Super typhoon Haiyan slams the Philippines

[Ben Kenobi]

We're missing the boat because of this type of thinking. The US (and the West in general) is the world's supply of high quality, efficient industrial products. Instead of having the world as our customer base, we're just going to let half of it make all the mistakes we made.

If they are our customer base - they will never produce on their own. They have to learn the hard way. Does that mean coal fired **** and whatnot? Absolutely - they have to progress through the steps. Does it need to take as long as in the west? No. But don't forget that in the 30's and 40s, (which wasn't that long ago) - Russia was doing crash industrialization.

Can it be done in the Phils? Absolutely.

We could do it. It's sad to see how little imagination we have collectively.

There's a difference between sustenance productivity and industrial scale productivity. How far is the Philippines out from this?

$37k could build a greenhouse. They'd use 1/10th the land to produce the same amount of food. The greenhouse would be paid off in just a couple years and represent an income middle class (US) lifestyle to the workers.

And what happens when the greenhouse fails, or breaks? How does it get replaced? Order more from America?

The things required to do so would result in higher incomes. Those higher incomes would feed back into the world economy as more demand for our goods and services. It's win/win. (And even win for the environment in many cases.)

I'm not there, but I'm curious as to how far they are behind in terms of industrial scale production. I agree with you - it can be done - but there's a difference between dropping money and funding from abroad for 'programs', and between programs initiated by the Filipinos themselves. You have to go through all the steps. Make the mistakes. If you just give them the modern stuff without them learning how to make the mistakes then they become dependant on stuff they can't make themselves.

As for your petrol - do you not have rain collectors?

[Dinner]

Much better would be to compost the organic matter, harvest the methane, cook with the methane, fertilize with the resulting compost. If the populace were more affluent and able to cook with natural gas, they could reduce their environmental impact in their most common activity and everyone could enjoy cleaner air and better health.

There was a French guy in the 1970's who worked for the French equivalent of the department of forestry in a remote homestead style house off the grid in South Eastern France. He invented a process where cleared brush from land was finely chipped in a wood chipper, then sprayed with water, and then compacted into a cone shaped pile on his homestead. A spiral shaped plastic pipe was run through the pile and a digester was put in the center of it. Long story short, the heat of decomposition meant water run through the plastic pipe was heated to 140 degrees at the rate of about eight gallons per minute for about half a year while the digester produced methane gas which he used for cooking in his home. When the process was complete the old wood chips were completely turned into compost which he used to fertilize his fields. He estimated he got 5-10 times as much energy out of the wood with this process than if he just burned the wood for fuel which was the traditional method. Not bad.

[Aeson]

There was a French guy in the 1970's who worked for the French equivalent of the department of forestry in a remote homestead style house off the grid in South Eastern France. He invented a process where cleared brush from land was finely chipped in a wood chipper, then sprayed with water, and then compacted into a cone shaped pile on his homestead. A spiral shaped plastic pipe was run through the pile and a digester was put in the center of it. Long story short, the heat of decomposition meant water run through the plastic pipe was heated to 140 degrees at the rate of about eight gallons per minute for about half a year while the digester produced methane gas which he used for cooking in his home. When the process was complete the old wood chips were completely turned into compost which he used to fertilize his fields. He estimated he got 5-10 times as much energy out of the wood with this process than if he just burned the wood for fuel which was the traditional method. Not bad.

Dairies often are net energy producers burning methane off of composted manure. That's with ~90% of the methane already lost in the "cow" portion of the digestion.

[Ben Kenobi]

Obviously they are producing in the example I gave.

I don't contest that. My question is how much and how much of it is motivated by the Filipinos themselves. It's one thing for the reformer to come with his new fangled ideas - quite another to see them taken up. I don't see any reason why the Philippines cannot exceed Japan. In fact, I've made predictions that the Philippines will contribute an enormous amount to the 21st century, and that American investment here will pay dividends in the future for both the Americans and the Filipinos. Recall I once intended to reside there.

The time-frame for paying back a greenhouse is ~2 years. Make it ~3 years if you include training.

Training is essential.

Make if ~5 years just for kicks and it's still a reasonably good investment in the current world economy. (This doesn't take into account a multitude of externalities, which almost entirely favor the greenhouse over the subsistence farming via domesticated animal power.)

Oh, the theory is sound. I have no concerns with the plan to modernize Filipino agriculture and improving yields substantially through best practices developed in the west. All these are crucial steps with training the most crucial at all. It is only when their productivity is sufficient to rise beyond sustenance agriculture that they will be able to afford the next steps. This is the first step that must be taken.

Capital. That's all it takes. We create it out of thin air when we want to. We can spend trillions on stupid wars, and even spend a lot on humanitarian efforts (generally after the **** hits the fan), but heaven forbid we try to end poverty and double the consumer base for our products and services with that power?

From what you've said it suggests to me that there are serious deficits in their understanding of the theory and processes involved.

America imports huge amounts of products from most everywhere in the world. It's not a bad thing to be part of the world economy. It's a bad thing to not be able to afford to be part of it though...

It's important to have domestic industry that can understand how to produce these things, and has the capacity to do so if necessary. Sure, there are plenty of things that the US farms out elsewhere - but there is nothing that couldn't be made here if things had to be done. Can the same be said of the Philippines?

For domestic is not great. A lot of the things we use in the US are (at least partly) manufactured in the Philippines though. The infrastructure needs improving, but there are already "world class" manufacturing going on here. It's just very limited for domestic because of the limited consumer base. Change that and you'd see the manufacturing change pretty much overnight. Capitalist economies are great at meeting demand.

This is encouraging. Living standards will gradually rise over time if this course is taken - especially improving crop yields. There is nothing to be worried about in the pace. Doing it through the application of gradual capital accumulation will be far more stable than how many other nations have done it.

I never had to have a burning river. Our ancestors did that. We didn't need to ourselves because the technology to process waste already exists. Our ancestors didn't have that technology. It didn't exist. Now it does.

I had to study many old and outdated theories and ideas. In understanding the process and the development and rejection of these old theories, one comes to understand the process of discovering new ones and innovation beyond what is already done. Mistakes aren't the enemy. They have to be allowed to make horrible and awful mistakes in the process of coming to understand why they are mistakes. If we're tidying up after them insisting that they keep everything 'clean', they will miss out.

People can learn from past mistakes without making them themselves. It's not like each nationality has to follow an exact recipe including the mistakes.

Mistakes will be made in avoiding others mistakes. It is difficult to separate what might have been considered a mistake that brings about the understanding that couldn't have been acquired otherwise.

We'll have the drains on the new house hooked to a "gray water" type system. But it's only a secondary system. Relying on rain, even in the Philippines, will leave you high and dry often.

There is a lot of potential for reservoirs, irrigation systems and even hydro power on Bohol. That takes a lot of capital though.

I was thinking more of the immediate concerns given the present power shortage. I was rather surprised not hearing that you had some kind of passive water source, given what you do. This makes much more sensee.

One of the small scale projects going on here is an irrigation system. It's paid back by a share of harvests. This type of infrastructure is imminently profitable, it just doesn't happen much because those with money either don't know it's possible, or don't care, or actually want the standard of living low here so the cost of living stays low.

Water is crucial to further development. Has there really been so little done with it there? I can imagine most see ocean and plenty of water - but don't consider the freshwater demand.

[MikeH]

You totally don't have to progress through the dirty coal stage, it's like countries moving direct from no phone system to mobile phone, you can skip technological steps if the technology has been developed already.

I think developing nations will possibly skip big national grid style powerstation power and skip straight to small local renewables.

[Aeson]

You totally don't have to progress through the dirty coal stage, it's like countries moving direct from no phone system to mobile phone, you can skip technological steps if the technology has been developed already.

Nice example

[Aeson]

This is encouraging. Living standards will gradually rise over time if this course is taken - especially improving crop yields. There is nothing to be worried about in the pace. Doing it through the application of gradual capital accumulation will be far more stable than how many other nations have done it.

The pace is something to worry about. It should be much faster. Too many people are needlessly suffering. Too much of humanity's potential is just wasting away for no good reason. Too much needless damage to the environment.

We're ~40 years past the point where humanity had the technological capacity to end poverty. It's one of the great tragedies of human history that we haven't done so.

I was thinking more of the immediate concerns given the present power shortage. I was rather surprised not hearing that you had some kind of passive water source, given what you do. This makes much more sensee.

There were 1.5million people on this 60 mile by 40 mile island before I got here, so all the land was already taken. What's usually sold is the more marginal land. It's hard to find a large piece of land where all the owners are willing to sell. (Often there are 20+ owners and the land hasn't been divided for generations. Another one of the poverty traps, since they can't afford to have the land divided, and often not even pay taxes on it. Often the land gets taken away outright since they can't even sell it to pay the taxes.)

If there was land with a passive water source available, I'd have grabbed it up. There are other possibilities, but they require permissions and/or money I haven't been able to get together yet.

There are other available passive water sources around, but nothing near the farm. For the most part we don't use them because we have the ability to pump our own water and truck it where we need it. When water is needed most (dry season) this leaves the water for those who don't have that capacity.

Our well goes artesian some times of the year, and I'm building a large cistern there. We'll always have hand pump water at least from the well, and often will be able to wash up using the overflow.

Once we move to the new house (which is on the farm where the well and pump are) things will get a lot easier. I would have preferred to do that long ago, but lots of problems along the way. Hopefully we'll have the roof on in a few months.

Water is crucial to further development. Has there really been so little done with it there? I can imagine most see ocean and plenty of water - but don't consider the freshwater demand.

I think a lot of it is that life here is possible (and relatively nice) for most of history. Didn't require a lot of planning or infrastructure like harsher climates do. The problems are popping up because there's just not enough land to support that way of life.

We (who were born into societies which had essentially done all the work for us) could help out. Doing so is no more harmful than the "help" we received just by being born within the right lines on a map.

[molly bloom]

I like Amazing Grace with bagpipes.

I've never heard a version of that song that I could enjoy.

[notyoueither]

Here all the garbage is burned or just tossed. Batteries, CFLs, plastics, and perfectly good organic matter are constantly burned just to get rid of them. Metal lies around corroding away. There's no such thing as recycling. No one can afford to conceive of such a thing. Even garbage dumps are too expensive.

So you get burning piles of refuse. It's not even being burned to generate power. Just burned. Pollution a hundred years ago was maybe worse than it is now on a per-person basis in the US. Rivers caught on fire. Whole forests disappeared. We do much better now in most regards. But much of the world is still scrambling without the means to match our efficiency.

There are countless examples.

The rope used here is terrible, plastic, wears out too fast. The sacks used too. But they're cheap. So you find old remnants of plastic sacks and rope all over. That which wasn't burned of course. A high quality rope will last years and years, and be more useable.

Twine is the same thing. We're stuck using plastic twine because so far no coir industry has started up on this island. I want to do it, maybe next year I can. $2k or $3k and maybe not so many coconut husks need to be burned, or cheap plastic rope/twine brought in to eventually be burned (or clog things up).

The packaging on sachets ... compared to buying in bulk. Few can afford to buy in bulk, so everything comes in sachets. By the time you use as much product as would have been in the bulk container, you've used several times as much packaging! Not only that, but the sachet packaging is useless garbage that will only be burned. A bulk (or even normal) container may be reused for many purposes. Most of our containers we use around the house and farm were originally packaging of something we've used. But most people here can't afford to do that.

It's so out of whack, that the sachets often cost less per volume of product than the bulk. Manufacturers know that the people who buy the sachets can't afford much. The people who buy bulk can afford more. So often even more affluent consumers will avail of the sachets because it's cheaper, and thus use more packaging that has less potential for reuse. Remove abject poverty from the equation, and more sane economics will naturally decrease the environmental damage of the packaging per product volume.

(At very high levels of standard of living this flips around, and you get people being wasteful. Throwing away perfectly good items just because they can afford a new replacement. Somewhere in the middle, where people appreciate what they have and take care of it ... is where we should try to end up.)

Another example is agriculture here. I've gone over it a few times before. More land used, less production from it, more environmental harm. Not to mention the farmers living in shacks and their children raised in poverty.

Even I'm stuck in situations where I have to do things that are absurdly inefficient, just because I can't possibly afford to do it right. We truck in water now since the power is out. It may be out for a few months, we don't know yet. Water pumped from a well powered by a 3KVA generator. The pump is 1 HP, and for half a second draws 3x the running amps. So the rest of the time we're wasting most of our petrol.

A few years ago we had to truck in water for 6 months. Something on the municipal pump had burned up, and it took that long to get a replacement. A decent municipal water system costs a lot, but over time would save everyone a lot of money. But with most people living in shacks and having no disposable income there's not much chance of getting a high quality municipal water system.

So instead you have everyone pitching their own water much of the time. I probably use more power in pitching water (multicab, generator) and operator time than a decent municipal water system would take to maintain! But no one has the money to do it right.

Economy of scale ... can make things more efficient. You just won't find them developing when people live in shacks and grass huts.

All good points most likely, but none say anything about what happens as developing world populations grow affluent enough to want iPhones, air conditioning, cars, travel, etc.

[giblets]

SHUT UP AESON YOU STUPID HIPPIE WITH YOUR CRAZY PIPE DREAMS OF PEOPLE LIVING A DECENT LIFESTYLE WITH CLEAN AIR

COUNTRIES HAVE TO GO THROUGH DIRTY INDUSTRIALIZATION IF THEY WANT TO GET RICH BECAUSE I SAY SO! INDIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY HAS TO BE JUST LIKE AMERICA AND EUROPE IN THE 19TH CENTURY EVEN THOUGH THE TECHNOLOGY OF TODAY IS VASTLY SUPERIOR TO 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY JUST BECAUSE!!!!!!!!!!!! SO I MIGHT AS WELL DRIVE AN SUV AND POLLUTE AS MUCH AS A WANT!

[MrFun]

I feel sorry for reg's narrow-mindedness and his lack of creativity.

[SlowwHand]

Kind of like looking in the mirror for you.

[The Mad Monk]

The pace is something to worry about. It should be much faster. Too many people are needlessly suffering. Too much of humanity's potential is just wasting away for no good reason. Too much needless damage to the environment.

We're ~40 years past the point where humanity had the technological capacity to end poverty. It's one of the great tragedies of human history that we haven't done so.



There were 1.5million people on this 60 mile by 40 mile island before I got here, so all the land was already taken. What's usually sold is the more marginal land. It's hard to find a large piece of land where all the owners are willing to sell. (Often there are 20+ owners and the land hasn't been divided for generations. Another one of the poverty traps, since they can't afford to have the land divided, and often not even pay taxes on it. Often the land gets taken away outright since they can't even sell it to pay the taxes.)

If there was land with a passive water source available, I'd have grabbed it up. There are other possibilities, but they require permissions and/or money I haven't been able to get together yet.

There are other available passive water sources around, but nothing near the farm. For the most part we don't use them because we have the ability to pump our own water and truck it where we need it. When water is needed most (dry season) this leaves the water for those who don't have that capacity.

Our well goes artesian some times of the year, and I'm building a large cistern there. We'll always have hand pump water at least from the well, and often will be able to wash up using the overflow.

Once we move to the new house (which is on the farm where the well and pump are) things will get a lot easier. I would have preferred to do that long ago, but lots of problems along the way. Hopefully we'll have the roof on in a few months.



I think a lot of it is that life here is possible (and relatively nice) for most of history. Didn't require a lot of planning or infrastructure like harsher climates do. The problems are popping up because there's just not enough land to support that way of life.

We (who were born into societies which had essentially done all the work for us) could help out. Doing so is no more harmful than the "help" we received just by being born within the right lines on a map.

What is most in need of development right now, that we as individuals can help with? Besides storm aid. I think you (was it you?) pointed out Heifer International in the quake thread, is there something you'd recommend for water or power assistance?

[Ben Kenobi]

We're ~40 years past the point where humanity had the technological capacity to end poverty. It's one of the great tragedies of human history that we haven't done so.

Poverty will always exist. This is a fact. Improving standards of living isn't going to eliminate poverty. What it will do is shrink it considerably. I get your frustration with the pace - but again - the solution isn't 'doing it quicker'. Germany did it fast - they got totalitarianism in Hitler. Russia did the same and look what they got. Japan did the same, and what did they get? China, etc. Capital accumulation by Filipinos and investment is the only way that you'll get lasting change in the Phils without some of the terrible consequences that 'doing it fast', brings about. The model is India, not Russia.

There were 1.5million people on this 60 mile by 40 mile island before I got here, so all the land was already taken. What's usually sold is the more marginal land. It's hard to find a large piece of land where all the owners are willing to sell. (Often there are 20+ owners and the land hasn't been divided for generations. Another one of the poverty traps, since they can't afford to have the land divided, and often not even pay taxes on it. Often the land gets taken away outright since they can't even sell it to pay the taxes.)

The solution in Britain isn't a great one - what they did was raise the rentals and force people off the land. There has to be a better way.

If there was land with a passive water source available, I'd have grabbed it up. There are other possibilities, but they require permissions and/or money I haven't been able to get together yet.

Just one thing to keep in mind, and you can always run other water sources in the meantime. It wasn't intended as criticism.

There are other available passive water sources around, but nothing near the farm. For the most part we don't use them because we have the ability to pump our own water and truck it where we need it. When water is needed most (dry season) this leaves the water for those who don't have that capacity.

Ok, this is a short term (and expensive), solution.

Our well goes artesian some times of the year, and I'm building a large cistern there. We'll always have hand pump water at least from the well, and often will be able to wash up using the overflow.

Ok, this is good, and important in an emergency. I grew up on a farm. We had the hand pump if necessary well - and a large water reservoir. The main purpose for the reservoir was backup liquid storage in the winter should our power go down for an extended period. I don't believe we ever touched the reservoir, although drawing off the regular tank was fairly common in winter. The closest we came is after my father passed on and our pipes actually froze. Took us a bit to clear them. We had everything to run without power - everything could be run off wood in a pinch - the furnace, stoves, etc. I'm not sure how long we could have gone without power - we usually had several years supply of wood, and stocked up for the winter. Maybe a month?

Once we move to the new house (which is on the farm where the well and pump are) things will get a lot easier. I would have preferred to do that long ago, but lots of problems along the way. Hopefully we'll have the roof on in a few months.

No kidding. This present difficulty certainly counts as warranted delay. You don't want to be burning up your fuel for a water supply.

I think a lot of it is that life here is possible (and relatively nice) for most of history. Didn't require a lot of planning or infrastructure like harsher climates do. The problems are popping up because there's just not enough land to support that way of life.

We (who were born into societies which had essentially done all the work for us) could help out. Doing so is no more harmful than the "help" we received just by being born within the right lines on a map.

Agreed. But Filipinos must be taught how to run things on their own. Just helping without the training won't really improve things longterm. We bumped into a bit of it when my father died - things we had to learn and pickup, that he hadn't taught us.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think developing nations will possibly skip big national grid style powerstation power and skip straight to small local renewables.

Renewables are incredibly expensive. Coal, again, is cheap, relatively available and provides quite a bit of bang for your buck. Everyone who industrializes is going to build a coal first powerstation. Steps can only be skipped if the new technology is cheaper than the old one.

This is why - we'll see mobile phones instead of telephone lines. It's all about the dollar cost associated with the technology. Or fr'nstance, Kalashnikovs instead of muskets.

Poorly thought out policies are going to hamstring industrial development - but I believe that's the actual goal here. It's bad for them to want the same standard of living as here in the west.