Only slightly bent

This continues around the same theme as the previous topic: It’s becoming painfully obvious that the world lacks political will to do something about the coming energy crisis. While the initial steps to take would be known, effective and simple and the jurisdiction and capabilities there, the will is lacking. A lot of it has to do with industry lobbying, which is rather worrying considering that oil industry is about to face the ultimate test of corporate responsibility and along with that, be the last hope of coming out of the energy crisis without inflicting huge damage to economies and the environment.

The thing is, oil companies are raking in absolutely staggering amounts of money with the current oil prices. Shell alone made a profit of $23 billion last year. Exxon raked in almost $10 billion and BP had a record net income of over $22 billion. And as demand soon exceeds supply, their income will further skyrocket. The production / extraction costs of oil will not significantly increase immediately after peak oil, but the prices will – so for the next couple of decades at least, there’s some serious money to be made in the oil business.

The key question is how are they going to use that money. They have billions and billions of dollars of disposable income and much more on the way. All of this money could be used in a responsible way, researching and developing alternative, renewable energy production means. With the money and resources Big Oil has, development of solar, wind or other “clean” powers could easily be ramped up in a significant way. Or, it could all be given away in dividends ála Shell, who paid over $10B in dividends in 2005. They can also pour it into extracting oil from oil shale and other environmentally disastrous means of oil production. Good for the stockholders, not so great for the world.

Looking at this WorldWatch status report on renewable energy, you can see that the global investment in renewable energy in 2004 was around 30 billion dollars. Compare that to the pure income of the oil companies – Big Oil alone could easily, if they wanted to, double the global investment in renewable energy without any government help.

So where is that corporate responsibility when you need it? There is no lack of good intentions when it comes to words, but it’s high time for energy companies to put their money where their mouth is.

How’s that for a post title? All these grand schemes weave into one relatively big mess what I’ve been thinking of quite a bit lately. Let’s see if I can articulate some of it in an understandable way..

Globalization can be argued to have both good and bad sides, but one unquestionable effect is that countries are becoming more and more dependant on other countries producing what they need – in effect, even large countries are losing their self-sufficiency which not many decadeds ago was required to be at quite a high level. Look at the things around you: clothes, machines, tools, computers, even food. How many of those say “Made in “? I’d be willing to bet countries like China and Korea top the list. And even if by some miracle it’s made in your country, does the entire production chain stay in your country? Most likely some part of the supply chain has taken an international detour; parts and raw materials are still shipped in from elsewhere.

Instead of the relatively resistant in-country production, most of the goods (and even a lot of the food) production in the world is now based on the principles of globalization, shipping materials and stuff in their various stages of development back and forth across the globe. What is often missed is that in the days of minimal inventory, the system is fragile. Very fragile.

Say all imports seized one day; it would not take long for any country in the world to start suffering in pretty serious ways. Emergency reserves of fossil fuels would be one of the first ones to start dwindling and have a clear impact on everyday life.

The upcoming energy crisis (i.e. peak oil, end of cheap energy and all that stuff) will probably inevitably have some kind of a dampening effect on the enormous shipping frenzy – as whizzing stuff across the globe gets more expensive, it’s likely to slow down the trend, steering it slightly back towards localized production. That way we might get back to becoming more self-sufficient as nations but it won’t be easy. With a lot of the national production of everyday goods ramped down long ago, it will take a long while to ramp that production back up. (Increasing transport costs, hmm.. interestingly, a familiar development in the mobile world also.)

What’s more, the coming pandemic will test our abilities of this at a much quicker pace. If noticed early enough, stopping all movement of people and things until we have a vaccine or a cure would be the best way to deal with a pandemic. However, given how dependant we are on other countries, only some relatively isolated countries like New Zealand can realistically consider such isolation plans. For the rest of the world, there’s no chance of that happening. The continued movement of goods and people will first enable the pandemic to spread more quickly and efficiently – and only second, some months later, will it enable the shipment of the possible vaccines from the few factories in the world capable of producing them. By the time the globalized system starts working for us, it may be too late for millions. And I really expect that when a pandemic hits, the rich nations will first cover their own asses, next help out their rich buddies and only if there are any resources left (there won’t be), help out the poorer nations.

All of this boils down to some basic things: we know there will be a pandemic sooner or later. We know that there will be an energy crisis soon. We know how badly we’re hurting the planet and how global warming will have catastrophic effects. Finally, we know what to do to alleviate all of those problems. And what do we do?

Sometimes I can’t help but think that “political will” is an oxymoron when it comes to important stuff.

China has been and continues to be a hot topic. Manufacturing jobs are escaping to China while the country’s economic growth continues to be astounding. Yet when you think about it, how well do we know the country and the people? Obviously those who have lived there know a lot more, but the rest of us have to get by using some stereotypes.

The latest issue of HBR had an interesting article on China – “Inside the mind of the Chinese Consumer“. The article rounds up Gallup Organization’s 10-year study of Chinese consumers and it turns out that a lot of the commonly held beliefs are either false or at least misleading. One of the most commonly held beliefs is that Chinese are hard-working people who focus heavily on getting rich now that the opportunity is there. While there is some truth to this, it was interesting that people closest to the attitude “Work hard and get rich” has dropped from 68% in 1994 to 53% in 2004 – at the same time, those with the attitude “Don’t think of money/fame; live a life that suits my own tastes” has gone up from 10% in 1994 to 26% in 2004. That probably reflects the fact that more and more people are climbing to the Chinese middle class and no longer have to worry about the essentials.

There was one confusing thing in the article; it mentions that “Like their counterparts in Germany, Japan and the United States, Chinese workers know what their jobs require of them.”. In the previous page, it’s stated that only 34% of Chinese people strongly agree with the statement “I know what is expected of me at work”. Somehow I think these are either conflicting statements or the situation in other countries is much worse than I thought..

And the famed Chinese work ethic? The fact that a whopping 88% of employees aren’t interested in their jobs (20% of whom actually hate their jobs) is a sure sign that the work ethic really is not what it’s made out to be. Instead, factories keep relying on poor people moving from the countryside – those who still have the work hard and get rich-attitude.. But eventually those people will run out, too.

It turns out that unplanned dining in Helsinki can be a challenge on Friday nights. With no room in any of our traditional casual dining-places downtown – namely Colorado Bar & Grill, Santa Fe, La Bodega and Cantina West – we had to go up a notch towards fine dining and finally managed to get a table from La Tour. I would classify La Tour as “almost fine dining” – it has all the right elements but the paper napkins somehow don’t fit the bill. Anyway, it had been a while since we were there the last time and we were in no hurry, so we decided to go for a full three-course meal with appetizers, wine and all.

To start with, I took the Creamy lobster soup seasoned with armagnac which was exquisite and a very good choice considering we had just walked in from the cold outdoors. My main course choice was a rather boring one, but nonetheless delicious: Pepper steak flambéed in cognac, château potatoes and vegetable bake, which is nicely flambéed and partly prepared tableside. I think a few of the other customers hesitated slightly about their selection of main course at this point.

I was a little worried as the waitress didn’t ask whether I wanted my steak well done or medium or rare, but the concern was luckily unfounded – it arrived as a perfectly cooked medium, which is the only way they’re supposed to be done after all. Finally, for dessert I went with the Warm pistachio and chocolate cake baked in a glass with fig ice cream and cognac syrup – a thoroughly wonderful dessert, though a little bit too small..

I don’t know why, but I like the fact that different kinds of liquors are liberally used here to flavor up the dishes. The alcohols that you can order directly in the form of the wine list could, however, be more extensive (for example, only one rosé wine is available), but it does the job adequately – just doesn’t leave room for much variety with less than half a dozen choices of red and white each. The service, overall, was excellent despite the fact that our waitress had an uncanny aptitude for dropping her pen every single time she was going to write something down. Overall, the dinner was quite excellent and the price/quality-ratio quite good: with everything, under €60 per person. As a ranking, I’ll give it 4½ out of 5; in other words, highly recommended.

Update (summer 2006): La Tour is no more, as it has been replaced with an entirely different place called Virgin Oil Co, which I haven’t visited yet.

Honoring the right to complain about small things as well as big, here is the second round of my favorite pet peeves.

Vandalism & littering

From graffiti and broken bottles to breaking property, one has to wonder what is wrong with people who litter and destroy other peoples property. Often it’s adolescent boys doing this stuff. But why? I mean what the hell is the point of making a mess of things? Have these people really not been taught anything at home? Sure it’s not like they’re assaulting people (maybe), but blatant disregard for other peoples property is definately a sign of some serious personal issues. On many occasions we’re called to “understand” that young men/boys just are like that and it can’t be helped, but I disagree. If emergent psychological problems are seen as normal and we refuse to intervene, what does that tell of the society as a whole?

Open mouths

This just looks supremely stupid. Do you know these people? The people who keep their mouths open, either gaping open or just slightly ajar. What is it with them? Do they have some rare genetic disorder and lack the ability to close their mouths? Do they realize how dumb it looks? I have no doubts (well, actually I do have some small ones..) that most of these people have average intellectual capabilities but the practise of keeping the mouth open just makes them look really stupid!

Prison sentences that aren’t

Often in the news in Finland, you see that someone has been “sentenced to prison” for whatever crime. Like this: “Prison sentence for those who attempted taxi robbery” (Helsingin Sanomat, February 7th 2006). Then when you read the story more carefully, it turns out the sentencing is a probational order. WTF!? A probational prison sentence is NOT a prison sentence! Most of these people will never see the insides of a prison. While I’m fine with people getting a probational sentence for some crimes, I’m NOT okay with that being portrayed as getting some kind of a serious punishment like loss of freedom.

Slowness of magazine subscriptions

Ordering a book online is easy and delivery is fast, just a few days even if it’s from overseas. But try the same with magazines from, say, the United States and you’re in for one long wait. The thing is that newsstand issues of magazines are priced with some kind of an exponential formula, single issues being from €6-10! That’s nuts, especially when you can have a one-year subscription of 12 or more issues for approximately $30-40 or €24-32, two thirds of which is shipping costs to Finland. But you better not be in a hurry to get your first issue, because once you make the order, they want one week to process the order AND 9-12 weeks for the first issue to get here. That’s three months and the worst part is that they really do take all that time! That’s unbelievably slow. I say first issue delivery should be within two weeks or something’s terribly with your logistics chain.

One of the easiest things to do when you’re on sick leave is to watch movies, so now that that’s finally wrapping up, it’s time to take stock of the movies watched in the past week or so. There were some very nice ones this time around, along with a couple of disappointments.

Hotel Rwanda

A gripping real-life story about a hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in Rwanda, who ends up saving hundreds of lives in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, while the UN and the international community turn a blind eye towards the massacre. Soon after the crisis starts unfolding and the killing begins, people Paul considered friends are not capable or willing to help him out and the only thing that works are bribes. But the hotel only has so much Scotch and other valuables to keep the bad guys at bay.. Powerful, emotional and well-told story that everyone ought to see, not forgetting that according to Paul, things were much worse than portrayed in the movie.. 4½ out of 5.

Monsoon Wedding

Revolving around an arranged wedding in India, Monsoon Wedding is a film about one extended family and its members coming in together for the wedding from all over the world. As is almost expected, unexpected things happen, small and bigger secrets are revealed. The movie has received a lot of good press, so I was looking forward to an interesting and fun time – however, I thought a lot of the characters were either overdone or boring and the overall feeling just didn’t have that something. 2 out of 5.

Syriana

Syriana is a very timely thriller, dealing with the Middle East oil, everything that goes along with it and the people who are personally affected by it. It’s a fairly complex movie that I should probably watch a second or even a third time to fully appreciate and understand, and therefore I cannot give it a grade right now. My instinct tells it’s a really good movie though. It’s an intriguing mix of slow and fast story development, implicit signals and lots of unspoken, quiet clues. The plot could be a documentary and the acting is very good, as can be expected from a cast featuring names such as George Clooney, Chris Cooper and Matt Damon.

The Company

Another disappointment; a story about a dance school and how they are preparing and rehearsing for a major ballet. The cast has some well-known names like Neve Campbell and Malcolm McDowell, but their performances are neither enough to save the film nor their best. In the end I was left confused whether this was the drama film it was supposed to be or something else; the music was for a big part too modern to my taste and the acting was more than a little stiff. 1½ out of 5.

An Unfinished Life

There’s an impressive cast in this film, and none of them lets down in terms of performance. Jean Gilkyson (Jennifer Lopez) is a woman whose life hasn’t exactly gone according to the plan; finally she gets enough of living in an abusive relationship and escapes to the countryside with her daughter to her father-in-law Einar (Robert Redford). The problem is he doesn’t really want them there, as he still blames her for losing his son (Jean’s ex-husband) in an accident years earlier. Intertwined with their personal problems is Mitch Bradley (Morgan Freeman), also living on the farm and being taken care of by Einar after being mauled by a bear and his curious relationship with the bear who still hangs around. Eventually, everyone mellows down a little bit and their relationships can be rebuilt on a better base. All in all surprisingly good drama; 4 out of 5.

Seabiscuit

A true story of a depression-era race horse who lifts the spirits of the nation – not least because he was too small and the jockey was too big; but those who believed in him just wouldn’t give up. If you like horses you’re sure to love this film, and even if you didn’t, the story isn’t just about the horse: it’s about facing difficult times, kindness of people and the importance of not giving up and not being believing others when they tell you that something is impossible. A refreshing, “good and clean” movie. 4 out of 5.

Out of Time

I was expecting this to be a straightforward and simple action flick, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. Not much, but enough to make it into a fairly decent crime thriller. Matthias (Denzel Washington) is a small-town police chief with a bunch of personal problems; an ongoing divorce, an affair with a married, abused woman and some affinity to liquor. Then things go south when in a desperate move to help his new beloved Matt “borrows” some drug money from the station – money that people unexpectedly start looking for. Just when it seems things couldn’t be more messed up, Matt finds himself as a suspect in a murder case he himself is investigating – with his wife. 4- out of 5.

Madagascar

I’d heard a lot of good things about this cartoon – where animals in New York Zoo decide to escape to the “Wild”. They end up a little further than they thought they would; Madagascar. It soon becomes apparent that their lives in the city were quite easy compared to the Wild, and once hunger sets in, the once friendly lion starts seeing his friends as what they would naturally be to him: food. The movie provides a few laughs and some funny moments, but the characters are a little over the top and the plot isn’t very clever. Somewhat disappointing, 2 out 5.

Red Eye

After watching the disappointing Flightplan not long ago, this one seemed to have a plot a little bit too similar to that one (a woman gets kidnapped mid-flight), so my expectations weren’t set very high. Lisa (Rachel McAdams) who works at a hotel, is catching a red-eye back to Florida on the night before some VIP guests are due to arrive. A man he befriends when waiting for her delayed flight (Cillian Murphy) turns out to be just the kind of person you do not want to deal with. Their meeting had been planned and the guy, Jackson, essentially blackmails Lisa by threatening the life of a VIP to Lisa – in order to make her to do something that will put a lot of VIP lives at risk.

The story unfolds very smoothly, and while the plot has few genuinely surprising twists, it’s generally a very enjoyable thriller. 3½ out of 5.

Equilibrium

I had, for some reason, quite low expectations of this film – luckily, they turned out to be wrong. The movie is set in the not-too-distant future, after WW III. It was realized that wars and many other problems were cause by human emotion, so it was outlawed – the main character of the movie is a “Cleric” John Preston (Christian Bale), who deals with eliminating violators of the new order. However, after he catches his partner reading a book – and having emotion – he slowly begins a long, dangerous and difficult road towards being a human being again. The storytelling is actually quite good and the ‘advertised’ good action sequences, though I’m not a big fan of action, are not at all badly made (though many times the “bad guys” do seem to do nothing). A pleasant surprise that I’d rate 3½ out of 5.