US. (Many of the latest navy ships are nuclear powered.)

Any decisions like this will have a political component. The push in favor is building, but advocates with the opposite agenda will be working hard to influence public opinion. Times like this call for strong critical thinking. Oppose nuclear power, if you are so inclined, based on facts from reliable sources and not on emotion, gut reaction or pseudo-scientific warnings. It’s critical that we get it right.

Being Careful About What You Eat

It looks like a number of essays recently have been about food, but since I steer away from politics to show more everyday behavior, the healthy food stories tend to jump out. I found a number of fairly recent stories about whether being picky about our food is worth the effort. 

The marketing departments of food companies go out of their way to make us feel guilty about eating the wrong things and to reassure us that we are making wise food decisions. But how much is true and how much is hype?

Many packages are labeled as healthy. Does that have any real meaning? 

The FDA is in the process of redefining their guidance on this subject, updating it from the 2016 version that read in part: “this guidance is intended to advise food manufacturers of our intent to exercise enforcement discretion relative to foods that use the implied nutrient content claim 'healthy' on their labels which:

(1) Are not low in total fat, but have a fat profile makeup of predominantly mono and polyunsaturated fats; or
(2) contain at least ten percent of the Daily Value (DV) per reference amount customarily consumed (RACC) of potassium or vitamin D.”

They conclude “guidances describe our current thinking on a topic and should be viewed only as recommendations.” All that seems as clear as mud! So we keep seeing "healthy" on all sorts of packages.

What about organic? The government does have strict guidelines about what can be considered organic, but still there is no guarantee. As this article from last October shows: “Three Nebraska farmers will plead guilty to knowingly marketing non-organic corn and soybeans as certified organic as part of a lengthy, multi-million-dollar fraud scheme.” This had been going on for many years.

A few months earlier, this news came from the Genetic Literacy Project. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture fails at regulation of organic food as fraudulent products overwhelm the agency’s conflicted, compromised system.”

Furthermore, as I discussed in detail last May, the USDA organic program allows some pesticides not classified as synthetic, and tests only for those pesticides disallowed by the program. Organic pesticides are not necessarily safer and all products – organic or synthetic – have the potential to be toxic. The careful approach is not in the food supply but in food preparation, as in washing all fruit and vegetables thoroughly.

 The use of natural is even foggier.

The FDA has asked for pubic comment “on the use of this term in the labeling of human food products” as a result of three citizen petitions asking for a clear definition, another one asking that the term be prohibited on labels and several court cases requested clarification.

 It leaves us asking whether these terms are really helpful or just the usual advertising jargon. It shouldn’t surprise us when, just last month there was a nationwide recall of more than 68,000 pounds of “gluten free Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets.” But they sounded so healthy and natural!

It takes some critical thinking to get to the bottom of all this, but what is really called for here is a dose of perspective. There was a time when everyone didn’t worry so much about the credentials of their food. Many were just happy to have it. And that went for everything we put in our mouths. Consider the study a couple of years ago that cleaner surroundings were not necessarily healthier for infants, making them more prone to developing allergies. And books like Let Them Eat Dirt, warned about the dangers an over-sanitized world posed for children.

Yet advertisers find that these words, and others like green and sustainable, can have an almost hypnotic effect, causing consumers to turn off their critical thinking and just trust the labels.

Littering the National Parks – Follow-up

An astute follower of this blog sent me an article last week that got me thinking.  It was related to my comments one week ago about the National Park Service struggling with litter in the parks, particularly the plastic water bottles.

This Guardian report tells how the Coca Cola Company increased their use of plastic single–use bottles in 2016 over the prior year by one billion.  Certainly one billion is a lot of bottles, but this is worded in a way that subtly reveals a bias.

As an example, when reporters want to portray a company as being greedy, they will report the company’s profits in the most unflattering way, not only with adjectives such as windfall or extravagant, but also by carefully choosing the numbers presented.  Even if a company’s profits decrease, the numbers for a large company can be very large.  So a decrease from $3 billion to $2 billion may be reported either as making a $1 billion less or as “a whopping $2 billion profit!”  If the same size company made only $100 last year but $200 this year, they can be honestly described as doubling profits even though they very close to losing money.  This tactic can apply to any numerical measure; presenting the numbers does not always assure objective reporting.

So the main headline announces in big, bold type, “Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by a billion last year, says Greenpeace.”  Smaller print explains they have increased total production to more than 110 billion bottles.  Now that’s really a lot of bottles!  But an increase of 1 billion on from a base of 110 billion is less than 1%.  The headline could have honestly read, “Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by less than 1% last year.”  But it’s unlikely that Greenpeace would put it that way, because they are concerned about the improper disposal of empty bottles.  The first headline makes that point more strongly.

The next question that came to mind concerned the growth of the Coca Cola market.  If their sales grew by more than 1%, then limiting the increase in bottles to less than 1% would be a step in the right direction.  This is never mentioned in the article so I had to look it up here and found that their sales actually decreased.  Even a small increase would then be a move in the wrong direction.

Finally, the crux of the Greenpeace complaint is that by flooding the world with so many bottles, Coca Cola is responsible for the fouling of beaches, parks, roadways and oceans with empty Coke bottles.  They show pictures of piles of bottles collected along the seashore.  “Fewer than half of the bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 7% of those collected were turned into new bottles. Instead, most plastic bottles produced end up in landfill or in the ocean.”  Greenpeace accuses Coca Cola of not walking the walk on sustainability and urges them to increase their use of recycled plastic in bottles.

There is one flaw in this argument – the Coca Cola Company doesn’t empty bottles and throw them in the ocean, it fills bottles.  In doing so, they supply the bottles, but it’s their customers who carelessly toss them into oceans and yes, into landfills when they should be recycled.  Greenpeace tries to encourage (or shame) Coke and other soft drink companies to back negative incentives like deposit laws, as a way to coerce consumers into doing the right thing.

Responsibility is consistent in that when we don’t exercise it, advocacy groups or governments conspire to take the responsibility (and freedom) away from us or force us to comply.  The problem is ours, but the solution is theirs.

Asking the Right Questions

It seems that when faced with information they tend to agree with, news reporters become very sloppy or lazy.  They just lead the interviewee along allowing him or her to make the points, without asking questions to clarify the situation.

This was evident during one interview, as the CBS This Morning team were faced with a study from Consumer Reports about how using antibiotics in animals was harming the food supply.

The point being made was a good one.  Overuse of antibiotics has allowed bacteria to evolve leading to “superbugs” including MRSA and other resistant strains.  “At least 2 million Americans fall victim to antibiotic-resistant infections every year; 23,000 die.”  When antibiotics are needlessly used in healthy animals to promote growth, it merely “teases” the bacteria to mutate into more resistant varieties and these bacteria are passed along to consumers when they eat the infected meat and poultry.  This makes it more difficult to treat people who get sick.  Good farming practices mean using the drugs only for sick animals and good hygiene for the rest.

They showed a table with the results of the food they tested, comparing the amount found with superbugs.  Here is a basic reproduction.

	Conventionally Grown	w/o Antibiotics
Shrimp	17%	3%
Ground Beef	18%	9%
Chicken	69%	59%
Turkey	83%	80%

One host asked, “How do you label against this?”  That was followed by another graphic with an explanation.  They concluded with a comment that you don’t have to give up meat, but just be careful where you buy it.  The representative from Consumer Reports added, “And make sure you cook it thoroughly."

Yes, we want better and safer farming practices.  We want animals (as well as humans) being given antibiotics only when necessary.  But we are left with the impression that the “non-sustainable” farming in conjunction with the restaurants and grocery stores that are less careful about their sources are the big culprits in this superbug problem.

Look again at the table above.  No one asked why the difference in chicken and turkey seemed much less significant, and what would explain any superbugs at all in the “without antibiotics” category. 

Furthermore, no one asked how many of the 23,000 deaths are attributed to this problem.  In the Consumer Reports article it says, “calculations using data from the CDC show that about 20 percent of people sickened by an antibiotic-resistant bug don’t pick it up in the hospital or from another person—they get it from their food.”  So we are talking about only 20% of the problem!  That information was never clear in the interview.  In fact it was implied that the 23,000 deaths can be attributed to those poorly managed farms who didn’t observe “sustainable” practices.

Finally, the comment about thoroughly cooking the meat ended the segment.  Would anyone venture to say how important this is in the overall problem of foodborne illnesses in general, and to this superbug issues specifically?  That might be important information, except once they heard what they wanted to hear it was time to move on to more important news (like interviewing some celebrity).

Can we trust the news media to deliver the whole story?  At the very least we need to keep a very close eye on them.

Someone Else's Electric Bill

What does “economic understanding” mean?  Simply put, there is no magic money tree, no source of funds that somehow doesn't affect each of us as a consumer or a taxpayer.  Corporations spend money they get from customers.  Governments spend money they collect through taxes – or money they borrow based on the promise of future tax collections.  (Those federal funds that contribute to or pay for so many local projects are not free money.)

Another timely example comes from the Indianapolis airport where they have completed a large solar farm.  Panels collect sunlight and convert it into electricity, which is sold to the local utility.  It is expected to generate enough power “to supply the electrical needs of about 1,800 average-sized houses.”

Here’s the catch.  “The sun-generated power will cost three to four times more than IPL can sell it for, so the utility will subsidize the difference by raising rates to its customers, a utility official said. The increase in electric bills to subsidize the solar farm amounts to several cents a month on the average customer bill, the utility has said.”  It's right there in the article for all to read:  The utility will spread the cost of the higher priced power across the bills of all its customers.  Those who live near the privately-owned solar farm should remember as they drive by that they are helping to build and run it every time they pay their slightly-higher electric bill.

The article goes on to say:  “Solar farms also benefit from federal tax credits.”  That really means that those who live in other parts of the country and never benefit from this three-to-four-times-more-expensive electricity also have contributed through their tax dollars.

Perhaps this (Taiwanese-owned) solar farm is a good idea in light of concerns about pollution and other disputes about wiser, more sustainable sources of electricity, but never forget that theses decisions are made with our money but without our input.

Economic understanding allows us to recognize, and sometimes question, the link between public or corporate spending and our wallets.  Too often we take these things, especially the benefits, for granted and expect them to continue and grow without having to personally worry about the cost or where the money comes from, but ultimately we are all contributing.