Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Ethnobabble

SYSTEM LOSSES in the production, transmission and distribution of electricity are explained succinctly in this NY Times Business article on Wasted Energy: "As energy is unlocked from fuels at power plants, two-thirds of the energy consumed to create electricity is lost." Move over Judy Ann Santos.

Then again there's Amado Gat Inciong, writing in the Philippine Daily Innuendo, that "public ownership of the power system" is a "sure-fire step to cut down the cost of power." I wonder which Red Planet these geniuses are from? The last time that happened was under the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, which resulted in years of whole day blackouts and power shortages. Come to think of it, unless Napocor is privatized as required by Epira, what's changed?


Thirty solutions to the world's top ten biggest problems are proposed by an expert panel of leading economists that includes 5 Nobel Laureates at the Copenhagen Consensus Conference. A limit of 75 billion dollars was specified and all options weighed critically in a benefit cost analysis. Number One solution: spend $60 million a year to supply Vitamin A to 140 million affected children, to derive $1 billion a year in benefits. #2 was gimme: widen global free trade! But why did last place (#30) go to "mitigation of man made global warming by cutting down green house gas emissions. " Apparently the analysis shows that $800 billion on such remediation only produces $685 billion of benefit. So maybe the two leading economies in the world, the US and China are right in being outside the Kyoto Protocol. We simply have to get to cleaner energy technologies. More from ReasonOnLine.


Here is some ethnobabble from Michael Tan, who explains all "the different ways to knowledge": ethnopharmacology (a visit to Quiapo Church tiangge), ethnoastronomy, ethnomathematics, ethnozoology, ethnobotany, ethnowhatnot. Ethnic, get it? Must be back to school time or something. Oh, but look out as the Palace is about to sign the Cheaper Fake Medicines bill. Talk about babble.


Speaking of which, SCIENCE is still NOT being taught to Grades One and Two students in the Public Schools, thanks to DepEd, GMA and the Men in Skirts of the Catholic Church. All for God and Country, wot?


Bring it on, already. Obama-Clinton vs. McCain-Rice (or Powell maybe?).

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3 comments:

Ben Vallejo said...

DJB.

Ben Diokno's article in today's Innuendo has it on the nail. What the government should subsidize is energy efficiency.

I think Gloria is running out of options. The 500 peso one time cash dole to the poor is unsustainable. While she gets it from VAT, there are sectors that say that VAT ought to be removed. But the government should have better sense to use VAT money for more jobs. This is one time that the CBCP does make sense. In the resource cost vs subsidy game,the govermment can do "pahabaan ng pisi" but that will run out and Gloria will have rope to hang herself.

On Juday and ice: This is exactly what Prof Flor Lacanilao has been complaining about. Scientific concepts should be explained to the public by science educators, through the school system or via informal education.But as you said science is not taught in school!

As for ice melting the theory is not analogous to systems loss. An increase in the kinetic energy in ice leads to less molecular attraction between water molecules thus resulting in melting.

Ethnobabble: We biodiversity scientists are interested in that to know local names of species. Sometimes we get insight on how communities perceive biodiversity.

That whole kind of babble really is within the social sciences

June 04, 2008 9:53 AM
Ben Vallejo said...

Also the Lopezes should have hired a top energy engineer with a PhD to explain their position. There are those types the De La Salle,UP,Ateneo,MIT and UST. I'm sure one of them has the looks for TV that can give Juday a run for her money!

Who knows that could be the break needed for an ABS-CBN career?

If ad agencies use "simulated doctors and dentists" in whitecoats to promote soap, skin whiteners and toothpaste, what's wrong in using scientists?

June 04, 2008 10:04 AM
Jego said...

#2 was gimme: widen global free trade!

Emphasis on the 'free'. The question is: How free is it going to be? A lightweight like us cant go into the ring with heavyweights. We'll get clobbered. Im in favor of 'lateral free trade' with countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and protectionism for our industries against the developed countries. (You want an iPod or a newfangled Nokia? You have to pay through your nose with taxes and duties.) Until we get ready to compete with the big boys, that is.

June 04, 2008 1:55 PM

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