iBiome

Apple, Climate Change, and the Chamber of Commerce

I agree with almost everything Matt Yglesias says here about the Chamber of Commerce and their stance on climate change, particularly in the context of the departure of high profile companies like Apple from the Chamber.  I don't see how opposition to climate change policy can be in the interests, even short term, of their corporate stakeholders.

The fundamental problem the Chamber of Commerce is going to have on this is that they’re really really wrong. Not like how they’re morally wrong about, say, labor rights or workplace safety rules. They’re analytically mistaken about the interests of the United States business community. If we take action to avert ecological catastrophe, economic growth will still happen. Capitalism will march on. Big companies will be big, and people will earn lots of money managing them. Yes, the present-day owners of coal companies or manufacturers specifically wedded to unusually energy-intensive processes will be in trouble. But “business” in a broad and general sense will keep on keeping on. People will still want gadgets and furniture, will shop at stores, will buy and sell, and generally keep being customers for business.

The real risk is being run by doing nothing. It’s doing nothing that might end the party, and lead to various kinds of nightmare scenarios. And over time, more and more firms are going to see that they have no particular stake in underpricing pollution. One maybe of the Chamber board is a guy from Anheuser-Busch. A serious climate bill’s not going to put him out of business. Nor, to just pick board affiliated companies whose lines of business I recognize, is it going to put State Farm Insurance or IBM or AT&T or Pfizer or Accenture out of business. But the executives at those companies and their kids and their customers are all going to face all the problems caused by untrammeled climate change. And why, genuinely, should a pharmaceutical company or a telecom company be fighting to stop people from stopping an ecological disaster? It genuinely doesn’t make sense.

via yglesias.thinkprogress.org

Glibertarian - my new favourite word

The media and airwaves seem filled with these people.  The definition:

No, do be a glibertarian you have to first be a big “L” libertarian, and then only apply your libertarianism to other peoples problems. Glibertarians replies to any situation where someone else is hurt is “fuck you I got mine”, “told you so” or “nanny nanny boo boo”.

via www.balloon-juice.com

New Money for Genomics in Ontario

Ontario to award $100M for genomics research.

Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson announced the new $100 million Global Leadership Round in Genomics and Life Sciences will support "globally significant, collaborative research projects" headquartered in Ontario. Scientists who work in either genomics, gene-related research, or research into stem cells or proteins will be eligible to compete for the new funds.

Great news for genomics research in Ontario.  I assume this will go through OGI. This will hopefully lessen the temptation for Canadian based scientists to head south to a US that is once again science friendly. I think Canada and other countries have benefited scientifically from the Bush years, and we need to work to keep our best and brightest, as well as the 'exiles', in place.

Peace, Order, and Good Governance, eh

References to Canada in the US media usually vary from Igloo gothic wilderness bites to how bad the outpatient queues are in Soviet Canuckistan.  Satisfying to read something about the value of pragmatic common sense in governance.

Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense.

Genome Canada cut good for science?

Chris Hogue weighs in and makes an excellent point about co-funding.  GC only provides 50 cent dollars, and the other 50 will be harder to find over the next few years.  Redirection of research funds to labs and other funding mechanisms may be a prudent way forward.

BioImplement: Market Driven Science in Crisis?. While it is certain that many Genome Canada funded scientists have become international leaders in their fields, one problem is that Genome Canada has no long-term strategy to fund these projects. Industry partnered three-year projects with no provision for renewal are the staple of Genome Canada's co-funding strategy.
 
Expectations of commercial spin-offs and an market-driven afterlife is the fairy-tale ending for Genome Canada's approach to science. Yet the horizon for success in life sciences research can be longer than a decade. So, sadly, when a researcher becomes an international leader, Genome Canada has no strategy to keep them in that position, economic downturn or not. Genome Canada is a market-driven organization.

Perhaps it is reasonable to expect that co-funding - the money contributed by industry to the Genome Canada funding scheme - will simply dry up during this recession. By its own design, Genome Canada cannot hand out its money without co-funders. If Genome Canada has no hope of attracting co-funding this year, then this budget may in fact (gasp) be a reasonable one.

And now, the walkback

Someone got a call from Industry Canada:

Researchers now pleased with budget.

The controversy continued to simmer yesterday, just as Genome Canada's board of directors issued a list of "key messages" that expressed overwhelming support for the budget. "Genome Canada is pleased with the federal government's 2009 budget in which millions will be invested in research infrastructure over the next two years," read the statement. "This is good news for the scientific community across the country."

While Genome Canada received no new funding in the 2009 budget, the board said it already has a pair of five-year funding arrangements in place with the federal government worth a total of $240-million and will be able to meet all its current funding obligations.

The organization has received $840-million in federal funding since its inception in 2000. Genome Canada received no mention in the Conservatives' first budget in 2006, but was given $100-million in new funding in 2007 and an additional $140-million last year.

No representative of Genome Canada was available yesterday to explain the group's apparent change in position on the budget, a spokeswoman said. Gary Goodyear, the Minister of State for Science and Technology, said the controversy stemmed from a "misunderstanding between a president and his board."

Genome Canada ignored in federal Budget

The budget was alarmingly silent on the future of Genome Canada, Canada's core funding source for "big science".  Genome Canada has established Canadian leadership in a range of genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics global research initiatives. 

globeandmail.com: Budget erases funding for key science agency:
The only agency that regularly finances large-scale science in Canada was shut out of Tuesday's federal budget, putting at risk thousands of jobs and some of the most promising medical research, and forcing the country to pull out of key international projects. For the first time in nine years, Genome Canada, a non-profit non-governmental funding organization, was not mentioned in the federal budget and saw its annual cash injection from Ottawa - $140-million last year - disappear.

Without minimizing the importance of Genome Canada and the value it brings to Canada's scientific community and the broader economy, I would note that the article sensationalizes the situation a wee bit.  Genome Canada was established and funded out of government surplus, and it's hardly a surprise the first deficit in 9 years would mean a break in funding.  Further, we are in year 2 of a 5 year funding program, so no one is losing a job any time soon.  This time next year the economy should be in recovery, and I expect that some restoration of GC funding will occur.  More worrying perhaps are provincial plans for their contributions to regional genome centres.  BC and Quebec for example of have been strongly supporting the growth of life sciences through investments in Genome BC and Genome Quebec.  While continued investment in science might not seem 'shovel ready', it keeps global scientific talent tied to local jobs and the local economy, and as Genome BC and others have shown, fosters the spin off of lab based research into private sector ventures.

Newsflash! The world is getting better!

It rare to see such a powerful and accessible use of statistics.  In this video,  Hans Rosling traces the march of global health and wealth since the early 60's.  There is lots of gold here - my favourite nugget is the tremendous progress made in Vietnam since the war, and generally the rise of Asia from poverty to middle income.  Also illuminating is the diversity within regions and countries in the developing world.  Watch it all.  Certainly underscores the link between the removal of trade barriers and the prosperity of poor nations.

I'm ok with gas "gouging"

A new study on gas prices by the  Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Gas Price Gouge: The Sequel) has generated a lot of news in Vancouver. Understandably so, as the report claims that we are 'overpaying' by 27 cents a litre here.  I haven't read the report yet so I have no comment on the methods used or embedded assumptions, but I find myself resistant to the idea of 'normal profit margins'. I really don't have a problem with a company charging whatever it wants for its product, as long as there is no monopoly or collusion in play.  Oil companies seem to have discovered that consumers, despite war or disaster induced price hikes, are willing to pay more. So they are charging more.  How is this different from any other industry?  People make their own choices and if they want to commute alone in a gas guzzling vehicle, and want to pay a mint for it, so what?   Others make different choices:

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Gas price pains appear to be driving people out of their cars. More people appear to be turning to transit and car pooling. TransLink says overall transit use was up 3% for the first quarter of the year, and up more than 11.5% on West Coast Express. The big gas price hike happened in April, and TransLink is still waiting for official ridership numbers for that time period.

Leon Tuebes at the Jack Bell Foundation says there is also more interest in van pooling, car pooling and ride sharing. "The biggest surge we've seen is for people looking for other people to car pool with them in their car, or to find someone willing to share a ride in their private vehicles."

Tuebes believes once the price of gas hits a $1.30, there will be a sudden spike in people looking for alternatives to single occupant car use. He says at that price, even sharing one or two trips a week can make a big difference. He says the number of hits on their car pooling website has gone up 25% since February as people check out other ways to get around.

Let the price of gas soar, says I.