The debate about Climate Change is increasingly acrimonious and defensive. At core is conflict over whether or not anthropomorphic (human) carbon emissions are responsible for global warming.
This clash is comparable to Whythawk’s experiences in rating development organisations. Too often the response has been, “Why are you rating us? We didn’t cause the problem,” in shocked and morally outraged tones. That isn’t the point, and we cast no aspersions on the underlying causes of particular ailments – we simply note that they exist and objectively measure whether the prevalence of these ailments is changing with time, and in what ways.
Climate change scientists should be doing the same. Make no predictions based on complex and impenetrable equations filled with dubious and controversial assumptions. Make no judgements about the "blame" of climate change. Simply tell us whether or not climate change is happening and what the likely consequences of those changes are going to be over the short- and medium-term.
The problem with impartial observers and scientists judging their results and offering “blame” is that it risks triggering defensive responses. And rightly so. The average person is not deliberately attempting to murder the future. No-one wants to be held personally responsible for the demise of the planet. Yet that is precisely what climate change scientists are saying: “We are 90% certain that human intervention has caused global warming,” say the scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). Other organisations have been even more shrill. George W Bush, who can hardly be blamed for creating the entire structure for modern society, is regularly acused of climate genocide.
The debate has stopped being about whether or not climate change is happening and whether or not it is something we should be concerned about. Now it is about whether or not humans caused it and how we should be punished.
Chris Landsea, previously a leading scientist at the IPCC, resigned and publicly expressed his distaste. Science has become the domain of politics. Instead of simply reporting the facts and allowing them to be debated, scientists are attempting to game the system.
Recent research from a wide range of sources shows runaway global warming presenting itself on Neptune, Pluto and Mars (amongst others) and indicates that the Sun may be going through a period of heating that is triggering this run. So global warming may be a threat to Earth but have an extraterrestrial cause.
When drought, plague or famine threatened Dark Ages Europe, it was usually blamed on the work of the devil or insufficient belief. Steps were taken, sometimes hideously barbaric. If a meteor were discovered to be heading towards the Earth now, we would attempt to take steps to stop it. No-one would offer the opinion (well, no scientist) that we “deserve” the meteor as punishment. It would be observed, the level of risk calculated, and solutions offered.
The same should be true of climate change investigations. Who is responsible is immaterial. If it were discovered to be the result of any other cause but the worst-case scenarios were still likely, would we say, “Oh, that’s fine then, it’s natural, we shouldn’t mess with it.” Or would we - like we do with Malaria, TB, or international conflicts – do our best to stop the threat?
“But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis,” says MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science, Richard Lindzen.
Scientists and analysts are at their most useful and powerful when they are impartial. When they sacrifice that they discredit not only themselves, but the entire debate.
"Our tenure at the head of the [United Nations' Security Council] is characterised by an indifference to human rights and temporising with tyranny. We have now all but lost much of the moral high ground we once had under President Mandela. Our window of opportunity is fast closing, as Britain will next month assume the chairpersonship. If they put Zimbabwe on the agenda when we opposed such a move, our moral high ground will be lost completely," says Tony Leon, head of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition, speaking of Dumisani Khumalo's decision to reject a British request to discuss Zimbabwe.
As a follow-up to their recent support for the brutal kleptocracy in Myanmar, it is a strident and jarring reminder that respect for democracy in South Africa is not yet certain.
The general indifference within South Africa to this type of behaviour is also cause for concern. All people are represented by the governments that they deserve; South Africa no less than Zimbabwe.
While the rest of the world can only with great difficulty intervene (lest they wind up mired in the incontinence that is Iraq) it is essential that loud protest be heard from all responsible believers in freedom and representative democracies.
South Africa should be one of the most sophisticated centres for innovations aimed at developing products for the world’s poorest nations; the so called “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”. With its mix of world-class infrastructure and gut-wrenching poverty it is significantly easier to develop products aimed at the poor and test them, than it is to do so from developed nations where visiting the poor requires visiting another country.
While, in general, South African companies are not especially innovative, preferring to import ideas, quite a few companies are excelling.
Vive Crone, of Spescom, speaks with affection about the engineering breakthroughs in providing electricity to the poorest. He developed an electronic box, with a digital keypad, that allows individuals to buy their electricity in advance and then punch in a unique code to unlock their power. Prepaid cellular packages are exceptionally popular as well. Psitek developed a fixed cellular phone system that is used throughout Africa as telephone centres in containers.
Even in the online world – something that many would regard as out of reach for the average impoverished nation – DatingBuzz and MxIt are wildly successful. DatingBuzz offers an aggregated model where many companies can use their software and simply change the front-end to accommodate their own needs. The subscribers are shared which significantly increases the power of a service that, by its very nature, requires a large pool of subscribers to be popular. MxIt offers cheap SMS communication by utilising 3G and EDGE communications available from modern cellphones. Subscribers buy packages of Moola, the MxIt currency, where R 100 buys 200 Moola points. One point for one message. The price has triggered an explosion of messaging where MxIt’s 2 million subscribers send 5 million messages a day.
What are the lessons from these success stories?
Firstly, admit the limitations of the market: people are poor with uncertain incomes, people are widely dispersed, societies are fragmented, and infrastructure is limited.
Companies must package their products so that subscriptions aren’t required and individuals can buy and use as much as they can afford. SMS-based banking services overcome infrastructure limitations by putting the means of payment directly in the hands of customers – they don’t need to travel vast distances to the nearest formal bank, over poor roads, and with a high chance of being robbed of their cash. Prepaid water and electricity meters allow the poorest to budget and buy when they need to. Governments can offer a limited amount of free electricity and water through the system every month without needing inspectors to run around and check. Companies don’t have to worry about collecting money from remote areas and enforcing their contracts in countries with poor legislative protection.
Collaboration also works. Few companies started locally have the power and penetration to do everything themselves. In an ideal world you would want to own your entire business and develop your own brand. Allowing local companies to act as your front end and supporting them to be successful also makes you successful. MxIt chatrooms and services are supplied by others using the exceptionally cheap and reliable service that MxIt provides. DatingBuzz runs the back-end that dozens of newspapers and hundreds of private companies promote as their own. Aggregation of the costs dramatically reduces prices.
If South African companies have an advantage it is in these lessons. There is no reason to suppose that successful firms here shouldn’t be able to transfer these learnings into profitable ventures in India and China.
And all of this benefits the poorest by providing them with top quality services at prices they can afford, when they can afford them.
A report released today by the HSRC gives an unequivocal cost to South Africa of their government’s ambivalent approach to dealing with HIV / AIDS.
The incidence rate of infection is given at 1.4% of the population per year. For the latest figures available, 2005, that equates to 571 000 new infections added to the current total of those already living with the virus. 34% of infections occur in the productive 15 – 24 year age group.
‘These findings suggest that the current prevention campaigns do not have the desired impact, particularly among young women’, concluded Professor Thomas Rehle, Director in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
So, not only is the government doing little to pay attention to the problem, but the money spent on large-scale education programs is also achieving little by way of awareness and responsibility.
South Africa launched a five-year HIV/AIDS strategy in late 2006, vowing to cut new infections and deliver treatment and support to at least 80 percent of millions of its people infected with HIV by 2011.
Nomonde Xundu, the health ministry's chief director for HIV/AIDS, said the plan set an ambitious target of enrolling one million South Africans on anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs by 2011 - up from about 200 000 now.
"We originally discussed a target of about 650 000 people on ARVs by 2011, but then people said perhaps we should push that a little further, to about a million or so," she said.
The cost of the plan is estimated at $ 3.3 billion. Yet it will still fall terribly short of the overall need.
An estimated 5 million South Africans are HIV positive.
We have recently started rating AIDS children’s care facilities (the term “orphanage” is anathema). We received a report about an organisation that was neglecting the children in their care.
Moral hazard abounds. The Department of Social Services will pay a foster parent a grant for every child in their care until their 15th birthday. The amount, at R 640 per month per child, is significantly more than many people earn. This particular organisation has 28 children in their care. They have sixteen staff, of whom eight are in management positions.
Unannounced, we turned up.
The place was polished and spic-and-span. However, we dug deeper. It seems that conditions have only been good for the past week, ever since the Department of Social Services read them the riot act. A nurse is only now on call and the children are getting attention. Left alone, even for a moment, many of the children adopt the typical isolated rocking motions of those suffering from serious emotional neglect.
It is difficult to maintain the necessary detachment that an analyst must have. The children are lonely and very excited to see anyone who pays them attention. They queue up to be lifted and held, then run to the back of the queue for a second go. They make no sound.
One little girl gently walked up to me and held up her tiny hands, placing them in mine. Her face opened up in a magnificent beam of delight and then, ever so delicately, she walked around me, holding my hands. As she come round in front of me again, she pirouetted; turning first to the right, then to the left. Smiling and glad. Then, delighted, she left. Without saying a word.
While the immediate danger for these children appears to have been reduced there is still tremendous concern. Staff moral is low. They feel that they are not being paid adequately and are helping themselves to resources required by the children. Management is remote and opaque.
We are placing this particular organisation on “watch” and will be back in a few months to see if they have maintained the level of care currently available. It is still inadequate – children are not stimulated in any way, simply left in tiny rooms to their own devices – but they are being fed and cleaned.
What is more worrying is this: if no-one had seen fit to go and take a look in the first place, nothing would have changed. In this, unasked, Whythawk serves a vital roll. We are watching.
aloft: the whythawk blog 
A report released today by the 
We have recently started rating AIDS children’s care facilities (the term “orphanage” is anathema). We received a report about an organisation that was neglecting the children in their care.
Learn about the Spyder Curve
